murder-mystery-oneshot/location/deep-cellar.md

# The Deep Cellar — The Old Work

*Everyone thinks the cellar is the bottom. It isn't. Orenn and Mags never fully retired — they just moved the work downstairs, past a door that isn't on any map, and told the world they poured drinks for a living.*

---

## Purpose (For the DM)

This level is the **exploration spine** of the module — the track for players who came to *do* things, not talk. It rewards sneaking, searching, lockpicking, and picking fights carefully. Everything here is optional. A party can solve the murder without ever finding the concealed door. But a party that goes down here finds:

- **Useful things** — a scavenged anti-fiend kit, alchemy, coin, and one or two items that make the Reckoning easier.
- **Backstory, told by the room** — the truth about who Orenn and Mags really were, discovered through what they kept, caged, and buried, without a single NPC having to explain it.
- **A fight, on the party's terms** — a guardian, an infestation, a haunting, and a caged thing that might not stay caged.

**This does NOT relocate the endgame.** The Reckoning still happens in the **[Upper Cellar](../location/cellar.md)** — the thin point, the summoners' binding circle, and the old foundation sigils are all up there and unchanged. The Deep Cellar is a *second, lower level* reached through a concealed door. Its own rift (the Old Work, below) is the same planar fault seen deeper and worse; it is a source of dread, backstory, and monsters — **not** the dual-plane-kill site. If in doubt, keep binding and killing Xarrul upstairs where the circle is.

---

## Getting In

The only entrance is the **concealed iron door** in the Upper Cellar (see [cellar.md — The Concealed Door](../location/cellar.md#the-concealed-door)). Finding it is the first exploration beat:

- **DC 15 Investigation** on the north wall behind the barrel racks — the "living rock" there is a cleverly fitted iron door faced with a shell of real stone. A cold draft and a faint drag-scuff on the earth floor give it away.
- **DC 15 Perception** — the same cold draft, plus the smell (copper, tallow, something animal underneath).
- **Orenn's keys** (on his body) include a heavy, plain black iron key that fits nothing upstairs. It fits here.
- **Mags** will only reveal it under the most extreme trust (see [mags.md](../npc/mags.md)) — and even then reluctantly. Players who *find it themselves* rob her of the choice, which is very much the point of this track.

The door itself is locked (**Arcane Lock**, DC 20 to force, DC 25 Thieves' Tools; Orenn's black key or *Knock* bypasses it). Behind it: rough steps cut into bedrock, descending.

> **Read-Aloud: The Descent**
>
> *Za falešnou stěnou nejsou sudy. Jsou schody. Vytesané přímo do skály, úzké, nerovné, kluzké vlhkem, které stoupá zdola jako dech. Vzduch je tu ještě chladnější než ve sklepě — a hustší, jako by měl vlastní váhu. Kovová pachuť sílí. A pod ní něco jiného: pižmo, zvířecí, a hluboko vzadu sladká hniloba.*
>
> *Deset schodů. Patnáct. Ztratíte počet. Světlo shora se scvrkne na bledou skvrnu a pak zmizí úplně. Ať chcete vidět cokoliv, musíte si posvítit — a to světlo tu vypadá menší, než by mělo, jako by ho tma kolem hltala.*
>
> *A pak, na hranici slyšitelnosti, něco zaškrábe. Daleko. Nebo blízko. Tady dole se to nepozná.*

