By making a touch attack as a standard action, a devourer can deal 12d6+18 points of damage as if using a slay living spell. A DC 22 Fortitude save reduces this damage to 3d6+18. The soul of a creature slain by this attack becomes trapped within the devourer's chest. The creature cannot be brought back to life until the devourer's destruction (or a spell deflection-see below) releases its soul. A devourer can hold only one soul at a time. The trapped essence provides a devourer with 5 essence points for each Hit Die possessed by the soul. A devourer must expend essence points when it uses a spell-like ability equal to the spell's level (for sake of ease, spell levels for its spell-like abilities are included in its stats in superscript). At the start of an encounter, a devourer generally has 3d4+3 essence points available. The trapped essence gains one permanent negative level for every 5 points of essence drained-these negative levels remain if the creature is brought back to life (but they do not stack with any negative levels imparted by being brought back to life).