Recaps

Vanessa opened the case and found a book claiming that supernatural power came from sacrifice, while Elliot wondered whether its rules could apply beyond the game. The chapter left Vanessa puzzled by a handwritten claim that there were no True Gods, despite the Seven True God Churches.

• Vanessa opened the brass-locked case and found books, including one titled "The Sins and Punishments of Sacrifice-The Pitiful Extraordinary Ones."
• Vanessa read a note stating that all supernatural power came from sacrifice, and Elliot read the same words through the Difference Engine.
• Elliot considered whether the Difference Engine's deductions about supernatural knowledge might be usable in reality.
• Vanessa read that reckless sacrifices brought terrible results, that stable sacrificial methods were called Paths, and that sacrifices outside them could twist wishes.
• Vanessa found a handwritten annotation saying "There are no True Gods" beside the book's reference to the Seven True Gods, and questioned its claim.

Vanessa read a book about sacrifices, then was controlled into spying on a secret gathering where people mixed their blood with minced meat and ate it. She returned late to the hospital, where Old Razi assigned her a delivery to the Wild Dog Gang.

• Vanessa learned from the book that the flat area in the basement was a sacrificial altar, then hid the book in the attic before leaving for work.
• Elliot used the Difference Engine to control Vanessa and send her to explore the mysterious mansion.
• Vanessa climbed onto the mansion’s roof and watched hooded people cut their wrists, mix their blood with minced meat, and eat it.
• Vanessa escaped the rooftop, suspected she had witnessed a cult ritual, and hurried back to the hospital.
• Old Razi scolded Vanessa for arriving late and ordered her to deliver a shipment to the Wild Dog Gang.

Vanessa visited Dorothea and found Winnie there, but noticed fresh bandages on Winnie's wrist and grew suspicious that she had been involved in the flesh-eating incident. Dorothea offered Vanessa a job as hired muscle for an investigation, leaving Vanessa unsure whether she could fight without Elliot taking control.

• Vanessa hurried to the Wild Dog Gang's territory and found its members greeting her with unusual awe and fear.
• At Dorothea's home, Vanessa discovered Winnie was visiting to rest, and offered to help and buy her a gift.
• Vanessa noticed fresh gauze around Winnie's left wrist and wondered whether Winnie had shared in eating human flesh.
• Dorothea told Vanessa that rumors called her the Mad Caregiver and asked if she could fight.
• Vanessa hesitated without Elliot's control and answered that she probably could fight, prompting Dorothea to demand a clear answer.

Vanessa returned to Miskatonic University to seek help from department head Randall and investigate the cults that might have endangered Winnie. Unable to find Randall or Dorothea, she went to the library and began piecing together clues from books.

• Dorothea gave Vanessa a recommendation letter to see Randall and suggested that treatment records could support her claims about her illness.
• Vanessa decided to return to Miskatonic University because Randall might know about secret societies and cults, especially those connected to Winnie's injury.
• Vanessa reached the History Department but left without speaking to her former colleagues because she felt ashamed of her bloodstained clothes and disheveled appearance.
• Vanessa learned that Dorothea had left with Professor Rosalie's team to investigate an infectious disease in the East District.
• Vanessa used her still-valid library card and searched books for clues about organizations that consumed raw flesh and blood.

Vanessa discovered that the Mourning Poetry Society’s blood rituals were not considered cult activity, but Elliot forcibly controlled her into beginning a self-sacrifice ritual. As Vanessa drew the array, Elliot considered which entity should receive the offering.

• Vanessa learned that the Mourning Poetry Society believed consuming flesh and blood could purify the soul, but its rituals had not harmed outsiders or earned it a cult designation.
• Vanessa left the library, hoping to return to campus someday with Winnie and bring her a gift.
• Elliot impatiently ordered Vanessa through the Difference Engine to complete a sacrifice.
• Vanessa was compelled to go to the basement at No. 37 Pine Resin Alley and draw a sacrificial array with her own blood.
• Vanessa realized the ritual was intended to sacrifice her, while Elliot began considering the kinds of entities that could receive the offering.

