356. Doctor, Heal Thyself (Our Darker Purpose)
[spoiler]
For the first two and a fraction chapters,
Our Darker Purpose is dark, but mostly in a silly, exaggerated-Dickens orphanage way. Once you make it to the Library, however, talking nihilist potato sacks and malevolent stew creatures give way to demons and mutated abominations. It also gets hard as ****. Specialist Fenwick is the only boss I've seen from this section, and he's tough enough to pass for a chapter fight. The Doctor himself does not attack. Instead, he floats around the room and reanimates any burlap dummies you kill, occasionally pausing to completely darken the room and spawn a handful of additional short-lived but invulnerable dummies. It's creepy enough with just the context that the previous "human" enemies were a bunch of kids in a makeshift fort and a girl who cast spells with her lunchbox, but the codex entry received on victory really doesn't help:
Students who become ill during classes can visit the Malady Ward. Here a team of doctors supposedly works day and night caring for residents of the manor. No student in memory has been admitted for treatment. A cob-webbed sign reading 'APOLOGIES WE ARE CURRENTLY FULL' hangs on the door. Piles of burlap dummies fill the waiting room.
The administrators rarely acknowledge complaints about the Malady Ward. "Our students should be grateful for their good health," they say. "and in any event the current patients are almost ready to rejoin the Edgewod community.
[/spoiler]
Spoilered because it's fairly late game and also the sort of thing it's better to be surprised by.