fractions rework

Core Move.md

@@ -14,8 +14,8 @@ hard things before, and are quietly, fatally wrong about what "this" is.
 Their competence is real, but it's in **violence, intimidation, tracking a mark,
 making problems disappear, and — above all — information.** Running the city's
 neutral ground means they *must* know who's moving and why, so they run
-**surveillance** on every faction (the Guest as a planted asset, Tallow as a
-source, their own watching). Humint, not brimstone.
+**surveillance** on every faction (the Guest as a planted asset, their coded
+booking and debt journals, their own watching). Humint, not brimstone.
 
 - Mags's *Cleaner's Instinct* (advantage vs. fiends) becomes a **Fixer's Read**:
   advantage to read people, spot a lie, clock a threat, track a mark.

handouts/character-secrets.md

@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ Each has four parts: **Boon** (an asset you have now) · **Goal** (your secret o
 > **The Catch — CROSS.** You are not the only one hunting that book. Someone here wants it *whole*, in their hands. Every page you burn is money out of their pocket, and they know a fireplace when they see one. If you can't find them first, they'll be standing between you and the flames.
 
 ### 2. The Collector
-> **Boon — The Boss's Sigil.** You carry a crime-lord's signet. Shown to a fellow criminal (an assassin, Tallow), it buys **one grudging act of cooperation** — no combat, but a door opened, a question answered, a blind eye turned.
+> **Boon — The Boss's Sigil.** You carry a crime-lord's signet. Shown to a fellow criminal (an assassin or Mags), it buys **one grudging act of cooperation** — no combat, but a door opened, a question answered, a blind eye turned.
 >
 > **Goal — Recover the Book, Intact.** Your boss wants Orenn's coded debt-journal *whole* — it names everyone who owes him in this quarter. Secure it (under the bar, and the duplicate in the [Vault](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-vault-treasure-room)) and keep it unburned until dawn.
 >
@@ -61,20 +61,20 @@ Each has four parts: **Boon** (an asset you have now) · **Goal** (your secret o
 ### 3. The Handler's Agent
 > **Boon — The Countersign.** You have a coded phrase from a handler you've never met. Spoken to the right ears, it unlocks their trust. (DM: the "right ears" belong to the [Guest](../npc/the-guest.md).)
 >
-> **Goal — Get the Asset Out.** Somewhere below is a changeling called the Guest. Reach [Cell One](../location/deep-cellar.md#cell-one--the-guest), free it, and get it out of this building **alive**.
+> **Goal — Get the Asset Out.** Somewhere below is a changeling called the Guest. Reach [Cell One](../location/deep-cellar.md#cell-one--the-guest), free it, and get it out of this building **alive**. Your handler assumes the Guest wants extraction. The Guest has its own opinion about acquiring another handler—and about leaving a tavern it believes it has earned.
 >
-> **Payoff — *immediate, and powerful.*** A freed Guest **owes you a face.** Once before dawn it will *become* anyone you name — walk past a locked door as Mags, alibi you, whisper a lie in a rival's voice — **or fight at your side in the Reckoning as a full ally (CR 3).** A live, loyal shapeshifter is the single best in-session prize on this list.
+> **Payoff — *immediate, and powerful.*** The countersign buys **one face, not loyalty**. Once before dawn the Guest will become anyone you name—walk past a locked door as Mags, alibi you, whisper a lie in a rival's voice—or stand beside you during the Reckoning as a full ally (CR 3). It honors that one favor exactly. It does not agree that this makes it your handler's property.
 >
-> **The Catch — CROSS / ALIGN.** Someone else was sent for the Guest too — but *not* to free it. If they reach the cell first, your asset is a corpse and your payoff is gone. (You may also find an unlikely ally: someone here needs the Guest alive as badly as you do, for reasons of their own.)
+> **The Catch — CROSS / ALIGN.** Someone else was sent for the Guest too—but *not* to free it. If they reach the cell first, your asset is a corpse and your payoff is gone. If you rescue it, the conflict changes: it means to use Xarrul's transfer to claim the Inn, not follow you out. During [the Vacancy](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy-the-guests-gambit), you may have to defend its projected spirit from your own companion and then decide whether extraction means dragging a newly empowered person away from the home it claims.
 
 ### 4. The Executioner
 > **Boon — Cold Hands.** You've done ugly work in dark rooms. You have **advantage on saving throws against being frightened**, and the horrors below rattle you less than they should.
 >
-> **Goal — Silence the Guest.** A patron paid you to make sure the thing in the cellar never speaks again — kill it, or ensure it stays caged when this place burns. It knows too much about someone who's paying to stay unknown.
+> **Goal — Silence the Guest.** A patron paid you to make sure the thing in the cellar never speaks again—kill it, ensure it stays caged when this place burns, or sever its projected spirit during [the Vacancy](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy-the-guests-gambit). It knows too much about someone who's paying to stay unknown, and a Guest that inherits Xarrul will be almost impossible to reach afterward.
 >
 > **Payoff — *immediate, and vicious.*** From the Guest you take a **vial of face-oil** — a shapeshifter's keepsake. Once before dawn, **read one creature's surface thoughts as *detect thoughts* (no save)** — including a fellow PC's. Learn a secret. Use it however you like. Also: your fee is stashed behind a loose stone near the cellar stairs — **50 gp and a *Potion of Heroism*, findable now.**
 >
-> **The Catch — CROSS.** Someone at this table wants that thing freed and walking out the front door. They are working against you, whether they've said a word or not. And a second person needs it alive long enough to *ask it a question* — kill it too soon and you make an enemy you didn't plan on.
+> **The Catch — CROSS.** Someone at this table wants that thing freed and believes they are rescuing it. They are working against you, whether they've said a word or not. A second person needs it alive long enough to *ask it a question*. During the Vacancy, the Guest and Xarrul become separate targets for three rounds: the cleanest shot you will ever receive, in front of everyone who wants it protected.
 
 ### 5. The Recruit
 > **Boon — The Order's Regard.** You carry a hidden **Order of Mending pin**. Shown to a cultist, it marks you as one of the faithful — they speak candidly, and treat you as a promising prospect.
@@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ Each has four parts: **Boon** (an asset you have now) · **Goal** (your secret o
 ### 7. The Blade
 > **Boon — Professional Courtesy.** The [House of Scales](../npc/assassins.md) know your work. Once, call in a favor: a guild member manufactures a **distraction, alibi, or opening** for you (no combat aid — the guild doesn't bleed for free).
 >
-> **Goal — Fulfil the Contract.** You were paid to put down a specific person tonight. **Primary mark:** assign an NPC (Tallow, a rival, a named cultist). **But the contract has a clause:** *"If the guild's traitor is unmasked, the traitor becomes the mark."* The guild suspects one of tonight's crowd is feeding the cult.
+> **Goal — Fulfil the Contract.** You were paid to put down a specific person tonight. **Primary mark:** assign an NPC (Rennt, an unnamed blade, a rival). **But the contract has a clause:** *"If the guild's traitor is unmasked, the traitor becomes the mark."* The guild suspects one of tonight's crowd is feeding the cult.
 >
 > **Payoff — *immediate.*** Contract closed, the guild pays at once: **80 gp, a vial of *Silversheen* (or *Basic Poison*, 3 doses)**, and Sevra extends **real cooperation** — guild muscle at your side through the endgame.
 >

handouts/the-conversion.md

@@ -88,4 +88,4 @@ Killing or binding Xarrul does **not** auto-free them either. The object of thei
 
 - **Scenario F engine.** A pre-converted PC arguing for [The Open Door](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-f-the-open-door-joining-xarrul) from *inside* the party is the single best on-ramp to that ending — especially with six players, where one persuasive convert can genuinely swing the table.
 - **The dual-plane irony.** The [dual-plane kill](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-c-the-dual-plane-kill) needs someone on the Ethereal Plane — and the convert's Grey Step is a free ticket there. Except they *believe Xarrul shouldn't die.* Do they lend the Step to the kill, withhold it, or use it to shield the fiend? The whole endgame tension, living in one player.
-- **It collides with the [character secrets](character-secrets.md).** A converted **Handler's Agent** frees the Guest — and hands Xarrul its vessel. A converted **Executioner** can't bring themselves to silence the Guest. A converted **Mourner** stops wanting the couple's killers answered for. Deal the conversion onto a PC already carrying a dossier and the night detonates.
+- **It collides with the [character secrets](character-secrets.md).** A converted **Handler's Agent** frees the Guest and enables [the Vacancy](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy-the-guests-gambit), then has reason to protect Xarrul's side of the exchange. A converted **Executioner** must decide which projected spirit to strike. A converted **Mourner** stops wanting the couple's killers answered for. Deal the conversion onto a PC already carrying a dossier and the night detonates.

location/cellar.md

@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ The crates and the whole west corner are furred with thick, greyed spider-silk
 Hidden behind the crates. A permanent **Magic Circle against fiends** etched into the bedrock with silver inlay — **master-level work, and not Orenn's.** It belonged to the summoners who ran this house before them: DC 16 Arcana identifies it as a **summoning-and-binding circle**, the kind a warlock calls a fiend *into* so the thing can't reach them while they bargain and bind it. Orenn and Mags left it where they found it and never had cause — or the craft — to use it. (This is exactly why the cult's own Haddon can work it in the [rebinding](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-b-the-rebinding): it's a summoner's tool, and he's a summoner.)
 
 - 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).
+- **Limitation:** The circle only works on the Material Plane. If Xarrul is in the Ethereal Plane, it has no effect. Players must first drag Xarrul fully across with [Veilhook Salt](deep-cellar.md#the-fixers-arsenal), catch it during a voluntary manifestation, or pursue the dual-plane kill.
 
 ### Foundation Stones & the Old Sigils (Center, North)
 

location/deep-cellar.md

@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ The only entrance is the **concealed iron door** in the Upper Cellar (see [cella
 - **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.
+- **Vetch's lead:** if the players agree to recover his confiscated Veil Dust, he shows them the cold seam behind the northern racks. They find the door automatically, though they still need Orenn's key, *Knock*, or another way through its Arcane Lock.
 - **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.
@@ -125,7 +126,7 @@ A low chamber sealed by a banded door under a permanent **Arcane Lock** (Orenn's
 ### The Fixers' Arsenal
 Rewards for going deep — none of it breaks the Reckoning, most of it *helps* it. Most of this is the **summoners' leftover safety kit** (you stock silver and holy water when you call up fiends for a living), topped up by the couple's own reactive buys from the handful of jobs that turned out not to be human:
 
-- **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.
+- **Veilhook Salt (4 doses).** As an action, throw a pinch at an extraplanar creature you can perceive within 10 ft. A target on the Ethereal Plane can be targeted only by someone able to see and interact across the boundary (such as a creature under Veil Dust). The target makes a DC 14 Charisma save. On a failure it is **dragged fully onto the Material Plane**, appearing in the corresponding space or the nearest unoccupied space, and cannot change planes until the end of its next turn. A target already on the Material Plane is simply anchored there for the duration. *This is the exploration reward that lets a Veil Dust user hook Xarrul across the boundary so the rest of the party can drive it into the binding circle.*
 - 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.
@@ -148,7 +149,7 @@ Two cells cut side by side, iron-barred, fitted with the runed nails and a warde
 
 **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 Order of Mending* 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.
+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 Order of Mending* than anyone the players have met — because Orenn used it to spy on the cult. It has also spent weeks speaking to Xarrul through the walls, helped the fiend choose Orenn, and negotiated to exchange its body for spectral ownership of the Inn. It intends to betray that bargain with the party's help and take both Xarrul's power and the tavern. Freeing, killing or trusting it determines whether [the Vacancy](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy-the-guests-gambit) is available. Read its file before running this room.
 
 > **Read-Aloud: Cell One**
 >
@@ -156,6 +157,8 @@ Short version for the DM: the Guest is the beating heart of "they still have som
 >
 > *"No konečně," řekne. "Začínal jsem mít strach, že na mě zapomněli."*
 
+**The conversation stain.** A character viewing the cell through Veil Dust, Oil of Etherealness or another Ethereal sight sees hair-thin amber lines caught around the bars, running down the corridor toward the thin point. They do not resemble claw marks or an attempted breach; they gather at head height, where two people might stand to speak. **DC 15 Arcana or Insight:** the fiend has visited this cell repeatedly, and the prisoner was not merely being hunted. They communicated. The Guest answers a direct question truthfully—*„Nabídl mi cestu, za kterou žádná klec nedosáhne”*—while omitting the bargain's terms.
+
 ### 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.
@@ -183,11 +186,13 @@ A long, low chamber that smells of vinegar, sulphur, crushed herbs, and cold ash
 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.)
+- **Veil Dust research.** A locked drawer (DC 14) holds **4 doses of Veil Dust** plus a notebook studying it—not as a drug but as a tool for watching the thin point. Three are Orenn and Mags's measured work doses; the fourth is still folded in Vetch's grubby academy-paper packet, confiscated after his collapse. **This connects to the [ethereal-trip](../storylines/ethereal-trip.md) subplot** and pays off Vetch's lead immediately: the Workroom is the first chamber beyond the concealed descent. The notebook confirms the couple brewed only small diagnostic batches and never sold them.
+- **The Veilhook recipe.** The same notebook contains Orenn's field formula: grind **1 sprig of silvervein root**, **one vial of Holy Water**, and **5 gp of powdered silver** into black salt over low heat. Ten minutes of work and a DC 13 Arcana check or DC 13 check with Alchemist's Supplies or a Herbalism Kit produces **2 doses of Veilhook Salt**; on a failure it produces only 1 dose. The bench has powdered silver for two batches (10 gp total). Orenn's margin note explains the name: *"It does not repel. It catches the far side and pulls."*
 - **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. A separate running column headed *"T."* tracks the pet as a resource: *"milked, 2 doses," "webbing spent — new batch," "bit M. again — she laughed."*
 
 ### Loot & Craft
 - **2 flasks of Alchemist's Fire**, **1 vial of Basic Poison** (×3 applications), **Antitoxin** (×2).
+- A sealed **summoner's binding coffer** containing silver wire, preserved lethe-marrow, ritual fat, grave salt, and a blank true-name strip—one complete set of components for [rebinding Xarrul](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-b-the-rebinding). Orenn kept it as evidence and an emergency measure, not merchandise.
 - **2 doses of harvested feyspitter venom** in stoppered vials on the milking rack — and more can be drawn from Twinkle (DC 13 with a poisoner's kit; safely from the living spider only if it's calmed or restrained, freely from a dead one). A proficient character can brew a dose during the lockdown (1 hour, DC 13) into **either**: a single-use **Blink Draught** (as a reaction when you take damage, teleport up to 15 ft. to a space you can see), **or** an **injury poison** (DC 14 CON save or 2d8 poison damage and the target is shunted 15 ft. to a random open space — the spider's own lurching venom, bottled).
 - 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.
@@ -216,7 +221,7 @@ A party herded down the Cut spills through the warded arch into this room and, f
 ### 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.
+- A **Bag of Holding** — 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.*
 
@@ -297,14 +302,14 @@ Full tactical block below — it's the "fight a bit" the party will remember. It
 **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).
+1. **Loot** — the Vault + Workroom + Deep Storage give gear that makes the Reckoning easier (Veilhook 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), Twinkle the feyspitter spider (avoidable, or a hard CR 4), 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 **Order of Mending** → 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 **Veilhook Salt** and its Workroom recipe → the means to pull Xarrul onto the Material Plane and pin it.
 - 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.

location/main-hall.md

@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ A massive slab of darkwood, scarred by decades of knife marks, spilled drinks, a
 - A loaded hand crossbow (Orenn's insurance, DC 13 Investigation)
 - A flask of **Sovereign Glue** (for situations that needed permanent solutions)
 - A small leather journal in coded shorthand (DC 16 Intelligence to decode — contains names and debts owed to the house, including entries for both Sevra and Haddon)
+- An ornate brass fitting used as a **bottle opener**. It is Vey Corren's signet, filed down and mounted beneath the bar after the Grey Quay betrayal. Sevra recognizes it instantly; Orenn's journal records the debt as closed.
 
 ### The Fireplace
 
@@ -29,19 +30,21 @@ Two other unnamed blades fill the rest of the table. They defer to Sevra complet
 
 ### Cultist Table (South-West)
 
-A round table covered in papers, open books, and half-empty inkwells — maintaining the scholar facade. **Haddon** sits at the center, composed. **Dalla** is on his left, distracted and pale. **Rennt** is on his right, leaning forward with intense energy. **Essek** sits slightly apart, saying nothing.
+A round table covered in papers, open books, and half-empty inkwells—maintaining the scholar facade. It is not merely the cultists' chosen seat: Haddon and Vyre used it as their worktable during the original cleanup fifteen years ago. Tiny catalogue numbers cut by Haddon remain along one edge, and regulars know not to take his chair. **Haddon** sits at the center, composed. **Dalla** is on his left, distracted and pale. **Rennt** is on his right, leaning forward with intense energy. **Essek** sits slightly apart, saying nothing.
+
+Beside it stands a narrow bookshelf containing the original summoners' volumes Haddon and Vyre classified as safe enough to keep upstairs. Early pages carry cautious notes in Haddon's left hand and responsible annotations from Vyre before doctrine consumed her. Later volumes contain Bren Aldara's precise corrections. Haddon now writes right-handed because the containment circle that saved Orenn ruined his left arm.
 
 **After the murder:** Haddon immediately begins constructing an alibi — "we were all engaged in discussion, none of us left the table." This is technically true but irrelevant (the fiend killed from the Ethereal Plane). Rennt is agitated and defensive. Dalla doesn't seem to care about the investigation at all — she's thinking about her child.
 
 **On the table (DC 12 Investigation):** Among the scholarly papers, one diagram shows planar boundaries with annotations about "thinning points." Haddon will claim it's theoretical research. It's actually a map of potential Opening sites, and the Nether Inn is marked.
 
-### Tallow's Booth (South, near wall)
+**Haddon's personal journal:** A narrow black volume with a brass clasp stays beneath Haddon's hand or buckled inside his robe. Stealing it requires DC 16 Sleight of Hand during a distraction; its clasp is DC 16 Thieves' Tools and the cipher DC 18 Intelligence. One deciphered page is printable physical evidence against Dace; see [Haddon's journal](../npc/cultists.md#his-journal-dc-16-sleight-of-hand-to-steal-dc-16-thieves-tools-to-open-dc-18-int-to-decipher).
 
-A small booth with high-backed wooden seats that create a natural privacy screen. **Tallow** has claimed this spot as his office. His bag of holding sits under the table between his feet — he never lets it out of reach.
+**The missing folio (DC 14 Investigation after the brawl):** One leather folio lies open with two cut binding threads and clean rectangles where pages protected the dusty inner cover. Haddon insists it held irrelevant calculations. In fact, Xarrul stole both restricted extracts during the blackout; see [Haddon's Missing Research Folio](../storylines/order-of-mending.md#haddons-missing-research-folio).
 
-He has a clear sightline to the bar, the entrance, and both faction tables. He sees everything and pretends to see nothing.
+### Curtained Booth (South, near wall)
 
-**Under the table (DC 18 Perception or Sleight of Hand while Tallow is distracted):** A lockbox bolted to the underside of the seat. Contains 3 doses of Veil Dust, 80 gp in mixed coin, and a sealed letter addressed to "V." — it's a message from Tallow's supplier about a new, more potent formulation of the dust. The supplier is unnamed but the handwriting matches Mother Vyre's (DC 17 Investigation to match, requires seeing another sample of her writing from cultist documents).
+A small booth with high-backed wooden seats and a moth-eaten curtain. It has a clear sightline to the bar, the entrance, and both faction tables while giving anyone seated inside a little privacy. Nobody claimed it before the brawl. During the investigation it is the obvious place to isolate Essek, question a witness, hide a frightened Vetch, or stage a conversation someone else wants to overhear.
 
 ### Bren's Corner (North-East, near bar)
 
@@ -51,7 +54,7 @@ The space beside him where he talks to is **occupied** in the Ethereal Plane by
 
 ### Vetch's Spot (South-East, near cellar stairs)
 
-**Vetch** sits on a stool near the stairs that lead down to the cellar. He's not here by accident — he knows Tallow keeps extra product and he's been trying to figure out how to get to it all night.
+**Vetch** sits on a stool near the stairs that lead down to the cellar. He's not here by accident: two nights ago Orenn confiscated his last packet of Veil Dust and carried it below. Vetch followed far enough to find the cold seam behind the northern barrel racks, but not far enough to open it.
 
 He's jittery, sweating, picking at the skin on his forearms. He flinches when spoken to but warms up quickly if shown even basic kindness.
 

location/tavern-overview.md

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 
 The Nether Inn has stood on the corner of Žlutá Street and Popelová Alley for over forty years. It started as a safehouse, became a flophouse, and eventually settled into what it is today: neutral ground. The name comes from where it sits — half-sunk below the street, so you step *down* into it, into the nether dark beneath the city's notice. What happens here stays here; talk of it elsewhere and you may lose the tongue that spoke of it.
 
-Fifteen years ago, **Orenn** and **Mags** took ownership — not by buying it, but by *earning* it. They were **fixers**: the people the city's underworld called when a problem needed to stop existing — a rival crew, a blackmailer with the wrong ledger, a gang war about to spill into the merchant quarter. Not heroes. The last job of their working lives was this very building: a den of summoners had been operating out of it, calling things up through the fault in its cellar, and it had gone bad enough that someone paid well to have it cleaned out. Orenn and Mags did the cleaning and took the house as their fee. They told the world they'd retired. Running the most dangerous bar in the city was, somehow, the quieter life — and the summoners' leftover work, sealed and silent in the dark below, was a closed case they never expected to reopen.
+Fifteen years ago, **Orenn** and **Mags** took ownership—not by buying it, but by *earning* it. They were **fixers**: the people the city's underworld called when a problem needed to stop existing—a rival crew, a blackmailer with the wrong ledger, a gang war about to spill into the merchant quarter. Not heroes. The last job of their working lives was this very building: a den of summoners had been operating out of it, calling things up through the fault in its cellar, and it had gone bad enough that someone paid well to have it cleaned out. Orenn and Mags killed and scattered the owners; **Haddon and Mother Vyre**, then legitimate planar scholars, handled the failing containment afterward. During that work Haddon entered a collapsing circle and took its living-anchor binding from Orenn, saving his life at permanent cost to his left arm. They took the house as their fee and told the world they'd retired. Running the most dangerous bar in the city was, somehow, the quieter life—and the summoners' leftover work, sealed and silent in the dark below, was a closed case they never expected to reopen.
 
 Under Orenn's rule, the Nether Inn became sacred ground. Assassins could drink next to their marks. Cultists could study next to inquisitors. The rule was simple: **no killing**. Orenn enforced it not with threats but with the calm certainty of a man who had killed worse things than you, and everyone in the room knew it.
 
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ The noise level before the brawl is a low murmur punctuated by occasional harsh
 │  [Cultist                               └──────┬───────┘    │
 │   Table]       [Center tables,                  │            │
 │                 stools, debris]        ┌────────┴────────┐   │
-│  [Tallow's                             │ Door to Kitchen │   │
+│  [Curtained                            │ Door to Kitchen │   │
 │   Booth]       [Vetch, near stairs]    └────────┬────────┘   │
 │                                                 │            │
 │  ┌──────┐                              ┌────────┴────────┐   │

npc/assassins.md

@@ -17,7 +17,17 @@ They keep a codex, and they keep it like scripture:
 - **The seal.** Every kill is claimed openly under the guild's mark within a day. No innocent hangs for their work.
 - **The closing.** A sealed kill legally ends the blood-debt; retaliation is forbidden and the guild enforces the closing at its own expense. This is the clause that makes the city keep them.
 
-The guild's reputation *is* its currency, and for months that reputation has been bleeding. The **Order of Mending** has been taking side jobs — messy, ritualistic kills that undercut the market and mock everything the codex stands for. Bodies turn up carved open, hearts missing, symbols cut into floorboards. Worse, someone inside the House has been *cooperating*.
+The guild's reputation *is* its currency, and for months that reputation has been bleeding through a string of **robbed closings**. A sealed death is meant to end the grievance: no second blade, no looting, no punishment of the family. Instead, targets or their homes are being harvested beneath the House's seal. One corpse is opened for its heart; another is untouched but an heirloom mirror vanishes; a third survives the warning but loses every memory of a planar journey. Guards stop investigating because the House has already claimed the scene, and families naturally blame the assassins for whatever is missing. Worse, someone inside the House is selling the Order of Mending exactly the information needed to do it.
+
+Sevra has combined several different patterns into one plausible accusation: the Order bought a traitor, turned the contract archive into an acquisition list, and is responsible for the clean deaths whose souls cannot be found afterward. She is right about the contract thefts, ritual harvesting, and stolen relics. She is wrong about the missing souls; those belong to Thera's older, quieter work. The variety hides Thera beautifully.
+
+### The Attack the House Misunderstood (DM)
+
+Three weeks ago a bound Xarrul entered the House's inner archive using stolen voices and altered memories. The Order had not sent it to assassinate Sevra. Its task was to steal the **Severance Nail**, a black iron spike the House venerates as the weapon of its first sanctioned killing. In truth the Nail once pinned a planar breach shut and now powers the archive's oldest ward, **the Final Closure**.
+
+The Closure protects assassins against possession, charm, magical commands, tracking curses, and hostile pacts. Its principle is pure House doctrine: it does not wrestle with controlling magic; it finds the hand holding the chain and makes one exact cut. *Nothing enters the archive belonging to another master.* When Xarrul crossed the threshold, the ward automatically severed the Order's command binding. Most summoned creatures would then snap home. Xarrul shifted into the Border Ethereal at the instant of severance and caught itself there—uncontrolled, still present, and finally free.
+
+The witnesses saw it dissolve and assumed the Closure had banished it. Nothing obvious was stolen, although Xarrul learned what the Nail was and where it lay. The members in the tavern know only contradictory hearsay: familiar voices gave false orders, two custodians fought, three blades were found down, one bore a mark over the heart, and the creature vanished near the leadership corridor. Because they kill people for a living, they have interpreted an infiltration and theft as a failed assassination attempt. Even Sevra does not possess the whole account.
 
