fixing item placement

location/back-rooms.md

@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ A surprisingly clean workspace, considering the establishment. Mags runs a tight
 
 - **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 pocket** — She carries a small iron key (opens the storage room's hidden compartment) and a folded piece of parchment: a letter from Orenn dated three months 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."* — Mags hasn't read it yet. She will during the session if given time alone, or players can find it if she's incapacitated or if they pickpocket her (DC 19 Sleight of Hand — she's alert).
+- **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
 
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ A cramped room off the kitchen. Barrels of ale, crates of root vegetables, hangi
 
 ### Details
 
-- **Surface level:** Mundane supplies. Enough food and drink to sustain the lockdown for days.
+- **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)
@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ A cramped room off the kitchen. Barrels of ale, crates of root vegetables, hangi
   - 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
 
@@ -41,6 +42,7 @@ A small room with a lockable door, a table, two benches, and a single candle sco
 - **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
 
@@ -51,9 +53,13 @@ A small room with a lockable door, a table, two benches, and a single candle sco
 - 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. Locked door at the top. This leads to Orenn and Mags's private quarters (see note below).
+- 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 (Orenn & Mags's Quarters)
+### 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):
 
@@ -62,3 +68,14 @@ A modest room. A bed, a wardrobe, a desk. Everything is clean and ordered. Two p
 - **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.

location/cellar.md

@@ -53,6 +53,7 @@ What looks like raw bedrock behind the barrel racks is a **shell of stone facing
 - **DC 15 Perception** catches the same draft plus the smell rising through it — copper, tallow, and something animal and sweet-rotten beneath.
 - **The cobweb tell:** everything in this corner is draped in thick silk *except* the barrel racks, which are conspicuously clean — they get moved. A few fresh threads trail from the seam itself, where finger-sized spiderlings squeeze through the gaps (the same gaps that carry the draft and the smell). A PC who clocks the clean patch has **advantage** on the Investigation check to find the door.
 - The door is under a permanent **Arcane Lock** (DC 20 to force, DC 25 Thieves' Tools). It opens for **Orenn's black iron key** (on his body — the plain heavy key that fits nothing upstairs) or *Knock*.
+- Mags carries a **matching black iron key** beneath her apron. The two-key arrangement is deliberate: neither partner intended the survivor of a bad night to be locked out of their own lower rooms.
 - **Mags** knows what's down there and expects no one to find it. She reveals the door only under the most extreme trust — see [mags.md](../npc/mags.md). Players who find it themselves take that choice out of her hands, which is exactly the point.
 - **Twinkle**, the household [feyspitter spider](deep-cellar.md#encounter--the-guardian), dens just inside — in the Workroom at the foot of the descent — so sharp-eared PCs may hear dry clicking and the skitter of web beyond the door before they open it.
 

location/deep-cellar.md

@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ The only entrance is the **concealed iron door** in the Upper Cellar (see [cella
 - **DC 15 Investigation** on the north wall behind the barrel racks — the "living rock" there is a cleverly fitted iron door faced with a shell of real stone. A cold draft and a faint drag-scuff on the earth floor give it away.
 - **DC 15 Perception** — the same cold draft, plus the smell (copper, tallow, something animal underneath).
 - **Orenn's keys** (on his body) include a heavy, plain black iron key that fits nothing upstairs. It fits here.
+- **Mags has its mate** on a cord beneath her apron. Either black key opens every keyed lock on this lower level; each lock still retains its listed force, picking, and ward behavior.
 - **Mags** will only reveal it under the most extreme trust (see [mags.md](../npc/mags.md)) — and even then reluctantly. Players who *find it themselves* rob her of the choice, which is very much the point of this track.
 
