Pathologic: Day Eleven, in which the Haruspicus falls into a trap, discovering that his dilemma connects two incompatible truths

(or, in which Kevin learns that he really needs to stop making assumptions)

The morning of the eleventh day has come.

Infected in the past 24 hours: 334 people
Died in the past 24 hours: 621 people
Gone missing: 127 people
Number of dead total: 6831 people
Number of infected: 570 people

Tomorrow everything will be over

---

Welcome to "Martha Stewart Living," Pathologic edition. Up next, we prepare a lovely quiche made
from spider eggs that hatch inside your mouth.

"Tomorrow everything will be over." Ominous words, but I can't help but feel relief when I read them. By now I, the player, have spent at least 40 hours in this hellhole of a town, struggling not to let the game wear me down. I have teetered on the brink of irrational frustration with it more than once. And I have been at the controls as my character has done the unthinkable. I've killed the guilty and the innocent. I've dragged myself in threadbare clothing through neighborhoods buzzing with the Plague. Frankly, I am exhausted. If one of Ice Pick Lodge's goals was to evoke in me a physical and emotional response analogous to what my in-game avatar is feeling, they have succeeded with flying colors. No other game has ever made me feel this hopeless.

I am determined to save this town, no matter the cost. The Haruspicus does not compromise. Yet the Bachelor, with his talk of wiping the town off the map, is not crazy. He too has witnessed the Sand Plague's devastation. Whether tomorrow brings salvation or annihilation, it will be a mercy.

The town is in the final stages of collapse, with the Sand Plague saturating every district. Even the thin veneer of civilization has fallen away. Food and medicine prices are astronomical; starving citizens on the street beg me for money, but I literally have none to give them. The infected seem to sense that society is crumbling and now attack other people with abandon, often in groups. Near the theater I witness a soldier running from a pack of infected. They chase him down and overwhelm him. Military discipline is breaking down—everywhere I see soldiers breaking ranks and fleeing from their guard posts. General Blok has finally lost control of his army.

... which means I get treated to the following sight when I arrive at the Bone Pillar to save the bull that was there yesterday.

Nothing but a blackened hunk of charcoal remains of it. I can't believe my eyes. Do these imbeciles have any idea how much panacea I could have made from that bull's blood? The nearest disinfector, impassive in his haz-mat suit, tells me to take it up with a low-ranking officer called "Captain Patroclus," who commands a mutinous band of soldiers that has taken control of the military's armory near the trainyards. Patroclus, in turn, says that he was only following orders to destroy whatever possible vectors of infection he found. Whose orders? I ask. Not the General's, surely. No, Patroclus says. The Bachelor gave the instructions.

Of course he would. Seething, I confront him about it, only to hear the same old routine about the importance of the Polyhedron. Apparently the Kains have convinced him that Simon Kain is not even dead but has transferred his soul into the Polyhedron. At best, this is superstition—I've seen the body, and he looked pretty dead to me. At worst—given my epiphany from last night—this is an abomination against nature. The Bachelor won't budge, though. The panacea doesn't seem to matter anymore to him. The Polyhedron is our only hope, he says.

Sure, whatever. I leave him with his microscope and misconceptions and strike out to pay my daily doctor's visits.

More Executors have appeared around town, holding vigil over ill Adherents. Fortunately, they are all the Bachelor's and Devotress's, not mine, but I still feel responsible for them. They are people, after all, and deserve to live. For the past two days I've been giving them antibiotics to keep them alive, making the rounds every day. With time running out, my supplies getting short, and my fatigue increasing, I decide to start healing some of them outright. I don't want to spend any of my precious panaceas in case I need them for some dire emergency on the final day, but I do have a couple of medicinal powders made by the town's children. Even the Executors seems shocked when I propose giving doses to the Adherents. It will destroy the patient, they warn. The medicine will burn the Plague right out of their veins, but it will take some of the veins along with it.

I shrug. Petr Stamatin, the Polyhedron's creator, should count himself lucky to make it out of this epidemic as a cripple. I feel a small stab of pity as I dose him with the powder, but only a small one.

While making my rounds, I begin hearing rumors surrounding Elder Oyun and the trial he has planned for me. First I receive a letter from the Devotress, who calls me to the cemetery to meet with her. She warns me that the Elder is going to try to kill me with this final task. Honestly, this doesn't seem like such a big deal to me; he's practically killed me with the last two trials too. The Devotress seems to think this time will be different, though, and she offers to help me out—in return for a favor on the final day. I immediately turn down her offer. Whatever favor she might want from me, I think, it can't be anything good. She accepts my refusal coolly, making me wonder briefly if I should not have been so hasty.

After this, I call on Young Vlad to make sure he's not bleeding from his eyes or something. He seems agitated to hear that I'm meeting with Elder Oyun later. He says I should be careful. After all, Oyun is the one who murdered my father.

Wait, what? I thought he died of the Plague! Young Vlad just shakes his head and tells me to ask the Elder myself. Then he, too, advises me to watch my back during the third task.

Back in the Abattoir, Elder Oyun tells me that it's time to enter "the belly of Suok"—that is, descend into the depths of the earth—and indicates the deep pit outside his personal chamber. Once I know the secrets of the earth, I will ascend to the status of hierophant within the Order. Despite my simmering anger at the Elder, I have to admit that I'm madly curious to discover what happens down there. On Day Five I saw some crazy things just by climbing down a 15-foot-deep well. What's going on in the darkness beneath the Abattoir?

Here I must apologize to you, faithful readers. Because I never find out.

Seriously, doesn't anyone in this town know what a rope is?

Apparently my paranoia in refusing the Devotress's assistance screwed me over. I die instantly when I jump down the hole, and no amount of creative thinking can reveal an alternate path. The belly of Suok, the strange place where the living earth feeds on the Order's sacrificial blood, will be a mystery to me forever.

Suddenly enraged, I return to the Elder's chamber. I'm sick of his arrogance and his murderously impossible quests. This guy has been a thorn in my side for long enough. It's time for a reckoning. You are responsible for my father's death, I tell him. Explain yourself.