---

## Layout

Less a warren than a **single spine**: one central corridor — the **Long Cut** — carved over years, with the work-chambers opening off it and the floor sloping *down* the whole way toward the rift, roughly 40m from the stair-foot to the Old Work. It matters that **the level is a dead end.** The only way in or out is the concealed stair at the top; the deepest chamber is a sealed cul-de-sac. That one fact is the level's engine — see [The Guardian](#encounter--the-guardian).

```
   [ UPPER CELLAR ]
         │  concealed door + descent
         │  (steps cut in rock; the level slopes DOWN the whole way)
         ▼
   ┌──────────────┐
   │   WORKROOM   │  ← Twinkle's DEN, at the stair-foot — the chokepoint.
   │  (lab + den) │    It gets between the party and the only stairs out,
   └──────┬───────┘    then drives them DOWN the Cut.
          │
     ═════╪═════  T H E   L O N G   C U T
          │       (central corridor; widens midway into the old working
   ┌──────┴───────┐   floor — chalk wall, scarred table, tools; rats)
   │    CELLS     │
   │ [1] Guest    │
   │ [2] Long Dead│
   └──────┬───────┘
          │
   ┌──────┴───────┐
   │  THE VAULT   │  (arcane-locked — herded past it, you can't loot on
   │              │   the run; note it, come back)
   └──────┬───────┘
          │
     ═════╪═════  WARDED ARCH — the couple's old quarantine line.
          │       ►► TWINKLE WILL NOT CROSS ◄◄
          ▼
   ┌──────────────┐
   │ DEEP STORAGE │  Poltergeist — DORMANT; does NOT strike on sight.
   │(false refuge)│  Breathing room to plan… until it isn't. THIS is what
   └──────┬───────┘  the spider wouldn't follow you into.
          │  barred, runed door (barred from the storage side)
          ▼
   ┌──────────────┐
   │ THE OLD WORK │  The rift. Dead end. Only way out is back up the Cut.
   └──────────────┘
```

**Light:** None. Utterly dark. Bring your own — and note that the darkness here feels *thick* (flavor; no mechanical penalty beyond normal). Some rooms have sconces the players can light.

**Sound:** Carries strangely (the fault line). A footstep three rooms away can sound close; a scream close by can sound far. Use this — Perception checks to locate a sound are at disadvantage down here.

---

## The Long Cut (Central Corridor)

The spine of the level: a rough corridor running from the stair-foot down to the warded arch, with the work-chambers opening off it. Midway it widens into what was Orenn and Mags's **working floor** — a scarred wooden table, two chairs, a rack of tools (mundane: shovels, a mallet, coils of rope, iron stakes), and a **whitewashed wall covered in chalk** running the length of the stone. The far end narrows to a **warded arch** — the couple's old quarantine line — beyond which the air goes wrong and [Deep Storage](#deep-storage-the-trophy-hold) begins. That arch is where [Twinkle](#encounter--the-guardian) stops; see there.

**The Chalk Wall (DC 12 Investigation to read it properly):** Years of case-notes in Orenn's shorthand and Mags's blunt block letters. Most is smudged over. What survives, read together, is the backstory of the whole level, delivered by the room:

- Columns of dates and single words: *"bound," "burned," "sold," "returned," "kept."*
- A crude regional map with a dozen X's — jobs. Three are circled and struck through hard enough to tear the whitewash.
- A newer hand (last few weeks), hurried and pinned over the old case-map — Orenn's, and *not* about this room at all: *"Order moving again. Meetings up. Vyre? Three dead in the quarter this month — no marks I know. Something in the district's gone wrong. Watch it."* This is his [surveillance](../npc/orenn.md#what-he-knew-for-dm-reference) spilling into his old workspace: he was chasing a *city* problem and never once turned to look at the sealed rift twenty feet behind him. The tragedy of the whole level is written right here — his case board on the Order, hung on the wall of the tomb the Order's own fiend is clawing its way out of.
- **DC 15 Investigation:** One struck-through X on the map is annotated *"Mending — Vyre?"* — Orenn had been circling the cult for months. (Threads the exploration back into the murder mystery. See [Order of Mending](../storylines/order-of-mending.md).)

**Encounter — The Infestation (rats):** The Cut and its chambers are infested. This is the low-stakes "you are not alone down here" beat.

- **1 Swarm of Rats** (CR 1/4) per stretch of the Cut the party lingers in noisily; up to 3 total. They boil out of cracks, drawn by warmth. They're a nuisance, not a threat — but they can force a retreat from a room, knock over a lantern (darkness!), or gnaw a dropped item.
- **Flavor near the warded arch:** rats at the wrong end are *wrong* — some flicker, half-there, ethereal-touched. They pass through a closed door once and vanish. (Pure atmosphere; treat as normal rats mechanically, or reskin one swarm as taking only force/radiant/magical damage if you want the rift's influence to bite.)
- **Stealth option:** A party moving quietly (group DC 12 Stealth) works down the Cut without waking the swarms. Rewarding caution is the point.

