Prologue
Daniel Dankovskiy is a bachelor of medicine with a fascination of death.
He is obsessed with the idea that death can be overcome and conquered.
In the capital where he works, he is regarded as a rather competent
doctor but his radical ideas has gotten lots of people very hostile.
Either he is loudly trying to talk his way to what they feel is their
fund money or he is stealing all the spotlight at a convention. And of
course everything in the capital eventually comes down to politics.
Dankovskiy is given an ultimatum by the Authorities. Either he shows
once and for all that all his research actually results in something, or
he resign and his research lab is demolished. At first Daniel is at a
loss of how to solve this but one of his distant colleges has something
interesting for him. Isidor Burakh, a skilled surgeon, lives in a small
town far out on the steppe. The ruler of this town, someone named Simon
Kain, is said to have strange powers and super-human vitality. This
could be just the thing needed! Daniel quickly packs his bags for the
long train journey.
Day 1
Daniel arrives very early in the morning, and is taken in by a young
woman named Eve. She seems a bit obsessed with Daniel and claims his
visit was foretold, but she's very nice and helpful and the bed is soft.
The Kain family lives in a couple of impressive houses nearby. Daniel
decides to introduce himself to Simon's brothers first, to ask some
questions. But already things have gone horribly wrong. Simon Kain has
been murdered! The last man to visit him was Isidor Burakh, but they
both seemed fine when Isidor left the residence. The circumstances of
the murder were very strange. Simon had locked himself up in a place
called the Inner Chamber where he seem to have meditated. No one had the
key to this room except Simon. They say the Inner Chamber is not a
normal room and no one could possibly break in, but no one seems to want
to show just what they mean.
Daniel walked quickly to the house of Isidor Burakh to try to find some
clue about what had happened. But the house is guarded by a patrolman.
Isidor is dead! The murder weapon is a long bone-like nail. The locals
thinks this is the work of a demon from the steppes, Shebnak. The guard
won't let anyone in unless they have permission from his commander, a
stern man named Alexander Saburov. He thinks the killer is the son of
Isidor, named Artemiy. Artemiy Burakh has recently returned from years
of studies to become a surgeon. Alexander suggests a talk with some of
the townspeople about this.
Daniel is directed to a woman named Julia Luricheva. She is willing to
explain a few things and it seems like most people in this town are
somewhat superstitious. She thinks Simon Kain was simply poisoned and
that the killer is somehow involved with the Olgimskiy family, who runs
the meat industry and the factories in the town. But she also says that
Daniel can't go to them directly because they never say things straight.
The three ruling families are enemies, playing a strange game of
intrigue and politics. Instead he should listen to some of the young
women that lives in town, because they share information much more
freely.
Exploring the town further, Daniel encounter a young woman named Lara
Ravel, who runs a sort of shelter out of her home. She hints that Maria
Kain is a Mistress and can see into the future. Supposedly she had a
dream about us several days ago and the town has been expecting Daniel
for some time now. Lara is worried about the children who are playing
strange games of doctor in one of the abandoned houses nearby. She
thinks they may have found some dangerous chemicals and wants him to
take them away before someone gets sick. After searching the place
Daniel find only a strange box with some sort of Powder inside.
At this time the news about the murders has spread all across town and
lots of people are forming search parties to find the killer. Seems like
both Simon Kain and Isidor Burakh were revered as great leaders. But
the mobs are extremely violent, and several innocent people die. When
Daniel arrives at the home of a young woman named Anna Angel, he finds a
dead corpse inside. Anna is completely hysterical at first, but when
Daniel goes to call the guard she quickly explains that with her bad
reputation, the guards will just see it as an excuse to take her away.
He somewhat reluctantly agrees to help her get rid of the body in a more
discrete way.
The only people left to talk to now are the Olgimskiy family. The
father, Old Vlad, is very proud of his work and protective of his
family. It seems Isidor came by last night and tried to get the whole
meat factory shut down, which didn't go down well. Old Vlad is clearly
hiding something. His son is living in a brick building near the train
station and was found by following a strange human-like creature called a
Worm. It seems Young Vlad deals with the people of the steppe, but he
doesn't seem to like them very much. He thinks this is all the works of
some unruly butchers from the Apiary, the big workers residence in the
northeast part of town. It was recently locked down due to riots, but
maybe someone escaped?
