The Liminal Labyrinth

None can say with certainty the true purpose of the Liminal Labyrinth. Some believe it is a magickal vault, crafted in the oldest unknown age to guard a treasure of such power that only the maddest dare seek it, and only the most deserving will find. Others speak of the maze as a primordial spirit, a malevolent being given shape, built not by hands but by hunger, luring the gullible with promise of the greatest of all riches, to their most violent ends within; Feast upon their lost souls, false hope delivering one meal after the next. There are no signs of construction, no markings of civilization, no builder’s crest or divine runes. It simply is. Its original purpose is as unknowable as its shape. Even some of the oldest Elfese scrolls we have, sung before The Great Schism, before The Fall, before even the naming of the gods, speak of the Labyrinth as already ancient. Quite possibly, there long before the first empire raised a stone. Waiting.

The Liminal Labyrinth is no mere dungeon, it is a parable carved in stone, its corridors lined with false promises and fatal truths.

• Size: Unknown. Those within report walking miles, though returning survivors can be counted on one hand.

• Shape: Shifting. Mostly rectangular corridors arranged in seemingly deliberate loops and dead-ends.

• Walls: Stone brick, cold and silent.

• Floor: Flat, gray, often stained with blood or soot.

• Ceiling: High and vaulted or claustrophobically low.

• Color: Uniformly gray and brown, with occasional red-black splatterings of unknown origin.

There is only one known entrance: the stone doors at the foot of the staircase in the Cloudrend Mountains.

• Doors: 20 feet tall, always slightly open, unmovable.

• Windows: None.

• Exits: None confirmed within. Some believe exits exist, but shift or vanish when approached.

• Sight: Endless repetition. Walls, sconces, beams, always the same, until they’re not.

• Smell: Must, copper, rot. Some claim a perfume lingers near treasure chambers.

• Sound: Faint clinks of armor. Dripping. Sometimes distant laughter. Sometimes breathing not your own.

• Feel: The air is still and heavy. Cold despite the sconces. Like being watched by something ancient.

• Black Knights: Faceless, armored constructs immune to fatigue and reason.

• Scavengers: Occasionally, lone survivors from failed parties hide, waiting to ambush the next explorers.

• Rats: Gigantic, bloated things that feast on corpses and steal small treasures.

• Possibly... more. Some whisper of something deeper, The Architect, a being in the heart of the Labyrinth who rearranges it while you sleep.

Basic benches, chests, torches, broken armor, skeletal remains. Some rooms contain fountains of still water (unwise to drink), or racks of rusted tools. Others hold treasure rooms, overflowing with:

• Gold coins from lost kingdoms.

• Gems fused into walls.

• Tomes of forgotten spellwork.

• Impossible relics (e.g. a beating heart in a jar of salt).

Real treasure does exist. It multiplies the deeper you go. Corpses are often found with sacks of coin, enchanted daggers, or priceless jewelry. Some explorers report rooms entirely made of silver, or libraries sealed in crystal. But all are guarded, not just by traps and magickal soldiers, but by temptation. You take, you want to take more, and more dangers come in-turn, greater and greater in tandem until you are overwhelmed by hubris and legions of black knights.

• Pressure plates.

• Ceiling crushers.

• Enchanted arrows.

• Mirrors that kill you if you make eye contact with your reflection.

• Rooms that seal permanently once entered.

• Floors that collapse into endless drop shafts.

• False treasure that curses the mind or body.

Many traps reset after use.

• Magick-resistant: Most spells fail or behave unpredictably inside.

• Temporal anomalies: Some return having lost years, or aged none at all while gone for weeks.

• Self-repairing: Destroyed traps or knights return within hours.

• Awareness: The Labyrinth seems to know when it is being mapped or understood. It punishes such efforts with escalating difficulty.

If the Labyrinth has changed, it has done so by its own will. Some parties swear corridors once explored had shifted upon their return, paths looping differently, traps resetting in stranger forms, even new chambers appearing overnight. Every venture into its depths alters it, or perhaps the Labyrinth alters those who enter. Bones have been found arranged in patterns, circular, deliberate, suggestive of ritual, though by whose hand none can confirm. No mortal craftsman has added anything to the place. No tool can scar its stone. The labyrinth resists change, yet invites distortion.

The Labyrinth's design is brutalist in its repetition, ritualistic in its simplicity, and wrong.

• Stone walls, uniformly gray, feel too smooth, too cold, like polished tombstone flesh.

• Ceilings vary, some low enough to hunch, others yawning into shadows beyond torchlight.

• Support beams of rotless wood, always the same grain and cut, line certain halls, often near trap mechanisms.

• Light sources include self-replenishing sconces, flames dancing in still air, none burn fuel, none flicker in draft. No wind ever moves here.

Some chambers have impossibly perfect geometry, corners sharp enough to slice skin, others curve in unsettling, organic ways. No room bears adornment, yet explorers report the sensation of being watched by the walls themselves.

The Labyrinth is a living deathtrap.

• Pitfalls, suddenly opening beneath seemingly solid ground.

• Swinging pendulums, slow yet deadly, sometimes triggerless.

• Dart-launchers, hidden in eye-level crevices, poisoned.

• False floors, crumbling beneath footfalls.

• Walls that close, sealing intruders alive within tight, airless crypts.

And then, of course, the Black Knights, animated suits of full armor, faceless, driven not by sight but pure location awareness. They never rest, never fall permanently. Even dismembered, they rise again, reassembling themselves to relentlessly pursue intruders. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be bribed. They guard nothing and everything.

There is no beginning to the Labyrinth’s tale. Even pre-Schism civilizations left it undisturbed. Dwarfish diggers refused to tunnel near it. The Elfese mapped entire ranges and left its region marked only with a black circle and a wordless warning glyph. In The Civil Age, over 1,000 recorded expeditions entered its stone jaws. Nobles, treasure hunters, warlords, monks, soldiers, none emerged whole, most simply did not. Some parties returned missing members who swore they never existed, others came back with riches that later turned to salt. A few left blood-soaked and laughing, unable to speak their own names. The Crown once attempted to seal the entrance. The next day, the stone staircase reappeared fifty feet to the left.

No one visits the Liminal Labyrinth casually. It has become a place of dark pilgrimage for the desperate, the mad, and the greedy. Those who believe wealth lies within walk for days to the Cloudrend Mountains, seeking the narrow staircase carved into the cliffside where the towering doors, etched with no sigil, built of seamless gray stone, stand ever slightly ajar. Nearby, a scattered shantytown of scavengers and mourners has formed, where relics stripped from returning dead are sold, prayers offered, and loved ones await return. They rarely wait long. They never wait joyfully.