 The door itself is locked (**Arcane Lock**, DC 20 to force, DC 25 Thieves' Tools; Orenn's black key or *Knock* bypasses it). Behind it: rough steps cut into bedrock, descending.
@@ -107,7 +108,7 @@ The spine of the level: a rough corridor running from the stair-foot down to the
 
 *"You told me we were poor," Mags said once, "so I'd stop worrying." Orenn just smiled. They were never poor. They were careful.*
 
-A low chamber sealed by a banded door under a permanent **Arcane Lock** (Orenn's black key, *Knock*, or *Dispel Magic* vs. DC 17; brute force is DC 25 Strength, and the door is designed to scream — a shriek-ward alerts **[Twinkle](#encounter--the-guardian)** (denned in the Workroom at the stair-foot, up the Cut) and anyone on the Cut). This is where twenty years of "expensive, reliable, discreet" went.
+A low chamber sealed by a banded door under a permanent **Arcane Lock** (either black key, *Knock*, or *Dispel Magic* vs. DC 17; brute force is DC 25 Strength, and the door is designed to scream — a shriek-ward alerts **[Twinkle](#encounter--the-guardian)** (denned in the Workroom at the stair-foot, up the Cut) and anyone on the Cut). This is where twenty years of "expensive, reliable, discreet" went.
 
 > **Read-Aloud: The Vault**
 >
@@ -116,9 +117,9 @@ A low chamber sealed by a banded door under a permanent **Arcane Lock** (Orenn's
 > *Je to poklad člověka, který nikdy neutrácel — protože nikdy nevěřil, že válka opravdu skončila.*
 
 ### Wealth
-- **1,400 gp** in mixed coin across three locked chests (DC 13 Thieves' Tools each, or the black key).
+- **1,400 gp** in mixed coin across three locked chests (DC 13 Thieves' Tools each, or either black key).
 - A velvet roll of **cut gemstones** worth **900 gp** total (six stones, 150 gp each — easy to split, easy to steal a couple unnoticed: a Personal-Goal hook, see [character-secrets](../handouts/character-secrets.md)).
-- A deed-box: **two more deeds** (a warehouse on Popelová Alley, a shuttered chandlery) and letters of credit with a moneylender — proof the "just a barkeep" story was always a story.
+- A deed-box: **two more deeds** (a warehouse on Popelová Alley, a shuttered chandlery), letters of credit with a moneylender, and Orenn's **duplicate coded debt-ledger**. The ledger repeats the live names and balances from the small journal under the bar; this is the second book sought by the Debtor and Collector dossiers. The documents prove the "just a barkeep" story was always a story.
 
 > **DM note — preserve the upstairs beat.** The modest lockbox in Orenn & Mags's bedroom (150 gp, the deed, the two silver rings, *"It's just a life"*) still stands. The contrast **is** the character work: the sentimental front upstairs, the buried fortune down here. Don't collapse one into the other. Mags never spent the vault. It was for a war she never stopped expecting.
 
@@ -137,13 +138,14 @@ On a shelf, labeled in Mags's block letters — souvenirs kept the way soldiers
 - A **shattered summoning horn**, scorched. Label: *"the sewer thing, '01. never again."*
 - A **child's shoe**, clean, kept apart from everything else. **No label.** (Say nothing. Let it sit. Insight tells a player this is the one thing in the room that hurt them.)
 - A row of small glass jars, each holding a **pinch of grey ash** and a slip of paper with a name and a date. Fiends they burned. The most recent jar is **empty, waiting, labeled only with a question mark** — Orenn expected one more.
+- **If the Mourner dossier is in play:** one named ash jar, the child's shoe, or a case envelope beside them also holds the loved one's specific **memento** (ring, badge, ribbon, letter, or other small keepsake chosen to fit that PC). It replaces an anonymous trophy rather than adding unrelated treasure; the Guest can identify exactly how it came here.
 - **DC 14 Investigation:** one trophy — a guild-style garrote with a jade bead — matches the [House of Scales](../storylines/house-of-scales.md); another, a bronze pin, belongs to the **Order of Mending** (like the one in the private room). The couple's "problems we solved" included people from *both* factions currently sitting upstairs. If that ever comes out, the lockdown gets much more dangerous.
 
