"The circumstances are not normal. A plague struck, five weeks ago, now called the Wailing Death. Victims take on sores and a persistent cough; then, they become almost catatonically weak; then, they die. Through the process, they suffer full-body wracking pains, escalating from a bone-deep ache to an agony so terrible that men have begged me to slit their throats to stop it. I saw a girl whose condition was not so advanced as to kill her, but she had screamed so terribly that her lungs had collapsed, and died of that instead - perhaps a mercy.
"The Wailing does not behave like a normal disease. It jumps from victim to victim in the normal fashion, but it also strikes those who have had no contact with the outside world in weeks. It seems sometimes as if the fear of the plague alone can spread it, but if that were the case even more would be dead than already are. When the death toll rose from terrible to alarming, there was an effort among the holy orders of the city to cleanse as many victims of their illness as possible by magic. This caused their symptoms to recede entirely, and then return within the week. Subsequent attempts halved the length of this reprieve. That was when alarm turned to blind panic.
"Paladins and monks who have attained the blessing of purity are immune, praise all the gods. No one else is safe - not even those who have contrived an enchantment to make them immune to disease. Our suspicion is that the gods can protect their own through the channels already available to them, but mortal magic, even god-granted, cannot.
"Most alarming of all, the plague is... centered. Within the city. It is only within city limits that men fall ill from nowhere. Visitors to the city are just as vulnerable to infection, but do not suffer the same consequences. And anyone who leaves city limits falls ill immediately - at first it was one in ten, then one in five, and now everyone. We have closed the gates and harbor, of course, but cannot tell the people why. It would finally make it obvious that this is enemy action, and many would suspect a traitor within our walls. There would be lynch mobs and worse."
She wipes her eyes and takes a drink from a bottle on her belt. "I'm sorry. I will get to your task - do you have any urgent questions about what I have told you so far?"