fractions rework

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]    └────────┬────────┘   │
 │                                                 │            │
 │  ┌──────┐                              ┌────────┴────────┐   │