fixing plotholes, streamlining

npc/xarrul.md

@@ -6,15 +6,15 @@
 
 ## Overview
 
-Xarrul is an ancient, cunning fiend — not a brute, not a conqueror. A manipulator. A patient intelligence that has survived for centuries by being smarter than the things that summoned it. The Order of Mending bound it and sent it to infiltrate the House of Scales, rewrite the custodians' memories, and steal the Severance Nail from the inner archive. The archive's automatic Final Closure severed its command binding. Xarrul shifted into the Border Ethereal at the instant it should have been dismissed and caught itself there. The House thought it banished; most of the Order still thinks it controlled but unreachable. Xarrul is free, and only Essek has correctly understood that fact.
+Xarrul is an ancient, cunning fiend — not a brute, not a conqueror. A manipulator. A patient intelligence that has survived for centuries by being smarter than the things that summoned it. It is native to the Border Ethereal: the Order of Mending bound it across the veil and sent it to infiltrate the House of Scales, rewrite the custodians' memories, and steal the Severance Nail from the inner archive. The archive's automatic Final Closure severed its command binding. Xarrul slipped home into the Border Ethereal before the severance could drag its power away with the broken command. The House thought it banished and gone; most of the Order still thinks it controlled but unreachable. Xarrul is free, and only Essek has correctly understood that fact.
 
 For all those centuries, Xarrul has never once been *real*. It has been summoned, bound, sent on errands, and dismissed — a whisper behind the glass, a borrowed claw, watching mortal life the way you watch a fire through a window: close enough to feel nothing. It does not want power or conquest. It wants to stand on the *other side* of the glass — to stop being a thing that is called, and become a thing that lives here.
 
-The Nether Inn is its chance. The tavern sits on a natural thin point — a fault the building's old owners, a den of summoners, once tore half-open before Orenn and Mags cleaned them out and left the breach sealed. Xarrul chose this fault off the cult's map precisely because it was already worked thin, and because the deepest chamber is a hidden, forgotten place to labour undisturbed. For weeks it has been prying that old seal open from the Ethereal side — and speaking through the stone to the changeling caged nearby. A leaky, open house let its crossing dissipate, so it needed one thing more: the house sealed shut around it, into a closed vessel it could finish crossing inside. The Guest supplied the local certainty: kill cautious Orenn and grieving Mags would break the summoners' emergency lockstone. Xarrul chose the target, performed the killing and received exactly the door it needed. Everything since (the framing, the whispers, the faction blood) is not spite. It is *cover*: keep everyone too busy killing each other to notice what the lockdown really did, or to interfere before midnight.
+The Nether Inn is its chance. The tavern sits on a natural thin point — a fault the building's old owners, a den of summoners, once tore half-open before Orenn and Mags cleaned them out and left the breach sealed. Xarrul chose this fault off the cult's map precisely because it was already worked thin. For weeks it weakened the old seal from the Ethereal side, stored enough force for one brief Material incursion, and spoke through the stone to the changeling caged nearby. The Guest supplied the local certainty: kill cautious Orenn, and grieving Mags would break the summoners' emergency lockstone. Xarrul spent its stored incursion on the murder and received exactly the reaction it needed. The lockstone pulled the internal wards away from the tear and threw them around the exterior, letting Xarrul cross fully into the Material interior while trapping it—and everyone else—inside. Everything since is cover: keep dangerous hands away from the Guest and the Old Work until midnight opens the brief Vacancy window.
 
-It is intelligent, patient, and — beneath the amusement — genuinely monstrous. But it does not lie. In a house where everyone is hiding something, Xarrul tells the plain truth about what it is and what it wants. That is what makes it dangerous, and it is what makes *siding* with it possible (see [Scenario F: The Open Door](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-f-the-open-door-joining-xarrul)).
+It is intelligent, patient, and — beneath the amusement — genuinely monstrous. But it does not lie. In a house where everyone is hiding something, Xarrul tells the plain truth about what it is and what it wants. That is what makes it dangerous, and it is what makes *siding* with it possible (see [Scenario F](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-f-deliberately-side-with-xarrul)).
 
-It also knows what happened to **Nessa**. Dalla's blood did not merely hold Xarrul; it carried energy siphoned through her from the child's trapped projection. From inside that bond, Xarrul felt the direction of Nessa's silver cord and learned how Vyre's planar scar holds it. It could follow that path, unwind the scar, and guide Nessa home—but not while the Nether Inn is sealed across every plane. Nessa is elsewhere in the Border Ethereal, outside the lockdown. Xarrul must escape or complete its crossing first. This makes Dalla its strongest potential ally.
+It also knows what happened to **Nessa**. Dalla's blood did not merely hold Xarrul; it carried energy siphoned through her from the child's trapped projection. From inside that bond, Xarrul felt the direction of Nessa's silver cord and learned how Vyre's planar scar holds it. It could follow that path, unwind the scar, and guide Nessa home—but not while the Nether Inn is sealed across every plane. Nessa is elsewhere in the Border Ethereal, outside the lockdown. Xarrul must become embodied and escape first. This makes Dalla its strongest potential ally.
 
 ## Stat Block
 
@@ -36,7 +36,13 @@ It also knows what happened to **Nessa**. Dalla's blood did not merely hold Xarr
 
 ### Traits
 
-**Ethereal Jaunt.** As a bonus action, Xarrul shifts between the Material Plane and the Ethereal Plane. While ethereal, it can see and hear into the Material Plane (60 ft. range) but cannot affect or be affected by anything on the Material Plane. It appears as a faint, smoky distortion visible only to creatures with truesight, See Invisibility, or Veil Dust.
+**Ethereal Jaunt (After Lockdown Begins).** Once the ward-crystal has been shattered, Xarrul regains this trait for the rest of the night: as a bonus action, it shifts between the Material and Ethereal planes. While the lockdown holds, it can shift only between the two interiors of the Nether Inn and cannot cross the exterior shell on either plane. Even after the shell lapses, its old planar tether prevents an unembodied Xarrul from moving beyond the Inn's footprint; completing a vessel-working removes that restriction. While ethereal, it can see and hear into the Material Plane (60 ft. range) but cannot physically affect or be affected by anything there. Its telepathy and the projected whisper of Voice Thief are explicit exceptions. It is normally unseen from the Material Plane. *See Invisibility* reveals it as ghostly and translucent; Orenn's silver mirror provides that same sight within its reflection. Truesight reveals it normally, while the iron bell shows only a blurred outline. Before the lockdown, this trait is unavailable; use Stored Incursion instead.
+
+**Ethereal Restoration.** At the start of each of Xarrul's turns while it is on the Ethereal Plane, it regains 1d4 hit points. It cannot exceed its hit point maximum. Outside initiative, use the average of 25 hit points restored per minute unless the exact total matters.
+
+**Deathless Slip.** If Xarrul would die or be reduced to 0 hit points while on the Material Plane, it is reduced to 1 hit point instead and immediately shifts to the corresponding space on the Ethereal Plane, or the nearest unoccupied space there. This shift requires no action or reaction and occurs even if planar travel, teleportation, Ethereal Jaunt or Slip Between is prevented. No effect can suppress or interrupt it. This trait offers no protection on the Ethereal Plane: reducing Xarrul to 0 hit points there destroys it permanently.
+
+**Stored Incursion (Before Lockdown).** Work at the tear lets Xarrul store one brief Material manifestation. Replacing a spent charge requires a full night at the tear, and it can hold only one. When Xarrul releases the charge, it manifests on the Material Plane for three rounds, cannot use Ethereal Jaunt or Slip Between, and is dragged back to the Ethereal Plane at the end of the third round. It spent tonight's charge on Orenn: Brand, Visions, then the killing Multiattack. Before the lockdown its telepathy and projected whispers can cross the weakened veil, but attacks, brands, memory edits, and physical manipulation require this incursion.
 