---

## The Vault (Treasure Room)

*"You told me we were poor," Mags said once, "so I'd stop worrying." Orenn just smiled. They were never poor. They were careful.*

A low chamber sealed by a banded door under a permanent **Arcane Lock** (Orenn's black key, *Knock*, or *Dispel Magic* vs. DC 17; brute force is DC 25 Strength, and the door is designed to scream — a shriek-ward alerts **[Twinkle](#encounter--the-guardian)** (denned in the Workroom at the stair-foot, up the Cut) and anyone on the Cut). This is where twenty years of "expensive, reliable, discreet" went.

> **Read-Aloud: The Vault**
>
> *Dveře se otevřou s dechem suchého, starého vzduchu. Uvnitř se vaše světlo odrazí od zlata. Ne hromady jako v dračích pohádkách — spíš pořádek. Truhly srovnané u zdi. Police. Zbraně na hácích, naolejované a čekající. A všechno pokryté tenkou vrstvou prachu, kterou léta nikdo nezvedl.*
>
> *Je to poklad člověka, který nikdy neutrácel — protože nikdy nevěřil, že válka opravdu skončila.*

### Wealth
- **1,400 gp** in mixed coin across three locked chests (DC 13 Thieves' Tools each, or the black key).
- A velvet roll of **cut gemstones** worth **900 gp** total (six stones, 150 gp each — easy to split, easy to steal a couple unnoticed: a Personal-Goal hook, see [character-secrets](../handouts/character-secrets.md)).
- A deed-box: **two more deeds** (a warehouse on Popelová Alley, a shuttered chandlery) and letters of credit with a moneylender — proof the "just a barkeep" story was always a story.

> **DM note — preserve the upstairs beat.** The modest lockbox in Orenn & Mags's bedroom (150 gp, the deed, the two silver rings, *"It's just a life"*) still stands. The contrast **is** the character work: the sentimental front upstairs, the buried fortune down here. Don't collapse one into the other. Mags never spent the vault. It was for a war she never stopped expecting.

### The 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.
- A **quiver of 10 silvered crossbow bolts** and a **matched silvered hand crossbow** (well-kept, +0 but silvered).
- 2 vials of **Holy Water**, 1 more vial of **Silversheen**, and a jar of **warding chalk (2 uses)** — stacks with the storage-room supplies for a party that hunts both caches.
- A **Potion of Heroism** and a **Potion of Greater Healing** (×2) — the couple's "before the bad jobs" stash.
- A **Ring of the Ram** (3 charges) OR a **+1 dagger etched with a fiend-binding sigil** (DM's choice, tuned to the party's gaps) — one modest permanent item as the deep-exploration prize.

### The Trophies (backstory)
On a shelf, labeled in Mags's block letters — souvenirs kept the way soldiers keep them:
- A **shattered summoning horn**, scorched. Label: *"the sewer thing, '01. never again."*
- A **child's shoe**, clean, kept apart from everything else. **No label.** (Say nothing. Let it sit. Insight tells a player this is the one thing in the room that hurt them.)
- A row of small glass jars, each holding a **pinch of grey ash** and a slip of paper with a name and a date. Fiends they burned. The most recent jar is **empty, waiting, labeled only with a question mark** — Orenn expected one more.
- **DC 14 Investigation:** one trophy — a guild-style garrote with a jade bead — matches the [House of Scales](../storylines/house-of-scales.md); another, a bronze pin, belongs to the **Order of Mending** (like the one in the private room). The couple's "problems we solved" included people from *both* factions currently sitting upstairs. If that ever comes out, the lockdown gets much more dangerous.

---

## The Cells

Two cells cut side by side, iron-barred, fitted with the runed nails and a warded lock (DC 15 Thieves' Tools; the warding adds a jolt — 1d4 force to a failed pick). This is the ugliest truth of the level: Orenn and Mags didn't just kill things. Sometimes they *kept* them.

