I typically wanted to avoid constantly changing my civil specs on characters at all times but this was one of the sections I gave one of my guys thievary for this part. Even without the bug with the fire in the wall making clearing them impossible It's STILL a tedious and just annoying area regardless, and you can pretty much bypass it all with thievery so I did.
Unfortunately in the dream sequence I'm playing a double mage playthrough and magic apparently does no damage to the mirrors all over the arena. Fun.