“The pholospoher´s stone? Arthur, quit joking!” Three boys sat on a stone wall in the far north of the eastern duchy. One of them was Arthur, my friend since my father retired from the military and settled down.
“I swear it exists! I read about it in the study of my dad.” The son of the earl said, making a fool out of himself once and for all.
“A stone that can fulfil every wish one has must be quite the powerful artefact …” Nezar, a rather gloomy black-haired boy mentioned to my side. Together we were the princes of the north-east as we were capable in our own regards. Arthur was brilliant in politics, Nezar loved Magic and already studied it under his uncle, and I was training to follow the footsteps of my father.
“It is! Can you imagine it? An all powerful artefact, capable of fulfilling ever wish, including to be the king of this world!” Arthur had some dangerous aspirations but he was also willing to take the risks that accompanied them. Since young, he absolutely loved to govern the land and increase his own value. He wasn’t alone though, Nezar could easily throw around fireballs with twelve which was quite rare.
But none of them could beat me in a one versus one though. My sword would cut through like it was nothing … not that I would ever do that. They were my best friends after all.
“What would you wish for?” I asked while thinking about what I wanted as well.
“Unlimited mana and elemental affinity.” Nezar´s wishes went in the same direction as mine. I would wish for strength, that was clear after a single second of thinking.
“Influence and the crown on my head.” Arthur mentioned, clearly in his own word. There was simply no way any of us would be crowned king. Nezar and I didn’t have any noble blood in our veins while Arthur´s family is old, but steadily losing influence.
“You are aware this is lèse-majesté?” I mentioned concerned as I didn’t want to see him getting imprisoned by something this dumb.
“Only if someone finds out.” He casually said and clapped once. “Okay, how about we do this. Once anyone of us finds the stone, we share it with the other two?”
“Deal. How does it look like?” Nezar asked, hopefully not trying to find it as well. It was enough that one of us was already way too ambitious.
“That is … apparently it is blue. I don’t know the rest though …” Arthur said deep in thought.
“Can´t be too hard to find then …” I mumbled, conscious about the fact it wouldn’t be easy at all. Blue … so many stones were blue. Deep within me though, I already knew the stone would be something special, if it ever existed in the first place. And the others thought so too apparently as Arthur looked towards the sky and Nezar formed snow into a ball, only to throw it at Arthur afterwards.
“Quit dreaming! I will find it.” He said and jumped off the little wall. What followed was one of our near endless fights in which we ran through the town and battled out our arguments with snowballs until nobody could move anymore.
My childhood was great. I had so much fun with my two friends that they became something like a second family for me. But as time progressed, so did our plans. Nezar was the first one to move out with thirteen years. His destination was the royal academy where he intended to study all kinds of magic. We did receive quite a few letters from him but two years after he left, even those got rarer and rarer. Maybe it did have something to do with Arthur, because he changed quite a bit. The competitiveness he always had went slightly over his head after his father died. As the head of his family, he was responsible for his siblings and his family fortune. I didn’t know if that turned him into a better man though.
As such, it became the sad reality that even we distanced ourselves. I just couldn’t take the constant bragging about his betrothal to the duke’s sole daughter as if it interested me in any way. Truth to be told, I was also responsible for our distance as I focused more and more on my own education.
Sword fighting, army management and strategies were the things I loved the most and that accurately reflected itself by my admission into the military. As the best of my year, I visited the military academy and thus started my life as a soldier. I was even hailed as a pedigree after putting down a few hundred bandits with thirty three men and gained even the attention of the king, probably even before Arthur managed to do so. I didn’t know why the king was so interested in me, but he even gave me a little wolf to raise which was seriously hard to do. At least my hunts got easier with that.
As I was in the middle of the for-
“That is a nice story, but how about we wrap it up?” It was only then as I realized that I was dreaming of my past in a very lively way. The scenes of my very first hunt with my wolf vanished in front of my eyes, only to be replaced by a near endless meadow.
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Something I couldn’t really put into words stood in front of me. A blue silhouette was there, but I was strangely able to see through it as well.
“Where am I?” I asked concerned. The last thing I could remember was … was her. That vampire …
“Your subconsciousness is a rather nice place …” It mumbled quietly but I could make it out anyway thanks to my good ears. “Well then, what can I say? You succeeded in claiming the philosophers stone for yourself!” The silhouette exclaimed and strolled over to me, only to place me a hand on my shoulder. “I am the philosopher`s stone which you swallowed … so you can say that I am a part of you now. As such, you can wish for whatever you like!” A stone that had its own personality? I was quite taken aback to be honest, but not because of this revelation. I couldn’t remember swallowing the stone at all.
“I … what is going on?” I mumbled as serve headaches shot through my head.
“Okay then … let me walk you through what happened. First of all, your friends all disbanded in different directions and then …”
“… I joined the military with my wolf and everything went fine until …” I mumbled and felt myself back in that cursed forest. It was a damp atmosphere during the early hours of the day. Wolfy was sniffing the ground, probably smelling some wild animal nearby while I had my arrow already knocked onto the bow.
But then … I wasn’t entirely sure what happened. I felt incredibly drowsy all of a sudden and Wolfy howled in pain. It was just a gentle breeze that brought me down, not a wild beast, not a foe … a breeze.
I woke up in the middle of the night laying on my side. I felt different the moment I woke up. My nose was sharper and directly picked up the smell of blood before my eyes could even open. Under the moonlight, I could see how Wolfy laid a bit away from me. He was completely mutilated with several ribs sticking out of his chest, his paws turned into razor sharp claws and his back seemed to have turned into some kind of chitin amour. It was a horrifying sight for me, especially as he tried to crawl towards me, obviously in pain and nearly dead. Once again, I snapped out of this hallucination as the silhouette appeared beside me.
“Why are you showing me this?” I asked while getting slightly angry. I was sure that I needed to do something in the present and couldn’t waste too much time.
“You wished something that night, didn’t you? So, what was it?” The philosopher´s stone asked.
“I wanted strength and the protection I needed to overcome any obstacle.” I claimed. That night, I had come to the realization that I turned into a monster. Every full moon I was forced to transform into a wolf and couldn’t control myself during that time. My meals also changed considerably and my blood had the ability to change humans into whatever I was as well. It was only natural that I left the military shortly afterwards and formed my own pack.
“And there was something else, wasn’t there?” There were so many things … I wanted to have Wolfy back and I felt the strong need to found a family. But none of these things stuck to me during that night. It was the moon that shone so brightly, so beautiful that I couldn’t take my eyes off it after burying Wolfy. The light was calming and simply put beautiful. Never before was I drawn to the moonlight like this … and I wished everyone could see that.
“I … I want others to …” My head was getting quite drowsy again and I couldn’t help but feel that my current state wasn’t good for me. I closed my eyes for one second and then opened it only to see this beautiful, large moon again. “I want others to feel the moon. I wa-“
“Thank you, that was all.” Everything vanished in front of my eyes … everything. Darkness enveloped me as I tried to reach out for the moon. And then, all these memories came back and I regretted each and every one of my actions. I should have killed her as I had the chance and I definitely shouldn’t have prioritized the philosophers` stone over my pack. But it was too late.
I could feel coldness encroaching my body from all sides and I remembered what Nezar wrote us a year after he was admitted to the academy.
‘Every tool has its drawbacks. Take a scythe for example. It needs to be sharp, but if it is too sharp you only hurt yourself needlessly. The philosophers´ stone is no different in that regard … at least I assume this to be the case. The power to fulfil every wish is not desirable.’
It wasn’t desirable. I didn’t know what this stone was … but it definitely didn’t fulfil my wishes the way I wanted.