In the Necromancer valley of Zakarum, the necromancer of the name Slater had been in a deep meditation. In this meditation, he had learned much of what had happened. He saw the battles of the "Chosen One". He saw what had happened with Lile in the recesses of Hell. After his deep meditations, he decided that he had to go to the necromancer's Black Citadel and tell the wise ones of his visions. The wise ones were fascinated of this story and told him to call the villagers to a town meeting, because the people needed to hear about what had happened. At the meeting, Slater walked through a crowd of villagers and went to step on a platform. As he did, it rose to a higher point from which he could speak. "People of Zakarum!" He shouted. "As you may already know I had recently been in deep meditation. In this time, I had a vision of the recent past. The vision was definitely not a good one. The evils have been resurrected." The crowd goes silent as the sky turns blood red. Then an odd looking man in a worn cloak, which hid his face appeared in the distance. He walked toward the necromancer as the crowd cleared a path in fright. The cloaked man removed his hood to reveal his identity. It was the well-known prophet of the necromancers. He then looked up at Slater and told him something in a creepy spine chilling voice that could case mortal men to run in fear. "NECROMANCER…YOUR TIME HAS COME." He said. "What do you speak of?" said the necromancer. "YOUR GREATEST TIME IS NOW, YOU MUST TAKE THE PLACE OF THE CHOSEN ONE!" "What?" said the necromancer. "YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE. YOU MUST PREPARE TO FACE YOUR GREATEST FEARS. YOU MUST DESTROY THE EVILS. YOU MUST DESTROY…THE OUTCAST." The prophet then disappeared in a dark mist-like cloud. The skies turned back to their dark black state and the necromancer stood in astonishment. After many days of training, he leaves Zakarum to complete his destiny.
- - -
In the Evil's outpost near the very center of the Lut Gohlein desert, the Evils are discussing their new "problem". There at a round table is Baal, Diablo, Andariel, The Outcast, Nihlathak, Mephisto and the Mistress of Pain. They sit there, having a serious conversation. "The prophet has chosen his hero." Diablo bursts out. "That is unacceptable." Baal says with a smirk. Nihlathak then rolls his eyes and sighs. He says something, "As you all may know, the appointed hero is a necromancer. I also am a necromancer, of much greater power. He may be strong, but my necromancer skills are much more powerful than that novice's." Then, Andariel shouts, "You are quite cocky Nihlathak, but you are so naïve. Heroes always gain power quickly." Then Mephisto shouts, "You are all wrong, my minions and I shall crush the puny necromancer!" "Let me destroy him!" yells Baal. The evils all fight as Lile stands in the corner of the room. Andariel then suddenly stands up and smacks Nihlathak with one of her massive claws as he counter attacks with a bone spear. Meanwhile, Mephisto summons hydras and some of his minions. Diablo wipes them out with his lightning attack. The table burns and they all begin to fight, except the Outcast and Lile. The two of them continue their conversation. "Hm, this hero might be powerful in the end." Says the Outcast. "Yes, but the immolation of the previous "Chosen One" shall not be in vain. If I have to, I will kill him myself." After a while, each of the Evils had killed each other in grotesque ways. They were each mangled and torn apart. Gore was spread across the room. The Outcast and Lile decide to resurrect them once more. Afterwards, they'd send each of them to places that they expected Slater to travel. It would be like a game. "The chosen one has a difficult journey ahead of him." "That is correct Lile…most correct."
- - -
Lile is standing in the corner, leaning against the wall, thinking to herself. "What is causing this evil in me? Am I truly evil of my own free will? Or is it something else? Something…living within me?" She begins to use her finger to trace the long scar the Outcast had left on her forehead so long ago. "Why would I join the forces of the same being who did this to me?" The scar begins to burn and to bleed. "What is this? Outcast, come here, quickly!" The Outcast walks into the room. "What's the problem Lile?" "My forehead is bleeding heavily, you can't see the problem yourself?" "So, you have a cut on your face." Lile stares blankly at the Outcast while trying to hold back the blood. The Outcast yawns. "Lile, you're already dead, what's the problem?" Since when do the undead have this much blood in their bodies?" "That scar there, it will bleed if you question my authority. If you ever even have a thought of betraying me while you remain tainted." "What? How did you do that?" "The evils, we've discovered a new ability of ours. We have the ability to infect the souls of mortals and use them as we wish. The prophecy tells that the evils will use this ability and make the world a living Hell. In the end only you and me will remain. We will be the king and the queen of Hell. That is the war of infection. Nothing can stop it from happening…except the chosen one." By now, Lile is beginning to stop bleeding. She's very pale and is standing in a large puddle of her blood. "That's interesting. Sounds like good fun too." "That's more like the Lile I know, have I told you how to infect the mortals yet?" "No? I'm not an evil, how would I infect them?" The Outcast laughs. "You are as close to an evil as any mortal can come. In fact, you've become almost pure evil. That's the only reason my infection won't allow me to control your mind. That's not important though. The process is simple. Just give a quick slash to the arm of the mortal you want to infect with the demon claws you've grown. That will begin the infestation process. They will immediately fall unconscious and after two or three days, they will awake as a loyal servant to you. Unless you're killed or they are, they will remain that way eternally." Lile looks down at her hands and notices the long black claws that have begun to grow from where her fingernails had been. "I hadn't even noticed these growing. Perhaps I'll miss having fingernails Outcast? Then what?" The Outcast shakes his head. "Oh come on Lile, is that really important? You're a demon now, not a human." "Well, I suppose that's true, but, either way, I was once human and there will be things I miss of it." "Um, Lile, sorry to change the subject on you, but we have visitors." Arrows shoot through the windows of the building. "Lile, ready to test the powers of infestation?" "Of course." Within five minutes, two armies of two hundred men each that had been fighting each other stopped warring. All lay on the ground with a long gash in one of their arms. The Outcast laughs. "The War of Infection begins."