Young Vlad's sister Kapella thinks differently, though. The worker that
escaped the lockdown is definitely not a murderer, and she fears an
innocent man will suffer because of her family. She convinces Daniel to
help him escape out into the steppe. This requires the aid of a strange
nun-like woman named Ospina living in a run down chapel near the
factories. After this Daniel confronts Young Vlad about what Isidor
actually said, and it turns out some sort of disease has started
spreading among the people living far out on the steppe, and Isidor
wanted this to be contained. Old Vlad overreacted and locked up the
whole Apiary to keep the infection out, but refused to stop the meat
production.
Now that Daniel has some clues about where to start, he visits the local
doctor Rubin who often lives together with the people herding cows and
gathering plants out on the steppe. Rubin was trained well by Isidor,
but when Daniel mention the possibility of a plague and the way his
teacher died, Rubin becomes very agitated and seem to think we are all
doomed. He thinks an infectious disease named the Sand Dirt will return.
Rubin says he needs to examine the corpse of Simon Kain before he can
put his mind to rest.
Day 2
Daniel receives some letters, indicating that Rubin is working on
isolating and examining the body of Simon Kain. The rumors about a
plague has spread in the town and also reached the ears of the ever
present Authorities. They instruct Daniel to ensure that nothing serious
happens in this town, and threatens to send an Inquisitor if we can't
do our job properly. The quick instructions hints that there are
government agents in the town already.
Alexander Saburov asks Daniel to find some evidence of this supposed
plague, if it actually exists, so that Alexander can take charge. He
don't have much good to say about the other ruling families and instead
suggest we talk to the less noble citizens. In a nearby bar Daniel
encounters an old friend from the university they both went to, Andrei
Stamatin. He and his brother Petr are a pair of somewhat eccentric
architects that were chased out of the capital for some reason. Upon
hearing the name Sand Dirt he gets scared and asks us to arrange an
escape route together with Eve Yahn. However, his brother Petr refuses
to leave the town and his recent architectural creations behind. It
takes more than rumors to make him to join in on the escape.
After some further searching Daniel comes across a young girl named
Kapella Olgimskiy. She is very unlike her father and brother, and wants
to help Daniel. She thinks one of the local kids has been playing hide
and seek near a place they claim is haunted. Kapella suspects there is
an outbreak of the Sand Dirt there. After finding the kid, Spichka, we
find out that the infected house is that of Isidor Burakh. But wasn't he
murdered? There was even a weapon found! When Daniel finally manages to
enter the house, he finds something like blood smeared all over the
walls and a woman screaming in pain. When she scratches and claws at him
as he tries to get away, he starts to feel sick. Daniel Dankovskiy has
been infected by something!
With this evidence staring the whole town in the face, the ruling
families agrees to give their support to Alexander Saburov and a town
patrol guard is quickly assembled. But will this be enough to quarantine
whatever disease was breeding in that house? More infected houses are
uncovered as time passes. Unfortunately, this also mean travel to and
from the town is now strictly forbidden. The news that Alexander now has
free reign scares Petr Stamatin more than the Sand Dirt does and the
two brothers use their black market connections to get hold of some
firearms and attempts an escape by train. However, it is hard to keep a
secret in this town and the escape plans are uncovered before Daniel and
the others can put them to action.
Day 3
Upon waking, Daniel immediately received bad news. A letter from the
Kain family reveals that both the field doctor Rubin and the precious
body of Simon Kain has gone missing! The person most likely to know
where Rubin might be is Young Vlad, but he isn't willing to talk yet. It
seems the Kain and the Olgimskiy families are accusing each other of
hiding the outbreak of the Sand Dirt. The Kains claim the Sand Dirt is
spreading inside the meat workers quarters in the Apiary which is now
completely locked down, and the Olgimskiy claims the strange tower
called the Polyhedron is just as likely to be infected. Daniel gets the
Kains to retract their accusations because they are not willing to let
anyone inside the Polyhedron to examine it. What can that place possibly
contain?
Young Vlad now tells Daniel of some corpse thieves who might have taken
Simon Kains body. The so called steppe people have some very peculiar
traditions and thinks that by opening up and examining corpses you can
gain insight and power. It is possible that these thieves are led by the
son of Isidor Burakh who returned to this town just before the murders.
He is already accused of killing his own father. However, this turns
out to be a false lead. Rubin instead sends directions to Daniel to a
secret hideout among some warehouses, where he has taken the body. Rubin
took the body away because the Kains didn't let him conduct a proper
dissection of the body of their precious brother.
