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Last of the Fae Chapter 38: Philosopher's Stone
🕑 Added 2024-09-04 15:48:04 +0000 UTCAfter becoming an Animagus the rest of the school year passed at a crawl for Thane. With the great mystery of rituals and ambient mana solved there wasn’t anything to occupy his every waking thought. Though that didn’t mean Thane had nothing to do, in fact the exact opposite had happened.
With the final months of school approaching, the student body was whipped up into a frenzy as people started studying for their various exams and tests. But since he spent most of his free time in the library studying and every night learning from three of the most powerful magic beings to ever walk the planet, Thane had a feeling that his first year exams wouldn’t be that much of a problem.
However the sudden interest in study material did have the unfortunate effect of flooding the library with far more people than Thane would have liked. With his sanctuary overrun Thane decided a change of scenery was necessary, one that he could change the appearance of on a whim.
The Room of Requirement quickly became Thane’s favorite place on earth, which might not have been saying much, but it still meant something. With a few words Thane transformed the empty room into a literal oasis, marble blue water surrounded a lone island rich with vegetation and colorful flora surrounded by endless dunes in every direction.
In the middle of the island a massive tree sat with great roots that stretched in every direction. Sheltered underneath the tree’s canopy was the mana gathering ritual that Thane sat on whenever he occupied the room and as Thalion mentioned Thane felt his reserves grow marginally after using the ritual daily.
Thane also prepared for his upcoming heist to steal the philosopher's stone, preparing everything he could possibly think, though Thane wasn’t truly stealing the alchemical creation. He just needed the Elixir of life the stone produced, and while the idea of turning metals into pure gold was tempting Thane had already thought of other ways to make money in the future.
Thane planned to break into the vault during the very last week of school giving him enough time to completely fill up the mana gathering ritual to make his metamorphosis as smooth as possible. Or at least that had been the plan.
A few days after his exams Thane was secluded in the room of requirement when the ground started to tremble and he looked up from his grimoire just in time to see the air in front of him open revealing a stone passageway.
Thane frowned as for some reason he felt a sense of urgency radiating from the passage, something was clearly going awry within the castle walls.
Thane’s grimoire floated off his lap and into its bag as he stood up and snapped his fingers, summoning his invisibility cloak that settled onto his shoulders. But as Thane went to take a step forward and enter the tunnel a deep resonating hiss echoed through the air and Thane glanced over his shoulder, “Finally decided to stop lazing about?”
In response Ingrid slithered down the trunk of the tree, Thane had brought her to the room of requirement one day to show her around thinking she would enjoy the humid climate. Not only did the lazy serpent enjoy it, she had refused to leave. When Thane asked her why she said something about the air being nice, at first he had thought she just enjoyed the warm climate after the long winter but Thane’s opinion quickly changed after a month of Ingrid staying within the room of requirement.
Thane watched as Ingrid slithered across the ground now nearly fifteen feet long but the most shocking change was her scales that had visibly thickened and the small collar of backward facing spikes that had grown around her head.
Ingrid rose up into the air as she reached Thane’s side and he lowered his hand for her to climb up. After a bit of adjusting, Ingrid settled into a comfortable spot, wrapped tightly around Thane’s right arm, but flattening her body enough not to be over encumbrance.
The entire process only took a few seconds but the castle rumbled once more with even greater intensity, “Alright, alright I’m going.”
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“No Ron, don't do it!”
“I have to Hermione, if I sacrifice myself you guys will win and move on. We have to stop Snape from getting the stone!”
“There has to be another way!”
“No there isn’t, Ron’s right Hermione.”
“What in the bloody hell is going on here?”
Three sets of eyes whipped around as Thane stepped out of the wall and stared at the sight before him. In the middle of the room was a massive chest set, though most of the life-sized pieces had been shattered into rubble which had been strewn about the room.
With a brief glance Thane realized that Harry, Hermione and Ron had taken the place of some of the pieces and judging by the position he determined that Harry was a bishop, Hermione was a castle and Ron most obviously was a knight perched atop a massive stone horse.
“Thane, what are you doing here?!” Hermione asked scathingly as she glared at him with open hostility.
“I bet he’s here to help Snape steal the stone!” Ron shouted as he pointed an accusing finger at Thane.
Thane raised an eyebrow, “Snape’s trying to steal the Philosopher's stone?”
“So you do know about the stone,” Harry confirmed and Thane let out a long sigh, “Yes Harry I know about the stone, I was planning to break in here next week but the castle brought me here ahead of schedule and I see why. You three have made a right proper mess of things.”
“You were going to steal the stone, why? And what do you mean the castle brought you here?” Hermione asked ever curious.
“That’s none of your concern," Thane replied frostily, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a stone to fetch.”
Thane then stepped onto the chess board and walked forward stepping over the pieces of rubble and ignoring the life size chess pieces which turned to face him.
“Thane watch out, they’ll attack you if you get too close!” Harry shouted out but Thane ignored him as he reached the end of the board.
In an instant the previously motionless king piece came to life reaching behind its back and pulling out a massive stone greatsword taller than Thane’s entire body. With the sound of two mountains grinding against each other the massive golem swung its sword down in an overhead chop at Thane.
Holding out his hand Thane muttered an incantation under his breath, “Bombarda Maxima.”
A massive explosion unfurled from Thane’s open palm with an air shaking boom, and enough force to shatter the upper half of the chess piece into gravel. Lowering his hand a second later Thane continued on without pause, as the rest of the white chess pieces crumbled with their king defeated.
“Did…did he just cast that without a wand?” Ron asked in a scared whisper.
“Come on we can't let him get the stone,” Hermione replied with a frustrated grunt as she ran to catch up with Thane.
Arriving in front of the doors Thane waved his hand and a wave of force rolled forward slamming into the massive oak frames and sending the flying open revealing the next room, where seven potions sat on pedestals and a wall of black flame blocked the way forward.
Thane rolled his eyes and reached into his robes with a sigh, “I can’t believe this is what I spent three month’s preparing for. Had I known it would be this easy I would have done it long ago.”
“Stop right there!”
Thane paused as he pulled out a potion bottle containing what looked like liquid fire and he turned around as Hermione, Ron and Harry entered the room. Just then a wall of purple flames sprung up behind them blocking the way out.
“You’re not laying a finger on the Philosopher's Stone!” Hermione shouted as she stopped a few feet in front of Thane.
“Why do you even care?” Thane asked with a frown, his annoyance turning into actual frustration, “And how did you even get involved in the first place?”
“We care because it’s the right thing to do!” Harry answered as he stepped up next to Hermione, “And no one would believe us when we told them Snape was trying to steal the stone! We couldn’t just sit around and do nothing!”
Thane rolled his eyes, “Spare me the theatrics please, also what’s the worst thing that could happen if Snape gets his hands on the stone?”
“Don’t you know, the stone can turn any metal into gold and grant the user immortality!” Ron explained as he also took a step forward.
“You do realize that Snape is one of the few certified Potion Masters in the world and that he can make elixirs worth their weight in gold right?” Thane replied in a stressed tone, “Also while the stone does produce the elixir of life that grants immortality it doesn’t grant endless youth. Even if you take the potion every day for it to work eventually you would have to create a new body. Which is possible but then you would have to transfer your soul over and that when things get tricky. All of that’s to say it's just not worth it.”
