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Stanislav Fifik
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# Cellar
# Cellar (Upper Level)
Beneath the Burnt Tongue, accessed through the trapdoor in the storage room. The air changes immediately — colder, damper, and carrying a faint metallic tang that doesn't come from the pipes.
> **DM note — this is the *upper* cellar.** Everything the endgame needs is here: the thin point, Orenn's binding circle, and the ward-sigils. The [Reckoning](../storylines/the-reckoning.md) still plays out in this room, unchanged. But behind the barrel racks is a **[concealed door](#the-concealed-door)** down to the [Deep Cellar](deep-cellar.md) — the vast, hidden warren where Orenn and Mags kept the real secrets (their fortune, their prisoners, their laboratory, and a widening rift). The Deep Cellar is the module's exploration track and is entirely optional. Casual visitors to the cellar see only this room.
## Read-Aloud: Descending
> *Žebřík skřípe pod vaší vahou. Vzduch je tu jiný — chladný a vlhký, s kovovou pachutí, jako by někdo olízl starou minci. Vaše nohy dopadnou na holou hlínu. Strop je nízký, sotva metr osmdesát, a stěny jsou nahý kámen — ne stavební, ale živá skála, do které byl sklep vytesán. Svíčky tu nejsou. Cokoliv chcete vidět, musíte si posvítit sami.*
@@ -12,22 +14,23 @@ The cellar is a single irregular space carved into bedrock, roughly 10 meters by
```
┌──────────────────────────────────┐
│ CELLAR │
│ │
│ [Barrel ┌──────────┐ │
│ Racks] │Foundation│ │
│ │ Stone │ │
│ [Old │(ward- │ │
│ Crates] │ sigils) │ │
│ └──────────┘ │
│ CELLAR (UPPER) │
│ │
│ ╔══════╗ ┌──────────┐ │
│ ║Conceal║ │Foundation│ │
│ ║ door →║ │ Stone │ │
│ ║(Deep ║ │(ward- │ │
│ ║ Cellar║ │ sigils) │ │
│ ╚══════╝ └──────────┘ │
│ [Barrel │
│ Racks] │
│ [Old [Thin Point] │
│ Crates] │
│ [Orenn's │
│ Circle] [Thin Point] │
│ │
│ ┌────┐ │
│ │Trap│ │
│ │door│ (up to storage) │
│ └────┘ │
│ Circle] ┌────┐ │
│ │Trap│ │
│ │door│ (up to │
│ └────┘ storage) │
└──────────────────────────────────┘
```
@@ -40,6 +43,18 @@ Wine and spirits too good for the upstairs crowd. A few barrels are marked with
- A stoppered clay jug of **Alchemist's Fire** (3 flasks worth)
- A bundle of **iron nails inscribed with tiny runes** (10 nails). Hammering one into a surface creates a minor ward — any fiend crossing within 5 feet of it takes 1d4 radiant damage and the nail glows white-hot for 1 round, alerting anyone nearby. Single use per nail.
### The Concealed Door (Behind the Barrel Racks, North Wall)
What looks like raw bedrock behind the barrel racks is a **shell of stone facing an iron door**. This is the entrance to the [Deep Cellar](deep-cellar.md) — the hidden lower level, and the module's exploration track.
- **DC 15 Investigation** (behind the racks) reveals the seam, the fitted stone, a drag-scuff on the earth floor, and a cold draft that shouldn't be there.
- **DC 15 Perception** catches the same draft plus the smell rising through it — copper, tallow, and something animal and sweet-rotten beneath.
- The door is under a permanent **Arcane Lock** (DC 20 to force, DC 25 Thieves' Tools). It opens for **Orenn's black iron key** (on his body — the plain heavy key that fits nothing upstairs) or *Knock*.
- **Mags** knows what's down there and expects no one to find it. She reveals the door only under the most extreme trust — see [mags.md](../npc/mags.md). Players who find it themselves take that choice out of her hands, which is exactly the point.
- If **Přástka**, the household [phase spider](deep-cellar.md#encounter--the-guardian), is roaming, sharp-eared PCs may hear dry clicking beyond the door before they open it.
See **[deep-cellar.md](deep-cellar.md)** for the full lower level.
### Old Crates (South-West)
Genuinely old supplies: moth-eaten cloth, rusted tools, empty bottles. Nothing useful — but the crates themselves are positioned to obscure the circle on the floor behind them. Someone (Orenn) arranged them this way deliberately.