 Tonight, four named members are present, plus two unnamed blades.
 
@@ -70,11 +80,19 @@ Sevra is the senior *contract* blade present and the guild's institutional consc
 - Her blind spot is institutional pride: an accusation against one of the guild's *best* reads to her as slander until the evidence is procedural. **Win her with proof, not argument.**
 - Suspects Dace is the traitor but needs proof. Moving on a guild member without evidence breaks the code and fractures the House.
 
+### Grey Quay — Her Debt to the House
+
+Twelve years ago the merchant Vey Corren separately hired Sevra to kill a blackmailer and Orenn and Mags to recover his ledger. The teams met inside a Grey Quay warehouse and discovered Corren intended the fixers to deposit the ledger in an exterior fireproof safe, then lock and burn every witness inside. Orenn spotted the trigger; Mags cut a route through the adjoining building; Sevra remained behind long enough to sell their deaths. Together they came out behind Corren's waiting dock gang and closed the betrayal.
+
+Sevra later gave Corren's signet to Orenn as proof the debt was finished. He made it the bottle opener beneath the bar. Grey Quay taught Sevra that Mags returns for people when abandoning them would be profitable and that Orenn sees the mechanism beneath a polite arrangement. Orenn's murder is therefore personal—and a debt whose rightful target she cannot yet name, which is almost unbearable to her.
+
 ### What She Knows
 
 **Will share if players approach professionally (show competence, don't moralize):**
 - The brawl started because Kael confronted the cultists about a contract kill in the Merchant Quarter — a noble found dead with ritual marks. It was the guild's contract, paid for and accepted. Someone else did the kill.
-- The guild has a mole. Kills are being sold to outside buyers. Bodies are showing up wrong — missing parts, ritualistic damage.
+- The guild has a mole. Full contract dossiers are being sold: targets, possessions, warning schedules, assigned blades, and the window during which the House controls the scene.
+- The Merchant Quarter corpse is only the latest robbed closing. Other scenes lost relics, records, blood, or memories; a few perfectly clean kills left no soul for priests to call. Sevra believes the Order did all of it.
+- She has heard that a bound, Order-marked creature penetrated the inner House and attacked several blades. She was not present at the breach and believes the Final Closure destroyed it.
 - She didn't kill Orenn. The guild respected the rules. "Orenn was worth more alive to us than anyone in this room."
 
 **Will trade for proof of the traitor's identity:**
@@ -121,7 +139,7 @@ If the players bring her **proof of the rot** (the soulcoin, a marked victim, Th
 
 Late twenties, handsome, easy smile. Sandy hair, bright eyes, the kind of face you'd trust to watch your drink. He's the assassin who doesn't look like an assassin — the one who gets close to targets through charm, not stealth. He's everyone's friend at the table and nobody's friend in truth.
 
-Dace has been selling guild contracts to the Order of Mending for six months. The cultists need fresh kills for ritual components — hearts still warm, blood drained into sanctified vessels. Dace provides the bodies and takes a cut on top of his guild pay. He doesn't believe in the cult's ideology — he just likes money, and he finds the moral panic about his sideline amusing.
+Dace has been selling complete guild dossiers to the Order of Mending for six months. The Order uses planned killings as cover to acquire whatever Phase Two requires: hearts and blood sometimes, but also planar relics, true-name records, unusual memories, and objects carried between worlds. Dace sells the target, possessions, warning schedule, assigned blade, and the quiet interval after the seal when no guard will question the scene. He doesn't believe in the Order's ideology—he just likes money, and finds the moral panic about his sideline amusing.
 
 **Key traits:**
 - The most likeable person in the room. Friendly, warm, buys drinks, makes jokes.
@@ -132,11 +150,11 @@ Dace has been selling guild contracts to the Order of Mending for six months. Th
 
 ### His Secret
 
-Dace has been meeting a Order of Mending contact in the tavern's private room to arrange deliveries. The sigil diagram scratched into the table was made during one of these meetings — the contact was Haddon, mapping the house's old summoner-work as part of the cult's study of this thin point. Dace didn't care what the diagram meant; he was there to negotiate prices.
+Dace has been meeting an Order of Mending contact in the tavern's private room to arrange deliveries. The sigil diagram scratched into the table was made during one of these meetings — the contact was Haddon, mapping the house's old summoner-work as part of the cult's study of this thin point. Dace didn't care what the diagram meant; he was there to negotiate prices.
 
 **Evidence linking Dace:**
 - DC 16 Insight during conversation: Something about his helpfulness is *too* practiced. He's performing.
-- Tallow (for a price) will confirm that Dace has been meeting "a scholar type" in the private room regularly.
+- [Haddon's journal](../prints/haddonuv-denik-harath.md) records Dace selling the complete Harath dossier, both payments, and their next private-room meeting. The field-sign beside the entry is Dace's; Sevra or Kael recognizes it automatically.
 - Kael, if asked privately, will say Dace was the last person to take a guild contract that ended up with ritual marks on the body. "He said he subcontracted the cleanup. Since when do we subcontract?"
 - The cultist pin found in the private room — Dace pockets things. A DC 14 Investigation of his person finds a **second cultist pin** hidden in his boot, kept as insurance.
 
@@ -198,6 +216,7 @@ Kael is loyal to the House with the fervour of someone who found a family after
 - Honest to a fault. He cannot and will not lie convincingly. If asked direct questions, he answers directly. This makes him the easiest assassin to talk to, despite his hostility.
 - He didn't kill Orenn. He's the most vocally angry about the death — killing on neutral ground violates everything he believes in.
 - **He idolises Thera.** She was kind to him when he was a nobody aspirant. He would take a blade for her without thinking. This is exactly why what she is will break him.
+- When Kael was a new blade, senior members treated him as disposable muscle and left him standing while they drank. Orenn silently put a hot meal in front of him. When someone objected that Kael was working, Orenn replied, *"Then he needs feeding more than you do."* Kael never forgot. Beneath his anger tonight is the knowledge that he started the brawl in which Orenn died: *"He kept this place safe from people like us. Then I made it unsafe."*
 
 ### What He Knows
 
@@ -233,6 +252,14 @@ Thera serves something older than the codex and beneath the city — a thing tha
 
 **Why she's here tonight:** to end Dace. His crude soul-butchery for the Order of Mending is dragging soul-death into public view — the one thing that could get people *looking*. She has already marked him and is deciding whether he dies or gets recruited. She is also quietly appalled by the cultists on principle: amateurs, desecrating something sacred for spell components.
 
+### Orenn and the Widow's Contract
+
+Years ago Thera warned a woman whose negligence had caused several deaths. The grievance was valid, but the target accepted responsibility: she confessed publicly, surrendered her property to the victims' families, and committed her remaining life to the care of a surviving child. The client concealed that settlement and still demanded death.
+
+Orenn uncovered the concealment and brought Thera the proof. She refused the kill. When the client sent ordinary killers after the widow, Orenn and Thera protected her together until the fraudulent continuation of the grievance could be closed. It convinced Orenn that Thera represented the best possible version of the House: a killer capable of valuing a life more than the opportunity to take it.
+
+Thera treasured his judgment because he understood precisely what she did and respected her anyway. She considers the Nether Inn one of the few places where her work was neither romanticized nor condemned. Orenn's murder genuinely offends and grieves her. If her soul-harvesting is exposed, invoking him lands where little else can—although she still believes she honours the mercy he admired. Mags does not permit that comfort: *"Don't use him to clean your hands."*
+
 ### The Tells
 
 - **The gestures.** A PC who watches her greet or part from someone — including the moment she "comforted" Dace earlier — may catch the doorframe-touch, the single turn of a coin on the table, the murmured word (DC 16 Perception; DC 14 Insight to sense it was deliberate, ritual, *rehearsed into the courtesy*). Meaningless now. Unforgettable later.

npc/bren.md

@@ -47,7 +47,11 @@ Skein feeds on Bren's mind — his memories, his personality, his will. Over the
 
 ## Personality (What's Left of Bren)
 
-Before possession, Bren was a scholar — an arcanist studying planar theory at a small academy. He was curious, gentle, and too trusting. He ventured too close to a thin point during research, and Skein latched on. That was seven years ago.
+Before possession, Bren was a scholar—Haddon's finest planar-theory student. He was curious, gentle, and too trusting. Haddon brought promising students to the Nether Inn's small collection of salvaged summoner books; Bren sat at the Order's table years before Dalla, Rennt, or Essek joined, corrected Haddon's calculations politely in the margins, and was one of the few people Mags allowed behind the bar to make tea.
+
+Seven years ago Haddon sent him to observe another thin point. Officially it was routine fieldwork; in truth, Vyre had deliberately weakened the boundary and wanted live data. Skein attached itself to Bren there. The Order studied the possession instead of curing it, then classified the experiment as lost when Bren deteriorated and escaped. Haddon let it happen.
+
+Bren wandered for years. A few months ago Orenn recognized him outside the tavern—not by his ruined face, but because he was muttering one of Haddon's old cataloguing sequences. Orenn brought him inside and began quietly investigating what the Order had done. Haddon has recognized Bren on every subsequent visit and pretended not to. During lucid moments Bren calls him **Professor**.
 
 **What remains:**
 - Intelligence flickers through the madness — he uses words precisely even when they seem nonsensical
@@ -115,5 +119,7 @@ See [The Possession](../storylines/possession.md) for full details. Summary:
 
 - **Orenn:** Fed him, kept him safe, never asked questions. Bren loved him in the quiet way a prisoner loves the guard who shows them kindness. Orenn's death devastates what's left of Bren.
 - **Mags:** She brings him food. She's gruff about it. He can tell she cares. Skein doesn't like her — she's too perceptive.
+- **Haddon:** Former teacher and the man who abandoned him. Fragments of Haddon's old lesson still surface through the damage: *"Anchor before aperture. Measure twice. The living weight comes first. Professor said—"* One clear **"Professor"** from Bren visibly cracks Haddon's composure.
+- **Essek:** Has studied papers bearing Bren Aldara's name but does not initially recognize the man in the corner. Learning who Bren is shows Essek his own probable future and makes the players' treatment of Bren one of his strongest tests of character.
 - **Skein:** Captor, torturer, constant companion. Bren hates and fears Skein but has developed a horrifying dependency — after seven years, Skein's voice is the most constant thing in his world.
 - **Xarrul:** Bren (through Skein's senses) can feel Xarrul in the Ethereal Plane. Skein is terrified of the fiend — it's bigger, older, more powerful. This fear sometimes overrides Skein's control of Bren, creating lucid openings.

npc/cultists.md

@@ -13,6 +13,8 @@ Their leader, **Mother Vyre**, is not present. She never comes to the tavern. Sh
 
 The four members present tonight each know a different amount and joined for different reasons. None of them fully understand what The Opening means at scale.
 
+The Order does not hate the House of Scales. It exploits it. Through a hidden supplier, it buys complete assassination dossiers and uses the House's warnings, schedules, access, and openly claimed deaths to acquire planar relics, rare blood, true-name records, and memories. Sometimes it takes a bodily component; often the corpse is only cover for stealing something nearby. To the Order, the assassins are useful infrastructure whose outrage is provincial embarrassment. To the House, the **robbed closings** profane the promise that one sealed death ends the grievance.
+
 ---
 
 ## Mother Vyre — The Absent Leader
@@ -24,7 +26,7 @@ Not present but referenced constantly. Players never meet her, but her shadow is
 - She was once an arcanist of real talent. She studied planar theory for decades before concluding that the separation of planes was artificial and harmful.
 - She recruits the vulnerable: the bereaved, the disillusioned, the curious, the angry. She finds the crack in someone and pours conviction into it.
 - She is aware the fiend summoning went wrong but considers it an acceptable setback. "The test demonstrated the principle. The Opening proceeds."
-- Her handwriting appears on: the letter in Tallow's lockbox, dead drop messages Haddon carries, and annotations in one of the books on the cultist table (DC 16 Investigation to match across sources).
+- Her handwriting appears on dead-drop messages Haddon carries and annotations in one of the books on the cultist table (DC 16 Investigation to match the two sources).
 
 ---
 
@@ -54,7 +56,7 @@ Not present but referenced constantly. Players never meet her, but her shadow is
 
 ### Appearance & Personality
 
-Mid-fifties, neat grey beard, spectacles, ink-stained fingers. Looks exactly like what he claims to be — a fussy academic. Wears a scholar's robe with the Order of Mending's symbol (an open eye wreathed in flame) pinned to his lapel. Carries books, quills, and a leather journal filled with notes in a cipher.
+Mid-fifties, neat grey beard, spectacles, ink-stained fingers. Looks exactly like what he claims to be—a fussy academic. Wears a scholar's robe with the Order of Mending's symbol (an open eye wreathed in flame) pinned to his lapel. Carries books, quills, and a leather journal filled with notes in a cipher. His left fingertips are stiff and numb; the arm trembles after difficult magic, and black branching scars surface beneath the skin when he channels planar power. His oldest annotations are left-handed. Everything recent is written with his right.
 
 Haddon is the most dangerous person at the cultist table because he's the best liar. He's reframed everything he's done as research — the summoning was an "experiment," the fiend was a "test subject," and The Opening is a "theoretical framework." He's lying to himself as much as to anyone else.
 
@@ -63,6 +65,17 @@ Haddon is the most dangerous person at the cultist table because he's the best l
 - Constructed his alibi before Orenn's body was cold: "We were all at the table. I can account for every member."
 - Genuinely brilliant. His understanding of planar mechanics is real. This makes him useful to players who need arcane knowledge — and makes his knowledge a trap, because he'll steer it toward conclusions that support The Opening.
 - Does not know Dace is the assassin mole. He's been meeting "an intermediary" in the private room and assumes it's a freelancer, not a guild member. This means exposing Dace to Sevra creates an explosive moment when both factions realize how entangled they are.
+- Fifteen years ago he voluntarily entered the collapsing containment circle beneath this house, took its living-anchor binding from Orenn, and expected to die sealed inside. Orenn never forgot the choice and remained the only reason Mags permitted Haddon and the increasingly corrupted Order to keep using the tavern.
+- The round cultist table was Haddon's worktable during the cleanup. The nearby shelf holds summoner books he and Vyre once classified as safe, including Haddon's cautious early warnings and Bren's later marginalia. Orenn preserved both as a place where Haddon had to remember the scholar and teacher he used to be.
+- Orenn's death causes one brief, uncontrolled failure of Haddon's mask: he starts to rise toward the body, then remembers his secrets and constructs the alibi instead. He knows that the last person who treated his old courage as evidence is dead—and that Mags may never admit him again.
+
+### Haddon, Orenn, and the House
+
+During the original cleanup, the summoners' failsafe began converting Orenn into the living anchor of the collapsing breach. Haddon crossed into the circle, accepted the binding, threw Orenn free, and made him seal the chamber. He survived hours beside the keystone at the cost of his left hand and arm. When Haddon later asked why Orenn continued defending him against Mags, Orenn never called it repayment: *"One good choice doesn't buy a lifetime. It proves the lifetime isn't decided yet."*
+
+Haddon used to teach the same principle in different words: **the living weight comes first**—no discovery justifies sacrificing the observer. Bren was his finest student and repeated that maxim in his own work. Haddon later let Vyre use Bren as an experiment and abandon him to Skein. The contradiction is the part of himself Haddon works hardest not to see.
+
+Mags calls him **Professor** when she wants to hurt him, because that is what Bren calls him in lucid moments. She does not permit Haddon behind the bar, near Bren unsupervised, or into the cellar. Orenn was the only person who interrupted before she pushed harder. After the murder, Haddon may instinctively look toward Orenn's place when she confronts him and find it empty.
 
 ### What He Knows
 
@@ -72,14 +85,19 @@ Haddon is the most dangerous person at the cultist table because he's the best l
 - The Order of Mending's "research" into boundary integrity. He'll show the planar diagram on the table if asked, presenting it as theoretical cartography.
 
 **Will not willingly share:**
-- That they summoned a fiend. Specifically, that they summoned **Xarrul** using binding components from Tallow, blood from Dalla, and a name from Mother Vyre's research.
-- That the binding was broken by the assassins (the guild captured the fiend during transit to the assassin target, broke the binds thinking it would just send it home — it didn't).
+- That they summoned a fiend. Specifically, that they summoned **Xarrul** using binding components acquired through dead drops, blood from Dalla, and a name from Mother Vyre's research.
+- That Xarrul was sent into the House archive to steal the Severance Nail and falsify the custodians' memories—not to assassinate Sevra.
+- That new commands have received no response since the House's Final Closure activated. The ritual still registers Xarrul and its stored energy, so Haddon insists the command binding is merely suffering "interference." He strongly suspects otherwise.
 - That The Opening is more than theory. That there's a timeline, a plan, and tonight was supposed to be a field test.
 - That the thin point in the cellar is on Mother Vyre's list of potential Opening sites.
+- That Vyre's E–III experiment diverted Nessa into the Border Ethereal, and that the Order deliberately postponed a possible reintegration.
+- That Dalla is not merely a blood donor: she is the maternal conduit through which the Order drains Nessa's trapped vitality.
 
-### His Journal (DC 16 Thieves' Tools or Sleight of Hand to steal, DC 18 INT to decipher)
+### His Journal (DC 16 Sleight of Hand to steal, DC 16 Thieves' Tools to open, DC 18 INT to decipher)
 
-Contains detailed notes on the summoning, the binding failure, and references to "Phase Two." Phase Two is a larger summoning — something far more powerful than Xarrul, to be conducted at a major thin point. Tonight's summoning was the proof of concept.
+Contains detailed notes on the summoning, the Severance Nail assignment, the loss of command response, and references to "Phase Two." Haddon carefully writes *connection persists* where an honest report would say *control lost*. Phase Two is a larger summoning—something far more powerful than Xarrul, to be conducted at a major thin point. His separate restricted folio held Vyre's two reports on Dalla and Nessa until Xarrul stole them during the brawl; see [Haddon's Missing Research Folio](../storylines/order-of-mending.md#haddons-missing-research-folio).
+
+One loose page is the physical proof Sevra needs against Dace: it records Dace selling the complete Harath contract dossier before the guild warning, both payments, and their next meeting in the tavern's private room. The authentication mark beside the payment is Dace's personal field-sign; Sevra or Kael recognizes it automatically (otherwise DC 14 Investigation with access to any House document). Give the players the **[printable journal page](../prints/haddonuv-denik-harath.md)** once they decipher this section.
 
 ---
 
@@ -112,27 +130,25 @@ Thin, early thirties, pale and drawn beyond her years. Dark hair pulled back car
 
 Dalla is the emotional core of the cultist group — but she is **loyal to the Order** by default. She didn't join for ideology in the abstract; she joined because Mother Vyre promised to fix her daughter, and she genuinely believes the cause is righteous. The Opening, as Dalla understands it, is healing — making the broken world whole. She's never been told what it actually means at scale.
 
-**Her daughter, Lístek:** Born with one foot in the Ethereal Plane. The child doesn't grow, doesn't speak, stares at things that aren't there. She's three years old and has been three years old for four years. The midwife said the child was "caught between." Mother Vyre said The Opening would make her whole — in a merged world, the child wouldn't be split.
+**Her daughter, Nessa:** A young sorcerer whose gift first surfaced as fever-dreams and brief, instinctive astral projections. Four years ago, one such projection coincided with an early Order experiment that thinned the boundary around the Border Ethereal. The artificial gradient pulled Nessa sideways before she reached the Astral Plane and trapped her silver cord in the closing planar scar. Her body remains unconscious in suspended animation and has not aged; her projected self is stranded elsewhere in the Border Ethereal, outside the tavern's lockdown. Mother Vyre claimed The Opening would make her whole. In truth, Vyre preserved the separation because Nessa is a stable planar anchor and Dalla is the blood conduit through which the Order siphons her energy.
 
 **Key traits:**
-- Single-minded about her child. Every conversation orbits back to Lístek.
+- Single-minded about her child. Every conversation orbits back to Nessa.
 - Loyal to the Order and to Mother Vyre. She believes the summoning failure is a setback, not a sign that something is fundamentally wrong. Haddon tells her the binding can be fixed, and she believes him — she *needs* to believe him.
 - Will defend the Order against accusations. "You don't understand what we're trying to do. We're trying to *heal* the world."
 - The monthly blood sacrifice has left her physically weakened. She bruises easily, gets dizzy, and sometimes her hands shake (not unlike Vetch, for different reasons).
-- She will talk about Lístek with anyone who shows genuine interest, but she frames it within the Order's worldview: the separated planes are what's hurting her daughter, and The Opening is the cure.
+- She will talk about Nessa with anyone who shows genuine interest, but she frames it within the Order's worldview: the separated planes are what's hurting her daughter, and The Opening is the cure.
 
-### Dalla's Two States
+### Dalla's Three States
 
 **Default: Loyal Believer**
 Dalla supports the Order, backs Haddon's explanations, and pushes back against players who question the cult. She'll talk about her daughter freely but frames everything through the lens of "The Opening will fix this." She sees the failed summoning as a problem to solve, not a reason to doubt. If players suggest rebinding Xarrul, she's enthusiastically on board — "Yes, we can fix this. Haddon says the binding can be restored."
 
-**After the Truth: Broken Believer**
-Dalla breaks **only** when confronted with the real nature of The Opening — that it's not healing but the total dissolution of planar boundaries. Fiends walking streets. The dead rising. Everything bleeding together. This can come from:
-- Essek's testimony about Mother Vyre's private writings
-- Players piecing together what The Opening actually means and explaining it to her with evidence (DC 14 Persuasion with supporting proof — Essek's testimony, Haddon's journal, or direct experience from the Ethereal trip)
-- Seeing the dual-plane kill's momentary veil-tear and understanding viscerally what a full Opening would look like
+**After the Conduit Note: Fractured**
+Dalla learns that every blood draw reached through her to extract energy from Nessa. She refuses another ritual, turns her anger on Haddon, and will listen to Xarrul because its accusation proved true. She may still believe Vyre intended the exploitation as a temporary necessity.
 
-When Dalla breaks, it's not gentle. The realization that she bled for eight months — that she damaged her own body — for a cause that would drown the world in horror, that the woman who promised to save her daughter was going to unleash hell... that's not doubt. That's betrayal.
+**After the E–III Note: Broken with the Order**
+Dalla learns that Vyre's experiment caused Nessa's condition and that reintegration was deliberately postponed to preserve a useful research state. She abandons the Order completely. This does not make her automatically favor killing Xarrul: its promise to retrieve Nessa after the lockdown now sounds safer than violently releasing the binding energy.
 
 ### What She Knows
 
@@ -140,39 +156,39 @@ When Dalla breaks, it's not gentle. The realization that she bled for eight mont
 - Her daughter's condition and why she joined the Order
 - That the ritual required her blood. Monthly. For eight months. "I would have given more. I still would."
 - That something went wrong with the summoning, but she believes it can be fixed
-- That The Opening will heal the world and make Lístek whole (this is what she's been told)
+- That The Opening will heal the world and make Nessa whole (this is what she's been told)
 
 **Will share as a loyal cultist (if players seem sympathetic to the cause):**
 - The Order's mission as she understands it: "The planes were once one. The separation is what's broken. Mother Vyre is going to fix it."
 - That Haddon is planning to rebind the fiend: "It's not lost. The binding can be restored. We just need to try again."
 - General details of the summoning (she knows a fiend was bound, she provided the blood, it was meant to help the Order's cause against the assassins)
 
-**Will share only AFTER learning the truth about The Opening:**
-- Full details of the summoning: what was summoned (Xarrul), how (binding ritual with her blood, Tallow's components, and Mother Vyre's incantation), and what happened (the assassins intercepted and broke the binding).
-- The cult's target: they sent Xarrul to kill Sevra. The fiend was supposed to eliminate the guild's leadership.
+**Will share only AFTER breaking with the Order:**
+- Full details of the summoning: what was summoned (Xarrul) and how (her blood, components acquired through Haddon's dead drops, and Mother Vyre's incantation). She was told it would retrieve an object the House had "stolen from the world."
+- When the Final Closure activated she felt a cord pull free inside her chest. Because some connection remains through Nessa's energy, Haddon convinced her the binding had merely settled at a distance. She does not know Xarrul is free.
 - That Mother Vyre has a "Phase Two" and Haddon is already planning the next summoning.
 - Where the cult's safehouse is (outside the tavern, but useful for after the session).
-- Everything she knows about the binding mechanics — this is when the dual-plane kill becomes a real option, because only a Dalla who understands the stakes would consider destroying the fiend over rebinding it.
+- Everything she knows about the binding mechanics and blood schedule. She cannot derive the dual-plane kill herself, but her blood records let Essek or a PC arcanist trace the energy path back toward Nessa.
 
 ### The Rebinding (Cultist Solution)
 
 Haddon's plan — and Dalla's hope while she's loyal — is to **recapture and rebind Xarrul**. This is presented as the "safe" option within the cult:
-- Requires new binding components (Tallow sold them before, he can supply again — for a price)
+- Requires a complete set of binding components (the [Workroom](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-workroom-laboratory) contains one old summoner's coffer)
 - Requires Dalla's blood again (she'll give it without hesitation)
 - Requires the binding circle in the cellar (the summoners' circle could be repurposed — DC 16 Arcana to adapt it)
 - Haddon leads the ritual. Rennt assists.
 