 **Shadow Cloak.** In dim light or darkness, Xarrul has advantage on Stealth checks and can Hide as a bonus action.
 
@@ -58,7 +64,7 @@ It also knows what happened to **Nessa**. Dalla's blood did not merely hold Xarr
 - Only one creature can be branded at a time. Branding a new target removes the previous brand.
 - The brand lasts until removed by *Remove Curse*, *Greater Restoration*, or the death of Xarrul.
 
-*DM — the stealth brand (out of combat).* This is also how Xarrul marks a victim unseen, and it is meant to be **rolled and resolved in secret.** It picks a moment of cover — darkness, a brawl, a blackout, or reaching from the Ethereal Plane at someone isolated — and rolls to hit against the target's AC without announcing anything. **On a miss,** the ambush shows through for one second: the target glimpses the real thing — a cold hand closing over their chest, a shadow-claw, two points of amber light — and *knows* something reached for them. **On a hit,** say nothing at all. The 2d6 necrotic is real, but you do not narrate a brand or an attack; you fold it straight into a masking **Waking Dream** (below) and keep telling the story. The one thing it cannot disguise is the damage *type*: every covered "accident" in the house tonight leaves a cold, greyish, necrotic wound, and that invariant is the crack investigators pull on. *(In open combat, branding is loud and visible — the mark is meant to be seen, and the kill chain below takes over.)*
+*DM — the stealth brand (out of combat).* This is also how Xarrul marks a victim unseen, and it is meant to be **rolled and resolved in secret.** It picks a moment of cover — darkness, a brawl, a blackout, or an isolated victim beside whom it can briefly manifest — and rolls to hit against the target's AC without announcing anything. **On a miss,** the ambush shows through for one second: the target glimpses the real thing — a cold hand closing over their chest, a shadow-claw, two points of amber light — and *knows* something reached for them. **On a hit,** say nothing at all. The 2d6 necrotic is real, but you do not narrate a brand or an attack; you fold it straight into a masking **Waking Dream** (below) and keep telling the story. The one thing it cannot disguise is the damage *type*: every covered "accident" in the house tonight leaves a cold, greyish, necrotic wound, and that invariant is the crack investigators pull on. *(In open combat, branding is loud and visible — the mark is meant to be seen, and the kill chain below takes over.)*
 
 **Visions of Spite.** *Requires a branded target.* Xarrul forces a branded creature it can see within 30 feet to witness a spiteful vision — a hallucination tailored to the target's deepest fears and shames, channeled through the brand's connection. The target must succeed on a **DC 15 Wisdom saving throw** or take 7 (2d6) psychic damage and be **paralyzed** until the end of its next turn, frozen in the grip of the vision. On a success, the target takes half damage and shakes the vision off. The brand remains on the target regardless.
 
@@ -79,28 +85,28 @@ It also knows what happened to **Nessa**. Dalla's blood did not merely hold Xarr
 
 *Xarrul's round-to-round choice:* Visions costs an action (no Multiattack that round). So each round Xarrul decides — Visions to set up the paralyze, or Multiattack with advantage + extra d6 for consistent pressure. Against a high-WIS party, Xarrul grinds with Multiattack. Against a low-WIS branded target, the kill chain is terrifying.
 
-*This is how Orenn died. Xarrul branded him from the Ethereal Plane, forced a vision of spite into his mind — freezing him in place — then raked him with claws that struck a body incapable of flinching. Against an unsuspecting, unresisting barkeep with no allies to intervene, the full chain collapsed into seconds. In combat, with allies and agency, it's telegraphed and interruptible.*
+*This is how Orenn died. Xarrul spent its Stored Incursion behind him: Brand on the first round, Visions on the second, and the killing Multiattack on the third. As Mags relit the room, the charge collapsed and dragged Xarrul back to the Ethereal Plane. In combat, with allies and agency, the same chain is telegraphed and interruptible.*
 
 **Waking Dream.** *Requires a branded target Xarrul can see (line of sight — it has to be present, which is exactly what sets Bren off; see **The Two Jobs**, below).* Reaching through the brand, Xarrul rewrites the target's memory of the **last minute** — not what it perceives now, but what it *remembers* having just perceived. **No saving throw. No damage.** A save would tip the player off that reality is negotiable; this never does. For an NPC, just play them as though the false memory is true. For a PC, never announce it and never say "think back" — weave the false memory inline with your normal narration, as settled fact, and move on. The edit holds until hard evidence contradicts it or *Remove Curse* / *Greater Restoration* / Xarrul's death lifts it.
 
 - **Cover.** Cast the instant after a stealth Brand to rewrite the branding into a mundane accident — a spark from the fire caught a sleeve, a drink went down wrong, a stumble against a bench. The mark and the necrotic wound remain; the memory of earning them is gone.
-- **Misdirection.** Plant a false memory in a branded witness: they now sincerely *remember* seeing an innocent slip behind the bar, a threat that never happened, a clue that was never there. One branded person, turned into an honest false witness. It can reproduce any entry on the [Veil Dust hallucination table](../storylines/ethereal-trip.md#hallucination-table) as a "memory."
-- **Limits.** Only the branded creature's memory changes — one target at a time, so an *unbranded* witness to the real event contradicts the false one, and it cannot clean a crowded room. The necrotic wound is the seam. And it must be present to cast it.
+- **Misdirection.** Alter something that happened within the immediately preceding minute: whose voice delivered the last accusation, which hand reached toward a weapon, whether the target just saw Haddon pocket a page, or whether a PC's last sentence contained a threat. The target becomes an honest false witness to a fresh event.
+- **Limits.** It cannot reach farther back than sixty seconds, create a memory of the earlier blackout, revise an established alibi or insert a clue into a scene the target did not just witness. Only the branded creature's memory changes, so an unbranded witness contradicts the edit. The necrotic wound remains, and Xarrul must be present to cast it.
 
 *Two tells, always: the **Bren-spike** (a memory was just rewritten near us, right now) and the **necrotic wound + hand-mark** (this person was rewritten at some point tonight). Xarrul can fake everything except death's signature — and that is the crack that lets mortals catch it.*
 
-**Whisper of Ruin (Recharge 6).** Xarrul targets one creature within 30 feet that can hear it. The target must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute and compelled to take a specific action on its next turn (attack a specific ally, drop a weapon, flee toward a designated area). The target can repeat the save at the end of each turn. On a success, the creature is immune for 24 hours.
+**Whisper of Ruin (Recharge 6).** Xarrul targets one creature within 30 feet that can hear it. The target must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute and compelled to take a specific action on its next turn (attack a specific ally, drop a weapon, flee toward a designated area).
 