 ---
 
 ## The Cells
 
-Two cells cut side by side, iron-barred, fitted with the runed nails and a warded lock (DC 15 Thieves' Tools; the warding adds a jolt — 1d4 force to a failed pick). This is the ugliest truth of the level: Orenn and Mags didn't just kill things. Sometimes they *kept* them.
+Two cells cut side by side, iron-barred, fitted with the runed nails and a warded lock (either black key; otherwise DC 15 Thieves' Tools, with a 1d4 force jolt on a failed pick). This is the ugliest truth of the level: Orenn and Mags didn't just kill things. Sometimes they *kept* them.
 
 ### Cell One — The Guest
 
@@ -151,7 +153,7 @@ Two cells cut side by side, iron-barred, fitted with the runed nails and a warde
 
 Short version for the DM: the Guest is the beating heart of "they still have something going on." It's alive, lucid, a fluent liar, and it knows more about Orenn, Mags, *and the Order of Mending* than anyone the players have met — because Orenn used it to spy on the cult. It has also spent weeks speaking to Xarrul through the walls, helped the fiend choose Orenn, and proposed exchanging its body for Astral survival. Xarrul promised never to kill the Guest, making forced Hollowing of the changeling impossible, and accepted one further term: it may kill Orenn but nobody else until the exchange finishes. Xarrul answers that leash by provoking mortals to kill one another. If the Guest dies, the exchange becomes impossible, the restraint lifts, and its killer becomes Xarrul's first replacement target. The Guest intends to betray the bargain with the party's help, take Xarrul's power, lure Mags into Cell One and keep the Inn wearing her face. Freeing, killing or trusting it determines whether [the Vacancy](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy) or [Hollowing](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-h-the-hollowing) occurs. Read its file before running this room.
 
-**The lower alarm.** The cell's runed nails, concealed-door ward and Twinkle's anchor web form a crude warning system keyed to the black iron key. Forced movement of a living creature across Cell One's threshold, or Xarrul opening the cell from the Ethereal side, turns the key cold against Mags's body and makes Twinkle hammer the Workroom wall with its forelegs. The alarm gives direction, not identity. Haddon can recognize it as the start of a vessel-working; Mags will not explain the level or allow the cultists below.
+**The lower alarm.** The cell's runed nails, concealed-door ward and Twinkle's anchor web form a crude warning system keyed to the pair of black iron keys. Forced movement of a living creature across Cell One's threshold, or Xarrul opening the cell from the Ethereal side, turns **both keys cold**—Orenn's key on his body or whoever took it, and Mags's matching key beneath her apron—and makes Twinkle hammer the Workroom wall with its forelegs. The alarm gives direction, not identity. Haddon can recognize it as the start of a vessel-working; Mags will not explain the level or allow the cultists below.
 
 > **Read-Aloud: Cell One**
 >
@@ -159,6 +161,8 @@ Short version for the DM: the Guest is the beating heart of "they still have som
 >
 > *"No konečně," řekne. "Začínal jsem mít strach, že na mě zapomněli."*
 
+**Furnishings and confiscated effects:** The cell contains a straw pallet, two blankets, a covered waste bucket, a clay water jug, a wooden bowl and spoon, and three dog-eared books with their spines removed. On a hook outside the bars is a small locked effects box (either black key; otherwise DC 15 Thieves' Tools). It holds the Guest's old signet, a lock of hair tied in five colors, two false identity papers, and a thumb-vial of preserved **face-oil** used in its former trade. Orenn and Mags kept these outside the cell as leverage, not comfort. If the Executioner dossier is in use, this vial is its stated shapeshifter's keepsake; otherwise it is unsettling evidence with no additional mechanical effect.
+
 **The conversation stain.** A character physically present in the Ethereal Plane, under Oil of Etherealness or comparable planar travel, sees hair-thin amber lines caught around the bars, running down the corridor toward the thin point. They do not resemble claw marks or an attempted breach; they gather at head height, where two people might stand to speak. **DC 15 Arcana or Insight:** the fiend has visited this cell repeatedly, and the prisoner was not merely being hunted. They communicated. The Guest answers a direct question truthfully—*„Nabídl mi cestu, za kterou žádná klec nedosáhne”*—while omitting the bargain's terms.
 
