Artemiy Burakh (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
drewtheline) wrote2013-04-17 05:47 pm
drewtheline) wrote2013-04-17 05:47 pm
The Haruspex Timeline (Under Construction)
Day 1:
Artemiy arrives in town after walking through the Steppe, having been too impatient to wait for a scheduled train. He shows up by the train station and is immediately assaulted by a gang of thugs. Fighting for his life, Aremiy manages to kill those who assaulted him; only one of the people who attacked him escapes the fight alive, with terrible wounds. Artemiy himself is terribly wounded from the battle, and learns that his reputation has been besmirched, as people are claiming he's a murderer known as The Ripper.
Trying to avoid an angry mob, Artemiy ends up ducking in to a small abandoned warehouse full of children, where he meets a young teen named Notkin, leader of a children's gang known as Dualsouls. Notkin asks him to help out with a traitor that had stolen medicine from them, in return for a Powder, and Artemiy agrees. Investigating the matter some more, Artemiy discovers Griff, the leader of thieves and robbers, has had a similar problem with a traitor in his group. Both Griff and Notkin request that Artemiy kill this man, but Artemiy ends up sparing the man, restoring some of his good name by showing mercy. He also learns from Griff that the survivor of their fight made it all the way to the cemetery, where he lays dying, and the Haruspex keeps in mind that he may want to check after the man to restore some of his reputation.
From a letter he received from his father, he learns that he should meet with the Olgimsky family to receive his inheritance in case of his father's untimely death. Uncertain of his father's whereabouts, Artemiy has no choice but to visit Big Vlad Olgimsky; however, he learns that Big Vlad is out and won't be home until later, and instead becomes acquainted with his young teenage daughter Kapella. She confides in him some prophetic feelings that she'd been having (as an up and coming Mistress), and he agrees to help her with her goals. In return, Kapella gives him a list of Adherents, a group of children whom she is in charge of that she wants Artemiy to look after. Apparently his father had watched over them beforehand, and their fate is very bleak. Unless Artemiy interferes with their destinies, they could meet a terrible end. Kapella, in fact, happens to be on this list of Adherents.
In the meantime, the Haruspex decides to visit the cemetery and find the man who'd attacked him. Artemiy meets Laska, the young girl who tends the graveyard, there. It turns out that the man needs a blood transfusion or else he will die. Desperate to repair his reputation so that people may stop attacking him, Artemiy performs a blood transfusion that nearly leaves him dead due to his wounds from earlier in the day. The man thanks him and spreads word of Artemiy's mercy and sacrifice.
Once Big Vlad returns, Artemiy meets with him and learns that his father is indeed deceased. What's more, he learns that he was murdered, and that Artemiy is being blamed for his death, as well as Simon Kain's death and the deaths of several other men. Due to these accusations, the Bachelor, an ally of the Kains who wish to find Simon's killer, has been tasked to investigate the matter, and threatens to cut down Artemiy if he sees him. Not wishing for any conflict and instead waiting for the Bachelor to finish his investigation and cool down, Artemiy visits him in the evening and sets him straight. Evidence shows that he is innocent, so Artemiy's name is cleared. However, it seems as though not everyone is convinced. His childhood friend, Stakh Rubin, who was Isidor's most loyal student, still believes Artemiy to be the murderer, and sends him threatening letters.
Curious to learn about what happened to his father, Artemiy talks to Kapella who directs him to go and investigate his father's home. The door is guarded, however, and Artemiy is attacked by the guard who still believes him to be his father's murderer returning to the scene of the crime. Killing him and a few other guards, he picks up the key to his father's home and enters, finding the young boy Spichka, one of his Adherents, hiding in there. The house itself looks diseased and the bedroom is completely covered in blood. Spichka tells Artemiy that he'd been hiding in the cupboard when Isidor had a visitor late at night, and heard a loud fight outside the cupboard. The one who visited him is later confirmed to be the Elder who killed him. The poor boy hid in the cupboard all night long until the guards discovered the crime and took Isidor's body away. Spichka also directs Artemiy to Mishka, a young girl who is also one of his adherents, who gives a similar account, also claiming to have heard a woman.
He must wait for the following day to receive his inheritance from his father.
Day 2:
Prices go up about five to ten times on this day, due to severe fear regarding the plague that is rumored to be spreading through town. Water stops running from pumps and fountains on the streets. (The reason for the water flow stopping is not explained in The Haruspex scenario, but is explained in The Bachelor scenario. Some crazy townspeople thought that the water was causing the plague and so they blew up the pipes.)
Come morning, Artemiy speaks with Big Vlad about receiving his inheritance. Vlad tells him that while he is capable of receiving his inheritance that his father left him, he needs the key his father left behind, which is in possession of the town's ruler, Alexander Saburov. Unfortunately, Saburov doesn't trust Artemiy since his wife, Catherine Saburov, had mysterious visions that Artemiy would make a great and bloody sacrifice later down the road (Catherine is a Mistress and has some clairvoyance.) Because of this mistrust, the Saburovs could have his head at any moment, and so Big Vlad suggests that Artemiy find his son, Young Vlad, who knows of a place where he can stay hidden. Seeking out Saburov, Artemiy attempts to (and mostly fails to) convince Catherine of his innocence, then speaks to Alexander. While the both of them still don't trust him, he's allowed to receive the key to the lockbox with his inheritance in it.