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# The Deep Cellar — The Old Work
*Everyone thinks the cellar is the bottom. It isn't. Orenn and Mags never fully retired — they just moved the work downstairs, past a door that isn't on any map, and told the world they poured drinks for a living.*
---
## Purpose (For the DM)
This level is the **exploration spine** of the module — the track for players who came to *do* things, not talk. It rewards sneaking, searching, lockpicking, and picking fights carefully. Everything here is optional. A party can solve the murder without ever finding the concealed door. But a party that goes down here finds:
- **Useful things** — a fiend-hunter's arsenal, alchemy, coin, and one or two items that make the Reckoning easier.
- **Backstory, told by the room** — the truth about who Orenn and Mags really were, discovered through what they kept, caged, and buried, without a single NPC having to explain it.
- **A fight, on the party's terms** — a guardian, an infestation, a haunting, and a caged thing that might not stay caged.
**This does NOT relocate the endgame.** The Reckoning still happens in the **[Upper Cellar](../location/cellar.md)** — the thin point, Orenn's binding circle, and the ward-sigils are all up there and unchanged. The Deep Cellar is a *second, lower level* reached through a concealed door. Its own rift (the Old Work, below) is the same planar fault seen deeper and worse; it is a source of dread, backstory, and monsters — **not** the dual-plane-kill site. If in doubt, keep binding and killing Xarrul upstairs where the circle is.
---
## Getting In
The only entrance is the **concealed iron door** in the Upper Cellar (see [cellar.md — The Concealed Door](../location/cellar.md#the-concealed-door)). Finding it is the first exploration beat:
- **DC 15 Investigation** on the north wall behind the barrel racks — the "living rock" there is a cleverly fitted iron door faced with a shell of real stone. A cold draft and a faint drag-scuff on the earth floor give it away.
- **DC 15 Perception** — the same cold draft, plus the smell (copper, tallow, something animal underneath).
- **Orenn's keys** (on his body) include a heavy, plain black iron key that fits nothing upstairs. It fits here.
- **Mags** will only reveal it under the most extreme trust (see [mags.md](../npc/mags.md)) — and even then reluctantly. Players who *find it themselves* rob her of the choice, which is very much the point of this track.
The door itself is locked (**Arcane Lock**, DC 20 to force, DC 25 Thieves' Tools; Orenn's black key or *Knock* bypasses it). Behind it: rough steps cut into bedrock, descending.
> **Read-Aloud: The Descent**
>
> *Za falešnou stěnou nejsou sudy. Jsou schody. Vytesané přímo do skály, úzké, nerovné, kluzké vlhkem, které stoupá zdola jako dech. Vzduch je tu ještě chladnější než ve sklepě — a hustší, jako by měl vlastní váhu. Kovová pachuť sílí. A pod ní něco jiného: pižmo, zvířecí, a hluboko vzadu sladká hniloba.*
>
> *Deset schodů. Patnáct. Ztratíte počet. Světlo shora se scvrkne na bledou skvrnu a pak zmizí úplně. Ať chcete vidět cokoliv, musíte si posvítit — a to světlo tu vypadá menší, než by mělo, jako by ho tma kolem hltala.*
>
> *A pak, na hranici slyšitelnosti, něco zaškrábe. Daleko. Nebo blízko. Tady dole se to nepozná.*
---
## Layout
The Deep Cellar is a warren carved over years, not a planned dungeon. Roughly 25m across at its widest, on a single sloping level that descends toward the Old Work.
```
┌───────────────────────┐
│ THE OLD WORK │
│ (the rift, deepest) │
│ ▓▓ contained tear ▓▓ │
└───────────┬───────────┘
│ (warded arch)
┌──────────────┐ ┌───────┴────────┐ ┌──────────────┐
│ THE VAULT │ │ │ │ DEEP STORAGE │
│ (arcane- ├──────┤ THE JUNCTION ├──────┤ (trophy hold,│
│ locked) │ │ (hub cave) │ │ haunted) │
└──────────────┘ └──┬──────────┬──┘ └──────────────┘
│ │
┌───────────┴──┐ ┌───┴───────────┐
│ THE CELLS │ │ THE WORKROOM │
│ [1] Guest │ │ (laboratory) │
│ [2] Long Dead│ └───────────────┘
└──────────────┘
▲
steps up to
UPPER CELLAR
```
**Light:** None. Utterly dark. Bring your own — and note that the darkness here feels *thick* (flavor; no mechanical penalty beyond normal). Some rooms have sconces the players can light.