-**If the rebinding succeeds:** Xarrul is bound again. The cult has its weapon back. Dalla's connection to the binding is restored — which means Lístek's condition might stabilize (stop getting worse) but won't improve. The child stays frozen. Dalla tells herself this is progress. The cult continues toward Phase Two.
+**If the rebinding succeeds:** Xarrul is bound again. The cult has its weapon back. Dalla's connection to the binding is restored — which means Nessa's condition might stabilize (stop getting worse) but won't improve. Her body remains suspended. Dalla tells herself this is progress. The cult continues toward Phase Two.
 
 **The problem players should see:** Rebinding doesn't fix anything. It restores the status quo that led to tonight. The fiend is a tool again, the cult moves forward, and Dalla's daughter is still trapped. But Dalla won't see this unless she knows what The Opening really means. To her, rebinding is the first step back toward the cure Mother Vyre promised.
 
-### The Cure (Requires Truth)
+### The Competing Cures (Requires Truth)
 
-See [The Reckoning](../storylines/the-reckoning.md). The dual-plane kill — synchronized destruction in both the Material and Ethereal planes — releases the stolen vitality used to bind Xarrul. Since Dalla's blood was the binding agent, the energy snaps back along the same path: to Dalla, and through her, to Lístek. The child would begin to grow again. She would become whole.
+See [The Reckoning](../storylines/the-reckoning.md). The dual-plane kill — synchronized destruction in both the Material and Ethereal planes — releases the stolen vitality used to bind Xarrul. Since Dalla's blood was the conduit, the energy should snap back along the same path: to Dalla, and through her, to Nessa. Essek believes it will pull Nessa home. No one can guarantee the violent recoil will not damage her silver cord.
 
-But the method requires thinning the veil between planes — a micro-Opening. And everyone in the room will have a different opinion about whether that's salvation or catastrophe.
+Xarrul offers a second cure: once the all-plane lockdown ends and it can leave the inn, it knows where Nessa is caught and can unwind the scar directly. It promises to bring her home if the party helps it cross. Dalla favors this route after the notes surface—not because she mistakes Xarrul for good, but because it has demonstrated that it knows Nessa's binding and tells the truth.
 
-**This option only exists for players who did the work.** If they never uncovered what The Opening really means, Dalla stays loyal and pushes for rebinding. The dual-plane kill requires a Dalla who understands the cost of the cult's path and chooses a different one. Earning her breakdown earns the choice.
+Both options require deep investigation. Without the notes, Dalla remains loyal and supplies the blood for rebinding. With them, she becomes the emotional advocate for the Open Door while Essek argues that trusting Xarrul is too dangerous.
 
 ---
 
@@ -221,7 +237,7 @@ Rennt is the most dangerous kind of extremist: one who's right about the problem
 
 **Will share if he thinks you're sympathetic to the cause:**
 - He personally set up the summoning circle for Xarrul. "We bound something powerful. Something that was supposed to fix the balance. The knife-guild interfered."
-- He knows the binding failed. He blames the assassins entirely.
+- He knows contact became unreliable after Xarrul entered the House, but believes it remains bound and autonomously pursuing the Severance Nail. To him silence proves discipline, not freedom.
 - He doesn't know Xarrul killed Orenn. If told, his first reaction is denial, then rationalization: "It was bound. The assassins broke it free. The blood is on their hands."
 
 **Will NOT share (because he doesn't know):**
@@ -235,7 +251,7 @@ A few rounds into the brawl, pressed by the assassins piling onto him, **Rennt c
 
 ### If the Dual-Plane Kill Is Proposed
 
-Rennt is **ecstatic**. "Do you see? Do you *see*? The planes *want* to touch. You're doing what Mother Vyre always said was possible — proving that the boundary is artificial!" His enthusiasm is genuine and deeply unsettling. He'll actively help with the ritual, which should make players very uncomfortable about what they're doing.
+Rennt is **violently opposed**. Destroying Xarrul would waste Dalla's sacrifice, erase Phase One's living proof, and betray Mother Vyre's work merely because a fiend offered a convenient truth. „Osm měsíců krvácela, a teď chcete výsledek spálit, protože vás ta zbraň vyděsila? Spoutejte ji. Dokončete, co jsme začali.” He will sabotage the dual-plane ritual or attack whoever moves to complete the kill. The fact that it would create a momentary planar tear does not tempt him; only Vyre has the right to perform the Opening, at the proper scale and under control.
 
 ---
 
@@ -266,25 +282,62 @@ He's the most technically skilled caster in the group — his magic is utility-f
 
 ### Appearance & Personality
 
-Mid-twenties, thin, unremarkable. The kind of face you forget as soon as you look away. Brown hair, downcast eyes, hunched posture. He sits at the edge of the cultist group, physically and socially. His hands grip his knees under the table. A small mark on his inner left wrist — the initiation brand — occasionally glows faintly amber when he thinks about betraying the Order.
+Mid-twenties, thin, unremarkable. The kind of face you forget as soon as you look away. Brown hair, downcast eyes, hunched posture. He sits at the edge of the cultist group, physically and socially. His hands grip his knees under the table. A small mark on his inner left wrist—the initiation brand—occasionally glows faintly amber when he pushes against a protected command.
 
 Essek is the closest thing the cultist table has to a conscience, and he's terrified.
 
 **Key traits:**
 - Joined the Order of Mending two years ago because the planar research was genuinely fascinating. He was a student, not a zealot.
 - Six months ago, he found Mother Vyre's private correspondence in Haddon's study (he was looking for a reference text). He read enough to understand that The Opening isn't theoretical. It's a plan with a timeline.
-- The initiation brand burns when he considers betrayal — not enough to stop him, but enough to remind him he's watched.
-- He wants out. He's looking for anyone he can trust. Players who approach him gently, privately, and without judgment are his best chance.
+- His initiation mark is an **Unmooring Brand**. The Order partially detached him from the Material Plane during initiation and renews a monthly stabilization that keeps him anchored. If he runs, insomnia and trembling become involuntary phasing, then an empty living body while his consciousness drifts between planes. He can walk away; he cannot stay away.
+- The brand glows and burns when he deliberately violates protected commands or tries to speak guarded names and locations. It does not read thoughts. Haddon carries a slim brass indicator, normally used as a bookmark, that warms and glows when the brand strongly activates.
+- Asked whether he wants to leave, he answers the exact sad truth: **"No. It's here where I need to be."** The stabilization, the records that might cure him, Dalla, and the unbound Xarrul are all here. If pressed: **"Leaving and escaping are not the same thing."**
+- He does not need proof that strangers are good; he needs proof that they are discreet, competent, and able to protect him after he speaks.
+
+### The Last Time He Asked for Help
+
+Months ago Essek cautiously contacted **Professor Elian Voss**, his former planar-theory tutor, asking how an artificially unmoored soul might be reattached. The Order intercepted the approach. Voss disappeared before their meeting. Essek was later shown the professor trapped halfway across the Material–Ethereal boundary, alive and unable to speak, and ordered to complete the translation or leave him suspended indefinitely. Essek obeyed. He still does not know whether Voss died, went elsewhere, or remains trapped.
+
+Afterward the Order strengthened Essek's brand. He learned that anyone he reaches toward becomes leverage and that honest, well-meaning helpers can still get him killed by exposing him carelessly.
+
+### Locked Behaviour and Trust Ladder
+
+**Default—silent observation.** Essek lets Haddon answer, avoids Haddon’s eyes when he lies, and immediately denies wanting to leave. A public attempt to recruit or protect him makes him retreat. He assumes the players may be a loyalty test or may loudly name him as their source.
+
+**First opening—a useful correction.** He offers one small, deniable fact and watches whether the players demand its source. If a living magical mark is about to be removed: *"Iron. Both hands. Then remember somewhere safe."*
+
+**Second opening—the indicator.** He cannot safely ask for its theft, only hint: *"Watch Haddon's left hand when I answer."* Then: *"He checks it whenever I disappoint him."* Haddon does not watch Essek closely because the indicator has made vigilance unnecessary. Stealing it and hiding it somewhere Haddon cannot reach stops the warning without changing the pain.
+
+Do **not** break the indicator. Breaking it locks the brand into a prolonged activation: Essek takes **4d4 psychic damage**; if still conscious, he makes a DC 13 Constitution save or falls unconscious for **1d4 minutes**. The brand remains agonizingly active for about an hour. His warning is immediate and panicked: *"Don't—"* If he can speak afterward: *"It was an alarm. Not the lock."*
+
+**Third opening—a concrete request.** Once the indicator is hidden, Essek asks the players to obtain Haddon's anchoring formula, his initiation notes, or the page recording the Final Closure. This tests whether they can actually act against the Order.
+
+**Alliance.** One clear act each of discretion, competence, and commitment earns him. Once he chooses the party he becomes brave, not perpetually hesitant, and demands a real extraction plan: *"Don't promise you'll try to protect me. Tell me exactly how you intend to keep them from taking me back."*
+
+Discovering that the man in the corner is **Bren Aldara**, whose careful papers Essek studied, counts strongly toward that decision. Bren was Haddon's finest student before the Order used and abandoned him. Essek recognizes his own likely future. Players who address Bren as a person, protect a lucid moment, or try to free him demonstrate exactly the kind of dependable compassion Essek has stopped believing exists.
+
+**Breaking point.** Even without earned trust, Essek speaks if Haddon begins another blood ritual using Dalla. His silence already cost Voss; he cannot watch it happen twice.
+
+### Removing a Living Mark Safely
+
+Essek knows a quick grounding method usable even during combat. Immediately before *Remove Curse* or similar magic, the victim grips an iron object in each hand and concentrates on one genuine memory of safety. Sitting anywhere is optional extra protection. The mark is removed regardless.
+
+- Both iron and memory: no backlash.
+- Either element missing: **2d4 psychic damage**.
+- Sitting halves that damage.
+
+*"Iron. Both hands. Remember somewhere safe—the smell, the light, someone who was there. Sit if you have time. It hurts less when you fall from closer to the floor."*
 
 ### What He Knows (If Gotten Alone and Shown He Can Trust You)
 
 Essek is the **single best source of information** about the cult's true plans. He knows:
-- The Opening is real and planned. Mother Vyre has a timeline. The tavern summoning was Phase One.
-- Phase Two involves summoning something far more powerful than Xarrul at a major thin point. The tavern was a test site.
+- The Opening is real and planned. Mother Vyre has a timeline. Binding Xarrul and using it to acquire the Severance Nail was Phase One.
+- Phase Two involves summoning something far more powerful at a major thin point. The tavern is one candidate on Vyre's map, not the intended destination of Xarrul's first mission.
 - Dalla's sacrifice — he knows about the monthly blood rituals and that her daughter was the leverage. "She didn't choose this. None of us chose what it actually became."
-- The fiend summoning was targeted — Xarrul was sent to kill Sevra and cripple the guild. The assassination failed because the guild captured the fiend in transit.
+- Xarrul was sent into the House archive to steal the Severance Nail, use stolen voices, and make the custodians remember consenting to its removal. The House mistook the intrusion for an assassination.
+- The Final Closure severed Xarrul's command binding, but Dalla and Nessa's invested vitality remains attached. The return clause is blank, commands receive nothing, and energy continues flowing outward. **"It isn't bound. We're still feeding it."**
 - Haddon is in deeper than he admits. He's in regular contact with Mother Vyre and is already planning Phase Two logistics.
-- **The brand on his wrist** can be broken by Remove Curse or by the death of the caster who placed it (one of Mother Vyre's lieutenants, not present tonight — this is a thread for beyond the oneshot).
+- *Remove Curse* can suppress his Unmooring Brand, but permanent removal requires the Order's anchoring formula or alteration of the original initiation ritual.
 
 ### Getting Essek Alone
 
@@ -293,8 +346,8 @@ This is the challenge. Haddon watches him. Rennt watches everyone. Essek won't s
 **Methods:**
 - Lure him with a pretext (DC 14 Deception to create a reason for him to step away)
 - Use the private room (if players have secured it)
-- Whisper Chalk (buy from Tallow, write a message only Essek sees)
+- Slip him a note in the curtained booth while another PC blocks the sightline
 - Pass a note during a distraction (the brawl's aftermath, another confrontation)
 - *Message* cantrip if a player has it
 
-If Essek is seen talking to players by Haddon, the scholar will intervene smoothly — "Essek, perhaps you'd be more comfortable back at the table?" — and Essek will comply. His brand flares. He looks at the players with desperate eyes and says nothing.
+If Essek is seen talking to players by Haddon, the scholar will intervene smoothly—"Essek, perhaps you'd be more comfortable back at the table?"—and Essek will comply. His brand flares. Until the brass indicator is stolen, Haddon can tell when Essek pushes through its pain even if he cannot hear the words.

npc/mags.md

@@ -136,7 +136,7 @@ If a table needs a bigger fight on the join path, add **Sevra** at Mags's side r
 - The Oil of Etherealness in the bedroom
 
 **Will never volunteer — but the players may find it themselves (and probably will, if they explore):**
-- The **[concealed door](../location/cellar.md#the-concealed-door)** in the cellar and everything behind it — the **[Deep Cellar](../location/deep-cellar.md)**: the Vault, the laboratory, the caged **[Guest](the-guest.md)**, the corpse in the second cell, and the failing rift. This is the couple's real, ongoing operation, and Mags assumes no one alive but her knows it exists. If the players surface any of it — the fortune, the prisoner, the trophies implicating patrons upstairs — she doesn't lie, but she goes very still, and what she says next is some of the rawest honesty in the module (see Relationships). In the direst circumstances she may *send* them down for the [Fiendbane Salt](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-fixers-arsenal) or silvervein root, handing over the black key with the flat instruction: *"Take what you need. Don't touch the cages. And whatever you find down there — it doesn't change tonight."*
+- The **[concealed door](../location/cellar.md#the-concealed-door)** in the cellar and everything behind it — the **[Deep Cellar](../location/deep-cellar.md)**: the Vault, the laboratory, the caged **[Guest](the-guest.md)**, the corpse in the second cell, and the failing rift. This is the couple's real, ongoing operation, and Mags assumes no one alive but her knows it exists. If the players surface any of it — the fortune, the prisoner, the trophies implicating patrons upstairs — she doesn't lie, but she goes very still, and what she says next is some of the rawest honesty in the module (see Relationships). In the direst circumstances she may *send* them down for the [Veilhook Salt](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-fixers-arsenal) or silvervein root, handing over the black key with the flat instruction: *"Take what you need. Don't touch the cages. And whatever you find down there — it doesn't change tonight."*
 
 ## Her Role in the Session
 
@@ -146,13 +146,15 @@ She will not fight alongside the players unless the fiend manifests in the Mater
 
 **If the players side *with* the fiend:** she becomes the obstacle between them and its crossing — see [The Warden's Mark](#the-wardens-mark-dm) for how to run that fight so the *players*, not Mags, decide the night.
 
+**If the [Vacancy](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy-the-guests-gambit) resolves:** Mags initiates the aftermath in either branch. If Xarrul takes the changeling body, she attacks Orenn's murderer before it can leave, even while the new spectral Host turns the Inn's wards against her. If the Guest destroys Xarrul and returns empowered, she refuses its demand for the Inn. She will confess the cage, pay restitution, or let it walk; she will not hand it another cage with everyone upstairs inside.
+
 **If the players fail or choose not to confront the fiend:** Mags will hunt it herself after the session ends. She'll probably die. She doesn't care.
 
 ## Relationships
 
 - **Orenn:** The one person she let close. They understood each other without needing to explain. Their relationship wasn't romantic in any conventional sense — it was deeper than that, forged in shared trauma and mutual competence. They were partners in every way that mattered.
-- **Tallow:** She tolerates him. He's useful and she knows it. She despises his neutrality but respects his survival instinct.
 - **Bren:** She's been feeding him and keeping him safe for months. She suspects something is wrong beyond madness but hasn't had time to investigate.
-- **Sevra:** Professional respect, mutual wariness. Mags knows what the guild does and doesn't approve, but Sevra has always respected the rules of the house.
-- **Haddon:** She doesn't trust him. Never has. Can't articulate why — just a feeling. (Her instinct is correct.)
-- **The [Guest](the-guest.md):** The prisoner she's fed twice a day for eleven years and never once called by a name. If the players confront her about it, she doesn't defend it and she doesn't flinch: *"He was a tool. A person-shaped tool. Orenn always said we'd let him go eventually. We never did. That's the whole of it. That's who we are."* If they freed it, she's grimly unsurprised. If they killed it in its cage, she doesn't recoil — she *recognizes* the choice, and that recognition is its own quiet verdict on them. The Guest is the clearest mirror of what "fixer" really meant, and Mags will not pretend otherwise once it's in the open.
+- **Sevra:** Grey Quay made the respect personal. A shared employer tried to burn Sevra, Orenn, and Mags after using them to kill a blackmailer and recover his ledger. They discovered the betrayal, escaped together, and closed the debt. Corren's signet is still the bottle opener beneath the bar. Mags knows Sevra returns for people when abandoning them would be profitable; Sevra trusts evidence Orenn and Mags put their names behind.
+- **Thera:** Mags respects her control but never shared Orenn's complete faith in it. Orenn called Thera safe because she never killed emotionally; Mags answered, *"That makes her careful. It isn't the same thing."* She nevertheless honoured his judgment and expects Thera to help avenge him.
+- **Haddon:** Fifteen years ago Haddon entered a collapsing circle, took its binding from Orenn, and saved his life at terrible cost. Orenn treated that sacrifice as proof Haddon could still choose better; Mags believes one good night does not buy a lifetime. Orenn was the only reason she still admitted him. She calls him **Professor** when she wants him to remember Bren.
+- **The [Guest](the-guest.md):** The prisoner she's fed twice a day for eleven years and never once called by a name. If the players confront her about it, she doesn't defend it and she doesn't flinch: *"He was a tool. A person-shaped tool. Orenn always said we'd let him go eventually. We never did. That's the whole of it. That's who we are."* If they freed it, she's grimly unsurprised. If they killed it in its cage, she doesn't recoil—she *recognizes* the choice. But claiming the Inn is different: Mags believes restitution can be owed without handing a wounded spymaster control of every secret and person under the roof. The Guest calls that one final refusal to pay. It is the clearest mirror of what "fixer" really meant, and Mags will not pretend otherwise once it's in the open.

npc/orenn.md

@@ -36,7 +36,23 @@ He believed in rules not because he was lawful but because rules were the only t
 
 Orenn was a **fixer** for over twenty years. When the city's underworld had a problem that needed to *stop existing* — a rival crew, a blackmailer with the wrong ledger, a body that couldn't be found, a job that turned out worse than anyone was paid for — the people with money called Orenn and Mags. They worked as a pair: Orenn did the watching, the planning, and the talking; Mags did the killing. They were expensive, reliable, and discreet. They dealt in *people* — and a handful of times, across a long career, in things that turned out not to be people at all. Enough times to own a little salt and a shelf of borrowed books. Not enough to call themselves experts in anything but ending trouble.
 
-The job that ended them was **this house.** Fifteen years ago a den of summoners was working out of the building — calling things up through the thin point in its bottom — and it had gone bad enough that someone paid well to have it cleaned out. Orenn and Mags took the contract, killed and scattered the cult, and it cost them: Mags carries a scar from temple to jaw, and Orenn stopped sleeping well after whatever they found in the dark down there. The tear the summoners had torn was sealed once the dust settled — by the cult's own last containment, or the specialist brought in on the job; *not* by them. They took the building as **payment** (no one else wanted a cursed cult-den on a bad corner), told the world they'd retired, and settled in on top of a case they were certain was closed.
+The job that ended them was **this house.** Fifteen years ago a den of summoners was working out of the building—calling things up through the thin point in its bottom—and it had gone bad enough that someone paid well to have it cleaned out. Orenn and Mags took the contract, killed and scattered the cult, and it cost them: Mags carries a scar from temple to jaw, and Orenn stopped sleeping well after whatever they found in the dark down there. Haddon and Mother Vyre, then legitimate planar scholars, handled the failing containment afterward; Orenn and Mags never learned to work it themselves. They took the building as **payment** (no one else wanted a cursed cult-den on a bad corner), told the world they'd retired, and settled in on top of a case they were certain was closed.
+
+### The Man Who Went Into the Circle
+
+The specialist was **Haddon**, then a respected young planar scholar working beside Mother Vyre before the Order became a cult. During the cleanup Orenn killed the last summoner inside the central containment chamber, triggering a failsafe that began converting the only living creature inside—Orenn—into a permanent anchor for the breach. Haddon understood that another living person could enter voluntarily and take the binding. Vyre told him not to; the chamber was collapsing, and whoever remained when the outer seal closed was expected to die.
+
+Haddon entered anyway. He transferred the binding onto himself, threw Orenn across the threshold, and ordered him to seal the door. The containment burned most of the night. When they finally reopened it, Haddon was alive beside the keystone, his left arm blackened to the elbow and still repeating the final formula. The hand never fully recovered: its fingertips are numb, it trembles after difficult magic, and branching black scars surface beneath the skin when he channels planar power. He learned to write with his right hand afterward.
+
+When Orenn later caught Mother Vyre testing the dormant foundation sigils, he barred her from the Nether Inn. Mags wanted Haddon barred with her. Orenn refused—not because one sacrifice purchased endless forgiveness, but because he had personally seen what Haddon could choose when a life mattered. *"When it mattered, he went into the circle."* Mags answered, *"That was fifteen years ago."* Orenn's reply remained his reason for keeping Haddon's old table and books: *"Then I'll give him somewhere he has to remember it."*
+
+### Grey Quay
+
+Twelve years ago the merchant **Vey Corren** separately hired Sevra to kill a blackmailer and hired Orenn and Mags to recover the blackmail ledger from a warehouse on Grey Quay. Neither team knew about the other. Corren instructed the fixers to place the ledger in an iron payment safe built into the warehouse's exterior wall. Closing the safe would arm hidden locks and ignite whale oil in the walls; Corren's dock gang could then retrieve the fireproof safe from outside after every witness burned.
+
+Orenn noticed the safe was wired to more than its door. He deposited a weighted decoy, Mags cut an escape through the adjoining warehouse, and Sevra stayed behind long enough to make their deaths convincing. They emerged behind Corren's waiting gang and dismantled the ambush together. When Corren arrived and opened the safe with his signet, he found Orenn's note: *"You forgot to weigh the people."* Sevra was waiting for him.
+
+After closing the grievance, Sevra gave Corren's brass signet to Orenn as proof that the betrayal was finished. He filed down one edge and mounted it beneath the bar as a bottle opener. It remains there tonight.
 
