fixing plotholes, streamlining

overview.md

@@ -46,6 +46,8 @@ At the start of Act 1, deal each player a private **[secret dossier](handouts/ch
 
 ## Session Structure
 
+For the default NPC timeline, passive-player outcome, and action-to-ending branches, see **[Natural Progression and Outcome Map](storylines/natural-progression.md)**. When the party finds an uncontested route, pull a pressure move from the **[Complication Toolkit](storylines/complication-toolkit.md)**.
+
 ### Act 1: The Table
 
 The PCs are **strangers** — to each other and to Orenn — sharing a table because it was the only one free. They begin the night already inside; the front door is enchanted and password-warded (see **[the enchanted door](location/tavern-overview.md#the-enchanted-door)**), so getting *in* was never their problem — getting back in, if anyone wanders out, will be.
@@ -54,7 +56,7 @@ The PCs are **strangers** — to each other and to Orenn — sharing a table bec
 
 Orenn works the table personally, unfailingly polite, and asks each of them who they are and whether they're here on **business or pleasure**. Say "business" and he recites the [house rules](location/tavern-overview.md#the-rules-of-the-house). Let anyone hint at their trade and he dangles the hook: *earn his trust, and he can put in a word with people in high places.* He plays the perfect servant with a servant's access to the powerful — and that carrot is what makes his death, twenty minutes from now, a **loss** and not just a plot beat.
 
-Meanwhile, wide-shot the room and plant the tinder: the cultists arguing over texts with the odd bark of laughter, the assassins drinking with cold discipline (**Kael** simmering at the cult table, **Thera** unnervingly still), **Bren** muttering in his corner, and **Vetch** scratching at his arms beside the cellar stairs. Let players choose who to approach first.
+Meanwhile, wide-shot the room and plant the tinder: the cultists arguing over texts with the odd bark of laughter, the assassins drinking with cold discipline (**Kael** simmering at the cult table, **Thera** unnervingly still), and **Bren** muttering in his corner. Let players choose who to approach first.
 
 Orenn's last act is a quiet word to keep things civil — then he steps down to storage for supplies. **With him gone, the lid is off.**
 
@@ -68,7 +70,7 @@ When the table talk starts to dwindle, light the fuse. **Kael confronts Haddon**
 - A few rounds in, **Rennt casts Thunderwave** — the candles die and the hall goes black. Under that cover, Xarrul finishes **Orenn** (back from storage, wading in to quell the brawl and already knocked about) behind the bar, unseen.
 - **Mags** comes out of the kitchen with a cleaver and brings the room to heel with her voice alone, relighting every candle at once with a ward-focus — and behind her lies Orenn, dead.
 - Her grief turns to rage: she drags a caster PC (or a cultist) to the body and demands a **heal** — it fails. She tears the diamond from her own necklace, presses it and a written rite into their hands (**Revivify**) — and it fails too, the stone crumbling to grey powder. The whole room watches resurrection *refuse* him.
-- She shatters the **ward-crystal** above the bar and the tavern seals: **Arcane Lock on every exit until midnight**, no exceptions — herself included.
+- She shatters the **ward-crystal** above the bar and the tavern seals: every exterior opening is trapped behind an unbreakable planar shell until midnight, herself included. The cellar remains reachable from inside.
 - **The ultimatum:** find her the killer by midnight, or they're all tomorrow's stew. Then she grieves. (Full set-piece, and her two-layer accusation, in **[Mags — Act 2: The Reveal](npc/mags.md#act-2--the-reveal-dm)**.)
 
 **Goal:** Calm → chaos → horror → cage. The party is over, resurrection is off the table, and the PCs — the only neutral party in the room — are conscripted into finding the truth.
@@ -79,7 +81,7 @@ The core of the session. Open-ended, player-driven. They can:
 - Investigate the murder (clues, interrogation)
 - Engage with faction subplots (assassin traitor, cultist fractures)
 - Help Bren (the possessed madman)
-- Take Veil Dust with Vetch (ethereal trip)
+- Use [Orenn's silver mirror](npc/orenn.md#orenns-silver-mirror) to see invisible and Ethereal creatures through its reflection
 - Explore the tavern's hidden spaces — including the **[Deep Cellar](location/deep-cellar.md)** behind the concealed door: sneak past the spider, crack the arcane-locked vault, meet the caged [Guest](npc/the-guest.md), brave the haunted trophy-hold, and find the failing rift. This is the exploration track — loot, environmental backstory, and combat for players who want it. It runs in parallel with the interrogations above; cut between the two groups.
 - Pursue their **[secret personal goals](handouts/character-secrets.md)** — several of which lead straight down into the Deep Cellar
 - Try to leave (the ward-lock holds until midnight; neither will the assassins or cultists let witnesses walk)
@@ -88,13 +90,15 @@ The core of the session. Open-ended, player-driven. They can:
 