Elliot examined two dangerous Paths for sacrificing to evil gods: one that granted physical enhancement and another that offered supernatural intelligence. He weighed their strange costs, but the chapter ended before he chose a Path.

• Elliot learned that the books offered no instructions for sacrificing to True Gods and found only two evil-god Paths.
• Elliot read Pulu's account of sacrificing hair, nails, and an appendix to Shengtuo for gradual physical enhancement.
• Elliot considered trying the Flesh Ascension Path, though the surviving diary revealed nothing about Pulu's eventual fate.
• Elliot studied a doctor's report about sacrificing negative emotions and frontal-lobe tissue to Jingyuan for relief from mental illness and exceptional intelligence.

Elliot chose [Path · Omniscience · Part Two] for Vanessa, but stopped the sacrifice when he realized she did not want to lose her identity and compassion. Vanessa then noticed that the ritual named Sun Wukong as its recipient.

• Elliot compared the two Paths and chose [Path · Omniscience · Part Two] because it offered faster advancement.
• Vanessa feared losing her emotions and frontal lobe, and questioned whether she would still be herself or care for others afterward.
• Elliot recognized Vanessa as a living soul, pulled the Path card from the slot, and decided not to force her to sacrifice.
• Vanessa resumed drawing the ritual and noticed that its recipient was Sun Wukong.

Elliot discovered that the Difference Engine let him sacrifice to himself, while Vanessa feared the unknown entity receiving her ritual. After Elliot chose an offering and bestowed a Path card, Vanessa saw the card appear in the blood of the ritual.

• Elliot tested character cards as ritual targets, then used his own card when the Difference Engine accepted it.
• Vanessa realized the ritual had begun and panicked because she did not know which entity she was sacrificing to.
• Elliot instructed Vanessa to offer the excess nail on her left little finger.
• Elliot chose the [Bestowal] option and placed [Path Two] into the slot.
• A bloody light flashed, and a card appeared on the floor before Vanessa.

Vanessa’s small fingernail sacrifices produced cards for supernatural Paths, while Elliot used the Difference Engine to explore how sacrifices powered a branching route toward advancement and obtained a strange secret art. The final ritual left Vanessa screaming in pain after her left index finger was shot away.

• Vanessa discovered that sacrificing a sliver of her fingernail had produced the [Path · Omniscience · Part Two] card and recognized its offerings from a medical report.
• A second card, [Path · Flesh Ascension · Part One], appeared, and Vanessa was controlled into sacrificing another fingernail.
• Elliot used the [Blessing] card to activate the eye slot on the Difference Engine’s map and concluded that sacrifices fueled progress through branching supernatural routes.
• Elliot selected [Distortion] and obtained the [Secret Art · Trigger] card, which described a finger shooting out like a bullet.
• Vanessa clutched her bleeding left hand and discovered that she had lost a finger.

Elliot realized the glowing blood only he could see might be connected to the permanent [Spirit Vision +1] blessing. Vanessa lost her little finger to learn [Trigger], and the chapter ended with her facing treatment and fearing the cost of using the art.

• Elliot questioned whether extraordinary power was a blessing or a curse after seeing Vanessa lose a finger to learn a Formless Art.
• Elliot found a pool of faintly glowing blood in the secret room, but Conrad showed no sign of seeing it.
• Elliot examined the blood and suspected his new [Spirit Vision +1] blessing let him see things others could not.
• Vanessa went to Doctor Norman for treatment because Miss Crow was away and she could not afford the hospital fees.
• Norman prepared to clean and stitch Vanessa's finger stump after learning the severed finger was gone.
• Vanessa recalled that she had received [Trigger] during the sacrifice and that each use of the art would cost her a finger.

Vanessa learned that Mad Rat Disease could animate corpses within a fixed outbreak zone, and she and Elliot realized that it might already have broken out in New Scandinavia. After the operation, Vanessa urgently asked to speak with Doctor Norman in private.