 ### The Retirement That Wasn't
 

npc/tallow.md

@@ -1,119 +0,0 @@
-# Tallow — The Fence
-
-*"I don't sell information. I trade in context. There's a difference — and if you can't see it, you can't afford it."*
-
----
-
-## Stat Block (Abbreviated)
-
-**Tallow** — Medium humanoid (half-elf), neutral
-**AC** 13 (leather armor under his coat) | **HP** 32 (5d8+10) | **Speed** 30 ft.
-
-| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
-|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
-| 8 (-1) | 14 (+2) | 14 (+2) | 17 (+3) | 15 (+2) | 16 (+3) |
-
-**Skills** Deception +7, Insight +6, Persuasion +7, Sleight of Hand +4, Investigation +5
-**Senses** darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 12
-**Languages** Common, Elvish, Thieves' Cant, Dwarvish
-
-Tallow is not a combatant. If violence breaks out, he ducks under his booth, clutches his bag of holding, and waits it out. He has a dagger he's never used and a **Potion of Invisibility** he's saving for when things go truly sideways.
-
----
-
-## Appearance
-
-Thin, mid-thirties, half-elf with prematurely grey temples. Sharp features, sharper eyes. Wears a long coat with too many pockets — each pocket contains something potentially useful, definitely illegal, and priced to move. His fingers are stained with ink from a ledger he keeps in his head.
-
-He smiles easily but the smile never reaches his eyes. When he laughs, count your fingers afterward.
-
-## Read-Aloud: Approaching Tallow's Booth
-
-> *V rohovém výklenku sedí muž, který vypadá, jako by tu byl pohodlněji než kdokoliv jiný — a zároveň připravený kdykoliv zmizet. Půlelf s ostrými rysy a šedými proužky ve vlasech, oblečený v dlouhém kabátě s neuvěřitelným množstvím kapes. Na stole před ním stojí nedopitá sklenka a nic jiného — žádné papíry, žádné zboží, žádný důkaz o čemkoliv. Pod stolem, mezi jeho nohama, leží nenápadný kožený vak.*
->
-> *Zvedne oči. Změří vás s tou rychlou, profesionální kalkulací kupce, který oceňuje zboží dřív, než se mu ho nabídnete. "Přátelé," řekne s úsměvem, který slibuje přesně tolik, kolik si zaplatíte. "Hledáte něco konkrétního, nebo se jen díváte?"*
-
-## Personality
-
-Tallow is a survivor. He has no ideology, no loyalty, and no principles beyond one: protect the business. He's been the middle man between the House of Scales and the Order of Mending for years, supplying both sides with what they need and profiting from the tension between them. The barkeep's death terrifies him — not because he cared about Orenn, but because Orenn's neutral ground was the ecosystem that kept his business alive.
-
-**Key traits:**
-- Never gives information for free. Always wants something in return — not always gold; sometimes a favor, sometimes a secret, sometimes just the satisfaction of creating a debt.
-- Genuinely frightened tonight. His survival depends on the power balance, and a murder in neutral ground means the balance is shattered.
-- Knows a little about everything and a lot about nothing — except supply chains and leverage.
-- Will redirect players toward other NPCs when it suits him, framing it as help.
-
-## What He Knows
-
-**Will trade for cheap (a few coins, a minor favor, or interesting gossip):**
-- The brawl was about territory — the assassins think the cultists are taking contracts
-- Vetch is desperate for a fix and will do almost anything for one
-- Bren has been here for months and is getting worse
-- The Order of Mending claims to be scholars. Nobody believes them.
-
-**Will trade for moderate value (20+ gp, a promise of protection, or damaging information about a rival):**
-- He sold the cultists **binding components** last month — "three pints of lethe-marrow, a coil of silver wire inscribed with something I couldn't read, and a jar of rendered tallow. Fat. Not... not me." The order came through dead drop, unsigned, but he knows it was Haddon.
-- The assassins have a mole problem — someone inside is selling kills to outside buyers. Sevra is quietly investigating.
-- Orenn was more than a barkeep. "You don't run a place like this for fifteen years on charm alone. That man had a history that would make your hair go white."
-
-**Will trade only for something he truly needs (guaranteed safe passage out, elimination of a threat, or the Fiendbane Manacles sold back to him at cost so he can leverage them later):**
-- He suspects the murder is fiendish in nature. "The way he died — no blood, no wound, just that brand? I've moved product for people who deal with things from the other side. That's not a spell anyone in this room can cast."
-- He knows the cultists' binding components were for **summoning a fiend**. He didn't ask questions at the time. He's asking them now.
-- He's seen Mother Vyre's handwriting. If players find the letter under his table and show it to him, he'll confirm it matches — and then he'll want it back, because proof that he was in contact with the cult's leader is a death sentence from both factions.
-
-## Inventory & Prices
-
-Tallow's lockdown pricing. He knows demand is high and supply is him.
-
-### Cheap (5–15 gp)
-
-| Item | Price | Description |
-|------|-------|-------------|
-| **Whisper Chalk** | 5 gp | Write a message on a surface, visible only to the next person who touches it. Single use. |
-| **Gutflask** | 5 gp | Heals 1d6+1 HP. Tastes like hot sewage. Technically a healing potion. |
-| **Lockworm** | 10 gp | Enchanted wire that eats through one lock over 1 minute. Dissolves after. |
-| **Bottled Silence** | 10 gp | Crack it — 10-foot radius of Silence for 1 round. Good for a private word or interrupting a spell. |
-| **Lie Ash** | 15 gp | Blow at someone mid-conversation. Their next lie makes them sneeze. Once per target. |
-
-### Mid-Range (25–50 gp)
-
-| Item | Price | Description |
-|------|-------|-------------|
-| **Healer's Clutch** | 25 gp | Proper healing potion, 2d4+2 HP. He has two. |
-| **Veil Dust** (1 dose) | 30 gp | The ethereal drug. 1-minute glimpse into the Ethereal Plane. Trippy and addictive. He has 3 doses. See [Ethereal Trip](../storylines/ethereal-trip.md). |
-| **Dead Letter** | 35 gp | Write a name and message. The letter vanishes and reappears in front of the named person within 1 mile. |
-| **Shadowlace Cloak** | 40 gp | Advantage on Stealth for 1 hour, then unravels. Single use. |
-| **Tongue of Silver** | 50 gp | Dissolves on tongue. Advantage on CHA checks for 10 minutes. Disadvantage for 1 hour after. |
-
-### Premium (100–200 gp)
-
-| Item | Price | Description |
-|------|-------|-------------|
-| **Spite Dagger** | 120 gp | +1 dagger. Extra 1d6 necrotic when hitting a creature that has damaged you this combat. |
-| **Bag of Holding** | 150 gp | Standard. Slightly worn. "Previous owner didn't need it anymore." |
-| **Fiendbane Manacles** | 200 gp | Iron shackles with binding sigils. Restrain a fiend as Planar Binding for 1 hour. Forces fiend fully onto the Material Plane while restrained. |
-
-### Not For Sale (But Could Be Stolen or Coerced)
-
-- **Potion of Invisibility** — his personal escape plan
-- **His ledger** (kept in his head, but he has a backup cipher key in the lockbox under his booth) — contains enough information to destroy both factions
-- **3 extra doses of Veil Dust** — in the lockbox, reserved for his own use or high-value clients
-
-## Role in the Session
-
-Tallow is the **connective tissue**. He bridges every subplot:
-- He sold the cultists the summoning components → links to the fiend
-- He supplies Veil Dust → links to the ethereal trip and the addict
-- He knows about the assassin mole → links to the guild subplot
-- He knows Orenn's history → links to Mags and the cellar
-- He has the Fiendbane Manacles → links to the endgame
-
-He will never solve anything himself. He points, nudges, and profits. He's the NPC players will return to multiple times, each time with a little more to trade.
-
-## Relationships
-
-- **Orenn:** Business respect. Orenn tolerated Tallow because Tallow kept the peace by keeping everyone equally supplied. Tallow tolerated Orenn because Orenn kept the peace that Tallow's business depended on.
-- **Mags:** She scares him. He's careful around her. He will not lie to her face — he'll just omit things.
-- **Sevra:** She's a client. Professional relationship. He respects her intelligence.
-- **Haddon:** He's a client. He trusts Haddon's money and nothing else.
-- **Vetch:** He's a customer. Tallow feels nothing about Vetch's addiction except that it's reliable revenue.

npc/the-guest.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # The Guest — The Caged Face
 
-*"They call me the Guest. Isn't that gracious? As if I might leave whenever I liked. As if the door were a courtesy." — spoken with a warm smile, in whatever voice you'd most like to trust.*
+*„Říkají mi Host. Není to milé? Jako bych mohl kdykoli odejít. Jako by ty dveře byly jen zdvořilost.” — proneseno s vřelým úsměvem, hlasem, kterému byste ze všeho nejraději věřili.*
 
 ---
 
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ The Guest is a **changeling** — a shapeshifter of no fixed face — that Orenn
 
 For over a decade it has been their **off-book asset**: a face they could send anywhere, to sit at any table, to become anyone, and come back with what the couple needed to know. When they told the world they poured drinks, the Guest was out wearing someone else's life, listening. This is "the thing they still have going on."
 
-It is charming, patient, exhausted, and an extraordinary liar. It is not evil — but it is not safe, and eleven years in a cage have made it desperate in a way that hides very, very well behind that smile.
+It is charming, patient, exhausted, and an extraordinary liar. It is not a sadist, but it is no longer innocent. Eleven years taught it that there are no free people, only **keepers and things being kept**. It no longer means to escape that arrangement. It means to stand on the other side of it.
 
 ---
 
@@ -51,6 +51,20 @@ In its **worn form** (what the party first sees): whatever face serves. By defau
 
 ---
 
+## What It Wants — The Guest Becomes the Host
+
+The Guest does **not** chiefly want to leave the Nether Inn. It wants the Inn.
+
+Orenn is dead. Mags is compromised. The Guest knows every patron, debt, secret room, faction and unfinished job in the house. It wore the faces that gathered half of Orenn's intelligence and did the work for which the couple took credit. In its accounting, eleven years of captivity did not merely incur a debt of freedom. They made the tavern **back pay**.
+
+Its desired ending is to stand behind the bar when the lockdown opens, holding the black key, recognized as the new proprietor. Mags may serve beside it, leave, or take its old place in Cell One. That is her choice, as the Guest understands choice now.
+
+This is not simple greed. The Guest has learned the cage's lesson perfectly and wrongly: a person is safe only while holding the key. It would rather become the jailer than risk becoming a prisoner again.
+
+> *„Říkali mi Host, aby to znělo dočasně. Orenn je mrtvý. Tenhle dům mi dluží jedenáct let. Myslím, že je načase, abych se stal hostinským.”*
+
+---
+
 ## The Leverage — Why It Hasn't Just Left
 
 Eleven years and it hasn't escaped, because Orenn and Mags built the cage out of more than iron:
@@ -61,44 +75,81 @@ Eleven years and it hasn't escaped, because Orenn and Mags built the cage out of
 
 ---
 
+## The Compact in the Walls — Xarrul and the Guest
+
+Xarrul has spent weeks working the tear near the Guest's cell. They have spoken through stone and across the veil: two captive assets comparing owners.
+
+The Guest gave Xarrul the last piece of local knowledge its murder required. It explained that **Orenn was the cautious keeper** and that Mags would reach for the emergency lockstone if he died. Xarrul recognized the stone as the summoners' cross-planar seal and understood what Mags did not: her grief would build its crossing vessel. Xarrul chose and killed Orenn. The Guest never touched him and never left its cell—an airtight alibi constructed entirely from truth.
+
+In return, Xarrul offered a precise exchange. The Guest will willingly vacate its changeling body. Xarrul will use its knowledge of silver cords to anchor the Guest's projected spirit into the Inn's foundation wards, making it the literal **Host**: present in every wall, master of every lock, impossible to put inside a room because it has become the room. Xarrul takes the empty, mutable body and walks into the world. Xarrul has described the price without euphemism: the Host will never cross the Inn's threshold again.
+
+The Guest genuinely accepts that outcome. It also intends to do better.
+
+During the transfer, both spirits must briefly leave the body. Xarrul will be fully committed, unable to jaunt away, and vulnerable to the same tools that normally pin it across two planes. The Guest cannot defeat it alone and Xarrul knows that. The Guest's concealed weapon is the party: if they destroy Xarrul's exposed spirit, its embedded planar imprint collapses into the vacant changeling body. The Guest can reclaim both the body and part of Xarrul's power — the Inn in one hand, an Ethereal step in the other.
+
+Xarrul sees the Guest's appetite and enters anyway. Without outside intervention, the fiend wins every time. What it does not know is which useful strangers the Guest has persuaded to become its hands.
+
+> **Host:** *„Vezmi si mé tělo. Vstupu bránit nebudu.”*
+>
+> **Xarrul:** *„Jakmile budu uvnitř, hodláš sklapnout čelisti.”*
+>
+> **Host:** *„Obě tvrzení mohou být pravdivá.”*
+>
+> **Xarrul:** *„Nedokážeš mě zadržet.”*
+>
+> **Host:** *„Pak se nemáš čeho bát.”*
+
+The full transfer encounter is **[The Vacancy](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy-the-guests-gambit)**.
+
+---
+
 ## What It Knows (the reason to talk to it at all)
 
 The Guest is the best-informed prisoner in the building, because its whole function was *knowing things*:
 
-- **The couple's true history** — every job on the chalk wall, who paid, who died, what's in the Vault, and what happened to the changeling in **Cell Two** (*"They called her the Guest before me. When she stopped being useful, they stopped feeding her. I listened to it take eleven days. So — you'll understand if I'm eager to be useful."*).
-- **The Order of Mending.** This is the hook that threads the exploration back into the murder. Orenn's last and longest assignment for the Guest was to **infiltrate the cult** — the Guest spent nights wearing a member's face at meetings in the [private room](../location/back-rooms.md) and beyond. It can reveal: the cult's obsession with the thin point, the name **Mother Vyre**, that they were preparing to *summon something*, and that Orenn was closing in on them. It does **not** know the fiend was Xarrul, or that the summoning already happened tonight — it's been in a cell. But what it knows corroborates the whole cult subplot and can point a stuck party toward the [Order of Mending](../storylines/order-of-mending.md) and the [Reckoning](../storylines/the-reckoning.md).
+- **The couple's true history** — every job on the chalk wall, who paid, who died, what's in the Vault, and what happened to the changeling in **Cell Two** (*„Přede mnou říkali Host jí. Když přestala být užitečná, přestali ji krmit. Poslouchal jsem, jak jí to trvá jedenáct dní. Takže jistě chápete, proč tak toužím být užitečný.”*).
+- **The Order of Mending.** Orenn's last and longest assignment for the Guest was to **infiltrate the cult** — the Guest spent nights wearing a member's face at meetings in the [private room](../location/back-rooms.md) and beyond. It knows the cult's obsession with the thin point, the name **Mother Vyre**, that they summoned Xarrul, and that Orenn was closing in on them. It can corroborate the whole cult subplot and point a stuck party toward the [Order of Mending](../storylines/order-of-mending.md) and the [Reckoning](../storylines/the-reckoning.md). It omits that it has since negotiated privately with the summoned fiend.
 - **Where Orenn hid things** (the black key, the Vault's contents) — it watched the couple for eleven years. It misses nothing.
-- **It did not kill Orenn** and has an airtight alibi (a locked cell three floors down). But it will happily *let* the party suspect whomever suits its purposes, if that buys it freedom.
+- **Exactly why Orenn died.** The Guest truthfully says it did not kill Orenn and could not have left its warded cell. It does not volunteer that it told Xarrul which keeper to kill or what Mags would do afterward. If directly asked whether it helped Xarrul, it answers with another exact truth: *„Mé ruce nepotřeboval.”*
 
 ---
 
 ## Personality & How to Play It
 
-Play the Guest as the **most reasonable person the party meets all night** — and let that be the trap. It never rages, never begs crudely. It reads the room (literally) and offers each PC exactly the tone they'll trust. Beneath it: an eleven-year hunger for the open air, and a mind that has had a very long time to plan.
+Play the Guest as the **most reasonable person the party meets all night** — and let that be the trap. It never rages, never begs crudely. It reads the room (literally) and offers each PC exactly the tone they'll trust. It is running two negotiations at once: Xarrul believes it has a willing vessel; the party believes it has found Xarrul's intended victim. Both possess true pieces of the arrangement.
 
 **Key traits:**
 - **Truth is its favorite lie.** It prefers to tell the truth, beautifully, and let you draw the wrong conclusion. It only lies outright when cornered — and it's very good at it (Deception +8; contest against passive Insight or an active check, at disadvantage for the PC if the Guest read their thoughts first).
-- **It bargains.** It offers information as currency — a real, checkable fact first (to build trust), then asks for something small (water, the truth about what's happening upstairs, a loosened manacle), escalating toward the door.
-- **It does not forgive the couple, and it is honest about that.** *"I don't hate them. Hatred is for people who had a choice. I simply intend to outlive them. One down."*
-- **It is genuinely afraid of the rift.** When the [Old Work](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-old-work) stirs, the Guest goes still and quiet — the one thing that reliably cracks its composure. *"Whatever your barkeep's death let in — it's down here too. I've been listening to it grow for weeks. Let me out before it decides a caged meal is the easiest meal."*
+- **It bargains.** It offers information as currency — a real, checkable fact first, then asks for water, news, a loosened manacle, freedom, and finally help reaching the place where Xarrul can be made vulnerable. None of the requests reveals the whole bargain.
+- **It does not forgive the couple, and it is honest about that.** *„Nenávidět je? Nenávist patří lidem, kteří měli na vybranou. Já je prostě hodlám přežít. Jeden je pryč.”*
+- **It is genuinely afraid of Xarrul.** The bargain is not confidence; it is a wager against annihilation. Its fear sells the lie because the fear is real. *„Chce mě vydlabat a obléct si, co zbude. Jakmile vstoupí, nebude moci uniknout. To může být vaše jediná šance ho zničit.”* Every word is true.
+- **It calls ownership justice.** It does not want to burn the Inn or merely punish Mags. It wants the keys handed over as payment. If challenged, it calmly itemizes eleven years of work and confinement as though settling a debt-journal.
+- **Being called an asset is a tell.** The Handler's countersign works, but the word *asset* freezes the smile for half a beat. To the Guest, a new handler promising extraction is another owner describing a longer leash.
 
 ### Sample Dialogue
 
 **On first contact (warm, disarming):**
-- *"You're not them. Good. New faces. I collect those."* [a small, private joke]
-- *"Ask me anything. Truly. I've had eleven years to get my story straight, and the funny thing is — I don't need to lie to you. Not yet."*
+- *„Nejste oni. Výborně. Nové tváře. Ty sbírám.”* [a small, private joke]
+- *„Ptejte se na cokoli. Opravdu. Měl jsem jedenáct let, abych si urovnal příběh, a vtip je v tom, že vám nemusím lhát. Zatím.”*
 
 **Building trust (offers a free, true fact):**
-- *"The woman with the scar — Mags — she keeps a black iron key. It opens every honest lock in this building and one dishonest one. Check the dead man's belt. There. Now you owe me nothing, and you know I don't waste your time."*
+- *„Ta žena s jizvou — Mags — má černý železný klíč. Otevírá každý poctivý zámek v tomhle domě a jeden nepoctivý. Prohledejte mrtvému opasek. Vidíte? Teď mi nic nedlužíte a víte, že nemarním váš čas.”*
 
-**The pitch (its real goal):**
-- *"I'm not asking you to trust me. I'm asking you to be practical. There is a fiend in the walls of this place, your barkeep is dead, and the only person down here who has spent years watching the thing between the planes — is in this cell. Let me out. I'll earn it. I always earn it."*
+**The pitch (true, but not its whole goal):**
+- *„Nežádám vás o důvěru. Žádám vás o praktičnost. Xarrul chce tohle tělo. Až si mě vezme, nastane okamžik, kdy už opustil druhou stranu, ale ještě nedorazil na tuhle. Pusťte mě ven a já vám ten okamžik dám.”*
+- *„Chce mě vydlabat. Když neuděláte nic, přestanu existovat takový, jaký jsem. Když udeříte, dokud bude odhalený, zemře. Ani jednu část jsem vám nepodal nepravdivě.”*
+
+**If called an asset:**
+- [a tiny pause] *„Samozřejmě. A až své aktivum vyzvednete, kde ho vaše spojka skladuje?”*
+
+**If accused of choosing Orenn:**
+- *„Xarrul se zeptal, kdo z nich rozbije kámen. Odpověděl jsem. Na slitování se neptal.”*
 
 **When it talks about Cell Two (the crack in the mask):**
-- [quietly, no charm at all] *"She scratched 'I was real' into that door for a decade. She wasn't, by the end. Neither will I be. That's what the cage does. It's not the dying I'm afraid of."*
+- [quietly, no charm at all] *„Deset let ryla do dveří ‚Byla jsem skutečná‘. Ke konci už nebyla. Já také nebudu. To dělá klec. Smrti se nebojím.”*
 
 **If cornered / exposed as lying:**
-- [the warmth doesn't drop — that's what unnerves] *"Yes. I lied. You'd have lied too, in here. Now — do you punish me for it, or do you use me? I'm more useful angry than most people are grateful."*
+- [the warmth doesn't drop — that's what unnerves] *„Ano. Lhal jsem. Tady byste lhali také. Takže — potrestáte mě, nebo mě využijete? Rozzlobený jsem užitečnější než většina lidí vděčná.”*
 
 ---
 
@@ -108,16 +159,23 @@ Meeting the Guest is a **genuine moral fork** with real mechanical outcomes. The
 
 | Choice | What happens |
 |---|---|
-| **Free it, trust it** | It keeps its word *as far as it goes*. It'll trade everything it knows about the cult (a real leg-up on the Reckoning), and may even fight the rift creatures beside the party — it wants that tear closed as much as anyone. Then, at the first unwatched moment, it takes a face and **vanishes** into the city. It doesn't betray the party; it simply leaves, wearing someone. A loose end, walking. |
-| **Free it, then try to bind/control it** | It agrees, smiles, complies — and works the whole time to slip the deal. If it gets a day (suppressant fades) or an opening, it turns: full stat block, Ambusher, and if it can it takes **a PC's face** first to sow chaos before escaping. A memorable, dangerous fight or chase (it may flee as a rat through the [infestation](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-long-cut-central-corridor) — a horrible callback). |
-| **Leave it caged** | It's furious behind the smile. As the party leaves it calls after them — soft, reasonable, devastating — *"The door swings shut the same way for everyone down here. Remember that, when it's your turn."* If the party later **burns the cellar** (the fifth rule) without freeing it, it dies in the fire. Make them hear about it. |
-| **Kill it** | Easy, if it's dosed and caged. It doesn't fight — it looks almost relieved. *"There. That's the kindest thing anyone's done for me in eleven years. I hope someone's that kind to you."* Its info dies with it. If Mags learns the party murdered a caged prisoner, it colors how she sees them — not with horror (she's done worse) but with recognition, which is its own kind of judgment. |
+| **Free it and follow its plan** | It supplies real cult intelligence and engineers [the Vacancy](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy-the-guests-gambit), the easiest opportunity to destroy Xarrul. The party discovers only at the transfer that killing the exposed fiend will pour part of its nature into the Guest. |
+| **Destroy Xarrul during the Vacancy** | The Guest reclaims its body with Ethereal Jaunt, Voice Thief and Shadow Cloak. It thanks the party, takes the black key and claims the Inn. Mags refuses. The easy boss fight produces a dangerous succession crisis. |
+| **Allow the exchange** | Xarrul takes the changeling body. The Guest becomes the spectral Host bound through the Inn's wards. Its first act as proprietor is to protect Xarrul's paid passage; Mags immediately moves to kill Orenn's murderer. |
+| **Try to bind or control it** | The Guest treats the attempt as proof that rescuers and jailers differ only in vocabulary. It may trigger the Vacancy early, expose the party's private goals, or bargain with Xarrul against them. If ordinary escape becomes possible, it takes a useful face and disappears only as a last resort; the Inn remains the prize. |
+| **Leave it caged** | It continues its compact with Xarrul. If the transfer can be attempted through the failing wards, it becomes violent and imperfect; otherwise the fifth rule's fire kills it. As the party leaves: *„Dveře se tu zavírají před každým stejně. Vzpomeňte si na to, až budete na řadě.”* |
+| **Kill it** | Xarrul loses its prepared vessel and abducts a replacement during the Reckoning. The Guest's intelligence dies with it. Mags recognizes the choice without condemning it: the party solved a dangerous prisoner exactly as she and Orenn once would have. |
+
+### If the Guest Takes Xarrul's Imprint
+
+Keep the Guest's normal stat block and add **Ethereal Jaunt**, **Shadow Cloak** and **Voice Thief** from [Xarrul](xarrul.md). It does not inherit Brand of Spite, Waking Dream or Xarrul's full durability; those belonged to the fiend's will, not merely its planar shape. It remembers fragments of Xarrul's centuries and knows how to work the Inn's old wards. This is enough to make recaging it nearly impossible and to make a fight with Mags dangerous without turning the Guest into a second full boss immediately.
 
 ---
 
 ## Hooks Into the Rest of the Session
 
-- **Murder mystery / cult:** the Guest's infiltration intel corroborates the Order of Mending subplot and can un-stick a party that hasn't cracked the cult. It's the exploration track's bridge back to the main mystery.
-- **Character secrets:** at least one Personal Goal in [character-secrets](../handouts/character-secrets.md) points a PC at the Guest specifically (a face from their past, a contact to free, or a mark to silence). If a PC secretly knows the Guest, the cell scene detonates.
-- **Mags:** she knows exactly what's down there and expects the players never to find it. If they free or kill the Guest, raise it with her — her reaction (defensive, then bleakly honest) is some of the best late-game character work available. *"He was a tool. A person-shaped tool. Orenn always said we'd let him go eventually. We never did. That's the whole of it. That's who we are."*
-- **The rift:** the Guest is an early-warning system for the [Old Work](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-old-work) — its fear telegraphs the danger before the party stumbles into it.
+- **Murder mystery / cult:** the Guest's infiltration intel corroborates the Order of Mending and can un-stick a party that hasn't cracked the cult. It did not strike Orenn, but it chose which keeper Xarrul should remove; its locked-cell alibi is the module's purest half-truth.
+- **Character secrets:** the Agent wants it rescued, the Executioner wants it dead, and the Mourner needs its testimony. During the Vacancy both projected spirits—and the empty body—become separate targets, bringing those goals directly into the finale.
+- **Mags:** she knows exactly what's down there and expects the players never to find it. The Guest's claim to the Inn forces her cruelty out of the cellar and into the ending: she must surrender the house, defend it, or face the cage she maintained.
+- **Xarrul:** honest fiend and consummate liar enter a bargain both understand. Xarrul underestimates not the Guest's treachery, but its ability to recruit other hands.
+- **The rift:** the Guest's apparently useful warning points toward the anti-fiend tools needed to attack Xarrul's projected spirit. It is preparing the party for its own gambit.

npc/vetch.md

@@ -51,12 +51,12 @@ He's been using for two years. He's burned through his savings, his job, his lod
 **Will share for free (desperate for conversation):**
 - The assassins and cultists don't like each other. Water is wet.
 - Orenn was kind to everyone, even him. This fact upsets him more than the murder itself.
-- Tallow has Veil Dust. Tallow always has Veil Dust. Vetch can't afford it.
+- Orenn confiscated Vetch's last packet of Veil Dust two nights ago after finding him collapsed by the cellar stairs. He said he was locking it "below the barrels, where you can't follow it."
 
-**Will share if you help him get Veil Dust (buy him a dose, steal one, or convince Tallow to front him):**
+**Will share if you agree to recover the Veil Dust from below:**
 - The Ethereal Plane is more active than usual tonight — he can feel it, like static before a storm. Even without the dust, his chronic use has given him a faint residual sensitivity (DC 15 Perception to notice — Vetch auto-succeeds).
 - Bren's "imaginary friend" is real. "I've seen it. On the dust. It's... it sits beside him like a — like a thing made of string. With legs. It's *in* his head." He's never told anyone because who would believe the addict?
-- The cellar feels *wrong*. He's been down there trying to find Tallow's stash. "The air gets thin. Like standing on a mountain, except it's a basement."
+- He followed Orenn into the cellar later and found a cold draft behind the northern barrel racks. The stone there has a seam and fresh drag marks, but Vetch couldn't open it. If he shows the party the exact place, they find the [concealed door](../location/cellar.md#the-concealed-door) without a check; it is still Arcane Locked. "The air gets thin there. Like standing on a mountain, except it's a basement."
 
 **Will share during/after a shared trip:**
 - He's seen something else in the Ethereal Plane recently — something bigger and darker than Skein. "It moves like smoke but it has *intent*. And teeth. Definitely teeth." He didn't realize it was a fiend. He thought it was a particularly bad hallucination.
@@ -89,11 +89,10 @@ If players take Veil Dust with Vetch, he's an experienced guide. See [Ethereal T
 
 - If players only give him dust: He trips, helps them, and goes back to being an addict. Nothing changes.
 - If players help him trip AND show him what's really happening (the fiend, the possession, the murder): The experience shocks him. For the first time, the Ethereal Plane isn't beautiful — it's terrifying. It might be the push he needs to quit.
-- If players refuse him dust entirely: He's useless as an ally but might try to steal from Tallow during the session's chaos, potentially causing a scene.
+- If players refuse him dust entirely: He's useless as an ally but may try to steal Orenn's black key during the session's chaos and reach the hidden door himself, potentially causing a scene.
 