Oyun doesn't try to lie. He admits to killing Isidor Burakh, having stabbed him to death with the sharpened horn of a bull. He's not sorry, either. Isidor Burakh was colluding with the Kains in their Polyhedron project, trying to pour old blood into new veins. He was betraying the Order. Oyun says he would do it again without hesitation. I coldly tell him to put up his fists and prepare to die, but a small grain of misgiving has settled into the back of my mind. My father was involved with the Polyhedron, too? Why?

The scene suddenly changes, and I find myself in a part of the Abattoir I've never seen before. In the center of the room is a bull, and torches line the walls. My weapons have vanished, leaving me with only my fists to defend myself. Then the Elder storms into the chamber, and the fight is on.

He looks pretty intimidating, what with his sheer size and the bull's-head helm, but I'm surprised to find that he's not terribly challenging. Maybe I shouldn't be: after all, I've spent the last week and a half scrabbling to survive among infected citizens, lunatics, and murderers in the world beyond the Abattoir's doors. Compared to that ordeal, it's practically therapeutic to vent a little righteous rage on a single target. It's the first time in this game that I've faced a straightforward videogame trope: the one-on-one boss battle.

The Elder, with his long reach and crushing strength, beats me down a few times, but I eventually succeed in exacting my revenge. I have to admit, it feels pretty good. I ignore the new entry in my diary that says that the Elder's death is "a disproportionate sacrifice." By now I've killed dozens of people in this town, with fists, guns, and knives. One more hardly seems to matter at this point, especially considering the sorts of things of which the Elder is guilty.

I spend the rest of the day running minor errands for Kapella, who is solidifying alliances with the other children in preparation for their forging of a new society birthed from the ashes. On a whim I check in with Ospina (one of the Devotress's Adherents) to make sure she hasn't fallen ill. When she hears that I've eliminated Elder Oyun, she hails me as the new Elder of the Abattoir. "I, Us-Pae-Nah, bend my knee to you," she says, apparently using her real name for the first time. I have finally come into my birthright as the head of the Order of Bulls. I have blood on my hands, but perhaps that is fitting. In that moment I feel unabashedly victorious.

My sense of triumph wears off as night falls. Brewing up the last of my panacea in my father's old laboratory, I remember what Oyun told me about Isidor Burakh's complicity in the creation of the Polyhedron. Where once I was so sure of my path, I now have a seed of doubt. Even my father seems to have been convinced of the Polyhedron's importance. How could he do that, though, with the knowledge of what it does? Were the Kains manipulating him in their pursuit of "utopia"? Was the Elder lying to me? Or did my father—the most respected member in the Order—know something that I don't?

Pathologic: Day Eight, on which the Haruspicus will discover who is the bearer of the secret mark

(or, in which Kevin gets a tour of the sausage factory)

The morning of the eighth day has come.

Infected in the past 24 hours: 244 people
Died in the past 24 hours: 417 people
Gone missing: 40 people
Number of dead at the moment: 3336
Number of infected: 503 people

Less than five days remain. The sanitary army will arrive tomorrow.

---

As always, the devil is in the details. My successful creation of the panacea yesterday came as a complete surprise, albeit a pleasant one; I had assumed that, with nearly a week to go, I would face a long struggle to find the cure if I found one at all. To have created the panacea so relatively early struck me as curiously easy, at least by Pathologic's standards. As the eighth day progresses, however, I realize that the worst part is yet to come. The blood that I use to create the serum is extremely rare (thanks mostly to the obstinacy of the people of the Abattoir), and a single flask of panacea is no cure at all when an entire town is clamoring for it. The Inquisitor predicts that the town will tear itself apart as citizens vie for a dose of the serum, of which there is not enough to go around. The question is no longer "can I find a cure in time?" It's "which people get to be cured?"

It seems that the game is going to make me choose who lives and who dies.

Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down

Each day I find myself writing something about how the Sand Plague has gotten almost unbearable, only to discover that things have somehow gotten even worse on the next day. Day Eight is no exception. Nearly every district in town now is either crawling with the Plague or convulsing in its wake. On previous days I could usually pass safely through an infected zone with some fleet footwork and a bit of luck, but now it is impossible for me to come out unscathed on the other side of an infected zone. Multiple plague clouds converge on me from different directions; arsonists, bandits, and the infected attack me on sight; rats chase me even into healthy districts until I stab them or seek refuge indoors. My gloves, boots, and facemask have all degraded to the point where they hardly shield me from the Plague at all (yes, in Pathologic even your clothing wears out, requiring expensive mending). I can't properly convey the deep, weary feeling of relief that sweeps over me whenever the green-hued air of an infected zone gives way to the normal browns and tans of a healthy area.

Oh MAN, we are screwed.

Even the buildings are diseased. This has been going on for a while, but today is the first day that I notice just how awful everything looks. Nearly every structure is covered in bloody sores, leading the Inquisitor to theorize that this isn't just some nasty bug. It's something elemental, a force of nature. Maybe it comes from the earth itself. She has already tasked the Bachelor with testing soil samples.

The Bachelor, for his part, thinks the inhabitants of the Abattoir are to blame. Whatever sacrifices they're making in there, whatever blood they're pouring into the earth, it's poisoning everything. Unsurprisingly, the Cult of Bulls isn't going to admit someone with such opinions into their inner sanctum, which means that once again he needs my help. I agree, though less from a desire to help him than from a desire to talk with Elder Oyun again. The Bachelor is beginning to worry me; in our conversations he seems increasingly detached from our battle with the Sand Plague. I sense that our goals and loyalties are gradually diverging from one another.

Perhaps sensing the Inquisitor's scrutiny, the Abattoir has closed its entrance, which means that once again I must do a favor for Mother Keeper to open it. This quest isn't as difficult as the last one I had to complete for her, but it's more disturbing in its implications. It seems that, despite my encouraging words to her on Day Six, the timid, soft-hearted Klara has disappeared, leaving only her cunning doppelganger to quietly spread fear around town. (Or maybe the Devotress everyone has been seeing is actually Klara, and my well-intentioned white lie did no good. Maybe the "doppelganger" is just some trick. Trying to pin down exactly what this game is doing with the Devotress character is a maddening exercise in confusion.) The Devotress has been appearing solely to the children of the town—my Adherents—and telling them frightening stories and riddles. Mother Keeper is scared of her, which does not bode well considering that Mother Keeper does not seem to be scared by anyone or anything else. She wants me to get the Devotress to tell her the end of the story that the Devotress has been telling to all the kids. There is an urgency to the request that suggests there's more behind it than merely a child's curiosity.

