Havenwood Labyrinth

The Havenwood Labyrinth was the name given to the subterranean dungeon beneath Havenwood, a forest on the southeastern Mainland. It was built in the early Middle Era by the warlock Ethred Trasler to imprison Keela the Green.

History

Prior to the fracturing of the supercontinent, fire giants had mined extensively in the region that would become the Elsir Vale, including Havenwood. These mines were abandoned over time, mostly as the giants migrated into the mountains of Echelon's Spine. Human digging teams broke into the ancient mines sometime prior to the Great Racial War; these were eventually turned over to the kingdom of Gladstone. These mines would prove the foundation for the Havenwood Labyrinth.

After the green dragon Keela effectively destroyed the kingdom of Gladstone, the warlock Ethred Trasler, a native of Gladstone, made a pact with the archfey Titania. Unable to defeat Keela in open combat, Trasler used the pact to imprison Keela the Green. The price of the pact, however, forced her and any of her descendants to remain in and protect Havenwood and its fey crossings. Furthermore, the components for casting the imprisonment spell included Ethred's own blood, meaning that if her bloodline were to end, it would mean the release of Keela the Green. Keela was trapped in a magnificent painting by Ethred, and she was bound to Havenwood forest for the rest of her life.

Realizing that the painting could be used to free Keela, Ethred used the fire giant mines as yet another deterrent to avoid that end. The warlock, using records and resources from the fallen kingdom, expanded on the mines to construct the labyrinth. She, along with her lover Mikael-Conrad Grisbl, lived in a cottage deep in Havenwood, directly above the entrance to the labyrinth. The painting which housed Keela was secured deep underground, and the Trasler family guarded Havenwood per their matron's pact.

The labyrinth was rarely disturbed by adventurers or treasure hunters, as the only aboveground entrance was in a cave in direct view of the Trasler home and disguised by powerful magic. Over time and with the absorption of the lost Gladstonian kingdom into the Pennant Regency, the Traslers were generally forgotten. However, the history of the Trasler family's arcane sacrifice was preserved in the records of the magic-oriented city of Volkenburg. Those records would remain undiscovered and unstudied for centuries. Meanwhile, the Trasler family never forgot their pact and its members remained steadfast guardians of the forest and its labyrinth once each Trasler child turned 17.

In 845 ME, with Havenwood generally untouched and the imprisonment of Keela the Green undisturbed, war broke out between the Pennant Regency and the Velgassi Empire. One of the aims of the northern empire was to disrupt the Regency homeland; the previously undiscovered records from Volkenburg seemed a likely way to achieve that via the release of a powerful green dragon. When the Cruian Coterie slaughtered the Traslers in Havenwood and Green Company inadvertently caused the death of Roan Trasler in their investigation of Havenwood, Keela the Green was released from his prison. During his escape from Havenwood, he destroyed part of the labyrinth, causing massive cave-ins and rendering the construction useless.