fixing plotholes, streamlining

npc/mags.md

@@ -30,6 +30,8 @@
 
 **Thrown Knife.** Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d4+4) piercing damage. She carries 4.
 
+**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.
+
 ### Reactions
 
 **Parry.** Mags adds 3 to her AC against one melee attack that would hit her.
@@ -65,8 +67,8 @@ This is Mags's set-piece: the beat that ends the party and cages everyone. Run i
    - *It's universal:* even a non-divine PC stumbling through the rite fails for the same reason. Never let the player think they blew it — tell them OOC it wasn't them, even as Mags snarls something about *useless casters*. In-fiction she's cruel; out-of-fiction you wink.
    - *What it shows:* she carries a resurrection-grade diamond as *jewelry*. She came prepared for someone to die, the way a fixer always is — the first real crack in the "retired barkeep's wife" story, and a hint of the [fixer past](orenn.md#background) she and Orenn buried.
 
-**5. The lockdown.** She takes a fist-sized **ward-crystal** from the shelf above the bar and shatters it on the floor. Every exit slams under an **Arcane Lock until midnight** — front door, cellar trapdoor, shutters. No password lifts it. *She* can't lift it. She's locked in with them, and she did it on purpose. (See [the enchanted door & ward-crystal](../location/tavern-overview.md#the-enchanted-door).)
-   - *DM — the trap she can't see:* the ward-crystal is the old den's **ritual-lockdown stone**, and shattering it does far more than bolt the doors — it starves the last of the leftover containment below and clamps the veil into a crossing-channel. It is the one thing Xarrul still needed, and it engineered the murder precisely so Mags would break it. She thinks she's building a cage; she's finishing the fiend's door, and she has no idea. See [the ward-crystal's true nature](../location/tavern-overview.md#the-enchanted-door) and [Xarrul's plan](xarrul.md#the-nights-clock--presence--escalation). This seeds the late gut-punch: the lockdown she triggered to protect everyone is what lets Xarrul cross.
+**5. The lockdown.** She takes a fist-sized **ward-crystal** from the shelf above the bar and shatters it on the floor. Every exterior opening seals until midnight—front door, shutters and any route outside. The cellar trapdoor remains accessible to her own key. No password lifts the exterior shell. *She* cannot reopen it, and she locked herself in on purpose. (See [the enchanted door & ward-crystal](../location/tavern-overview.md#the-enchanted-door).)
+   - *DM — the trap she can't see:* the ward-crystal is the old den's **ritual-lockdown stone**, and shattering it does far more than bolt the doors. It withdraws power from the internal planar seals and throws that power around every exterior version of the house. It is the one thing Xarrul still needed, and it engineered the murder precisely so Mags would break it. She thinks she is only building a cage; she also opens its inner door. Xarrul crosses fully into the Material interior and regains Ethereal Jaunt, but remains trapped with everyone else until midnight. See [the ward-crystal's true nature](../location/tavern-overview.md#the-enchanted-door) and [Xarrul's plan](xarrul.md#the-nights-clock--presence--escalation).
 
 **6. The ultimatum.** Find her the killer by midnight, or every one of them is tomorrow's stew. No one in the room doubts she means it — that's what matters, whether or not it's literally true. Then she goes to Orenn's body and grieves, quietly, and does not stop working the problem for a second.
 
@@ -94,9 +96,9 @@ She is direct, blunt, and has no patience for lies. She can tell when someone is
 
 ## The Warden's Mark (DM)
 
-Mags carries a **dormant [Brand of Spite](xarrul.md#actions)** over her heart — the same hand-shaped mark that killed Orenn, only fainter and cold. Xarrul branded them both. It killed Orenn — the calmer one, who might not have reached for the panic button — and *kept Mags in reserve*, because it **needed her alive**: she is the one who seals the house (see [the lockdown](#act-2--the-reveal-dm)), and a living, grieving Mags holds the room in line while the fiend finishes its work. Two murdered keepers at once would have raised the alarm too soon. **She knows about the mark.** She has felt the cold hand on her chest for weeks, told no one — not even Orenn — and it is part of why she is so fatalistic. When she says *"Orenn and I could have taken it. One of us isn't here,"* the truth underneath is that she no longer believes she is a whole one of herself.
+Mags carries a dormant **Warden's Mark** over her heart — a ward-scar Xarrul left during an earlier Stored Incursion. It resembles the hand-shaped [Brand of Spite](xarrul.md#actions), but it is mechanically distinct and does not violate the combat Brand's one-target limit. Xarrul killed Orenn—the calmer keeper, who might not have reached for the panic button—and *kept Mags in reserve* because it **needed her alive** to seal the house and hold the room in line. The scar can incapacitate but not kill her, preserving Xarrul's compact with the Guest. **She knows about the mark.** She has felt the cold hand on her chest for weeks, told no one—not even Orenn—and it is part of why she is so fatalistic. When she says *"Orenn and I could have taken it. One of us isn't here,"* the truth underneath is that she no longer believes she is a whole one of herself.
 
-**Discovery (a mid-game presence beat):** the players can find the mark through [Orenn's silver mirror](orenn.md#items-on-his-person) (the distortion sits over her heart, like the thin point), a DC 14 Medicine or DC 15 Arcana check up close, or Bren reacting to it. It tells them, without a word, that Xarrul is already *inside* the house — inside *her*.
+**Discovery (a mid-game presence beat):** the players can find the mark with a DC 14 Medicine or DC 15 Arcana check up close, or by following Bren's reaction to it. It tells them, without a word, that Xarrul is already *inside* the house — inside *her*.
 