 ### Reactions
 
 **Slip Between.** When Xarrul takes damage on the Material Plane, it can use its reaction to shift to the Ethereal Plane. It can't use Ethereal Jaunt again until the start of its next turn.
 
-### Lair Actions (In the Cellar, Near the Thin Point)
+### Lair Actions (Anywhere in the Nether Inn)
 
-If confronted near the thin point, Xarrul can use one lair action per round on initiative count 20:
-- **Veil Flicker:** The boundary between planes shudders. Each creature in the cellar must make a DC 13 Wisdom save or be disoriented — disadvantage on attack rolls until initiative 20 of the next round.
+Xarrul's physical lair and nest are at the tear in the Old Work. While the lockdown holds, however, the sealed planar interior carries its influence through the entire house, so it can use one lair action per round on initiative count 20 anywhere in the Nether Inn:
+- **Veil Flicker:** The boundary between planes shudders. Each creature in Xarrul's room or immediate encounter area must make a DC 13 Wisdom save or be disoriented — disadvantage on attack rolls until initiative 20 of the next round.
 - **Ethereal Pull:** One creature must make a DC 14 Charisma save or be partially shifted into the Ethereal Plane until the start of its next turn (it can see both planes but has disadvantage on all attacks and saves).
-- **Shadow Surge:** All light sources in the cellar dim to darkness for 1 round. Xarrul can Hide as part of this action.
+- **Shadow Surge:** All light sources in Xarrul's room or immediate encounter area dim to darkness for 1 round. Xarrul can Hide as part of this action.
 
 ---
 
@@ -112,7 +118,7 @@ Xarrul rarely manifests fully. When it does: a tall, lean humanoid shape made of
 ### Ethereal Plane
 More defined. A gaunt, angular figure with skin like charred paper, cracked with veins of dull orange light. Its face has features here — sharp, aristocratic, with a mouth that curves in a permanent half-smile. Its eyes are fully visible: burning amber, ancient, deeply intelligent. It wears the rags of something that might have been formal clothing centuries ago.
 
-## Read-Aloud: First Sighting (Ethereal Plane, via Veil Dust)
+## Read-Aloud: First Sighting (Ethereal Plane)
 
 > *Vidíte to. V šedém, rozmazaném světě éterické roviny — kde všechno vypadá jako vybledlá fotografie skutečnosti — stojí něco, co tam nepatří. Vysoká postava, vychrtlá, s kůží jako spálený papír popraskanou žilkami tlumeného oranžového světla. Má tvář — ostrou, aristokratickou, s ústy staženými do polovičního úsměvu, který nevyjadřuje radost. Vyjadřuje trpělivost.*
 >
@@ -131,26 +137,30 @@ Xarrul stays in the Ethereal Plane, watches, and stirs trouble. Its cover tools
 It does **not** deliberately agitate Skein to rattle Bren — that backfires (an agitated Skein is a distracted one that loosens its grip and lets Bren surface). It wants Skein calm and Bren silent; see **Skein — a Tool, Not an Ally**, below.
 
 ### When Confronted
-- **First priority:** Not getting trapped. It will use Slip Between and Ethereal Jaunt aggressively to avoid being pinned on one plane.
+- **Respect the compact:** Before the Vacancy finishes, use the lethal rotation only against someone knowingly trying to bind, banish, or destroy Xarrul. Against investigators or trespassers it frightens, paralyzes, misdirects, and withdraws rather than delivering a killing blow. Whisper of Ruin may compel a drop, retreat, shove, or nonlethal strike, not a disguised execution.
+- **First priority:** Never let enemies cover both planes cleanly. Against Material-only attackers it slips Ethereal, regenerates and returns elsewhere. Against Ethereal-only attackers it jaunts Material. If the party splits, it attacks the weaker side, disrupts readied actions and tries to force the oil-user or salt-carrier out of position.
 - **Second priority:** Turn the room against the players. Whisper of Ruin on the strongest melee character, Voice Thief to make allies distrust each other, telepathic taunts.
-- **Third priority:** Mark and pressure the biggest threat. Brand the most dangerous PC (casters who can affect it across planes, a Veil Dust user carrying Veilhook Salt), then loop: Visions of Spite to paralyze, Multiattack for crits, Visions again. Against a high-WIS party, skip Visions and grind with advantage Multiattacks. Against a low-WIS branded target, run the kill chain mercilessly. If they have Remove Curse, brand a different target each time it's cleansed to burn their spell slots.
-- **It will NOT fight to the death.** If reduced to half HP or lower and restrained on the Material Plane, it negotiates — it's ancient and has information, names, and secrets it can trade. See [Scenario D: Negotiation](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-d-negotiation) and — if the party has soured on the cult *and* the couple — [Scenario F: The Open Door](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-f-the-open-door-joining-xarrul).
+- **Third priority:** Mark and pressure the biggest threat. Brand the most dangerous PC (a Material defender readying Veilhook Salt, an Ethereal oil-user, or someone restoring the binding), then loop: Visions of Spite to paralyze, Multiattack for crits, Visions again. Against a high-WIS party, skip Visions and grind with advantage Multiattacks. Against a low-WIS branded target, run the kill chain mercilessly. If they have Remove Curse, brand a different target each time it's cleansed to burn their spell slots.
+- **It will NOT fight to the death.** If reduced to half HP or lower and restrained on the Material Plane, it negotiates — it's ancient and has information, names, and secrets it can trade. See [Scenario D: Negotiation](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-d-conventional-negotiation) and — if the party has soured on the cult *and* the couple — [Scenario F](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-f-deliberately-side-with-xarrul).
 
 ### Loosing the Rift-Scavengers
-Xarrul doesn't lair in the [Deep Cellar](../location/deep-cellar.md), but it has found the couple's failing containment down there — the **[Old Work](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-old-work)**, where the planar fault has torn into an actual rift — and it has learned to *use* the minor ethereal scavengers that gather at the tear. It herds them at intruders like hounds: shadows, an ethereal filcher, the occasional specter. This is how a party exploring the depths "meets Xarrul's creatures" without meeting Xarrul. If the party is down there and Xarrul is present on the ethereal side, it can spend a turn widening the tear to add another shadow per round — a cheap, deniable way to bleed a party it can't yet reach. It costs Xarrul nothing and teaches the players, viscerally, that the thing they're hunting can reach into places they thought were safe.
+Xarrul lairs at the couple's failing containment in the **[Old Work](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-old-work)**, where the planar fault is both thin point and actual tear. It has learned to *use* the minor ethereal scavengers that gather there, herding them at intruders like hounds: shadows, an ethereal filcher, the occasional specter. This is how a party exploring the depths can meet Xarrul's creatures before confronting Xarrul itself. Before the compact expires, creatures deliberately loosed by Xarrul harry, steal, separate, and herd but do not finish a helpless target unless the target has activated the self-defense exception. If Xarrul is present on the ethereal side, it can spend a turn widening the tear to add another shadow per round.
 