Artemiy finds the one keeping his inheritance safe, a young woman named Ospina living near the Project of Bulls. Being very respectful of Isidor, Ospina managed to protect and save Artemiy's inheritance after Isidor's death, which was nearly taken away on order of the authorities. In her scramble, however, some papers were stolen, probably papers that pertained to the recipe for the Panacea. Opening up the box, Artemiy receives a little more than four thousand coins, some twyrine brew recipes, many different and rare stems of twyre, and a cattle brand in the shape of a strange symbol.
Upon receiving his inheritance, Artemiy checks in on the Young Vlad who lives nearby, learning from him that his father actually has a 'secret lab', a small basement in one of the warehouses where Artemiy can stay hidden. Vlad leads him to the lab and shows him around, explaining the various apparatuses that are on the work tables which can be used to brew twyrine and make serums from infected tissues and blood. Experimenting with one of the recipes his father had given him, Artemiy creates a brew of twyrine extract.
He then heads off to find the Bachelor who had sent him a letter asking about the nature of his inheritance. Visiting the Bachelor, Artemiy tells him what he found in the lockbox, and Daniel is disappointed to hear that the recipe for the Panacea was not included. He is, however, pleased to hear that Artemiy possesses some of the clues to the mystery of brewing the Panacea, and studies the twyrine brew that Artemiy had made. With a bit of discussion, the Bachelor encourages for the two of them to continue working together, and requests that Artemiy keep experimenting.
With some free time, Artemiy is able to visit the tavern that Andrei Stamatin runs, and learns that Andrei is willing to help him out with his financial crisis in exchange for ten brown twyre. Upon returning with the twyre stems, Artemiy comes across Maria Kain who is standing near the tavern's entrance. She asks Artemiy to please convince the two Stamatin twins not to skip town. (Not sure if you can help them both out or if you can only help one or the other out?) Helping the Stamatins gets him four thousand coins and a shop location that Artemiy can exploit for some extra profit. Helping Maria gets him five thousand coins and a twyrine recipe.
Day 3:
Prices have dropped some, but milk is no longer available after a certain point in the day. The cows are, for some strange reason, no longer producing milk, but instead a black ichor. (It's extremely worrying.)
Artemiy receives a letter from Big Vlad in the morning requesting to speak about the contents of his inheritance, and goes to visit him. Big Vlad learned about the strange brand in Artemiy's possession and its relation to one of Artemiy's Adherents through Kapella (likely through her visions.) Big Vlad wants to assist Artemiy in exploring his heritage and discovering the meaning of what his father left behind, especially if it will help in the discovery of the Panacea.
He informs Artemiy that the brand is actually one of the ancient hieroglyphics of the steppe people; only butchers really know their meaning. However, most of the butchers were locked up in the Apiary, which is closed off in order to keep out (or keep in) the plague so that it doesn't spread. Big Vlad informs Artemiy that some of these butchers did escape, though, and that Ospina knows the whereabouts of several of them. Heading to Ospina, Artemiy agrees to keep their location secret as long as she helps him out.
Unfortunately, Artemiy learns that the butcher Ospina marked on his map is in the middle of an infected district. Entering the district, Artemiy must be careful to avoid both rats and the diseased wandering the streets. Upon entering the house in which the butcher is staying, however, he becomes infected with the disease (it is pretty much completely unavoidable.) Luckily, the infection takes quite a long time to overwhelm a person, and so Artemiy is lightheaded but still doing alright.
Quickly talking to the butcher, Artemiy learns that the brand is meant to mark people who are not human, and instead is the mark of a fearsome god akin to the bull deity of the steppe, Bos Turokh. However, the butcher can not discern who exactly the mark represents, and reveals that only the Elder of the Order, Oyun, knows its exact meaning. Heading back to Big Vlad with these results, Artemiy requests for Vlad to arrange a meeting between himself and Oyun. Big Vlad tells him that such an assembly isn't exactly wise, as Elder Oyun has a great disdain for the Burakh family. On top of this, Oyun isn't in town at the moment and isn't expected to return for several days, putting Artemiy's quest for the nature of the brand on hold.
In the meantime, Kapella speaks with Artemiy and tells him that her visions told her that Notkin was in some kind of danger. Since Notkin is one of Artemiy's Adherents, he decides to check into the matter and discovers that bandits are standing outside of Notkin's hideout, armed with knives, having been sent by Griff. Speaking with Griff, it turns out that he really didn't mean to harm the children, only kill their dogs which he'd deemed too dangerous. Still, the bandits looked ready to cut down just about anyone, so Artemiy asks Griff to call off his men. Griff agrees, but only if Artemiy will convince the Bachelor to come and do business with him.
Heading to the Bachelor both on Griff's request and due to a letter he received requesting his help, Artemiy learns that Daniel actually needs some help as well: he requires some infected blood so that he may study the nature of the disease and perhaps make a vaccine out of it, but Daniel isn't allowed to mess with dead bodies due to the traditions of the steppe people. Getting a sample for him, Artemiy receives some medicine in return and is able to convince him to seek out Griff's services.