 ### Cell Two — The Long Dead
@@ -195,8 +199,8 @@ This is the other half of "still something going on." The couple never stopped b
 ### Loot & Craft
 - **2 flasks of Alchemist's Fire**, **1 vial of Basic Poison** (×3 applications), **Antitoxin** (×2).
 - A sealed **summoner's binding coffer** containing silver wire, preserved lethe-marrow, ritual fat, grave salt, a blank true-name strip, a folded page describing the [rebinding ritual](../prints/xarrul-obrad-opetovne-vazby.md), and the silver-threaded [Litany of the Averted Step](../prints/litanie-odvraceneho-kroku.md). The Litany unfolds into two matched leaves whose ink moves around Xarrul's old binding scar. Together, these are one complete set of components for [rebinding Xarrul](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-b-the-rebinding). Orenn kept it as evidence and an emergency measure, not merchandise.
-- **2 doses of harvested feyspitter venom** in stoppered vials on the milking rack — and more can be drawn from Twinkle (DC 13 with a poisoner's kit; safely from the living spider only if it's calmed or restrained, freely from a dead one). A proficient character can brew a dose during the lockdown (1 hour, DC 13) into **either**: a single-use **Blink Draught** (as a reaction when you take damage, teleport up to 15 ft. to a space you can see), **or** an **injury poison** (DC 14 CON save or 2d8 poison damage and the target is shunted 15 ft. to a random open space — the spider's own lurching venom, bottled).
-- A partially-finished batch of **warding chalk (1 use)** and enough materia for a proficient character (Herbalism Kit / Alchemist's Supplies / Poisoner's Kit) to brew **one more dose of any of the above during the lockdown** (1 hour, DC 13 with the right tools). Rewards a crafter PC with something to *do*.
+- **2 doses of harvested feyspitter venom** in stoppered vials on the milking rack — and more can be drawn from Twinkle (DC 13 with a poisoner's kit; safely from the living spider only if it's calmed or restrained, freely from a dead one). A proficient character can brew a dose during the lockdown (1 hour, DC 13) into **either**: a single-use **Misty Escape potion** (as a reaction when you take damage, teleport up to 15 ft. to a space you can see), **or** an **poison** (DC 14 CON save or 2d8 poison damage and the target is shunted 15 ft. to a random open space — the spider's own lurching venom, bottled).
+- A partially-finished batch of **warding chalk (1 use)** and enough general materia for a proficient character (Herbalism Kit / Alchemist's Supplies / Poisoner's Kit) to finish **one additional item from the ordinary alchemical stock above**—Alchemist's Fire, Basic Poison, or Antitoxin—during the lockdown (1 hour, DC 13 with the right tools). Feyspitter venom can instead be converted using its own rule in the previous bullet; the ritual coffer and Ethereal supplies cannot be duplicated from this stock.
 - **Silvervein root** (the ward-herb, ×4 sprigs) — matters for weakening [Skein](../storylines/possession.md) and helping Bren. A direct bridge from the exploration track into the possession subplot.
 - **Trap:** the drawer of finished poisons is needle-trapped (DC 13 Investigation to spot, DC 12 Thieves' Tools to disarm; 1d6 poison + DC 12 CON or poisoned 1 hour). Orenn and Mags didn't want their own stock lifted.
 
@@ -237,10 +241,12 @@ The deepest chamber, a sealed cul-de-sac at the very bottom of the Cut — reach
 >
 > *Za dveřmi je zima, která nemá co dělat s teplotou. Místnost je malá a kulatá a uprostřed podlahy je… trhlina. Ne ve skále. Ve vzduchu. Ve světě. Svislá jizva dlouhá jako člověk, po okrajích roztřepená, a skrze ni prosvítá šeď — plochá, nekonečná, špatná šeď éterické roviny. Kolem trhliny je do podlahy vyryt kruh znaků, stříbrem a solí, a ten kruh svítí slabě a unaveně, jako někdo, kdo drží dveře zavřené už příliš dlouho.*
 >
-> *Něco se na druhé straně pohne. A pak ještě něco. Trhlina je čím dál větší — a poprvé za patnáct let ji nikdo nehlídá.*
+> *Něco se na druhé straně pohne. A pak ještě něco. Trhlina je čím dál větší — a nikdo ji nehlídal celých patnáct let.*
 