-### The Dual-Plane Kill
-See [The Reckoning](../storylines/the-reckoning.md). If players attempt the synchronized kill, Xarrul fights desperately on both planes. On the Ethereal Plane, it's more aggressive (this is its home ground). On the Material Plane, it tries to flee. Both halves must die within 1 round of each other for the cure to work.
+### Destroying Xarrul — The Planar Pincer
+
+See [The Reckoning](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-c-ethereal-destruction). Xarrul has one body and one hit point pool shared across both planes. There are no separate forms to damage and no synchronized final blows. It can be permanently destroyed only by reducing it to 0 hit points while it is Ethereal.
+
+Attackers normally cover both planes because Xarrul can dodge a group confined to either one. Material pressure drives it Ethereal; Ethereal pressure drives it Material. Readied actions, voluntarily delaying or fixing allied initiative order, and any other sensible coordination are valid—the challenge is covering both exits, not winning an initiative puzzle. If reduced to 0 while Material, Deathless Slip places it Ethereal at 1 hit point; if reduced to 0 while already Ethereal, it dies regardless of how much damage it previously took on either plane.
 
 ## The Two Jobs — How Xarrul Works the Night
 
-Xarrul has two tasks that cannot be done from the same place, and it spends the night shuttling between them.
+The lockdown has already admitted Xarrul to the Material interior. It is not charging or completing a crossing below. Its two jobs are protecting the one vulnerable future event and preventing the people upstairs from coordinating against it.
 
-**Downstairs — tend the tear.** The crossing is *labour,* not a countdown. The old seal wants to close (the summoners' wards are cracked but not dead — Bren feels them "failing"), so Xarrul must periodically re-open and hold the seam: recharge it, realign it as it drifts, feed the bleed back into it. This is the actual goal-progress, done at the thin point in the cellar, away from Bren — **no tell fires down here.**
+**Downstairs — protect the exit.** The Old Work holds the only site where the Guest can willingly vacate its body and the only three rounds in which Xarrul must surrender Ethereal Jaunt. Anyone who reaches the Deep Cellar can expose the compact, free or kill the Guest, restore containment, collect the anti-fiend tools, or prepare an ambush at midnight. Xarrul checks the Guest and responds to intrusion; it has no progress action to perform there.
 
-**Upstairs — tend the cover.** Keeping the investigation from converging on the cellar before midnight. Its cover tools are short-range — Voice Thief and whispers reach 30 ft., telepathy 60 — so working the room means being *in* the room, within range of Bren. **This is where the tell fires.**
+**Upstairs — tend the cover.** Xarrul keeps the investigation from converging on the cellar before midnight. Its cover tools are short-range — Voice Thief and whispers reach 30 ft., telepathy 60 — so working the room means being *in* the room, within range of Bren. **This is where the tell fires.** The compact forbids Xarrul from killing again until the exchange is finished, except in direct defense against binding, banishment, or destruction, so it cultivates accusation, isolation, and delay rather than attacking the room outright. It does not have to save patrons from violence they choose themselves.
 
-It can't be in both places, so early in the night it is mostly downstairs (the brawl aftermath does its cover work for free) and surfaces only to nudge; late in the night it is dragged upstairs more and more. That shuttle is the engine for everything below.
+It shuttles because it must watch both its leverage below and its enemies above, not because the tear needs labour.
 
 ### The Brenometer — Bren as a Fiend-Detector
 
@@ -165,36 +175,40 @@ This makes presence a **metered, self-limiting risk.** Being near Bren cracks th
 Three drivers, all pointing the same way — this is the mechanism under **The Night's Clock** (below):
 
 1. **Cover decays.** Early, the brawl aftermath and faction distrust do its work for free. As the party pools clues and converges, that natural chaos runs down and it must re-inject confusion by hand — more trips up, more tells.
-2. **Exposure gets cheaper.** Early, being caught is fatal (the crossing isn't far enough along to survive interruption; it can still be cheaply rebound). Late, once the seam is wide, catching it no longer easily stops the crossing — so it dares to show itself. This is the mask coming off.
-3. **The tear needs more tending.** Late, the seam is wide and volatile — near-constant holding, not the occasional nudge.
+2. **Its secret gets harder to protect.** Early, nobody knows the cellar matters. Late, clues point downward and Xarrul must risk direct intervention to turn investigators back.
+3. **Midnight fixes the battlefield.** The closer the Vacancy window comes, the less time Xarrul has to recover from a freed Guest, restored ward, stolen tool, or prepared ambush.
 
-Net: it is stretched thin, present more often, and bolder — so the Brenometer fires hardest exactly as the crossing peaks. Its one witness gets loudest at the worst possible moment for it.
+Net: it is stretched thin, present more often, and bolder — so the Brenometer fires hardest as midnight approaches. Its one witness gets loudest at the worst possible moment for it.
 
 ### The Attention Lever (a handle for the players)
 
 Because its attention is finite and split, the party can tax it without understanding why:
 
-- Investigate **loudly and cooperatively** → they force it upstairs to firefight → the tear goes untended → the crossing **stalls** (at the cost of lighting the tell, revealing it, and provoking the scatter-kill — see the Kael row in **Who It Kills, Who It Spares**, below).
-- Go **quiet** → it tends the tear uninterrupted → the crossing **accelerates.**
+- Investigate **loudly and cooperatively** → force it upstairs to repair its cover, producing more Bren-spikes and more chances to catch it present.
+- Explore the cellar **quietly** → bypass its cover and threaten the Guest, tools, wards, and midnight site before Xarrul realizes where the real danger is.
 
-This inverts the usual creep-around instinct: the loud, chaotic table is, without knowing it, doing the thing that slows it down — and the careful, quiet one is handing it the night.
+Neither approach changes an invisible progress bar. They change what the party knows and how well prepared each side is when the shell lapses.
 
 ### In the Ethereal Plane — Proprietary, Not Territorial
 
-Xarrul is **not territorial.** The ethereal cellar is its *worksite,* not a lair it defends by instinct — it is a recent, purposeful operator sharing the plane with Skein, the scavengers, the binding circle it avoids, and the deep Ethereal beyond. Its response to anyone who reaches the Ethereal Plane is keyed to exactly one question: *does this threaten the crossing?*
+The tear is Xarrul's lair and intended transfer site, but Xarrul is **not territorial** about it. It is a recent, purposeful operator sharing the Ethereal Plane with Skein, the scavengers, and the deep Ethereal beyond. The upper binding circle is elsewhere and is simply a danger it avoids. Its response to anyone who reaches the Ethereal Plane is keyed to exactly one question: *does this threaten the compact or the midnight transfer?*
 
-- **An observer** (a Veil Dust tripper who simply *sees* it): it does **not** attack. Violence would confirm hostility and blow the ambiguity it cultivates. It watches, and it *talks* — Voice Thief, telepathy, truth mixed with misdirection. Contact is an opportunity, and a party that's talking to it isn't ringing the bell.
-- **A trespasser** (exploring, not yet touching the work): attrition, not commitment — the herded rift-scavengers (above), cold, dread, a manifested claw. It buys time and discourages; it will not commit to a fight that exposes it early.
-- **A threat** (moving to breach the seal, wake the iron bell or the foundation sigils, re-power containment, or hitting it with something that pins or hurts it across planes): now it is self-defense — immediate, lethal, and smart (Slip Between, Brand the most dangerous, Whisper of Ruin to divide them). The instant they stop threatening the crossing, it disengages.
+- **An observer** (someone who simply sees it without threatening the compact or transfer): it does **not** attack. Violence would confirm hostility and may breach its promise. It watches. If it independently chooses to use Voice Thief or telepathy, it mixes truth with misdirection; seeing it creates no communication channel by itself.
+- **A trespasser** (exploring, not yet touching the Guest, tools, or wards): attrition, not commitment — the herded rift-scavengers (above), cold, dread, a warning. It buys time and discourages without violating the compact.
+- **A threat** (moving to wake the iron bell or foundation sigils, re-power containment, lure it into the upper binding circle, enter the Ethereal Plane armed, or ready Veilhook Salt for its manifestation): now it is self-defense — immediate, lethal, and smart (Slip Between, Brand the most dangerous, Whisper of Ruin to divide them). The exterior shell cannot be punctured and is not a tactical target.
 