• Doctor Norman operated on Vanessa without anesthetic, while Elliot helped her endure the pain and noticed a supernatural glow around the doctor’s hands and tools.
• Vanessa asked Doctor Norman about Mad Rat Disease, and he explained that it affected the dead, could spread only within a fixed area, and became inactive outside that zone.
• Norman said the corpse Vanessa had brought in was inactive because it had come from outside the affected area.
• Vanessa realized that Mad Rat Disease might have broken out in New Scandinavia, where many corpses were present.
• After finishing the operation, Norman offered Vanessa a prescription, but she asked to speak with him privately about something important.

Elliot used Vanessa’s warning about a Mad Rat Disease patient to question Dr. Norman, who dismissed it as an isolated case. Back at the mansion, Elliot probed Conrad about secret societies and noticed the old butler react with unusual tension when he mentioned the Hammer Brotherhood.

• Vanessa told Dr. Norman that she had encountered a Mad Rat Disease patient near the Harbor District, but Norman dismissed her warning and charged her for treatment.
• Elliot took control of Vanessa long enough to thank Norman and leave, deciding that arguing with the doctor could expose him to danger.
• After leaving the Difference Engine, Elliot went to speak with Conrad, hoping his status as the Sterling Family heir would help him uncover secrets.
• Elliot asked Conrad for information about the Hammer Brotherhood and the Mourning Poetry Society, and Conrad showed unusual hesitation.
• Elliot suspected Conrad’s tension concerned the Hammer Brotherhood, but steered the conversation toward the Mourning Poetry Society and its taste for raw flesh and blood.

Elliot tried to learn about the Mourning Poetry Society but discovered that his request had brought its leader, Flora Prescott, to visit him. He realized his status was apparently high enough for Conrad to invite her directly, though he had no idea why.

• Conrad mistook Elliot's question about eating raw meat for a sign that he understood something about the young master's tastes.
• Elliot explored the mansion using Spirit Vision but found no supernatural traces and learned he could switch the ability off.
• Conrad told Elliot that he had a visitor and insisted he dress formally for dinner.
• Elliot met Flora Prescott, known as Miss Elegy, who oversaw the entire Mourning Poetry Society.
• Elliot realized Conrad had invited the society's leader directly and concluded that his status must be far above hers.

Elliot met Flora, the leader of the Mourning Poetry Society, and learned about the society’s rituals and charitable work. After donating money, he grew curious about Flora’s cooking and hoped to invite her back.

• Elliot deduced that Miss Elegy was a commoner seeking help from the Sterling Family and spoke with her informally.
• Flora explained that the Mourning Poetry Society shared raw meat and blood during Communion and sometimes ate a symbolic amount of a deceased companion’s flesh.
• Flora asked Elliot to support the society’s charity, and Elliot arranged an additional monetary donation.
• Elliot questioned Flora about the society’s practices and concluded that its members did not regularly eat human flesh.
• Elliot noticed Flora’s reaction when he teased her about fine food and guessed she was an excellent cook.
• After Flora left, Elliot told Conrad he wanted to invite her back to try her cooking.

Vanessa visited Winnie, learned that Winnie was caring for several orphaned children, and realized how little she knew about her friend’s burdens. Unable to find Winnie at home, Vanessa went to the Mourning Poetry Society’s hideout, where she began trying to climb in.

• Elliot used Spirit Vision after Flora left and suspected the Mourning Poetry Society had its own supernatural Path.
• Elliot noticed Vanessa’s card was already exploring the Mourning Poetry Society hideout in the Difference Engine.
• Vanessa visited Winnie’s apartment with fruit and learned from Mrs. Lynn that Winnie cared for several children from an orphanage.
• Vanessa left Winnie a note offering support and went to the Mourning Poetry Society’s hideout to look for her.
• Vanessa tried to climb over the hideout’s wall, copying what she remembered doing while under control.

Vanessa failed to climb out of the alley, but Alice found her and led her to the Mourning Poetry Society’s mansion. There, a hooded man confronted Vanessa about whether she had come as Winnie’s friend, a guest, or the Circle of Vitas’s “Mad Caregiver.”

