Alexander Saburov and I had been working together to run this town in the wake of the epidemic. I had managed to set up hospitals in the Cathedral and town Theatre, which we would use to isolate the sick. The town’s medic, Rubin, is in the process of working on a vaccine for the disease—he was hiding out in the warehouses, running tests on Simon Kain’s body (and as such, was being hunted by the former mayor’s family). Saburov had increased the patrols on the streets, ruthlessly enforcing the quarantine laws.

DAY 5



The death toll has risen
Today’s adherent: George Kain

A few letters came by night.
- The authorities are watching my actions closely. They remind me of the Inquisitor they’re sending, to finish my mission if I cannot.
- Anna Angel, the singer, has found a way for us to make a lot of money. She wants me to meet her, but in secret.

But first, I drop by the Theatre, where the town has set up its hospital. There’s a Tragedian by the door. I have met him a few times, but this time he reveals a bit more about who he is. He is just an actor here. The theatre has been putting on a play, a tragedy he refers to as:

“Inevitable Loss, because the tragedy is in the play’s inevitability. It’s become a ritual for us. It’s the only thing we set… All the years that we’ve set the Loss, we’ve encountered many mysterious coincidences, that came with every setting of the play. This makes me think that the structure of the play resembles the structure of the Universe itself.”

I ask, what is the storyline? “It surrounds you, Bachelor. Just take a look at the tragedy that is happening all around.” I enter the Theatre. A short play is shown of yesterday’s events, delivered as an FMV sequence, but the faces of the actors are obscured. When the cut-scene finishes, all that remains is a Theatre filled with the bodies of the infected townspeople; it’s a reminder that the world of the Theatre and the world outside are not separate, even though one is a representation of another.


Anna’s side-quest: blackmail

With Anna the only lead for now, I pay a visit to her, curious about the get-rich-quick scheme she has for me. On speaking to her, I’m reminded that she holds a dark past, something involving the “Diamond Ace Caravan”. It’s the first time I’ve heard of it, but my character believes what happened with the Caravan was worse than cannibalism. It seems to have involved kidnapping children and training them to be performers.

Anyway, Anna I are both outsiders to this town. She came here a few years ago on the Caravan with a man named Var, who still lives on the other side of town. She wants me to blackmail him for money—he would be in a lot of trouble with the authorities if they were to hear about the children he’d abducted.

I head west. Anna’s caravan companion lives next to a rusted old playground near the Kain residences. Var’s an ugly looking hunchback man, as I walk with him, I realise there’s no need for blackmail. His “daughter” has run away, and he’s offering a reward for anyone who can find her. 100,000 coin. He gives me 10% in advance.

I return to Anna. She knows who Var’s daughter is: a girl he stole from a family of weavers eight years ago. They sent the girl to Var, wanting her to be trained as a dancer, but he kept her for himself. She’s working at the tavern across the street.



The girl’s name is Vera. She’s run away because she found out what happened to her family, Var had killed them. But she wants to see him one last time—she wants me there, and my gun too.

I’m to meet her tonight, at the backstreets of the north-east district at 9pm.


A letter from Rubin

It comes at noon. He’s found a way to make an antidote, but I’m not going to like it. I need to meet him at his warehouse lab.

When we’re finally face-to-face, he tells me he can develop a temporary antidote that will save a lot of lives. To make it, we’ll need a live sample of the bacterium, and for that, we need a human heart. I’m pretty disgusted by that fact.

He reassures me, he doesn’t want me to bring a man to cut up in front of him. As long as I can deliver a heart within half an hour of it being removed from the body, the bacterium will still be alive when it gets to the lab.

He hadn’t planned to ask me. Rubin had arranged for the Haruspicus (the leader of the Butcher cult and son of my colleage, Isidor) to do the dirty work, but he had lost contact with him. I don’t volunteer. I’d rather find the Haruspicus.

Rubin mentions the Olgimskiy family was protecting him, so maybe I should ask Big Vlad.


Olgimskiy residence (“The Clot”)

The Haruspicus had been the subject of a town-wide manhunt. First he was accused for the murder of his father, Isidor, then for the supposed theft of Simon Kain’s body. Big Vlad tells me he had been taken to jail by Saburov’s men. He was rumoured to have been involved in at least a dozen murders, and charged with desecrating the dead for his own experiments. They were calling him The Ripper.

But Big Vlad thinks Saburov has just been abusing his newly gained power. I should go speak with him.


