# Back Rooms

Behind the bar, through a heavy door reinforced with iron bands, lie the working areas of the Nether Inn.

## Kitchen

A surprisingly clean workspace, considering the establishment. Mags runs a tight kitchen. Stone counters, iron pots, a wood-burning stove that heats the wall shared with the main hall.

### Read-Aloud: Entering the Kitchen

> *Kuchyně je překvapivě čistá. Ne sterilní — ale udržovaná s péčí, kterou byste v tomhle podniku nečekali. Na kamenné lince leží nůž, kterým někdo krájel cibuli. Hrnec na plotně tiše bublá. Na zdi visí řada kuchyňských nástrojů uspořádaných s téměř vojenskou přesností — a mezi nimi, nenápadně ale nepřehlédnutelně, krátký meč v koženém pouzdře.*

### Details

- **Mags's short sword** hangs among the kitchen implements. It's well-oiled and recently sharpened despite "retirement." This is a **+1 short sword** — Mags won't give it up willingly but might lend it if she trusts the players and believes they're hunting the real killer.
- **Herb rack** — Among cooking herbs, DC 14 Nature or Herbalism Kit check identifies **silvervein root** (a mild ward against fiendish influence — chewing it grants advantage on one saving throw against a fiend's ability within the next hour). Cut stems and matching twine show that Orenn recently carried part of the bundle down to the hidden Workroom.
- **Mags's apron, belt, and necklace** — Her pocket holds a small iron key (opens the storage room's hidden compartment) and a folded piece of parchment: a letter from Orenn dated three days ago. *"If something happens to me in the bar, it came from between. Check the cellar wards. Don't trust what you see. Trust the bell."* Orenn slipped it into tonight's clean apron before service; Mags has not noticed or read it yet. A second, heavy **black iron key** hangs on a cord beneath her apron; it matches the one on Orenn and is the master key for the concealed Deep Cellar door, Vault, and lower cells. Sewn into the inner lining are a torn written **Revivify** rite and Mags's flat reserve vial of **Oil of Etherealness**; the oil is a protected NPC reserve, not one of the Inn's three field doses. Around her neck is the resurrection-grade diamond she sacrifices after Orenn's death. Players can find the concealed items if she is incapacitated or pickpocket her (DC 19 Sleight of Hand — she's alert); the necklace is plainly visible.

## Storage Room

A cramped room off the kitchen. Barrels of ale, crates of root vegetables, hanging dried meats. It smells like vinegar and damp wood.

### Details

- **Surface level:** Mundane supplies. Besides ale, roots, and cured meat, the room holds flour, salt, dried beans, onions, lamp oil, tallow candles, firewood, cleaning lye, spare mugs, barrel taps, two hooded lanterns, and a coil of utility rope. There is enough food, water, fuel, and drink to sustain the lockdown for days, but no free adventuring kit beyond what a working tavern reasonably keeps.
- **Hidden compartment (DC 15 Investigation):** Behind a false barrel-back, a narrow shelf contains:
  - 4 vials of **Holy Water**
  - 1 vial of **Silversheen** (coat a weapon, treat it as silvered for 1 hour)
  - 1 vial of **Oil of Etherealness**, wrapped in grey felt and labeled *"ten minutes—far side—one hour."* This is one of the Inn's **three normally discoverable field doses**.
  - A leather roll of **fine instruments** — the summoners' old diagnostic kit, kept and well-used by Orenn: something between thieves' tools and a surgeon's set. Grants advantage on Investigation checks related to the arcane or extraplanar if the user is proficient in either thieves' tools or arcana. Old, irreplaceable, and not originally theirs.
  - A **warding chalk** (3 uses) — can draw a 5-foot circle that functions as a Magic Circle against fiends for 10 minutes per use. Faster and cheaper than the spell, but the duration is limited.
- **Floor trapdoor:** Leads to the cellar. Not hidden — just heavy and stiff. DC 12 Athletics to open quietly, or just yank it (noisy, everyone in the kitchen hears).
- **Loose threshold stone (only if the generic Executioner dossier is used):** A contractor posing as a delivery hand planted the promised fee beside the trapdoor before the session. The waxed packet holds **50 gp and one Potion of Heroism**. The Executioner recognizes the mason's mark automatically; anyone else finds the loose stone with DC 15 Investigation. Omit this cache when using the printed *Poslední tvář* version, whose reward is already carried in its locked black bag.

## Private Room

A small room with a lockable door, a table, two benches, and a single candle sconce. Used for negotiations that require more privacy than the main hall provides. The walls are thick stone — conversations here don't carry.