**Sound:** Carries strangely (the fault line). A footstep three rooms away can sound close; a scream close by can sound far. Use this — Perception checks to locate a sound are at disadvantage down here.
---
## The Junction (Hub Cave)
An irregular chamber where the passages meet. This was Orenn and Mags's working floor — a scarred wooden table, two chairs, a rack of tools (mundane: shovels, a mallet, coils of rope, iron stakes), and a **whitewashed wall covered in chalk**.
**The Chalk Wall (DC 12 Investigation to read it properly):** Years of case-notes in Orenn's shorthand and Mags's blunt block letters. Most is smudged over. What survives, read together, is the backstory of the whole level, delivered by the room:
- Columns of dates and single words: *"bound," "burned," "sold," "returned," "kept."*
- A crude regional map with a dozen X's — jobs. Three are circled and struck through hard enough to tear the whitewash.
- A newer hand (last few weeks), hurried: *"wards thinning again. Faster than '09. G. felt it too — won't say what it saw. Watch the Order. If it comes through, seal below and burn."* — This is Orenn's, and it matches the letter Mags carries and the hidden fifth rule upstairs. It confirms Orenn knew something was coming.
- **DC 15 Investigation:** One struck-through X on the map is annotated *"Lambent — Vyre?"* — Orenn had been circling the cult for months. (Threads the exploration back into the murder mystery. See [Lambent Order](../storylines/lambent-order.md).)
**Encounter — The Infestation (rats):** The Junction and passages are infested. This is the low-stakes "you are not alone down here" beat.
- **1 Swarm of Rats** (CR 1/4) per passage the party lingers in noisily; up to 3 total. They boil out of cracks, drawn by warmth. They're a nuisance, not a threat — but they can force a retreat from a room, knock over a lantern (darkness!), or gnaw a dropped item.
- **Flavor near the Old Work:** rats down there are *wrong* — some flicker, half-there, ethereal-touched. They pass through a closed door once and vanish. (Pure atmosphere; treat as normal rats mechanically, or reskin one swarm as taking only force/radiant/magical damage if you want the rift's influence to bite.)
- **Stealth option:** A party moving quietly (group DC 12 Stealth) crosses the Junction without waking the swarms. Rewarding caution is the point.
**The barred inner door (to the Old Work):** A heavy door reinforced with the same runed iron nails from upstairs, barred from *this* side. Cold radiates from it. See [The Old Work](#the-old-work).
---
## The Vault (Treasure Room)
*"You told me we were poor," Mags said once, "so I'd stop worrying." Orenn just smiled. They were never poor. They were careful.*
A low chamber sealed by a banded door under a permanent **Arcane Lock** (Orenn's black key, *Knock*, or *Dispel Magic* vs. DC 17; brute force is DC 25 Strength, and the door is designed to scream — a shriek-ward alerts the [phase spider](#encounter--the-guardian) and anyone in the Junction). This is where twenty years of "expensive, reliable, discreet" went.
> **Read-Aloud: The Vault**
>
> *Dveře se otevřou s dechem suchého, starého vzduchu. Uvnitř se vaše světlo odrazí od zlata. Ne hromady jako v dračích pohádkách — spíš pořádek. Truhly srovnané u zdi. Police. Zbraně na hácích, naolejované a čekající. A všechno pokryté tenkou vrstvou prachu, kterou léta nikdo nezvedl.*
>
> *Je to poklad člověka, který nikdy neutrácel — protože nikdy nevěřil, že válka opravdu skončila.*
### Wealth
- **1,400 gp** in mixed coin across three locked chests (DC 13 Thieves' Tools each, or the black key).
- A velvet roll of **cut gemstones** worth **900 gp** total (six stones, 150 gp each — easy to split, easy to steal a couple unnoticed: a Personal-Goal hook, see [character-secrets](../handouts/character-secrets.md)).
- A deed-box: **two more deeds** (a warehouse on Popelová Alley, a shuttered chandlery) and letters of credit with a moneylender — proof the "just a barkeep" story was always a story.
> **DM note — preserve the upstairs beat.** The modest lockbox in Orenn & Mags's bedroom (150 gp, the deed, the two silver rings, *"It's just a life"*) still stands. The contrast **is** the character work: the sentimental front upstairs, the buried fortune down here. Don't collapse one into the other. Mags never spent the vault. It was for a war she never stopped expecting.
