The maze
The paths
- Malfunctioning oven trade fixed kitchen (9)
- Damages small vehicles (5)
- Coastal airport department's vulnerability (3,8)
- Happy about rook color (4)
- Anger about queer, out celebrity friends (9)
- Returned sticker was doctored (5)
- Heir to Spanish gold: we are rich (8)
- Confusing car and ion can be severe (9)
- Behind talk show host is funny brother (5)
- Raise in risk is key to every sport (10)
- An airport in a blog announcement (5)
- Investigating team heard pro-Nitrogen position of France (9)
- Model employee told how airlock was broken (10)
- It sounds like Russell was aware and fresh (5, 3)
- Occasion to hear a few heartbeats (8)
- Breakfast for Francis (5)
- At table number 6, Stark has no question about sauce (9)
- Correction officers separate leaders from all detained terrorists (9)
The goal
- Create a continuous path (series of letters) from the S(tart) to the E(nd). Or from the E(ntry) to the S(uccess). Same thing.
The rules
- Solve the cryptic clues to acquire paths.
- Each path must intersect (share one letter with) exactly two other paths. (First and last paths are the exception, as they'll have only one intersection.)
- One letter per box. Obviously, not all boxes will be filled.
- Paths can only be deployed in canonical crossword directions (Across and Down).
- For the multi-word answers, treat them as a single path with no space. So if an answer was "Got it", it would take up five boxes in a row.
- The "E" and the "S" are given, and each is the last letter of one of the answers.
Note
This is my first time writing my own cryptic clues, so hopefully they (mostly) meet standards, but you may need to interpret them a bit liberally.
Meta
What song was in my head while I was creating this puzzle?