Freiyon Fables: The Rochester Runes

Back in the Manor, Jonson jumped up and down in his chair against a wall, trying to get the rope off his hands. He cursed himself again for not listening properly during scouts and gritted his teeth in pain as his hands banged against the brick wall. After a few minutes the rope finally came off and he stumbled out of the chair and onto the floor. Getting up quickly, he turned to the door with a smile and went to escape. However, when he opened the door, he came face-to-face with the Staring soldier. The Staring soldier turned on him and raised a fist to punch him.

“Oh, you are KIDDING me!” He said, just before everything went black again.

Charles, Sarah, Robert and the group of pigeons went quickly through the tunnel, knowing that at any moment the Grabbers or the by the evil talking tree, was shocked to see the car smashed into the room and the amount of damage to the other parts of the room.

“You two must have had a good time trying to get in back when you saved me, huh?” Sarah asked, noticing how chaotic the manor was now.

Robert and Charles looked at each other and laughed.

“Who’s that? Who’s there?” They heard some-one ask.

They turned towards the kitchen where they heard the voice and Charles raised a finger to his mouth. Sneaking forward with his sword ready for action, Charles peeked around the corner to see who had spoken.

He stepped out completely and spoke up, surprised. “Christina?”

Suddenly, he twisted backwards and grabbed the pan that was about to bang him on the head. The police-woman looked surprised because no-one had warned this boy that she was about to attack him.

“Nice move, Charles.” Sarah admired.

“Who are YOU?” Charles asked the police-woman.

“I’m Officer Martha Chewitz. I came here with Chief Jay Witt to solve the attempted murder of your mother and we stumbled upon a fight in the manor. It’s been busy ever since.” The officer explained.

“ATTEMPTED MURDER?!?!” All three children gasped.

“You didn’t know?” Christina asked, concerned.

They looked at each other, worried. “We’ve been extremely busy for the past few days as well, and haven’t had a chance to come back to the manor a lot.” Charles explained.

“What do you mean ‘Come back’?” Officer Martha asked.

The captain of the pigeons rushed in and looked at Charles.

“We have an emergency to see to at the top of this building, Charles. We must assist the victims now.” He reported.

“Go back, as fast as you can, and try to find out what has happened, we will join you shortly.”

The bird bowed and zoomed out of the room. When the kids turned back to the officer and Christina, they were met with two sets of surprised eyes.

“That bird talked! What’s going on here?” Martha said.

Charles held up his hand to stop her from going any further.

“The only way we can answer that is by showing you. Unfortunately, until we get everyone in this manor to the safety of the place which we can trust, we cannot show you how that bird talked and what I meant by us having to come back.”

“But we can tell you one thing. You see, we found out about the family curse and because of that we got involved in it as well.” Sarah explained.

“So that explains the disappearances. The attempted murderer must have kidnapped the people that got too close to the truth and took them into that other world.” Martha said, realizing the connection.

“Ok, is that everything? We really need to get going. By the sounds of things, there is trouble upstairs we need to see to.” Robert said, clapping his hands and looking at them all and headed up the stairs. Christina and Charles shared a brief relieved hug, being boyfriend and girlfriend, and followed the others closely behind. Robert was in front as they made their way up the stairs. Along the way, they came face-to-face with some-one they hadn’t expected to see in the least, particularly Charles since he had no idea who the person was.

In another section of the manor, way above the kitchen and in the secret room Mary found, Mary and Lex saw the soldiers coming through the room with the police-men in their hands, which made the soldiers unable to fight back as the two humans let loose the gun-fire on the eyes of these inhuman soldiers. The soldiers that came in first were disposed with rather quickly, but more came and the two defences were running out of bullets. Mary turned to her mother. “Mum, if we don’t get out of this, you get grand-ma out of this house and leave England! Find a way out of this house and you get to safety, alright? I don’t want you and grand-ma to die.”

Alice grabbed Mary’s arm in fright.