-It is proprietary about the *process,* not the *space.* Someone can stand in "its" ethereal cellar all night; it does not care until they touch the work — then the response is instant, and it is an accountant's decision, never instinct.
+**Against rebinding:** the first prepared knot and true-name Recall trigger the compact's self-defense exception. Before capture, Xarrul attacks whoever is reading the [Litany of the Averted Step](../prints/litanie-odvraceneho-kroku.md), carrying Veilhook Salt or maintaining the planar anchor. It uses Brand and Visions to make a reader lose the shifting text, Whisper of Ruin to make one drop or turn a leaf, and Shadow Surge to break perception. It moves sideways through any angle left open between the readers and never willingly approaches either active chant.
+
+Once the adapted circle accepts it, physical escape is no longer the scene. The salt-and-name matrix suppresses its movement and fresh hostile reach across the boundary; only an existing Brand still carries Visions of Spite or Waking Dream through. Xarrul turns to truthful bargaining. It tells Dalla what her blood is doing to Nessa, Haddon what became of Bren and the living weight, and Rennt that Haddon knew the command line was dead. Its goal is to make one station stop, let the psychic backlash break another, and persuade the last hand to open voluntarily.
+
+It is proprietary about the *secret,* not the *space.* Someone can stand beside its Ethereal nest at the Old Work; it acts when they threaten the Guest, containment, anti-fiend tools, or transfer site — an accountant's decision, never instinct.
 
 ### Skein — a Tool, Not an Ally
 
 Xarrul neither befriends nor hunts Skein by default; it **exploits** the parasite and holds it in contempt ("a lesser thing, feeding on scraps"). Its whole stance tracks one variable: *is Bren's mouth currently shut?*
 
-- **Default — coexistence.** Skein muzzles the only eyewitness to the murder *for free* (its Silence the Host keeps Bren incoherent, for its own reasons), and a party that finds Skein first may burn the clock on the possession subplot instead of the crossing. Xarrul does nothing for Skein and needs to do nothing — the parasite censors its witness at no cost.
-- **It protects the muzzle — deniably.** If the party is about to *kill* Skein in the Ethereal Plane, a freed Bren becomes a lucid, coherent eyewitness — an arcanist who studied this exact fault and can point them straight at the crossing. Xarrul won't overtly rescue vermin (too exposing), but it tips the scales: a scavenger into the fight, a Shadow Surge, a divisive whisper — enough to let Skein *flee* (its own ability) and keep Bren muddled.
+- **Default — coexistence.** Skein muzzles the only eyewitness to the murder *for free* (its Silence the Host keeps Bren incoherent, for its own reasons), and a party that finds Skein first may burn the clock on the possession subplot instead of Xarrul's midnight plan. Xarrul does nothing for Skein and needs to do nothing — the parasite censors its witness at no cost.
+- **It protects the muzzle — deniably.** If the party is about to *kill* Skein in the Ethereal Plane, a freed Bren becomes a lucid, coherent eyewitness—an arcanist who studied this exact fault and can point them straight at the Guest and the tear. Xarrul won't overtly rescue vermin (too exposing), but it tips the scales: a scavenger into the fight, a Shadow Surge, a divisive whisper—enough to let Skein *flee* and keep Bren muddled.
 - **Their interests align.** During a lucid window (severed tendrils, *Protection from Evil and Good*), Xarrul and Skein briefly want the same thing — Bren silent — and it may nudge Skein to reclaw its grip. Fiend and parasite, for a moment, on the same side against the free man.
 - **It kills Skein only if the parasite turns.** A cornered Skein trying to buy its life by informing the party about the bigger fiend becomes a liability and dies without a second thought. (Unlikely — it is too terrified and too small to try.)
 
@@ -204,15 +218,17 @@ Fighting Skein directly is beneath its dignity. They share a plane; only one of
 
 Xarrul is not mindless evil, and it is not merely *petty* evil either. It has one clear, cold want: **to become real** — to cross the veil permanently and walk the world as a resident, not a summoned tool. For centuries it has been called up, bound, made to run errands, and dismissed; it wants to stand on the far side of the glass. Everything it does tonight serves that single end.
 
-**Why it killed Orenn.** Not for revenge — or not *only*. Orenn's death does two things the crossing needs. First, it **triggers the lockdown**: a killing in the house is what makes Mags shatter the summoners' lockstone, and that seal is the closed vessel Xarrul must have to finish crossing (see [The Reckoning — The Clock](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#the-clock) and [the ward-crystal's true nature](../location/tavern-overview.md#the-enchanted-door)). The [Guest](the-guest.md#the-compact-in-the-walls--xarrul-and-the-guest) identified *Orenn* as the cautious keeper and Mags as the one who would follow emergency protocol in grief. Xarrul verified the judgment, chose Orenn and killed him. Second, it removes the **one watcher** whose surveillance was quietly circling the fiend (Orenn never knew it lived under his own floor, but he was getting close from the wrong direction). That it was also satisfying — the cultists tried to enslave it, the assassins broke its chains and gave it no respect — was a bonus, not the point.
+**Why it killed Orenn.** Not for revenge — or not *only*. Orenn's death does two things Xarrul needs. First, it **triggers the lockdown**: a killing in the house is what makes Mags shatter the summoners' lockstone. The emergency device pulls power away from the internal planar seals and spends it on an impenetrable exterior shell. That trade lets Xarrul cross fully into the Inn and regain Ethereal Jaunt inside the cage, while preventing it from leaving before midnight (see [The Reckoning — The Clock](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#the-clock) and [the ward-crystal's true nature](../location/tavern-overview.md#the-enchanted-door)). The [Guest](the-guest.md#the-compact-in-the-walls--xarrul-and-the-guest) identified *Orenn* as the cautious keeper and Mags as the one who would follow emergency protocol in grief. Xarrul verified the judgment, chose Orenn and spent its one Stored Incursion on him. Second, the murder removes the **one watcher** whose surveillance was quietly circling the fiend. Orenn is also the single agreed exception to the compact's moratorium on killing before the exchange is finished.
 
