Chapter 32: A Rock and A Hard Place
The troll was easier to deal with than Simon thought. Instead of trying to run past it, or burn it to a crisp, he just intentionally cast his fire spell poorly, and the shower of sparks and feeble streamers sent the thing running just long enough for Simon to get to the church and slam the door behind him.
It was a terrible way to have to throttle the magic, Simon thought, but what the hell else was he going to do? Actually casting mega-fire at full power was not only exhausting, it was dangerous. If he’d actually done that, he would have burned himself alive on the bridge, and then he would have had to come back to fight the troll again anyway.
Because that’s just how The Pit was. Simon could see it in the expression that the asshole demon as he just sat there and watched Simon while he approached the distorted summoning circle.
“Back so soon?” The demon asked with a shit eating grin. "Usually people take a bit longer."
Simon couldn’t figure out if that was supposed to be a compliment or an insult, so he just ignored it while he focused on studying the circle. It wasn’t quite the same as before, but as far as he could tell, none of the runes had changed. It honestly didn’t look too different from the hell rifts that one of his favorite action role playing games used in the second act. He smiled at that. Level 13 or 14 out of 99 didn’t seem to be the second act to him, but he’d take it.
“Do you have anything useful to say, or are you just going to fuck with me?” Simon asked the demon. While Simon had literally all the time in the world, he had almost none to spare for a creature like this, that had bad news written all over its face.
“No - not just yet, I think,” the demon shrugged. “No point in talking to any of the warriors trapped in here with me. Not until they start to lose hope anyway.”
Simon wanted to ask about that, but even more than that, he wanted to get the hell away from this guy. As Simon started walking down the swirling bits of floor that made the impromptu stairs down to the door, he wished that the creature looked a little more classically demonic. It would have made it much easier to deal with than the they’re-not-so-differant shtick the thing was obviously leaning in to.
The door led to the same dusty castle that Simon had died in last time, but this time he paid more attention to his surroundings, and he avoided any halls or rooms that had anything that could be used as an obvious weapon.