Chapter 34.2- Doom Days

I considered my options as I levied my wand. If not for the encounter with the dream stealer, I would have smote this thing where it stood with a bolt of lightning that would have torn through its earthen skin like a hot knife through butter. Now, I would have to take a less magically intensive route, but one no less thorough.

I met eyes with the troll, and ran straight at it. A smarter creature might have flinched at my run and stalled, but this one was too dumb to see my run as anything other than a challenge. With a roar, it matched my pace, heading for me just as I headed for it. I came to a stop on a dime, thanking magic for ritual enhanced physicality. With a twist of my wand, I silently cast one of the variants of the Glisseo spell, turning the earth floor as slippery as a freshly polished slide. The troll took one step, and then went crashing down, coming to a stop right in front of me, eyes closed and clearly winded. Its head was so large that it came up to my thigh.

I stepped forward and placed one of my feet against its skull, kicking it to wakefulness. It opened its eyes and I wasted no time in sending a piercing curse right through the fleshy mass of vulnerability most creatures shared and into its brain. It slumped, dead. I turned to walk around it, dispelling the Glisseo spell with a flick of my wand as I continued down the corridor, onto the next turn and the next challenge it held.

I faced two more trolls and dispatched them in eerily similar ways before I came across the next thing that could even vaguely qualify as a threat. The tunnel rounded off in a giant theatre that was surrounded with stone statues that lined the wall. Each of them weilded one of a small set of weapons- sword, hammer, axe, or spear, in alternating order. I could count close to fifty of them from my spot outside the entrance. And if life had taught me anything, it was that the second I stepped into that room, those statues would come to life and attack me. It was the only possible defence the room had.

I briefly considered disillusioning myself ad waiting for the others to catch up and brave the room themselves but apart from the fact that that would look cowardly to the watching public— and Doom was no coward, there was the possibility that they had all taken the other turn and might be faced with a completely different challenge. It was possible that the two routes were yet to coalesce— if they ever would.

With a scowl and some small trepidation at the numbers I was set to follow, I took a step into the room, staring at the statues and noting that they did not move a step. Didn’t even flinch at my entrance. Could they not be the room’s defence? Was I wrong?