“You can’t be giving up now, Mary! This isn’t the end, not now!”

Mary hugged Alice and whispered softy. “I love you dearly, mother. You too father. And if grandmother was awake I’d say the same to her. Now, father, let’s FINISH THIS!” Clicking her gun and jumping out with her father, Mary prepared to take on the last wave of living suits-of-armour. And that’s when the first police officer woke up.

Back in the Freiyon world, deep within the secret cavern, Joe and Jasper and their two new friends had just come across a fantastic sight. Joe, Jasper, Jarryd and Frebil had never seen anything like it before. Joe and Jasper had only heard of such things in books or in movies, they’d never expect to see it in real life. Treasures, not of gold or silver, but of wonderful value otherwise, were heaped up in a HUGE pile in the cave.

“Lord Libertas told me that there had been secrets even he didn’t know about these caves, I guess this is just one of them.” Frebil said, with his eyes lighting up.

Joe saw something on the ground and picked it up. It was a note of warning.

“’Beware he that comes through these caves. These treasures may look pleasing, but there are certain ones that will turn on their masters. Take this clue and you will be safe to explore the treasures.

A horror waits within the treasure that’s shaped like a bin.

Beauty can seem pleasing, but the bracelets are just teasing.

The tail of a treasured cat; will turn on you like a bat.

Heed these clues, friend, or your life will end.’”

Frebil looked around the pile carefully, pushing away things to find something.

“If there’s a treacherous cat’s tail in here, I will kill it before it comes after us.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be looking for the things it mentions. We should find things that aren’t mentioned on the note.” Jasper said.

“Problem is, there’s no other tunnel out. If the treasure hoard conceals the exit out, then we’ll have to take things out and place them somewhere else, which means getting close to maybe some of the things mentioned. Be careful, keep your eyes open and watch out. There could be anything in here, and not just the things mentioned.” Joe announced.

The four boys started throwing things out of the pile, but it wasn’t long until Jarryd noticed something.

“Hey, look up there. There’s a hole above the hoard. Maybe that’s the way out.”

“We could climb up the pile and reach it, but are we far enough down the mountain to be near the ground?” Frebil queried.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we were under the ground. We’ve gone down a very long way.” Jasper replied.

“Then let’s try it out, eh? All we have to do is be mindful where we’re stepping and watch out for anything on that list.” Joe said.

Frebil, being the faster, lighter of the four, managed to climb up half-way before Joe started. Jarryd wasn’t far behind Frebil, though. Jasper got just five steps up the huge mound before his left foot slipped. He managed to keep balance, however, and continued up the mound. Unknown to all four of them, there was a rustle from within the mound. The cat’s tail, the same one mentioned from the list, slinked out from within the mound and started sliding up after the boys. Another rustle; that of the horror spoken in the list; was set off from the movement of the boys as well. The strange, unknown horror turned out to be a very long, very angry snake. Curling around the hoard and tightening it, the snake hissed a command at the cat’s tail as it slinked past. Frebil reached the hole first and struggled through it, then he helped Jarryd get through, and combined they helped Joe get in. Jasper was only three-quarters up the mound when the others went through.

“Go on … ‘Pant, pant!’ without me! ‘Pant, pant!’ I can’t make it.”

Joe noticed the movement coming up the mound and saw the mound itself starting to topple over.

“Looks like we’ve got company.”

“Jasper, I’m going to get down there and get you up, even if it means risking my life.” Frebil announced as he hopped down.

Jasper continued up the mound when he heard the first few things fall. He knew where they had come from and he was scared. Gathering his strength, he managed to get to Frebil’s position on the mound as the mound wobbled back and forth.

“When I count to three, grab the side of the hole and Jarryd, Joe and I will help you through, then I’ll join you up there.”

Jasper nodded, although he was starting to get queasy from the moving pile.

“One … two …” Frebil counted, all the time the cat’s tail was getting closer.

Jasper prepared himself and leapt up to the hole, just as Frebil reached three.

