Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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“Like Fawkes the Phoenix rises from its ashes, so begins new life and geocaches” – The Sorting Hat – 2006
Welcome to Hogwarts School of Cachecraft and Wizardry, young cacher. Cursed (or is that blessed?) with a “low battery warning” shaped scar across your forehead from a prior caching accident, you are destined to save the land from the evil clutches of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!
After having spent your youth growing up in a family of geomuggles, you were shocked to learn that you were someone special, and actually had this incredible power within you for finding pointless objects all over the land.
You were enrolled at Hogwarts School of Cachecraft and Wizardry, and after a long session with Professor Salesperson at CUM’s Wand Emporium in V&A Diagon Alley, you emerged with your very first wand – Garmin, 12 Inches, 20m inaccuracy core.
Now, nearing the end of your first year at school, you have learned that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (Lord Cache-a-lot) is planning to steal the secret “Philosopher’s Cache”. Lord Cache-a-lot is planning to use the magic powers in this cache to permanently and sadistically up his cache finds, thus making him lord of the rankings for all time, forcing the rest of the caching mortals to bow before his mighty stats! (And we don’t want this sort of thing happening any Moore!)
It is now up to you, young cacher, to find the Philosopher’s Cache before Lord Cache-a-lot obtains an FTF! This is a grave and onerous task, and you will need to draw upon all of the spells and skills that you have learned in your first year at Hogwarts.
It is suggested that if your brain power equals that of your friend Ron, that you enlist the help of someone with the brains and cunning of Hermoine.
Before you start this quest, you will need to prove that you have what it takes to succeed, and need to have mastered basic spellwork, in order to get past the 3 headed dog that guards the entrance to your adventure. Simply match the spells listed, with the effect of the spell, and punch the results into the formula below, to find out where you start on your mission:
A – Wingardium Leviosa
B – Alohomora
C – Petrificus Totalus
D – Locomotor Mortis
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0 – Levitate
1 – Produce light
2 – Jelly legs curse
3 – Summon object
4 – Full-body bind
5 – Killing curse
6 – Open door
7 – Bat bogey curse
8 – Leg-locker curse
9 – Disarm
Note: Answers to the above can be found in “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”, By JK Rowling.
Once you have proved your spell casting skills, use the following rune formula to get to the first stage:
S33° 57.AB4
E018° 24.CD0
From there, you will need to follow the instructions, and solve various puzzles along the way in order to reach the Philosopher’s Cache. You do not need to have knowledge of Harry potter to solve any of the puzzles, except the above, which can be researched from home)
The listed co-ordinates are a good place to leave your broom.
NB1:
Wizard’s Chess is a popular game in the wizarding (and caching) world. In order to find the Philosophers Cache, you will need a basic understanding of how chess pieces move. You do not need an advanced understanding of the game tactics, but please learn the basic moves of the game if you do not know them.
NB 2:
Also, I urge you to take along a flat surface, at least 50cm by 50cm. (perhaps a small coffee table, or merely a piece of board?) You should know what this is for when you get there. You may leave it in the car until required. If you can’t get one, you could try use the roof of your car!)
NB 3:
If you have any spare keys you do not need, please bring them along. Preferably of the padlock kind, and preferably small ones. These are not important to find the cache, but will help make future finders’ lives harder ;o) You will know what to do with them when you get there.
NB 4: Thanks to The Pooks for pointing out that there are 2 possible answers for puzzle number 4 (bottle puzzle). If you have the same ingenius brain that Lawrence does and come up with 2 answers, the correct one would be the lower/left of the 2 options.
NB 5 :
Oh Drat, it seems that there is a mistake on the devils snare puzzle (1st puzzle). The answer is not 9 (nine) so please ignore that one, until it can be corrected.
Note: The Philosopher’s Cache contains a selection of Philosopher’s Stones. You may take one without trading, but if you do wish to trade, please only trade for other interesting “Philosopher’s stones” or “Philosopher’s Geocoins”.
Note: There are 5 caches with puzzles to solve before reaching the final cache. They are all regular sized. They are all within quick walking distance of the car, but the terrain could make for difficult searching, and the puzzles could take a while to solve, so the cache might take a long time. Thus please do bring along some water and a hat and suntan lotion. Please also try and walk on the rocks as much as possible, so as not to step on the newly growing plants.
Cache not recommended at night or in rainy weather.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
1fg pnpur pna or sbhaq va n ebpx pyhfgre oruvaq ynetr oheag gerr.
Svany pnpur - Oheag fghzc oruvaq ebpx.