 ### What It Is
-This chamber is the tavern's **thin point**: the one place where the natural planar fault has torn into an actual **rift**. Thin point, tear, and rift are different descriptions of the same hand-thin breach. It **was contained decades ago** with a **silver-and-salt containment circle** (the summoners' work, or the specialist who closed their mess; distinct from the *binding* circle upstairs). Orenn and Mags inherited it sealed and left it alone, re-tracing the chalk by rote without ever understanding it. The circle is **failing now**—Xarrul spent weeks weakening it from the Ethereal side and charging the Stored Incursion used to kill Orenn. Once the lockdown begins, Xarrul has already crossed into the sealed Material interior; it does not need to tend progress here. The room matters because it contains the Guest, the countermeasures, the compact's evidence, and the single midnight site where Xarrul must surrender its Jaunt to become embodied. This is also the **source** of the ethereal bleed everyone's been feeling, and the reason the whole district around the house has felt *wrong.*
+This chamber is the tavern's **thin point**: the one place where the natural planar fault has torn into an actual **rift**. Thin point, tear, and rift are different descriptions of the same hand-thin breach. It **was contained decades ago** with a **silver-and-salt containment circle** (the summoners' work, or the specialist who closed their mess; distinct from the *binding* circle upstairs). Orenn and Mags inherited it sealed, barred the door, and treated it as a closed case; they never learned enough to renew the working. The circle is **failing now**—Xarrul spent weeks weakening it from the Ethereal side and charging the Stored Incursion used to kill Orenn. Once the lockdown begins, Xarrul has already crossed into the sealed Material interior; it does not need to tend progress here. The room itself contains the breach and the single midnight site where Xarrul must surrender its Jaunt to become embodied; the **lower level around it** contains the Guest, countermeasures, and compact evidence. This is also the **source** of the ethereal bleed everyone's been feeling, and the reason the whole district around the house has felt *wrong.*
+
+**What remains in the room:** A wall niche holds the original summoners' maintenance kit: a silver scraper, a stiff brush, a cracked salt crock, two cold tallow candles, and an empty spool for silver wire. Everything is furred with fifteen years of dust. The kit explains how the old circle was once serviced without implying that Orenn and Mags understood or maintained it; only the scraper (worth 5 gp as silver) has mundane value.
 
 - **DC 14 Arcana:** the containment circle is the same craft as the upstairs work but older, and it's being eroded from the ethereal side — the same claw-marks that are siphoning the sigils upstairs.
 - **DC 16 Arcana:** there is no second thin point upstairs. The ward-lines visible across both cellar levels all descend to this breach. The upper binding circle is a cage for a creature; this containment circle is the cork around the hole.

location/main-hall.md

@@ -8,8 +8,14 @@ The heart of the Nether Inn. A single large room with a low ceiling, stone floor
 
 A massive slab of darkwood, scarred by decades of knife marks, spilled drinks, and at least one axe blow that's been sanded down but never quite disappeared. Behind it: shelves of unlabeled bottles, a few labeled ones nobody orders, and a collection of confiscated weapons mounted on the wall like trophies.
 
+The working side is a real bar, not an armory display: two tapped casks, clean and dirty cups in separate racks, a water bucket, wiping cloths, a cash bowl with 18 sp and 43 cp, a jar of pipe spills, a tinderbox, and a ledger of ordinary food-and-drink tabs. None of these mundane accounts duplicates Orenn's coded debt-journal.
+
 **Orenn's body** lies behind the bar on the stone floor. He fell backward — whatever killed him came from the front, but nobody in the brawl was close enough, and the hall was black when it happened (Rennt's Thunderwave had just snuffed the candles). He's bruised and bleeding from a knock taken wading into the brawl — a **decoy**; that wound didn't kill him. See [Murder Mystery](../storylines/murder-mystery.md) for details.
 