Because the pile was swinging back and forth still, Frebil was having trouble helping Jasper get through. But they managed. Jasper panted as he thanked Frebil, Jarryd and Joe for their help.

“Don’t mention it, my friend. After all, we’re a team now and a team never loses its companions, no matter how slow they are.” Frebil replied, after coming through the hole in the cave roof himself and watching the treasure fall.

Joe looked back down into the huge tunnel.

“Looks like we made the right choice, I can’t see any other way out now that the treasure pile has fallen down. We would’ve got no-where had we tried taking all the treasure and placing it somewhere else.” Joe said.

Frebil pointed his torch down the tunnel they had gotten into.

“Well, looks like the only way to go is that direction. Come on, we cannot sit here forever, Lord Libertas will need to know of this.”

“That’s a problem now we’re up here, how will we get back to tell everyone else about this?” Joe replied.

Frebil knew the answer to that already.

“I’ll fly back to the wall-door with Jasper holding on to me, he can go back and tell the others our progress and they’ll make their way here with him. Meanwhile, we’ll continue through this tunnel once I get back and we’ll meet up with the others wherever this tunnel ends.”

By now both Jasper and Joe were familiar with the idea that their friends could transform into anything they wanted to, but they had no idea that Frebil or Jarryd could do it. However, they knew it best not to start asking questions, they didn’t have time and someone needed to go back to tell the others of their process. Quick as a flash, Frebil transformed into an eagle and flew Jasper AND Jarryd down to the moving wall.

“Why are you taking ME back down?” Jarryd asked.

“I’d go with you as well, but I’d much rather prefer continuing on with Joe.” Frebil said.

Stepping on the weighing rock, Jasper hurried through with Jarryd, eager to tell the others the news.

In a different secret area of the manor, Jonson was hanging on a wall in the hall-way, knocked out cold while his shirt was slowly ripping because of where it hung. The kids and Officer Martha stopped and looked at his unconscious figure in surprise.

“How’d HE escape?” Martha cursed herself for giving a suspect a chance to escape.

“How’d he end up HERE is what I’d like to know.” Christina queried.

“What I’d like to know is who IS he?” Charles asked.

Robert and Sarah tried to push Charles away from the scene. “It’s no-one, Charles. It’s probably just some-one that stumbled into the house by accident.” Robert tried to make a quick lie to get Charles’s attention.

Christina felt Jonson’s head. “Interesting. Feels like he’s been knocked out twice. Once quite recently, I’d say fifteen minutes ago. And another blow going back at least an hour back.”

“How do you know that?” Officer Martha turned to Christina in surprise.

“My mother has a degree in human anatomy. She wants to be a murder crime investigator and has taught me a thing or two. I’d rather not go into it any further.” Christina did not feel entirely happy about revealing this information.

“But who IS he?”

Sarah tried a different tactic. “We should hurry, Charles. The pigeons will need our help upstairs. We can find out who this guy is later on.”

Charles turned to Sarah and Robert, seeing the determination in their eyes and mistaking it for the need to help Freiyon.

“You’re right, let’s go! Christina, Officer Martha, we will need your assistance as well.” Charles started running up the stairs towards the top of the house, with the others following closely behind.

Further along the secret cavern tunnel in the Freiyon world, Joe and Frebil could stand up now. For the past thirteen minutes they had to crawl through the tunnel they were in because they weren’t aware of how wide it was. It had been Joe who discovered it when he dropped his torch and pointed it up when he retrieved it. Now they were just walking casually down the tunnel, barely aware they were sloping upwards as they walked. Just ahead, a light shone through a small gap that was covered by a huge, strange boulder.

“Hey Frebil, you reckon you could take care of this?” Joe asked.

“Not as a human. But if I were to transform into something stronger I could.”

“Like what?”

“A bear, they’re the strongest things I can think of.”

