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Sorry for slow response. You definitely do not need to get a quest. The world is fairly immense and monsters spawn all over the place. Quests are not a bad way to level up -- leveling up is central to the game -- when you're at low levels. But you will level up much faster if you accomplish Milestones -- you can see the list of these in the menu. The first is relatively easy to accomplish -- anyone you talk to in the game will try to nudge you in the direction of the next milestone. The in-game tutorial is incredibly minimal -- you did not miss anything, it's just enough to get you launched into the maze. So I am rethinking that now: how much in-game tips vs. what's in the quickstart guide vs what's in the forthcoming player's handbook. I would say your first goals are: find the outfitter across the hall and pick up a few weapons /  armor and then set out to check off the first milestone. Once you know where you're going it can be accomplished in just a few minutes. I will think about how to best communicate these things at the outset for a new player. I am (obviously) open to suggestions. Thank you so much!

Ok, have made the Rogues Gallery persist -- it cannot be closed now -- so you should not see the grey background you were encountering before, you should always see the gallery when you exit the maze or if your party gets wiped out.

If you fall into water you can climb out using the  climb icon: 

... if you click the left or right arrow twice you will be turned around 180 degrees from the direction you were looking before. So if you drop down a level, you can click right-right (or left-left) and then the climb button to climb back out in the direction you fell from -- unless you fall down more than one level in which case you may or may not be able to climb back up that way. The game design is definitely inspired by 80s games like Wizardy, Ultima III, and Bard's Tale.

This could be a case of me being too close to this. So if you take a couple of steps forward after you enter the maze you get to the corner below:

The compass doesn't change for those steps -- it stays pointed right, indicating you are facing east. Then if you click the right arrow, you turn and now are facing South, below:

Now you are facing south and can move forward along the open corridor. The compass at the top is pointing down, indicating you are facing South. I don't know if this helps at all. I really wanted to avoid using text characters in the nav frame to keep things more symbolic and align the style of the clock with the compass (and vice versa). But if it's confusing I will for sure need to rethink. Thanks for spending so much time providing feedback. My users to date have all been friends and family and I have low confidence they gave me 100% honest feedback :)

Another good suggestion -- the compass in the main nav doesn't have letters currently. Up is north, down south, left west, east right.

Ah -- the fire. Yes, I could see how that is confusing. I am working on the gray empty page problem. You can get back to the gallery from the menu -- which now has a much longer time before it auto-closes. But currently when you exit the maze the gallery is closed and must be opened from the menu to start over. I will likely make the gallery persistently open. I may also add an extra item for newly created characters. You can buy more weapons / armor directly across from the inn and to the left after you exit from the green door. Thanks again for all the feedback.

These are good suggestions -- thank you for taking a shot at it. Will work on addressing these. I am unsure what the toxic gas is you encountered. There is no toxic gas in the game -- perhaps you went left out of the inn, around into the misty area and had your torch blown out by a gust of wind and everything went dark? I will see if I can reproduce something. Appreciate it!