Whoever is the lord of this fortress obviously takes a rational approach to security: all the doors are either heavily secured, or not at all. This approach is rational, since it offers appropriate challenges to an intruder without making their adventuring too tedious. Good job.
The next few doors that K’ip and Si’ri encountered after getting past the copper dragon were obviously of the un-secured variety, so their progress was rapid. Notice how K’ip didn’t even bother to employ the Medusa-mirror when rounding those corners…he only does that when there actually is something dangerous lurking around the corner in question. In a movie, you don’t employ that sort of trick into empty air – it’s said that the audience would get annoyed with the pointless repetition. Apparently, more so than they get annoyed with obvious lapses in logic. >_>
But now their progress is arrested by one of the heavily secured doors.* A powerful seal has been placed on it…an elephant seal, in fact! Which is, obviously, a lot more secure than blocking a door with leopard seal…let alone a door blocked only with an otter. ._. I don’t really know, frankly, why only aquatic mammals can be used for securing a door in a fantasy world…but there are probably plausible, if arcane, reasons for it. That’s why they call it a magic seal…it’s magic, so it doesn’t have to make sense.
Come to think of it, I’ve never heard of any wizard placing a magic whale on a door…I wonder why, one would assume that that would be even more effective than even an elephant seal. I mean, you wouldn’t even be able to see the door anymore. ._.
And in terms of public relations, harpooning a whale would be nearly as problematic for a hero as clubbing a seal. Si’ri might be worrying too much about that, by the way…yeah, clubbing seals is generally not a good look for a hero, but the most problematic category in that regard are baby seals. Adult elephant seals don’t get quite the same reaction from audiences, although it’s still safer to be seen clubbing orcs, goblins and kobolds – being self-awarene and intelligent doesn’t count for much when you’re also ugly and evil.
More on Mon…uh, Thursday.
* Which is entirely coincidental, by the way. Contrary to K’ip’s assumption, Si’ri didn’t jinx anything. She couldn’t. For a messenger fairy like her, jinxing is a special qualification, and she never got around to taking the course and passing the exam.