Joe stood back as Frebil, now transformed into a bear, pushed against the boulder really hard. Out it came, and it rolled away down the cliff of the mountain side. Frebil quickly turned back into a human as they watched the boulder tumble down the long, treacherous mountain side.

Joe turned to Frebil with an annoyed look. “I don’t suppose you can become something strong enough to carry me down to the ground?”

Frebil’s tail swayed as he thought carefully. “Unfortunately not. The biggest bird I can think of still wouldn’t be strong enough to carry a human. We have to work something else out. I’m good at climbing down steep declines, but even this looks quite treacherous and long.” Frebil looked a bit disappointed. However, Joe would not give up so easily. “Come on, there must be something we can do to get down this mountain. We can’t give up now!” Frebil continued to think carefully. “Did we bring any rope?” He finally managed to ask. Joe rummaged in his bag and pulled out the rope he had collected. It may have been a large rope, but he knew it was still not long enough for the climb down.

“Not much here for getting down this.”

Frebil chuckled and took the rope from Joe’s grasp. “You’re thinking in the human world of matters. This is Freiyon, remember, and almost anything is possible!” He rubbed his paws on the rope to the point where it looked like his paws had become a fast-paced, hot blur and as that happened, the rope got longer and thicker and stronger. Joe watched in surprise and fascination as the rope continued to get so long that he could see where the end of the rope had gone below them. Frebil kept on at it for some time until his face was sweaty and his paws ached. Finally he stopped and tied his end of the rope securely to another large boulder that was firmly wedged to the side of the cave they were in, making absolutely certain that it was not going to untie itself from the boulder any time soon.

“Alright, now we just have to climb down using this rope and see where we end up once we are down the rope. I do hope I’ve pulled out enough for our trip.”

Joe looked at Frebil dubiously. “And what happens if there isn’t enough?”

Frebil chuckled with an adventurous glint in his left eye. “We will just have to hope for a better solution than, eh?” Joe wasn’t sure what to say to that, and he didn’t have time as Frebil curled his tail around the rope for extra support and started making his way down the declining mountain side. Joe pulled out some gloves from his backpack and placed them on, thinking back to his times abseiling and rock-climbing with his family in the human world.

“I am SO glad I’m not scared of heights. Well… here goes nothing.” He begun to make his way down, following Frebil’s path as best as he could, and it wasn’t until he was half an hour down with Frebil that Joe realized they were abseiling in the most dangerous way possible. There was no back-up rope and the rope he was holding onto was literally the only thing holding him close to the mountain side. That made him freeze solid for a moment, as he was used to abseiling in far safer situations. He told Frebil much later on that he had thought of going back up and possibly waiting for the main group to catch up to him so they could all go down together and so it wouldn’t make him feel so close to death, but that he had a memory come across his mind of his father, during their own abseiling expedition once, informing young Joe that once you went down while abseiling, it was a matter of remembering there was only one way to get out of the situation: just keep going down.

Joe took a deep breath and continued downwards slowly, with each hand gripping the rope every movement like cement. Frebil was having issues too as he went down, but he could keep himself fairly even because his tail told him ahead of the rest of his body what would be next to expect, and so Frebil could understand why Joe would feel far less stable and brave whilst going down the declining mountain side.

Neither of them realized, however, that the boulder they had dislodged was to cause a problem for The Grabbers, and create a solution for themselves and their group. The boulder had started a violent avalanche of snow and debris to collect around it and tumble down, destroying practically anything in the way. This happened to include a particular group of Grabbers, trees and hyenas and some tigers as well, whom were not expecting to hear nor see the avalanche approach them quickly. They had been there at the mountain base because they were told by their leader that the hidden group of Freiyons were living somewhere near that mountain, having no idea just how right and how close their leader had been. All that prepared them for the avalanche was the soft thudding of a tiger’s tail as it was resting on a stone, but even then they had no idea what was coming.