I finally track her down in the trainyard, interrupting a strange tête-a-tête between her and bedraggled orphan Mishka. The story she tells has something to do with a crystal flower that parasitically grows in a garden, killing all the normal flowers around it until nothing remains but crystal flowers. There's obviously a connection between the crystal flower and the Sand Plague, but it's hard to tell whether the Devotress intends her story as a cautionary tale, a fable to be emulated, or a glimpse of some unavoidable future. In any case, what I've heard will satisfy Mother Keeper, though I worry about leaving Mishka alone in that railcar with the Devotress. Why is she focusing so much attention on my Adherents?

Burakh Vs. the Elder

Ever since I received my inheritance on Day Two, I have had two goals for my time in town. The first was to find a cure for the Sand Plague and produce a panacea. The second and more enigmatic goal was to figure out the identity of the "Betrothed," the one to whom belongs a strange symbol that I found in my heritage box. Why exactly this is so important is a question that I have been unable to answer so far, though from today's title I have a feeling that I'm going to find out today. The Elder supposedly is the one who can tell me who the Betrothed is and why I should care.

This assumption hits a snag almost immediately. Elder Oyun seems to have decided overnight that he doesn't trust me, and he refuses to cooperate with my requests for more information and more panacea-producing auroch blood. When I protest that my heritage entitles me to those things, he scoffs that I haven't grown into my father's legacy yet. Whoever handed over my inheritance has been keeping things from me, including another special object without which I don't deserve so much as a cup of water from the Order.

When I confront Ospina about this, she says that she did it only because she's in love with me (?) and didn't want me getting mixed up with the Elder before I was ready. Leaving aside the sudden declaration of love (which might be a translation issue, her attempt to manipulate me, or both—I have no idea which), I'm furious that she kept something from me that hurt my position with the Elder. She claims she was doing it for my own good—there was apparently bad blood (no pun intended) between Oyun and my father, and things might have gone badly for me if Oyun had thought I was making a power play for his position as head of the Order. He is in a precarious position right now, Ospina says. The Oyuns are not a respected family as the Burakhs are, and he's the Elder only because Fat Vlad, who controls the Abattoir's meat-production operations, set him on the proverbial throne (perhaps as a sort of puppet ruler). Now that Oyun's sacrifices are failing to appease whatever force is causing the epidemic, many in the Cult of Bulls are calling him a fraud.

With that, Ospina hands me a talisman made of a bull's horn. This is the last piece of my inheritance, she says. I am still unhappy that she didn't give it to me earlier, but she has convinced me that at least she didn't do it out of malice. Besides, how could you stay mad at a face like this:

OSPINA QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The Inquisitor continues her terrible harvest. Is she at least beautiful?"

Back in the Abattoir, I present the talisman to Elder Oyun. It is not quite enough to convince him that I deserve full access to the Order's secrets, but he grudgingly agrees to reveal the identity of the Betrothed: the earth.

Well, maybe the town, too. Over the generations, the people of the Abattoir have been sacrificing bulls and pouring the blood into that huge pit I saw yesterday. They say that, down there in the darkness, the blood nourishes the earth, which is actually a living being they call an udurg: "a body that contains a world." The stuff I use to create the panacea comes from that underground reservoir. According to the Elder, the Sand Plague has come because something is interfering with the reservoir, either blocking or poisoning it. Contrary to what the Bachelor seems to think, the town and the earth beneath it form a symbiotic relationship. With its nourishment either drying up or becoming corrupted, the world is slowly eating itself, and the town along with it. This would explain why even the town's structures are being ravaged by disease. The only way to reverse this process and save the town, Oyun says, is to present some sort of sacrifice, to provide the udurg once more with untainted blood.

What must I sacrifice, then? I ask. But the Elder has clammed up again.

The alternate view of my town map. Notice that the hill on which the town rests
has been revealed to be a bull.

The Life of Fat Vlad

The Inquisitor is pleased with my findings—more than pleased, she seems downright giddy in her fascination with the idea of the udurg—and I settle in for an evening of scrounging for tomorrow's supplies. Funny how the wearying process of scraping together enough cash to meet the 800-dollar price tag on a loaf of bread, so onerous at first, is becoming almost mundane. I guess one gets used to anything after a while.

At around 8 pm, I receive a letter from George Kain containing some unsettling news. Now that the Apiary has been unlocked, its inhabitants have been calling for the head of Fat Vlad Olgimskiy, the man who had locked them up and left them to rot. Fat Vlad, perhaps shaken by the Inquisitor's presence, has decided to surrender himself to the mob. According to George Kain, though, he is not to blame. He's only taking the rap so that his son, Young Vlad—the true mastermind behind the Apiary fiasco—will be spared. Kain tells me that, as the only person with any influence over the butchers of the Apiary, I have a responsibility to go to them and make sure they punish the right guy.

I am at a loss. I've distrusted the elder Olgimskiy from the start, but even I don't think that he deserves whatever horrible fate the denizens of the Apiary have prepared for him. On the other hand, I have no reason to believe that Young Vlad is guilty either, and Kain, as a member of one of the rival families, could have ulterior motives for disposing of the scion of the Olgimskiys. I go to the Inquisitor with the news, telling her to throw the weight of her authority behind an investigation. She callously dismisses my concerns as beneath her and warns me not to tell her how to do her job. I am to handle this "petty" matter on my own.