 ## Relationships
 
-- **Tallow:** Dealer. Vetch hates and needs him in equal measure. Tallow charges full price, always.
 - **Bren:** Vetch avoids Bren. He knows what's attached to Bren and it scares him. There's also a horrible recognition — they're both prisoners of something.
-- **Orenn:** Was kind. Always gave Vetch water and bread. Vetch is quietly gutted about the murder but can't process it through the need.
+- **Orenn:** Was kind. Always gave Vetch water and bread, and finally confiscated his dust rather than watch him die on the stairs. Vetch is quietly gutted about the murder but can't process the grief separately from his fury and need.
 - **Mags:** Mags is indifferent to Vetch. She doesn't have the bandwidth to care about his addiction tonight.

npc/xarrul.md

@@ -6,14 +6,16 @@
 
 ## 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. It was bound by the Order of Mending, sent to assassinate Sevra, intercepted by the House of Scales, and accidentally freed when the assassins broke its bindings without replacing them.
+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.
 
 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 — but 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. Only the summoners' emergency lockstone does that, and only a killing makes the surviving keeper break it. So Xarrul killed Orenn — the calmer of the two, the one who might not have panicked — knowing his partner would seal the house in grief and hand the fiend 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, 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.
 
 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 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.
+
 ## Stat Block
 
 **Xarrul** — Medium fiend, lawful neutral
@@ -131,7 +133,7 @@ It does **not** deliberately agitate Skein to rattle Bren — that backfires (an
 ### When Confronted
 - **First priority:** Not getting trapped. It will use Slip Between and Ethereal Jaunt aggressively to avoid being pinned on one plane.
 - **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, anyone with Fiendbane Manacles), 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.
+- **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).
 
 ### Loosing the Rift-Scavengers
@@ -202,7 +204,7 @@ 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)). Killing *Orenn* specifically — the calmer one, who might have investigated coolly instead of panicking — guarantees the grieving, protocol-following partner is the one holding the stone. 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 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 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:
 
@@ -212,7 +214,17 @@ Xarrul is not mindless evil, and it is not merely *petty* evil either. It has on
 
 **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)).
 
-**The honest thing 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 lies about *nothing*. Ask it a question and it answers true — because the truth is more corrosive than any lie, and because after centuries it is simply bored of being underestimated. The cruellest-seeming thing in the building is the only one that never deceived the players. Play it that way and "join it" becomes a genuine temptation instead of an edgy footnote.
+**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.
+
+### The Guest — A Fair Exchange with a Visible Knife
+
+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.
+
+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.
 
 ## The Night's Clock — Presence & Escalation
 
@@ -223,12 +235,20 @@ Presence escalates on the **lockdown clock**. The moment Mags shatters the locks
 **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*.
-2. **It notices you (early Act 3).** Once the party investigates, Xarrul whispers to them — Voice Thief, telepathy. **Mix lies with truths.** Some whispers misdirect (the smokescreen); some are *real and checkable* — it points them at a genuine clue, corrects a wrong guess. They can't yet tell whether it's helping or playing them. That ambiguity is the engine.
+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.
 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.
+
+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.
+
+Xarrul does not compel Dalla. It lets Haddon destroy himself under accurate questions. Once Dalla understands, Xarrul makes a precise promise: *„Otevři tento dům. Nech mě odejít. Půjdu na místo, kde chytili tvou dceru, rozpletu to, co uvázali kolem jejího vlákna, a přivedu ji domů.”* It intends to keep that promise. Returning one child costs it little, wounds Vyre, and purchases freedom.
+
 Keep the **first impression genuinely menacing** (Orenn's horrific death, the scavengers herded at the party in the [Deep Cellar](../location/deep-cellar.md), Whisper of Ruin turning them on each other) — you need real evil to turn *from*. Then recontextualize each: it killed a jailer; it was defending its only exit; the discord was cover, not cruelty.
 
 ## Who It Kills, Who It Spares
@@ -243,7 +263,7 @@ Overt killing is expensive while it hides (it needs the smokescreen), so the bod
 | 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 intended vessel), sometimes a **branded PC** (grooming) | The chess set. Notice-this-and-shudder. |
+| **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. |
 
 > **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).
 
@@ -257,7 +277,7 @@ Late game — cornered, or making its crossing — Xarrul pulls someone through
 
 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 vessel. If the party **kills the [Guest](the-guest.md)**, Xarrul loses its prepared body and must **abduct a replacement** — the party's own choice *causes* the kidnap.
+**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 Warden's Mark (Mags)
 
@@ -278,8 +298,15 @@ Either way, triggering the mark keeps the spotlight on the PCs rather than on a
 - Mother Vyre's real name and location (leverage against the cult)
 - Dace's treachery (it watched from the Ethereal Plane)
 - The nature of Skein (it recognizes the parasite — "a lesser thing, feeding on scraps")
+- 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
 - 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
 
 ## Items
 

overview.md

@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ 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, **Vetch** scratching at his arms, **Tallow** watching from his booth. 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), **Bren** muttering in his corner, and **Vetch** scratching at his arms beside the cellar stairs. 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.**
 
@@ -80,7 +80,6 @@ The core of the session. Open-ended, player-driven. They can:
 - Engage with faction subplots (assassin traitor, cultist fractures)
 - Help Bren (the possessed madman)
 - Take Veil Dust with Vetch (ethereal trip)
-- Trade with Tallow for information or items
 - 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)
@@ -91,9 +90,9 @@ The core of the session. Open-ended, player-driven. They can:
 
 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)):
 - **Fiend confrontation** — a tense combat split across two planes
-- **The dual-plane kill** — destroying Xarrul in a way that saves Dalla's child but validates the cult's theory
+- **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
 - **The rebinding** — the easy, hollow answer: hand the cult back its leashed weapon
-- **The Open Door** — side *with* Xarrul: behead the Opening and cure the child, at the cost of Mags and a monster loosed on the world
+- **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
 
@@ -107,9 +106,8 @@ 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 |
-| **Tallow** | Fence / broker | Corner booth | Calculated, trades info for favors |
 | **Bren** | Possessed madman | Corner, floor | Lucid flashes, controlled by Skein |
-| **Vetch** | Drug addict | Near Tallow | Desperate, gateway to ethereal plane |
+| **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 |
@@ -119,7 +117,7 @@ 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 | Deep Cellar, Cell One | Charming, patient, a fluent liar; Orenn's secret cult-spy |
+| **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 |
 | **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
@@ -127,17 +125,17 @@ A **lockdown clock** runs under the whole session: the moment Mags sealed the ho
 | Subplot | Entry Point | Connects To |
 |---------|-------------|-------------|
 | Murder mystery | Orenn's body, clues | Everything |
-| The Scales: the traitor | Sevra's suspicion, Kael's anger | Murder (framing), Tallow |
+| The Scales: the traitor | Sevra's suspicion, Kael's anger, Haddon's journal | Murder (framing), the Order |
 | 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, Veil Dust, Tallow | Murder (see fiend), Possession (see Skein) |
-| Dalla's child | Dalla, Haddon's notes | The Reckoning (the choice) |
+| Ethereal trip | Vetch's lead, Veil Dust in the Deep Cellar | Murder (see fiend), Possession (see 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 infiltration intel, moral choice, character secrets |
+| The Guest | Cell One in the Deep Cellar | Cult intel, Orenn's hidden accomplice, the Vacancy ending, succession fight with 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 |
 
 ## Starting Gold
 
-Split **200 gp** among the party however they choose. This is their total budget for Tallow's lockdown-priced goods. Suggested: 50 gp per player in a 4-player party, adjusted as needed.
+No special shopping budget is required. The tools that open new routes during the lockdown are earned through investigation, trust, or exploration—most importantly in the storage rooms and Deep Cellar.

prints/haddonuv-denik-harath.md

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+# Vytržený list z Haddonova pracovního deníku
+
+**Řád Zacelení — soukromé poznámky**  
+**Ruka:** Haddonova, psáno pravou rukou
+
+---
+
+## H–17 / Harath
+
+Podklady převzaty od **Daceho** tři dny před cechovním varováním. Úplný spis Domu spravedlnosti: čas výstrahy, přístupová trasa, přidělená čepel, půdorys pracovny a okno, během něhož bude místo po uzavření bez dozoru.
+
+Průsečík leyových linií potvrzen. Srdce vyjmout neporušené; tělo označit až poté. Dace trvá na tom, že Dům musí zásah považovat za předběhnutou zakázku, ne za prodej zevnitř.
+
+- záloha: **60 zl.** při předání spisu,
+- doplatek: **60 zl.** po získání srdce,
+- příští schůzka: soukromý salonek v Nether Inn,
+- další nabídka: zrcadlo přenesené přes hranici, cíl dosud nepotvrzen.
+
+Vedle částky je otištěná Daceho ověřovací značka v cechovní hantýrce: **rozdělená miska vah pod usmívající se liškou**.
+
+## X–1 / návratová vazba
+
+Příkazy bez odezvy. Návratová klauzule prázdná. Přenos energie pokračuje.
+
+**Spojení trvá.** Dokud spojení trvá, nelze stav označit za ztrátu kontroly.
+
+Připravit novou vazbu před půlnocí.
+
+---
+
+*Na spodním okraji je několikrát zkusmo napsáno jediné slovo: „trvá“.*

prints/secrets/2-collector.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # Výběrčí
 
-**Výhoda — Bossova pečeť.** Nosíš pečetní prsten zločineckého bosse. Když ho ukážeš jinému zločinci (vrahovi, Tallowovi), koupí ti **jeden neochotný projev spolupráce** — žádný boj, ale otevřené dveře, zodpovězená otázka, přivřené oko.
+**Výhoda — Bossova pečeť.** Nosíš pečetní prsten zločineckého bosse. Když ho ukážeš jinému zločinci (vrahovi nebo Mags), koupí ti **jeden neochotný projev spolupráce** — žádný boj, ale otevřené dveře, zodpovězená otázka, přivřené oko.
 
 **Cíl — Získat knihu neporušenou.** Tvůj boss chce Orennův šifrovaný deník dluhů *celý* — jsou v něm jména všech, kdo mu v téhle čtvrti dluží. Zajisti ho (pod barem a druhý v **Trezoru**) a udrž ho do rozednění nespálený.
 

prints/secrets/3-handlers-agent.md

@@ -2,10 +2,10 @@
 
 **Výhoda — Heslo.** Máš smluvenou frázi od spojky, kterou jsi nikdy nepotkal. Pro správné uši odemkne jejich důvěru.
 
-**Cíl — Dostat aktivum ven.** Někde dole je měňavec zvaný Host. Dostaň se do **Cely jedna**, osvoboď ho a dostaň ho z téhle budovy **živého**.
+**Cíl — Dostat aktivum ven.** Někde dole je měňavec zvaný Host. Dostaň se do **Cely jedna**, osvoboď ho a dostaň ho z téhle budovy **živého**. Tvá spojka předpokládá, že Host chce být vyzvednut. Host má vlastní názor na nového pána — i na odchod z hostince, který si podle něj vysloužil.
 
-**Odměna — okamžitá a mocná.** Osvobozený Host ti **dluží tvář.** Jednou před rozedněním se *promění* v kohokoli, koho určíš — projde kolem zamčených dveří jako Mags, poskytne ti alibi, zašeptá lež hlasem soka — **nebo bude po tvém boku bojovat v závěrečném střetu jako plnohodnotný spojenec.** Živý, věrný měňavec je ta nejlepší kořist, se kterou odsud můžeš odejít.
+**Odměna — okamžitá a mocná.** Heslo ti koupí **jednu tvář, ne věrnost.** Jednou před rozedněním se Host promění v kohokoli, koho určíš — projde kolem zamčených dveří jako Mags, poskytne ti alibi, zašeptá lež hlasem soka — **nebo bude po tvém boku bojovat v závěrečném střetu jako plnohodnotný spojenec.** Tuhle jedinou službu splní přesně. Nesouhlasí však, že tím patří tvé spojce.
 
-**Háček.** Pro Hosta poslali i někoho dalšího — ale *ne* aby ho osvobodil. Jestli se k cele dostane první, tvé aktivum je mrtvola a odměna je pryč. (Můžeš ale najít i nečekaného spojence: někdo tady potřebuje Hosta živého stejně naléhavě jako ty, z vlastních důvodů.)
+**Háček.** Pro Hosta poslali i někoho dalšího — ale *ne* aby ho osvobodil. Jestli se k cele dostane první, tvé aktivum je mrtvola a odměna je pryč. Jestli ho zachráníš, konflikt se jen změní: Host chce využít Xarrulův přenos a získat hostinec, ne poslušně odejít. Až se jejich duchové oddělí od těla, možná ho budeš muset bránit před vlastním společníkem — a potom rozhodnout, zda „vyzvednutí“ znamená odvést nově posíleného člověka z domu, který považuje za svůj.
 
 ---

prints/secrets/4-executioner.md

@@ -2,10 +2,10 @@
 
 **Výhoda — Chladné ruce.** Odvedl jsi špinavou práci v temných místnostech. Máš **advantage na saving throws proti stavu frightened** a hrůzy dole tě rozhodí míň, než by měly.
 
-**Cíl — Umlčet Hosta.** Jeden z návštěvníků ti zaplatil, aby ta věc ve sklepě už nikdy nepromluvila — zabij ji, nebo zajisti, že zůstane v kleci, až tohle místo shoří. Ví toho příliš o někom, kdo si platí za to, aby zůstal neznámý.
+**Cíl — Umlčet Hosta.** Jeden z návštěvníků ti zaplatil, aby ta věc ve sklepě už nikdy nepromluvila — zabij ji, zajisti, že zůstane v kleci, až tohle místo shoří, nebo přesekni její promítnutého ducha během Xarrulova přenosu. Ví toho příliš o někom, kdo si platí za to, aby zůstal neznámý. Jestli zdědí Xarrulovu moc, už se k němu možná nikdy nedostaneš.
 
 **Odměna — okamžitá a krutá.** Z Hosta si vezmeš **lahvičku s olejem tváří** — měňavcovu památku. Jednou před rozedněním **přečteš povrchové myšlenky jednoho tvora jako *detect thoughts* (bez save)** — včetně spoluhráče. Zjisti tajemství. Nalož s ním, jak chceš. A dál: tvá odměna je schovaná za uvolněným kamenem u schodů do sklepa — **50 gp a *Potion of Heroism*, k nalezení hned.**
 
-**Háček.** Někdo u tohohle stolu chce, aby ta věc byla volná a vyšla předními dveřmi. Pracuje proti tobě, ať už řekl slovo nebo ne. A druhý ji potřebuje živou dost dlouho na to, aby se jí *zeptal* — zabij ji moc brzy a uděláš si nepřítele, se kterým jsi nepočítal.
+**Háček.** Někdo u tohohle stolu chce Hosta osvobodit a věří, že ho zachraňuje. Pracuje proti tobě, ať už řekl slovo nebo ne. Druhý ho potřebuje živého dost dlouho na to, aby se ho *zeptal*. Během přenosu se Host a Xarrul na tři kola stanou oddělenými cíli: bude to nejčistší rána, jakou kdy dostaneš — před očima všech, kteří ho chtějí chránit.
 
 ---

prints/secrets/7-blade.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 **Výhoda — Profesionální zdvořilost.** Dům spravedlnosti zná tvou práci. Jednou si řekni o laskavost: člen cechu ti zařídí **rozptýlení, alibi nebo příležitost** (žádná pomoc v boji — cech nekrvácí zadarmo).
 
-**Cíl — Splnit kontrakt.** Zaplatili ti, abys dnes v noci sprovodil ze světa konkrétního člověka. **Primární cíl:** [urči NPC — Tallow, sok, jmenovaný kultista]. **Kontrakt má ale klauzuli:** *„Pokud bude odhalen cechovní zrádce, cílem se stává zrádce."* Cech tuší, že někdo z dnešní společnosti donáší kultu.
+**Cíl — Splnit kontrakt.** Zaplatili ti, abys dnes v noci sprovodil ze světa konkrétního člověka. **Primární cíl:** [urči NPC — Rennt, nejmenovaný vrah, sok]. **Kontrakt má ale klauzuli:** *„Pokud bude odhalen cechovní zrádce, cílem se stává zrádce."* Cech tuší, že někdo z dnešní společnosti donáší kultu.
 
 **Odměna — okamžitá.** Kontrakt uzavřen, cech platí ihned: **80 gp, lahvička *Silversheen* (nebo *Basic Poison*, 3 dávky)** a Sevra ti nabídne **skutečnou spolupráci** — cechovní svaly po tvém boku až do konce.
 

prints/vyre-zaznam-dislocacni-udalost.md

@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+# Retrospektivní rozbor dislokační události N–7
+
+**Archiv Řádu Zacelení — příloha k sérii E–III**  
+**Klasifikace:** neřízená projekce / chybná transpozice  
+**Určeno pro vnitřní metodickou revizi**
+
+---
+
+Nezletilý spontánní sesilatel, dále **N–7**, vykazoval před událostí pouze přechodné oneirické exteriorizace: krátké epizody mimotělního vnímání vyvolané febrilním stavem, vždy zakončené samovolnou reintegrací. Nebyla doložena trvalá éterická manifestace ani porucha návratového vlákna.
+
+K úplné projekci došlo během třetího terénního pokusu série E–III, jehož účelem bylo lokální ztenčení rozhraní mezi materiální a hraniční éterickou vrstvou. Časová odchylka mezi maximem uměle vyvolané rezonance a kolapsem N–7 činila méně než jedenáct minut.
+
+Rekonstrukce naznačuje následující posloupnost:
+
+1. N–7 v průběhu horečky spontánně vytvořila projekční tělo a návratové stříbrné vlákno.
+2. Projekce zahájila přirozený přechod směrem k astrálnímu médiu.
+3. Rezonanční maximum E–III vytvořilo lokálně dominantní éterický gradient.
+4. Projekční složka byla odkloněna do hraničního éteru dříve, než dosáhla astrálního média.
+5. Náhlé uzavření experimentální apertury zachytilo návratové vlákno v přechodové jizvě.
+
+Shoda místa, času a rezonanční signatury činí původní pracovní označení „vrozená porucha projekce“ metodicky neudržitelným. Přesnější klasifikace zní **iatrogenní transplanární dislokace následkem série E–III**.
+
+Událost nicméně poskytla první dlouhodobě stabilní spojení živého materiálního těla s vědomou éterickou projekcí. Pokus o okamžitou nápravu by znehodnotil jedinečný pozorovací stav. Doporučuje se proto:
+
+- zachovat N–7 v somatické latenci,
+- sledovat degradaci návratového vlákna,
+- identifikovat pokrevně příbuzný materiální konduit,
+- nepřistupovat k reintegraci před dokončením dlouhodobého odběru.
+
+Případné etické námitky vycházejí z nesprávného předpokladu, že událost a následný výzkum představují oddělené problémy. Bez série E–III by současná konfigurace nevznikla; bez jejího zachování by nebylo možné získat data nezbytná k jejímu budoucímu zobecnění.
+
+---
+
+*Schváleno pro pokračování. — M. Vyre*

prints/vyre-zaznam-matersky-konduit.md

@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+# Výňatek z protokolu rezonančního odběru MC–7
+
+**Řád Zacelení — interní pracovní opis**  
+**Vedoucí pozorování:** Haddon  
+**Cyklus:** VIII / závěrečné měření před vazbou
+
+---
+
+## Uspořádání vazby
+
+Subjekt **N–7** nadále vykazuje stabilní mimotělní dislokaci s úplnou somatickou latencí. Přímý odběr z projekční složky se nedoporučuje: i nepatrné narušení stříbrného vlákna vyvolává nepravidelnosti ohrožující využitelnost subjektu.
+
+Přenos bude proto nadále veden skrze **mateřský konduit D–7 (Dalla)**. Pokrevní rezonance zajišťuje dostatečně přesnou adresaci N–7 bez nutnosti lokalizovat její projekční složku v hraničním éteru.
+
+Osmý odběr potvrzuje očekávaný poměr:
+
+- pokles vitality konduitu: **přijatelný**,
+- ztráta projekční koheze N–7: **v toleranci**,
+- přenos do vazebné matrice: **83,4 %**,
+- nežádoucí mateřská odezva: třes, synkopa, poruchy spánku.
+
+Konduit nesmí být informován o zpětném toku. Její přesvědčení, že jednotlivé odběry subjekt přibližují reintegraci, zvyšuje ochotu k proceduře a prokazatelně omezuje rezonanční odpor.
+
+## Doporučení
+
+Udržovat oba subjekty v současném uspořádání až do zahájení Otevření. Předčasná reintegrace N–7 by přerušila přirozený meziplanární gradient a odstranila dosud nejstabilnější zdroj vazebné energie.
+
+Po rozpuštění hranice může dojít ke spontánnímu návratu projekční složky N–7. Tento výsledek je **vedlejší**, avšak může být konduitu nadále předkládán jako primární účel práce.
+
+---
+
+*Poznámka na okraji, jiným rukopisem:*  
+*Další odběr až po odeznění arytmie. Haddon tvrdí, že zvládne ještě jeden plný cyklus.*

storylines/ethereal-trip.md

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 
 **Veil Dust** is a narcotic that temporarily thins the user's perception of planar boundaries, allowing them to see — and partially interact with — the Ethereal Plane. It's trippy, disorienting, beautiful, terrifying, and addictive. In this oneshot, it serves as the bridge between subplots: the drug that reveals the murder's true nature, Skein's existence, and the thin point's danger.
 
-Vetch is the entry point. He wants a fix. Players can help him get one, and if they do, he offers to share. Taking the trip is optional but opens doors that nothing else does.
+Vetch is the entry point. He wants a fix and knows where Orenn hid the last packet he confiscated from him. If the players recover the Workroom cache, Vetch offers to guide a shared trip. Taking it is optional but opens doors that nothing else does.
 
 ---
 
@@ -12,10 +12,9 @@ Vetch is the entry point. He wants a fix. Players can help him get one, and if t
 
 | Source | Method | Notes |
 |--------|--------|-------|
-| **Tallow** | Buy for 30 gp/dose (3 available) | Straightforward. He has 3 more in his lockbox if these sell out. |
-| **Tallow's lockbox** | DC 18 Sleight of Hand or Thieves' Tools while he's distracted | 3 extra doses + other valuables |
-| **Kitchen herb rack** | DC 14 Nature/Herbalism Kit | Identifies dried nightwhisper (a Veil Dust component), but not a usable dose — would need Tallow's alchemical skill to prepare |
-| **Vetch** | He has nothing. He's broke. That's the problem. | If given a dose, he'll share his second dose with a player who asks. He always takes two. |
+| **Deep Cellar Workroom** | Follow Vetch's lead through the concealed door; locked drawer, DC 14 | 4 doses: three diagnostic doses and Vetch's confiscated packet. The Workroom is the first chamber below. |
+| **Kitchen herb rack** | DC 14 Nature/Herbalism Kit | Identifies dried nightwhisper as a Veil Dust component. Orenn's preparation marks match the bundles in the hidden Workroom. |
+| **Vetch** | He has nothing. That's the problem. | He asks for one dose as payment for the lead and offers to guide any PCs who take the remaining doses beside him. |
 
 ---
 
@@ -65,8 +64,8 @@ The main hall overlaid with its ethereal echo. Everything is grey, translucent,
 - **Bren** glows dimly — his life force is being drained. Beside him, **Skein** is clearly visible: a knotted spider-thing with tendrils in his skull. It reacts to being seen — it *notices* that it's being noticed and shrinks back, pulling its tendrils tighter.
 - **The bar (where Orenn died):** A dark, acrid stain on the ethereal side. The Brand of Spite left a residue — a scorch mark that exists on both planes. It smells of copper and old fire.
 - **The fireplace bell:** Glows faintly with old enchantment. The wards it's connected to are visible as thin lines of light running down through the floor — most of them flickering, cracked, barely holding.
-- **Tallow's booth:** Nothing unusual. Tallow is clean — just a man and his stuff.
-- **The cultist table:** Dalla glows dim (blood sacrifice has weakened her life force). Essek's wrist brand glows amber — it's ethereal in nature, visible on both planes. Haddon has a faint aura of arcane residue.
+- **The curtained booth:** Nothing supernatural, but its privacy makes it a useful place to compare what the user sees without alerting either faction.
+- **The cultist table:** Dalla glows dim. A hair-thin silver filament passes through her chest, bends toward empty space where Nessa is not, then pulls taut against the tavern's lockdown and vanishes into its boundary. DC 15 Arcana recognizes a sympathetic conduit leading to a projected consciousness outside the inn. Essek's wrist brand glows amber — it's ethereal in nature, visible on both planes. Haddon has a faint aura of arcane residue.
 
 ### In the Cellar
 
@@ -113,6 +112,8 @@ Near the bar, the ethereal residue of the Brand of Spite leads downward. A trail
 ### Beat 4: The Threat
 If players follow the trail to the cellar, they see the thin point and (if Xarrul is there) the fiend. This is the moment the murder mystery becomes something else entirely. Xarrul is aware of them. It doesn't attack immediately — it watches, amused. Voice Thief activates: a whisper in someone's head. "You see me. How interesting. Do your friends know what you've found?"
 
