Labyrinth

The Labyrinth is a large, grayscale maze located within an alternate dimension, accessed by provoking, attacking, or suppressing the Warped obelisk.

Summary

In order to access The Labyrinth, the colony must have a Warped Obelisk crash down in a prior event.

The Labyrinth is not a conventional quest site and does not appear on the world map, meaning you cannot caravan inside. There are multiple methods of entering the maze:

• Let the obelisk reach 100% Activity. Attacking it will speed up this process. Upon reaching the max value it will teleport colonists in at random.
• When a colonist interacts with the obelisk (studying/suppressing) there is a chance they will begin vanishing into thin air, after which that colonist will arrive inside.
• After 10 Anomaly research points from studying the obelisk, a teleport button will appear to enter the maze willingly^[verify]. (15-80 day cooldown)
• (Verify alternate methods of entry if applicable)

A map for the encounter will be created once the first colonist is sent inside, willingly or not. Attacking the obelisk with multiple colonists can send more than one into the Labyrinth. There is no guarantee they will spawn alongside each other, though they will be on the same map. This may speed up exploration and increase safety within at the cost of leaving the home tile undefended.

Just as you cannot normally send a caravan into the maze, the same is also true for exiting. Safely leaving the maze requires locating another 'mirrored' warped obelisk inside one of the many gray rooms. A pawn can interact with it to be teleported back to the original tile^[verify]. Upon return the original obelisk will be gone. Any creatures, bodies, and items taken from within loot containers^[verify] will be randomly distributed throughout the map tile. This includes enemies, even ones which were not necessarily encountered within the maze^[verify] which can cause dangerous scenarios where many enemies single out a stranded colonist.

Design

Upon entering the maze all rooms not currently inhabited by colonists will be hidden. To reveal these areas pawns must path to connecting doors, some of which must be forced open, taking X^[verify] seconds. Opening any doors leaves them open permanently. All walls and doors will be completely indestructible^[verify], meaning you cannot bypass jammed doors unless you find an alternate route into the same room. ^{[Add Details]}

Every Labyrinth will have an final room with a warped obelisk and 2 gray boxes containing varied loot.

Structures

All of the following structures may be found within the Labyrinth:

• Bottomless Pit - has no function beyond being a terrain obstacle. The Bottomless Pit blocks movement across it whiel allowing sight and projectiles. Can be 2x3, 2x3, or 3x3 in size, typically taking up the majority of the room where they are found.
• Floor Sketch - small runes scratched into the floor of The Labyrinth in various places. A Pawn may spend a few seconds analyzing the rune, which will provide the relative direction of the exit Obelisk.
• Gray box - containers made from the same indestructible Gray material as the walls and floors of The Labyrinth. A Pawn may open the container which will then drop its contents on the floor nearby. May contain Skull, Organs, Bioferrite Shaper Weapons, etc.
• TBD (compile any other unique structures found within the maze here)^{[Add Details]}

Additionally, some rooms contain Soil with Trees growing on it. This soil may be used to grow crops, as The Labyrinth is unroofed and a constant, comfortable temperature for growing. As every pawn within The Labyrinth is warped out with no return upon activating the exit obelisk, unharvested crops will be lost forever.

Loot

Optional loot may be found within the many rooms of the maze. These can include relics, meals, weapons, organs, serums and more^[Verify]. These items can be found laying on the floor of some rooms, within Gray Boxes (Much like the Hermetic crate), and in the inventories of corpses strewn about the entire map^[Verify].

Dangers

Some rooms can be entirely empty, while others might contain enemies. These foes may be asleep upon discovery and might wake up if the room is entered or a disturbance is caused^[Verify].

Enemies that can possibly spawn within The Labyrinth:

• Fingerspike
• Shambler - corpses spawn with certain rooms of The labyrinth and may be animated by certain Gray Statue when triggered by Pawn proximity)
• TBD (compile any other hostile entities found within the maze here)

Other dangers which may be present within the Labyrinth:

• Gray Statue - strange sculptures which can cause a variety of effects when a Pawn moves nearby, including teleporting the activating Pawn to a random place within The Labyrinth or creating a gray cloud which animates corpses nearby the Statue. Statues will only trigger one time before becoming inert.

Analysis

While a daunting challenge at first glance, navigating the Labyrinth can be extremely profitable. The amount of high value loot found within can easily be worth the risk of extra exploration if an immediate extraction is not necessary. While a single pawn is unlikely to carry out a large amount of loot, multiple colonists can convene within and help carry the burden. Note that additional pawns sent to explore the maze may not necessarily start nearby a colonist in need of rescue, and if unlucky may quickly become overwhelmed themselves. Also, the more colonists sent inside to explore and help with combat, the less there are outside in case a real threat hits your colony in everyone's absence.

Care should be taken when choosing to study the Warped Obelisk as even when at low activity it is possible for a random teleport. Any pawns assigned to this anomaly should be either heavily armed or highly skilled in combat, preferably both if possible.

While the maze contains many resources to help with traversal, it may be possible to become stranded without food. A combination of many jammed doors, obstructive enemy spawns, low food drops from corpses, and/or the inability to find the exit room can leave an underprepared group stranded.