Crimson Sands of Time

<yes, you can return to the gatehouse. You can actually go to other zones this way, as well.>

"Please, I beg of you.. I know things aboit this place.  I can tell you, just please, get me out if here." Kelson (the half-elf) pleads.

Not new, but if T casts detect magic, he'll also see it:

Abjuration magic keeps the dungeon dry and at a comfortable temperature. A detect magic spell reveals this magic as a faint aura on all the Doomvault’s surfaces.

Also,the two wizards had gold I forgot to include:

15gp and 30gp, respectively.

I really see this as being a drug foe some players. It's like a strategy based mitigate. I didn't write it. I'm quoting these tukes the while time. So, its really up to you if you want to engage with it or just like fast forward this stuff. It's not really a puzzle, it's closer to inventory management, imo. But, again, it's up to you how we play.

Piccolo plays a brief calming almost hypnotic slow melody on her instrument, while projecting to the half-elf a very relaxing and quite forest with small forest creatures

(Persuasion to relax: 20, we'll figure out how to return you to safety)

To Trisk

Tetrevess says “We are glad we got to you in time.   We can return, via magic, and get back in, but we feel a sense of urgency to solve our challenges.  Let me see what these keys can open- and investigate these urns..”

he tests the new keys to determine what they open, and then inspects the urns with his detect magic up

"Well uh, If you need the glyph keys um..." Ethan glares at Randy, who is literally in possession of two of them at the moment. "I mean, he shouldn't take long. Unless he had something else on his mind. Anyways, whichever lock you guys want to explore first, point to it. I'll inform Randy which one we'll use the key or if we're meshing them together first."

His gaze then turns to Trisk who looks... troubled. "Uh... dude. You alright there?"

"Huh? Did someone call for the glyph keys?" Randy calls out as he moves to where the injured elf is. "One at a time, bub. Once we've made sure this place is Red Wizard free we'll deal with your freedom next. Now then..." He pulls out both keys and prepares to merge with either themselves or with another glyph if someone is holding them. "Who's gonna mesh them for me? Or shall I go ahead and do it myself with these two? Are you guys planning to go through a door though?" But then he notices something wrong with Trisk...

"Hey. You ok there? Uh... hello?!" Randy suddenly turns to Trisk and waves his hand in front of his dazed face.

Quote from Tesservett >>

Tetrevess says “We are glad we got to you in time.   We can return, via magic, and get back in, but we feel a sense of urgency to solve our challenges.  Let me see what these keys can open- and investigate these urns..”

he tests the new keys to determine what they open, and then inspects the urns with his detect magic up

 Inspects them, how? Font and back? Roll investigation 

Trisk will end his concentration on Nathair's Mischief  and in response to Piccolo's playing and subsequent images he himself will cast Minor Illusion and create a half-sized, semi-transparent version of himself standing next to Piccolo... hoping to convey that he is not leaving her trapped here alone. If she can't leave, he won't.

"We are fast friends now and I'm not leaving without you!"

When he sees the brothers acting strange toward him and waving their hands in his face, "Sometimes I see images when she plays on her piccolo. But what's with the sudden concern, it's not like I was out cold for hours or anything?"

It's been ten minutes plus for ritual casting the detect magic spell. You know which key has which attunements. You've got all the time you want, the o ly risk if passing attunemnts to other keys is rolling under 11 arcana and losing the key.

Also, you csn pick up.attunements at the contact stones in each area. You can get to any area you want via the gatehouse

A glyph key can hold multiple attunements, and attunements can be passed from one key to another. Only one attunement can be passed at a time. To pass an attunement, one creature must hold the originating key and another creature must hold the target key. The keys must touch. Then, as an action, the creature holding the originating key must make a DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check. If the check succeeds, each key shares the chosen attunement. If the check fails, the attunement remains in the originating key and each key’s holder takes 2 (1d4) force damage. Also, if the check fails by 5 or more, the originating key is destroyed.

You can also totally ignore all of that and just go through a door 

(I may be dumb, but I'm quite confused about how these glyph keys and attunements work. That being said, I don't think my character would be interested in them anyway, but the whole thing seems unnecessarily complicated. Hopefully, some of the rest of you are following this.)

23 investigation and 17 arcana on the urns- looking them over front and back.  (tetrevess cant get less than a 12 arcana, and has advantage on arcana checks so in order to get a 12, id have to roll 2 1’s.  which i can do) 

the glyph keys are complicated.  Tetrevess will manage them- hes much smarter than me.

Tetrevess picks up an urn and closely inspects it thoroughly. Though it appears extravagantly ornate and trimmed with gold and jewels, he discern that it is actually a clever fake that only appears valuable. In fact, all the urns are fakes. However, they really are magical.

Any non-undead creature that touches an urn must succeed on a DC 17 Constitution or Wisdom saving throw (creature’s choice) or take 10 (3d6) necrotic damage and become paralyzed for 1 minute. The creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a successful save. If this damage reduces a creature to 0 hit points, the creature dies and turns to dust.

Quote from shimshon123 >>

(I may be dumb, but I'm quite confused about how these glyph keys and attunements work. That being said, I don't think my character would be interested in them anyway, but the whole thing seems unnecessarily complicated. Hopefully, some of the rest of you are following this.)

 Not at all, thus is a deeply convoluted system and I just didn't think it was worth the effort to write ot out, since it's already all these portals on tbe maps and the areas all look and it actually does have a point but you haven't uncovered it yet, so we csn totally fast forward it. It's just there 'in-universe'. 

I really just want to k ow if yoi want to black portal back to the gate house or go through another door. The rest is just.. meh.  For context, this was written ad the playtest adventure for 5e. The actual rules weren't written yet. With that in mind, I feel like this extra mechanic would make it harder to find bugs, but maybe it was meant to be some kind of stress test? 🤷‍♂️

So guys, portal or door?  And if door, which one?

There's a door to the south and one to the west. 

If you go back to the gatehouse,  Syranna bag trek you where what you can go.. you could also ask her via a contact stone (previous room)

(Just a head's up: Me and Pyro will be starting classes on Tuesday so our posting frequencies will slow down a little, probably about once every 2-3 days)

"Sorry, um..." Randy stutters as he averts his gaze and glares at Ethan. "I thought my brother noticed something weird. Did you get a bad illusion or something?" But then he grabs the key if it hasn't already and attunes it to one of his own. "Just in case we stumble upon a dire scenario though It's better if all the keys have the same attunements. Step back."

Arcana: 15

"Also, If you guys are so indecisive about where to go next, I'll decide." He heads towards the second portal.

@Wildland_Shifters: does "second portal" mean the black portal? If so, you can go to a number of places with it, actually. The gatehouse was suggested, but you can also get to any other black gate in a zone a glyph key is attuned to.  Now, you could do that, but you don't actually know what any of the attunement zones are (except for their names) or if they have black gates. You can randomly go through them, you know the names of the zones you have attunement for, but you'll just go the first one you find at random with a black gate, or whatever name tickles your fancy.

You also have three people in the room who know more about this place than any of you.

So, what do you want to do?

I'm trying to give this some weight becasue this actually could be a oretty i.oortant decision and yoi have the resources ro make it non-random. I would strongly gly suggest asking an NPC something.

The hald-dead half-elf tries to calm.down after his out-of-body experience but finds it exceedingly difficult. "Please, just help get me out of here.  I'll tell you what I can, just please, don't let me die here," he begs.