The only one to survive the immense impact was one Hyena among the group, who had been laughing so much at something that he happened to look up to the mountain during his laugh and saw the avalanche heading downwards, and hyenas being the generally cowardly type, he immediately dashed off to a safe distance before his ‘companions’ could ask where he was going.

And when they were all dead and buried beneath the dying avalanche, the hyena knew he had to report to his leader what had happened, but that would take a long time to do. Which was why, when Frebil and Joe arrived at the base of the mountain a day later after a long, tough journey down the mountain, there was no sign of any Grabbers and the two of them were able to find a place to camp inside a cave fairly close to the base of the mountain.

Jasper and Jarryd, before Joe and Frebil had begun their long trek down the mountain, had not stopped running once until they got back into the bedroom and rushed into Lord Libertas’s chamber, where the bear lord had just finished a lovely lunch.

“Jasper, Jarryd! My friends, you look exhausted. Pray tell me what’s wrong?” The Lord asked.

“Joe, Jarryd, Frebil and I found a secret passage that lead to a huge treasure chamber, Lord, and we also found a way out that was above the treasure. Only now it’s fallen down and Joe and Frebil have travelled along further without us. They told me and Jarryd to come back and inform you as soon as possible.” Jasper explained, panting heavily.

“Right, well you sit down and take a break, I will sort out the group and we’ll be on our way down the secret passage.”

“Thank you, Lord. You have no idea how tiring that run was.” Jasper gave the bear a huge smile, although Jarryd was not as tired as Jasper.

Lord Libertas left the boys to have some food and informed King Karel of what had happened.

“Looks like you were right all along, Lord. The boys were useful after all. I’ll call a meeting and we shall have all our big flyers ready when we get to this treasure chamber.” King Karel said to the bear lord. King Karel took Sandra out to the main cave and called a meeting with all the animals. Lord Libertas, meanwhile, strolled back to his own cavern and chatted to the boys, trying to keep the boys spirits up.

“I bet you’re missing your home, Master Jasper? T’is the same with me, believe it or not, for I want my home back too.” Libertas explained, only realizing too late that his voice sounded a bit pirate like when he said that.

“Can I ask you something?” Jasper mumbled in-between eating his food.

“As you already have, whilst eating something, you can ask another.” Libertas chuckled.

Jasper blushed and stopped eating so quickly.

“Sorry, Lord. Anyway, how is it that you’re lord of all of this, and have been for a long time, with so much magical powers such as you showed to me and my friends yesterday, and you can’t get rid of this strange curse and the group known as the Grabbers?”

“That is very sensible question to ask, especially when you know the extent of my powers. But you see, through some weird way, the Grabbers’ leader has picked up power greater than mine. They have the ability to make themselves younger or older, they can track down anything with just a small gadget, and they can even trick animals and trees into thinking their group is better and safer than ours. As for the curse, well, it never really affected us immensely, it was more the Grabbers and their influence on this world that affected Freiyon, my friend.”

“And that’s why Joe, Jarryd, Frebil and I were chosen to help, because someone or something knew you and everyone else in these caves needed help. The same reason that Charles and his brother and sister are around to help.” Jasper realized.

“Aye, but that’s not the only reason. It was a chance for all of you to prove you were more than you thought, especially Charles. Also, it was an amazing coincidence that Charles figured out the clues to get here and get the stones. Let’s just say it’s a mixture of bravery, magic and hope that got you and your friends this far.”

“Makes me wonder if Charles is doing alright back at the manor.”

“It has been a while since I sent them off, but all we can do is wait and see what their news is. Meanwhile, King Karel is organizing our animals for leaving and exploring more of the path you found.”

“Don’t you think we should wait here for word from Charles before we leave, just so he knows where to send the messengers?” Jarryd inquired.

“I would love to stay here for word from Charles, but him sending a group of birds or just one bird back with a message will ruin our get away and uncover all of us.”

“But don’t you think he’ll work out a way of sending something to us so we know he’s ok?” Jasper asked.

