I like The Epitaph

One of the echos was hard to find too. And I had just as much trouble reliably finding things in BRO until I started plotting the /locs on graph paper, because it wasn't saving the POIs between visits. Not having a map made it worse, but that eventually won't be an issue.

 

So, I did finally get back there.

Spoiler

I believe I was still able to access all of their dialogues on the books, and I think I see what the "choice" is, such as it is. I'm assuming that the doctor is up to no good, but it's really unclear. He claims to want the books to aid his medical research, and given that the books detail not-so-ethical experiments, I'm supposed to infer that he wants to use them for nefariousness. But other than acting a little mysterious, it's not clear that he intends to do anything bad with the information. I realize that the idea was probably not to make it in-your-face obvious, and more of a bad/creepy vibe, but I think maybe it does need to go further. You could easily come away thinking he's a legit doctor looking for anything that might be of use in treating patients, even if that info wasn't necessarily originally obtained by ethical means.

As for the two not being aware of each other, it assumes you'll talk to everyone before going into the Epitaph. If I had only spoken with one of them, I would only have one quest giver, and if it was the guy who maybe shouldn't get the books, my options would then be to either give him the books, or leave the quest hanging. Maybe they don't need to be specifically aware of each other, but at least indicate there may be others looking for the books. Then, if I choose not to give them to one, I might at least know there's possibly a better option.

 

I just did this a week ago. At first I thought it was a moral choice but after I had all the books it seemed like when I talked to the different NPC each of them wanted a different one i.e. one asked for book #1 another book #2. I ended up giving each of them one to complete the quest. I'm not sure if that is bugged or I didn't understand something.