Having pleased Griff, Griff calls off his men, and Notkin and the Dualsouls are safe once more. He thanks Artemiy by offering him a rifle and tells him that he's planning to send out scouts to map out infected districts. Notkin asks Artemiy to help him prepare his scouts by making ten defensive twyrine brews for them, in exchange for cheap maps. (This request is extremely over the top though, and can barely be finished unless proper preparations are made way in advance. I doubt Artemiy agreed in the end, or icly he possibly just gave Notkin what he could spare.)
Returning to Kapella, Artemiy assures her that Notkin is going to be alright, and that Griff and his men were taken care of. In her thanks, Kapella gives him one thousand coins.
Day 4:
In the morning, Artemiy receives a letter from the Bachelor asking him to come by immediately, saying that he is having some troubles in his partnership with Rubin and that Rubin is hiding things from him. Visiting him, Daniel reveals that he and Rubin were working together on a vaccine, but the blood Daniel had received from Artemiy contained no sample of the Sand Plague; apparently the plague can not live for very long in dead blood. Because of this, Daniel is wondering where exactly Rubin is getting his own samples of the plague, and Rubin refuses to tell him. He hopes that Artemiy will be able to get the information out of him since the two used to be good friends. However, Artemiy reminds the Bachelor that Rubin doesn't trust him and has been sending him threats all this time.
The Bachelor assures him that his name has finally been cleared with Rubin, as he extensively explained Artemiy's feats and innocence until finally Rubin had no choice but to believe him. Reluctantly, Artemiy decides to trust the Bachelor's word on this, and asks him where to find the man, but Daniel refuses to give away Rubin's position, not wanting to sacrifice Rubin's trust in him. Instead, he asks Artemiy to speak to Lara about Rubin's whereabouts. Heading up to Lara's nearby house, she hesitantly reveals to Artemiy that Rubin was hiding ironically very nearby Artemiy's own little hideout.
Deciding not to head there immediately, as there was still plenty of time in the day, Artemiy instead checks up on his Adherents, and assists both Notkin and Spichka during the day. The two reward him with both weaponry and ammo for his help.
Finally, visiting Rubin, Artemiy learns that Rubin had indeed changed his mind about him and begs for his forgiveness. Artemiy agrees, though only in exchange for the whole truth about Rubin's actions and suspicions. Rubin reveals that his suspicions were rooted in the fact that the way Isidor was murdered could have only been done by someone who knows the lines, a very skilled menkhu, and that Artemiy had all of the motives to kill him. Rubin also reveals that the reason he is hiding and being so secretive about the process by which he's making the vaccines is because he's been desecrating the body of Simon Kain. Apparently, Simon Kain's blood is superhuman, and capable of actually fighting off the infection and even living without a body to provide oxygen for it. The Kains, however, are furious with him for stealing the body, and are hunting him down. With all of this information, Artemiy agrees to forgive him for the time being and wishes his old 'friend' good luck.
Upon exiting Rubin's hideout, however, Artemiy is ambushed, attacked by a huge swarm of guards and completely overwhelmed. He is knocked out cold and dragged away. It looks as though he was set up...
Day 5:
Artemiy wakes up in a guarded jail cell, disoriented and completely unarmed. What's worse, the jail is full of terrible disease, making him extremely sick with every breath he takes. One of the guards seemed to have even died from this plague, and was lying dead on the floor near his cell. Quickly scrambling for his things, Artemiy picks the guard clean of medicine and a knife on his person, able to keep himself alive with the meds just long enough to stab one of the guards and force him to open his cell.
Killing the guards to make it out, it seems as though Artemiy's reputation is just as bad as it had been on the first day when he had initially arrived. However, helping others who were ill in the prison with what medicine he can spare raises his reputation just enough to make sure that he wouldn't be attacked at every corner.
Upon exiting the prison and regaining his senses, recovering with what medicines he can use on himself and what little rest he can manage to get, Artemiy receives two letters: one from the Bachelor and one from Young Vlad.
The Bachelor is his major priority as the one who can help him work towards the Panacea, but on top of this the Bachelor would likely know something about the details of his arrest... perhaps more than he lets on.
Finding the Bachelor in the Slough, Artemiy learns that the Bachelor actually wasn't responsible for his imprisonment and had been instead looking for a way to rescue him. He was very thankful to see that Artemiy had escaped.
(It's good to note here that Artemiy never really learns the details of his arrest and is mostly left to wonder why he was arrested, so his suspicions are mostly set on the Bachelor even though the Bachelor claims innocence. However, in Daniel's playthrough, Daniel actually rescues Artemiy from prison by force, making it extremely obvious in that scenario that he wasn't responsible. We learn in Daniel's playthrough that Artemiy's arrest was on the orders of Alexander Saburov, who was able to override the Olgimsky family's protection once he'd been assigned complete authority of the town.)
Daniel requests that Artemiy help him out once more as a Haruspex, asking this time for a fresh infected organ so that he may study the disease better. He asks Artemiy to find a heart of one of the children of Boddho: either a butcher, a bride, or a worm, though he'd prefer Artemiy kill a butcher since the brides serve his friends, the Stamatins, as dancers.