+If they noticed Dalla's silver filament, Xarrul looks directly along it before adding: „To dítě není v tomhle domě. Udělali z matky cestu a pak se divili, že krvácejí oba její konce.” It will not yet explain further; the stolen conduit extract is the proof.
+
 ### Beat 5: The Comedown
 The dust wears off. The Ethereal Plane fades. The grey, translucent world collapses back into the flat, mundane tavern. It feels like going deaf after hearing music. Vetch shudders. "Every time," he mutters. "Every time it's worse."
 

storylines/house-of-scales.md

@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ This subplot has two floors. Sevra thinks she's hunting a traitor; she's right,
 
 # THE TRAITOR FLOOR
 
-## The Surface Problem: The Merchant Quarter Kill
+## The Surface Problem: The Robbed Closings
 
 A guild contract. A noble named **Lord Harath** was marked for death by a business rival. Standard job — clean kill, made to look like natural causes. Paid half upfront, 500 gp total.
 
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ Before the guild could act, Harath turned up dead. But not cleanly — his body
 
 **What actually happened:** Dace sold the contract details to the Order of Mending. The cultists needed a specific type of kill — a death performed at a ley line intersection (Harath's study was on one) with the heart preserved as a binding component. Dace arranged access. The cultists performed the kill. Dace got paid twice.
 
-This is the surface of the guild's problem. The deeper rot is Dace himself — and, deeper still, the thing that has taken an interest in Dace.
+Harath is only the latest and most inflammatory example. Other sealed scenes have lost an old mirror, a planar travel diary, blood from a surviving relative, or memories no ordinary thief could take. A few perfectly clean deaths left no soul for priests to call back. Sevra has bundled every variation into one accusation against the Order. This is the surface of the guild's problem. The deeper rot is Dace himself—and, deeper still, the unrelated soul-harvester using the confusion as cover.
 
 ---
 
@@ -25,15 +25,15 @@ This is the surface of the guild's problem. The deeper rot is Dace himself — a
 
 For six months, Dace has been selling kills to the Order of Mending. The arrangement:
 
-1. Dace identifies guild contracts where the target's death could serve a dual purpose — the client gets their kill, the cult gets ritual components.
-2. Dace passes target details, location, and schedule to Haddon through dead drops and meetings in the tavern's private room.
-3. The cultists perform the kill using ritual methods. The body yields what they need.
+1. Dace identifies contracts involving useful bloodlines, planar exposure, protected collections, rare memories, or relics.
+2. He passes the complete dossier—target, possessions, warning, assigned blade, schedule, and control of the scene—to Haddon through dead drops and meetings in the tavern's private room.
+3. Sometimes the Order performs the kill for a bodily component. More often it lets the House kill and uses the sealed scene as cover for theft. The known killer makes further investigation stop.
 4. Dace collects payment from both the guild (his cut) and the cult (a separate fee).
 5. The guild's reputation suffers because the kills are sloppy and ritualistic — the opposite of the codex.
 
 **Why Dace does it:** Money. That's it. He has no ideological alignment with the cult. He finds their beliefs ridiculous. He simply saw an opportunity for double income and took it.
 
-**Why it matters:** The guild's code is everything. Clean kills, no suffering, no collateral, every death sealed and closed. Dace's arrangement produces the opposite — bodies carved open, hearts removed, ritual desecration. Every botched kill damages the guild's reputation, which is its only real asset.
+**Why it matters:** A sealed death must end the grievance. No second blade, no looting, no punishment of the household. By turning the House's seal into cover, Dace makes the guild appear to rob its own dead and admits that its archive, operations, and honour are all porous. The shame is worse than ordinary poaching.
 
 ---
 
@@ -56,12 +56,13 @@ Kael is the easiest assassin to talk to because he's honest and angry:
 - He saw Bren go rigid during the brawl and stare at the bar — useful for the murder investigation.
 - **Ask him about Thera and he opens the trapdoor to the basement floor without meaning to** (see below).
 
-### Through Tallow (Transactional)
-Tallow knows Dace has been meeting "a scholar type" in the private room:
+### Through Haddon's Journal (Physical Proof)
+Haddon's ciphered journal contains a loose account page for the Harath job:
 
-- Won't volunteer this — it's worth money
-- **Price:** 20+ gp, or information about the cult that Tallow can leverage
-- "Your friendly assassin, the charming one? He's been having private meetings. Regular. With someone who reads too many books."
+- It names **Dace** as the source of the complete House dossier three days before the formal warning.
+- It records two payments and their next meeting in the tavern's private room.
+- Dace's personal field-sign authenticates the transaction; Sevra or Kael recognizes it automatically.
+- Once deciphered, give the players the **[printable journal page](../prints/haddonuv-denik-harath.md)**.
 
 ### Through the Private Room (Physical Evidence)
 The private room contains:
@@ -83,7 +84,7 @@ Dace is actively helping the investigation — steering it toward the cultists.
 When players have enough evidence to accuse Dace:
 
 ### Presenting Evidence to Sevra
-She needs at least **two pieces** of concrete evidence (the pin, Tallow's testimony, the private room meetings, or a confession). With two:
+She needs at least **two pieces** of concrete evidence (the pin found on Dace, Haddon's authenticated journal page, physical evidence from the private room, Kael's contract records, or a confession). The journal page is especially strong: it counts as one piece by itself and turns circumstantial private-room evidence into a second. With two:
 
 > Sevra goes still. Not angry-still — *cold*-still. The temperature at the assassin table drops ten degrees.
 >
@@ -106,7 +107,7 @@ Dace grabs the nearest vulnerable NPC (Vetch, Bren, or a player who isn't watchi
 - Let him go — Sevra won't allow it. The guild's justice requires an answer.
 - Talk him down — DC 18 Persuasion. Possible if players offer genuine protection from Sevra's justice (but can they really?).
 - Fight him — Dace is dangerous one-on-one but outmatched against multiple opponents. At half HP, he surrenders.
-- Cleverness — Players might use Whisper Chalk, Tallow's goods, or social manipulation to expose him without a direct confrontation.
+- Cleverness — Players might pass a private note, manufacture a distraction, or use social manipulation to expose him without a direct confrontation.
 
 ### Aftermath
 
@@ -224,10 +225,10 @@ There is no clean win here — that's the point. Options, in rough order of how
 
 The assassin subplot feeds the murder mystery and the fiend arc:
 
-1. **The brawl was engineered.** Kael's grievance was real, but the laugh that tipped him (Rennt's) was twisted in his ears by Xarrul (Voice Thief), which layered a fabricated confession under it. The brawl gave Xarrul cover for the murder. Understanding this requires asking Kael *exactly* what triggered him ("One of them laughed and said the noble squealed. Clear as day." — Rennt did laugh; he never said that. The rest was Xarrul).
+1. **The brawl was engineered.** Kael's grievance was real, but the laugh that tipped him (Rennt's) was twisted in his ears by Xarrul (Voice Thief), which layered a true statement beneath it: *„Haddon vybral toho šlechtice. Zeptej se ho.”* Haddon did select the victim; Rennt laughed but never spoke those words. Xarrul used the truth to give the brawl its final shove and create cover for the murder.
 
 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 guild intercepted Xarrul.** The fiend was originally sent by the cult to kill Sevra. The guild's people caught it in transit, broke the binding, and thought the problem solved. They didn't know what they'd unleashed. Sevra knows about this — she'll share it if the fiendish angle is confirmed and she trusts the players.
+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.
 
 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.

storylines/murder-mystery.md

@@ -3,8 +3,9 @@
 ## Timeline of Events
 
 ### Before the Session
-- **Weeks ago:** Xarrul, summoned and bound by the Order of Mending, is sent to kill Sevra. The House of Scales intercepts the fiend during transit, breaks the binding (not knowing how to rebind it), and the fiend goes free.
+- **Three weeks ago:** The Order sends bound Xarrul into the House of Scales to steal the Severance Nail. The archive's automatic Final Closure cuts the Order's command binding. Xarrul catches itself in the Border Ethereal instead of being dismissed. The House mistakes the intrusion for a failed assassination and believes the fiend banished; the Order's instruments still show its binding energy and most cultists believe it remains controlled but unreachable.
 - **Weeks ago:** Xarrul, now unbound, finds this thin point on the cult's map — a fault already worked thin by the summoners who once denned here — and anchors to it. In the hidden deepest chamber it begins prying open the old, sealed tear from the Ethereal side, night after night, siphoning the summoners' leftover sigils to do it.
+- **Weeks ago, below the Inn:** Xarrul begins speaking through the stone to the caged Guest. The Guest recognizes the Order's missing asset from its infiltration work. It tells Xarrul which keeper is cautious and which will break the emergency lockstone in grief; Xarrul recognizes the old summoners' stone and supplies the occult half of the plan. In return, they negotiate the body-for-house exchange that can become [the Vacancy](the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy-the-guests-gambit).
 - **Days ago:** Orenn's surveillance turns up a district-wide wrongness he reads as an *underworld* problem — deaths that don't add up, the Order stirring. Uneasy, he buys holy water and ward supplies as insurance and writes the contingency letter he tucks in Mags's apron. He never once suspects the sealed rift under his own floor; that case is closed.
 - **Tonight, before the party arrives:** Tension between the factions is at a breaking point. Kael has evidence that the Merchant Quarter kill — a guild contract — was done by someone else with ritual marks. He's ready to confront the cultists.
 
@@ -13,16 +14,16 @@
 #### Act 1 — The Table (calm)
 - The PCs, strangers to each other and to Orenn, share the only free table. Orenn works them personally — business or pleasure, the house rules, the carrot of "references in high places."
 - Faction tension is palpable but contained: Kael glaring at the cultists, Thera still as a chapel, the cultists half-arguing over texts.
-- Bren mutters in his corner, Vetch fidgets near the stairs, Tallow watches from his booth.
+- Bren mutters in his corner while Vetch fidgets near the cellar stairs.
 - Orenn steps down to storage for supplies. His absence is what lets the next beat run unchecked.
 
 #### Act 2 — The Spark
 
 *The trigger.* When the table talk dwindles, Kael can't hold it any longer and confronts Haddon about the Merchant Quarter (Kupecká čtvrť) kill. Play it cold, then let a cultist's laugh be the match:
 
-> **Kael** *(vstane, ještě klidně, ale hlas jako brus):* „Kupecká čtvrť. Před třemi dny. Šlechtic s vyříznutým srdcem — a vaše čmáranice na podlaze. Ten kontrakt byl náš. Zaplacený. Zpečetěný. Tak kdo ho dodělal místo nás — a nechal po sobě takovej svinčík?"
+> **Kael** *(vstane, ještě klidně, ale hlas jako brus):* „Kupecká čtvrť. Před třemi dny. Šlechtic s vyříznutým srdcem — a vaše čmáranice na podlaze. Náš kontrakt. Další uzavření, který jste vykradli. Jednou srdce, podruhý relikvie, potřetí vzpomínky. A pak se něco ve vašich poutech protáhne až do našeho archivu a složí tři naše lidi. Tak kdo vám prodává naše jména?"
 >
-> **Haddon** *(nezvedne oči od knihy):* „Pletete si mě s někým, příteli. My jsme učenci, ne řezníci." *(pak tišeji, znuděně)* „A jestli někdo napodobuje vaši... pečlivost, stěžujte si doma. Ne každá krysa ve vašich řadách nosí náš odznak."
+> **Haddon** *(nezvedne oči od knihy):* „Pletete si mě s někým, příteli. My jsme učenci, ne řezníci." *(pak tišeji, znuděně)* „A jestli někdo prodává, co váš slavný dům nedokáže uhlídat, stěžujte si doma. Ne každá krysa ve vašich řadách nosí náš odznak."
 >
 > **Kael** *(o krok blíž):* „Ještě jednou řekni 'řady', učenče."
 >
@@ -32,7 +33,7 @@
 >
 > *(Read-aloud)* „Kael neodpoví. Popadne okraj stolu a převrhne ho i s Renntem pozadu na zem. Sklenice tříští o trám. A v tu chvíli se celá místnost — plná lidí, kteří na tenhle výbuch čekali — dá do pohybu."
 
-*(The laugh is real, but if you want to preserve the "was the brawl engineered?" clue, Xarrul layers a whisper only Kael hears under it — Voice Thief, a fabricated confession. See [red herrings](#red-herrings-deliberate).)*
+*(The laugh is real, but if you want to preserve the "was the brawl engineered?" clue, Xarrul layers a true, corrosive whisper only Kael hears under it: „Haddon vybral toho šlechtice. Zeptej se ho.” See [red herrings](#red-herrings-deliberate).)*
 
 - **The brawl lasts 3–5 rounds. Non-lethal — the rules hold.** Fists, bottles, furniture, and shove/gust/thunderclap *throws* that fling PCs around (use them to pull the party in and to position them for the reveal). NPCs keep their lethal kits holstered; save the assassins' real danger for the finale. If a PC would drop, they're knocked out at 1 HP, not killed. (See the [Brawl Toolkit](#the-brawl-toolkit).)
 - **The blackout.** A few rounds in, pressed in the scrum, **Rennt casts Thunderwave** — a legitimate knockback move that also snuffs every candle at once. The room goes black. It looks damning for the cult (they blacked out the room the instant Orenn died) — and they're innocent of the murder. Perfect misdirection.
@@ -41,7 +42,7 @@
 - **Mags brings order.** She storms from the kitchen, cleaver up, and quiets the room with her voice. She relights the candles with a ward-focus — and behind her is Orenn's body. What follows — the forced heal, the forced **Revivify** with the diamond from her own necklace (both failing), the shattered ward-crystal that seals the tavern until midnight, and the ultimatum — is scripted in **[Mags — Act 2: The Reveal](../npc/mags.md#act-2--the-reveal-dm)**.
 - Both factions immediately blame each other. Mags, for show, blames the strangers (see her two-layer accusation in the same section).
 
-> **DM — the murder is the plan, not the start of the mystery.** Xarrul didn't kill Orenn for spite or to frame anyone (those are bonuses). It killed him to make **Mags seal the house.** A killing in the Nether Inn is what triggers the lockdown, and the lockstone she shatters is the closed cross-planar vessel Xarrul needs to finish crossing (see [the ward-crystal's true nature](../location/tavern-overview.md#the-enchanted-door)). It chose *Orenn* — the calm one — so that the *grieving* one would be left holding the stone and would use it on protocol. The whole "who killed the barkeep" question is the fiend's smokescreen: the answer (a fiend) comes cheap and early, and the real question is what it's *doing* with the sealed house.
+> **DM — the murder is the plan, not the start of the mystery.** Xarrul didn't kill Orenn for spite or to frame anyone (those are bonuses). It killed him to make **Mags seal the house.** A killing in the Nether Inn is what triggers the lockdown, and the lockstone she shatters is the closed cross-planar vessel Xarrul needs to finish crossing (see [the ward-crystal's true nature](../location/tavern-overview.md#the-enchanted-door)). The Guest identified *Orenn* as the calm one so that the *grieving* keeper would be left holding the stone and would use it on protocol; Xarrul verified the judgment, chose, and struck. The whole "who killed the barkeep" question is the fiend's smokescreen: the answer (a fiend) comes cheap and early. The deeper answers are what it is doing with the sealed house—and who downstairs helped it choose.
 
 #### The Brawl Toolkit
 
@@ -57,6 +58,8 @@ Don't restat the room. Hand any NPC these non-lethal moves and narrate fast. All
   - **A cultist / Essek — *gust of wind* effect:** no damage, just throws people, papers, and flame.
   - **A blade — disarming shove or a flung tankard:** reposition, don't wound.
 
+As Essek's gust scatters the cultist table, Haddon's restricted research folio opens. During Rennt's blackout, Xarrul steals its two loose extracts from the Ethereal side. See [Haddon's Missing Research Folio](order-of-mending.md#haddons-missing-research-folio). Afterward, Haddon repeatedly searches the debris while pretending to organize his ordinary notes.
+
 Roll initiative only if your table wants dice; otherwise run it as a narrated montage with a decision point or two, and cut it off with the Thunderwave.
 
 ---
@@ -97,7 +100,7 @@ The clues are designed to point at both factions while the truth (the fiend) hid
 | Fiendish damage signature | Orenn's body | Arcana 15 | The cultists deal with fiends and dark magic |
 | Binding circle page | Kicked under table, post-brawl | Arcana 14 | A cultist book about binding fiends — were they summoning something? |
 | Planar diagram on cultist table | Cultist table | Investigation 12 | They're mapping planar weaknesses — including the tavern |
-| Lethe-marrow sale | Tallow (for a price) | — | Tallow sold them binding components recently |
+| Summoning inventory | Haddon's ciphered journal | Intelligence 18 | The Order acquired the components for a fiend-binding ritual |
 | Cultist pin in private room | Under bench, private room | Perception 13 | Cultists have been using the tavern for secret meetings |
 
 ### Clues Pointing at the Assassins
@@ -107,7 +110,7 @@ The clues are designed to point at both factions while the truth (the fiend) hid
 | Assassin code violation | Conversation with Kael | — | If the guild is willing to brawl in neutral ground, are they willing to kill? |
 | Dace's helpfulness | Social observation | Insight 16 | Dace is too eager to help — steering investigation toward cultists |
 | Contract dispute motive | Both factions | — | The guild has a financial motive — Orenn's neutral ground protects the cultists too |
-| Mole evidence | Kael, Tallow | — | Someone in the guild is selling kills — how deep does the corruption go? |
+| Mole evidence | Kael, Haddon's journal | — | Someone in the guild is selling kills — how deep does the corruption go? |
 
 ### Clues Pointing at the Truth (The Fiend)
 | Clue | Location | DC | What It Reveals |
@@ -120,6 +123,7 @@ The clues are designed to point at both factions while the truth (the fiend) hid
 | Partial manifestation scratches | Private room table | Investigation 14 + Arcana 16 | Someone mapped the wards to *break* them |
 | Orenn's preparations | Storage compartment, bedroom | Investigation 15+ | Orenn feared something not-human was moving — and hedged |
 | Orenn's letter | Mags's apron | — | "If something happens to me in the bar, it came from between." |
+| Conversation stain | Guest's cell, seen Ethereally | Arcana or Insight 15 | Xarrul repeatedly visited the prisoner to speak, not attack; the Guest knows more about the murder than its locked-cell alibi suggests |
 
 ---
 
@@ -136,7 +140,7 @@ Players will likely:
 ### Mid Phase (30–60 minutes)
 As players dig deeper:
 - Bren becomes agitated if questioned about the murder → partial truths emerge
-- Tallow offers information for a price → connects the dots between factions
+- Haddon's journal and the private room connect Dace to the Order through physical evidence
 - The cellar and back rooms reveal Orenn's preparations → fiendish angle opens up
 - Vetch mentions the Ethereal Plane → alternative explanation emerges
 
@@ -157,7 +161,7 @@ If players pursue the fiend angle:
 
 These are Xarrul's work — the fiend actively planted or encouraged these:
 
-1. **Xarrul engineered the brawl.** Kael's confrontation with Haddon was real and his anger genuine — but the *laugh* that tipped him over (Rennt's) was amplified in his ears by Xarrul (Voice Thief), which layered a fabricated cultist "confession" under it that only Kael heard. Understanding this requires asking Kael *exactly* what set him off ("One of them laughed and said the noble squealed. Clear as day." — Rennt laughed, but never said that). The brawl gave Xarrul its cover.
+1. **Xarrul engineered the brawl.** Kael's confrontation with Haddon was real and his anger genuine — but the *laugh* that tipped him over (Rennt's) was amplified in his ears by Xarrul (Voice Thief), which layered a statement only Kael heard beneath it: „Haddon vybral toho šlechtice. Zeptej se ho.” This is true—Haddon selected the victim—but phrased to detonate Kael's existing suspicion. Rennt laughed but never spoke those words. The brawl gave Xarrul its cover without requiring Xarrul to make a false claim.
 
 2. **A cultist component pouch** was left near the bar (Xarrul moved it from the table during the chaos). It contains ritual chalk and dried blood. DC 17 Investigation to realize the pouch was placed deliberately — the blood is old and doesn't match the murder.
 
@@ -186,3 +190,6 @@ No one is conclusively blamed. The lockdown ends at dawn. Everyone leaves with s
 
 ### Path E: Negotiated Peace
 Players reveal enough truth to make both factions realize they've been played by a third party (the fiend). Temporary alliance. Joint confrontation. This is the hardest to achieve and the most satisfying — it requires players to have engaged with both faction subplots deeply enough to broker trust between groups that hate each other.
+
+### Path F: The Vacancy
+Players free the Guest and accept its offer to expose Xarrul during the body transfer. For three rounds the killer, its accomplice and the empty vessel are separate targets. Destroying Xarrul avenges Orenn but pours its power into the Guest who helped choose him; allowing the exchange frees the murderer in changeling flesh and makes the Guest the spectral owner of the Inn. In either branch Mags starts the next confrontation. Solving the murder decides who deserves punishment, not who gets to walk away clean. See [The Vacancy](the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy-the-guests-gambit).

storylines/order-of-mending.md

@@ -12,28 +12,48 @@ She calls this **The Opening**.
 
 **The worst part:** She might not be wrong about the history. The planes *might* have been one, once. The separation *might* have been artificial. But "the world was once different" doesn't mean "the world should be that way again."
 
+### Nessa and Dalla — The Living Prototype
+
+Four years ago, six-year-old **Nessa** manifested an innate sorcerous gift during a fever. Her uncontrolled projection should have carried her consciousness into the Astral Plane and returned it along a silver cord. At the same time, Mother Vyre's early **E–III experiment** created an artificial pull toward the Border Ethereal. It dragged Nessa sideways, then closed around her silver cord. Her body has remained unconscious and unaging ever since; her projected self is stranded in the Border Ethereal somewhere outside the Nether Inn.
+
+Vyre found Dalla by tracing the damage from her own experiment. She could have attempted Nessa's reintegration months ago. Instead, she preserved the separation because it produces an unusually stable transplanar gradient:
+
+- **Nessa is the anchor** — a living consciousness held across a planar boundary.
+- **Dalla is the maternal conduit** — her blood relationship gives the Order a route to Nessa's trapped vitality.
+- **The monthly blood rituals are extraction** — presented as building a road home, actually drawing energy through Dalla for the Opening.
+- **Xarrul's binding is a field test** — one secondary use of the same harvested energy.
+
+Vyre's promise remains technically true: if the Opening destroys every boundary, nothing will keep Nessa from Dalla. Nessa's release is not the purpose, however. It is an incidental result expected only after both mother and daughter have ceased to be useful.
+
 ---
 
-## Phase One: The Fiend Test
+## Phase One: The Acquisition Test
 
 Tonight's events are the result of Phase One — a proof of concept.
 
+The Order does not hate the House. It exploits it. Dace's stolen dossiers turn planned assassinations into an acquisition network: the Order knows which targets possess planar relics, unusual blood, true-name records, or memories of other worlds; it knows when the warning will be served, who will strike, and when the House's seal will make further investigation stop. The cult lets the assassins create access and then harvests the scene.
+
+The greatest required object is the **Severance Nail**, a black iron spike revered by the House as its founding weapon. Mother Vyre knows it once pinned a planar breach shut and believes reversing or destroying it could stabilize Phase Two. The House does not understand what it owns and would never surrender its founding relic.
+
 **The plan:**
-1. Summon and bind a fiend (Xarrul) using components from Tallow, blood from Dalla, and a name from Mother Vyre's research.
-2. Send the bound fiend to assassinate Sevra — eliminate the guild's leadership and demonstrate that planar entities can be controlled as weapons.
-3. Retrieve the fiend afterward and study the binding's performance.
-4. Use the data to prepare Phase Two.
+1. Summon and bind Xarrul using components acquired through Haddon's dead drops, a name from Mother Vyre's research, and planar energy siphoned from Nessa through Dalla's blood.
+2. Send it through the House's security using stolen voices, altered memories, and Dace's intelligence.
+3. Make the archive custodians remove the Severance Nail and sincerely remember an authorized transfer. Killing is permitted only if necessary.
+4. Retrieve Xarrul and the Nail, then use both the relic and the binding data for Phase Two.
 
 **What went wrong:**
-1. The guild intercepted Xarrul during transit to Sevra.
-2. The assassins broke the binding, thinking it would dismiss the fiend.
-3. Xarrul, now unbound, decided to stay.
-4. It anchored to the thin point beneath the tavern and began its own game.
+1. Xarrul reached the inner archive but was discovered before it could remove the Nail.
+2. The archive's **Final Closure** activated automatically. Built to protect assassins against possession and compulsion, it severs every supernatural claim crossing its threshold: one exact cut through the hand holding the chain.
+3. The ward severed the Order's command binding. Most summoned beings would snap home; Xarrul shifted into the Border Ethereal at that instant and caught itself there.
+4. The House saw it dissolve, assumed it banished, and interpreted the injured and confused custodians as survivors of a failed assassination.
+5. Xarrul remained free, found the Nether Inn on the Order's thin-point map, and began its own crossing.
 
 **What the cultists know now:**
-- The binding failed. The fiend is loose.
-- They *cannot* admit this without revealing they summoned it — which reveals they're a cult, not scholars.
-- Haddon is pretending everything is under control. It is not.
+- Their instruments still register Xarrul and the vitality invested in it, but commands receive no answer.
+- Rennt believes the weapon remains bound and silently operational. Dalla felt the command cord pull free but accepts Haddon's explanation that it merely "settled at a distance."
+- Haddon strongly suspects control is lost, but hides behind the technically true phrase *the connection persists*.
+- Essek alone has compared the blank return clause, dead command sigils, and continuing outward flow: **"It isn't bound. We're still feeding it."**
+- None of them begins the night knowing Xarrul is beneath the tavern.
 
