The Last Call of the Soul Still

The tavern's common room is empty, but every chair faces a squat black iron apparatus built into the bar. Green fire crawls beneath its brass seams, illuminating four rotating plaques and a bone-inlaid wheel. The air smells of spilled ale, wet stone, and old graves. A cracked skull hangs above the controls, its jaw twitching whenever anyone speaks. Along the wall, a faded mural shows four hooded guests being served in sequence, while beneath the bar four ritual objects sit in shallow depressions: a blindfold, a name-tag, a silver cup, and an open brass key.