Not knowing what else to do, I head toward the Apiary on the other side of town, hoping that I'll have an idea of what to do by the time I get there. No such luck. All too quickly, I am standing before Mother Keeper in her torchlit inner sanctum, with her waiting for me to deliver the guilty party into the Order's hands. I have three dialogue options:

1) Fat Vlad is guilty
2) Young Vlad is guilty
3) I refuse to help

I'm afraid to take the third option, which would keep my hands clean but also leave the quest unfulfilled. Failed quests can put my Adherents in danger, and I am also worried about losing whatever favor I've curried with the Order. The quest must be finished. My mouse hovers over Young Vlad's name, but then I remember his helpfulness, his knowledge of the town's secrets, my deep-seated distrust of Fat Vlad, and George Kain's questionable motives. I change my mind and, with a click, condemn Fat Vlad to the butchers' clutches. I feel like a coward.

Before I leave, I ask Mother Keeper exactly what will happen to the man. She replies that the Worms and butchers will take him into a back room that she is forbidden to enter. When they finally leave, Fat Vlad will be gone—vanished without a trace. I feel the hairs on my neck prickle. "Mother, do they eat him?"

The kid looks back at me in the firelight. "I am not allowed to go in that room, Burakh." Her expression does not change.

Pathologic: Day Six, on which the Bachelor will be offered to choose from several different sources of contamination

At 7am:

The morning of the sixth day has come.

Infected in the past 24 hours: 163 ppl.

Died in the past 24 hours: 140 ppl.

Gone missing: 12 ppl.

Number of dead at the moment: 840

Number of infected: 335 ppl.

Less than seven days remain. A governmental emissary will arrive tomorrow.

I stagger out of Lara Ravel’s house at half past five, starving and mildly woozy from the infection to find myself surrounded by the plague. The afflicted leprous figures march about in packs, and patrolling the streets are a new brand of soldier: the Humpback’s men. Unlike the oafish bandits, these fellows sport a seemingly unlimited supply of Molotov Cocktails, which they lob at anyone and everyone from worrying distance. Their purpose, it seems, is simply to rile things up.

One hit is from these is fatal.

These new annoyances, however, are the least of my worries.

Today's Map

Witch Hunt

The first thing I do in the morning is visit Rubin, who should have completed the improved vaccine. Sure enough, he has. (This differs significantly from Kevin’s experience of Day 6, in which the vaccine failed miserably). Yet his conscience weighs heavily upon him. The Haruspicus was aware that Rubin was keeping the body of the first infected, Simon Kain, for inspection and research. What he didn’t know that it was I who told Rubin to hold the body illegally, to keep it under wraps, though we both knew it might come out sooner or later. He confesses to me that he can’t take it anymore: he has to come clean to the Kain family.

I panic, of course. He can’t do that. It would ruin my reputation if it came out that he had kept the body under my instruction. So much rests on that one lie. I tell him to keep it—that I’ll handle it—that he has to stay and continue his research. He reluctantly agrees, though he holds onto the vaccine.

The consequences of my decisions are at hand. I get several letters and hear whispers from the townsfolk. The Inquisitor is coming tomorrow. But, more upsetting, there has been an incident in the Cathedral.

I arrive early morning to find the Cathedral utterly dead—nearly 800 people wiped out by the Sand Plague. Something got in. To my relief, however, the finger of blame isn’t pointed at me, but to the leading women of the town. The shabnak—the she-cannibal—was accused of breaking in and giving the people infected water to drink. Hours later, streams of infected flooded the streets while a few were left to clean up the remains in the Cathedral.

They did a good job cleaning up.

Saburov outlines the plan: I will interrogate the women of the town and decide who is the vector. Of course I know better; all I have to do is draw their blood and examine it for traces of the virus. It takes a bit of convincing, but I take a sample from Anna Angel, who tells me Klara (the Devotress) is also a prime suspect.

The real gem here is Ospina, who practically spits venom when I whip out the syringe. She does her best to advise me in the “proper way” of finding the shabnak. I’ve transcribed the entire conversation here (with a few minor adjustments for clarity):

ME: Ospina, you are accused of being a cannibal. They will come for you soon.

OSPINA: What is a shabnak? It is a malicious spirit who wears the flesh of a woman on his bones. Shabnak can be known by a characteristic attribute – his hands are long, all toes are of the same length, and the teeth are shown on all body from under the skin

ME: Thanks for the lesson.

OSPINA: That’s it … I am always glad to help you. If you want I’ll help you catch the monster. If you do not cope with that yourself … almost a week has passed and the people still perish, perish, perish …

ME: Help me. Where do I start? Perhaps from the survey of suspected?

OSPINA: Yes. You gather all women who cause your anxiety in the Cathedral, for now it is empty. Build a bonfire at the entrance. Order them to strip naked and survey them carefully … Search for sharp edges under the skin, but you will not find. And then …

ME: I have a more reliable way. Let’s look at your blood.

OSPINA: It is not necessary to take blood. Search for the teeth. Let me continue … sooner or later one of them will break and rush away crying – right into the fire. And then her essence will become visible! She will turn all black, howl, crook her fingers – everyone will realize at once that this is not human.

ME: Of course. And now stand still. I have a few needles; don’t worry.

Ospina

After taking her sample, I find Klara at the Saburov Manor. She won’t allow me to take her blood; she considers herself above reproach. And then an extraordinary claim: she says that she and the Devotress are two different people, though the Devotress looks just like her. She tells me that, with all my science and system, I have no right to investigate her. I appeal to Saburov, who has effectively adopted the little whelp, who tells me I can draw her blood, but when I return she has disappeared.

I rush around town, furious, asking everyone for information. I track down Mishka, a young boy living out in the train yard, and he tells me I’m a hunted man. That the Devotress—who is undoubtedly the shabnak—is searching for me with murderous intent.

The Thing Coming From the Steppe

I scour the rest of the town and receive a tip from Spichka, a young boy holed up in the Tanner’s District. He saw the Bone Cannibal just now, rounding the Abattoir. If I hurry, I may catch it. Heart pounding, I draw my revolver and prepare to finish this once and for all. A true vector! The real, tangible foe in all of this—a discernible victory. With the shabnak gone, it will be only a matter of time till the virus dies out.

Rounding the Abattoir, I see it: a hunched, gangly figure with a white face and long neck. Hardly a thing that could pass for the Devotress. As I step toward it, the air thickens and I begin to choke. I aim my pistol at its (admittedly small) head, fire two shots, and watch as the thing goes limp.