(There's more divergence that goes on here, really, since the game is pretty fluid in how you obtain the infected organ for Daniel. If you find and talk to Vera, an adopted bride to the Hump and a dancer at the tavern, before speaking to Daniel, she'll inform you that she has an appointment near Isidor's house and will be waiting there all alone, making her a vulnerable target. On the other hand, you can speak to Ospina and she'll tell you that three butchers are out in the steppe planning to sacrifice a bride to the earth to try and stop the plague. Here, you can either kill the three butchers and take their hearts, or you can kill the bride and take hers.
The most 'canon' choice of the three of these, though arguably one of the more senseless considering it hurts your reputation, is to kill Vera behind Peter Stamatin's house; this is the choice that Artemiy made in Daniel's scenario, and since it's offered in this scenario, I'm going to stick with this one. Also Artemiy probably really wanted to spite the Bachelor for leaving him to die in that prison cell.)
Actually, Anna Angel will send Artemiy a letter requesting that he kill Vera (likely because of Vera's connections to the Crystal Caravan and her knowledge of Anna's dark past.) Deciding it was probably the easiest course of action, and also as a nice screw you to the Bachelor, Artemiy kills Vera and takes her heart, receiving a reward of three thousand coins from Anna in return, though a slightly soiled reputation.
Of course, offering up Vera's heart to the Bachelor makes him rather furious that he attacked the person Daniel specifically said to leave alone, and Artemiy receives nothing in return for his efforts from him. Well, nothing immediately apparent anyway.
After helping the Bachelor, Artemiy decides to visit Young Vlad and see what he needs help with. Apparently Young Vlad had been digging deep down into the earth, something strictly forbidden as the earth is viewed as a living creature, the mother Boddho. He'd been trying to look for water, as water underground fascinates him for some strange reason, but instead found some caves where strange noises were coming up. The ones who were working on the well with Young Vlad suddenly became very superstitious and refused to go down underneath, believing that Boddho would punish them for digging so deep. So, of course, he asks Artemiy to go down into the well and check out what's been going on.
Traveling through the dark tunnels with a kerosene lamp, Artemiy notices that the walls look like they're made not of rock or dirt, but of blood and flesh instead... being somewhat superstitious himself, on some level he does truly believe that he's walking through the veins of Boddho herself. As he turns down the winding tunnels, Artemiy hears voices echoing through the caverns, the voice of Isidor whispering strange and unintelligible things to him. He finds himself believing that perhaps he's gone insane down in those tunnels.
Finally reaching the end, Artemiy discovers a strange and deceptive creature with the small body of a man and the head of the rat, who introduces himself as the Rat Prophet. Seeing through the rat's ruses, Artemiy calls him out on his trickery and the prophet reveals that he indeed had been trying to scare Artemiy with the voice of his dead father. With an aching head, wondering how he'd come to hallucinate such terrible things, Artemiy exits the tunnels near the theater, apparently where the end of the tunnel lead to. Heading all the way back to Vlad, he reports his experiences and finds out that the Rat Prophet actually wasn't a hallucination, but a creature that had been spotted by many people in town. Vlad thanks Artemiy for his help with some money.
After this, Artemiy returns to his hideout to rest and heal from the day's long and arduous tasks.
Day 6:
Arsonists are now overrunning the town, throwing molotovs. There is no explanation for this in Artemiy's playthrough, but it turns out in Daniel's playthrough that they are actually lead by the Hump, furious over his daughter's death. (whoops, sorry about that)
Shortly after midnight, Artemiy receives a letter from the Bachelor discussing the results of the blood he'd taken. It seems as though Vera's blood actually did have some effect, but the results were ultimately inconclusive, which is bad news for the pair. Visiting him in the morning to discuss the results in detail, Artemiy learns that while children of Boddho do have special antibodies that help clean the blood of the Sand Plague, the plague reproduces too rapidly and eventually overwhelms the antibodies. They need to discover a way to slow the plague down so that the antibodies can actually take hold.
Daniel eventually comes to the conclusion that perhaps the answer could be found in the bulls' blood since they had been, so far, mostly unaffected by the disease. He asks Artemiy to inject a bull with the disease and get a sample of its blood. Artemiy agrees, though he's unsure where he'll find a bull since most of them had been slaughtered for food in the recent panic for supplies.
After speaking to the Bachelor, Artemiy receives two letters: one from Klara and one from Anna Angel.
Day 7:
-The Inquisitor, Aglaja, arrives in the capital.
-Artemiy finally discovers the Panacea.
Day 8:
Day 9:
Day 10:
Day 11:
Day 12:
-Artemiy must check on all of the Adherents of both Daniel and Klara to make sure that they're all alive and not infected, and heal them with either powder or the Panacea if they are infected
-He also gets a letter from the Authorities to visit them in the Polyhedron, and discovers that the town is actually just a sand castle, and he is just a doll in a game played by children.
-At the council at the Cathedral, he needs to make a choice between saving the town and destryoing the Polyhedron, or saving the Polyhedron and destroying the town, or preserving both for another few decades by sacrificing Klara's Adherents. Artemiy's default ending is to save the town.
