Continued from the epic tale of The Warrior Brothers…
In the southern lands of Lititz, Pennsylvania, the sprogling named Gatorade played happily with his cousin. The pretense of Hero-names had been dropped since last weekend, as kids tend to do, but there was still great adventures in the backyard of my parents place, involving zombie squirrels and bat-men attacks.
When we were all hanging around, my father asked about the Crystal Dino Bone, and if the kid was still talking about it. I asked the sprogling, and was told that the kids were now after a LightSword shaped like a crystal bone. Fair enough, I figured….
Unbeknownst to me, my father took the the original Warrior Brother story to heart, and had located “an ancient bottle” buried in the yard while he was digging his garden, many many years ago. Inside this bottle was a rolled up scrap of parchment (click image for details) that appeared to be some sort of map!
The young cousins unrolled the map, and quickly realized it showed the very backyard they were playing in, with a great mysterious X near the creek at the corner of the property.
Collecting the grown ups (who, other than my father had no clue that this adventure was pre-planned) we traced out the steps of the map.
From the porch, around the small shed, then turning sharply to circle dangerously close to the water behind the large forsythia bushes. After navigating the treacherous muddy cliffs, we returned to the center of the yard, made a loop, and began our walk towards the little side fencerow garden. ZigZagging next to the maple tree, we then stepped sideways around a small lilac transplanted here from Everthorn Farms. Once this was done, we were mere paces away from the final destination marked on this aging scroll.
The ground around the X was overgrown with high weeds and dusty overflow-debris from the creek. At first, it appeared we might need a shovel, but the young adventurers bravely picked through the grasses until a glint of sunlight was spotted through the weeds.
The Crystal Dinosaur Bone LightSword had been found at last!
One of the boys, made the quote of the day in an almost breathless awe: “It really does exist!” after what was initially just an imaginary play-prop.
It was a fun adventure, and the finding of an actual “crystal bone” (Plexiglass) made this geek-dad smile. My father, or should I say “Pap Da Dad”, is so cool!
The rest of the day, my sprogling and his cousin carried that sword around, having quests too numerous to recount here. The LightSword gained powers in the sun, lost energy in the dirt, and had edges SO SHARP they could cut through anything that was not specially enchanted to be “lightsword proof”.
So far, I myself am not lightsword proof, so am unable to even touch the treasure. Only my wife, the sprogling, and my oldest nepphew are able to do so. And even then, they must recharge their lightsword proof ability every morning after breakfast, but the details of this process are a secret to those uninitiated. 
And so, the Lightsword sits now, in a special location in the kid’s play area. The map has been discarded (I pulled it back out of the trash after the kid tossed it) now that the treasure was found. He got it out this morning before school, to defeat some creature in the bathroom where I took the picture posted above.
The adventure awaiting us on next trip to Lititz? Only time will tell….