Shabnak or Animated Totem?

Upon closer inspection, I can’t say this is any sort of shabnak. I don’t know what it is—some kind of clay golem, animated by the weird cultic rituals of these steppe barbarians. It was just an illusion.

I find Klara mourning his corpse when I return. Stricken with grief, she holds out her arm and lets me take a sample, which I immediately rush to the microscope. The blood is irregular, strange indeed, but there is no sign of the Plague. I return to her and give my analysis. Yet, knowing that the Inquisitor will come tomorrow, and that she will want blood, Klara says she’ll offer herself as a sacrifice. She’s somehow responsible, she says—and they will need someone to blame anyway.

I resist—she cannot do this. It isn’t right. She is an inexplicable anomaly, there’s no doubt about that, but she is no vector. It’s true: she’d be an easy solution. She’d placate the Inquisitor. It would be an easy solution. But it wouldn’t be right. I tell her the decision is her own, though I don’t think she should turn herself in.

They Want to Burn the Apiary

My final task for the day is a seemingly impossible gambit. The humpback, with his league of arsonists, wants to deliver a deathblow to the Olgimskiy family: he’s going to burn down the Apiary, a nexus of disease that has produced wave after wave of infected (or so they say). While I could care less for the Olgimskiys, the Apiary will be indispensible to my research. They can’t burn it down. The only thing for me to do, then, is to kill the humpback.

It’s late evening when I arrive, and raining. I approach the main entrance to see the Humpback near the tunnel, four arsonists arrayed around him, Molotov cocktails at the ready. I check my revolver: I’ve only got four bullets. Whatever. I rush the first two, a headshot each, then whirl to the next, take him and his companion out, then stand, facing the Humpback. He’s got an alarmingly good throwing arm. I pocket the gun, bare my fists, and approach him, strafing left and right, trying to get in a good punch. The close range is too much, however, and he’s too good a shot. I go down once, twice, three times, until, frustrated, I rush out to the streets to trade a needle for a bullet. When I come back I find him there, standing crooked with that dull cow-eye look. Fearless, I run up to him, gun at the ready, and take him out with a decisive shot.

The entrance to the Apiary, sans two psychopathic arsonists.

Finally, a true victory. I’m not worried about the Inquisitor tomorrow. I think we’ll get along just fine; if anything she ought to admire my work.

Pathologic: Day Five, which will give the Haruspicus a chance to seize the evasive Sand Plague

(or, in which things get Lynchian)

The fifth day has come.

Infected in the past 24 hours: 100 people
Died in the past 24 hours: 79 people
Gone missing: 22 people
Number of dead at the moment: 395 people
Number of infected: 107 people

You will not be able to defeat this enemy. Less than eight days remain.

---

So the first thing I do when I discover that I've been thrown into jail is get angry. More than a few swear words bounce off the walls of my apartment while I come to terms with what just happened. It seems unfair, but in the back of my mind I can't help thinking that this is what I deserve for getting too confident. It really, really hurts to lose those weapons and miss out on a quest reward from Notkin, but there's nothing to be done about it now. I have to find a way out of this new mess.

After the initial shock has passed, I notice that this is no run-of-the-mill prison like the one in the Town Hall. The Sand Plague is here, too. The two men standing guard are fine, presumably pumped full of immunity boosters, but the bodies dotting the stone floor—some of them living, some not—tell me that I can't take my time escaping. As if on cue, a plague cloud wafts through the bars of my cell and fills my lungs. My infection meter takes a jump.

Get out.

I get a couple more lungfuls of disease before I see that one of the corpses is close enough to my cell to be searched. I grab the dead man's revolver, gun down my guards, and start to head for the exit when the cries of the afflicted pull me up short. I turn back and, fumbling with bottles of morphine, give two of the men a peaceful death. I am uneasy about the ethics of euthanasia in this game, but having killed two guards, I desperately need the reputation boost that comes with a mercy killing. I rationalize it by telling myself that I couldn't leave them to die slowly in that plague-infested basement. It is better this way. Right?

The air outside the building is not much clearer than it was indoors. I'm in the factory district, which apparently is the latest breeding ground for the Sand Plague. My vision blurs and I actually stagger to one side as my fever climbs. Sadly, my antibiotic pills are useless to me now; in my weakened state the side effects would be just as deadly as the disease. I am in the late stages of infection, with my blood slowly beginning to hemorrhage from my body. With horror, I watch my health bar shrink, bit by bit.

I'm dying.

I have only one chance. My laboratory is just to the south of the factories, close enough for me to reach it before I succumb to the Plague. I have twyre there, along with brewing recipes left by my father. Vaguely, I remember reading somewhere in my journal that twyrine brews can be combined with infected organs to create an antibiotic mixture. It won't eradicate the disease, but it will hold it at bay, and the health penalties are lower than with conventional medicine. I burst into my lab and stagger over to a storage chest containing my herbs and recipes. I snatch a potent-looking one, cook it up, and mix it with an infected kidney left over from my adventures in Day Three. The result is "dead porridge," a foul-looking pale paste. Well, it's better than death, anyway.

By now it's late: almost 4:00 in the afternoon. With my infection back under control, it's time to turn my mind back to battling the epidemic, which means paying the Bachelor a visit. He's learned of my discovery about the steppe people having a low-level resistance to the Plague, and he wants me to get one of their hearts for him to experiment on. Once again, I am nonplussed at doing his dirty work, all the more so because of my connections to the steppe people. The Bachelor counters my protests by pointing out the necessity of doing this if we're ever going to produce a vaccine. What's one life measured against the entire town? With that he sends me over to Ospina to find out the location of a guinea pig, since (he says) he is too repulsed by Ospina's strangeness to make the trip himself.