 ---
 
@@ -43,9 +63,10 @@ Phase Two is beyond the scope of this session, but its existence adds weight:
 
 - Mother Vyre plans to summon something **far more powerful** than Xarrul at a major thin point — a nexus where multiple planar boundaries converge.
 - The summoning requires components that Phase One was meant to test: binding techniques, blood sacrifice potency, and control duration.
-- The Nether Inn was chosen as a test site because of its natural thin point — the tavern sits on one of the locations Mother Vyre has mapped.
+- Dalla and Nessa are intended to power the final stabilization. Vyre expects the Opening either to consume what remains of them or release Nessa incidentally once no boundary remains.
+- The Nether Inn is one candidate on Mother Vyre's map of thin points. It was not Xarrul's assigned destination; after gaining freedom, the fiend chose the old worked breach for itself. Haddon is using tonight's meeting to study the site and diagnose the lost connection without realizing his former servant is directly below him.
 - Haddon's journal contains references to Phase Two. Essek has seen Mother Vyre's private correspondence about it.
-- Even if players resolve everything tonight, Phase Two is still in motion somewhere. The Opening hasn't stopped — it's just lost one test site.
+- Even if players resolve everything tonight, Phase Two is still in motion somewhere. The Opening has lost its controlled fiend and perhaps one candidate site, but not Mother Vyre's design.
 
 ---
 
@@ -56,9 +77,9 @@ Phase Two is beyond the scope of this session, but its existence adds weight:
 | Topic | What He Knows | What He Tells Himself |
 |-------|--------------|----------------------|
 | The Opening | It's a real plan with a timeline | "We're exploring a theoretical framework" |
-| The summoning | He organized it, chose the target | "A controlled experiment in planar mechanics" |
-| Dalla's sacrifice | He watched her bleed monthly | "A voluntary contribution to research" |
-| The fiend's escape | The binding failed completely | "A temporary setback. We'll recapture it." |
+| The summoning | He organized the Severance Nail heist and memory manipulation | "Recovery of a historically misidentified instrument" |
+| Dalla and Nessa | He knows the Order caused the dislocation, could attempt reintegration, and instead drains both through the maternal conduit | "Preserving a unique research state until the work is complete" |
+| The fiend's escape | Commands are dead although energy remains; he strongly suspects freedom | "The connection persists. Control is an imprecise layman's term." |
 | Phase Two | He's planning logistics | "Future research directions" |
 | Mother Vyre | Regular contact via dreams and dead drops | "A visionary colleague" |
 
@@ -66,11 +87,11 @@ Phase Two is beyond the scope of this session, but its existence adds weight:
 
 | Topic | What She Knows | What She Feels |
 |-------|---------------|---------------|
-| The Opening | Vague — "the planes will merge and the broken will be healed" | Doesn't care as long as Lístek is fixed |
-| Her sacrifice | 8 months of blood draws, her vitality draining | Rage that it was wasted |
+| The Opening | Vague — "the planes will merge and the broken will be healed" | Doesn't care as long as Nessa is fixed |
+| Her sacrifice | 8 months of blood draws, supposedly constructing a path home | Desperation; later rage that every draw fed on Nessa too |
 | The summoning | She knows a fiend was bound. She provided the blood. | Guilt, buried deep |
-| Her daughter | Lístek is frozen at age 3, caught between planes | Desperation beyond measure |
-| Haddon | He promised the summoning would help | She's starting to hate him |
+| Her daughter | Nessa's body is in suspended animation; her projected self is trapped in the Border Ethereal | Desperation beyond measure |
+| Haddon | He promised the summoning would help | Trusts him because she cannot afford not to—until the notes surface |
 | Mother Vyre | The woman who promised to save her child | The only person she hasn't lost faith in — yet |
 
 ### Rennt — Knows the Ideology, Not the Details
@@ -79,7 +100,7 @@ Phase Two is beyond the scope of this session, but its existence adds weight:
 |-------|--------------|-----------------|
 | The Opening | "The planes will merge and everything will be equal" | It's revolution — cosmic, beautiful, necessary |
 | The summoning | He set up the circle, handled components | "We summoned a tool for the cause" |
-| The binding failure | "The assassins broke it" | "Their fault. Their blood." |
+| The lost contact | Commands stopped after the House ward fired | "The weapon is still pursuing its assignment autonomously." |
 | Mother Vyre | The visionary who gave him purpose | She can do no wrong |
 | Dalla's sacrifice | Vague — "she gave something for the cause" | Doesn't want to know more |
 | Phase Two | Doesn't know details | "Whatever she needs, I'll do it" |
@@ -90,15 +111,28 @@ Phase Two is beyond the scope of this session, but its existence adds weight:
 |-------|---------------|---------------|
 | The Opening | It's real, it's planned, it will dissolve ALL boundaries | Terror |
 | Mother Vyre's notes | He's read her private correspondence — the merged world isn't paradise, it's annihilation of all barriers including the ones that keep fiends from walking the streets | "I've read what she actually wrote. It's not what they told us." |
-| The summoning | Full details — who, how, what went wrong | Guilt by association |
-| Dalla's sacrifice | Knows about the blood rituals and Lístek | Pity, horror |
+| The summoning | Full details; the Final Closure severed command but not the energy feed | "It isn't bound. We're still feeding it." |
+| Dalla's sacrifice | Knows about the blood rituals and Nessa | Pity, horror |
 | Phase Two | Knows it exists and is bigger | This is what keeps him up at night |
-| His brand | Burns when he considers betrayal. He doesn't know if it can detect thoughts or just intent. | Trapped |
+| His brand | The Unmooring Brand requires monthly stabilization; Haddon reads strong activations through a brass indicator | Trapped, watching for allies who can be relied upon rather than merely trusted |
 
 ---
 
 ## Entry Points for Players
 
+### Haddon's Missing Research Folio
+
+Haddon brought two restricted research extracts to the meeting because he expected to discuss the Xarrul binding after the tavern closed. They are the only documents in the room that connect Dalla and Nessa directly to the Order's energy extraction—and the only local record admitting that Mother Vyre's earlier experiment caused Nessa's condition.
+
+During Essek's gust in the opening brawl, Haddon's folio bursts open and its papers scatter. In Rennt's blackout, Xarrul partially manifests beneath the cultist table and takes both extracts. Haddon assumes they were lost in the brawl and searches the floor with increasingly visible panic. Xarrul keeps them because the truth inside is better leverage than any invented accusation.
+
+Use the extracts as two paced discoveries rather than one exposition dump:
+
+1. **Maternal-conduit extract** — [print handout](../prints/vyre-zaznam-matersky-konduit.md). Xarrul plants this first, after whispering to Dalla in Haddon's voice. Good locations: beneath the cellar stairs, folded into Haddon's displaced book, or pushed from the Ethereal Plane into Dalla's reach. It identifies Dalla but hides the meaning behind clinical terminology. DC 14 Arcana, Medicine, or a direct explanation from Haddon/Essek establishes that a *maternal conduit* is a blood-relative used to reach and drain Nessa across planes.
+2. **Dislocation-event extract** — [print handout](../prints/vyre-zaznam-dislocacni-udalost.md). Xarrul withholds this until the players can understand its value. Good locations: beside the thin point, in the Deep Cellar near Xarrul's worksite, or offered during negotiation. DC 16 Arcana translates the argument: Nessa's projection was healthy enough to return until experiment E–III diverted it into the Border Ethereal and trapped her silver cord. The phrase *iatrogenic transplanar dislocation* means the researchers caused the condition they later claimed to treat.
+
+Neither handout names Xarrul or explains the conclusion plainly. Let the players ask what the terms mean. Haddon initially calls them preliminary models taken out of context; Essek recognizes Mother Vyre's approval mark and can interpret both.
+
 ### Through Haddon (Intellectual)
 Haddon loves to talk. His ego is the crack in his armor.
 
@@ -108,13 +142,14 @@ Haddon loves to talk. His ego is the crack in his armor.
 - **Trap:** If players present contradicting evidence calmly and academically, Haddon will try to explain it away. Each explanation requires a Deception check (his +5 vs. player Insight). After three failed deceptions, his composure cracks.
 
 ### Through Dalla (Emotional — But She's Loyal)
-Dalla is approachable but she's not a crack in the cult's armor — not yet. She's a believer. Kindness gets her talking about Lístek, but she frames everything within the Order's worldview.
+Dalla is approachable but she's not a crack in the cult's armor — not yet. She's a believer. Kindness gets her talking about Nessa, but she frames everything within the Order's worldview.
 
-- Show genuine concern → she talks about Lístek freely, but as proof of why the Order's work matters: "My daughter is caught between planes. The Opening will make her whole."
+- Show genuine concern → she talks about Nessa freely, but as proof of why the Order's work matters: "My daughter is caught between planes. The Opening will make her whole."
 - Ask about the Order's activities → she's open about the mission (as she understands it): healing the world, restoring the planes to unity
-- Question the Order → she pushes back: "You don't know what it's like. To watch your child stare through you at something you can't see. Mother Vyre is the only one who offered help."
+- Question the Order → she pushes back: "You don't know what it's like. Her heart beats, but she hasn't opened her eyes in four years. Mother Vyre is the only one who offered help."
 - Suggest the summoning was wrong → "We did what we had to. And we'll fix it. Haddon says the binding can be restored."
-- **She becomes a different NPC only after learning the truth about The Opening** — see Dalla's Breakdown below
+- Show her the conduit extract → she stops defending Haddon and demands that someone explain *maternal conduit*
+- Give her a viable offer from Xarrul → she will consider helping the fiend before she will gamble Nessa on another cult ritual
 
 ### Through Rennt (Provocative)
 Rennt is proud and passionate. He'll argue the cause with anyone.
@@ -162,39 +197,65 @@ Essek is the hardest to reach but the most valuable source. See [Cultists NPC fi
 - **Sevra** (assassin leader): Cold fury. "You sent a *fiend* to kill me? And you sit at my table with wine and books?"
 - **Mags:** "You brought this into my house. Into *his* house." — This is when Mags stops being a neutral investigator and becomes a very dangerous woman with a very specific target list.
 
-### Dalla's Breakdown (Requires Learning the True Nature of The Opening)
-This is **not** triggered by the summoning being exposed, or the fiend being discovered, or even Dalla being confronted about her sacrifice. Dalla can absorb all of that and stay loyal — she believes in the cause.
+### Xarrul Opens the Wound
 
-**The trigger:** Dalla learns that The Opening doesn't mean healing. It means fiends in the streets, the dead walking, every planar horror bleeding into the world her daughter lives in. The "wholeness" Mother Vyre promised would make Lístek's condition universal — not cured but *normalized in a world of nightmares*.
+Once Xarrul has stolen Haddon's folio, it approaches Dalla with truths rather than a command. Using **Voice Thief**, it places Haddon's voice just behind her shoulder while the real Haddon is plainly visible elsewhere:
 
-**Sources that can break her:**
-- Essek's testimony about Mother Vyre's private writings (the most likely path)
-- Haddon's journal, deciphered and explained (requires DC 18 INT to decode + someone to walk Dalla through it)
-- A player who has taken Veil Dust and can describe what the Ethereal Plane actually looks like — not beautiful wholeness, but hungry entities, parasites like Skein, and a fiend that murders for amusement
-- Witnessing the momentary veil-tear from the dual-plane kill and understanding viscerally what that looks like at scale
-
-**When it hits:**
-> "She told me... she told me it would fix her. That the world would be whole and Lístek would be whole with it." Dalla's voice is flat, empty. "But this... this is what 'whole' means? *This* is what I bled for?"
+> **Haddonův hlas:** „Mohla ji zachránit už před měsíci."
 >
-> She looks at her scarred forearms. Then at Haddon.
->
-> "You knew. You knew and you let me believe."
+> „Zeptej se ho, co krmila tvoje krev."
 
-After the breakdown, Dalla turns against the Order completely. She provides full details of the summoning, the cult's operations, and becomes the players' strongest ally in pursuing the dual-plane kill. The cure for Lístek only exists for players who earned this moment.
+Further whispers should be questions whose answers are hidden in the two extracts: *„Zeptej se ho, proč na tom byla Nessa po každé oběti hůř.”* *„Zeptej se ho, co znamená mateřský konduit.”* *„Zeptej se, jestli tě Vyre našla předtím, nebo až potom, co se dozvěděla o té nehodě.”* Xarrul then plants the conduit extract where Dalla or the players can find it.
+
+This is manipulation, but not deception. Xarrul knows the binding from inside and has read the stolen notes. It never claims more than it knows.
+
+### Dalla's Fracture — Two Revelations
+
+Dalla can absorb the exposed summoning and remain loyal: she believes it served the cure. What breaks her is learning that the cure was deliberately withheld.
+
+**First revelation — the conduit extract:** Dalla learns that her blood did not build a road to Nessa. It allowed the Order to reach through her and drain Nessa into the binding. She turns on Haddon, refuses further blood, and becomes willing to hear Xarrul's offer. She may still cling to the belief that Mother Vyre did not know.
+
+> „Každý měsíc jsi říkal, že je blíž. Každý měsíc byla tišší."
+>
+> Dalla looks from the page to her scarred arms.
+>
+> „My ji nepřiváděli domů. My ji tam drželi."
+
+**Let the confrontation become ugly.** Haddon first calls the extract an incomplete technical model. If anyone explains *maternal conduit*, Dalla asks him one direct question: *„Mohli jste ji přivést zpátky?”* He cannot comfortably lie with the report in front of him. His answer—*„Předčasná reintegrace by zničila jediný stabilní gradient, který jsme kdy zaznamenali”*—is academically accurate and emotionally monstrous. Dalla crosses the table for him. Rennt restrains her and calls Nessa's suffering a necessary sacrifice; Essek finally blurts, *„On to věděl, Dallo. Celou dobu.”* Unless the players intervene, the cultist table becomes a grapple, shattered glass, and Dalla trying to reach Haddon with whatever is in her hand.
+
+**Second revelation — the E–III extract:** Dalla learns that Vyre's experiment caused the dislocation, classified it as useful, and ordered reintegration postponed. This destroys her loyalty to the Order completely.
+
+> „Nenašla nás proto, že mohla Nessu zachránit."
+>
+> Her voice goes flat.
+>
+> „Našla nás, protože už věděla, co udělala."
+
+Essek's testimony or Vyre's correspondence can add the final horror: the Opening would release Nessa only by abolishing the world she could return to. After either full proof or proof plus Essek's explanation, Dalla shares everything she knows and openly opposes Haddon. But she does **not** automatically support the dual-plane kill; Xarrul now offers what sounds like the safer rescue.
+
+### Xarrul's Offer to Dalla
+
+Xarrul can perceive Nessa through the energy wound tied into its binding. It knows where her projection is caught and believes it can unwind the scar and guide her home without an Opening. It cannot do so tonight: Nessa is elsewhere in the Border Ethereal, while the Nether Inn's lockdown seals this building across every plane. Xarrul must first become real or escape when the lockdown ends.
+
+Its promise is exact:
+
+> „Otevři tento dům. Nech mě odejít. Půjdu na místo, kde chytili tvou dceru, rozpletu to, co uvázali kolem jejího vlákna, a přivedu ji domů."
+
+Nessa is intentionally not present in the inn. Neither Dalla nor the players can verify the promise tonight. They must judge Xarrul by its demonstrated honesty and accept that fulfilling the promise also frees Orenn's murderer.
 
 ---
 
 ## Resolution Paths
 
 ### The Rebinding (Cultist Solution)
-If players never uncover the truth about The Opening — or if they side with the cult — Haddon proposes rebinding Xarrul. Dalla supports this enthusiastically.
+If players never uncover the two research extracts—or if they side with the cult—Haddon proposes rebinding Xarrul. A still-loyal Dalla supports this enthusiastically. Once the conduit extract is explained, she refuses another blood draw; Haddon must abandon the plan, coerce her, or find a much weaker substitute.
 
-- Requires new binding components from Tallow (he'll sell them, ~50 gp total)
-- Requires Dalla's blood (she rolls up her sleeves without hesitation)
+- Requires the complete summoner's binding coffer from the [Deep Cellar Workroom](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-workroom-laboratory)
+- Requires Dalla's blood (she gives it without hesitation only while loyal; after the conduit extract, she refuses)
 - Requires the binding circle in the cellar (DC 16 Arcana to adapt the summoners' circle)
 - Haddon leads the ritual, Rennt assists, takes 10 minutes
 
-**If it succeeds:** Xarrul is bound again. The cult has their weapon back. Dalla's connection stabilizes — Lístek stops getting worse but doesn't improve. The child stays frozen. The cult continues toward Phase Two. Dalla tells herself this is progress. Players leave having "solved" the murder by rebinding the weapon, but they've handed the cult exactly what it wanted.
+**If it succeeds:** Xarrul is bound again. The cult has their weapon back. Dalla's connection stabilizes — Nessa stops getting worse but doesn't improve. Her body remains suspended. The cult continues toward Phase Two. Dalla tells herself this is progress. Players leave having "solved" the murder by rebinding the weapon, but they've handed the cult exactly what it wanted.
 
 **If it fails** (Xarrul breaks free mid-ritual, DC 17 CHA save): Combat. The cellar. Xarrul is furious at being bound twice. This is the worst-case scenario — a fight with no preparation and the cultists caught in the crossfire.
 
@@ -202,28 +263,37 @@ If players never uncover the truth about The Opening — or if they side with th
 
 ### The Cult Fractures (Requires Truth)
 Only happens if players uncover the real nature of The Opening and share it:
-- Dalla breaks (see Dalla's Breakdown above) — this is the key domino
+- Dalla turns on Haddon when the extraction is explained; the E–III report destroys her remaining faith in Vyre
 - Essek follows if he feels protected — he's been waiting for someone to give him permission to speak
 - Haddon tries to hold the group, but losing Dalla and Essek guts his authority
-- Rennt is the last holdout — he doesn't care what The Opening actually means, he believes regardless. May need to be restrained.
+- Rennt is the last holdout — he calls the notes necessary sacrifices and opposes any plan that destroys Xarrul or wastes the harvested energy. He may need to be restrained.
 - **Result:** The Order of Mending's local cell collapses. Mother Vyre's network survives, but she's lost her people in this area.
 
 ### The Cult Is Exposed to the Assassins
-If the assassins learn the cult summoned a fiend to kill Sevra:
+If the assassins learn the cult sent a bound fiend into their archive to steal the Severance Nail and overwrite their custodians' memories:
 - Sevra wants blood. Kael definitely wants blood.
 - Players must mediate or a lethal fight breaks out in the tavern.
 - **DC 17 Persuasion** (advantage if players can prove the fiend is the real threat) to convince Sevra that killing the cultists now is less important than dealing with the fiend.
 - Mags backs the players on this — she wants the fiend dead first. "Kill each other after. Kill the thing that killed him first."
 - **Note:** Dalla is on the cultist side of this confrontation unless she's already broken. A loyal Dalla defends the Order. A broken Dalla steps aside — or actively helps the players mediate.
 
-### Dalla's Choice (Requires Breakdown)
-The dual-plane kill as a cure for Lístek is **only available** if Dalla has broken from the Order. A loyal Dalla would never consider destroying the fiend over rebinding it — rebinding serves the cause, destruction doesn't.
+### Dalla's Choice (Requires the Notes)
 
-After the breakdown:
-- She'll do anything to help. She becomes the players' strongest NPC ally.
-- She turns on Haddon without hesitation.
-- She provides full details of the summoning, the binding, everything.
-- She also provides the most emotionally compelling argument *for* going through with the risky ritual — "My daughter has been frozen for four years. Four *years*. If there's a chance, I don't care what it costs."
-- Counterpoint: Essek warns that the ritual validates The Opening's theory. "You save one child and hand Mother Vyre proof that her plan works."
+Deep investigation does not make Dalla the mouthpiece for one correct ending. It gives her three terrible options:
 
-**This is the reward for deep investigation.** Players who only scratch the surface get the rebinding — functional but hollow. Players who dig deep enough to shatter Dalla's faith earn the real choice: the dual-plane kill, the cure, the moral dilemma. The central tension of the module is gated behind doing the work to find it.
+- **Rebinding:** before the conduit extract, she supports it because Haddon calls it progress. Afterward, she knows it reconnects the extraction and refuses to give blood willingly.
+- **The dual-plane kill:** destroying both halves of Xarrul should release the harvested vitality back along Nessa's silver cord. It might pull her home; a violent recoil might also damage the cord. No one in the inn has tested it. Dalla wants the possibility but fears gambling Nessa when another route exists.
+- **The Open Door:** Xarrul claims it can guide Nessa back after the lockdown ends. Dalla becomes this option's strongest advocate because it is the only offer made by someone who both understands the binding and has not yet lied to her.
+
+Her argument is not that Xarrul is good:
+
+> „Vím, koho to zabilo. Vím, co to je. Ale Haddon ji využil. Vyre ji tam nechala. A tahle věc je jediná v tomhle domě, která mi řekla pravdu."
+
+The opposing voices become clean and strong:
+
+- **Rennt and Haddon:** rebind Xarrul; preserve the work and the only "proven" path to the Opening.
+- **Dalla:** free Xarrul and make it keep its promise.
+- **Essek:** attempt the dual-plane kill; end the extraction now rather than trust a fiend later.
+- **Mags:** destroy Xarrul by whatever method does not loose it into the world; Nessa cannot erase Orenn.
+
+The central choice is earned by finding the notes. Players who only scratch the surface receive Haddon's rebinding plan and think they have found the safe answer. Players who learn what Dalla and Nessa really are must decide which dangerous witness deserves their trust.

storylines/the-reckoning.md

@@ -37,11 +37,10 @@ Players know about Xarrul, have combat resources, and go to the cellar to fight
 
 **Setup:** The cellar is dark, cold, and cramped (10m x 8m). The thin point dominates the eastern side. Xarrul is in the Ethereal Plane — players need a way to reach it or force it into the Material Plane.
 
-**Methods to force Xarrul into the Material Plane:**
-- **Fiendbane Manacles** (from Tallow, 200 gp): Restrain it on the Material Plane for 1 hour
-- **Fiendbane Salt** (from the [Deep Cellar](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-fixers-arsenal) vault, 4 doses): a thrown pinch anchors it to its plane until the end of its next turn (DC 14 CHA save) — the exploration reward that lets a party pin Xarrul without spending gold at Tallow's
-- **The iron bell** (main hall fireplace): an old house-relic that wakes the foundation sigils for a time, giving Xarrul disadvantage on Ethereal Jaunt
-- **The binding circle** (cellar floor; the summoners', not Orenn's): if lured inside, DC 17 CHA save or trapped
+**Tools to force and hold Xarrul on the Material Plane:**
+- **Veilhook Salt** (4 finished doses in the [Deep Cellar](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-fixers-arsenal), with a craftable recipe in the Workroom): a Veil Dust user can throw it across the boundary. On a failed DC 14 Charisma save, Xarrul is dragged fully onto the Material Plane and cannot change planes until the end of its next turn.
+- **The binding circle** (cellar floor; the summoners', not Orenn's): once the salt pulls Xarrul across, the party must drive it inside. A failed DC 17 Charisma save traps it beyond the salt's one-round duration.
+- **The iron bell** (main hall fireplace): an old house-relic that wakes the foundation sigils for a time, giving Xarrul disadvantage on Ethereal Jaunt and making it harder to escape before the salt lands.
 - **Warding chalk circles** (from storage): Minor constraint, 10 minutes per use
 - **Force damage:** Affects ethereal creatures from the Material Plane
 
@@ -53,9 +52,11 @@ Players know about Xarrul, have combat resources, and go to the cellar to fight
 
 The "easy" resolution. Haddon proposes recapturing Xarrul using the binding circle in the cellar and restoring the original binding. This is available to any party that uncovers the fiend's existence — it doesn't require deep investigation into the cult's true nature. A loyal Dalla actively supports this.
 
+Once the maternal-conduit extract is explained, Dalla refuses to provide blood. Rebinding then requires coercing her, deceiving her about the note, or substituting another blood relative—which is not available tonight. This turns the early safe option into an exposed act of exploitation.
+
 **Requirements:**
-1. Binding components from Tallow (~50 gp)
-2. Dalla's blood (she gives it willingly — rolls up her sleeves without hesitation)
+1. The complete summoner's binding coffer from the [Deep Cellar Workroom](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-workroom-laboratory)
+2. Dalla's blood (given willingly only before the conduit extract is explained)
 3. The summoners' binding circle in the cellar (DC 16 Arcana to adapt it for rebinding rather than containment)
 4. Xarrul must be lured to the cellar or forced onto the Material Plane
 5. Haddon leads the ritual (10 minutes, concentration), Rennt assists
@@ -66,15 +67,15 @@ The "easy" resolution. Haddon proposes recapturing Xarrul using the binding circ
 - If the ritual completes: Xarrul is bound. It screams in fury as the chains take hold. The cult has their weapon back.
 - If the ritual is interrupted (Haddon takes damage and fails a DC 14 CON concentration check): The binding snaps. Xarrul is free and enraged. Combat continues with no second chances.
 
-**Aftermath:** Dalla's connection to the binding restores — Lístek's condition stabilizes but doesn't improve. The child stays frozen. The cult moves toward Phase Two with renewed confidence and a bound fiend. Dalla tells herself this is progress. The murder is "solved" (the weapon is leashed), but nothing is actually fixed.
+**Aftermath:** Dalla's connection to the binding restores — Nessa's condition stabilizes but doesn't improve. Her body remains suspended. The cult moves toward Phase Two with renewed confidence and a bound fiend. Dalla tells herself this is progress. The murder is "solved" (the weapon is leashed), but nothing is actually fixed.
 
 **Mags's reaction:** Disgust. "You're handing them back the thing that killed him. On a leash. And you think that leash will hold?" She won't stop the players, but she won't help, and she won't forgive.
 
 ### Scenario C: The Dual-Plane Kill
 
-The "true" way to destroy Xarrul — synchronized destruction in both the Material and Ethereal planes. This is the method that cures Dalla's child. It's also the method that tears the veil.
+The "true" way to destroy Xarrul — synchronized destruction in both the Material and Ethereal planes. Unknown to the characters, this method will cure Nessa. Before they attempt it, however, they can establish only that the harvested vitality should recoil along her silver cord; no one can prove the violent collapse will not damage the tether. It also tears the veil.
 
