Shrine of the Missing Girl
A niche in the corridor wall, waist-high, the size of a bread oven, cut into masonry two centuries older than the passage in front of it. Inside, a small limestone figure of a girl in a pleated skirt, hands out flat, face worn away by thumbs.
The ledge in front of her is crowded. Old offerings first — bronze pins, a clay foot, a bead of blue glass gone milky, all of it grey with dust and fused to the stone by damp. And then, on top, quite clean, nine small things laid out in a line: a hair-tie. A shoe-buckle. A knuckle of bread. A bead. A button. A tooth. A shred of hem. A pebble with a hole in it. A second hair-tie, this one cut.
The dust in front of the ledge has been kneeled in.
DM summary. A very old shrine to a girl who went into the maze and never came out, and on top of the old offerings, nine fresh ones left in order by somebody who is in here right now and counting her days. This is the deck's clearest signpost for the rescue Resolutions, and it is one small room where nothing at all happens.
Terrain & Features
Battle map: custom map. A 25 × 10 ft corridor and a 3-ft shrine niche — the terrain is a ledge of offerings; sketch it. Browse the book if a page half fits your table better.
- Dimensions. The corridor is 25 ft × 10 ft with a 9-ft ceiling and the shrine is a 3-ft niche in the east wall. Cramped: two people can look at the ledge and the rest of the party is standing in a line behind them, which is the right staging for this scene.
- Light. Whatever the party brings, and one thing they do not: a clay lamp on the ledge's left corner with a wick in it and no oil, and it will not light from a torch.
- The figure. Late Minoan, a votive of a type that would be a hundred years out of fashion when the maze was dug. Her face is worn away because people have touched it. History DC 12 or Religion DC 12 identifies her: not a goddess. A girl who was taken into the maze as tribute, whose family kept up a shrine, and whose cult never grew past this niche.
- The old offerings. Fused to the stone, worthless, and unmovable without a chisel. Do not let the party pry them; there is nothing there.
- The nine fresh offerings. Laid in a line, left to right, in order. They are a tally and they are also a route — see below.
- The kneeling marks. Two knee-prints in the dust, small, and a third set at the ledge's left where somebody sat down for a while. Survival DC 12 dates them at under a day old.
- The bedding. Behind the niche, reachable through exit B: a hollow in the masonry with a folded cloak in it, a lamp-stub, and a scratch-count on the wall in groups of five.
Traps / Puzzles / Checks
Reading the nine. No trap, no danger, and three depths of reading available.
| Element | Value |
|---|---|
| That they are recent and deliberate | No check. They are clean, they are in a line, and the dust says somebody kneeled |
| That they are a count of days | Investigation DC 12, or free for anyone who looks at the scratch-marks behind the niche first |
| That they are a route | Investigation DC 15 or Wisdom (Survival) DC 14. Each object is a landmark, in walking order, from the shrine outward: the bread is the kitchen, the tooth is the room with the teeth in the floor, the pebble with a hole in it is the room with a hole in the ceiling, the cut hair-tie is where she stopped going any further |
| Dating the last one | Survival DC 12: the cut hair-tie went down within the last day. She is alive and she is close |
| Solved state | The party has a nine-step landmark sequence, in order, that begins at this shrine — which is not a map, and is the closest thing to one that this maze permits |
Do not turn this into a puzzle with a fail state. If the party rolls badly, the nine objects are still nine objects in a line, in order, and they can look at them again in an hour. A DM who wants them to have it should hand it over at the second question.
The shrine's one rule, and it is not enforced by anything except manners: leave something to take something. The old offerings are the accumulated proof that two hundred years of frightened people understood the arrangement.
Exits
Room-specific: the Lamp of the Girl Who Went In. Off the loot table; it never consumes a d100 slot.
- A hooded clay lamp, palm-sized, cool to the touch. It lights only when somebody has left an offering on the ledge, and then it burns for one hour a day — 15 ft bright, 15 ft dim, no oil, no wick to trim, and no wind will put it out.
- It cannot be relit early, it cannot be hurried, and it goes dark for good if it is sold or taken from its bearer by force.
- It is a lamp. It does not point anywhere, open anything, or know the way out. Say that when the players get hopeful, because the temptation to make it a navigational item would break the one Resolution this room exists to serve.
The nine offerings are not loot. They are worth nothing and they are worth everything: they are the physical clue for X05 Carry Them Out, they belong to a living person, and taking them is taking a frightened girl's tally of her own survival. If a player pockets them, do not punish it mechanically. Just let them be holding a stranger's nine days later on.
Scaling — APL 6 / 12 / 15
| APL | Adjustment |
|---|---|
| 6 | All reading DCs −2, and the route reading is free — a younger party needs the signpost to be a signpost |
| 9 | As written |
| 12 | Reading DCs +1, and only seven of the nine are still on the ledge; something has been at the shrine since she was and knocked two into the dust (Investigation DC 15 to find them) |
| 15 | Reading DCs +3, and the last offering is not hers. Something has begun leaving objects in the same style, in the same line, in an imitation of a count — one item per day, and the newest one is a finger-bone |
- Pacing. Eight minutes, and it should be quiet the whole time. Read the nine objects out loud slowly, one at a time, and stop. The silence after the ninth is the room.
- If you are behind schedule, name the figure, name three of the nine offerings, and say that the last one went down today. Three minutes, and the party still has everything they need.
- This is X05's signpost and it is the only one in the deck that is unambiguous. If Carry Them Out is live, this room converts a vague rescue into a search with a direction, and the nine-object sequence is the fallback route if the party never finds her or cannot bring her out. X05 says so explicitly — read that entry's Fallback before you run this room.
- Clue drip. Two objects, and the tiers they suit: the nine offerings in order (X05, Sign tier as written, Path tier if the party cracks the route reading), and the worn-away face of the figure herself, touched by two hundred years of thumbs by people who also wanted somebody brought out of here (X10, Whisper or Trace — Ariadne is the other girl this maze is remembered for).
- Table safety. A child alone in the maze, keeping count of her days, is the deck's most upsetting quiet image and it works precisely because nothing dramatic is happening. If the table has steered away from children in peril, the offerings belong to a young surveyor from the lost crew and the shrine reads identically; keep the nine objects and change nothing else.
- Let the party leave something. Exit C exists to give the shrine's rule a mechanical reward, and the good version of this room is a table arguing about whose keepsake is worth a stair. Judge generously — a dented cup that a character has mentioned twice counts.
- No shade, no voice, no apparition. She is not dead and this is not a haunting. The room is nine small objects and some knee-prints, and if you add a ghost you have turned the deck's best piece of evidence into a scene.