fixing plotholes, streamlining

storylines/house-of-scales.md

@@ -101,7 +101,7 @@ She needs at least **two pieces** of concrete evidence (the pin found on Dace, H
 "Even if I met with them — which I'm not saying I did — it was intelligence gathering. I was trying to find the mole. Working alone because I didn't want to tip anyone off."
 
 **Stage 3 — Violence** (if cornered):
-Dace grabs the nearest vulnerable NPC (Vetch, Bren, or a player who isn't watching him) as a hostage. He has a concealed dagger coated in Essence of Ether (DC 13 CON save or unconscious for 1 minute). He demands safe passage out of the tavern.
+Dace grabs the nearest vulnerable target (Bren or a player who isn't watching him) as a hostage. He has a concealed dagger coated in Essence of Ether (DC 13 CON save or unconscious for 1 minute). He demands safe passage out of the tavern.
 
 **Resolution options:**
 - Let him go — Sevra won't allow it. The guild's justice requires an answer.
@@ -149,14 +149,14 @@ No single clue explains it; the horror is in assembling small wrong things until
 2. **The gestures.** A PC watching Thera greet or part from someone catches the doorframe-touch, the coin turned once, the murmured word (DC 16 Perception; DC 14 Insight to feel it was ritual). She did all three to Dace earlier, "comforting" him. Meaningless now; unforgettable in hindsight.
 3. **The read.** DC 16 Insight: her warmth is real and skin-deep, and underneath she is *appraising* people, gently, like livestock.
 4. **The brand.** Ask her about Orenn's body and she reads the soul-withdrawal fluently — *"That isn't a wound, it's a withdrawal… not our coin, though. Cruder."* She becomes a murder suspect (a dead end — Xarrul did it) and a much larger question (why does she know this on sight?).
-5. **The mark on Dace.** His shadow falls a half-breath late at the candles (DC 15 Perception); true sight / *Veil Dust* / Mags / DC 15 Medicine or Arcana up close shows the grey seam at his throat. He is condemned and doesn't know it.
+5. **The mark on Dace.** His shadow falls a half-breath late at the candles (DC 15 Perception); true sight, Mags, or DC 15 Medicine or Arcana up close shows the grey seam at his throat. He is condemned and doesn't know it.
 6. **The soulcoin** — the proof (below).
 
 ## The Soulcoin (the gut-punch)
 
 The single object that makes the whole thing land. Thera carries at least one. Getting it off her is hard — DC 20 Sleight of Hand and she'll notice — but she may spend one in a fight (**Soulcoin Surge**), and one is on her body if she falls.
 
-A warm coin, faceless on both sides, that whispers when held to the ear in a quiet room — and, held longer, seems to be *listening* instead. It is a person, minted: not destroyed, folded cold and recoverable while it holds charge. Mags smells the necrotic residue and goes grey; a cleric feels the trapped soul; *Veil Dust* shows it glowing wrong; DC 15 Arcana reads a personal, fingerprint-like necrotic signature. Its warmth dates the kill — a warm coin matches a *recent* sealed contract on the guild's rolls, nailing Thera to a specific death. **Destroy it with charge left and the soul escapes** — to thank its liberator, to testify, or to lash out if it died screaming.
+A warm coin, faceless on both sides, that whispers when held to the ear in a quiet room — and, held longer, seems to be *listening* instead. It is a person, minted: not destroyed, folded cold and recoverable while it holds charge. Mags smells the necrotic residue and goes grey; a cleric feels the trapped soul; true sight shows it glowing wrong; DC 15 Arcana reads a personal, fingerprint-like necrotic signature. Its warmth dates the kill — a warm coin matches a *recent* sealed contract on the guild's rolls, nailing Thera to a specific death. **Destroy it with charge left and the soul escapes** — to thank its liberator, to testify, or to lash out if it died screaming.
 
 Full description and mechanics: [the roster entry](../npc/assassins.md#the-soulcoin-the-gut-punch).
 