Artemiy arrives in town after walking through the Steppe, having been too impatient to wait for a scheduled train. He shows up by the train station and is immediately assaulted by a gang of thugs. Fighting for his life, Aremiy manages to kill those who assaulted him; only one of the people who attacked him escapes the fight alive, with terrible wounds. Artemiy himself is terribly wounded from the battle, and learns that his reputation has been besmirched, as people are claiming he's a murderer known as The Ripper.
Trying to avoid an angry mob, Artemiy ends up ducking in to a small abandoned warehouse full of children, where he meets a young teen named Notkin, leader of a children's gang known as Dualsouls. Notkin asks him to help out with a traitor that had stolen medicine from them, in return for a Powder, and Artemiy agrees. Investigating the matter some more, Artemiy discovers Griff, the leader of thieves and robbers, has had a similar problem with a traitor in his group. Both Griff and Notkin request that Artemiy kill this man, but Artemiy ends up sparing the man, restoring some of his good name by showing mercy. He also learns from Griff that the survivor of their fight made it all the way to the cemetery, where he lays dying, and the Haruspex keeps in mind that he may want to check after the man to restore some of his reputation.
From a letter he received from his father, he learns that he should meet with the Olgimsky family to receive his inheritance in case of his father's untimely death. Uncertain of his father's whereabouts, Artemiy has no choice but to visit Big Vlad Olgimsky; however, he learns that Big Vlad is out and won't be home until later, and instead becomes acquainted with his young teenage daughter Kapella. She confides in him some prophetic feelings that she'd been having (as an up and coming Mistress), and he agrees to help her with her goals. In return, Kapella gives him a list of Adherents, a group of children whom she is in charge of that she wants Artemiy to look after. Apparently his father had watched over them beforehand, and their fate is very bleak. Unless Artemiy interferes with their destinies, they could meet a terrible end. Kapella, in fact, happens to be on this list of Adherents.
In the meantime, the Haruspex decides to visit the cemetery and find the man who'd attacked him. Artemiy meets Laska, the young girl who tends the graveyard, there. It turns out that the man needs a blood transfusion or else he will die. Desperate to repair his reputation so that people may stop attacking him, Artemiy performs a blood transfusion that nearly leaves him dead due to his wounds from earlier in the day. The man thanks him and spreads word of Artemiy's mercy and sacrifice.
Once Big Vlad returns, Artemiy meets with him and learns that his father is indeed deceased. What's more, he learns that he was murdered, and that Artemiy is being blamed for his death, as well as Simon Kain's death and the deaths of several other men. Due to these accusations, the Bachelor, an ally of the Kains who wish to find Simon's killer, has been tasked to investigate the matter, and threatens to cut down Artemiy if he sees him. Not wishing for any conflict and instead waiting for the Bachelor to finish his investigation and cool down, Artemiy visits him in the evening and sets him straight. Evidence shows that he is innocent, so Artemiy's name is cleared. However, it seems as though not everyone is convinced. His childhood friend, Stakh Rubin, who was Isidor's most loyal student, still believes Artemiy to be the murderer, and sends him threatening letters.
Curious to learn about what happened to his father, Artemiy talks to Kapella who directs him to go and investigate his father's home. The door is guarded, however, and Artemiy is attacked by the guard who still believes him to be his father's murderer returning to the scene of the crime. Killing him and a few other guards, he picks up the key to his father's home and enters, finding the young boy Spichka, one of his Adherents, hiding in there. The house itself looks diseased and the bedroom is completely covered in blood. Spichka tells Artemiy that he'd been hiding in the cupboard when Isidor had a visitor late at night, and heard a loud fight outside the cupboard. The one who visited him is later confirmed to be the Elder who killed him. The poor boy hid in the cupboard all night long until the guards discovered the crime and took Isidor's body away. Spichka also directs Artemiy to Mishka, a young girl who is also one of his adherents, who gives a similar account, also claiming to have heard a woman.
He must wait for the following day to receive his inheritance from his father.
Day 2:
Prices go up about five to ten times on this day, due to severe fear regarding the plague that is rumored to be spreading through town. Water stops running from pumps and fountains on the streets. (The reason for the water flow stopping is not explained in The Haruspex scenario, but is explained in The Bachelor scenario. Some crazy townspeople thought that the water was causing the plague and so they blew up the pipes.)
Come morning, Artemiy speaks with Big Vlad about receiving his inheritance. Vlad tells him that while he is capable of receiving his inheritance that his father left him, he needs the key his father left behind, which is in possession of the town's ruler, Alexander Saburov. Unfortunately, Saburov doesn't trust Artemiy since his wife, Catherine Saburov, had mysterious visions that Artemiy would make a great and bloody sacrifice later down the road (Catherine is a Mistress and has some clairvoyance.) Because of this mistrust, the Saburovs could have his head at any moment, and so Big Vlad suggests that Artemiy find his son, Young Vlad, who knows of a place where he can stay hidden. Seeking out Saburov, Artemiy attempts to (and mostly fails to) convince Catherine of his innocence, then speaks to Alexander. While the both of them still don't trust him, he's allowed to receive the key to the lockbox with his inheritance in it.