+**On Orenn's person:** A search finds his ordinary tavern keys, 12 gp and 8 sp, a plain silver ring, and two objects that matter tonight: the [silver mirror](../npc/orenn.md#orenns-silver-mirror) in his breast pocket and a heavy **black iron key** that is the master key for the [concealed Deep Cellar door](cellar.md#the-concealed-door), Vault, and lower cells. The mirror is found automatically by anyone examining the body; locating the unfamiliar key among the others requires DC 12 Investigation, or is automatic if the body is thoroughly looted.
+
+**House ward implements:** The fist-sized **ward-crystal** sits openly on the shelf above the bar until Mags shatters it. A short brass **ward-focus** rests in clips beneath that shelf; speaking its house-word lights or extinguishes the Inn's ordinary lamps and candles. Neither is portable treasure: the crystal discharges once, and the focus works only inside the Nether Inn.
+
 **Hidden:** Under the bar is a recessed shelf with:
 - A loaded hand crossbow (Orenn's insurance, DC 13 Investigation)
 - A flask of **Sovereign Glue** (for situations that needed permanent solutions)
@@ -63,6 +69,7 @@ After the brawl, the center of the room is a mess:
 - Broken glass and pottery
 - A few blood spatters (non-lethal injuries from the brawl — DC 12 Medicine confirms these are from fists and thrown objects, nothing matches how Orenn died)
 - One cultist's book, kicked under a table, open to a page about **binding circles** (DC 14 Arcana reveals it's specifically about binding fiends)
+- **Dace's ritual-marked dagger**, lying in the debris just outside the bar where it was kicked during the brawl. Its edge carries **Essence of Ether**, not blood; DC 12 Medicine or Poisoner's Kit identifies the sleeping poison, and the wound does not match Orenn's death. Dace claims it was torn from his belt in the crush. He is telling the truth about losing it and lying about why an assassin's blade bears Order markings.
 
