The Cell Beneath the Palace

BeginningStrips gearRoll d20

captivitycrampedstealth-viable

Illustration: Beginning 1 — The Cell Beneath the Palace

Illustration: Threads — Thread I — The clue

You wake on limestone, and the limestone is warm, which means you have been lying on it a long while. There is a taste of copper and cheap wine at the back of your throat. Someone has taken your boots. Through a grate above you comes the sound of a palace going about its morning — sandals, a cart, a woman laughing — and it is very far away, and getting no closer.

The door of the cell is not locked. That is the first thing you should find worrying.

Premise. The party went to sleep somewhere in Knossos and woke up under it. Nobody tells them why, and nobody is coming. The unlocked door is not mercy: this level of the palace cellars is the first ring of the maze, and the people who put them here consider the matter closed.

Starting State

No gear. Weapons, packs, focuses, holy symbols, boots — all of it is in a guardroom two doors away. See Gear Recovery.
Full HP, full spell slots. They slept, whatever else happened. Do not open a session by taxing resources the players never got to spend.
Restraints. One PC (player's choice, or whoever has the highest Strength) is wearing a bronze manacle on one wrist with a broken chain. It is a cosmetic humiliation and a plot hook, not a mechanic. Removing it: Thieves' Tools DC 12, Strength DC 15, or any smith later in the maze.
Light. One guttering tallow lamp in the corridor outside, and the grate above, which gives dim light for the first 40 ft and then nothing.

Opening Scene

A 15 ft × 20 ft cell with a stone bench, a drain, and a scratched tally of days on the wall that stops at fourteen. The cell door stands ajar on a corridor running 30 ft east to a cross-passage.

No fight here. A gearless party at level 9 is a party of very confident civilians, and a forced encounter in the first ten minutes teaches them that this dungeon is unfair rather than dangerous. Everything in this scene is a stealth or social problem.

The warden. One Knossian labyrinth-warden (Cult of the Thread, W18) is asleep in a chair at the cross-passage with a spear across his knees, a wine jug at his foot, and the guardroom key on a thong at his neck. He is not a boss. He is a lock with opinions.

Sneak past him: group Stealth DC 13 (DC 11 barefoot, which the party is).
Lift the key: Sleight of Hand DC 15, or Sleight of Hand DC 12 if someone else has moved the wine jug first.
Wake him deliberately: he is bored, three cups in, and entirely willing to talk. He believes the party are this month's condemned and is amiable about it. Persuasion DC 14 gets them the guardroom; Deception DC 16 gets them the guardroom and a torch; Intimidation is a mistake — he shouts, and two more wardens arrive in three rounds.
If it goes to violence: he is a spear and a shout. Let them win, let the shout land, and start the clock: three rounds until two more wardens arrive, which is the party's cue to be somewhere else.

Gear Recovery

Required, and it must be findable in ten minutes of table time. The guardroom is the second door off the cross-passage: a bare room with three chests, a rack, and the party's belongings sorted with unsettling care — an inventory scratched on a wax tablet, every item listed, one item per line.

The chests are locked. Thieves' Tools DC 13, Strength DC 16 to break a hasp (loud — see the warden above), or the warden's key, no check.
Everything is there except one item per PC, player's choice from a list you offer: a spare weapon, a bedroll, half their rations, or a trinket. Those are on the tablet marked taken above. It is a good hook and a cheap price.
Spellcasters get their focuses back intact. Do not withhold a class's functioning for laughs.
If the party skips the guardroom and goes deeper barefoot, let them, and put a warden's spear and shield in the first room's loot. Being underequipped is a fine choice; being unable to play is not.

First Clue (Whisper tier)

Roll the Resolution (d20) once the party finishes their first room, then deliver its Whisper line from that Resolution's clue table — dressed in this scene's furniture rather than invented fresh. Three that land especially well here:

The wax tablet has a fifteenth line, in a different hand, listing an item nobody in the party owns: one spool, red, half spent (X10).
The warden's wine is sea-cut — it tastes of salt, and he grumbles that the good water comes up from below (X16, X11).
Scratched under the tally of days, small: fourteen days and the wind still comes down (X17, X20).

Exits

AObviousThe cross-passage, north, past the warden's chair. No check.

BObviousThe drain in the cell floor, prised up with a bench leg (Strength DC 10 — an unskilled shove is enough). Tight, wet, unpleasant.Rider: you arrive soaked and stinking; disadvantage on Stealth for one room, and any creature that hunts by scent notices you first.

CHiddenBehind the rack in the guardroom, a mortared-over doorway the wardens use to avoid the long way round. Investigation DC 14.Rider: you arrive unannounced — the next room's threat, if it has one, does not get its surprise round.

Scaling — APL 6 / 12 / 15

APL	Adjustment
6	All DCs −2. The warden sleeps soundly: Stealth DC 10. Only two chests, one lock
9	As written
12	DCs +1. Two wardens, one awake and pacing a 40-ft beat
15	DCs +3. Two wardens awake, a third in the guardroom counting the tablet, and the manacle is warded (Arcana DC 17 or it screams once when the party leaves the cell)

Table-Safety Note

This Beginning opens on captivity, stripped possessions, and lost time, and for some players that is a lot before dice are even rolled. Offer the softer framing out loud: "You were arrested for something you'll find out about later, processed politely, and put in a cell — nothing was done to you." If anyone would rather not play the manacle at all, cut it; the scene loses nothing.

DM Notes

This is the deck's default Beginning and the best one for a table that has never played this dungeon. It teaches the three habits the maze rewards — look at the room, talk before you fight, and take the odd exit — in ten minutes and with no risk of a death.
Do not let the guardroom become a shopping trip. Give them the tablet, let them describe what they take, and move. Five minutes.
The warden is worth keeping alive. He knows the shape of the first few rings, he will trade information for wine, and a party that made a friend in the cellars has something to lose. If they killed him, that is also a fine session and the Cult of the Thread (W18) is going to hear about it.
If you are running short, skip the drain and the mortared door entirely. Exit A and one other is enough.
Roll the Resolution before the first room ends, so you can dress the Whisper clue into the last thing the party sees on their way out.