Pathologic: The Marble Nest

Pathologic: The Marble Nest is a limited demo of Pathologic (2017) which was released on December 1, 2016. The creators, Ice-Pick Lodge, describe it as "almost like a small autonomous game that uses the assets, characters, and premise of Pathologic, but works on its own. Kind of."

Plot
The events of The Marble Nest take place on the eighth day of the outbreak as experienced by the Bachelor.

Characters

 * The Bachelor
 * Aspity
 * Sticky
 * The Judge
 * The Masks
 * Dora Feugel
 * Marat Ranin
 * Blacky
 * Sleepy Head
 * Shrew
 * Cookaroo
 * Gull
 * Magpie
 * Oriole
 * Widow
 * Lotman
 * Siskin
 * Shaazgai
 * Tagtaa
 * Shar Shuvuu
 * Bürged

Items
'''[NOTE: This section is a work in progress. Please forgive any errors or unsightly formatting! It will be fixed as soon as possible.]'''

Clothes
x x x

x x x

x x x

Executor cloak

Protective garment. The pendants serve no obvious purpose, yet it loses its protective qualities if stripped of them.

Orderlies--the volunteer medical assistants--use the costumes borrowed from the local theatre as protective cloaks. This is the traditional costume of the Reaper, an allegory of Death.

x x

x x

Face mask

A basic protective item that covers the face.

Common among medical personnel, this protective mask accumulates infection fast, quickly becoming a hazard in and of itself, and muffles speech. Still, better than nothing.

Food
x x

x x

Canned food

This can is completely airproof, guaranteeing that its contents are uninfected. The food itself is nutritious.

x x

Cracker

Soldier food. There's no reason to prefer it to freshly baked bread.

Leaving bread to go stale or dry is heavily frowned upon. Crackers arrived to the town with soldiers' rations and remain unpopular despite being decently filling.

x

x

x

Milk

Oddly warm and creamy, as though milked minutes ago, this common nourishing drink can often be found as an offering at cemeteries.

Often used as an offering to the dead, milk serves as a remind that all that is born must come to an end. It's so popular in the town that cream separators can be found even in the households that seemingly have nothing to do with the local Bull Project.

x

Raisins

Formerly juicy berries, currently a luxurious treat that leaves one’s mouth sugary when eaten.

A luxurious imported treat. The locals refuse to eat more than a couple at a time; perhaps this has to do with the fact that raisins do not spoil and thus become the only treat available during food shortages.

x

x

x

Water bottle

Seemingly sates thirst a bit. Despite the town standing on the river Gorkhon, fresh drinking water is a rare commodity here.

Fresh water is brought to the town daily from a spring in the steppe and distributed among the households by water-bearers. The Gorkhon water was proven to be clean, but the locals refuse to drink it.

Nuts
x

Chestnuts

While chestnuts are nuts, they're unedible without cooking. The local children still take a keen interest in them.

Despite the lack of chestnut trees around, chestnuts are omnipresent in the town. Where do they come from?

x

Peanuts

While nuts can be munched down, they do little to sate hunger. Why then do the local kids' eyes light up when they see one?

Used in the most popular game among local children, nuts are forbidden in the Polyhedron, where most of the kids fled from the plague. The "voices of nuts" were said to make the facets of the Polyhedron resonate in a bad way.

x

Walnuts

While nuts can be munched down, they do little to sate hunger. Why then do the local kids' eyes light up when they see one?

Used in the most popular game among local children, nuts are forbidden in the Polyhedron, where most of the kids fled from the plague. The "voices of nuts" were said to make the facets of the Polyhedron resonate in a bad way.

Medicine
x

x

Antibiotic

The best way not to get infected is to be dead. Antibiotics, that lower infection at the price of general health, are the first step in that direction.

"Bios" means life, which encompasses all that is living, including both the harmful bacteria and humans. Antibiotics attack both. The difference is that while they can kill a person dead, a couple of bacteria always escapes their assault, so it's impossible to cure yourself fully with antibiotics only.

x x

Bandage

Common bandages stop bleeding or can be fashioned into a makeshift noose if you’ve contracted the sand plague.

It is common folk knowledge that any affliction can be overcome with the application of bandage and that any decently soft and clean cloth can serve as one. Makes one wonder how the people with such advanced medical knowledge even get sick at all.

x

Immune booster

Assorted pills of unknown origin. Boost immunity. Side effects include nausea and the inability to smell almonds.

Scientifically speaking, it is dubious whether immunity can be boosted at all. However, these pills work infallibly. According to the box, they were manufactured more than fifty years ago.

x

x

Morphine

A person is only alive for as long as they feel pain. Morphine makes you numb to it, seemingly increasing health.

Unsuccessfully banned within the limits of the town by governor Saburov, who was trying to alleviate his wife's addiction, morphine relieves a person of pain, worries, and worldly desires, leaving them in a drowsy and numb state.

x

x

Panacea

A run-of-the-mill medicine vial filled with clotty reddish liquid that vaguely smells of spices. It seems distantly familiar.