 ### Act 4: The Reckoning
 
-A **lockdown clock** runs under the whole session: the moment Mags sealed the house in Act 2, she gave Xarrul the closed vessel it needed to finish crossing — it has until midnight, and if the players never act, it crosses over for good. That pressure decides *when* the Reckoning happens; what they uncovered decides *which* one (see [The Reckoning](storylines/the-reckoning.md)):
+A **lockdown clock** runs under the whole session: the moment Mags sealed the house in Act 2, the emergency device withdrew power from the internal seals, admitted Xarrul fully to the Material interior, and caged everyone on every plane. The Guest's compact permits Xarrul to kill Orenn but nobody else until their exchange finishes, so Xarrul exploits the loophole: stolen voices, true accusations, and false memories push assassins and cultists to kill one another while it keeps everyone away from the Deep Cellar. If the Guest dies, the exchange becomes impossible and the restraint lifts immediately, making the Guest's killer Xarrul's first replacement-vessel target. The Vacancy cannot begin while the Guest's Astral release is blocked. At midnight the shell lapses and opens the single three-round transfer window. If the players never act, Xarrul takes the changeling body, strands the Guest in the Astral Plane, and either removes witnesses who saw the transfer or slips out disguised if its new identity remains secret. That pressure decides *when* the Reckoning happens; what they uncovered decides *which* one (see [The Reckoning](storylines/the-reckoning.md)):
 - **Fiend confrontation** — a tense combat split across two planes
-- **The dual-plane kill** — gamble Nessa's silver cord to destroy Xarrul; it saves her, but the players cannot know that beforehand, and it validates the cult's theory
+- **Ethereal destruction** — pressure Xarrul from both planes so it cannot dodge the fight, then kill it in the Ethereal Plane; this works anywhere, saves Nessa, and validates the cult's theory, though the players cannot know her survival beforehand
 - **The rebinding** — the easy, hollow answer: hand the cult back its leashed weapon
-- **The Open Door** — trust Xarrul to retrieve Nessa after the lockdown: behead the Opening at the cost of Mags and a monster loosed on the world
-- **Faction war** — if tensions weren't managed, assassins and cultists go for blood, this time for real
-- **Quiet ending** — players leave with knowledge but no resolution, the fiend still out there
+- **Bell and sigils** — seal Xarrul between planes while preserving Nessa's connection for a later rescue
+- **Side with Xarrul** — negotiate exact lives and Nessa's return, then frame, bypass or quietly neutralize Mags so it can leave disguised
+- **The Vacancy** — at the tear in the Old Work, kill Xarrul while exposed and empower the Guest, or let Xarrul take the changeling body
+- **The Hollowing** — if the Guest is killed, follow Xarrul to the tear and stop it from erasing an abducted replacement and keeping the body
+- **The pressure cooker** — assassins and cultists go for blood while the compact keeps Xarrul itself from joining lethally until the Vacancy ends
 
 **Goal:** Payoff for whatever threads the players pulled hardest on.
 
@@ -107,7 +111,6 @@ A **lockdown clock** runs under the whole session: the moment Mags sealed the ho
 | **Orenn** | Barkeep (dead) | Behind bar | Calm authority, Charon-like |
 | **Mags** | Orenn's partner | Kitchen → main hall | Grieving rage, retired fixer |
 | **Bren** | Possessed madman | Corner, floor | Lucid flashes, controlled by Skein |
-| **Vetch** | Drug addict | Near cellar stairs | Desperate, gateway to the Deep Cellar and Ethereal Plane |
 | **Sevra** | Scales commander (here) — the loyalist | Assassin table | Codex-devout, holding the guild together; can be turned against the rot with proof |
 | **Dace** | Scales blade (traitor) — and secretly marked | Among assassins | Charming, likeable, sells kills to the cult; condemned by Thera and doesn't know it |
 | **Kael** | Scales blade (hothead) — the witness | Among assassins | Wants war with cultists; unknowingly holds the key to the rot |
@@ -117,7 +120,7 @@ A **lockdown clock** runs under the whole session: the moment Mags sealed the ho
 | **Rennt** | Cultist (true believer) | Cultist table | Passionate, dangerous idealism |
 | **Essek** | Cultist (doubter) | Edge of cultist group | Quiet, afraid of his own people |
 | **Xarrul** | The fiend | Ethereal Plane → the tavern | Honest, patient; wants to be *real*; maybe not the villain |
-| **The Guest** | Caged changeling / would-be Host | Deep Cellar, Cell One | Fluent liar; helped Xarrul choose Orenn, wants the Inn and the fiend's power |
+| **The Guest** | Caged changeling / would-be keeper | Deep Cellar, Cell One | Fluent liar; designed Xarrul's disguised exit, wants the Inn and the fiend's power |
 | **Twinkle** | Feyspitter spider (pet) | Deep Cellar | Guards the "living" wing; blinks & grapples but can't cross to the ethereal; avoidable if unprovoked |
 
 ## DM Quick Reference — Subplots
@@ -129,10 +132,10 @@ A **lockdown clock** runs under the whole session: the moment Mags sealed the ho
 | The Scales: the rot within | Kael's unease about Thera, the soulcoin, Dace's mark | The traitor floor, the tavern's thin point, the wider campaign |
 | The Opening | Cultist fractures, Dalla's desperation | Murder (fiend origin), Reckoning |
 | Possession | Bren's ravings, Skein | Murder (witness), Ethereal |
-| Ethereal trip | Vetch's lead, Veil Dust in the Deep Cellar | Murder (see fiend), Possession (see Skein), exploration |
+| Ethereal investigation | [Orenn's silver mirror](npc/orenn.md#orenns-silver-mirror), Oil of Etherealness, [Faded Scrolls of Etherealness](prints/faded-scroll-of-etherealness.md) | Murder (see fiend), Possession (see or confront Skein), exploration |
 | Nessa's projection | Dalla, Xarrul, Haddon's stolen notes | The Reckoning (the choice) |
 | The Deep Cellar | Concealed door in the cellar | Orenn & Mags's dark history, loot for the Reckoning, the cult (via the Guest), the rift |
-| The Guest | Cell One in the Deep Cellar | Cult intel, Orenn's hidden accomplice, the Vacancy ending, succession fight with Mags |
+| The Guest | Cell One in the Deep Cellar | Cult intel, Orenn's hidden accomplice, the Vacancy ending, quiet replacement of Mags |
 | Character secrets | Dealt at Act 1 start | Drives exploration and inter-party tension; several lead to the Deep Cellar |
 | The Conversion | A lone PC isolated in the Deep Cellar | Xarrul (recruited from within), the Open Door ending |