- - -
"Outcast, if we can control a mortal by clawing their arm, what is topping us from simply controlling the Chosen One himself?" "Lile, what would be the point? If it were even possible in the first place." "What do you mean?" "Well, we could easily defeat the chosen one with our physical and magical attacks. Plus, the chosen one is immune to the infection. Just as pure evil is immune, so is pure good." "Outcast, that's a bad attitude to have, it may get you killed some day." The Outcast laughs. "That's a good one Lile. I'm practically invincible. The only worthy opponent in the entire world I would ever have is you." Lile makes a face at the Outcast and walks out from the room. "He's such a child sometimes. Any time I attempt to be helpful, he laughs at me and says there's no point. He has too much faith in his own abilities. All of his brothers and sisters have fallen more than once, and if I hadn't killed Slater, he probably would have as well." Lile sighs and continues walking. The next thing she knows, she's face first on the ground. Her staff flies out of her hand as she falls. "Don't move Lile! You're trapped." Lile knows that she could escape easily but humors the men. "And who are you?" "Wouldn't you like to know!" Lile sighs. "I'll give you to the count of three." As she says this, the men toss her into a cage. She laughs. "One." "That cage has a special enchantment on it. Made by the fallen." "Two." "Lile! You're powerless and you know it!" "Three!" Lile jumps forward to break from the cage but as she hits the edge feels her power drain. She slumps to the bottom of the cage, unable to move. The men tie a rope to the cage and begin to drag it along. One of the men begins to talk to another. "Won't the Outcast be here soon? We have no way of taking down an evil without surprise." The second man chuckles slightly. "He has way too much confidence in Lile. He's probably still asleep in the outpost." Lile starts to laugh a little. "Perhaps his confidence is well placed." Suddenly, a large amount of arrows fire over some dunes to the men's right. "What is this?" Lile laughs. "As the Outcast would say…"You've got visitors"!" Lile smirks as her infected army marches towards the remaining men. "Are you ready to die? No one attacks Lile and lives." The men don't last more than three seconds as each member of the infected army slices at them at once. Lile laughs for a moment before falling unconscious. She awakes, out of the cage in the sand. Her army is gone. Soon after she remembers her staff is back at the outpost. She has no idea where the men had brought her. "Where am I?" She kills a nearby monster with a quick punch to its face and steals it's dagger. "The Outcast better get here soon, or I'll kill him!" The scar on her face begins to bleed. "I'll kill him…"
- - -
After the necromancer trains for his long journey, he begins to travel east. He decides the best place to being would be where the first "chosen one" did. The quickest way there from Zakarum involved taking a ship over the Sea of the Shinsho. He recruits whom he can and buys a ship. He leaves immediately. As the giant wooden ship crosses the vast ocean, something unexpected happens. One of the crewmates looks with his spyglass out to the sea. The necromancer is leaning on the side of the boat while the sailor says something about a flock of sea gulls. As soon as the necromancer hears this he gets up and rips the spyglass out of his hands. "Oh my…" he says, surprised. "The Shinsho." The sailor replies in a drunken, disturbing voice, "What the heck is the Shinsho?" "You wouldn't want to know." Said the necromancer. "It could destroy this ship in one- WOAH!" The ship is the caught up in a giant whirlpool. Out of the center rises a giant Draken. "Oh no." Slater says. "The legendary Shinsho." "Let us fight him. Luckily, we are transporting Elvin archers. Call them up!" Yelled the captain. The elves rush up from the cargo area with their bows and arrows and immediately rushed to battle. The arrows flowed to the Draken and simply agitated him. The Draken smashes the main mast clear off of the ship. The necromancer casts spells onto the Draken, when all of a sudden a wave wiped out all of the elves. "Men over board!" yelled a crewmate. The elves cry for help when the Draken sucks them into his mouth and devours them. Then the Draken smashes the front half of the ship. The necromancer turns around and gets knocked out by a tentacle. He blacks out. He awakes later that day on a beach near a large desert town. "Looks like I'm going to need a new boat…" Slater goes into town and his quest truly begins.