• Vanessa tried to climb the wall but failed, then used Spirit Vision to look for another way out.
• Alice appeared, recognized Vanessa through Winnie, and comforted her as Vanessa decided she wanted to apologize to Winnie.
• Alice led Vanessa to the mansion, where Vanessa realized the poetry society had been watching her with tiny white dots.
• Vanessa entered the society’s cozy mansion and was taken to a study while Alice withdrew.
• A hooded young man told Vanessa that Winnie was searching for a larger home, then asked whether Vanessa had come as Winnie’s friend, a guest, or the Circle of Vitas’s “Mad Caregiver.”

Vanessa discovered that the hospital where she worked belonged to the Circle of Vitas, while the Mourning Poetry Society had mistaken her for one of its transcendents. She stayed for a communal meal and learned that the society was officially registered under a charter issued centuries ago by Emperor Trist.

• Vanessa regained confidence when the being controlling her returned, then asked the hooded man what the Circle of Vitas was.
• Vanessa explained that she had encountered a corpse infected with Mad Rat Disease, and the man doubted it could have been a real case in the city.
• The man revealed that New Scandinavia General Hospital belonged to the Circle of Vitas and learned that Vanessa had joined it through debt.
• Vanessa stayed for communion after the being accepted the invitation, and she found that the meal included cooked dishes as well as raw flesh and blood.
• The man told Vanessa that the Mourning Poetry Society was officially registered and showed that its charter had been issued by Emperor Trist more than two hundred years earlier.

Vanessa met Damian Graves of the Mourning Poetry Society, then bought Winnie a lily brooch while trying to make amends. After working through a restless night, she returned to the hospital and learned that Old Razi was taking her to the East District for a chance to make a fortune from a warehouse full of corpses.

• Vanessa learned that the Mourning Poetry Society had existed for more than two hundred and fifty years, and Damian Graves invited her to return as long as she brought food and no trouble.
• Vanessa left with Alice and decided to buy Winnie a present so she could apologize to her and Allen.
• Vanessa and Alice chose an Enamel-Inlaid White Lily brooch for Winnie in the shops near the Riverside District.
• Vanessa worked through the night delivering packages as New Scandinavia grew unusually restless.
• Old Razi met Vanessa at the hospital and urged her to go to the East District, promising that the opportunity could make them rich.
• Vanessa saw that the warehouse yard was packed with corpses glowing white under Spirit Vision.

Vanessa searched the hospital’s corpse pile for her missing friend Winnie as Doctor Norman urged her to help plague victims in the East District. Dorothea told her that Winnie had died and that her body was in the East District.

• Old Razi told Vanessa that the Mad Rat Disease plague had broken out in the East District, and she rushed to search the bodies for Winnie.
• Doctor Norman recruited Vanessa to help save the injured and sent her to find a carriage.
• Vanessa met Dorothea, who arrived in a carriage with others and was visibly injured.
• Dorothea told Vanessa that Winnie was dead and that she had seen her body on the hospital’s corpse carriage.
• Doctor Norman climbed into Dorothea’s carriage to go help the sick, while Vanessa asked where Winnie was; Dorothea said she was in the East District.

Vanessa and the Miskatonic University group headed through the abandoned East District after learning the Plague Core was in its sewers. Still numb after Winnie’s death, Vanessa forced the Public Security Bureau to let their carriage pass into the abandoned Harbor District, where displaced people were fleeing the corpse outbreak.

• Dorothea explained that the group had followed Mad Rat Disease into the East District’s sewers but had lost the trail, and another passenger said the Plague Core was there and the disease had stopped after three waves.
• Vanessa struggled to process Winnie’s death as the carriage reached the Public Security Bureau’s defensive line at the Harbor District.
• When officers blocked the carriage, Vanessa pointed at them with a shooting gesture, frightening them into letting the group through.
• After the carriage crossed the cordon, the group saw displaced people fleeing and learned that the Wild Dog Gang had tried to fight the corpses but many people had been injured.

