The Maze Punishes the First Handle

The Vithyrex Maze did not welcome the party with a speech. It welcomed them with a trap. After the door from the previous void route opened, the remaining party began moving through the maze's entrance halls without Dhaz. Ash scouted ahead and did what someone always does in a dungeon eventually: he interacted with the wrong thing first. A falling slab dropped onto him. The blow hit hard enough to make the maze's rules obvious in the first room. This was not going to be a clean corridor crawl or a simple love-themed puzzle box. Rash movement would be punished. Doors, handles, and passages could not be trusted just because they looked ordinary. Maine lifted the stone with telekinesis so Ash could escape. That rescue set the first practical lesson of the maze: caution mattered, distance mattered, and Mage Hand could trigger dangers more safely than someone's body. The party had escaped a collapsing cathedral. Now they were in a place where love apparently came with pressure plates.