Rubin needs a fresh sample of tissue that has been infected by the
supposed Sand Dirt. Since Daniel doesn't have the traditional right to
cut open bodies, he enlists the help of Ospina and a few of the butchers
and attempts to find someone who has recently died from the disease. By
now it is clear that the quarantine was not enough and the infection
has spread to several blocks in the poor northeast part of the town.
However, his plan does not succeed and after a fight with the patrol
guards, Daniel is instead reluctantly allowed to take a small blood
sample from a corpse being prepared for burial in the town cemetery.
When the sample is examined under a microscope, Daniel and Rubin finds
that all the cells are completely dead and that not even a few of the
usual antibodies were present. Once it has developed past the incubation
stage, the Sand Plague kills quickly and spreads quickly but can't
survive outside of a living body. Fortunately, the limited infection
Daniel has suffered so far is kept in check by his strong immune system
together with the limited medication at hand.
Day 4
Daniel is asked to help with some basic instructions on how to protect
yourself against infection as well as finding out medicine will work
against it. This task was previously assigned to the three young ladies
Lara, Julia and Anna. Daniel fears that at least some of them will
attempt to try the medicine on themselves and overdose, so he eventually
takes it upon himself to take the medicines and evaluate the results.
Basic immunity boosting pills seems to work fine, but the few
antibiotics available has some harmful side effects. Still, they manage
to temporarily suppress the Sand Dirt for a few days at least.
Daniel is also charged with setting up some basic facilities. After
examining a few suitable buildings, he is met by setbacks when the
town's water pipes are sabotaged. Robbers and marauders are running
rampant in town and the local crime boss Gryph can't keep them in check
any longer. Eventually Daniel decides to set up a basic hospital in the
theater and an isolation ward in the old cathedral and use the water
wells nearby. Young Vlad has tasked some people with creating and
updating maps of the town marking the areas that are currently showing
signs of infection.
Day 5
When visiting Young Vlad to get an updated map, he finds that Alexander
Saburov has been abusing his new powers as Commandant and has arrested a
lot of people, including some of Young Vlads friends who he swears are
innocent. Some bribes later and they are set free by the corrupt jail
keepers. Even in these sad days, most of the townspeople are eager to
grasp ever chance of personal profit.
Anna Angel reveals some of her dark past and tells us that her former
crime partner Var, also called The Hump, has a large amount of cash
hidden away. Var has adopted a young woman from the steppe named Vera as
his daughter and is obsessed with her. The feeling isn't exactly mutual
and eventually Vera fled from him. In exchange for a large sum of money
we agree to convince her to come back. We eventually find Vera near the
bar and arrange for a meeting later that evening.
We find that Artemiy Burakh has also been caught and imprisoned in the
commotion, but Alexander refuses to tell us where. Rubin needs the heart
of an infected person, and Artemiy is the only person who can help us
with that now. Artemiy's capture was seen by Lara Ravel who thinks he
was taken to a building near the factories. Eventually the place is
found but it is heavily guarded. Daniel enlists the aid of Gryph and his
bandits to create a diversion, and after some fighting manages to free
Artemiy Burakh. He waited until nightfall, found a suitable heart
somehow and prepare it for us. As we arrive on the scene we find Vera
dead, with her heart neatly severed from the body. When we got back to
the hideout, it was still teeming with the infection. With it Rubin was
able to create a few doses of a weak vaccine.
Day 6
Some of the people in town thinks that someone is intentionally
spreading the infection to areas previously thought safe. The isolation
ward in the cathedral has been breached and many people died there
during the night. Some people claim a young woman visited just before
people inside got ill. After taking and examining blood samples from all
the suspected women, Daniel proclaims them all free from the Sand Dirt.
Suspicion then falls on the strange Devotress and after an exhausting
chase after her we finally find her in our own home. Even if she seems
to have a lot of things to hide, her blood sample also checks out clean.
It turns out the information that started all this was completely false
to begin with. But who started it all, then?
Rubin has completed a few samples of what he calls the White Vaccine.
However, he is feeling guilt over deceiving the Kain family and stealing
the corpse of Simon Kain and is preparing to turn himself over to them.
With the situation being like it is he thinks he will be put to death,
but he is prepared to meet his fate regardless and nothing Daniel says
can convince him otherwise.
The Hump, furious over the death and desecration of his adopted
daughter, has gathered a gang of arsonists and wants to attack and burn
the Apiary. He doesn't fully know about our involvement in it and blames
the butchers. Daniel helps the patrol guard with taking him down.
Day 7
During the night, the Inquisitor arrives. We expected an experienced and
well reputed man, but instead we meet a young woman named Aglaja
Lilich. She occupies the now empty cathedral as her base of operation.