Norman and Vanessa treated injured Harbor District residents while Dorothea revealed that corpses had surged from the East District. Their questions about Winnie’s transport remained unresolved when a hospital corpse carriage arrived, and Vanessa recognized Winnie’s lifeless body on top.

• Norman stopped to treat a wounded boy named Eli, and Vanessa joined him despite Norman telling her the work was not her responsibility.
• After Eli was stabilized, his infected mother died, and Dorothea shot her before she could turn into a monster.
• Vanessa, Norman, and Dorothea treated more injured people as locals helped with supplies and guarded the makeshift station.
• Dorothea told Vanessa that she had seen Winnie’s body near the Harbor District after corpses poured in from the East District, though Vanessa questioned how the hospital carriage could have reached there so quickly.
• Vanessa and Dorothea found residents blocking a hospital carriage piled with corpses, and Vanessa recognized Winnie’s body and stumbled toward it.

After Winnie’s body was taken away and hospital guards refused to help the wounded, Vanessa confronted them and evaded their gunfire. She embraced the power controlling her, fought through the guards, and killed the hospital’s deputy administrative head.

• Vanessa saw Winnie’s body on the hospital carriage and stepped forward after the guards dismissed the wounded and mocked her caregiver work.
• A gunman fired at Vanessa from the carriage, but she dodged the bullets, and the wounded recognized her as the Mad Caregiver.
• Vanessa prayed to the being controlling her and attacked the guards, knocking one thug down with a punch.
• Vanessa reached the carriage, dragged out the deputy head of the hospital’s administrative department, and shot him dead.

Vanessa fought the hospital’s corpse collection crew after she and Miss Crow found Winnie’s body on their cart. Dr. Norman arrived to find Vanessa alive and the crew defeated, while the crowd insisted Caldwell had died by accident.

• Vanessa reflected on the kind person who had saved her, then fought the thugs and ran out of ammunition before using the shotgun as a club.
• An injured man told Dr. Norman that Vanessa and Miss Crow were fighting the hospital’s corpse collection crew, and Norman rushed to help them.
• Members of the Wild Dog Gang armed themselves and followed Norman toward the gunshot.
• Norman reached the scene and found Vanessa unharmed, the crew badly injured, and Caldwell dead from a gunshot.
• The crowd claimed Caldwell had shot himself, and Norman said nothing as the Wild Dog Gang learned Vanessa and Miss Crow had taken down the crew.

Vanessa defeated the armed thugs, spared the men whose limbs she had broken, and carried her murdered friend Winnie away from the scene. She left the route to the Mist Harbor District behind and said she was going to save people.

• Vanessa swiftly defeated the armed thugs, leaving Dorothea unable to fire her revolver.
• Vanessa refused to kill the guards whose limbs she had broken and said she would have Dr. Norman treat them after the other wounded.
• Vanessa found Winnie dead in the carriage, cleaned her face, and tied her body to her back with Dorothea’s help.
• Vanessa carried Winnie through the ruins as people cleared a path and Dorothea followed silently.
• Vanessa turned away from the cordon to the Mist Harbor District and told Dorothea she was going to save people.

Elliot used the Difference Engine to send Vanessa and Dorothea to rescue people surrounded by plague-infected corpses, while Vanessa's card changed to [Devout Girl]. Vanessa led Dorothea through the Harbor District sewers to a besieged building, where she began fighting and discovered Alice inside.

• Elliot used [Clue: Faint Cry for Help] to obtain [Mission: Rescue] and decided to intervene.
• Vanessa's card changed to [Devout Girl], and Elliot found he could not control Dorothea's card.
• Vanessa led Dorothea through the Harbor District and an abandoned sewer, confidently navigating the unfamiliar route.
• Vanessa and Dorothea emerged near a building besieged by plague-infected corpses, and Vanessa attacked them with a crowbar.
• Alice recognized Vanessa from an upstairs window and urgently shouted for her to run.