-**This scenario is only available if Dalla has broken from the Order** (see [Order of Mending — Dalla's Breakdown](order-of-mending.md)). A loyal Dalla would never consider destroying the fiend over rebinding it — destruction serves no purpose to the cult. The dual-plane kill requires a Dalla who understands the real cost of the cult's path and is willing to abandon it for her daughter. Players who never uncover the truth about The Opening never reach this option.
+**Discovering this scenario requires the conduit evidence**, Essek's help, or a PC who combines the binding records with direct Ethereal observation. Dalla does not unlock or automatically endorse it. After the notes surface, she favors Xarrul's promise of a controlled rescue; Essek favors ending the extraction now rather than freeing a fiend. Players who never uncover the truth receive only Haddon's rebinding proposal.
 
 **Requirements:**
 1. At least one character on the Ethereal Plane (Veil Dust at the thin point = 10 minutes, or Oil of Etherealness from Orenn's bedroom = 1 hour)
@@ -92,7 +93,7 @@ The "true" way to destroy Xarrul — synchronized destruction in both the Materi
 
 Then the veil snaps back. The tear heals. Xarrul is gone.
 
-**And Dalla's child:** The stolen vitality used to bind Xarrul — Dalla's blood, her life force — snaps back along the binding's path. Dalla gasps, clutches her chest. Miles away, a three-year-old girl blinks, looks around her room, and says her first word in four years.
+**And Nessa:** The vitality siphoned through Dalla snaps back along the maternal conduit and races down Nessa's silver cord. Dalla gasps and clutches her chest as four years of weakness lift at once. Miles away, Nessa's projected self is torn free of the planar scar and pulled home. Her six-year-old body draws its first waking breath in four years and opens its eyes. The gamble worked—but nobody in the tavern knew that it would.
 
 ### Scenario D: Negotiation
 
@@ -100,13 +101,16 @@ Xarrul is ancient and pragmatic. If cornered and unable to escape, it will negot
 
 **What Xarrul offers:**
 - Everything it knows about the Order of Mending, Mother Vyre, and Phase Two
+- Both stolen research extracts, or the location where it planted them
+- The truth that Vyre caused Nessa's dislocation and used Dalla as the maternal conduit
+- If allowed to leave after the lockdown: follow Nessa's silver cord, unwind the scar, and bring her projected self home
 - The truth about Dace's treachery
 - Information about Skein and how to kill it
 - The names and locations of other fiends bound by mortal cults in the region
 
 **What Xarrul wants:**
 - Freedom. Not destruction, not binding — the right to leave unmolested.
-- A host (not present — it will leave and find one later)
+- A vessel. If the Guest has been freed, Xarrul already has a willing exchange available through [the Vacancy](#scenario-g-the-vacancy-the-guests-gambit); otherwise it will leave and find a host later.
 - Or, if particularly cunning: the thin point left unrepaired. "Leave the door open. Not for me. For *air*."
 
 **The problem:** Xarrul is evil. Letting it go means it's someone else's problem. It killed Orenn. It will kill again. But its information is genuine and valuable. This is a classic devil's bargain.
@@ -138,54 +142,156 @@ The darkest ending — and the one that most fully commits to the module's thesi
 
 - **The lesser monster against the greater plan.** By now they understand Phase Two — the real apocalypse is Mother Vyre, not one fiend, and Xarrul is the *enemy* of the Opening. It knows every name, every mapped thin point, every cult secret ([What Xarrul Knows](../npc/xarrul.md#what-xarrul-knows-if-it-negotiates)). Its pitch: *"Free me, and I will gut her network. You cannot kill the Opening. I can make it not worth her while."*
 - **The ground has rotted under the defenders.** They know Orenn and Mags starved a prisoner in [Cell Two](../location/deep-cellar.md#cell-two--the-long-dead) and caged the [Guest](../npc/the-guest.md) for eleven years. Xarrul killed a jailer who ran a private dungeon under a bar. *"You freed the changeling. My cage was a whole plane of glass. Why is mine different?"*
-- **It offers what the clean endings can't.** The dual-plane kill cures Lístek but tears the veil and validates the cult. Xarrul offers the cure **without** the tear — it understands the binding better than Haddon ever will. The monster hands them the cleanest fix for the child.
+- **It offers what the clean endings can't.** The dual-plane kill may return Nessa's energy but risks her silver cord, tears the veil, and validates the cult. Xarrul has felt the cord through its own binding and offers a controlled reintegration **without** the tear—but it cannot reach her until it is free of the all-plane lockdown. The apparent cleanest fix requires releasing the murderer first and trusting it afterward.
+- **Dalla asks for it.** Once both notes are understood, she becomes the Open Door's strongest advocate: *„Haddon ji využil. Vyre ji tam nechala. A tahle věc je jediná v tomhle domě, která mi řekla pravdu.”* Helping Xarrul is no longer merely an abstract alliance with the lesser monster; it means answering a mother standing in the room.
 
 **The twist — it is honest.** In a building where everyone lies, Xarrul is the one thing that doesn't. So there is *no betrayal*. It keeps its word to the letter — hunts the cult, cures the child, thanks them — and the world is worse anyway, and they knew going in. The horror isn't that it double-crosses them; it's that it *doesn't*. (Contrast the [Guest](../npc/the-guest.md), who makes the same "free me" pitch and *is* lying.)
 
 **What it requires**
 
-1. **A vessel.** Default: the caged **Guest** — a body that can be anyone, poured full of an honest fiend. The knife: the Guest is **annihilated** in the process. A party that frees the Guest out of *mercy* may be handing Xarrul its skin — and the Guest, who reads thoughts, may know it, becoming either a desperate ally against Xarrul or a rival racing to the same door. *(Alternatives: a PC volunteers as host — the most personal; that character leaves the party. Or simply leave the door open — Xarrul crosses as itself, weaker, and finds a host later.)*
+1. **A vessel.** Default: the caged **Guest** — a body that can be anyone, poured full of an honest fiend. Xarrul and the Guest have already negotiated a fair exchange: Xarrul receives the changeling body; the Guest's silver cord is re-anchored into the Inn's wards, making it the spectral Host. The Guest intends to betray that bargain with the party's unwitting help; if the transfer begins, run **[Scenario G: The Vacancy](#scenario-g-the-vacancy-the-guests-gambit)**. *(Alternatives: a PC volunteers as host — the most personal; that character leaves the party. Or simply leave the door open — Xarrul crosses as itself, weaker, and finds a host later.)*
 2. **The crossing.** Let the [lockdown clock](#the-clock) run — keep anyone from breaching the seal or waking the sigils — or complete the crossing at the rift, while holding off anyone who tries to stop it.
-3. **Getting past Mags.** She will not accept this.
+3. **Getting past Mags.** She will not accept this. With another vessel or the open crossing, she is the obstacle before completion. If the Guest begins the Vacancy without her knowledge, she becomes the initiator of violence immediately afterward instead.
 
-**Mags, and the shape of the finale.** Mags says *"No"* — simple, final. Siding with Xarrul means going through the widow of the man it murdered, in front of her. So Xarrul triggers the [Warden's Mark](../npc/mags.md#the-wardens-mark-dm) — its first favor to its new allies — and Mags fights *compromised*, grief-broken and half-frozen in a vision of Orenn's death. This is not a slugfest but a **desperate holding action**: complete the crossing while a diminished Mags throws everything she has left at the objective. Winnable, tragic, and *the players'* to win. It ends not with a clean kill but with her going down and the fiend quietly thanking them. (For a bigger fight, add **Sevra** at her side.)
+**Mags, and the shape of the finale.** Mags says *"No"*—simple, final. Siding openly with Xarrul means going through the widow of the man it murdered. So Xarrul triggers the [Warden's Mark](../npc/mags.md#the-wardens-mark-dm)—its first favor to its new allies—and Mags fights *compromised*, grief-broken and half-frozen in a vision of Orenn's death. This is not a slugfest but a **desperate holding action**: complete the crossing while a diminished Mags throws everything she has left at the objective. Winnable, tragic, and *the players'* to win. If the Guest supplies the vessel through the Vacancy, replace this pre-transfer fight with [the Succession](#the-succession--mags-refuses): Mags attacks only after the body has an owner. (For a bigger fight, add **Sevra** at her side.)
 
-**Aftermath.** Xarrul keeps every promise (see [After the Reckoning](#after-the-reckoning)). No betrayal. Just the bill.
+**Aftermath.** Xarrul keeps every promise (see [After the Reckoning](#after-the-reckoning)). If it uses the Guest, the fiend does not betray the bargain; the Guest is the one concealing a second intended outcome. No broken word. Just competing knives.
+
+---
+
+### Scenario G: The Vacancy (The Guest's Gambit)
+
+This is the Guest's ending and the mechanically easiest opportunity to destroy Xarrul. It becomes available if the party frees the Guest, learns that Xarrul wants its body, and brings it to the **binding circle at the cellar thin point**. Do not run the transfer at the rift in the Deep Cellar; that tear is too unstable. The old circle upstairs is where one body can briefly be made into a closed vessel.
+
+The Guest's pitch is exactly true:
+
+> *„Xarrul chce tohle tělo. Až si mě vezme, nastane okamžik, kdy už opustil druhou stranu, ale ještě nedorazil na tuhle. Pusťte mě ven a já vám ten okamžik dám.”*
+
+It omits the result it actually wants: destroy Xarrul during that moment, let the fiend's embedded planar imprint collapse into the vacant body, then reclaim the body with Xarrul's ability to cross the veil.
+
+#### Why Xarrul Commits
+
+Xarrul understands that the Guest would consume it if it could. That is not the deception. The Guest has truthfully consented to vacate the body and genuinely accepts becoming the Host if its betrayal fails.
+
+Xarrul enters because the contest is hopeless **without outside hands**. The Guest cannot attack during the transfer without forfeiting its cord, ordinary mortals cannot touch a projected fiend, and Xarrul's will overwhelms a drug-weakened changeling. Once Xarrul places its essential anchor into the vessel, however, withdrawal would tear it across both planes. The transfer must finish. Xarrul underestimates which anti-fiend tools the Guest has steered into the party's hands.
+
+> **Xarrul:** *„Jakmile budu uvnitř, hodláš sklapnout čelisti.”*
+>
+> **Host:** *„Hodlám ti dát své tělo.”*
+>
+> **Xarrul:** *„Obě tvrzení mohou být pravdivá.”*
+>
+> **Host:** *„Pak si rozumíme.”*
+
+#### The Spectacle
+
+The Guest steps into the circle and willingly opens the way. Its body goes slack. Every borrowed feature runs off it like wax until a pale, unfinished changeling shell remains standing or kneeling at the circle's center.
+
+In rules terms, Xarrul is performing a bespoke form of **Astral Projection** through the Inn's sealed Ethereal overlay. The technique exposes both silver cords without sending either spirit beyond the lockdown, so Ethereal tools can still perceive and harm them. This is ritual knowledge Xarrul acquired through Nessa's binding, not the standard spell for PCs to cast or dispel wholesale.
+
+Two spirits rise from it. The Guest is silver-white, its outline cycling through every face it has worn. Xarrul is amber-black, gaunt and precise, joined to the empty body's chest by a burning cord. The Guest's own silver cord still runs into the same chest. Over three rounds, Xarrul unthreads that cord from the flesh and knots it, strand by strand, into the glowing foundation sigils.
+
+For those three rounds, **neither creature occupies the body**. The body, the Guest and Xarrul are three separate targets.
+
+#### Running the Vacancy
+
+The transfer settles at the end of **round 3**. Roll initiative normally.
+
+**The vacant body:** AC 10, 52 HP, unconscious, automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saves. Damage remains when someone finally occupies it. If it dies, the Guest's cord snaps and Xarrul is expelled into the Ethereal Plane with its current Vacancy HP; the bargain fails and the normal fight resumes.
+
+**The projected Guest:** AC 14, 26 HP, fly 30 ft. (hover), resistance to nonmagical damage, cannot move more than 15 feet from the body. It may speak, Read Thoughts and take the Help action, but **cannot damage Xarrul**: a hostile act from it forfeits its bodily claim and completes its projection into the wards. If reduced to 0 HP, its silver cord snaps; Xarrul takes the body immediately and no Host remains. This is the Executioner's cleanest shot and the Handler's Agent's last chance to defend the asset openly.
+
+**Vacancy Xarrul:** AC 15, **39 HP**, fly 30 ft. (hover), its normal resistances and immunities, and it cannot move more than 15 feet from the body. It cannot use **Ethereal Jaunt, Slip Between, Multiattack or Waking Dream**. On its turn it may use one Claw, Voice Thief, Whisper of Ruin, or Visions of Spite against an already branded target. It cannot abandon the transfer. At 0 HP, it is destroyed on both planes at once.
+
+Xarrul's spirit is visible to everyone but remains half out of phase. It can be damaged normally by an Ethereal creature, a Veil Dust or Oil of Etherealness user, force damage, or a creature using Veilhook Salt. Ringing the **iron bell** while the foundation sigils are active makes it fully tangible to all attacks until the Vacancy ends. *Protection from Evil and Good* cast on the empty body **after** the transfer begins gives attacks against Vacancy Xarrul advantage; cast beforehand, it prevents the transfer entirely. Reward any comparable anti-possession or anti-fiend preparation with the same effect.
+
+This is deliberately the easiest Xarrul fight. The party has traded the fiend's mobility and full HP for a choice about what inherits it.
+
+#### Xarrul Defends Itself With Truth
+
+The fiend knows the Guest's best weapon is the party's incomplete understanding. It spends the transfer telling them the missing half:
+
+> *„Orenna vybral on. Já vykonal vraždu.”*
+
+> *„Nežádal vás, abyste ho zachránili. Požádal vás, abyste do něj přelili to, čím jsem.”*
+
+> *„Zničte mě teď a dítě zůstane tam, kde je Vyre zanechala. Moc spojená s jejím vláknem vstoupí do tohoto čekajícího těla.”*
+
+> *„Udeřte, jestli je to váš rozsudek. Ale rozumějte tomu, koho vyzbrojujete.”*
+
+Every statement is true. The Guest does not deny them. It answers only:
+
+> *„Přišli jste zabít Orennova vraha. Konečně stojí na místě.”*
+
+#### Outcomes
+
+**The party destroys Xarrul.** Xarrul's amber cord recoils into the vacant body, carrying the stolen vitality with it instead of releasing that energy down Nessa's distant tether. The Guest's silver cord snaps home an instant later. The transfer burns the trim-dose suppressant out of its blood. It wakes with its full stat block plus **Ethereal Jaunt, Shadow Cloak and Voice Thief**, fragments of Xarrul's memories, and no intention of being caged again. Nessa remains trapped and Dalla remains drained. The Guest thanks the party, takes the black key and claims the Inn as eleven years' payment. Mags refuses; proceed to **The Succession** below.
+
+**The party waits or protects the bargain.** At the end of round 3, the Guest's cord knots into the foundations. Xarrul enters the changeling body, using its own stat block and gaining Shapechanger. The Guest becomes the **Host**: it perceives every room, speaks through walls and reflections, and controls the Inn's doors and active wards, but can never cross the threshold. Xarrul intends to keep its promises and leave. Mags attacks Orenn's murderer; proceed to **The Succession** below.
+
+**The party destroys the projected Guest.** Xarrul takes the body immediately; the Guest is gone and the Executioner's contract is complete. Mags attacks. Xarrul owes the dead Guest nothing further.
+
+**The party destroys the vacant body.** The Guest dies as its cord snaps. Xarrul is expelled, wounded but free, and the encounter returns to a conventional fight. If it survives, it abducts a replacement vessel.
+
+#### The Succession — Mags Refuses
+
+The Vacancy resolves Xarrul's body, not ownership of the Nether Inn.
+
+If the **empowered Guest** returns, it takes the black key and demands the house as payment. It may wear Orenn's face behind the bar, not as a joke but as a claim: half his intelligence, half his work, and now his place. Mags will confess the imprisonment, offer coin, or permit the Guest to walk free. She will not surrender the Inn or enter Cell One. If the Guest presses the claim, she fights. The party must decide whether freeing a prisoner includes helping it become the keeper.
+
+If **Xarrul takes the body**, Mags attacks before it can leave. The new spectral Host uses the Inn's locks and wards to protect Xarrul's paid passage: not out of affection, but because its first act as proprietor is to enforce a completed bargain.
+
+**Host house actions.** On initiative count 20 (losing ties), the Host takes one action while the foundation sigils remain active:
+
+- **The House Shuts.** One door, shutter or trapdoor slams and Arcane Locks. A creature in its threshold makes a DC 14 Dexterity save or is pushed to the Host's chosen side and knocked prone.
+- **The Wards Bite.** One creature touching the floor or walls makes a DC 14 Dexterity save, taking 7 (2d6) force damage on a failure or half on a success.
+- **A Voice Behind You.** The Host speaks in a trusted voice from the target's own shadow. One creature has disadvantage on its next attack before initiative count 20.
+
+A creature adjacent to an active foundation sigil can suppress these actions for one round with an action and a successful DC 15 Arcana check, or by defacing the sigil. Suppressing the Host does not evict it; removing it permanently requires destroying or rewriting the house's ward lattice after the night.
+
+> **Mags:** *„Zavraždil Orenna.”*
+>
+> **Hostinský, ze všech stěn:** *„A zaplatil mi.”*
+>
+> **Mags:** *„Uhni.”*
+>
+> **Hostinský:** *„Dluhy se ctí. To jste mě naučili.”*
+
+Either version makes Mags—not the winner of the Vacancy—the initiator of the final violence. The easy fiend fight leaves the party with the harder question: who has the right to hold the keys?
 
 ---
 
 ## The Central Dilemma: The Choice
 
-If players pursue the dual-plane kill, they face the moral question at the heart of the module:
+Once the notes surface, the finale is no longer simply whether to kill Xarrul. It is which compromised source the players trust with Nessa and the planar fault.
 
 ### The Case For
-- Dalla's child is cured. A three-year-old girl gets her life back.
+- If the energy returns safely, Nessa wakes and Dalla regains the vitality taken from her.
 - Xarrul is permanently destroyed. The murderer is dead.
-- The binding energy returns to Dalla, restoring her vitality.
 - Justice, in a form.
 
 ### The Case Against
 - The method requires thinning the veil — a micro-Opening. It validates Mother Vyre's core theory.
+- The recoil along Nessa's silver cord has never been tested. The characters cannot know beforehand that she will survive it.
 - Haddon is watching and taking notes. He now has empirical data for Phase Two.
-- Rennt's faith becomes unshakable. "The planes touched. I felt it. She was right."
-- Essek's warning: "You're running a proof of concept for the end of the world."
+- Rennt and Haddon will actively resist the destruction of their bound asset.
 - Even if the tear heals, the thin point is *weaker* afterward. Future attempts at the Opening are easier here.
 
 ### NPC Reactions During the Choice
 
 | NPC | Reaction | Why |
 |-----|----------|-----|
-| **Dalla** (broken) | "Do it. Please. I don't care what it costs." | Her child. Nothing else matters. She's only here because she learned the truth. |
-| **Rennt** | Ecstatic. Helps eagerly. "The planes want to touch!" | Validates everything he believes. |
-| **Essek** | Terrified. "You're proving her right." | Knows what Phase Two means. |
-| **Haddon** | Quiet. Watching. Taking notes. | This is exactly the data he needs. |
+| **Dalla** (fractured) | „Xarrul ví, kde je. Nechte ho, ať ji přivede zpátky, aniž bychom museli roztrhnout ještě něco dalšího.” | She will not gamble Nessa's cord while a controlled rescue appears viable. |
+| **Rennt** | Openly hostile. „Nezničíš celé dílo jen proto, že tě vyděsila jeho zbraň.” | The kill wastes the sacrifice and betrays Vyre's ordained plan. |
+| **Essek** | Supports the kill despite the risk. „Když tomu uvěříme, jen přeneseme nebezpečí za tyhle zdi.” | Better an uncertain release now than a free fiend holding the only promise. |
+| **Haddon** | Opposes it, then takes notes if overruled. | He wants the asset rebound; if it dies, he will salvage the data. |
 | **Mags** | Conflicted. She wants Xarrul dead. But not like this. "That tear's been sealed under my feet for fifteen years and I slept fine. You want to rip it *wider* to kill one fiend?" | She respects the sacrifice but fears the consequence. |
 | **Sevra** | Pragmatic. "Does it work? Then do it. Worry about theory later." | Results-oriented. |
 | **Bren** (if lucid) | "The thin point has been growing for years. One more tear won't matter." (This might be true. Or it might be exactly what Skein wants him to say.) | Unknown — is this Bren's genuine assessment or Skein's manipulation? |
 
 ### There Is No Right Answer
 
-If the players save the child, they arm the cult with proof. If they rebind the fiend, the cult gets its weapon back and Phase Two moves forward. If they negotiate, a killer goes free. If they destroy it conventionally, the child stays cursed and Dalla has nothing. If they *join* it, they behead the Opening and cure the child — and loose an honest monster on the world, over Mags's dead body. If they never dig deep enough to learn the truth, they never even see the real choice — they get the rebinding and think they won.
+If the players attempt the dual-plane kill, they gamble Nessa's tether, tear the veil, and arm the cult with proof—but destroy her exploiter. If they rebind the fiend, the cult gets its weapon and power source back. If they join Xarrul, Nessa is rescued without a tear and the Opening loses an enemy—but an honest murderer walks free, over Mags's objection. If they destroy Xarrul during the Vacancy, the fight is easier but the stolen vitality pours into an empowered Guest who means to take the Inn. If they destroy it conventionally, the stored vitality dissipates and Nessa remains trapped. If they never find the notes, they receive the rebinding and may think they won.
 
 Every choice costs something. The depth of investigation determines which choices are even on the table. That's the point.
 
@@ -205,6 +311,7 @@ Dawn comes. Mags opens the doors. People leave. The night is over.
 - The cult's cell is fractured or exposed.
 - The guild's mole is found or still hidden.
 - Mother Vyre's Phase Two continues elsewhere. The players know about it. That's something.
+- If it died during the Vacancy, its power and Nessa's stolen vitality remain in the Guest, and ownership of the Inn may still be violently unresolved.
 
 **If Xarrul escaped:**
 - The fiend is loose in the city. It will find new entertainment.
@@ -213,11 +320,17 @@ Dawn comes. Mags opens the doors. People leave. The night is over.
 
 **If the players sided with Xarrul (The Open Door):**
 - The fiend is real and walking the city, wearing a borrowed face — and it keeps its word. The cult's local cell is gutted; Mother Vyre has a new, patient enemy who knows all her secrets.
-- Lístek is cured — cleanly, no veil torn.
-- Mags is dead, or gone: walked into the dawn without a word, and she is not the kind to let it lie.
-- The Guest is annihilated (spent as the vessel) — or, if the party used another vessel, still caged below, or loose.
+- Nessa is cured — cleanly, no veil torn.
+- Mags is dead, defeated, or gone: walked into the dawn without a word, and she is not the kind to let it lie.
+- If the Guest supplied the vessel, it is now the spectral Host bound to the Nether Inn—unless another player destroyed its projection during the Vacancy. If the party used another vessel, the Guest remains caged below or loose.
 - The players *won*. That is the worst part.
 
+**If the Guest took Xarrul's imprint (The Vacancy):**
+- Xarrul is dead and Orenn is avenged, but Nessa remains trapped; the power that could have returned to her now armors the Guest.
+- The Guest owns the keys, or is fighting Mags and anyone who denies its claim.
+- If Mags survives without the Inn, she begins hunting the thing the party created. If she retains it, the Guest has gained every tool needed to return.
+- The Nether Inn's promise of neutral ground is broken either way. Everyone present saw what its keepers kept below.
+
 **If the faction war happened:**
 - Bodies. Regret. A tavern full of the dead and dying.
 - Mags survives (she's the most dangerous person in the room).
@@ -226,7 +339,7 @@ Dawn comes. Mags opens the doors. People leave. The night is over.
 ### Loose Threads (For a Potential Follow-Up)
 
 - **Mother Vyre and Phase Two.** The Opening is still coming.
-- **Dalla's child.** Cured or still frozen.
+- **Nessa.** Awake, still suspended, or awaiting Xarrul's promised return.
 - **Bren.** Free or still possessed. If free, he has knowledge that many people would kill for.
 - **Essek.** Escaped the cult or still trapped. His brand might still burn.
 - **Dace.** In guild custody, escaped, or dead.
@@ -256,10 +369,10 @@ If players **rekindled the foundation sigils** AND rang the iron bell AND have X
 
 The old sigils flare to life. The thin point *contracts*. Xarrul, caught between the binding circle and the woken sigils, is crushed between planes — not killed, but *sealed*. Trapped in the space between Material and Ethereal, conscious, unable to move, unable to escape. A fate some would call worse than death.
 
-The child is not cured (the binding energy isn't released). But Xarrul is contained. The thin point stabilizes. The tavern is safe again.
+Nessa is not cured (the binding energy isn't released). But Xarrul is contained. The thin point stabilizes. The tavern is safe again.
 
 Mags looks at the cellar floor where the fiend is imprisoned. "Orenn would have done it this way," she says. "Clean. Contained. No loose ends." She pauses. "I hate it. But it's right."
 
-This ending costs the least and gains the least. It's the safest choice. It's also the one where a three-year-old girl stays frozen, and a fiend spends eternity screaming silently between worlds.
+This ending costs the least and gains the least. It's the safest choice. It's also the one where a six-year-old girl remains suspended, and a fiend spends eternity screaming silently between worlds.
 
 Safety is not the same as goodness. That's the last thing the players learn.