Locke was searching for the herbs his mom needed for dinner. This was the exact the same time that he always gathered them every day, though he never thought anything about it. This chore was routine, he had done it every single day since he was ten. He was now sixteen, had brown shaggy hair, was wearing a t-shirt and shorts and was also very athletic. He gathered up the last of the herbs and entered though the glass door. He walked down the small hall and turned into the main room. Looking into the room, he dropped the herbs and the bowl shatter to pieces.
He saw his parents lying on the floor dead and three figures in black cloaks. The figure on the left was holding a knife to his little brother’s neck. Locke ran straight down the hall to the glass case, which held the staff his parents told him to get, in this type of situation. He broke the glass with his fist and grabbed the staff. It was a beautifully carved staff, with a hole at the top that held a glowing amber disk. Holding the staff, he charged into the room. He aimed for the figure on the left and hit him, causing him to fall to the ground. Then without thinking, he jabbed the staff right into the middle of the chest of the figure on the ground. In that second, a mini-yellow shock wave traveled down the staff, making the figure disappear into the ground. Locke was shocked! What had he seen? The figures took advantage of his shock. The leader and the one on the right grabbed the his little brother and ran away before Locke had time to react. Locke stood there in shock, with his parents dead bodies on the floor, and his brother kidnapped by two men in black cloaks. One of the men carried a scythe. What an odd weapon for a murderer to carry.
After the burial of his parents, Locke went to his room, and cried. After four hours of straight crying he stood up and prepared himself dinner. It wasn’t very good. After all Locke was not the best of cooks. It went on like this for a week. Crying and trying to cook and be normal again. On Monday, after the week of tragedy and burials, Locke heard a knock on his door. Locke got up and wiped the tears from his face. He went to answer the door. He opened it and there was a man he didn’t recognize. The man held out his hand and shook Locke’s hand.
He said, “Hello, I’m a friend of your father’s.”
Locke glumly said, “Hi, I’m Locke. I am his son.”
“Is your father here?” asked the man.
Locke put he head down, looked at the floor and softly said, “He’s dead.
“May I inquire how he died?” replied the man.
Locke mustered his courage and said, “He was murdered.”
“By whom!” the shocked man said.
“Three large figures in dark cloaks,” informed Locke.
“What!” the man said.

Locke reluctantly explained what happened.

Then the man said, “This is worse than I thought.” Then he said, “Locke, do you think you might know anything about these murderers?”

Locke replied, “Nothing.”

The man pressed, “Did your parents tell you anything of who these men might be?”

Locke said again, “Absolutely nothing.”

Then the man said, “Locke, sit down.”

Locke moved over to the chair and sat down. Then the man said, “I am going to share with you a story, a true story.” He handed Locke a role of parchment.

Locke unrolled the parchment and began to read. It said the following: The world was in ruins, on the one land remained untouched by death’s hand and his huge army of minions. For death had gone in-sane. He had realized his true power and potential. He realized that he could go in and out of the underworld any time he wanted as long as there was a job to do (which is practically every second of the day). He realized that no one could defeat him. He could not be slain, for you cannot kill death. He was sick of his underworld life, that horrid place of torture. He wanted earth. He wanted everyone to obey, and not just the dead. His plan was simple, get an army and destroy all inhabitants of the earth. After this was done, everyone would be his undead minions. With no one to inhabit earth, it would become his realm, his world, and no one could stop him.

The grim reaper had destroyed almost every person on every continent using his undead armies. Every person he destroyed gave him another member for his army. Although, his army could be hurt, because of light and dark metal which was now abundantly used by the people. Light metal was used to destroy the lesser undead but could not hurt the greater. Dark metal was used to destroy the greater undead, but could not hurt the lesser. Ever though this slowed the armies down, they still could not be defeated, because of the Reaper.

The people were dumb enough to even try to hurt him. They sent out their best fighters to duel with him armed with dark metal swords. Although they survived fighting the reaper for a while, they eventually got tired the Reaper killed each of them one by one.

The Reaper was on the last continent. Our continent, our home land, the land we love. In the last minutes of the war, when the last surviving settlement at the edge of the continent was making their final stand, a Holy man begged God for help. God answered his call and sent an angel. The angel told the Holy man to gather one-forth of the light and dark metal from their stores. After the metal was gathered the angel fused the metals together with a third metal, a metal he called Mandalerium metal. When the metals were done fusing he put it into a square block. He told the Holy man to carve half of the metal into a sword in a scimitar shape and then divide one eighteenth of the remaining metal to make a key knife. The key knife was to be made of the special metal mixed with iron. The holy man was instructed to hide the remaining metal in a selected hiding place of his own choice. Only he and the chosen one would know the location of metal. The angel then told the Holy man to choose a good, strong sword fighter to wield the sword. The sword fighter would need to have a wife and raise children to pass the sword to when he died. When the chosen sword fighter died his oldest son would become the sword wielder, and so on, and so on from generation to generation.

The angel also gave a book to the Holy man. The book contained all the knowledge of the underworld, how to get there, how to use the weapons and the history of the wars. The book was to be a journal to record the wars to come. The Holy Man knew exactly who he would choose be the sword wielder.

End of Part 1