Pathologic - The Tower

*Spoilers*

Big Vlad died. There was a Beak outside his house, but instead of the infected speech, he told me the owner of the house was dead. I wonder how it happened. Oh well, he wasn't one of my adherents.

I'm convinced I was right about those soldiers originally assigned to patrol Julia's house (and apparently reassigned to hunt me down). Killing them hurts my reputation almost inconsequentially, compared to killing any of the other soldiers stationed around town. There were five of them, but unfortunately, only three spit up rifles. Lucky for me, I already had two rifles in my possession. The first is the one I bought for taking out the Hump-man, and the second one was given to me as a gift the day after (the day after I really needed it...).

So I was able to hand the rifles over to Kahn, but now I don't have a rifle. It's back to my old revolver. Plus I've still got my trusty knife. We'll see if I'll actually need the rifle again sometime between now and when this nightmare ends. If I do, I'll be in a jam. So Kahn let me see the inside of the Polyhedron. There are kids inside, and weird writings on the walls, and stairs going up. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but Kahn explained something about kids going into their dreams in there. Who knows.

To my surprise, the Inquisitor has been in contact with the Haruspicus. But he's been less than totally informant about his plans, so she sent me to check up on him. I found him back in the Apiary. He apparently has easier access to the Abattoir than I do, as he was headed there again. I told him to check up on the ground theory of infection while he was in there, seeing as the Abattoir allegedly has some connection to the underground. I might have my facts wrong, but I think there's a layer of clay under the ground, and then below that, there's some kind of metal ore or something that carries the infection. So breaking the layer of clay might have been the start of it. But I don't have solid details about that yet, and I have yet to hear back from the Haruspicus, if I do hear back from him (we're winding down to the last days here).

The morning of Day 10 revealed a strange sign to the town - a bull impaled on the Bone Pillar, not far from the "silent house" where Isidor Burakh the mentalist/medic/something (and incidentally, the Haruspicus' father, I am led to believe) died the day I arrived in town (it was the very first infected house I explored). Townsfolk (and some Worms) were gathered around the impaled bull saying that it was a sign - the bull represented the town, and the pillar represented the "Tower", or the Polyhedron. They took it to mean that the Kain family was responsible for the epidemic, in that the disease came to punish the Kains for defying natural law (I guess, I'm just trying to put all the pieces together).

Petr, the architect who built the Polyhedron (and one of my adherents), is preparing himself for death. He raves on about spirituality and magic in his architecture, saying that he built not houses, but containers for a 'soul'. It's all very confusing, but it ties into what the Kains have been talking about, trying to fix Simon's soul in the Polyhedron and whatnot. I'm not sure why Petr is so convinced about dying, but there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it.

Meanwhile, Catherine (Saburov's wife, the prophet) told me she senses Simon's presence in the Kains' residence. I have a feeling it's finally time to get to the bottom of just who or what this Simon really is. Although something tells me it's still not going to be easy to understand. At any rate, the General's getting an itchy trigger finger, and the final decision on how to deal with the town will be made within the next couple days...