 ### The Compromised Statline (Finale)
 
@@ -105,11 +107,11 @@ Full-power Mags (AC 16, 65 HP, two attacks at +8) will either solo Xarrul or ste
 - **HP 39** (she has been bleeding vitality to the brand for weeks).
 - **Disadvantage on attack rolls** — she is fighting through a waking nightmare (Orenn's death; or the unlabeled child's shoe from the Vault).
 - At the start of each of her turns, **DC 15 Wisdom save or she loses her action**, frozen in the vision. *(This is the exact mechanism that killed [Orenn](orenn.md#how-he-died).)*
-- *Remove Curse*, *Greater Restoration*, or killing Xarrul ends it and restores her to full.
+- *Remove Curse*, *Greater Restoration*, or killing Xarrul ends the ward-scar and restores her to full.
 
 **Use it both ways:**
 - **Party opposes Xarrul:** the trigger is a crisis — their heaviest hitter drops out, and clearing her brand becomes a priority mid-fight.
-- **Party sides with Xarrul ([The Open Door](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-f-the-open-door-joining-xarrul)):** the trigger is the alliance's first favor — Xarrul sidelines her *for* the party, and they watch it do to Mags exactly what it did to Orenn. The finale becomes a desperate **holding action** against a grief-broken, half-frozen Mags rather than a slugfest: winnable, tragic, and *the players'* to win, not hers.
+- **Party sides with Xarrul ([Scenario F](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-f-deliberately-side-with-xarrul)):** the trigger can create a brief opening to isolate or restrain her. If Xarrul does this publicly, everyone sees the party accept the same attack that killed Orenn; the main hall turns against them. The successful alliance path is quiet neutralization, a convincing frame or enough political support to leave Mags isolated.
 
 If a table needs a bigger fight on the join path, add **Sevra** at Mags's side rather than inflating Mags's numbers.
 
@@ -134,6 +136,7 @@ If a table needs a bigger fight on the join path, add **Sevra** at Mags's side r
 - The summoners' binding circle in the cellar — she knows it *caged* the things they called, not how to work it
 - Her assessment of whether the fiend can be beaten ("Orenn and I could have taken it. Orenn and I. One of us isn't here anymore.") — bravado worn as certainty; she needs it to be true
 - The Oil of Etherealness in the bedroom
+- The reserve vial beneath her apron; she gives this one up only when the party has a concrete far-side role and the bedroom dose is lost, spent or inaccessible
 
 **Will never volunteer — but the players may find it themselves (and probably will, if they explore):**
 - The **[concealed door](../location/cellar.md#the-concealed-door)** in the cellar and everything behind it — the **[Deep Cellar](../location/deep-cellar.md)**: the Vault, the laboratory, the caged **[Guest](the-guest.md)**, the corpse in the second cell, and the failing rift. This is the couple's real, ongoing operation, and Mags assumes no one alive but her knows it exists. If the players surface any of it — the fortune, the prisoner, the trophies implicating patrons upstairs — she doesn't lie, but she goes very still, and what she says next is some of the rawest honesty in the module (see Relationships). In the direst circumstances she may *send* them down for the [Veilhook Salt](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-fixers-arsenal) or silvervein root, handing over the black key with the flat instruction: *"Take what you need. Don't touch the cages. And whatever you find down there — it doesn't change tonight."*
@@ -144,11 +147,17 @@ Mags is the emotional anchor and the gatekeeper. She controls access to the tave
 
 She will not fight alongside the players unless the fiend manifests in the Material Plane inside the tavern. Then all bets are off. The retirement ends and the fixer comes back — and a fixer's answer to a problem is to end it.
 
-**If the players side *with* the fiend:** she becomes the obstacle between them and its crossing — see [The Warden's Mark](#the-wardens-mark-dm) for how to run that fight so the *players*, not Mags, decide the night.
+**If the players side *with* the fiend:** she becomes the obstacle between them and its midnight embodiment and escape—see [The Warden's Mark](#the-wardens-mark-dm) for how to run that fight so the *players*, not Mags, decide the night.
 
-**If the [Vacancy](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy-the-guests-gambit) resolves:** Mags initiates the aftermath in either branch. If Xarrul takes the changeling body, she attacks Orenn's murderer before it can leave, even while the new spectral Host turns the Inn's wards against her. If the Guest destroys Xarrul and returns empowered, she refuses its demand for the Inn. She will confess the cage, pay restitution, or let it walk; she will not hand it another cage with everyone upstairs inside.
+**At midnight if nobody intervenes:** Mags is busy containing the faction war. Xarrul's compact prevents it from killing again before the exchange, but does not protect patrons from one another. Xarrul opens Cell One from below without using her keys, so she has no ordinary reason to inspect the secret level before the Vacancy. If the transfer was witnessed and changeling-bodied Xarrul enters the hall openly, cultist recognition—not Mags's cellar knowledge—reveals what happened. If it remained secret, Xarrul takes an innocuous face and attempts to leave among the released patrons.
 
-**If the players fail or choose not to confront the fiend:** Mags will hunt it herself after the session ends. She'll probably die. She doesn't care.
+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 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 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.
 
 ## Relationships