Saburov residence (“The Stem”)

When Alexander Saburov and I were given executive powers over this emergency state, I was given the impression that we would be operating together—but it seems I’d been played again. He isn’t giving me an inch. Saburov is so proud of having caught a violent criminal, that he won’t release the Haruspicus or even tell me where he is being held.

With Saburov being utterly useless, I go to see Lara Ravel, whom I was told was a witness to the Haruspicus’s capture.


Lara’s (“Shelter”)

She met with a man who saw the capture, but he has died of the plague since then. When I asked her why Saburov was treating the Haruspicus so badly, she tells me, “He got in Klara’s way. I think he prevented her from carrying out her plan. This Klara is sort of scary."



I have heard the name Klara once before. Can’t remember where or from whom, but now I have a strong suspicion that Klara is the Devotress (the third player-character of this game).

But Lara had met with the Harupsicus before, and has a lot of respect for him. She knows he’s being held prisoner in one of the factories to the south. There are guards stationed there—I can either dispose of them myself, or if I prefer not to dirty my hands, Lara knows a certain gang leader…


The Underground



A man named Gryph lives in one of the warehouses. He runs the crime racket in this town, profiting from all the chaos of late. He’s surrounded by thugs and prostitutes, and a lot of stolen wares. He’s willing to break the prisoner out… for a price of 10,000. I pay up. He also offers weapons and supplies for sale, but I decline.


The Jailbreak

As soon as I get to the factory/jail, I see a few of Gryph’s thugs ambush the patrolmen. After a short melee, everyone is dead except me and the man behind the bars. I retrieve the cell-key from a dead guard, and finally go to meet my counterpart.



Maybe it was my reputation (or maybe there is some meta- explanation), but it seems he knows a lot about what I’m doing here: “I must warn you though. Don’t believe those, who try to lead you towards victory. The greatest fight is yet to come…

I ask him if he’s referring to the fight with the plague. “I’m speaking of the fight with you. Even though we are not enemies, I have a strong feeling that eventually we’ll be on different sides of the barricade”

He’s got a lot of enemies in this town, and prefers to work after dark. He wants me to meet him in the north-east district at 9pm… he’ll have picked out and dissected the body of an infected person by then. I’ll have my heart to take to Rubin.


The Telltale Heart

Hold on. Didn’t Vera, Var’s “daughter”, want me to meet her in that district at 9 o’clock as well? I was supposed to offer her protection as she confronts her foster-father. I have a feeling the two fates would be connected.

After a couple of hours, I arrive in the infected district. I search the windy backstreets until I find the site that was marked on my map. But the Haruspicus is nowhere to be seen. At my feet lies the body of a dead infected: a young woman, chest cavity pried open.

It’s Vera. For a moment, I thought about what I and the Haruspicus had done, in the pursuit of a cure. I was utterly sickened... but eventually I realised Vera had already been dying... that I couldn't have saved her.

From her chest, I plucked out her heart. I had a 30-minute window to get to the lab.

I arrive at Rubin’s with minutes to spare, and look at the specimen under his microscope. Sure enough, we had a live culture. Rubin tells me the heart I have was no ordinary one, but “the blood of someone, who had a magnificent future ahead of them.”

I inform Var the hunch-back that his daughter’s dead. As expected, he doesn’t give me the reward money. Tomorrow, Rubin should have the antidote ready. How we would mass-produce it, I didn’t know yet… maybe that’s a problem left up to the Inquisitor, or another day.

END DAY 5

Summary of events
- Anna Angel, the singer, wants to blackmail a man (Var) from her past. But when I meet him, Var tells me he'll give me the money if I can find his foster daughter who recently ran away.
- The daughter Vera, is found working as a dancer in the tavern. She tells me she found out Var had killed her former family to abduct her for himself. She wants me to come to the north-east district at 9pm to watch over her as she confronts her foster father.
- The medic Rubin has found a way to make a temporary antidote, but we need a bacterial sample from a fresh human heart. The only one who can do this dirty job is the Haruspicus, the leader of a cult of Butchers (and the 2nd player-character in this game)
- I manage to break him out of jail, where Alexander Saburov had him locked up for his accused murders. He wants me to meet him at the north-east district at 9pm, he'll have the heart of a dying person ready for me.
- At 9pm, I find Vera's body, but no Haruspicus. Her heart is still in her chest. I take it, and deliver it immediately to Rubin. The antidote should be ready by tomorrow.