-**Why the chaos.** The framing, the whispers, the faction blood — none of it is spite. It is **cover**. Xarrul spent centuries being hunted by fixers like Orenn; it knows the only way to cross unnoticed is to keep everyone busy killing each other while it finishes its work in the sealed house. Every manipulation is operational:
+**Why the chaos.** The framing, whispers, and faction hostility are **cover—and the compact's central loophole.** Xarrul may not kill anyone after Orenn until the exchange finishes, but the assassins and cultists remain free to kill one another. It therefore spends the lockdown turning real grievances into faction war through stolen voices, true accusations, and fresh false memories. It never compels one exact fatal blow; it arranges the grievance and lets a mortal choose it. Every manipulation is operational:
 
 - The Brand leaves fiendish evidence → the cult gets blamed.
 - The murder happened during the assassins' brawl → the timing implicates *them*.
-- Both sides at each other's throats → no one stops to ask what the lockdown really did, or goes looking for the crossing before midnight. That is the *goal*, not a side effect.
+- Both sides at each other's throats → no one stops to ask what the lockdown really did, finds the Guest, or prepares the Old Work for midnight. That is the *goal*, not a side effect.
 
-**On the Opening.** Xarrul has no interest in Mother Vyre's grand design and is not part of her plan — but it is not a harmless loose thread either. Where the cult wants to dissolve *every* wall between planes for everyone, Xarrul wants one crack, just wide enough for itself. It is, functionally, the **enemy of the Opening** — and that is exactly the leverage it offers a party desperate enough to bargain (see [The Reckoning — Scenario F](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-f-the-open-door-joining-xarrul)).
+If the Guest dies before the exchange, the bargain becomes impossible and its temporary restraint ends immediately. Xarrul stops working through the loophole, kills directly, and selects the Guest's killer as its first Hollowing candidate. This is why the Guest can tell an Executioner, truthfully: *kill me and you release the thing that will come for you next.*
+
+**On the Opening.** Xarrul has no interest in Mother Vyre's grand design and is not part of her plan — but it is not a harmless loose thread either. Where the cult wants to dissolve *every* wall between planes for everyone, Xarrul wants one crack, just wide enough for itself. It is, functionally, the **enemy of the Opening** — and that is exactly the leverage it offers a party desperate enough to bargain (see [The Reckoning — Scenario F](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-f-deliberately-side-with-xarrul)).
 
 **The honest voice in a house of liars.** This is the heart of the character. The Guest lies beautifully. The cult lies to itself. Orenn and Mags lied about being retired for fifteen years. Xarrul manipulates perception, steals voices, and withholds whatever does not serve it—but it makes no false factual statement and does not break a promise. Ask it a direct question and it answers truly, narrowly, because truth is more corrosive than invention. The distinction matters: it is deceptive in method, reliable in speech. Play it consistently and "join it" becomes a genuine temptation instead of an edgy footnote.
 
@@ -220,30 +236,34 @@ Xarrul is not mindless evil, and it is not merely *petty* evil either. It has on
 
 Xarrul and the Guest recognize themselves in one another: captive assets used for other people's errands. Their sympathy is real and irrelevant.
 
-Xarrul has offered to project the Guest from its changeling body and re-anchor its silver cord into the Inn's old ward lattice. The Guest becomes the spectral **Host**, master of every door and impossible to confine within the building it now inhabits; Xarrul receives the vacant body. Xarrul has stated the limitation plainly: the Host will never cross the Inn's threshold. The Guest has knowingly accepted.
+The Guest is the sharper social strategist. It understands immediately that the changeling body is not merely a vessel but a clean exit, and that taking the Inn requires replacing its keeper rather than announcing a claim. Xarrul understands the magical risk and the likelihood of betrayal; it accepts because, without outside hands, it still wins the transfer.
+
+The Guest supplied the essential exchange: at the tear in the Old Work, it will willingly vacate its changeling body, and Xarrul will project the displaced spirit into the Astral Plane rather than annihilate it. The breach is necessary to expose and redirect both spirits. Xarrul receives a mutable vessel able to walk out wearing any face. The Guest accepts because it intends to have outsiders destroy Xarrul during the exposed transfer and then reclaim the body with the fiend's planar imprint.
+
+Xarrul's first assurance was unconditional: **it will not kill the Guest.** A forced Hollowing would destroy the Guest's projected spirit, so that promise makes willing Vacancy the only route to the changeling body. Their later compact adds one plain restraint: **one death to close the house—Orenn—and Xarrul will kill no one else until the exchange is finished.** Xarrul may defend itself against someone knowingly attempting to bind, banish, or destroy it. Otherwise it will neither land nor deliberately command a killing blow, though it is not obliged to rescue patrons who choose violence themselves. The Guest wants living outsiders available for its trap and an Inn still worth taking. It asks for nothing after the exchange because either Xarrul dies during it and the Guest returns empowered, or Xarrul wins and the Guest departs for the Astral Plane. When the Guest is delivered Astral at the end of round 3, the temporary restraint ends; the original promise not to kill the Guest remains.
 
 Xarrul also knows the Guest would prefer to destroy it during the transfer, reclaim the body and retain its planar imprint. It enters anyway because the Guest cannot attack without forfeiting its bodily claim, ordinary mortals cannot touch the projected fiend, and Xarrul wins the contest of wills without outside interference. The deception Xarrul misses is not the Guest's appetite. It is the party the Guest has armed and positioned around the bargain.
 
-If the exchange begins, run **[The Vacancy](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy-the-guests-gambit)**. Xarrul cannot withdraw after placing its essential anchor in the body; it defends itself with accurate disclosures about the Guest and lets the players decide which danger deserves the vessel.
+If the exchange begins, run **[The Vacancy](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy)**. Xarrul cannot withdraw after placing its essential anchor in the body. If it wins, the Guest remains coherent but bodiless in the Astral Plane; recovering it requires a future planar rescue and a new vessel.
 
 ## The Night's Clock — Presence & Escalation
 
 The old shape of this module was a whodunit: *what killed Orenn?* → "a fiend" → fight it. The reframed shape keeps the fiend's identity as an *early, cheap* answer and makes the real investigation **moral**: *is this thing actually the villain here?* For that to land, Xarrul must be **felt all night** and slowly recontextualized — from ambient menace, to a voice that seems to taunt, to the only honest dealer in the room.
 
-Presence escalates on the **lockdown clock**. The moment Mags shatters the lockstone, the house seals across every plane into a closed vessel — and Xarrul, sealed inside on the ethereal side, begins finishing its crossing through the old tear. It has until **midnight**, when the seal lapses on its own. As the night runs, the crossing advances — the room grows colder, the ethereal bleed thickens (no longer diffusing away into the district, but pooling *inside*), Xarrul manifests more fully and kills more openly. If the clock runs out, Xarrul **crosses over completely**: permanent, material, no more Slip Between, far worse to fight. The players slowing or breaking the clock — **breaching a sealed exit** to re-open the vessel, the iron bell, re-powering the cellar containment, the fifth rule's *burn-and-seal* — is the pushback; their failure to act is complicity. (Full mechanism: [The Reckoning — The Clock](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#the-clock).)
+Presence escalates on the **lockdown clock**. The moment Mags shatters the lockstone, power leaves the internal seals, the house closes across every plane, and Xarrul crosses fully into the trapped interior. Nothing can enter or leave on any plane while the shell holds, so the Vacancy cannot begin: the Guest cannot be delivered to the Astral Plane. At **midnight** the shell lapses and the returning ward-power begins resealing the tear, creating the single three-round Vacancy window. Player pushback means exposing Xarrul, restoring containment, controlling the factions, reaching the Guest, or preparing the Old Work before that window opens. (Full sequence: [Natural Progression](../storylines/natural-progression.md).)
 