The Sand Dirt has spread to large parts of the town and Aglaja quickly
starts dealing with things in her own way. She is however very honest
when talking to Daniel. Or is this just a facade? Aglaja has found that
some of the letters Daniel regularly receive that were supposedly from
the government agents contained lots of misleading information and she
suspects that there is a traitor among the three agents working in this
town. By disguising himself, Daniel gathers some documents and
information that helped her point out the guilty one. Then, an
'accident' happens.
When we return to Eve Yahn's house we find her missing. Andrei thinks
that she is taken away by the steppe people and chases after her. He
quickly gets into trouble and Daniel has to bail him out. It turns out
that Eve Yahn instead left on her own accord and has committed suicide
by jumping of cathedral roof. Her suicide note explains that she is
making room for someone else. What can that possibly mean?
Daniel visits Maria Kain, who is very upset about the arrival of the
Inquisitor. It turns out they are rather close relatives but that the
Kain family despises Aglaja and her ways now. Maria claims there is
something special about this town and especially the strange Polyhedron
tower, and thinks Aglaja will in some way destroy this. Petr Stamatin
designed the Polyhedron and it was only in this strange town that he was
allowed to build something that weird. Aglaja is fascinated by him and
wants to find out more about his methods of architecture, much to the
anger of Maria Kain.
Day 8
By order of the Inquisitor, the Apiary is now opened up and it turns out
the infection has been spreading in there all along! Some of the
butchers in there has started making a miracle cure against the Sand
Dirt that they call Dead Porridge, but Artemiy Burakh says it is harmful
and not a true cure. Artemiy claims that he has found something special
in the Abattoir, the ceremonial slaughterhouse where only the initiated
are allowed. He gives Daniel a vial of something that looks like blood.
When it is examined under a microscope, it shows a large number of
antibodies against the Sand Plague! Burakh claims he can make an actual
cure with it but he is very limited in how much he can produce right
now. Once he is sure he has convinced that the cure actually works, he
hands over a few samples of the Panacea.
It turns out that a lot of children are living inside the Polyhedron,
led by Khan Kain. The children has their own society in there! Kapella
Olgimskiy is worried about their health, and asks Daniel to examine the
place, but he isn't allowed inside. She explains that the Polyhedron
isn't completely bound by the normal laws of physics and that it might
be able to completely resist the disease, but can't really tell us
exactly what to expect in there.
The Inquisitor suspects that the Sand Plague might have spread from the
water supplies, and asks us to examine the wells in this town. Young
Vlad has a strange well actually inside his house, but he has recently
filled it in. Is he trying to cover up something? After talking to
Ospina, Daniel finds out that Young Vlad knew about the outbreak in the
Apiary and ordered it to be locked up anyway. When Daniel threatens to
reveal this information, Young Vlad starts talking but says that the
infection didn't come from his well after all.
Daniel and Aglaja wants to find out what is actually happening inside
the Abattoir but the doors are closed. In order to gain access, Daniel
has to hand over the person responsible for locking down the Apiary and
dooming most of the workers inside. Daniel tries his best to make sure
Young Vlad doesn't get killed. He technically succeeds when Old Vlad
gives himself up and takes the blame to save his son. The way into the
Abattoir is now open, but as soon as Daniel steps inside he is knocked
to the ground. The elders of the steppe people are not happy with
letting outsiders in and decides to take the matter into their own
hands. Daniel is saved by the arrival of General Block and the army who
rushes in!
Day 9
After waking up with a horrible head ache, Daniel is introduced to the
army general who thinks he, Aglaja and Daniel were sent to this forsaken
town as a punishment for upsetting the political order in the capital.
The undergeared patrol guard is now replaced by army men with rifles and
flamethrowers, ready to deal with the Sand Dirt in a more direct
fashion. General block and Inquisitor Aglaja dislike each other very
much. Is it because of their radically different methods or are there
deeper motives?
Victor Kain hints that it is possible to bring Simon Kain back in some
strange fashion and that this is connected to the inside of the
Polyhedron. Daniel is asked to reconcile him with his son Khan Kain
somehow. After some hesitation, Daniel helps Khan get his hands on some
army rifles because he fears the general will try to storm the
Polyhedron.
As darkness falls, Daniel finally gains access to the inside of the
Polyhedron and finds a strange staircase made of what seems to be paper.
The children living there claim that you can make your dreams and
memories real inside. Before he can get very far inside, Daniel suddenly
passes out and wakes up outside the entrance to the Polyhedron.
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