“I have no doubt he will, it’s just up to him, not us. Fate and the Grabbers are against us, but we still have hope and friendship with us, and we must use that well. Now enough chatting, you must rest. Eat up, my friends, and we shall get everyone ready to follow you to the tunnel.”

Jasper smiled at the Lord as he continued eating in silence.

This was turning out to be a bigger adventure than he imagined.

While all of this was going on, back in the Manor; Charles and the group he was with were surprised at the sight that lay in front of them. With the soldiers all piling into the attic now, this gave Charles, Robert, Sarah, Christina and Martha a chance to cut their retreat.

They saw the police-officers waking up and rubbing their heads and decided to help out by distracting the soldiers.

“Oy, metal-heads!” Robert shouted.

The soldiers turned to them and raised their hands to kill the small group.

“Get away from our mother!” The kids exclaimed, throwing water onto some of the not-so-quick soldiers. Chaos broke out at that point with the police officers jumping up to help, the soldiers becoming fiercesome and shooting arrows all over the room, the kids and Martha trying their best to keep a good supply of water there to defeat the soldiers and Mary, Lex and Alice having to try and slink past with Great-grandmother Helen in their hands.

At one stage the police officers all woke up from being unconscious and followed Chief Jay Witt to the attic door as they retreated back down the stairs to the lounge-room. The enormous group made it to the lounge-room in one piece and suddenly everyone started talking at once.

“You have to leave the manor, Mum and Dad.”

“You men, make sure none of those robots get into this room until we figure out where to go now.”

“Quiet please.” Robert announced, although the tirade continued.

“I am SO glad you’re here to help us, Christina.”

“We are NOT leaving you, Mary!”

“Does anyone have any suggestions as what to do now?”

“Quiet everyone!” Robert tried again.

“You have changed heaps, Charles.”

“QUIET PLEASE, EVERYONE!”

Everyone stopped talking and turned to Robert unexpectantly.

“Listen, this is going to sound absolutely crazy, but bear in mind everything else we’ve been through for the past few days has been pretty wild. There’s this second world, right? Charles found it on Monday, and ever since then we have been trying to help this other world get rid of the same curse that was put onto our family. In the process we had to collect seven rune stones and fight this group called ‘The Grabbers’ which, we believe, is led by the same person who created the curse in the first place, and who kidnapped our great-grandfather, Frederick Rochester. Now, you can choose to believe us or not, but the truth is we need to get everyone able to fight into this world to help our new friends against this group. Grandparents, I’m terribly sorry to say this but you can’t stay here. You need to get Great-grandmother Helen back home and get yourselves to safety. The rest of us can fight, but we can only do it if you guys will help us help these friends of ours. Charles,” Robert spun to his brother and whispered in his ear. “We don’t know who to trust, so send the pigeons by themselves back to the mountain to see what’s going on with Lord Libertas. While we wait for them to come back we can start leading them into Freiyon and preparing them for fighting. How does that sound?”

Charles nodded and walked into the kitchen to find the pigeon captain.

Robert turned back to the group and looked at his grandparents.

“Why IS great-grandmother Helen here, by the way?”

Alice and Lex looked at each-other, confused. “She phoned us and said she wanted to see the manor again. After all, she DID used to live here.” Lex replied.

Robert nodded and hummed in reply. “Ok. You should go, then. Keep her in the back seat for safety, alright?”

The grandparents nodded and left, then Charles came back into the room and watched as the pigeons flew past the group and headed through the tunnel.

“Ok. Let’s go!” Robert and Charles said together.

As the grandparents were trying to take great grandmother Helen out of the Manor and back to the car, Lex noticed something in the pocket of Helen’s old jeans. It was a remote control, like one used for controlling toy truck, or for controlling robots. Lex had to think about why his mother would have that in her pockets for a few moments and, although a few options seemed plausible, there was one option that didn’t seem that good in the least. As he stepped out the door to the outside of the manor with his wife, he thought back to a certain event earlier. That had been the last thought going through his head before they were knocked out again.