Arc One: Aura of Decay

Aura of Decay is the first arc of DND Deity. It focuses as an intro arc and on reclaiming the Sword of Life.

## Plot

The story begins in Rosewich, Mortanica, on the night of the Spring Festival- a celebration of Vistas, the god of life. Here, the players are all gathered in town, taking part in the festivities. When a scuffle breaks out between Skipper and Guy, the rest are drawn to try to intervene. It’s at this point that a dark wave of dizziness settles over the festivities, and a shadowy figure approaches through the alleyway, dragging along a gorgeous Sword.

Weakened and barely able to stand, the townspeople begin to flee as the figure starts to strike his Sword through everyone in his path. In an impressive act, Guy casts a grease and a fireball to distract him so they can slip away. The party barely makes it to a tavern, where they help hide people inside and barricade the doors and windows. They wait breathlessly for what feels like forever, when finally the screaming subsides and they’re too weak to resist drifting off to sleep.

Come morning, the group is awakened by a shrill southern accent. This turns out to be Romelle, one of the townsguards, who is performing a sweep of Rosewich to find survivors from the attack. They strike up a conversation and learn about the state of the town.

The entire town seems to be dying from some sort of plague, and as the group seems to be in okay shape, Romelle recruits their help to continue scouring for survivors. Apollyon splits off to check on their shop. Romelle takes the rest to Town Hall, where the Mayor and his secretary have been mobilizing what remained of the townsguard. The party speaks to the Mayor, who seems to be in weak shape. He adds them to the payroll and thanks them for their help.

The group stop by the secretary to receive a mission, and she sends you all off to check on a pub near the outskirts of town. Before they can leave, however, she asks Romelle if she’d venture out into the woods to where a priest to Mortes, god of death, resides in a temple. The secretary believes that Rosewich has done something to anger the wrath of the gods, and wants to know if the priest has any guidance. Romelle is skeptical, but agrees, so the group ventures off.

At the pub, the group meets the owner, who asks for a favor. Something’s been killing off his animals since before the plague, and he thinks it’s living in the woods. Guy convinces the owner to pay him up front and refuses to split the reward. The party argues about whether or not to go, causing Romelle to go off alone before they finally follow. The group meets back up just in time to get jumped by a bulette, who the party defeats. The group is injured and missing spell slots, however, so they decide to take a rest. Romelle, who was beaten badly, is too weak to disagree.

Morning comes, and the party convinces Romelle it was her idea to rest, to which she is ashamed of herself. They make haste back to Rosewich, where they find the plague has worsened over the eight hours they were sleeping. The pub owner is now dead, along with many others. The party meets back up with Apollyon, who gets lumped in with them by the secretary, who urges them all to seek divine intervention, as it seems to be the only way anyone will survive.

The group hurries back out into the woods to the priest’s house, where to their surprise, they find him to be a shell of himself. Skip sneaks past him into the house while he talks with the others, and finds the entire temple to be trashed. She heads upstairs and finds a journal, which is filled with desperate black scribbles that consume entire pages. Worried, she tucks it away for safekeeping.

Back downstairs, the group badgers the priest for info on what’s happening, and he seems to recognize the Sword. Going mad, he falls into raving, dropping to his knees on the ground. As the party tries to make sense of anything he’s saying about the world ending, the door opens once more, and a half-elf enters the room.

This is Zylaan, the apprentice of the wizard meant to guard the Sword of Death. After an annoying back and forth, Zylaan and the party trade information about Rosewich. Zylaan informs the party about the Armor of the Gods and the Sword of Death, which is what is causing the decay in Rosewich. He tells them an adventurer named Joris killed his mentor and stole the Sword, and is being consumed by it as they speak. Before this, Zylaan also received a vision of the end of the world. Zylaan’s plan was to wait until the Sword consumed Joris’ life force so he could get it back easily, but that also involved letting the whole town die. The party refuses this, and coerces him into joining them to fight Joris and take back the Sword.

They make it back to Rosewich, where they set their traps. Elswynn sets up an anvil, while Skipper litters the ground with ball bearings. As they wait for Joris, the party has a little chat. Zylaan wonders why they’re trying to save this town. When night falls, Joris arrives, and the party stays out of sight enough for Elswynn to spring her trap. From there, they absolutely clobber the guy before he gets back up and unleashes the might of the Sword of Death upon them.

After a long battle, they finally land the killing blow- or did they? As the Sword falls from his hands and he collapses backward, the party sees the black cracks creeping up his face and skin, how his eyes are dripping with black blood. It seemed like Joris had been long dead, consumed by the Sword and used as a puppet. Zylaan gets ahold of the Sword and nullifies it, and the party has their first victory.

Upon seeing their competence, Zylaan admits that he’s not sure that he can do this alone. He believes that the vision of the end of the world and Joris’ arrival were not coincidences, and that they might be linked. He is certain the other armor pieces are in danger and wants to seek them out to destroy them and make sure the vision can never be fulfilled. He asks the party if they will join him, to which they agree. The party heads out of Rosewich, newly dubbed the Mad Dogs, and ready themselves for the trials ahead.