Beyond the Trapdoor

“Wow! This plant really is strangling me! This is great!” Tas said happily.
“Shade, could you hurry up with that fireball?” Keyblade gasped as the Devil’s Snare reached for her throat.
A huge fireball hit the killer plant. It immediately drew away from its victims. “Hurry! Get into the next room! That fireball won’t stop it for long!” Shade yelled running toward the door. Everyone followed her, although Bookworm had to drag Tas away from the “interesting plant”.
The next room was filled with shiny winged keys that fluttered around the ceiling. “Hmm… We need to catch the key that will unlock that door, but there aren’t any brooms to fly on… Lloyd! Use your wings to fly up and catch the big silver key!” Bookworm said.
“Okay!” Lloyd’s giant angel wings appeared. He flew up and began chasing the silver key. The other keys kept flying towards him, trying to attack him, but he outflew them. Finally, he caught the key and flew back down with it. “Wasn’t that great? Did you see how I dodged all those other keys? I wish Kratos could’ve seen that!” Lloyd bragged, holding up the struggling key for everyone to see. His boasting was interrupted by the sound of a door opening.
“They really don’t have very good security around here,” Tas muttered, stuffing several flying keys into his pouch as he looked at the lock he had just picked. He walked through the door and into the next room.
“Wow! Look at this! When you try to walk across the room, these soldiers stop you!” Tas giggled. He was standing on a giant chessboard. A white pawn looked really annoyed as it kept stopping him from crossing the board.
“Awesome! We get to play chess!” Bookworm cheered.
They began to play on the giant chess board. They would have been winning, if it hadn’t been for Tas. Being a typical kender, he could not stand still when it was not his turn to move. He accidentally made many stupid moves when he went to investigate the enemy chess pieces.
“Can we let them capture him? Pleeeeeeease?” Bookworm begged.
“No! Sacrificing people will never help!” Lloyd said angrily. After Colette had tried to sacrifice herself to save the world, he had promised never to sacrifice anyone ever again.
Bookworm was about to start arguing, when the enemy’s turn ended. Before anyone could issue orders, Tas said “Oh good! Now I can move! Wow! That’s a really strange-looking queen!” and ran towards the enemy queen.
“No! Tas! Stop! You’re supposed to be defending Al!” Shade yelled.
Too late. Tas had already moved. The queen immediately attacked and captured Al.
“Al! NOOOOOOOO!” Ed screamed, starting to run to help him.
“Ed! Stop! In the Harry Potter book, one of the kids got captured, but was okay. Al’s got really strong armor. He’ll be fine!” Keyblade said. Ed reluctantly stayed in place.
“Okay, let’s sacrifice Tas now!” Lloyd said eagerly. This was definitely an exception to his promise.
“No! I’ve got a better idea!” Genis grinned and raised his kendama. The ground around him lit up as he recited a spell. “ICICLE!” Ice suddenly appeared all around Tas, trapping him and preventing movement.
“It’ll only last for a little while, but it should hold him still long enough for someone else to move,” Genis explained.
“Wow! There’s ice here and it’s not even winter! This is great! This is the most interesting experience I’ve ever had!” Tas said excitedly. When the ice vanished, he immediately started begging Genis to do it again. After that, the chess game went very well. After a few minutes, they won and gained access to the door on the other side of the room. Because of his armor, Al was perfectly fine. Everyone proceeded to the next room.
In it, they found themselves face-to-face with a gigantic troll. “Wow! That looks like a giant goblin! Did I ever tell you about how I fought some goblins in the War of the Lance?” Tas asked, oblivious to the obvious danger they were in.
“Not now Tas!” Bookworm and Shade said in unison.
“I can take care of this thing!” Keyblade said excitedly. She clapped her hands and alchemified a keyblade, then began attacking the troll. The troll had endured spells, swords, clubs, and even wands that had been stuck up his nose, but he had never been attacked with a giant key. It was too much for his miniscule brain to handle. He collapsed unconscious from over-thinking.
“Wow… umm… you get an A for today’s alchemy training, Keyblade,” Ed said, shocked at her alchemy skills, which he hadn’t noticed previously because he had been too busy reading in the Palanthas Library.
They moved on to the next room. As soon as they passed through the door, odd-colored flames appeared in the doorways at either end of the room. Al grabbed Tas before he could run into the fire to see if it was real.
“I know this room! This is where Hermione solved the riddle with all the potion bottles!” Bookworm said, excitedly staring at the potions on a table in the middle of the room.
Lloyd stared in bewilderment at the paper with the riddle written on it. “How are we supposed to figure this out?”
“Don’t worry! I memorized the answer last time I read the Harry Potter books! We just use this potion and we can go right through those flames!” Bookworm held up one of the potions.
With the potion, they were able to enter the final room. In it, there was only a big mirror.
“Wow! Look, Al! Our reflections have our old bodies!” Ed said excitedly.
“Cool! I have the last Harry Potter book!” Bookworm gazed at her reflection.
“So how do we get the Philosopher’s Stone?” Al asked.
“Someone who wants to find the Stone, but not use it, has to look in the mirror,” Shade explained.
“Oh…” Ed said sadly. He thought he might finally get the Philosopher’s Stone and return himself and Al to normal, but it looked like they had reached another dead end.
Bookworm gave up on her attempts to read the seventh Harry Potter book reflected in the mirror. Her reflection seemed determined to hold it in a way that left no pages visible. “Hey Tas! If you look in this mirror, you’ll get a mysterious rock!” she said.
“Really? I’ve never had a mysterious rock before! I’ve had a lot of normal rocks, but then I had to get rid of them because Flint said my heavy pouches were slowing everyone down,” Tas said, running towards the Mirror of Erised.
Bookworm grinned. “He wants to find it because of his kender curiosity, but doesn’t even know what it does, so he doesn’t want to use it,” she explained.
“Hey! I don’t remember putting this red rock in my pouch!” Tas gasped and removed the Philosopher’s Stone from his pouch.
At that exact moment, a loud meow echoed around the room. Ed glared at his brother. “What was that meow?” he asked.
“Umm… Nothing!” Al said, trying to look innocent.
“You have another cat!” Ed said, grabbing the front of Al’s armor to let the cat out. A cat jumped out of Al. Bookworm instantly recognized it.
“Oh no!” she gasped. “It’s Mrs. Norris, Filch’s cat! Filch himself will probably be here in a minute! We’re gonna get caught stealing the Philosopher’s Stone!”
Tas instantly recited the kender classic excuses, “I didn’t steal it! I was just borrowing it! I found it on the ground! Filch must have dropped it! I was going to give it right back!”