OSPINA QUOTE OF THE DAY: "But why is nobody being buried? No creeping of carts, no sound of shovels in the cemetery? "

The antipathy is mutual. Ospina does not hide her anger that I am doing the Bachelor's bidding, saying that he is a "bastard" who "will bury us all." Nevertheless, she recognizes the need for a test subject, though she cloaks it in mystical trappings, as is her wont. A "twyrine bride" (the "stripper" from Duke's Day Five) has been brought forward by the Worms as a willing sacrifice to appease whatever natural force is causing the epidemic. As a Haruspicus, I have the divine right to cut out her heart.

When I arrive at the appointed spot out in the marshes, however, the young woman seems anything but willing. She's been brought there by three butchers (one of whom I met on Day Three), and she pleads with me not to kill her. The butchers are unmoved. The earth demands a sacrifice, they tell me, and, as the heir of Burakh, only I can perform the rite and take the first step in stopping the Sand Plague. They watch me grimly in the firelight, waiting.

I hesitate, then refuse.¹ The steppe people may be my people, but I am not going to take part in the barbaric sacrifice of an innocent just because they tell me to. Enraged, the trio attacks me while the woman flees into the darkness. I shoot them all before they can harm me and bend over their bodies, pulling on my gloves. These guys are natives of the steppe, too. Theoretically at least, they should have the same natural immunity as the twyrine bride. I hope their hearts will do.

As I slog through the marshes on my way back to the Bachelor's pad (heh), I receive a note from Fat Vlad's son, "Young Vlad," concerning the well that he has been digging to provide the town with untainted water. His laborers are refusing to work, claiming to see and hear frightening things in the underground caverns beneath the town. They won't say what, though, so Young Vlad turns to me to investigate the matter. I'm not particularly keen to poke around down there, but I do need the handsome sum he's offering in order to buy food for tomorrow. So down I go.

Immediately I can tell that something's not right. The earth surrounding me doesn't look like normal dirt; it's dark red and slick, as if saturated with blood. I'm apparently alone, yet despite the absence of other people there are lit torches installed at regular intervals. The soundtrack has changed, and it sounds muffled somehow. The throbbing music and smooth, circular tunnel walls give me the impression that I'm walking around inside some gigantic circulatory system.

I have a bad feeling about this.

For some reason Young Vlad doesn't throw down a rope, so once I'm underground I'm stuck there and have to find another way out. I set off through the tunnels, turning this way and that, and before long I am hopelessly lost. The network of caverns is surprisingly extensive, with numerous branching paths, dead ends, and loops, and my town map gives no indication of which way I should go. On top of that, I start to hear a deep voice chanting in an unintelligible language, dully echoing through the strange caverns. Combined with the music, the resemblance to the sound of a beating heart is even more pronounced. Spooky.

I'm just beginning to worry about how I will get out of here when the tunnel ahead suddenly opens up into a large chamber with a domed ceiling at least twenty feet over my head. In one corner is a small platform. A lone figure waits for me there.

What the HELL

This is the Rat Prophet, the pure embodiment of the rats' nature and power (!). The chanting I was hearing earlier? That was the Rat Prophet, mimicking the voice of my father (!!!). He knows a lot about my father and the Sand Plague, but everything he says is gibberish—I can't make head or tail of anything he says. Eventually the Prophet falls ominously silent, and, head spinning, I stumble to the other side of the chamber. There, a hatch opens upward, and I waste no time getting out.

I surface behind the theater, which also has become an epicenter for the Plague. As long as I'm here I figure I may as well check out today's play, but when I enter the theater I find that the director is already busy playing to a packed house:

Knock 'em dead

Back at Young Vlad's place, I hesitantly ask about the Rat Prophet, fearing that I am losing my mind. Young Vlad seems concerned, but he assures me that it was not completely a hallucination. Other citizens have reported seeing the Prophet as well. He seems to bestow his presence and dark knowledge on those who are attuned to the town and the earth on which it rests. Beyond that, Young Vlad knows nothing.

I feel like I'm getting in way over my head. With difficulty, I can at least cope with real-world problems, such as finding a cure or stopping looters. But there is apparently a cosmic, spiritual dimension to this as well, and I feel ill-equipped for it. Between my brush with death today and my weird entanglement with the Cult of Bulls, I worry that I may be cracking under the pressure.

¹ This is apparently a departure from what happens in the Bachelor's scenario. I'm not sure what long-term consequences there will be for this.

Pathologic: Day Three, during which the Haruspicus will be risking his life to solve the puzzles of the ancient writing of the steppe people

(or, in which Kevin gets an eyeful of the Sand Plague)

A random poster hung near the town hall. Take a good look, my lovelies. It's all downhill from here.

The morning of the third day has come.
Infected in the past 24 hours: 42 people
Died in the past 24 hours: 39 people
Gone missing: 13 people
Number of dead at the moment: 117
Number of infected total: 46

Another night, another few hours spent defending townsfolk from the depredations of stab-happy thugs. My revolver has become so worn out that it doesn't even shoot straight anymore, and I don't have remotely enough money both to repair it and to buy food for the upcoming day. Fortunately, I've gotten pretty handy with knives of my own and can go toe-to-toe with thugs without suffering too many wounds. Having learned the hard way the importance of harvested organs in the town's shadow-economy, I now have no compunction about taking everything I can from the cooling bodies of the bad guys. They no longer have any use for it all anyway.

I'm on my way home to catch a few hours of sleep before daylight when I spy a figure running down the street ahead of me, pursued by another person. The pursuer catches his quarry and kills him/her before I can catch up, and when I arrive on the scene I can see why violence was called for. Facedown on the ground is the rag-covered body of an infected person. I'm not surprised, exactly—I've already heard that a quarantine is in effect now that the Sand Plague threatens to rage out of control—but the sight is unnerving, a small foretaste of what's to come. Then, remembering something the Bachelor mentioned when we first met, I put on my gloves and take a deep breath. Infected organs are necessary, too, if we're ever going to find a cure.

I have a busy day ahead of me. As soon as I wake up, Fat Vlad's daughter Kapella (who, as you'll recall, is one of my Adherents) informs me that Notkin (another Adherent) is in trouble. I find his hideout surrounded by thugs, whom I dispatch with great difficulty (I have to fight all four at once, and my knife is almost completely dull after last night). Inside the hideout, I find a terrified Notkin, whose brush with death has momentarily shattered his tough-guy act and left him touchingly vulnerable. I am surprisingly gentle in my interaction with him, telling him that "it's all right now." For all his brutishness, Artemiy Burakh apparently has a soft spot for children.

