Dungeon of the Mad Mage - Mirror, mirror, on the wall...

This wonderful display awaited us before the game, mapping our progress. We were delighted to recognize the rooms we passed through, and dismayed at how little we advanced. We got to work at once... haha, just kidding. First, we went back to the room with the statue to investigate.

We looked at the statue from every possible angle, discovering that its head is scratched as if able to rotate. I unscrewed it, discovering a hidden compartment containing a burnt out candle. We reignited the candle and generally lost as much time as humanly possible, discovering nothing. We pocketed the glowing statue head and moved on.

But not before realizing that Sammael was no longer with us - in fact, he never was. Instead, we discovered an old man meditating on a rock above the waterline. We decided to take Okos Ember with us - as if we had much of a choice.

With the waterlogged room a dead end, we went back to the hall decorated with reliefs and invested significant effort into opening the secret door, to no avail. I got bored and sent the owl up ahead to scout, entering a large cavern. On a pillar, the skeleton of a giant snake sat coiled, crumbling to the touch. An arrow with an inscription pointed "towards certain death", so we decided on going the other way. The only other clue was spotted by our perceptive ranger, who saw the tracks of two bugbears going in that direction. I also found a hidden compartment - empty. Looks we need to go deeper to find treasure :(

I sent the owl to scout again, only to discover that the armory also has a regular door, besides the secret one.  The room contained lots of rusted weapons and armor (as you would expect), but also a shiny sword stuck in a wooden frame. I took out this magic Longsword+1, only to have it stick to my hand. Friends and skeletons tried to pull it off, only to have it magically reappear each time. Oh well, good thing I have the War Caster feat, and I can cast even with a weapon in hand... although I would prefer my own relic rapier.

In the next hall, the owl was spotted and killed by two grells - floating brains with long tentacles. We rushed in and killed them.[1]

We passed through another corridor, with shining mirrors on each side. I took no risks, and made the re-summoned owl invisible this time. No threats detected, so we advanced. From the last pair of mirrors, shades jumped us, taking our form. We killed a couple, and realized there is an infinite number of them (or at least that is our theory), so we rather bypassed the mirrors. Some damage was already done, with the people hit feeling weaker.[2]

Beyond the hall of mirrors, we discovered a nice little dead end, where we decided to rest, as night was fast approaching. I took precautions, placing an Alarm spell down the hall, and so we were not surprised by the huge animated armor plodding towards us. Okos Ember's first instinct is to conjure a wall and keep it at bay. It leaves, but we chase it and kill it with some effort. We're really feeling the lack of high level spells. Long corridors in the dark also do not help. Everybody can see 60ft in the dark, but sometimes that's just not enough.

After the battle, we went back to sleep, and the night passed without further incident.

[1] The scribe noted that they are "very ugly".

[2] -2 Strength