Artemiy finds the one keeping his inheritance safe, a young woman named Ospina living near the Project of Bulls. Being very respectful of Isidor, Ospina managed to protect and save Artemiy's inheritance after Isidor's death, which was nearly taken away on order of the authorities. In her scramble, however, some papers were stolen, probably papers that pertained to the recipe for the Panacea. Opening up the box, Artemiy receives a little more than four thousand coins, some twyrine brew recipes, many different and rare stems of twyre, and a cattle brand in the shape of a strange symbol.
Upon receiving his inheritance, Artemiy checks in on the Young Vlad who lives nearby, learning from him that his father actually has a 'secret lab', a small basement in one of the warehouses where Artemiy can stay hidden. Vlad leads him to the lab and shows him around, explaining the various apparatuses that are on the work tables which can be used to brew twyrine and make serums from infected tissues and blood. Experimenting with one of the recipes his father had given him, Artemiy creates a brew of twyrine extract.
He then heads off to find the Bachelor who had sent him a letter asking about the nature of his inheritance. Visiting the Bachelor, Artemiy tells him what he found in the lockbox, and Daniel is disappointed to hear that the recipe for the Panacea was not included. He is, however, pleased to hear that Artemiy possesses some of the clues to the mystery of brewing the Panacea, and studies the twyrine brew that Artemiy had made. With a bit of discussion, the Bachelor encourages for the two of them to continue working together, and requests that Artemiy keep experimenting.
With some free time, Artemiy is able to visit the tavern that Andrei Stamatin runs, and learns that Andrei is willing to help him out with his financial crisis in exchange for ten brown twyre. Upon returning with the twyre stems, Artemiy comes across Maria Kain who is standing near the tavern's entrance. She asks Artemiy to please convince the two Stamatin twins not to skip town. (Not sure if you can help them both out or if you can only help one or the other out?) Helping the Stamatins gets him four thousand coins and a shop location that Artemiy can exploit for some extra profit. Helping Maria gets him five thousand coins and a twyrine recipe.
Day 3:
Prices have dropped some, but milk is no longer available after a certain point in the day. The cows are, for some strange reason, no longer producing milk, but instead a black ichor. (It's extremely worrying.)
Artemiy receives a letter from Big Vlad in the morning requesting to speak about the contents of his inheritance, and goes to visit him. Big Vlad learned about the strange brand in Artemiy's possession and its relation to one of Artemiy's Adherents through Kapella (likely through her visions.) Big Vlad wants to assist Artemiy in exploring his heritage and discovering the meaning of what his father left behind, especially if it will help in the discovery of the Panacea.
He informs Artemiy that the brand is actually one of the ancient hieroglyphics of the steppe people; only butchers really know their meaning. However, most of the butchers were locked up in the Apiary, which is closed off in order to keep out (or keep in) the plague so that it doesn't spread. Big Vlad informs Artemiy that some of these butchers did escape, though, and that Ospina knows the whereabouts of several of them. Heading to Ospina, Artemiy agrees to keep their location secret as long as she helps him out.
Unfortunately, Artemiy learns that the butcher Ospina marked on his map is in the middle of an infected district. Entering the district, Artemiy must be careful to avoid both rats and the diseased wandering the streets. Upon entering the house in which the butcher is staying, however, he becomes infected with the disease (it is pretty much completely unavoidable.) Luckily, the infection takes quite a long time to overwhelm a person, and so Artemiy is lightheaded but still doing alright.
Quickly talking to the butcher, Artemiy learns that the brand is meant to mark people who are not human, and instead is the mark of a fearsome god akin to the bull deity of the steppe, Bos Turokh. However, the butcher can not discern who exactly the mark represents, and reveals that only the Elder of the Order, Oyun, knows its exact meaning. Heading back to Big Vlad with these results, Artemiy requests for Vlad to arrange a meeting between himself and Oyun. Big Vlad tells him that such an assembly isn't exactly wise, as Elder Oyun has a great disdain for the Burakh family. On top of this, Oyun isn't in town at the moment and isn't expected to return for several days, putting Artemiy's quest for the nature of the brand on hold.
In the meantime, Kapella speaks with Artemiy and tells him that her visions told her that Notkin was in some kind of danger. Since Notkin is one of Artemiy's Adherents, he decides to check into the matter and discovers that bandits are standing outside of Notkin's hideout, armed with knives, having been sent by Griff. Speaking with Griff, it turns out that he really didn't mean to harm the children, only kill their dogs which he'd deemed too dangerous. Still, the bandits looked ready to cut down just about anyone, so Artemiy asks Griff to call off his men. Griff agrees, but only if Artemiy will convince the Bachelor to come and do business with him.
Heading to the Bachelor both on Griff's request and due to a letter he received requesting his help, Artemiy learns that Daniel actually needs some help as well: he requires some infected blood so that he may study the nature of the disease and perhaps make a vaccine out of it, but Daniel isn't allowed to mess with dead bodies due to the traditions of the steppe people. Getting a sample for him, Artemiy receives some medicine in return and is able to convince him to seek out Griff's services.
