A priest teaches the (Blizzard-Diablo) creed to young village boys. The hero, who is one of the boys, is impressed by the tales. On the way home one of the other boys surprises him, but the hero sees him as a demon (in the dark) and kills him with a stick, which a sister of the killed boy witnesses.
While the villagers catch the hero and decide what to do with him, the priest intercedes and declares that the hero is possessed by demons. He performs an exorcism.
Ten years later. The hero is a moody guy, the girl (the dead boy's sister) is neurotic, phobic of violence and of the hero, and pretty much unfit for marrying, for which her parents understandably blame the hero.
An enemy war party (there is a war going on) comes over, and declares the village a domain of their lord. They promptly proceed to also claim the village's food reserves, and try to institute prostitution. One of them tries to chat up the girl and she unexpectedly agrees to a date, with which the hero is unhappy as he seems to have a crush on the girl.
The next morning, the hero's father wakes up the hero and tells him that the soldier has been found murdered and they're trying to pin it on the hero, and he should probably make for the woods, which the hero does.
In the woods, the hero stumbles across a company of friendly soldiers. He doesn't alert them to the situation at the village and instead follows them to their destination. On the way, they introduce each other, and during a night's halt, some bandits try to steal their horses which the watch stops valiantly and receives a fatal wound in the process. He dies by morning and the hero receives his armor and sword.
Then, the party arrives at Tristram. Villagers point them in the direction of a cathedral. When the soldiers come to it, it appears abandoned, but then enemies appear from ambush. The party retreats inside the cathedral, and the hero gets knocked out by a flying rock.
When he wakes up, he is greeted by the deceased watch who is now a helpful ghost. The ghost says that the hero must clear the evil infesting the cathedral. The hero is hesitant at first, but then he discovers the other soldiers dead in rooms around the place he is, plus the Butcher.
The hero runs away, finds a door to a lower level. He shuts the heavy door behind him, and secures it. Then little monsters attack him. While the hero fights them, the Butcher breaks down the door and corners the hero, who manages to dodge the Butcher's initial attacks and almost escapes when the Butcher catches him with a cruel chop, and almost cuts his foot clean off. But the ghost leads the hero who is bleeding out to a shrine that heals him and gives him the power to defeat the Butcher.
However, other monsters attack the hero promptly... He comes to an important-looking gate in a fighty spirit. Beyond the gate is a room with lying skeletons and a giant skeleton sitting on a throne. The skeleton (king) is somehow alive, but doesn't rise to fight the hero. The hero hesitates about destroying the skeleton king long enough for the skeleton king to finally wake up and start raising his minions who attack the hero. The hero figures it out and chops off the skeleton king's hand holding the summoning sword. The sword smashes on the floor, the minion skeletons drop down. The skeleton king says that he's the king and that the hero will be forever cursed if he touches him once more, but the hero does anyway, chopping his skull off and breaking it. Then a passage opens behind the throne.
Downstairs the hero is met by a succubus. She asks the hero to love her, then says that she knows whom he loves. At that the hero kills her.
More succubi attack him, but he dispatches them all. And comes to the room with Lazarus and a dead boy. The hero doesn't hesitate to attack Lazarus, but Lazarus teleports away. The hero chases him around the room unsuccessfully, getting fried a bit by a fireball. Then the boy rises and grabs Lazarus by the cuff while he's near. Trying to escape, Lazarus loses hold of his staff and robe and becomes a pathetic old man whom the hero kills with a bit of remorse.
Then the hero uses the staff to teleport to the next level. He finds himself in a room beyond which is a large space filled with monsters and with Diablo in the center. They come to a stalemate when the hero decides to guard the entrance to his room, killing any monsters who try to enter. Diablo agrees to a duel, but withdraws as soon as the hero steps away from his cover. Climactic fight, during which Diablo makes fiery fissures appear under the feet of the hero charging towards him past the advancing monsters. The hero kills Diablo. Diablo transforms into the boy whom the hero killed in childhood. The ghost congratulates the hero for fulfilling his destiny and freeing the kid and the cathedral from demonic spirits.
With the cathedral cleansed, Tristram greets the hero as... a hero. He must go on, though, to his home village. When he comes home, it is ravaged, and the enemy soldiers are like beasts, drunk and blood-drenched. The hero's family is hung, and the soldiers are about to hang the girl's father. But the hero comes, and kills them all, while the girl hears it, hiding in her house.
At the end of the fight, a company of friendly soldiers arrives and helps mop up the chop-your-head-off-runners-up. The leader of the company greets the hero who ignores him. The hero approaches the girl's house. After some hesitation she comes out and we find out that she sees the hero as a giant armored monster. She overcomes her fear and touches his muzzle, then withdraws.
The horses snort in fear of the monster who goes away his own way.
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Also posted on ScriptFrenzy, because I'm trying to make it into a screenplay, although I'm not in frenzy. And what the title says, I'd appreciate suggestions on improvement of this plot.
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Topic: Help improve the plot of my Diablo fanfic (Read 1423 times)