As Titus extracts himself from the cube, Laniel darts in, striking at the creature three times.

Quarterstaff Attack: 13 Damage: 8

Quarterstaff Attack: 20 Damage: 12

Kick Attack: 26 Damage: 9

On his second strike, Laniel smacks the cube hard enough that whatever sorcery was holding it together collapses and it oozes into a puddle on the floor.

The battle over, the group fins they have arrived at a dead end.

Rethan follows Atuan in with a flurry of strikes from his staff.

Attack: 22 Damage: 9

Extra Attack: 17 Damage: 10

Bonus Attack: 10 Damage: 9

Morph raises his eyebrow as Rethan swipes furiously at the deflating blob of ooze, sending it splattering all over the walls.

"I think its good and dead now Rethan, you may want to wipe that off your weapon."

Morph turns to Titus,

"Actually, here let me get the muck off you, and everyone's weapons."

Morph starts casting Prestidigitation on his friends equipment, to clean the ooze off.

After a few minutes of casting, Titus is mostly clean and the groups weapons are clean.

"Shell we head back and try the side passage then?"

Morph starts to head back to the intersection, the bear walking alongside him.

Titus grimaces as the magical spell pulls the ooze away from him, he found the whole experience demeaning but was glad to be cleaned. He muttered a low “Thanks” and heads north so they can investigate the passageway leading East.

The party backtracks and travels east. The passage forks again, the east fork leading to a dead end where the passage has collapsed. Backtracking again, they follow the west fork, which leads to a similar dead end. Thus, the party finds themselves back at a much earlier fork, trying to decide if they will travel north past the double doors or east.

Laniel points forward. "How about that way?"

Morph shakes his head, almost bewildered,

"Its as good a direction as any other. Its such a maze down here."

Morph starts forward in the direction Laniel indicated, refreshing his detect magic, and keeping an eye out.

Perception check: 15

The party arrives at yet another dead end, this one holding a large mirror on the wall. Worked into the mirror’s stone frame is the graven image of a human wizard wielding a wand. 

Morph:

"Heads up, that mirror has conjuration magic."

Morph backs up a bit, standing ready in case anything comes out of the mirror.

Laniel tenses waiting for something to happen, but nothing does. He lowers his staff and says, "Well, back the other way then. This doesn't have anything to do with our mission down here."

Morph waits a moment longer, after Laniel lowers his guard, before lowering his own, and stepping back even further.

Morph looks down at his rough map,

"Right then, the next passage we haven't followed, is back west and then north at the first turn and then east from the there."

Morph looks back up and turns and starts heading back around.

The team heads back....again. They wind their way east and north and east again, coming to an alcove to the north.  Carved into the back wall of this alcove is a shallow niche containing a bas-relief sculpture of a nude, heavyset man playing a harp. Close inspection of the bas-relief reveals the following inscription carved into the harp, in Common:

Gaze upon me with bronzed visage

And secrets shall I reveal.

Lying on the floor of the alcove is a broken half of a 10-foot pole.

Morph picks up the 5ft pole and puts it in his bag of holding.

"That could be useful."

Morph asks the others,

"I wonder what 'bronzed visage' means? 'Gaze upon me with bronzed visage'. hmmm..."

"Hey Rethan, didn't Midnight find a bronze mask, could that be what the riddle is talking about?"

(I'm still alive, I promise!   Wife was out of town from thursday night until this morning so kids kept me busy)

"Worth checking out," Rethan responds.

"Alright," Laniel says. "What do we do?"

"Here, let me try."

Morph takes mask from Rethan, giving it a quick look over, before holding it up to his face, so he can look through the eye holes, at the statue.

Morph steps into the alcove with the mask on and promptly disappears.

Morph: