fractions rework

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.