Having pleased Griff, Griff calls off his men, and Notkin and the Dualsouls are safe once more. He thanks Artemiy by offering him a rifle and tells him that he's planning to send out scouts to map out infected districts. Notkin asks Artemiy to help him prepare his scouts by making ten defensive twyrine brews for them, in exchange for cheap maps. (This request is extremely over the top though, and can barely be finished unless proper preparations are made way in advance. I doubt Artemiy agreed in the end, or icly he possibly just gave Notkin what he could spare.)
Returning to Kapella, Artemiy assures her that Notkin is going to be alright, and that Griff and his men were taken care of. In her thanks, Kapella gives him one thousand coins.
Day 4:
In the morning, Artemiy receives a letter from the Bachelor asking him to come by immediately, saying that he is having some troubles in his partnership with Rubin and that Rubin is hiding things from him. Visiting him, Daniel reveals that he and Rubin were working together on a vaccine, but the blood Daniel had received from Artemiy contained no sample of the Sand Plague; apparently the plague can not live for very long in dead blood. Because of this, Daniel is wondering where exactly Rubin is getting his own samples of the plague, and Rubin refuses to tell him. He hopes that Artemiy will be able to get the information out of him since the two used to be good friends. However, Artemiy reminds the Bachelor that Rubin doesn't trust him and has been sending him threats all this time.
The Bachelor assures him that his name has finally been cleared with Rubin, as he extensively explained Artemiy's feats and innocence until finally Rubin had no choice but to believe him. Reluctantly, Artemiy decides to trust the Bachelor's word on this, and asks him where to find the man, but Daniel refuses to give away Rubin's position, not wanting to sacrifice Rubin's trust in him. Instead, he asks Artemiy to speak to Lara about Rubin's whereabouts. Heading up to Lara's nearby house, she hesitantly reveals to Artemiy that Rubin was hiding ironically very nearby Artemiy's own little hideout.
Deciding not to head there immediately, as there was still plenty of time in the day, Artemiy instead checks up on his Adherents, and assists both Notkin and Spichka during the day. The two reward him with both weaponry and ammo for his help.
Finally, visiting Rubin, Artemiy learns that Rubin had indeed changed his mind about him and begs for his forgiveness. Artemiy agrees, though only in exchange for the whole truth about Rubin's actions and suspicions. Rubin reveals that his suspicions were rooted in the fact that the way Isidor was murdered could have only been done by someone who knows the lines, a very skilled menkhu, and that Artemiy had all of the motives to kill him. Rubin also reveals that the reason he is hiding and being so secretive about the process by which he's making the vaccines is because he's been desecrating the body of Simon Kain. Apparently, Simon Kain's blood is superhuman, and capable of actually fighting off the infection and even living without a body to provide oxygen for it. The Kains, however, are furious with him for stealing the body, and are hunting him down. With all of this information, Artemiy agrees to forgive him for the time being and wishes his old 'friend' good luck.
Upon exiting Rubin's hideout, however, Artemiy is ambushed, attacked by a huge swarm of guards and completely overwhelmed. He is knocked out cold and dragged away. It looks as though he was set up...
Day 5:
Artemiy wakes up in a guarded jail cell, disoriented and completely unarmed. What's worse, the jail is full of terrible disease, making him extremely sick with every breath he takes. One of the guards seemed to have even died from this plague, and was lying dead on the floor near his cell. Quickly scrambling for his things, Artemiy picks the guard clean of medicine and a knife on his person, able to keep himself alive with the meds just long enough to stab one of the guards and force him to open his cell.
Killing the guards to make it out, it seems as though Artemiy's reputation is just as bad as it had been on the first day when he had initially arrived. However, helping others who were ill in the prison with what medicine he can spare raises his reputation just enough to make sure that he wouldn't be attacked at every corner.
Upon exiting the prison and regaining his senses, recovering with what medicines he can use on himself and what little rest he can manage to get, Artemiy receives two letters: one from the Bachelor and one from Young Vlad.
The Bachelor is his major priority as the one who can help him work towards the Panacea, but on top of this the Bachelor would likely know something about the details of his arrest... perhaps more than he lets on.
Finding the Bachelor in the Slough, Artemiy learns that the Bachelor actually wasn't responsible for his imprisonment and had been instead looking for a way to rescue him. He was very thankful to see that Artemiy had escaped.
(It's good to note here that Artemiy never really learns the details of his arrest and is mostly left to wonder why he was arrested, so his suspicions are mostly set on the Bachelor even though the Bachelor claims innocence. However, in Daniel's playthrough, Daniel actually rescues Artemiy from prison by force, making it extremely obvious in that scenario that he wasn't responsible. We learn in Daniel's playthrough that Artemiy's arrest was on the orders of Alexander Saburov, who was able to override the Olgimsky family's protection once he'd been assigned complete authority of the town.)
Daniel requests that Artemiy help him out once more as a Haruspex, asking this time for a fresh infected organ so that he may study the disease better. He asks Artemiy to find a heart of one of the children of Boddho: either a butcher, a bride, or a worm, though he'd prefer Artemiy kill a butcher since the brides serve his friends, the Stamatins, as dancers.
