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location/cellar.md

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+# Cellar
+
+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.
+
+## 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.*
+
+## Layout
+
+The cellar is a single irregular space carved into bedrock, roughly 10 meters by 8 meters. No natural light. The floor is packed earth. The ceiling is raw stone. It is uncomfortably cold regardless of the season.
+
+```
+┌──────────────────────────────────┐
+│            CELLAR                │
+│                                  │
+│  [Barrel     ┌──────────┐       │
+│   Racks]     │Foundation│       │
+│              │  Stone   │       │
+│  [Old        │(ward-    │       │
+│   Crates]    │ sigils)  │       │
+│              └──────────┘       │
+│                                  │
+│  [Orenn's                        │
+│   Circle]    [Thin Point]        │
+│                                  │
+│         ┌────┐                   │
+│         │Trap│                   │
+│         │door│ (up to storage)   │
+│         └────┘                   │
+└──────────────────────────────────┘
+```
+
+## Key Features
+
+### Barrel Racks (West Wall)
+
+Wine and spirits too good for the upstairs crowd. A few barrels are marked with chalk symbols — DC 13 Investigation reveals these are Orenn's personal inventory codes. One barrel is not a barrel — it's a hollow shell containing:
+- A **Cloak of Elvenkind** (Orenn's, from his cleaner days)
+- 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.
+
+### 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.
+
+### Orenn's Circle (South)
+
+Hidden behind the crates. A permanent **Magic Circle against fiends** etched into the bedrock with silver inlay. This is master-level work — DC 16 Arcana identifies it as designed for both binding and interrogation. Orenn and Mags used this during their cleaner years to hold captured fiends for questioning.
+
+- The circle is **intact and functional**. If Xarrul can be lured here and trapped, the circle activates automatically — the fiend must succeed on a DC 17 Charisma saving throw or be contained.
+- **Limitation:** The circle only works on the Material Plane. If Xarrul is in the Ethereal Plane, it has no effect. Players need to force Xarrul fully into the Material Plane first (Fiendbane Manacles, the bell upstairs, or the dual-plane kill).
+
+### Foundation Stones & Ward-Sigils (Center, North)
+
+The exposed foundation stones of the tavern above. Carved into them are **ward-sigils** — Orenn and Mags's work from fifteen years ago. These wards created a barrier on the Ethereal Plane, preventing fiends from entering the tavern's footprint while ethereal.
+
+**Current state:** The sigils are **cracked**. Thin fracture lines run through the carved symbols, and the stone around them is warm to the touch despite the cellar's cold. DC 13 Arcana reveals the wards have been deliberately weakened — someone (or something) has been working on them for weeks. DC 16 Arcana identifies the method as consistent with fiendish influence applied from the Ethereal Plane side.
+
+- The cracking explains how Xarrul was able to enter the tavern's ethereal footprint and kill Orenn.
+- **Repairing the wards** requires warding chalk (found in storage) and a DC 15 Arcana check. Success restores partial function — Xarrul has disadvantage on its Ethereal Jaunt when within the tavern. Failure expends the chalk.
+
+### The Thin Point (East)
+
+The air here is wrong. Not cold, not warm — *thin*. Characters standing here feel a sensation like vertigo even on solid ground. Hair stands on end. Sounds seem to come from slightly wrong directions.
+
+**DC 12 Arcana or Perception:** The boundary between the Material Plane and the Ethereal Plane is naturally weak at this exact spot. This isn't artificial — the tavern was built on top of it.
+
+**DC 15 Arcana:** This thin point is why the tavern attracted the clientele it did. Subconsciously, people attuned to the arcane or the extraplanar gravitate toward places like this. The cultists didn't choose this tavern randomly. The fiend didn't target it randomly. Everything leads back here.
+
+**If a player takes Veil Dust here:** The effect is *doubled*. Instead of 1 minute, the trip lasts 10 minutes, and the visions are vivid and controllable rather than hallucinatory. The user can interact with ethereal entities directly (including Skein and Xarrul) for the duration. This is the ideal location for the dual-plane kill.
+
+**If the warding chalk circle is drawn here:** It functions as a full Magic Circle (as the spell, 1 hour duration) rather than the reduced 10-minute version, powered by the thin point's natural energy.
+
+## Ethereal Plane Overlay
+
+For the DM: in the Ethereal Plane, the cellar looks different. The stone walls glow faintly with the ghost-light of old wards. The broken sigils appear as dark, weeping wounds in the light. The thin point is a *tear* — not metaphorical, a visible rip in the grey fabric of the Ethereal Plane, showing the Material Plane through it in muted color.
+
+**Xarrul** uses the cellar as its lair when resting. Ethereal-plane observers might find:
+- Claw marks on the ethereal stone near the ward-sigils (this is how it weakened them)
+- A nest of sorts — shadows coiled into a shape suggesting something sleeps here
+- The faint, acrid smell of the Brand of Spite (the ability that killed Orenn)
+
+## Read-Aloud: The Thin Point
+
+> *Něco tu nesedí. Ne nebezpečného — nebo ne zjevně — ale prostě špatného. Vzduch je tu jiný. Není studený ani teplý, je tenký, jako by tu bylo o jednu vrstvu reality míň, než by mělo být. Cítíte lehké závratě, přestože stojíte na pevné zemi. Vlasy na rukou se vám zvedají. A zvuky — kroky, kapání vody, váš vlastní dech — přicházejí z lehce špatných směrů, jako ozvěny v místnosti, která by neměla mít ozvěnu.*