### Cell One — The Guest

**Occupied.** A changeling the couple has held for years and used as an off-book asset. Full write-up, stat block, leverage, and dialogue in **[npc/the-guest.md](../npc/the-guest.md)**.

Short version for the DM: the Guest is the beating heart of "they still have something going on." It's alive, lucid, a fluent liar, and it knows more about Orenn, Mags, *and the 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.

> **Read-Aloud: Cell One**
>
> *V cele někdo je. Sedí na kavalci, zády ke zdi, ruce položené na kolenou, docela klidně — jako host, který čeká, až ho konečně někdo přijde obsloužit. Když se do cely opře vaše světlo, ten člověk se usměje. Je to příjemný úsměv. Vřelý. A vy si na zlomek vteřiny nejste jistí, jestli jste ten obličej už někde neviděli — jestli to není někdo, koho znáte.*
>
> *"No konečně," řekne. "Začínal jsem mít strach, že na mě zapomněli."*

### Cell Two — The Long Dead

**Empty of the living.** On the floor at the back, a **desiccated corpse** — humanoid-shaped, but wrong: the bones too long, the jaw unhinged, the skin drawn to grey parchment over a frame that doesn't sit right. It has been dead for years. The manacles are still locked around wrists that shrank out of them.

- **DC 12 Medicine/Investigation:** it starved, or was left to. No violence killed it. Someone stopped bringing food.
- **DC 15 Investigation:** the bone structure is a **shapeshifter's** — a changeling or doppelganger, caught mid-collapse when it died, unable to hold a face. *This is the Guest's predecessor.* (If players have met the Guest, this lands like a stone. If they see it first, meeting the Guest afterward is dread.)
- **Around its neck**, a corroded token — a **guild bead** *or* an **Order of Mending pin** (match to whichever faction subplot your table has leaned into). Whatever this thing once impersonated, it was placed among a faction the players are dealing with tonight. It knew things. Then it stopped being useful.
- **The scratch-marks:** the inside of the cell door, low down, is covered in tally-scratches — years of them — and one phrase gouged over and over in a dozen borrowed handwritings: *"I was real."*

This room explains, without a word, exactly what the Guest is afraid of, and exactly what kind of people ran this tavern.

---

## The Workroom (Laboratory)

A long, low chamber that smells of vinegar, sulphur, crushed herbs, and cold ash. A stone bench runs the length of one wall: alembics, a small athanor (cold), racks of labeled vials, a mortar, a ledger, and dried plants hung from the ceiling in careful bundles. Mags's herb rack upstairs is the kitchen branch of *this*.

**Twinkle's den.** This is also where the couple's pet holes up (see [The Guardian](#encounter--the-guardian)) — and it's the room the party enters first if they came down the concealed stairs, which arrive just outside. The back corner of the ceiling is thick with greyed web and a clutch of leathery egg-sacs; the floor beneath is a midden of rat-husks and beetle shells. They didn't merely shelter it here — they *worked* it: a padded muzzle-strap hangs on a peg, a clamp is bolted to the bench end, and a rack of empty stoppered vials sits ready. This is where Orenn and Mags **milked its venom** for the trade below.

> **Read-Aloud: The Workroom**
>
> *Dílna. Jinak se to nazvat nedá. Podél zdi kamenný stůl, na něm sklo — baňky, křivule, chladič — všechno pečlivě umyté a srovnané. Ze stropu visí svazky sušených bylin. Ve vzduchu se drží ostrý pach octa a síry a pod ním něco sladkého, co vám z nějakého důvodu naskočí husí kůži. Na stěně visí police plná lahviček, každá popsaná úhledným písmem. A uprostřed toho všeho leží otevřená kniha, do které někdo psal ještě nedávno.*

### What They Made (and still make)
This is the other half of "still something going on." The couple never stopped brewing:

- **Fiend-hunting alchemicals** — the source of the holy water, silversheen, alchemist's fire, and warding chalk found throughout the tavern. They supplied *themselves*.
- **Veil Dust research.** A locked drawer (DC 14) holds **3 doses of Veil Dust** plus a notebook studying it — *not* as a drug but as a *tool* for watching the thin point. **This connects to the [ethereal-trip](../storylines/ethereal-trip.md) subplot**: Orenn and Mags used Veil Dust to monitor the fault for years. It does **not** contradict Tallow's supplier being Mother Vyre — the couple brewed their own small batch for work; they were never in the trade. (If a player is hunting the source of Vetch's addiction, this is a red herring that *feels* hot and cools on inspection — DC 13 Investigation on the ledger shows they never sold a gram.)
- **The Ledger (DC 12 to read):** entries for materia, ward maintenance, and — chillingly — line items for "the Guest": *"fed," "used — Order, 3 nights," "compliant," "trim dose"* (a suppressant they keep the Guest on; see [the-guest.md](../npc/the-guest.md)). If the players read this before meeting the Guest, they'll know it's been drugged into cooperation for years. 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).
- **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.
- **Trap:** the drawer of finished poisons is needle-trapped (DC 13 Investigation to spot, DC 12 Thieves' Tools to disarm; 1d6 poison + DC 12 CON or poisoned 1 hour). Orenn and Mags didn't want their own stock lifted.

---

## Deep Storage (The Trophy Hold)

The largest room down here, and the worst-kept — because things in it don't like being tidied. Shelves and crates of confiscated, dangerous, or simply *strange* items from twenty years of jobs: things too risky to sell, too valuable to destroy, so they were shelved and warded and left.

> **Read-Aloud: Deep Storage**
>
> *Velká místnost, plná regálů, a na regálech… věci. Maska, která sleduje, jak procházíte kolem. Zrcadlo zabalené v plátně, převázané provazem. Klec, ve které není nic — a přesto se hýbe. Loutka bez nití. Zbraně, které by neměly být tak staré a přitom bez jediného škrábance. Nic tu není v pořádku a všechno je pečlivě popsáno a odloženo, jako důkazy ve skladu, na který se má radši zapomenout.*
>
> *A vzduch je tu studenější. Ne fyzicky. Jinak.*

### The Haunting — The False Refuge
A party herded down the Cut spills through the warded arch into this room and, for a moment, believes it's safe: the spider won't follow, the air is still, nothing moves. It is haunted by a **Poltergeist** (specter variant, CR 2) — the untethered remnant of a job the couple could contain but never cleanse (it's on the chalk wall: a struck-through X, *"the Vresk house — never left"*) — and the crucial thing is that **it does not strike on sight.** It watches. It lets the living catch their breath. Give the party a real beat here to stop, argue, bind wounds, and work the problem: *how do we get back past the spider — and is this the only way out?* (It is. Dead end.)

- **Then it turns.** Spring it when the tension peaks — a trophy is disturbed, someone reaches for the loot, the party commits to moving, or they've simply lingered too long in its domain. The cold deepens, the lights gutter, and the shelves come alive. **This is the answer to the riddle Twinkle set:** the party learns, viscerally, why an animal that can blink through walls will not put one leg past that arch. It's invisible (needs *See Invisibility* / Veil Dust / a lucky Perception vs. its Stealth to pin down), hurls objects (Telekinetic Thrust), and drops the lights.
- **The pincer.** Now the trap's shape is clear — the haunt in here, the spider up the Cut, and no third exit. This is the moment the party *chooses* its fight: push back up and deal with Twinkle, or settle the haunt first and loot in peace.
- **Outs (once it's active):** it calms if the party stops disturbing the shelves and holds still, or if someone re-lights the room's **warding sconces** (DC 13 Arcana on the ward-candles bolted to the walls — this pins the poltergeist *and* firms the arch's quarantine). A cleric can turn or lay it to rest (it just wants the room quiet again).
- **Scaling:** for 5 PCs, add **2 Shadows** (CR 1/2) that peel off the walls where the ward-light has failed — a bridge to the rift's influence.

