One night the party received a visitor desperate for their help.
The characters are at the Winter Wolf one night around 10 p.m., finalizing some minor money business from the sale of the Durst etc. They're surprised when Brunn (one of the naturalists they met) comes in, red-faced and in a sweat, saying an angry mob is gathered around Werner's sanctuary and they're afraid of what could happen.
The sanctuary was only about a thousand feet from the Winter Wolf, and the party opted to take the hidden sewer route into the sanctuary, like they had when they traveled between the sanctuary and Meade Hospital in Game 2. Coming out of the sewer in the sanctuary's courtyard, they found a cannon, aimed at the courtyard gate the crowd was trying to get into. They climbed to the courtyard's catwalk overlooking the street, where Werner and the midwife Wren were trying to placate the mob below.
When they get there, they see a large mob - 100 people - is there with torches. They're pounding on the gate and shouting for Werner to open it. If asked what they want, they say that some of them followed an unnatural creature - some kind of abomination - to the building and Werner must hand it over so they can destroy it.
From the balcony, Werner says there's no creature there - he says he's a doctor and the "abomination" they saw was simply a sick old man who came to him for healing. The crowd says if it was just a guy, how come he was naked and running like scared animal? They say he was naked and misshapen, and they're going to lynch it. He says he will protect the sanctuary with force and they should go away.
But, the mob knew they'd seen an abomination and couldn't be convinced to leave. As they started to force the gate, a few angry townsfolk also found their way into the courtyard through the sewer, just as the party had. Some had the stats of bandit leaders while others had the stats of duelists.
The party jumped back down from the catwalk to the courtyard to fight them, ultimately defeating them. In the chaos, Aeris also touched off the cannon there, accidentally on purpose, blowing the gate to splinters and dispersing the mob outside.
Werner thanked the party for helping him with the mob, but said he also needed their help with the person who'd come to him.
After the characters resolve the situation at the gate, Werner comes clean and says that the mob was actually right that a desperate...person...came to the sanctuary asking him for shelter. You notice that although Werner was confident in dealing with the mob, he seems shaken by the prospect of dealing with this person and he asks you to come along and help him.
He takes the party to a basement. It seems to have been a wine cellar at some time in the past, but now it's just a dirt-floored basement with empty wine racks lining the walls. In one of the rack-lined aisles, there's a single torch burning in a wall bracket and there's a person cowering there, sitting on a chair wrapped in a blanket. When the characters arrive, he takes the torch from the wall in case he has to defend himself from the party.
The characters can see that he is indeed very pale, his head is shaved with some serious scars and stitches, and the arm not holding the torch seems to be broken. Because of the blanket, you can't see his body but you can imagine how people on the street could be alarmed by his appearance. With much calming and persuasion (a skill roll?), you can get this person to talk with you. Hesitantly, he says:
"My name is Haas. I'm the boyfriend of Alissa, one of the pregnant girls who shelters here at the sanctuary, and from Alissa I know that Werner also protects untouchables here. That's how I knew I could come here for help."
At this point he stops. He's focused on Werner, trying to get some body language to confirm that Werner will indeed protect him. He seems like he's very cold, although it seems fairly warm down here and his blanket looks very warm. If reassured very much, particularly by Werner, he continues, hesitantly:
"Late one night, about this time, I was coming home from work. About half way home, I thought a few people were following me. I walked a little faster to lose them, and then I thought they walked a little faster. I started to take some turns off the main avenue to lose them, and they also took those turns, and then I knew I was being followed. I took a couple of wrong turns, and to my alarm found that they'd trapped me in a dead-end alley.
As they approached they took out some cruel-looking weapons, and then I saw that one of them was Alissa's father. Since I got his daughter pregnant I can imagine why he'd want to take it out on me. I was going to try to talk my way out of it but I didn't have a chance. They started beating me, and they beat me very cruelly, breaking my arm. Then, they beat me to the ground, until I went into a state of shock. After some more beating on the ground, they finally agreed among themselves that I was dead, and they left me there, laughing grimly as they went.
I laid in the alley in shock all night, until in the morning, some early birds found me. They gathered around me, and one of them said I was dead. They called the Hue and Cry, who came and looked at me, and they also agreed between themselves that I was dead. They put me on a cart to take me to the morgue, and at this point I freaked out and passed into unconsciousness."
He stops again. He says: "Werner! Werner, must I continue!? Say you'll protect me Werner!" Werner gives him something to drink and insists that he continue. Haas steels himself to continue, and he says:
"I woke at the morgue, in the Great Hall. I was laying on a cold marble table, and the air was very cold.
I stood up. But my body didn't stand up. I realized now I was a spirit and I could look down on my own body, and I could see that the entire Great Hall was filled with ghosts like me, ghosts like immigrants who didn't know where to go from here, like passengers dumped off a ship at a dock in an unknown town.
Like the other ghosts, I loitered by my body for a few days, not knowing what to do. Eventually I gave up and left the Great Hall and the hospital and wandered the streets near the hospital as a spirit. I wandered until tonight, when it started to thunderstorm.
Then suddenly I was back in my body. I was on my back again, but not in the morgue - I was in a different small room. I was unclothed in some kind of bath, and there were copper wires and tubes running from machines nearby to my body. No one was around, and the thunderstorm was still going on outside. I stripped off the wires and tubes, and got off the table. I was disoriented and stumbled over some machines I had never seen or imagined before.
Not sure what to do, I stepped into the hallway. Some people saw me and started screaming, calling for help. I ran around the hospital halls like a scared animal, and everywhere I went people started screaming and then some started chasing me with implements. I didn't know how to get out but eventually I did, still being chased by screaming people. But once outside, I knew where I was. I found an alley and cowered there in the rain until my pursuers found me, and then I was on the run again. I was freaked out, but eventually I happened to run near here and I remembered Werner. I came to the gate naked and banged on the door until Werner answered and let me in."
And he concludes:
"That was only about a half hour ago."
Now Herndon and Brunn and very interested to know about him and examine him. When the characters question him or Werner wants to help heal him, they find that he has no pulse and he doesn't breath oxygen. His heart and lungs aren't working...he's walking dead.
If they say that he's dead, he becomes extremely angry.
If asked what he wants to do, he says:
"I feel very sick - I don't want to be sick. And I want revenge on Alissa's father and whatever sick fucks were experimenting on me." He says: "I have money and valuable information. Help me and I can pay you. And I want to kill Alissa's father tonight."
If asked about Alissa, he says that he doesn't want to see her like this, he becomes very agitated that they might bring Alissa down to see him.
