Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage

Morph:

The orcs appear to have been killed by adventurers some time ago.

Morph remarks to Rethan, as they together finish giving the bodies a once over.

"Yeah looks like normal combat, probably past adventures, if I was to give it my best guess."

Morph turns back to the arch.

"There is definitely something magical about the archway. The aura I see keeps flickering and changing, I cant get a read on the type a magic."

"It could be a strange new form of magic that my ability can't handle, or the magic is actually changing form, over and over."

"Do we want to see what happens if we throw something through the arch?"

Morph steps back and pulls out a small metal ball bearing, indicating with a look, that he is ready to throw it through, if no one has an objection.

 Rethan backs up as well.  "Go for it," he says.

Morph tosses the small metal ball bearing through the archway.

The ball bearing sails between the arches unscathed. Morph sees the magic does not interact with it at all.

Rethan shrugs.  "Send the bear through next?"

"Ok Bear, can I have you walk between the pillars please?"

Morph stands ready to see what happens.

DM shield:

Bear walks through the arch. Morph can see the magic flicker randomly to him, like tiny, weak lightning strikes. But nothing happens and bear arrives on the other side unscathed.

"Well, it definitely reacted to Bear walking through, but I cant see any changes to Bear or the archway."

Morph walks around to examine the bear.

Investigation check on the bear: 19

Bear seems completely unharmed and unchanged.

"Perhaps it only operates on sufficiently intelligent beings? Or perhaps it records an illusion of us for later purposes! Sorry - no idea what that thing does, but if we can leave that door until other options are exhausted, we might be well served."

(DM: do we know about the door to the right, in the room we are in now?)

There is a door going east but to the west is only a wall. I can optionally expand the already huge dungeon if I want. I don't want!

Here is a close-up of this room from the DM's version of the map. It shows the placement of the pillars in the room. Ignore the western passage, since that is an optional addition for DMs.

Laniel says, "Maybe we should just avoid it altogether."

"Yeah, lets see what's through there instead."

Morph points at the door on the eastern side of the room.

"Titus, would you like to do the honours?"

Morph indicates the door with an open hand, inviting Titus to lead the way forward.

Titus nods graciously and readies his shield as he braces himself for what awaits them on the other side, then he opens the door and steps into the room.

(Sorry about the delay on response.)

Titus leads the way into an oddly shaped room. It is empty save for moldy bones that have been swept into a deep alcove in the south wall. Hanging from rusty manacles on the back wall of an alcove to the east is a tiefling skeleton missing its legs. Written on the wall above the skeleton in dried blood are a few short words written in a language that nobody can immediately read.

Titus scans the Tiefling skeleton and the room with his divine sense.

 Rethan moves towards the alcove and pokes around in the moldy bones with his javelin to see if there's anything more worthwhile than bones there.

Investigation: 16