### Loot (weird, useful, cursed-adjacent)
Let players earn these by braving the haunting. Suggested shelf (pick to taste):
- A **Cloak of Billowing** or **Hat of Disguise** (mundane-ish utility, great for the social/stealth players) — tag: *"Guest's spare — do not issue."* (Ties to the changeling operation.)
- A **Bag of Holding** (smaller sibling to Tallow's) — practical for hauling the vault's coin.
- **3 runed iron nails** (as upstairs — anti-fiend wards) and a **Driftglobe** (portable light for the dark warren; a small mercy).
- A **sealed lead casket, warded, labeled *"DO NOT OPEN — '06"***. Inside (if a player insists): a **Vial of dark ichor** — a bound fiendish essence. Opening it is a bad idea (DM's discretion: a minor fiend or a curse) but it *can* be used as a component to bait/lure Xarrul. A high-risk, high-reward exploration payoff for a bold party. The wards on the casket (DC 15 Arcana) spell out plainly: *whatever is in here wants you to open it.*

---

## The Old Work (The Rift)

The deepest chamber, a sealed cul-de-sac at the very bottom of the Cut — reached through [Deep Storage](#deep-storage-the-trophy-hold) and a heavy **barred, runed door** (the same runed iron nails as upstairs, barred from the storage side; cold radiates off it). This sealed rift is the closed case Orenn and Mags built their quiet life on top of — and the thing the hidden fifth rule means when it says *burn below and seal the door.* They believed it dead. It isn't.

> **Read-Aloud: The Old Work**
>
> *Za dveřmi je zima, která nemá co dělat s teplotou. Místnost je malá a kulatá a uprostřed podlahy je… trhlina. Ne ve skále. Ve vzduchu. Ve světě. Svislá jizva dlouhá jako člověk, po okrajích roztřepená, a skrze ni prosvítá šeď — plochá, nekonečná, špatná šeď éterické roviny. Kolem trhliny je do podlahy vyryt kruh znaků, stříbrem a solí, a ten kruh svítí slabě a unaveně, jako někdo, kdo drží dveře zavřené už příliš dlouho.*
>
> *Něco se na druhé straně pohne. A pak ještě něco. Trhlina je čím dál větší — a poprvé za patnáct let ji nikdo nehlídá.*

### What It Is
The planar fault beneath the tavern surfaces as the **thin point** upstairs; down here, at the lowest point, it has torn into an actual **rift** — a hand-thin tear that **was contained decades ago** with a **silver-and-salt containment circle** (the summoners' work, or the specialist who closed their mess; distinct from the *binding* circle upstairs). Orenn and Mags inherited it sealed and left it alone, re-tracing the chalk by rote without ever understanding it. The circle is **failing now** — Xarrul has spent weeks prying it open from the Ethereal side. This is the **source** of the ethereal bleed everyone's been feeling, and the reason the whole district around the house has felt *wrong.*

- **DC 14 Arcana:** the containment circle is the same craft as the upstairs work but older, and it's being eroded from the ethereal side — the same claw-marks that are siphoning the sigils upstairs.
- **DC 16 Arcana:** the rift and the upstairs thin point are one fault. Widening or "using" this rift would be catastrophically less controllable than the upstairs thin point. **This is not where you do the dual-plane kill.** (Explicit, so a clever party doesn't try to run the Reckoning down here and derail it.)

### The Conversion (Optional — a lone explorer)

If a *single* PC lingers here alone, this is where Xarrul can reach them — a ward-snare pins them, or an **Ethereal Pull** drags them partway into the grey, and the fiend simply *talks*. They rejoin the party changed: genuinely convinced Xarrul should go free, and carrying a shard of its nature. This is **not** a charm — it's a conversation that worked, and it's one of the best engines for [Scenario F](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-f-the-open-door-joining-xarrul) at a large table. Full scene, the player's note, the boon (the **Grey Step**), and the counterplay: [handouts/the-conversion.md](../handouts/the-conversion.md).

### Encounter — Creatures from the Rift
This is where "Xarrul can have some creatures from there" pays off. Xarrul doesn't lair *in* the rift — it lairs in the ethereal cellar (upstairs overlay, per canon) — but it has learned to **loose the scavengers** that gather at the tear, herding them at intruders like dogs.

