The dungeon was found on Day 435, five days after the rank up, by a minotaur patrol doing exactly what Runt hadn't asked them to do — exploring the eastern hills beyond Ironhold's perimeter.
The patrol leader was a minotaur sergeant named Crade — one of the few to voluntarily join Ashenveil's scout rotations, despite the fact that minotaurs were terrible scouts. Too large, too loud, too visible. But Crade was stubborn in the productive way that made good soldiers, and Runt had assigned him the eastern hills because nothing was supposed to be there and a loud patrol wouldn't matter.
Crade returned that evening with something unexpected: a sealed stone door set into a hillside, covered in centuries of vegetation and soil erosion. He'd found it because one of his minotaurs had put a hoof through rotten earth and fallen into a cavity beneath. The cavity led to a chamber. The chamber led to the door.
