“Uh… sure, good to meet you too,” stammered Selena, struggling to compose herself. She leaned down and righted her chair, her eyes fixed on Kyrine. “So this is what you meant when you said you had a secret about the dungeon that I didn’t know about, Jeremy?” she asked as she sat down.

I grinned. “That’s right. I thought you’d be surprised.”

“Surprised and pleased!” said Selena. “It’s great to be able to meet you properly, Kyrine. I mean it.” She stared avidly at Kyrine, and her tongue came out to wet her lips as she ran her eyes over the lines of the dungeon avatar’s lithe body.

I cleared my throat, smiling to myself. Was Selena attracted to Kyrine? That could make for some interesting dynamics, especially if Kyrine felt the same…

I shook myself and returned my mind to the task at hand.

Kyrine was, of course, aware of our conversation. She might have agreed not to read my thoughts, but she could not help overhearing any conversation that took place within the walls and grounds of the mansion. She seemed a little wary of all of us leaving her alone, but she made an effort to understand the necessity of it. The idea of getting a high-level creature core to consume seemed to help her get comfortable with the idea of us leaving.

“So how does summoning my creatures outside the mansion work?” I asked.

“Much the same as it does within the mansion,” Kyrine explained, “but with one important exception. When you are in the mansion, your summoned creatures can be destroyed and the expended mana is just reabsorbed. Once you are outside the mansion, if a creature you have summoned is killed, then you lose it and won’t be able to summon it again. When you return to the mansion, you’ll regain the ability to summon that creature, but it will have returned to level one and to its lowest evolutionary form and you’ll have to work to bring it back up the evolutionary pathways.”

“Damn, that could be really dangerous, especially if we were relying on particular high-level monsters for functions inside the mansion. At the moment, though, I guess it shouldn’t be that big a deal, since all my monsters are still pretty low-level, and we’re not attracting any adventurers yet. If we were to lose, say, the Flesh Muncher, that wouldn’t be too big a problem. The Magma Ape, on the other hand, would be more difficult to regain.”

“If you can, try to avoid losing any of them. The experience of losing a creature is traumatic for the summoner, and may cause you debilitating pain and impact your ability to summon other creatures. But it’s true that losing a low-level monster wouldn’t be too big a problem for us just at present.”