 ## Read-Aloud: After the Brawl
 

location/tavern-overview.md

@@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ The noise level before the brawl is a low murmur punctuated by occasional harsh
 ```
                     ┌──────────────────────────────────┐
                     │          UPPER FLOOR              │
-                    │     (Orenn & Mags quarters)       │
+                    │  Orenn & Mags │ Wick's spare room │
                     │        [locked, private]          │
                     └──────────────────────────────────┘
 
@@ -75,7 +75,7 @@ The noise level before the brawl is a low murmur punctuated by occasional harsh
 │   Table]       [Center tables,                  │            │
 │                 stools, debris]        ┌────────┴────────┐   │
 │  [Curtained                            │ Door to Kitchen │   │
-│   Booth]       [Cellar stairs]         └────────┬────────┘   │
+│   Booth]       [PC / center tables]    └────────┬────────┘   │
 │                                                 │            │
 │  ┌──────┐                              ┌────────┴────────┐   │
 │  │ENTRY │                              │   BACK ROOMS    │   │

npc/assassins.md

@@ -139,7 +139,7 @@ If the players bring her **proof of the rot** (the soulcoin, a marked victim, Th
 ### Actions
 
 **Shortsword.** +6 to hit, 1d6+3 piercing.
-**Dagger (concealed).** +6 to hit, 1d4+3 piercing. Coated with **Essence of Ether** (DC 13 CON save or fall unconscious for 1 minute).
+**Dagger (concealed).** +6 to hit, 1d4+3 piercing. Coated with **Essence of Ether** (DC 13 CON save or fall unconscious for 1 minute). Dace began the night with two: his ritual-marked belt dagger was torn loose and kicked near Orenn's body during the brawl; he retains a smaller sleeve blade with the same poison. If he recovers the first, it is the one he draws openly.
 
 ### Appearance & Personality
 

npc/mags.md

@@ -32,6 +32,8 @@
 
 **Emergency reserve.** A flat metal vial beneath Mags's apron holds **one dose of Oil of Etherealness**. This is not part of the three field doses. She kept it on her for an extraction that never came and will surrender it only after accepting that the threat is Ethereal and that a specific person needs to cross. Applying it still takes 10 minutes, so neither Mags nor a looter can turn it into a reaction after Xarrul appears.
 
+**Lower key.** A heavy **black iron key** hangs on a cord beside the reserve vial. It is the mate of Orenn's and is the master key for the concealed Deep Cellar door, Vault, and lower cells. The paired lower alarm makes both keys turn cold when Cell One's threshold is breached.
+
 ### Reactions
 
 **Parry.** Mags adds 3 to her AC against one melee attack that would hit her.
@@ -153,9 +155,9 @@ She will not fight alongside the players unless the fiend manifests in the Mater
 
 When the exterior shell lapses, Mags still physically bars the front door until somebody has been made answerable for Orenn. Ordinary patrons may leave only after she accepts a culprit or the room overwhelms her authority. She never knowingly releases Xarrul; this is why an allied party must frame someone, isolate her or replace her authority rather than merely wait for midnight.
 
-**If someone disappears:** the disturbed lower ward and Twinkle's web make the black key go cold against Mags's hip. Haddon can tell that Xarrul is seeking a vessel, but Mags will not admit the Deep Cellar exists or allow the cultists into it. She takes the key and goes alone. Unless the party follows or stops her, Xarrul kills her before beginning the Hollowing.
+**If someone disappears:** the disturbed lower ward and Twinkle's web make Mags's matching black key go cold against her hip (and do the same to Orenn's key wherever it is). Haddon can tell that Xarrul is seeking a vessel, but Mags will not admit the Deep Cellar exists or allow the cultists into it. She takes her key and goes alone. Unless the party follows or stops her, Xarrul kills her before beginning the Hollowing.
 
-**If the [Vacancy](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy) resolves:** if Xarrul takes the changeling body in front of her, Mags attacks Orenn's murderer. If the Guest returns empowered, it avoids that confrontation: it uses Orenn's voice to lure her to the cellar, ambushes her, puts her in Cell One and goes upstairs wearing her face. PCs can expose the false Mags by following, noticing the missing black key, testing a private memory or revealing a shapechanger.
+**If the [Vacancy](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy) resolves:** if Xarrul takes the changeling body in front of her, Mags attacks Orenn's murderer. If the Guest returns empowered, it avoids that confrontation: it uses Orenn's voice to lure her to the cellar, ambushes her, puts her in Cell One and goes upstairs wearing her face. PCs can expose the false Mags by following, noticing that it failed to take Mags's matching black key, checking who still holds Orenn's copy, testing a private memory or revealing a shapechanger.
 
 **If Xarrul is destroyed Ethereally:** Mags sees the Brand of Spite finally leave Orenn's body. If Xarrul is bound instead, she treats the surviving brand as proof that containment is not justice and watches whoever controls the chains.
 

npc/orenn.md

@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ He believed in rules not because he was lawful but because rules were the only t
 - Remembered every face and every debt