### The Cleaner's Arsenal (the useful stuff)
Rewards for going deep — none of it breaks the Reckoning, most of it *helps* it:
- **Fiendbane Salt (4 doses).** A pinch thrown at a fiend within 10 ft. forces a DC 14 Charisma save; on a failure the fiend is anchored to its current plane (can't use Ethereal Jaunt / Slip Between) until the end of its next turn. *This is the exploration reward that makes pinning Xarrul possible without buying Tallow's manacles* — cheaper in gold, dearer in danger.
- A **quiver of 10 silvered crossbow bolts** and a **matched silvered hand crossbow** (well-kept, +0 but silvered).
- 2 vials of **Holy Water**, 1 more vial of **Silversheen**, and a jar of **warding chalk (2 uses)** — stacks with the storage-room supplies for a party that hunts both caches.
- A **Potion of Heroism** and a **Potion of Greater Healing** (×2) — the couple's "before the bad jobs" stash.
- A **Ring of the Ram** (3 charges) OR a **+1 dagger etched with a fiend-binding sigil** (DM's choice, tuned to the party's gaps) — one modest permanent item as the deep-exploration prize.
### The Trophies (backstory)
On a shelf, labeled in Mags's block letters — souvenirs kept the way soldiers keep them:
- A **shattered summoning horn**, scorched. Label: *"the sewer thing, '01. never again."*
- A **child's shoe**, clean, kept apart from everything else. **No label.** (Say nothing. Let it sit. Insight tells a player this is the one thing in the room that hurt them.)
- A row of small glass jars, each holding a **pinch of grey ash** and a slip of paper with a name and a date. Fiends they burned. The most recent jar is **empty, waiting, labeled only with a question mark** — Orenn expected one more.
- **DC 14 Investigation:** one trophy — a guild-style garrote with a jade bead — matches the [House of Scales](../storylines/house-of-scales.md); another, a bronze pin, is a **Lambent Order** eye-in-flame (like the one in the private room). The couple's "problems we solved" included people from *both* factions currently sitting upstairs. If that ever comes out, the lockdown gets much more dangerous.
---
## The Cells
Two cells cut side by side, iron-barred, fitted with the runed nails and a warded lock (DC 15 Thieves' Tools; the warding adds a jolt — 1d4 force to a failed pick). This is the ugliest truth of the level: Orenn and Mags didn't just kill things. Sometimes they *kept* them.
### Cell One — The Guest
**Occupied.** A changeling the couple has held for years and used as an off-book asset. Full write-up, stat block, leverage, and dialogue in **[npc/the-guest.md](../npc/the-guest.md)**.
Short version for the DM: the Guest is the beating heart of "they still have something going on." It's alive, lucid, a fluent liar, and it knows more about Orenn, Mags, *and the Lambent Order* than anyone the players have met — because Orenn used it to spy on the cult. Freeing it, using it, or leaving it is a genuine moral choice, and it can end in a fight ([doppelganger](../npc/the-guest.md), CR 3) or a very memorable escape. Read its file before running this room.
> **Read-Aloud: Cell One**
>
> *V cele někdo je. Sedí na kavalci, zády ke zdi, ruce položené na kolenou, docela klidně — jako host, který čeká, až ho konečně někdo přijde obsloužit. Když se do cely opře vaše světlo, ten člověk se usměje. Je to příjemný úsměv. Vřelý. A vy si na zlomek vteřiny nejste jistí, jestli jste ten obličej už někde neviděli — jestli to není někdo, koho znáte.*
>
> *"No konečně," řekne. "Začínal jsem mít strach, že na mě zapomněli."*
### Cell Two — The Long Dead
**Empty of the living.** On the floor at the back, a **desiccated corpse** — humanoid-shaped, but wrong: the bones too long, the jaw unhinged, the skin drawn to grey parchment over a frame that doesn't sit right. It has been dead for years. The manacles are still locked around wrists that shrank out of them.
- **DC 12 Medicine/Investigation:** it starved, or was left to. No violence killed it. Someone stopped bringing food.
- **DC 15 Investigation:** the bone structure is a **shapeshifter's** — a changeling or doppelganger, caught mid-collapse when it died, unable to hold a face. *This is the Guest's predecessor.* (If players have met the Guest, this lands like a stone. If they see it first, meeting the Guest afterward is dread.)
- **Around its neck**, a corroded token — a **guild bead** *or* a **Lambent eye-pin** (match to whichever faction subplot your table has leaned into). Whatever this thing once impersonated, it was placed among a faction the players are dealing with tonight. It knew things. Then it stopped being useful.
- **The scratch-marks:** the inside of the cell door, low down, is covered in tally-scratches — years of them — and one phrase gouged over and over in a dozen borrowed handwritings: *"I was real."*
This room explains, without a word, exactly what the Guest is afraid of, and exactly what kind of people ran this tavern.
