FloodSpectre

When I was trying to reproduce the bug last night by using the chest, I thought part of the problem was that I hadn't opened it far earlier, before gaining access to the patient ward. Though it's still odd that this is triggering the bug for me every time, but not for other players.

Just hit this area myself, ran into the same bug. I had half cleared the lower level and decided to check out the office with the small locked chest containing the four patient files, then turned back and saw all the NPCs were back again, the Wichts' models were showing up but the beasties weren't actually active, and the upper floor was hostile. Reloaded a quicksave from before, did the same thing, but noticed the NPCs all glitched back into existence right when I opened the locked chest with the patient files in it. Ran upstairs, all NPCs were hostile. Reloaded again, killed all enemies on the lower level, ignored the chest with the patient files. Upper floor is non-hostile. Reliably reproduced the effect several times after to make sure. Pretty sure that chest is bugged for some reason.

Just ran into the same bug. I made an adventurer to do a minor stronghold quest, hired her and dismissed Aloth so I could level her up, had Aloth rejoin and now his stats (damage done, kills, etc) are a blank slate, the two extra grimoires (and everything else) in his inventory are gone, and so are the scrolls and potions from his quick slots.