Other major figures in town are keeping me on the go with an assortment of errands. In a development that secretly tickles me, the Bachelor, once the town's darling, now finds himself hamstrung by the locals, who don't trust him to do his fancy city-doctor autopsies on infected corpses. I'm the one to whom they look for help. Meanwhile, Fat Vlad pulls me aside to ask a favor. It seems that, upon hearing of the outbreak, Fat Vlad has rounded up all the butchers who work for him, locked them in the Apiary, and thrown away the key. Three of them have escaped his clutches. He wants me to hunt them down and turn them in.

I've suspected from Day 1 that Vlad cannot be trusted, and this ruthless (and unilateral) decision of his immediately makes me suspicious. He assures me that he did it for the good of the town—if these people have contracted the Plague, why not isolate them and let them tear each other apart rather than endangering everyone else? I'm not convinced, but lacking anything more than a hunch, I agree to go along with him for the time being. For more information on the butchers' whereabouts, Vlad directs me to a familiar-looking house near the outskirts.

Next stop: Ospina.

OSPINA QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Perhaps it is better to be turned inside out?"

Weirdly, it seems that Artemiy feels some sort of kinship with Ospina. By way of greeting or perhaps as a sort of password, she recites the beginning of a folk rhyme, which I then complete for her. I learn that we are both connected to some sort of bull-worshiping nature cult of the steppes, a religion that is still practiced by the Worms who live outside town and who toil in the Abattoir, slaughtering (or sacrificing?) cattle. The strange object I received with my inheritance yesterday is a cattle brand, shaped like a symbol in the cult's language. Ospina can't tell me what the symbol means, but the three escaped butchers can. She's hidden them in safehouses scattered across town. She gives me the location of the first one, on the condition that I keep Fat Vlad in the dark. I readily agree. I may not be fully on board with whatever religious ceremonies are going on in the depths of the Abattoir, but the steppe people are my people and I'll be damned if I betray them to some conniving nobleman, whatever his plans are.

The butcher is holed up in a nondescript house right in the middle of the infected zone. I'm a little daunted, but I knew it would come to this. I pull on my gloves again, tie a handkerchief over my face, and plunge in, stepping over a pile of bloody rags at the entrance.

The infected zone is a nightmare. The air is tinged a sickly green. Shrouded plague victims mill about like zombies while rats chitter in the long grass by the sidewalk. Both pursue me if I come too close. One man lies on the ground in the fetal position, weakly struggling against the virus in his veins and clutching at me as I pass. I know that I should probably put him out of his misery with an overdose of morphine, but I can't bring myself to euthanize him and press on. Sitting in my computer chair, I find myself trying to breathe as little as possible.

Never mind, I don't want to know the secret of the symbol. In fact, I think I'll try again at getting that business degree.

The butcher's hideout is even worse. I can hear screams of agony from the dying in other parts of the house as I pick my way through the mess. I have to keep moving because clouds of plague-bearing mist frequently sweep through the house. These clouds seem almost to have a mind of their own, creeping around corners and roiling up staircases as if they are chasing me. At one point I get cornered and can only watch as a plague cloud envelops me. My vision contracts and blurs slightly, and I don't have to check the upper right corner of the screen to know that my infection bar has been activated.

Panicked, I rush out of that room into a bedroom across the hall and almost bowl over the butcher, who's just ... standing there.

I have no idea how he manages to survive in this place.

We have a hurried conversation amid the screams and the chaos, and I learn one final tidbit: I need to find a man known only as the Elder of the Abattoir. Only he can reveal the meaning of my symbol and (maybe) the identity of the Betrothed to whom it belongs. Who is he, what does he look like, how do I find him? The butcher doesn't know. All he knows is that the Elder of the Abattoir is not currently living in the Abattoir.

After all I went through to get here, I was expecting a little bit more.

The Abattoir is the thing in the northeast corner that looks like a giant heart. And I will probably have to go there.

I eventually make it out of the infected district, somewhat the worse for wear but at least alive and in no immediate danger. I visit Fat Vlad to pump him for information about the Abattoir (carefully omitting the location of the butcher, of course) and stop by the Bachelor's to drop off some infected organs for his examination. He makes the startling discovery that the Sand Plague is no longer active in the tissue; it apparently can't survive in a host after death. With proper quarantining, we can stop the epidemic before it gets out of hand. But for some inexplicable reason, the powers-that-be send out notices to the general public that do not include this information. Why are they lying to the townspeople? I don't know, but we're going to pay for it later.

I spend the rest of the day completing side quests and stockpiling supplies, readying myself for whatever catastrophe awaits me tomorrow. I'm feeling optimistic in spite of everything else—it's the first day in which I've been able to finish all the tasks that have been given me, and I feel prepared to face the next day. But around 7:00, I suddenly double over. My vision contracts and blurs, and my own labored breathing rings loud in my ears. I pull up my character screen to find that my infection bar has crept up slightly. I may have weapons and money and food, but the Sand Plague in my bloodstream is here to stay.

Pathologic: Day Two, the only day during which the Haruspicus will gain more than he loses under any circumstances

(Or, in which money proves that it really is the root of all evil)

The morning of the second day has come.
Infected in the past 24 hours: 26 people
Died in the past 24 hours: 15 people
Gone missing: 9 people
Number of dead at the moment: 38 people
Number of infected total: 25 people

I am beginning to see where this game is taking me, and I am nervous.

When I start it up to play Day Two, I am immediately confronted by the fact that I (that is, my character) am ravenously hungry: almost dead from hunger, in fact. The slow creep of hunger in Pathologic is relentless; Artemiy’s body doesn’t stop burning calories just because he’s asleep, as it would in a more forgiving game. I was so proud to survive Day One while meeting my objectives that I’d almost forgotten that I still have eleven more days to get through. Eleven days of just trying to stay alive on top of everything else. It feels like being brought to heel by a leash. Don’t get cocky—this is only the beginning.