Shortly before his tragic demise, Artemy Burakh, a local pellar, claimed to have produced a miraculous cure capable of erasing the sand plague completely from one's body. Until now, his claims remained unproven. This may be the only sample in existence.

x

Powder

The box seems to be filled with powder made of assorted ground pills. It's hard to picture a person who would produce such a mixture.

Powders, or "shmowders", as the kids call them, can sometimes cure any disease completely. Or at least the used to; Khan, the children's leader who now rules the Polyhedron, claims that all the real "shmowders" were used up long before the epidemic.

x x

Tourniquet

Rubber tourniquets are regarded as poor-quality by the townsfolk, who prefer the locally made leather ones.

The rumor that General Block, the chief commanding officer of the soldiers deployed to the town, hanged himself on a noose made of tourniquets rather than succumb to the disease, is absurd and unfounded. This rubber band can’t support the weight of a grown man.

Other
x

Beetle

A surprising, if useless, find in autumn.

Some fifteen years ago, the Soul-and-a-Halves, the gang of children who are defined by sharing special bonds with their pets, actually considered to allow flower chafers as their “Halves” due to the beetles “looking as though they knew something”. The idea was quickly abandoned as ridiculous.

x x x

x x x

Bread

Bread is the stuff of life. No food is more filling.

Anything that's baked of dough can be called bread. The local variety is greyish in color and crumbly to the touch, making one doubt if it was actually made from grain. Surprisingly delicious though.

x

Broken ampoule

People would use any and all means possible to cure themselves of the disease.

An ampoule that used to contain either life-saving or life-ending drug, served its purpose (whatever it was), and has now become completely useless. x

x

Broken scissors

The Moerae must have been in a hurry--too many threads to cut these days.

It is said the Clara the Changeling, a thief girl who claims to be a saint, can repair any sharp object just as easily as she cures the sand pest--by simply laying her hands on it. Perhaps this is the reason why people refuse to throw away useless junk like broken scissors. x

x

Candle stub

The stub of a nuptial candle. It smells of earth.

Eva Yan, the mistress of the Stillwater, often burned candles in the study during the night, which gave her observatory-like mansion a cozier appearance. After Eva's tragic suicide, candles can no longer be lit in the Stillwater and go out immediately.

x

Fishing hooks

Sharp objects are regarded as dangerous and thus frowned upon by the locals.

While the Gorkhon river has plenty of fish, fishing is for some reason unpopular among the locals. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that hooks are sharp objects, which are heavily frowned upon around here.

x x

x x

Heart

A warm heart that went out to people. Literally.

In the steppe lore, the center of mind and knowledge is the liver, while the center of feeling and emotion is the lower guts. They view the heart as a less crucial and rather mechanical organ that simply pumps life around, oddly arriving at a consensus with science-based medicine.

x

x

Key

It's cold.

The light reflects from it at odd angles, making one unable to discern the size of this key.

x

x

Lockpick

Twisted and uneven, the local lockpicks require a fast, jabbing motion to unlock a door, else they’ll become uncoiled.

It is said that Clara the Changeling, a thief girl who claims to be blessed, can open any door just as easily as she heals the sick, by laying on hands. Why are her pockets always filled with lockpicks then?

x

Marbles

Children give them names, as though they were alive, and believe them to hold memories.

No one knows how exactly marbles appear in the town. No one delivers or makes them. They simply pop up here and there; on the floor, under the pillow, or right on the ground.

x

Match

Draw the short one!

One must remember that which is most dear to them before the match burns out, or else the whole thing won’t work.

x

Money

Oddly enough, money is used to buy items in shops. Offering it during common street barter, however, would be seen as offensive.

On the third day of the epidemic local prices went through the roof; now, on the eighth day, very few people agree to actually trade for money, preferring barter instead. The latter is more cumbersome, but can yield lucrative rewards.

x x

x x

Package

The steppe people bury the remains of their dead in small packages. This is hardly one of them, but you’d rather not check.

Long before the current socioeconomic catastrophe, the local townsfolk developed a tradition of barter that the whole community revelled in. Including many types, such as “tit for tat” and “retrab”, it is sometimes secret, with people swapping wrapped items blindly.

x

x

Pocket watch

Recently stopped. This means that the original owner has most likely died.

Time doesn't seem to be working properly in the town; there's no other explanation to the fact that Georgiy Kain, the Judge, is two times younger than his twin brother. The Kains' fascination with all things clockwork must have something to do with this.

?

Spindle

One can hardly jab a finger with this thing on accident. However, a hand can probably be punctured through by it, if enough pressure is applied.

x x

Used bandage

The traces of the epidemic are omnipresent.

According to the sanitary procedures, any object that bears the traces of a deceased person’s blood must be burned. According to the local belief, it’s pointless since the blood would simply appear elsewhere.