---
## The Workroom (Laboratory)
A long, low chamber that smells of vinegar, sulphur, crushed herbs, and cold ash. A stone bench runs the length of one wall: alembics, a small athanor (cold), racks of labeled vials, a mortar, a ledger, and dried plants hung from the ceiling in careful bundles. Mags's herb rack upstairs is the kitchen branch of *this*.
> **Read-Aloud: The Workroom**
>
> *Dílna. Jinak se to nazvat nedá. Podél zdi kamenný stůl, na něm sklo — baňky, křivule, chladič — všechno pečlivě umyté a srovnané. Ze stropu visí svazky sušených bylin. Ve vzduchu se drží ostrý pach octa a síry a pod ním něco sladkého, co vám z nějakého důvodu naskočí husí kůži. Na stěně visí police plná lahviček, každá popsaná úhledným písmem. A uprostřed toho všeho leží otevřená kniha, do které někdo psal ještě nedávno.*
### What They Made (and still make)
This is the other half of "still something going on." The couple never stopped brewing:
- **Fiend-hunting alchemicals** — the source of the holy water, silversheen, alchemist's fire, and warding chalk found throughout the tavern. They supplied *themselves*.
- **Veil Dust research.** A locked drawer (DC 14) holds **3 doses of Veil Dust** plus a notebook studying it — *not* as a drug but as a *tool* for watching the thin point. **This connects to the [ethereal-trip](../storylines/ethereal-trip.md) subplot**: Orenn and Mags used Veil Dust to monitor the fault for years. It does **not** contradict Tallow's supplier being Mother Vyre — the couple brewed their own small batch for work; they were never in the trade. (If a player is hunting the source of Vetch's addiction, this is a red herring that *feels* hot and cools on inspection — DC 13 Investigation on the ledger shows they never sold a gram.)
- **The Ledger (DC 12 to read):** entries for materia, ward maintenance, and — chillingly — line items for "the Guest": *"fed," "used — Order, 3 nights," "compliant," "trim dose"* (a suppressant they keep the Guest on; see [the-guest.md](../npc/the-guest.md)). If the players read this before meeting the Guest, they'll know it's been drugged into cooperation for years.
### Loot & Craft
- **2 flasks of Alchemist's Fire**, **1 vial of Basic Poison** (×3 applications), **Antitoxin** (×2).
- A partially-finished batch of **warding chalk (1 use)** and enough materia for a proficient character (Herbalism Kit / Alchemist's Supplies / Poisoner's Kit) to brew **one more dose of any of the above during the lockdown** (1 hour, DC 13 with the right tools). Rewards a crafter PC with something to *do*.
- **Silvervein root** (the ward-herb, ×4 sprigs) — matters for weakening [Skein](../storylines/possession.md) and helping Bren. A direct bridge from the exploration track into the possession subplot.
- **Trap:** the drawer of finished poisons is needle-trapped (DC 13 Investigation to spot, DC 12 Thieves' Tools to disarm; 1d6 poison + DC 12 CON or poisoned 1 hour). Orenn and Mags didn't want their own stock lifted.
---
## Deep Storage (The Trophy Hold)
The largest room down here, and the worst-kept — because things in it don't like being tidied. Shelves and crates of confiscated, dangerous, or simply *strange* items from twenty years of jobs: things too risky to sell, too valuable to destroy, so they were shelved and warded and left.
> **Read-Aloud: Deep Storage**
>
> *Velká místnost, plná regálů, a na regálech… věci. Maska, která sleduje, jak procházíte kolem. Zrcadlo zabalené v plátně, převázané provazem. Klec, ve které není nic — a přesto se hýbe. Loutka bez nití. Zbraně, které by neměly být tak staré a přitom bez jediného škrábance. Nic tu není v pořádku a všechno je pečlivě popsáno a odloženo, jako důkazy ve skladu, na který se má radši zapomenout.*
>
> *A vzduch je tu studenější. Ne fyzicky. Jinak.*
### The Haunting — Encounter
The room is **haunted** by a **Poltergeist** (specter variant, CR 2) — the untethered remnant of a job the couple could contain but never fully cleanse (say so on the chalk wall in the Junction: a struck-through X labeled *"the Vresk house — never left"*). It's bound to the room by the wards, furious, and territorial.
- **It hides** among the trophies and strikes when the party disturbs the shelves or lingers >2 rounds. Invisible (DC understood: needs *See Invisibility* / Veil Dust / a lucky Perception vs its Stealth to pin down); it hurls objects (Telekinetic Thrust) and drops the lights.