(There's more divergence that goes on here, really, since the game is pretty fluid in how you obtain the infected organ for Daniel. If you find and talk to Vera, an adopted bride to the Hump and a dancer at the tavern, before speaking to Daniel, she'll inform you that she has an appointment near Isidor's house and will be waiting there all alone, making her a vulnerable target. On the other hand, you can speak to Ospina and she'll tell you that three butchers are out in the steppe planning to sacrifice a bride to the earth to try and stop the plague. Here, you can either kill the three butchers and take their hearts, or you can kill the bride and take hers.
The most 'canon' choice of the three of these, though arguably one of the more senseless considering it hurts your reputation, is to kill Vera behind Peter Stamatin's house; this is the choice that Artemiy made in Daniel's scenario, and since it's offered in this scenario, I'm going to stick with this one. Also Artemiy probably really wanted to spite the Bachelor for leaving him to die in that prison cell.)
Actually, Anna Angel will send Artemiy a letter requesting that he kill Vera (likely because of Vera's connections to the Crystal Caravan and her knowledge of Anna's dark past.) Deciding it was probably the easiest course of action, and also as a nice screw you to the Bachelor, Artemiy kills Vera and takes her heart, receiving a reward of three thousand coins from Anna in return, though a slightly soiled reputation.
Of course, offering up Vera's heart to the Bachelor makes him rather furious that he attacked the person Daniel specifically said to leave alone, and Artemiy receives nothing in return for his efforts from him. Well, nothing immediately apparent anyway.
After helping the Bachelor, Artemiy decides to visit Young Vlad and see what he needs help with. Apparently Young Vlad had been digging deep down into the earth, something strictly forbidden as the earth is viewed as a living creature, the mother Boddho. He'd been trying to look for water, as water underground fascinates him for some strange reason, but instead found some caves where strange noises were coming up. The ones who were working on the well with Young Vlad suddenly became very superstitious and refused to go down underneath, believing that Boddho would punish them for digging so deep. So, of course, he asks Artemiy to go down into the well and check out what's been going on.
Traveling through the dark tunnels with a kerosene lamp, Artemiy notices that the walls look like they're made not of rock or dirt, but of blood and flesh instead... being somewhat superstitious himself, on some level he does truly believe that he's walking through the veins of Boddho herself. As he turns down the winding tunnels, Artemiy hears voices echoing through the caverns, the voice of Isidor whispering strange and unintelligible things to him. He finds himself believing that perhaps he's gone insane down in those tunnels.
Finally reaching the end, Artemiy discovers a strange and deceptive creature with the small body of a man and the head of the rat, who introduces himself as the Rat Prophet. Seeing through the rat's ruses, Artemiy calls him out on his trickery and the prophet reveals that he indeed had been trying to scare Artemiy with the voice of his dead father. With an aching head, wondering how he'd come to hallucinate such terrible things, Artemiy exits the tunnels near the theater, apparently where the end of the tunnel lead to. Heading all the way back to Vlad, he reports his experiences and finds out that the Rat Prophet actually wasn't a hallucination, but a creature that had been spotted by many people in town. Vlad thanks Artemiy for his help with some money.
After this, Artemiy returns to his hideout to rest and heal from the day's long and arduous tasks.
Day 6:
Arsonists are now overrunning the town, throwing molotovs. There is no explanation for this in Artemiy's playthrough, but it turns out in Daniel's playthrough that they are actually lead by the Hump, furious over his daughter's death. (whoops, sorry about that)
Shortly after midnight, Artemiy receives a letter from the Bachelor discussing the results of the blood he'd taken. It seems as though Vera's blood actually did have some effect, but the results were ultimately inconclusive, which is bad news for the pair. Visiting him in the morning to discuss the results in detail, Artemiy learns that while children of Boddho do have special antibodies that help clean the blood of the Sand Plague, the plague reproduces too rapidly and eventually overwhelms the antibodies. They need to discover a way to slow the plague down so that the antibodies can actually take hold.
Daniel eventually comes to the conclusion that perhaps the answer could be found in the bulls' blood since they had been, so far, mostly unaffected by the disease. He asks Artemiy to inject a bull with the disease and get a sample of its blood. Artemiy agrees, though he's unsure where he'll find a bull since most of them had been slaughtered for food in the recent panic for supplies.
After speaking to the Bachelor, Artemiy receives two letters: one from Klara and one from Anna Angel.
Day 7:
-The Inquisitor, Aglaja, arrives in the capital.
-Artemiy finally discovers the Panacea.
Day 8:
Day 9:
Day 10:
Day 11:
Day 12:
-Artemiy must check on all of the Adherents of both Daniel and Klara to make sure that they're all alive and not infected, and heal them with either powder or the Panacea if they are infected
-He also gets a letter from the Authorities to visit them in the Polyhedron, and discovers that the town is actually just a sand castle, and he is just a doll in a game played by children.
-At the council at the Cathedral, he needs to make a choice between saving the town and destryoing the Polyhedron, or saving the Polyhedron and destroying the town, or preserving both for another few decades by sacrificing Klara's Adherents. Artemiy's default ending is to save the town.