Just after midnight, I climb out of bed, drinking my last bit of water to quiet my stomach a jot. I step outside into the darkness, squinting through the thin gray drizzle that seems almost to seep from the clouds overhead. I set off through the streets. One of the storefronts had better be open, or I’ll have another dead Haruspicus on my hands.

Fortunately, I find one and spend my last pennies on some bread and meat. Rested and well-fed for the first time since my arrival, I contemplate my next move. I haven’t received any indication of what I should do next, so it seems like a good time to explore the more remote corners of the town.

My first stop is the town hall, an important-looking building just north of the Clot. It has two entrances. One opens on a clerk’s office. It’s the middle of the night, so the office is deserted. The other entrance leads to the jail, and it’s here that I receive my first real shock of the game.

The Sand Plague has already begun to spread.

And it’s not just the disease that’s claiming lives. As I wander down lamp-lit streets, I keep encountering knife-wielding maniacs who seem to have no other goal than to kill and rob people, in that order. Their murderous efforts are focused primarily on the townsfolk caught out of doors after nightfall, though they come after me too if we cross paths in a deserted area. As the proud new owner of a good reputation, I’m reluctant to get into any fights, but I can’t just stroll past innocent people getting stabbed to death. Coming to their aid rewards me with extra cash and the opportunity to harvest the would-be murderers’ organs. Unaware of the uses for organs and still suffering from the aforementioned reputation paranoia, I harvest only a few, leaving most of the bodies untouched. I feel proud of myself for acting so uprightly. I’ll regret my caution later.

With the sky beginning to brighten in the east, I strike up conversations around town, trying to ascertain what to do next. A shady-looking man in a tavern informs me that supplies around town are about to get very, very scarce. The herb twyrine, which is known to have medicinal properties, will become quite valuable once news of the Sand Plague spreads. Conspiratorially, he says that if I bring him ten stalks of twyrine, he can use it to work the town’s economics to our advantage. Having seen the already outrageous rates for a loaf of bread, I can’t imagine surviving if prices climb even higher and readily agree. I don’t know where to find twyrine yet, but I’m hopeful that I can find it before the end of the day.

Other people point me toward a small, dilapidated house on the edge of town. There, I’m told, I will finally receive the inheritance that my father left me.

Inside I meet a girl named Ospina, who is easily the most upsetting character I’ve met so far. For a kid she seems to know an awful lot about the Sand Plague, describing its effects in detail (“It makes your blood boil in your veins like eggs in a pot”). Maybe it’s her monkish clothing or the dank, rotting house that surrounds her, but practically everything she says in her wispy little-girl voice seems creepy:

“Can you tell me what is wrong with my eyes?” (Okay …)
“I have a hole under my heart.” (That’s ... kinda disturbing.)
“Needles still stick out of me.” (WHAT)

She even hints that she may not be entirely human, that she’s some sort of harbinger of doom. I don’t know whether this is a translation issue or some sort of figurative expression, but standing with her in that dim room, I have a hard time believing that she is anything but absolutely serious.

Needless to say, as soon as she gives me the box containing my inheritance, I beat a hasty retreat. The box contains a couple of recipes for twyrine medicine, information about my father’s secret laboratory, and a strangely shaped object that, according to my cryptic-as-ever diary, belongs to “the Betrothed.” This new mystery adds another yet layer to my long-term goals, as the Betrothed is an extremely important person—probably the most important person in the entire town. The problem is that I have no idea who this person is or why he or she is so vital to my plans. So I push that question to the back of my mind. I’ve got things to do, after all—the shadows are lengthening, and I still haven’t figured out how to get those herbs for Comrade Shady back at the tavern. I’m substantially richer, but my windfall has merely reminded me that prices are going to skyrocket soon. I need those herbs badly.

The way is made clear to me when I find the Odonghe people. Their name translates as “the Worms,” and they form the town’s underclass. Thousands of them are controlled by Fat Vlad, who employs them as cowherds, butchers, and factory workers. They are responsible for keeping the town’s supply of meat flowing steadily in from the fields. If not for this fact and their deep knowledge of twyrine’s properties, it’s doubtful that the rest of the townsfolk could stomach their offputting appearance and primitive culture. As things are, they barely tolerate the Worms, who have been forced to settle in the marshes outside town.

The Worms have plenty of twyrine available—for a price. All they ask for in return are healthy human organs. The trade screen comes up, and my heart sinks. I don’t have nearly enough to trade for the ten herbs required by the man at the tavern. I barely have enough for one.

I hurry back to town, my mind racing. I have to get enough twyrine to keep prices low for myself in the future. I have to. Where am I going to come up with enough organs to satisfy the Worms? The knife-wielding maniacs only come out at night. Everyone else is just a regular townsperson. They’re unarmed, innocent people.

But I need those organs. I need them now.

I’m on the riverwalk on the town’s west side, debating with myself, when a man walks by. I make a sudden decision. Looking around to make sure no one will see, I stab him in the back.

My reputation bar shrinks, but not by too much. Considering how many people’s organs I’ll need to get ten stalks of twyrine, that’s a good thing. My stomach crawls slightly at the thought, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I bend over the body, contemplating what I need to drop from my inventory in order to make space.

Then the reality of what I’ve done hits me. I murdered an innocent man. Just so I could accomplish a task given me by a none-too-savory character. Just so I could make survival easier for myself. I pause over the dead body, my fingers hovering uncertainly over the keyboard. What did I just do?

I end up harvesting him, in a twisted variation on “waste not, want not,” but I don’t kill anyone else, giving up the tavern man’s quest as a lost cause. I trek back to my father’s abandoned laboratory to complete the primary objective of the day (brew up a twyrine concoction for the Bachelor, using one of the recipes in my inheritance box). That crawling sensation in my stomach persists, fed equally by my dismay at what I had done and by a selfish fear of what will happen to me tomorrow when I’m at the mercy of drastically inflated prices.

There’s also a deeper unease underlying all of this. Already I’m beginning to see the game’s general trajectory, bearing me toward some dark horizon. If I resorted to murder just to save money, what will I be capable of once I’m really desperate?