The Man Who Waits

"What the blazes happened down there? You were given permission to ask questions!"

- Head Warden Ethelmoer

 is a main quest in.

Synopsis
The Leaden Key acolyte showed the Watcher a vision of an agent in a "place of misery and madness." They need to find this agent and discover his or her plan to see if it holds any clues to find the man they are searching for.

Quick walkthrough

 * 1) Head to the Sanitarium in Brackenbury, speak to Ethelmoer.
 * 2) Go downstairs and read the Note from Azo on the bookshelf in Caedman Azo's office (at the end on the right) OR speak to Riply in the same room.
 * 3) Return to Ethelmoer regarding Azo's experiments.
 * 4) Return downstairs and head through to the patient ward, the guard will open the door as you approach it.
 * 5) Speak to Freyol in the central area, ask if any of the patients have been acting unusually.
 * 6) Speak to Caedman Azo in his workshop to the south, request access to the north ward and then confront him about his experiments. He will give you the North Ward Key.
 * 7) Unlock the North Ward. Speak to Uscgrim at the end of the hall and expend the dialogue to complete the quest.

Walkthrough
You automatically get this quest when completing Never Far from the Queen.

Ask the Justiciars around town for a place where the mentally ill would be treated, and learn about the Sanitarium in the Brackenbury district of Defiance Bay. Visit that place.

Inside, speak with Head Warden Ethelmoer, the large stone statue in the center of the hall. Tell him you believe somebody in the sanitarium is working for the Leaden Key, and that you would like to find this person. He points you to the animancers working here, as they should best know about any unusual behaviour exhibited by patients or other employees. The only thing he expects in return is to get informed about the things you discover.

Neither Nans, Audmer, Bellasege or Moedred have useful information for you, though the latter mentions that the patients fall under the responsibility of Caedman Azo. Looking inside Azo's office, which is located in the basement hallway, in the - formerly locked - last room on the right, you find his assistant Riply. Speaking with her give hints about Azo experimenting on some of the patients. Additionally some related records can be found in a locked drawer of his desk. Your next step is to talk to Azo, and for that you need to gain access to the Patient Ward, which lies beyond the guarded door at the end of the hallway.

Currently no one but Azo himself has access to the Patient Ward, as he alone holds the position of patient caretaker. Since only the Head Warden can grant you this access, you need to go back upstairs and speak to Ethelmoer about your discoveries. Ethelmoer will be very interested, and not very amused by the informations and evidence you've found, so he informs the guards to unlock the door for you and your party. It is also possible to obtain a key to the Patient Ward from the guards guarding its entrance, albeit only by killing them – which will make most people in the Sanitarium, both first and second floor, turn hostile.

Go downstairs again and enter the Patient Ward. Inside you find yourself in a common room with patients freely roaming about. Accompanying them are a few guards, assisted by Flesh Constructs, who keep watch over the area. Among the common room patients is Freyol, who if spoken to, not only tells you her story, but also has some useful information about Azo and his activities. She points you to his laboratory in the eastern area of the Ward. This is a good time to scout the area: To the north you find a locked door, guarded by a Flesh Construct, no access; To the west lies a small study, and just above it there's another locked door with a guard standing watch outside, warning you of the dangers beyond, again with no access.

Following the corridor from the common room to the east, you come about a door to your right. Enter, and inside you find a laboratory filled with various machines and contraptions, at the back of which you meet Caedman Azo, busy working on his experiments. Go up and speak with him. Agitated by the interruption, he won't be very cooperative when you ask for the key to the North Ward, where the more dangerous patients are kept. If you spoke to Freyol before, you can persuade him into handing over the key (Perception 13 is optional), or you could simply kill him for it. If you're interested, the conversation with Azo can also reveal some additional story details that allows you to better understand the things that will happen later; you can use what you learned from Freyol to get him to talk about his doings here, his history, and his insights about animancy. Searching his laboratory, you may also find the two unique items Ravenwing and Blaidh Golan.

Finally enter the North Ward, where you find yourself in a hallway of locked cells - four on each side and one at the far end. Each cell doors has a small barred window, through which you can see and attempt to talk to its inmate. Patients Idelman and Battixa don't provide any useful information, but Gram in the third cell on the left allows you to touch his soul. This reveals insights into the experiments Azo was conducting, and points you to the cell at the end of the corridor, transferring some vision about a "boy" and a Flesh Construct and a collapse. Some of your companions may argue about the desolate situation here, about animancy, research, and humanity.

At this point you can choose to go back to the laboratory and confront Azo about what he's done to Gram - assuming you didn't kill him for the key - or you can save this confrontation for later and first go investigate the last cell door. When you confront him, whether you do it now or later, Azo will try to convince you that his cause is just, and pleads with you to clear him of all suspicion when speaking to the Head Warden again. The decision about this is yours, and you might even attack him for his deeds, if you consider his life forfeit.

Approaching the cell at the end of the hallway and peering through its small window, you gain an impression of an adolescent boy called Uscgrim, whose soul you can reach out for too. Doing so you acquire the backstory of Azo's failed experiments and learn about what this "boy" - who you recognise as somebody you know from somewhere - has done during his hospitalisation here. Faced with this unexpected revelation, The Watcher speaks out to him; you can choose to demand answers or a solution to your soul conundrum from him, but in response he observes your soul in turn, and decides it's time to leave. The boys body falls limp as the man's soul lunges out, and suddenly you and your party find yourselves getting surrounded by the now crazed patients, freed from their cells, and several possessed Flesh Constructs. A fight begins, the quest ends, the man you're looking for escaped in possession and guise of another vessel.

Making your way back through the hallways and corridors of the Patient Ward, the corpses of patients and guards littering the ground, you encountering more possessed Constructs and possibly some Wichts that have escaped from the West Ward. The only other person left in the Ward – in case you haven't kill him already – is Caedman Azo in his lab. If you didn't confront him about his experiments earlier, this would be the time to do so, or you can skip it - the confrontation with Azo is optional. Either way you will not have any option of enlightening him about the "boy", his sabotage being the true cause of failure for Azo's grand public demonstration - a failure which resulted in public ire and loss of face, further hastening animancy's fall from grace.

Once you've made your way back to the main hall of the first floor, you'll be addressed by the Head Warden, who's greatly concerned by the ongoings you've caused in the basement. Your excuse can either be to blame it on Azo for being influenced by a "patient", without knowing it; or you can say that it's complicated but centred around patient Uscgrim, who was unknowingly working for the Leaden Key; or you can state that you killed the Leaden Key agent, but that in turn led to his soul possessing a Construct and so on… Hesitantly, Ethelmoer reveals that he has read a few "accounts" of people in history who could do what you've just described, some of these accounts even going so far as to suggest that they are all the same person. But more than anything he's simply relieved that you've eradicated the threat to the institute. Being further questioned about Azo's involvement, you can now choose between a neutral, a defending or an accusing path. Depending on your choice, Ethelmoer eventually decides Azo's fate.

If you haven't already been summoned to Hadret House for your work in the city, you'll be approached now. As you leave the sanitarium, a messenger will inform you that Lady Webb of Dunryd Row wishes to meet with you as soon as possible at Hadret House, which adds the quest The Hermit of Hadret House to your journal.