Deploy as a scaled encounter (tune to party size / how hurt they are):
- **Baseline:** **3 Shadows** (CR 1/2) that pour out of the tear where the circle's light has thinned, plus **1 Ethereal Filcher** (CR 1) that darts in to *steal a valuable item* off a PC (DC 13 vs. Sleight-of-Hand-style grab) and flee back through the rift — a fantastic reason to chase, and a way to make loss of the vault's prize sting.
- **Harder:** add a **Specter** (CR 1) or upgrade to a lone **ethereal-touched horror** of the DM's making. If Xarrul is *actively present* on the ethereal side (late game), it can spend a turn "opening the gate" as a lair-flavored action, adding 1 Shadow per round until the circle is restored.

### Encounter — The Guardian (the pet)
Denned in the **[Workroom](#the-workroom-laboratory)** at the stair-foot and prowling the length of the **Long Cut** — the Cells, the Vault, the working floor — is **the couple's pet**, a **feyspitter spider** they called **Twinkle**. It is *not* found past the warded arch: it won't set foot in [Deep Storage](#deep-storage-the-trophy-hold) (the poltergeist's ground) and it *can't* follow anything into [the Old Work](#the-old-work-the-rift). Its blink is a fey twitch *across* the Material Plane, never *out* of it — so when Xarrul's scavengers phase away at the tear, the pet is left snapping at empty air. That boundary is the one place in its home it fears.

Full tactical block below — it's the "fight a bit" the party will remember. Its range is also a quiet barometer: it used to have the run of the whole level, and it's pulled tight into the Workroom now. The rift has been taking ground from it, the same way it's been taking the wards.

**The chokepoint & the herd (how first contact works).** Twinkle holds the one thing that matters on a dead-end level: the stair-foot. A party that comes down noisy or hostile meets it here, and its instinct is to put itself **between them and the stairs** and drive them off its ground — which, on a spine, means **deeper**. It doesn't press to kill; it *herds* — a gob of spat venom to lurch someone along, a blink to cut off a retreat, clicking them down the Cut, past the locked Vault, until they spill through the warded arch into [Deep Storage](#deep-storage-the-trophy-hold). There it stops and withdraws to hold its turf. The party is now in the false refuge with the only exit behind the spider, and **they will have to choose the fight on the way back** — which is the whole point. (A calm, quiet, or Orenn-scented party is never herded at all; the herd is the *panic* branch. See below.)

> **Read-Aloud: The Guardian**
>
> *Slyšíte to dřív, než to uvidíte — suché, trhané klepání, jako když někdo poklepává kostěnými prsty na kámen. Pak ticho. A pak je to najednou blíž — ne že by to přišlo, spíš to mezi dvěma mrknutími přeskočilo kus tmy, jako by vzdálenost byla jen návrh, který nemusí přijmout. Pavouk velký jako lovecký pes, tělo lesklé a temné, klouby na koncích dlouhých nohou svítí slabou, jedovatě zelenou. A když se do něj opře vaše světlo, osm očí se rozzáří jako korálky — možná právě proto mu říkali Twinkle. Nespěchá. Zatím ne. Jen vás sleduje ze stropu a čeká, co uděláte.*

**Feyspitter Spider "Twinkle"** — Large beast (spiderkind), unaligned · **CR 4 (1,100 XP)**
**AC** 15 (natural armor) · **HP** 60 (8d10+16) · **Speed** 30 ft., climb 30 ft.

| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
| 14 (+2) | 19 (+4) | 14 (+2) | 4 (-3) | 12 (+1) | 8 (-1) |

**Skills** Stealth +8
**Senses** darkvision 60 ft., tremorsense 10 ft., passive Perception 11
**Web-Dweller.** Climbs difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings and across webs, without penalty. While in contact with a web, the spider knows the exact location of any other creature in contact with the same web.
**Material Blink** *(flavor).* Its short teleports are a fey twitch *across* the Material Plane, never *out* of it. It has no ethereal access — it cannot enter the rift or follow a creature that goes ethereal.