### Details

- **The table** has knife marks scratched into it — tally marks, initials, crude maps. Layers of history from hundreds of clandestine meetings.
- **One set of marks (DC 14 Investigation):** Recent — within the last week. A diagram of the Nether Inn's layout with X marks at the foundation stones — the old summoner-sigils. Someone was mapping the house's occult bones. The scratches are fresh enough to have wood dust still in the grooves.
  - **DC 16 Arcana:** The diagram also notes the **angles of resonance** between sigils — this is the work of someone who understood how to *break* the wards, not just locate them. This was done by someone working for the cultists (or the fiend itself, through manipulation).
- **Under the left bench (DC 13 Perception):** A dropped cultist pin — a small bronze disc with the Order of Mending's symbol (an open eye wreathed in flame). Haddon will deny knowledge. Essek will look terrified if shown this. The pin belongs to a member not present tonight — evidence that the cult has been using the private room for meetings.
- **On the floor (DC 15 Investigation):** Faint ritual-chalk residue survives in the seams around the table. It is not part of the house wards; Haddon used this room to demonstrate binding patterns to Dace, then swept badly. This is the physical trace referenced by the [House of Scales investigation](../storylines/house-of-scales.md#through-the-private-room-physical-evidence).

### Read-Aloud: The Private Room

> *Malá místnost. Kamenné zdi, dřevěný stůl, dvě lavice. Svíčka ve výklenku, momentálně zhasnutá. Vzduch tu stojí — vlhký a zatuchlý, jako v místnosti, která dýchá jen tehdy, když ji někdo otevře. Stůl je pokrytý vrstvami vrytých značek — čárky, iniciály, nečitelné symboly. Příběhy, které tady nikdy neměly být vyprávěny a jejichž svědky jsou jen ty studené kameny kolem.*

## Connecting Passages

- Kitchen → Main Hall: Through the reinforced door (normally unlocked, Mags can bar it)
- Kitchen → Storage: Open archway
- Storage → Cellar: Floor trapdoor
- Kitchen → Upper Floor: A narrow staircase, barely wide enough for one person. A locked door at the top opens onto a tiny landing with two rooms: Orenn and Mags's quarters and Wick's rented spare room (see below).

### Upper Floor

The landing holds a washstand, a covered chamber pot, a bucket of sand for fire, and two pegs for wet coats. There is no exterior window large enough to use as an exit; a narrow ventilation slit is covered by the same lockdown shell as every other exterior opening.

#### Orenn & Mags's Quarters

**Locked.** Mags has the key but won't open it for strangers. If players earn her trust or convince her the investigation requires it (DC 17 Persuasion, DC 14 if they've shown her real evidence of fiendish involvement):

A modest room. A bed, a wardrobe, a desk. Everything is clean and ordered. Two people who learned to live in small spaces together.

- **Desk:** Contains correspondence with a contact in the city watch — Orenn was feeding them information about the cult's activities, slowly and carefully. He suspected the Order of Mending was more than scholars. He didn't know about the fiend.
- **Wardrobe:** Behind a false back (DC 14 Investigation), a small arsenal: 2 silvered daggers, one vial of **Oil of Etherealness**, and a **leather-bound bestiary** focused on fiends. Applying the oil takes 10 minutes; afterward the user gains the effect of the *Etherealness* spell for 1 hour. A bookmarked [entry on veil-stepping fiends](../prints/bestiar-dvojstini.md) describes entities matching Xarrul's type — Orenn was doing research. He was worried but hadn't figured out what was coming. This is one of the Inn's **three normally discoverable field doses**.
- **Under the bed:** A lockbox (DC 16 Thieves' Tools). Contains 150 gp (their savings), a deed to the tavern, and two silver rings — simple, unadorned. Mags will quietly close the box if she sees this. It's not relevant to the investigation. It's just a life.

#### Wick's Spare Room

This small rented room belongs to the emergency replacement PC described in [The Boarder](../npc/the-boarder.md). Its existence is established even if Wick never enters play: Orenn made one exception to his rule against lodgers.

- A narrow bed, patched blanket, washbasin, travel chest, spare dark clothes, candles, and three well-read mundane books.
- A **Healer's Kit** with 6 uses, clean bandages, a jar of bitter willow-bark salve, and common physician's tools. These explain Wick's off-books work but provide no magical healing by themselves.
- Beneath the mattress, a carefully folded stole and prayer cord of the **Threshold (Práh)**. Wick hid them rather than discarded them.
- A crate lid branded by the supplier who sold Orenn salt, chalk, and Holy Water. It corroborates Wick's memory of carrying recent ward supplies upstairs but reveals no Deep Cellar secret.

If Wick is in play, these are the character's belongings. Otherwise Mags treats searching or taking them as theft from someone under the house's protection.