- **Non-combat outs:** it calms if the party *leaves the shelves alone* and simply passes through, or if someone re-lights the room's warding sconces (DC 13 Arcana to relight the ward-candles bolted to the walls — doing so pins the poltergeist and lets the party loot in peace). A cleric can turn or lay it to rest (backstory: it just wants the room quiet again).
- **Scaling:** for 5 PCs, add **2 Shadows** (CR 1/2) that peel off the walls where the ward-light has failed — a bridge to the rift's influence.
### Loot (weird, useful, cursed-adjacent)
Let players earn these by braving the haunting. Suggested shelf (pick to taste):
- A **Cloak of Billowing** or **Hat of Disguise** (mundane-ish utility, great for the social/stealth players) — tag: *"Guest's spare — do not issue."* (Ties to the changeling operation.)
- A **Bag of Holding** (smaller sibling to Tallow's) — practical for hauling the vault's coin.
- **3 runed iron nails** (as upstairs — anti-fiend wards) and a **Driftglobe** (portable light for the dark warren; a small mercy).
- A **sealed lead casket, warded, labeled *"DO NOT OPEN — '06"***. Inside (if a player insists): a **Vial of dark ichor** — a bound fiendish essence. Opening it is a bad idea (DM's discretion: a minor fiend or a curse) but it *can* be used as a component to bait/lure Xarrul. A high-risk, high-reward exploration payoff for a bold party. The wards on the casket (DC 15 Arcana) spell out plainly: *whatever is in here wants you to open it.*
---
## The Old Work (The Rift)
The deepest chamber, behind the barred and runed door off the Junction. This is why Orenn and Mags really live here — and the thing the hidden fifth rule means when it says *burn below and seal the door.*
> **Read-Aloud: The Old Work**
>
> *Za dveřmi je zima, která nemá co dělat s teplotou. Místnost je malá a kulatá a uprostřed podlahy je… trhlina. Ne ve skále. Ve vzduchu. Ve světě. Svislá jizva dlouhá jako člověk, po okrajích roztřepená, a skrze ni prosvítá šeď — plochá, nekonečná, špatná šeď éterické roviny. Kolem trhliny je do podlahy vyryt kruh znaků, stříbrem a solí, a ten kruh svítí slabě a unaveně, jako někdo, kdo drží dveře zavřené už příliš dlouho.*
>
> *Něco se na druhé straně pohne. A pak ještě něco. Trhlina je čím dál větší — a poprvé za patnáct let ji nikdo nehlídá.*
### What It Is
The planar fault beneath the tavern surfaces as the **thin point** upstairs; down here, at the lowest point, it has torn into an actual **rift** — a hand-thin tear the couple contained decades ago with a **silver-and-salt containment circle** (distinct from Orenn's *binding* circle upstairs). The circle is failing in step with the ward-sigils Xarrul has been cracking. This is the **source** of the ethereal bleed everyone's been feeling.
- **DC 14 Arcana:** the containment circle is the same craft as the upstairs work but older, and it's being eroded from the ethereal side — the same claw-marks that cracked the wards.
- **DC 16 Arcana:** the rift and the upstairs thin point are one fault. Widening or "using" this rift would be catastrophically less controllable than the upstairs thin point. **This is not where you do the dual-plane kill.** (Explicit, so a clever party doesn't try to run the Reckoning down here and derail it.)
### The Conversion (Optional — a lone explorer)
If a *single* PC lingers here alone, this is where Xarrul can reach them — a ward-snare pins them, or an **Ethereal Pull** drags them partway into the grey, and the fiend simply *talks*. They rejoin the party changed: genuinely convinced Xarrul should go free, and carrying a shard of its nature. This is **not** a charm — it's a conversation that worked, and it's one of the best engines for [Scenario F](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-f-the-open-door-joining-xarrul) at a large table. Full scene, the player's note, the boon (the **Grey Step**), and the counterplay: [handouts/the-conversion.md](../handouts/the-conversion.md).
### Encounter — Creatures from the Rift
This is where "Xarrul can have some creatures from there" pays off. Xarrul doesn't lair *in* the rift — it lairs in the ethereal cellar (upstairs overlay, per canon) — but it has learned to **loose the scavengers** that gather at the tear, herding them at intruders like dogs.