**Actions**
**Multiattack.** The spider makes two attacks, only one of which can be a Lurchvenom Bite.
**Lurchvenom Bite.** *Melee Weapon Attack:* +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. *Hit:* 8 (1d8+4) piercing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution save or be poisoned for 1 minute (save ends at end of turn). While poisoned this way, at the start of each of its turns the target takes 9 (2d8) poison damage and then teleports up to 15 ft. to an unoccupied space the spider can see.
**Spit Venom.** *Ranged Weapon Attack:* +6 to hit, range 30/60 ft., one creature. *Hit:* 9 (2d8) poison damage, and the target teleports up to 15 ft. to an unoccupied space the spider can see.
**Grasping Legs.** *Melee Weapon Attack:* +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one creature. *Hit:* 7 (1d6+4) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 14).

**Reactions**
**Anticipatory Strike.** When a creature teleports to a space within 5 ft. of the spider, it can make a Grasping Legs attack with advantage against that creature.
**Vanishing Dodge.** When a creature hits it with an attack, the spider makes a Dexterity check against a DC equal to the attack roll; on a success it teleports up to 15 ft. and the attack misses.

**Running it well:**
- **It's a guard dog, not a monster.** It was *raised* by Orenn and Mags. It will **not** attack a creature that (a) carries Orenn's scent — anyone who handled his keys/body/clothes — or (b) speaks the household command word Mags knows, or (c) simply doesn't threaten the Vault or the Cells. A quiet, respectful party can pass it entirely (great stealth payoff). Present this: it *tracks* them — clicks, blinks a few feet, watches from the ceiling — and holds fire until provoked.
- **Trained to detain, not kill.** Against provokers it leads with **Grasping Legs** to pin and hold — the couple wanted intruders *caught*, not eaten. A grabbed, downed PC is wrapped in web for the masters, not finished off; run captures, not TPKs, unless the party escalates hard.
- **Provoke it in earnest** (force the Vault, harm the Guest, keep hitting it) and it fights like the blink-ambusher it is: bite or spit to lurch a target out of formation, **Vanishing Dodge** away from the first solid hit, then **Anticipatory Strike** whoever the venom teleports next to it. It splits a party up and picks off the isolated one — but it **cannot** flee to the Ethereal Plane. Corner it on the Material Plane and it has nowhere left to phase.
- **After Orenn's death** it's agitated and grieving in its animal way — more skittish, more likely to lash out from fear, and pulled tight into the Workroom. A druid/beast-handler (DC 14 Animal Handling) can calm it; killing it upsets Mags deeply if she learns of it.
- **The return is theirs to shape.** Coming back up the Cut, the party fights (or sneaks, or calms) on *their* terms — they pick the ground, they've had a beat in Deep Storage to plan, and they may now hold Orenn's key/scent, the command word, silvered gear, or bottled venom. Don't spring it on them again from nowhere; it's holding the stair-foot and they know it. The dead end means the reckoning with Twinkle is a *when*, not an *if* — let them arrange the terms.
- **Tuning (CR 4 is a real fight).** For a lighter table, drop **Spit Venom** and **Vanishing Dodge** and run it as an avoidable stealth obstacle. For 5 PCs or a combat-hungry table, add **2 Giant Spiders** (CR 1, its brood — the source of the silk throughout the warren, and the strands upstairs) nesting in the passages.

---

## DM Cheat-Sheet — Running the Deep Cellar

**Pacing:** This is a 30–60 minute side-track, or the spine of the whole night for an exploration-hungry group. It runs parallel to the lockdown upstairs — while some PCs interrogate patrons, others can be down here. Cut between the two.

**The three payoffs, guaranteed:**
1. **Loot** — the Vault + Workroom + Deep Storage give gear that makes the Reckoning easier (Fiendbane Salt, silvered weapons, alchemy, silvervein root for Bren).
2. **Backstory** — the chalk wall, the trophies, the child's shoe, Cell Two, the Guest, and the ledger tell the whole truth about Orenn and Mags with almost no exposition.
3. **A fight on their terms** — rats (trivial), the poltergeist (medium), 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 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.