 **The escalation ladder (presence = the clock made audible):**
 
-1. **Ambient dread (Acts 1–2).** No identity yet. Cold spots, a candle that gutters with no draft, Bren flinching at something no one else senses, distortions in [Orenn's silver mirror](orenn.md#items-on-his-person). The house feels *inhabited*.
+1. **Ambient dread (Acts 1–2).** No identity yet. Cold spots, a candle that gutters with no draft, Bren flinching at something no one else senses, or a ghostly figure briefly crossing [Orenn's silver mirror](orenn.md#orenns-silver-mirror). The house feels *inhabited*.
 2. **It notices you (early Act 3).** Once the party investigates, Xarrul whispers to them — Voice Thief, telepathy. It uses **partial truths, omitted context, and questions**, never false statements. It points at genuine clues and corrects convenient mistakes only when doing so divides the room or earns trust. They cannot yet tell whether honesty is help or another weapon. That ambiguity is the engine.
-3. **Honest contact (mid–late Act 3).** A real channel opens — Veil Dust, the mirror, or it simply speaks near the thin point. Now it *converses*: candid about the murder, candid about *why*, and everything it says checks out against what they've dug up — while everyone with a face keeps lying.
+3. **Honest contact (mid–late Act 3).** Xarrul chooses to speak somewhere in the house, or the party reaches it under Oil of Etherealness. Now it *converses*: candid about the murder, candid about *why*, and everything it says checks out against what they've dug up — while everyone with a face keeps lying.
 4. **The pitch (Reckoning).** They have the context now. The offer becomes emotionally available (Scenario F).
 
 **The device that carries all of it: a recurring voice.** Dry, amused, unattributed. It seems to taunt early; it is slowly revealed to be Xarrul; it is slowly revealed to have *never once lied*. A few lines per scene. The reframe — *the cruellest-seeming thing turns out to be the only honest one* — lands itself.
 
 ### Dalla — The Truth as a Wedge
 
-During the brawl, Xarrul steals the two restricted extracts from Haddon's folio. It reads them through the binding's lingering sympathetic link and recognizes that Vyre caused Nessa's dislocation, Haddon knew, and both chose continued extraction over reintegration.
+During the brawl, Haddon's two restricted extracts scatter from his folio. Xarrul's Stored Incursion is fully occupied by Orenn's murder; it steals the papers in the first minute after Mags activates the lockdown and restores its Ethereal Jaunt. It reads them through the binding's lingering sympathetic link and recognizes that Vyre caused Nessa's dislocation, Haddon knew, and both chose continued extraction over reintegration.
 
 It first whispers in Haddon's voice while the real Haddon is visible: *„Mohla ji zachránit už před měsíci.”* Then: *„Zeptej se ho, co krmila tvoje krev.”* It plants the maternal-conduit extract where Dalla or the investigators will find it and withholds the E–III report until the first revelation has made its terminology meaningful.
 
@@ -253,37 +273,36 @@ Keep the **first impression genuinely menacing** (Orenn's horrific death, the sc
 
 ## Who It Kills, Who It Spares
 
-Sympathy is not safety. Xarrul is understandable, honest, and the lesser evil — **and** it methodically murders everyone who could stop it. The menace is in the *curation*: it kills exactly what threatens its crossing and is terrifyingly good at knowing who that is. Cold, surgical, inevitable. When the players realize everyone still breathing is *useful to it* — that it has been playing chess with the guest list all night — that is the coldest beat in the module.
+Sympathy is not safety. Xarrul is understandable, honest, and the lesser evil—and the compact, not mercy, is why it personally claims no victim after Orenn before midnight. It manipulates, isolates, and frightens freely; mortals may still kill one another without its direct act. A direct attempt to bind, banish, or destroy Xarrul invokes the self-defense exception. Once the Guest has been delivered Astral, the restraint is gone.
 
-Overt killing is expensive while it hides (it needs the smokescreen), so the body count **escalates with the lockdown clock** — the mask comes off precisely as it becomes real. Run every kill below as a **DM tool triggered by player choices**, not a scripted inevitability; otherwise you delete your own endings (kill Haddon on a timer and a party that never considered rebinding loses that branch for nothing).
+Run every permitted kill below as a **DM tool triggered by player choices**, not a scripted inevitability; otherwise you delete your own endings. Before the pact ends, Xarrul supplies motive, opportunity, confusion, and escalation, but leaves the final lethal decision to a mortal. After the Guest dies or the exchange finishes, that distinction disappears.
 
 | When | Move | Target | Why |
 |------|------|--------|-----|
 | Pre-game | Kill (done) | **Orenn** | The calm keeper — killed to trigger the lockdown and clear the one watcher. |
-| Early–mid Act 3, *if the party **converges*** | **Deniable** kill | **Kael** (the witness), or a minor patron | Not to start a war — to **scatter**. Kael is more useful alive (a self-propelled war-fuse) until he flips: the honest witness who starts focusing his testimony and rallying the room toward a *coordinated* hunt. Killing him then reshuffles the coalition back into mutual suspicion and buys another hour. War is a possible side effect, not the aim — a boil is high-variance cover; it wants a simmer. |
-| Conditional | **Reactive** kill | **Haddon**, *only if the party moves to rebind it* | "You reach for the chains, I take the hand." Punishes a choice instead of pre-deleting the rebinding path. |
-| Late / crossing | **Open** kill (mask off) | the most competent threat left standing | Done pretending. Fully manifest, kills in the open. Peak horror, gated on the clock. |
-| **Spared — always** | — | **Essek** (indicts the cult for it), **the Guest** (its willing vessel and promised Host), sometimes a **branded PC** (grooming) | The chess set. Notice-this-and-shudder. |
+| Early–mid Act 3 | Escalate accusation | **Kael and Rennt** | Xarrul wants argument and distraction, not a death that would break the compact. |
+| Conditional | **Reactive** kill | **Haddon**, *only if he knowingly moves to bind or banish it* | The compact's explicit self-defense exception: "You reach for the chains, I take the hand." |
+| Guest killed | **Open** kill / abduction | **The Guest's killer** | The exchange is impossible, the temporary restraint ends, and the killer is Xarrul's first replacement-vessel candidate. |
+| After Vacancy | **Open** kill | a direct anti-fiend threat, then anyone who can identify its new body | The compact has ended. It removes witnesses only if the transfer was exposed; otherwise it leaves quietly. |
+| **Protected from Xarrul** | — | **The Guest and everyone else in the Inn** | Orenn is the agreed exception. The pact does not protect them from one another and ends when the exchange finishes. |
 
 > **Grooming → conversion.** The "branded PC" it spares isn't just kept alive — it may be *turned*. A lone PC caught in the Deep Cellar can be marked with a brand of favor and genuinely persuaded to Xarrul's side (not charmed — argued). See [handouts/the-conversion.md](../handouts/the-conversion.md).
 
