She returned to the fork in the hallway where she took the other turn. Following the torches, she found a dead end. Why is there a hallway here with no doors? She activated her [Dungeon Sense] ability and clicked open her mini-map. If this was an altered version of the floor that she had started on, then she was still somewhere below the second level. Then her [Dungeon Sense] alerted her that something hidden was nearby. A few moments of searching the walls revealed a button that opened a hidden door. It was pitch black inside, so she pulled out her penlight and held it into the darkness to reveal a hidden passage with a ladder. Placing the penlight between her teeth, she began to climb. A minute later, she met another door in the ceiling. This one had a handle that allowed her to slide it open. Light met her on the other side as she climbed through into a large room. I’ve been here before.
That’s when she turned around and saw the pit fiend. The statue of the giant devil towered over her, its grinning visage so lifelike that it made her wonder if this statue wasn’t the result of the genuine article being turned to stone. As she bent down to slide the hidden doorway shut, she noticed a metal plate with the inscription, ‘Apparently his name wasn’t Greg.’
How odd, she thought, I wonder just how this fellow got here? It wasn’t every day you saw a statue of an elder devil sitting in the middle of a dungeon for no reason other than decoration. She did a circle around the statue to see if she could find any magical runes or other triggers that might indicate the statue’s function but found none. With a final frown, she left and took aim at the next door.
The next doorway led her to a long corridor made entirely of glass. Empty suits of armor and statues of monsters and men lined the walls and the glass walls repeated their reflections into infinity.
A few meters in, she came to a double statue whose front half was one person and its back someone else. Struck by a moment of familiarity, she stopped. The front of the statue appeared wise and pleasant, while its back was animalistic with reptilian eyes and ears like that of a cat. Strange, I have never seen this monster before, but have I ever been aquatinted with either of these faces? She studied them, looking from the pleasant face to the monster in the glass. She noticed that both faces looked strangely androgynous, so much so that her opinion changed with each glance. One moment she thought one face looked vaguely masculine, then next she thought it female. But, she wondered, do I know one of them? Finally, she shook her head. No, she did not know either face at all.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
As she stepped past the statue and her mirrored reflection stared back at her, she wondered if she could look through these walls somehow. Stepping up to the glass, she tapped her knuckles against it and got a solid sound in reply. It’s thick, not hollow, but something didn’t sound right. I would bet anything there are a dozen glamours in this room. She looked the glass up and down as she wondered if this Severin character was looking at her now. She took two steps to her left and tapped again. This time she was rewarded with a hearty ‘twang.’ There it is. There’s the glamour.
Eager to leave now, she aimed at the door and broke into a jog. This room is way too weird to not be trapped, but maybe I can get out without setting them off … She was halfway across the room when the face guard on a suit of armor opened and began spitting sand. Before Calista could step around it, the pile shifted and formed itself into the shape of a man. A sand golem! She ripped her sword from its scabbard as the monster turned to face her.
The golem’s face looked at her in alarm. “Greetings traveler, please lower your weapon as I mean you no harm.”
Calista aimed her sword at the sand golem’s neck. “Not until you tell me why you came pouring out of that suit of armor.”
The golem raised its hands in surrender. “I am the keeper of this hallway. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Calista frowned. Sand golems were one of the lowest-level mobs in the game, but that didn’t mean this one couldn’t call someone or something much bigger. Beside her, the sand continued to flow out of the suit of armor as the pile began to fill around her boots.
“And what does the keeper of this hallway do?” She asked.
The golem replied. “I’m only a watchman, madam, nothing more.”
“Watchman for what?”
The golem paused, then answered, “The owner of this dungeon, madam.”
She took a step back, so as to keep her feet free of the sand that was beginning to build up around them. “And what’s here that’s so important?”
“I cannot answer that for I do not know, madam. I am only the keeper of this hallway, nothing more.”
“Yeah, you said that …” She paused as an alert popped up on her H.U.D and she turned. Behind her, sand was pouring into the hallway from all of the statues. What was more, more of the golems were sprouting from the piles and were walking toward her.
Calista braced herself to fight, “Okay, not cool. Not cool at all.”