 - Treated Mags as an equal in every sense
 - Was investigating the Order of Mending quietly — he suspected they were more than scholars but hadn't uncovered the truth
-- Kept the previous owners' gear and the old seal in the cellar in some kind of order — re-traced the chalk out of closed-case habit, never really understanding it
+- Kept the previous owners' gear and the **upper-cellar binding circle** in some kind of order out of closed-case habit, without understanding the craft. He left the barred Old Work untouched and never monitored the sealed rift behind it.
 - Had a dry sense of humor that surfaced rarely and always caught people off guard
 
 ## Background
@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ He didn't know about Xarrul, and he never connected any of it to the sealed rift
 ## Items on His Person
 
 - A set of **tavern keys** (all rooms, cellar trapdoor, front door)
-- A **plain black iron key**, heavier than the rest, that fits nothing upstairs. It opens the **[concealed door](../location/cellar.md#the-concealed-door)** to the Deep Cellar and the Arcane-locked [Vault](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-vault-treasure-room) below. Anyone who searches the body (DC 12 Investigation, or automatic if they loot him) finds it; recognizing what it opens is the mystery. The Guest, if reached, will happily point at it.
+- A **plain black iron key**, heavier than the rest, that fits nothing upstairs. It is one of a matched pair and opens the **[concealed door](../location/cellar.md#the-concealed-door)** to the Deep Cellar, the Arcane-locked [Vault](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-vault-treasure-room), and the lower cells. Mags carries its mate. Anyone who searches the body (DC 12 Investigation, or automatic if they loot him) finds it; recognizing what it opens is the mystery. The Guest, if reached, will happily point at it.
 - A **silver ring** (plain, matches one in the lockbox upstairs)
 - 12 gp, 8 sp in a belt pouch
 - [**Orenn's silver mirror**](#orenns-silver-mirror), kept in his breast pocket

storylines/complication-toolkit.md

@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ Roll or choose. The entries are deliberately short; fuller versions appear later
 | d20 | Complication |
 |---:|---|
 | 1 | **Thera catches the cellar party returning.** She asks what they found and gently reminds them that Mags owns every secret below. |
-| 2 | **Mags notices the black key is missing.** She closes the kitchen and searches everyone who passed through it. |
+| 2 | **Mags notices Orenn's black key is missing.** She closes the kitchen and searches everyone who handled the body or passed behind the bar. |
 | 3 | **Dace recognizes stolen evidence.** He offers silence in exchange for seeing it first. |
 | 4 | **Haddon recognizes old summoner equipment.** He publicly asks why the party is carrying it and who opened the lower rooms. |
 | 5 | **Sevra demands a chain of custody.** Evidence without a named finder and location will not move the House. |

storylines/murder-mystery.md

@@ -109,6 +109,7 @@ The clues are designed to point at both factions while the truth (the fiend) hid
 | The brawl timing | Witnessed | — | The brawl (started by Kael) provided perfect cover for the murder |
 | Assassin code violation | Conversation with Kael | — | If the guild is willing to brawl in neutral ground, are they willing to kill? |
 | Dace's helpfulness | Social observation | Insight 16 | Dace is too eager to help — steering investigation toward cultists |
+| Dace's ritual-marked dagger | Debris just outside the bar | Medicine or Poisoner's Kit 12 | The blade carries Essence of Ether and Order markings, but no blood; it links Dace to the cult without explaining Orenn's death |
 | Contract dispute motive | Both factions | — | The guild has a financial motive — Orenn's neutral ground protects the cultists too |
 | Mole evidence | Kael, Haddon's journal | — | Someone in the guild is selling kills — how deep does the corruption go? |
 

storylines/natural-progression.md

@@ -207,7 +207,7 @@ The victim vanishes during one of Xarrul's manufactured distractions.
 - The disappearance is noticed.
 - Twinkle's agitation, a disturbed lower ward, or Mags's private alarm confirms that someone entered the Deep Cellar.
 - Haddon knows enough about the building's original containment to understand the direction, but Mags refuses to let the cultists enter her secret operation.
-- She takes the black key and goes alone, intending to retrieve the missing person and keep the cells hidden.
+- She takes her matching black key and goes alone, intending to retrieve the missing person and keep the cells hidden.
 - Xarrul kills her before beginning the Hollowing. It will not risk the owner of the house interrupting the transfer.
 
 ### The Hollowing

storylines/the-reckoning.md

@@ -270,7 +270,7 @@ Counterplay should remain possible:
 
 - A PC follows Mags or refuses to let her go alone.
 - Twinkle or the lower alarm reacts to the wrong scent and movement.
-- The false Mags lacks the black key, gets a private memory wrong or handles Orenn's body without genuine grief.
+- The false Mags may fail to take Mags's matching black key; Orenn's copy may also remain in a PC's known possession. It may instead get a private memory wrong or handle Orenn's body without genuine grief.
 - Mags escapes Cell One or leaves a message in the scratched door.
 - A PC with truesight, Moonbeam or comparable shapechanger detection exposes it.