-**The laundering effect.** Most of the people it kills are ones the party has already soured on — fanatics building toward the apocalypse, a true believer who'd end the world to prove a point. A join-leaning table *rationalizes* those deaths ("Rennt was going to end the world anyway"). That is the seduction: Xarrul launders its violence through the party's own contempt for the victims. Which is exactly why it also needs one move they *can't* wave away — and the **Kael kill is one such move.** He is sympathetic, loyal, and no one's apocalypse-builder, and Xarrul kills him not for being dangerous but for being *useful to the truth*. Murdering the honest man to buy forty minutes stays cold even *with* the context. That is the whole principle in one beat: every kill is *explicable* — a cold observer can reconstruct exactly why it happened — but not every kill is *forgivable*. The context turns the murders from senseless into calculated, never from wrong into right.
+**After the promise expires.** Finishing the Vacancy removes both the Guest and the restraint it imposed. If the transfer was witnessed and the survivors can identify or immediately bind the new vessel, Xarrul performs cold, practical cleanup. If nobody saw the transfer, disguise is safer than slaughter and it joins the people leaving. A separate promise made to the party remains binding.
 
-### The Kidnap — Honesty Weaponized
+### The Abduction — The Hollowing
 
-Late game — cornered, or making its crossing — Xarrul pulls someone through into the Ethereal Plane (mechanically, an escalated **Ethereal Pull**; see Lair Actions) and holds them as **insurance**:
+If the Guest dies or its body becomes unusable, Xarrul does not take a hostage and promise a return. It abducts a replacement, drags the victim to the tear, and uses the breach to erase the victim and keep the body through the forced three-round **[Hollowing](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-h-the-hollowing)**.
 
-> *"Let me finish, and they come back to you, unharmed — you have watched me all night; you know I keep my word. Stop me, and the veil closes with them on the wrong side of it. Choose."*
+Target the PC most responsible for denying it the Guest. If that is impossible, choose a vulnerable humanoid with a useful identity, then a cultist it can isolate. The disappearance disturbs the Deep Cellar wards and Twinkle's web, alerting Mags. Haddon recognizes what Xarrul is attempting, but Mags bars the cultists from her secret level and goes alone; Xarrul kills her before the ritual unless the party follows.
 
-It does not bluff, and the players *know* it doesn't, because you've spent all night establishing it as the one thing that never lies. So there is no calling the bluff: let it cross to save them, or sacrifice them to stop it. Evil (a hostage), in character (instrumental, honest), and a real finale dilemma. Pick the hostage **flexibly — whoever the table has invested in most** — and make them at least somewhat sympathetic, so even a join-leaning party flinches.
-
-**Systemic hook:** the Guest is Xarrul's ideal and already-negotiated vessel. If the party **kills the [Guest](the-guest.md)**, Xarrul loses the only body prepared to receive it willingly and must **abduct a replacement** — the party's own choice *causes* the kidnap. If they free the Guest, they enable the far more complicated [Vacancy](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy-the-guests-gambit).
+The ordinary vessel is inferior because it cannot change shape, but Xarrul prefers an imperfect body to risking its new existence on a hostage bargain.
 
 ## The Warden's Mark (Mags)
 
-Xarrul worked on *both* of them. Orenn it branded and killed. **Mags it branded too** — a dormant Brand of Spite over her heart, the same hand-shaped mark Orenn bore, only fainter and cold rather than killing. It has held off triggering it, because **it needs her alive**: she is the one who seals the house (the murder is what makes her do it), and a living, grieving Mags is useful afterward — a scapegoat, a jailer keeping the others in line, a heart to break later. Two dead keepers at once would raise the alarm too soon.
+Xarrul worked on *both* of them. Orenn it branded and killed. **Mags carries a Warden's Mark** — a dormant ward-scar left during an earlier Stored Incursion, resembling a faint Brand of Spite but mechanically distinct from the one-creature combat Brand. It has held off triggering the scar because **it needs her alive**: she is the one who seals the house, and a living, grieving Mags keeps everyone else contained and in line. The mark can incapacitate her without killing her and therefore does not violate the compact.
 
-**Mags knows, and hides it.** She has felt the cold hand on her chest for weeks and told no one, not even Orenn. 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's a whole one of herself. The players can discover the mark — Orenn's silver mirror, a Medicine/Arcana check, Bren's reaction — a mid-game beat that says, without a word, that Xarrul is already inside the house, inside *her*. Full detail and the compromised statline live in [mags.md](mags.md#the-wardens-mark-dm).
+**Mags knows, and hides it.** She has felt the cold hand on her chest for weeks and told no one, not even Orenn. 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's a whole one of herself. The players can discover the mark through a Medicine/Arcana check or Bren's reaction — a mid-game beat that says, without a word, that Xarrul is already inside the house, inside *her*. Full detail and the compromised statline live in [mags.md](mags.md#the-wardens-mark-dm).
 
 **It is the finale's tuning knob**, and it means you build only one Mags:
 
@@ -301,12 +320,12 @@ Either way, triggering the mark keeps the spotlight on the PCs rather than on a
 - Nessa's astral projection was diverted by Vyre's E–III experiment, not by an innate defect
 - Dalla is the maternal conduit through which the Order siphoned Nessa's vitality into Xarrul and the Opening research
 - The direction and structure of Nessa's trapped silver cord; after leaving the lockdown, Xarrul can follow it and attempt a controlled reintegration
-- Nessa is not inside the Nether Inn. The lockdown seals the inn on the Material and Ethereal planes, preventing Xarrul from reaching her until it escapes or completes its crossing
+- Nessa is not inside the Nether Inn. The lockdown seals the Inn on the Material and Ethereal planes, preventing Xarrul from reaching her until it becomes embodied and escapes
 - The truth about the thin point: it's a natural fault the old summoners tore and someone sealed, nothing to do with The Opening — and that *Xarrul itself* is what's prying that seal open now, with the sealed house doing the rest
 - The Guest identified Orenn as the keeper whose death would make Mags trigger the lockdown; Xarrul verified the judgment and chose to act on it
-- The exact bargain it offered the Guest, including the Guest's permanent binding to the Inn and the three-round Vacancy in which neither spirit safely occupies the body
-- The exact method of its own destruction (the dual-plane kill) — it will NOT share this willingly, but it might slip in arrogance: "You cannot kill me. Not truly. Not unless you could be in two worlds at once."
-- It cannot guarantee what a dual-plane death would do to Nessa. The harvested energy should recoil along her cord, but a simultaneous violent collapse could reintegrate her, leave her stranded, or damage the tether. Its uncertainty is genuine, and it uses that uncertainty against the kill
+- The exact bargain it made with the Guest: Astral projection rather than annihilation, the changeling body for Xarrul, and the three-round Vacancy in which neither spirit safely occupies the body
+- The exact method of its own destruction (kill it in the Ethereal Plane) — it will NOT share this willingly, but it might slip in arrogance: "You cannot kill me here. And you cannot follow everywhere I go."
+- It cannot guarantee what an Ethereal death would do to Nessa. The harvested energy should recoil along her cord, but a violent collapse could reintegrate her, leave her stranded, or damage the tether. Its uncertainty is genuine, and it uses that uncertainty against the kill
 
 ## Items