Deploy as a scaled encounter (tune to party size / how hurt they are):
- **Baseline:** **3 Shadows** (CR 1/2) that pour out of the tear where the circle's light has thinned, plus **1 Ethereal Filcher** (CR 1) that darts in to *steal a valuable item* off a PC (DC 13 vs. Sleight-of-Hand-style grab) and flee back through the rift — a fantastic reason to chase, and a way to make loss of the vault's prize sting.
- **Harder:** add a **Specter** (CR 1) or upgrade to a lone **ethereal-touched horror** of the DM's making. If Xarrul is *actively present* on the ethereal side (late game), it can spend a turn "opening the gate" as a lair-flavored action, adding 1 Shadow per round until the circle is restored.
### Encounter — The Guardian (the pet)
Roaming the whole Deep Cellar — but denning near the rift, because it can hunt across the boundary — is **the couple's pet**, a bound **Phase Spider** the players may meet anywhere down here. Full tactical block below. It's the "fight a bit" the party will remember.
> **Read-Aloud: The Guardian**
>
> *Slyšíte to dřív, než to uvidíte — suché klepání, jako když někdo poklepává kostěnými prsty na kámen. Pak zmizí. A pak, z místa, kde před vteřinou nic nebylo, se to vynoří: pavouk velký jako lovecký pes, tělo lesklé a temné, a nohy, které se dotýkají země jen napůl — jako by si nebyl úplně jistý, na které straně světa vlastně je.*
**Phase Spider "Přástka"** — Large monstrosity, unaligned · **CR 3 (700 XP)**
**AC** 13 · **HP** 32 (5d10+5) · **Speed** 30 ft., climb 30 ft.
| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
| 15 (+2) | 15 (+2) | 12 (+1) | 7 (-2) | 10 (+0) | 6 (-2) |
**Skills** Stealth +6
**Senses** darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 10
**Ethereal Jaunt.** As a bonus action, the spider can shift from the Material Plane to the Ethereal Plane, or vice versa. (This is why it can guard a household on a thin point — no wall, and no plane, keeps it out.)
**Spider Climb / Web Walker.** Climbs difficult surfaces, including upside down, and ignores webbing movement restrictions.
**Actions**
**Bite.** *Melee Weapon Attack:* +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. *Hit:* 7 (1d10+2) piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 11 Constitution save, taking 18 (4d8) poison damage on a fail, half on a success. If the poison reduces the target to 0 HP, it's stable but poisoned and paralyzed for 1 hour.
**Running it well:**
- **It's a guard dog, not a monster.** It was *raised* by Orenn and Mags. It will **not** attack a creature that (a) carries Orenn's scent — anyone who handled his keys/body/clothes — or (b) speaks the household command word Mags knows, or (c) simply doesn't threaten the Vault or the Cells. A quiet, respectful party can pass it entirely (great stealth payoff). Present this: it *tracks* them, clicks, phases, watches — and holds fire until provoked.
- **Provoke it** (force the Vault, harm the Guest, attack it) and it fights like an ambush predator: bite, phase out (safe on the Ethereal Plane where non-ethereal weapons can't reach), reposition, phase back for another strike. Players need force damage, ethereal reach (Veil Dust!), or to catch it on the Material Plane to pin it.
- **After Orenn's death** it's agitated and grieving in its animal way — more skittish, more likely to lash out from fear. A druid/beast-handler (DC 14 Animal Handling) can calm it; killing it upsets Mags deeply if she learns of it.
- **Scaling:** for 5 PCs or a combat-hungry table, add **2 Giant Spiders** (CR 1, its brood) nesting in the passages. For a lighter table, run Přástka purely as an avoidable stealth obstacle.
---
## DM Cheat-Sheet — Running the Deep Cellar
**Pacing:** This is a 30–60 minute side-track, or the spine of the whole night for an exploration-hungry group. It runs parallel to the lockdown upstairs — while some PCs interrogate patrons, others can be down here. Cut between the two.
**The three payoffs, guaranteed:**
1. **Loot** — the Vault + Workroom + Deep Storage give gear that makes the Reckoning easier (Fiendbane Salt, silvered weapons, alchemy, silvervein root for Bren).
2. **Backstory** — the chalk wall, the trophies, the child's shoe, Cell Two, the Guest, and the ledger tell the whole truth about Orenn and Mags with almost no exposition.
3. **A fight on their terms** — rats (trivial), the poltergeist (medium), the phase spider (avoidable or hard), rift creatures (scalable), and optionally the Guest (CR 3).
**Threads back into the main game — surface at least one:**
- The chalk wall / Guest / trophies reveal Orenn was investigating the **Lambent Order** → feeds the murder mystery and the [Reckoning](../storylines/the-reckoning.md).
