The heavy wooden door creaks behind you as you step out onto the filth-ridden streets of the city. You pull your cloak tighter, instinctively covering your mouth and nose, though it does little to block the foul stench of rot, sweat, and sickness that clings to every corner. The house you’ve left behind is well-kept — at least, compared to the crumbling homes of the poor — but wealth can only protect you so much in times like these.

The Black Death does not care for coin.

Cobblestones slick with mud and worse squelch beneath your boots as you make your way down the narrow street. The cries of the sick echo faintly from shuttered windows, mixed with whispered prayers and muffled sobs. It is not long before you come upon one of the many plague doctor stalls set up along the roadside — a grim sign of the times.

The man behind the crude wooden stand is unmistakable: the long black coat, leather gloves, and the haunting, bird-like mask meant to protect him from the very air itself. Dried herbs and bundles of flowers hang from the edges of his stall, their wilted scent mixing with the acrid smell of vinegar-soaked cloth.

Signs boast cures, protection charms, and remedies — none of them truly proven, all of them desperate attempts to ward off a disease no one fully understands, obviously, no one knew that, even the "doctors" didn't knew that, not even you, that those herbs couldn't help. Lavender to "purify the air," rosemary for "strength of the body," and little wax pomanders to "keep away death."