@@ -185,7 +185,7 @@ There is no clean win here — that's the point. Options, in rough order of how
 - **Let it lie.** Most tables. They feel *something* is wrong with Even-Hand and can't prove it, and she walks out courteous and beloved. The rot continues. Deeply unsettling; entirely valid.
 - **Take it to Sevra.** Run [Sevra's arc](../npc/assassins.md#the-thing-she-cant-name-dm--her-arc): denial → one undeniable physical crack → terrifying thoroughness. Convince her and the loyalists turn — Sevra, and a broken Kael, side with the players. This is the emotional peak: the codex-faithful turning on the thing wearing the codex's face.
 - **Confront Thera directly.** She doesn't panic — she reframes as righteousness ("which of us is the mercenary?"), then withdraws or fights. If Sevra is convinced, the guild fights *with* the party; if Sevra is still in denial, the players face Thera alone, possibly against Kael, who won't believe it until too late. See her stat block for **Soulcoin Surge** — she is hard to kill for good, and even a "failed" kill leaves the players a cracked coin as proof.
-- **Free a soul.** Destroying a charged coin (in the cellar's thin point, or during the fight) releases a spirit — a witness, a thank-you, or a scream. The clearest possible statement of what she has been doing.
+- **Free a soul.** Destroying a charged coin at the tear in the Deep Cellar's Old Work—or breaking it during the fight—releases a spirit: a witness, a thank-you, or a scream. The clearest possible statement of what she has been doing.
 
 ---
 
@@ -207,7 +207,7 @@ There is no clean win here — that's the point. Options, in rough order of how
 | **0 — Ambience** *(free, drop for everyone)* | Just being in the room | Thera's chapel-stillness; Kael checking on her like a dog on its master; a dog that won't settle near her; milk souring by her cup |
 | **1 — First pull** | A PC examines Orenn's body **or** asks about Thera | The **brand-read** (*"a withdrawal… not our coin"*) **or** **Kael's unease** (*"the priest couldn't find him"*) |
 | **2 — Second pull** | A PC watches her closely / presses the thread | The **gestures** (doorframe, coin-turn, whispered word — DC 16 Perception); the **appraising read** (DC 16 Insight); **Dace's late shadow** (DC 15 Perception) |
-| **3 — Proof** | A PC digs for something physical | The **grey seam** at Dace's throat (true sight / *Veil Dust* / Mags / DC 15 Medicine·Arcana), or the **soulcoin** (pickpocket DC 20, her Surge in a fight, or her body if she falls) |
+| **3 — Proof** | A PC digs for something physical | The **grey seam** at Dace's throat (true sight / Mags / DC 15 Medicine·Arcana), or the **soulcoin** (pickpocket DC 20, her Surge in a fight, or her body if she falls) |
 | **4 — The fork resolves** | How the players handle Dace | Expose/kill him → mark runs. Let him slip quiet → Thera reaches for him instead |
 
 **How it ends** (pick by the players' last, hardest choice):
@@ -229,6 +229,6 @@ The assassin subplot feeds the murder mystery and the fiend arc:
 
 2. **Dace's meetings map the wards.** The diagram in the private room was made during a Dace/Haddon meeting. The cult was mapping the wards — which Xarrul was also breaking. The tavern's defences were weakened from both sides at once: Haddon from inside (mapping), Xarrul from the Ethereal Plane (scratching).
 
-3. **The House accidentally freed Xarrul.** The Order sent the fiend into the inner archive to steal the Severance Nail, not kill Sevra. The archive's automatic Final Closure severed every outside claim crossing its threshold, including the Order's command binding. Xarrul caught itself in the Border Ethereal instead of snapping home. Witnesses saw an Order-marked creature near senior rooms, three injured blades, false voices, and then smoke; the House reasonably misread the heist as a failed assassination and the disappearance as banishment. The assassins in the tavern know only hearsay.
+3. **The House accidentally freed Xarrul.** The Order sent the fiend into the inner archive to steal the Severance Nail, not kill Sevra. The archive's automatic Final Closure severed every outside claim crossing its threshold, including the Order's command binding. Xarrul slipped home into the Border Ethereal while carrying the power torn loose from that command. Witnesses saw an Order-marked creature near senior rooms, three injured blades, false voices, and then smoke; the House reasonably misread the heist as a failed assassination and the disappearance as banishment. The assassins in the tavern know only hearsay.
 
 4. **Two hungers, one veil (DM texture, not a reveal).** Orenn died to a fiend crossing the veil; Thera feeds a debt beneath the city. They are unrelated predators — which is exactly why Thera can look at Orenn's brand and say *"not our coin."* The tavern is a thin place, and thin places draw more than one kind of appetite. Let attentive players feel that resonance; don't explain it.