- The Workroom's **silvervein root** and Veil Dust → the [Possession](../storylines/possession.md) and [ethereal-trip](../storylines/ethereal-trip.md) subplots.
- The **Fiendbane Salt** and silvered gear → the means to pin Xarrul without paying Tallow.
- The vault **trophies** implicating both factions → a lit fuse if it ever reaches the main hall.
**If the party burns it (the fifth rule):** Orenn's contingency — *"burn the cellar stores and seal the door"* — is a real option. Torching the Workroom and Deep Storage and collapsing the door denies the loot but also **cuts off the rift's bleed into the tavern** (the fire consumes the failing containment and the stores that feed the fault's attraction), giving a partial ward-restoration effect equivalent to repairing the sigils. It's a scorched-earth ending Mags respects. The Guest, if still caged, dies in the fire unless freed first — make the players sit with that.

6
location/main-hall.md
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@@ -21,11 +21,11 @@ Large stone hearth, fire burning low. The mantle holds a single iron bell that h
### Assassin Table (North-West)
A long table pushed against the wall. **Sevra** sits at the head with her back to the corner — she can see both the entrance and the cultist table. **Dace** is to her right, nursing a drink and making easy conversation with anyone nearby. **Kael** is standing, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, glaring at the cultist table.
A long table pushed against the wall. **Sevra** sits at the head with her back to the corner — she can see both the entrance and the cultist table. **Dace** is to her right, nursing a drink and making easy conversation with anyone nearby — jumpier than usual, though he'd blame the room. **Kael** is standing, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, glaring at the cultist table. **Thera "Even-Hand,"** the eldest blade present, sits a little apart with her hands folded, watching everything and saying almost nothing; Kael keeps glancing at her the way a dog checks on its master.
Three other unnamed guild members fill the rest of the table. They defer to Sevra completely.
Two other unnamed blades fill the rest of the table. They defer to Sevra completely.
**After the murder:** Kael wants to search the cultists by force. Sevra is holding him back — barely. Dace is being "helpful" to whoever is investigating, subtly steering suspicion toward the cultists.
**After the murder:** Kael wants to search the cultists by force. Sevra is holding him back — barely. Dace is being "helpful" to whoever is investigating, subtly steering suspicion toward the cultists. Thera does not join the noise; she drifts once to look at Orenn's body, reads it in a glance no one else can, and returns to her seat. See **[The House of Scales](../storylines/house-of-scales.md)**.
### Cultist Table (South-West)

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location/tavern-overview.md
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@@ -55,9 +55,16 @@ The noise level before the brawl is a low murmur punctuated by occasional harsh
│ │ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┘
┌───────┴───────┐
│ CELLAR │
│ CELLAR (UPPER)│
│ (trapdoor in │
│ storage) │
└───────┬───────┘
concealed door
┌───────┴───────┐
│ DEEP CELLAR │
│ (hidden warren:│
│ vault, cells, │
│ lab, the rift)│
└───────────────┘
```
@@ -74,3 +81,4 @@ The noise level before the brawl is a low murmur punctuated by occasional harsh
- The tavern is built on a **natural thin point** between the Material and Ethereal planes. Orenn and Mags knew this. It's one reason they chose this location — they could monitor it. It also means Veil Dust is more potent here, and ethereal entities find it easier to manifest.
- The wooden plaque with the house rules has a **hidden fifth rule** on the back, in Orenn's handwriting: *"If the veil tears, burn the cellar stores and seal the door. We'll handle the rest."* — Mags can reveal this if pressed, but it will shake her.
- The building's stone foundation contains **old ward-sigils** carved by Orenn and Mags when they moved in. These wards kept fiends from crossing the threshold in the Ethereal Plane. Xarrul broke them during the brawl — a character examining the foundation stones (DC 15 Investigation or Arcana) can find the cracked sigils.
- Behind the barrel racks in the cellar, a **[concealed door](cellar.md#the-concealed-door)** leads down to the **[Deep Cellar](deep-cellar.md)** — a hidden warren that is Orenn and Mags's real, ongoing workplace: a vault, a laboratory, two cells (one occupied), a trophy-hold, and a widening rift to the Ethereal Plane. "Retired" was always a story. This lower level is the module's optional exploration track — sneaking, looting, environmental backstory, and a fight or two — for players who'd rather *do* than talk. The fifth rule on the plaque (*"burn the cellar stores and seal the door"*) refers to it.