The Tavern

Hello all. I will start by saying I am pretty knew to this game.
I have looked this up elsewhere, but I haven't found much info for it, certainly not up-to-date.
This is my second time going through the labyrinth, the first was easy: I found the minotaur with exit in sight, and as an earth elementalist I turned the metal walls into bombs!

However, this time I am a Troll Monk of Yredelemnul. I found the minataur at what I believe to be the center, and killed him admittedly through pain mirror. Some sources seem to claim that the exit APPEARS where the Minotaur dies, but that wasn't the case in previous run, so that must be an older edition thing. However, upon looting the room + the side rooms, I find no exit.

Is it possible the exit can spawn somewhere else? I am at the center, every path leads here (eventually). I know from wiki how the walls change to metal (which does), and this particular sector is unnaturally hard rock. It has one door leading into it, side rooms in a plus-shaped pattern, none of which contain the exit.

I'm kind of panicking because I've explored almost the whole thing. I have a rod of digging that now has a few charges left, and while I have tons of food it is going down fast as a troll.

I can take screenshots if that would be more helpful.

The exit is always in the loot room.

It doesn't appear where the Minautor dies, but he stands on the exit (at first). Can you post a picture of the loot room ?

Also try pushing X, then <. That should center your map on the exit if you've seen it already (I think that still works in a lab).

Older style labs, you would have a core area of metal walls, surrounded by undiggable stone walls (or whatever they are), surrounded by diggable rock walls, all of which is surrounded by a big square of unnaturally hard rock. The exit (which generates when you enter the lab, not when you kill the minotaur) was always in the minotaurs room, which was always in the central metal core. His room is often made of unnaturally hard rock, but not always, it can be metal or green crystal too. Now I've seen some newer versions where this theme is mixed up, presumably to make the maze harder, and it doesnt have quite the regular onion architecture, but still his room is usually in towards the middle somewhere and not hiding way out on the edges.

I have seen the exit just be in a hallway. The minotaur spawns on top of that exit, but he can wander away once he hears you. Still, all the loot is on that stairway, so I don't see how you could get the loot without finding the exit.

I guess your best bet is to try to figure out where the center of the black walled area is, that's where the stairway should be.

There are also undead Minotaur's that spawn in the labyrinth, those are *not* the guardian of the exit, they're just random guys, make sure you killed the actual minotaur and not some undead flunky. (The areas where they spawn can sometimes look kind of like an exit vault)

There's usually a pile of loot sitting on the exit too.

The Minotaur has a tendency to pick up the best items and carry them with him, so you may have thought you found the loot but not really.

Welp, I appear to be a moron.
It was the loot pile, but it didn't appear on the map (shift+x) or under inspection, probably because too much stuff in the way?
I was hitting >, instead of <. I tried < on map screen, and it took me there, so I tried it there and now I am back in the Lair!

Let it be known to all n00bs that follow: <, not >
thanks to all!

If you report this on mantis, I bet it'll get changed. Single-direction portals should all allow < or >, I think.