Freiyon Fables: The Rochester Runes

Jonson opened his eyes and looked around. Where was he? All he could remember was coming to Mary because of her Mother’s phone call, being suspected of attempted murder by Mary and the police, then being forced to stay behind and clean up the house with all the oldies that had come to ‘help’ solve the mystery. After that, he vaguely remembered going to follow Mary, but then being knocked out. That was all he could remember. His surroundings certainly weren’t familiar, but something smelt odd in the room he was in. Had he fallen to sleep? He realized he was in a bedroom that didn’t belong to him. Light poured into the room suddenly and he was almost blinded by it. Then he saw some-one else in the room.

“Sorry Mister, but because you are the main suspect in this mystery; then I have to keep a good eye on you.” One of the police-women grumbled, as she was standing near the door next to the light switch.

“You still think I tried to kill Mary? Just because I did what I did many years back you suspect me of attempted MURDER?”

“You were going to follow Miss Rochester and finish the job. I couldn’t just let you try to kill her again.”

“But I didn’t try to kill her!”

“Sir, you are the one that did that awful crime many years ago, therefore we don’t drop the case off you until you can prove it.”

Jonson noticed how quiet the room was and asked the RIGHT question. “Where are the others?”

The police-woman jolted in surprise and then slapped her head in frustration.

“I completely forgot to check on them! When you went to follow Miss Rochester, I left them to take care of you. Oops, I’d better go and see to them now!” And with that the police-woman left the room without another word.

Jonson cursed himself for never learning how to untie tough knots in scouts when he was a teenager and slumped in his chair, annoyed.

Meanwhile in the Freiyon world, Jay and his small army of police-officers had managed to corner The Staring Soldier, finally, at the edge of a cliff that dropped down to the hard water far below. Jay pointed his gun at the Staring soldier’s eyes and grimaced in anger.

“End of the line, whatever you are. Tell us who your master is or drop to your death. It’s your choice.”

The Staring Soldier stepped right off the edge and dropped down. Jay ran over, cursing himself for not saying something else, and looked over the edge to see if the Staring Soldier had really died this time. The next thing he knew, his jaw was cracked by something and everything went black. So much for THAT plan.

“Attention! Archers down below, there are vultures to our left, eagles to our right, so get ready for some serious manoeuvring,” The captain of the Pigeons commanded as he tried to guide the Rochester siblings back to the portal to the human world. The kids and their bird troop were closer to the wall now, and as such the evil figure found out about them. The good news was, the figure wasn’t sure if they were the kids or not. The bad news was … they didn’t care either way.

The pigeons divided into several groups as the first wave of huge birds attacked. Tricked by the sudden moves of the pigeons, the eagles smashed into the vultures coming from the other direction.

“Split up, the archers are about to shoot! Ready, set … now!”

Once again, they tricked the archers by splitting into smaller groups and leaving the main troop. After a few seconds, they came back and formed up again.

“We faked two deaths back there, however we did lose three brave birds. But, we shall continue. Even in war, sometimes the opposing side has to lose as well. Alright, troop, look up ahead, we’re coming to the wall and bridge!”

They flew faster now, avoiding the ever present eagle or vulture. Charles had been thinking of his mother’s safety, hoping that she had gotten everyone out like he wanted, but his thoughts were broken when another arrow shot up at them. An arrow he hadn’t been prepared for.

Charles was hit, right in the chest.

The captain stared at Charles and gasped as he fell to the ground.

“Keep going to the wall, I can’t let him die.”

He flew down after Charles in the streaking wind, hoping that Charles WAS still alive. Charles’s eyes were closed, but suddenly one of them opened a little.

Surprised, the pigeon captain looked at where the arrow had hit Charles. Charles was still wearing the outfit, which had been transformed with him due to the magic of the bizarre world, but no-one had told Charles or the pigeon captain that the outfit was, in fact, enchanted. Enchanted to withstand penetration by arrows at the least, if one were to ask Hero-glider before he died.

“I’m…still alive!” Charles groaned, rubbing his chest once the arrow was thrown away.

“So it would seem! But we can’t count our blessings now, we are still under attack. Come on! We need to catch up with my troop and your siblings!”

Charles nodded and the two struggled to catch up to the large group of pigeons and eventually managed to approach the portal that would take them to the human world. Once they arrived at the portal, Charles, Sarah and Robert transformed back into kids as soon as they landed.

“Follow us, pigeons, and be careful. The Grabber’s leader could be in there still.” Charles warned, groaning a bit from the severe bruise on his stomach. He had to bear through the pain for now, things were going to get worse if he didn’t.

Not too far from the tunnel that led to the portal to the Freiyon world, back in the Manor, the Police-woman who went looking for the other people in the house went down to the lounge-room, only to witness an event she wasn’t supposed to. Right in front of her was The Staring soldier carrying officer Jay with other living suits-of-armour carrying the other officers. The woman hadn’t been seen, thankfully, and slowly snuck back before the soldiers caught her next. Without warning a hand wrapped around her mouth and pulled her into the kitchen out of sight.

“You want to be caught, lady? Let those things pass and then you can tell me what is going on.” A girl’s voice whispered.

As the soldiers passed one-by-one, the police-woman couldn’t help but notice the fact that they were all walking in the exact same rhythm as the Staring soldier.

“They’re robots.” She whispered to her saviour.

“Well, yeah. So?”

They watched in silence as the robots all disappeared up the stairs.

“So they would be killed by water more than bullets. I think we’ve just found their number one weakness.”

The police-woman turned to the person that had pulled her into the kitchen.

“Who are you? You’re too young to be here.”

The girl she was looking at was blonde-haired, young and brown-eyed. She was at least thirteen, if not than twelve.

“I came here to see Charles Rochester, but I saw all the humungous damage and destruction and knew something was wrong. I’ve been trying to look for some-one to explain to me what’s going on ever since.”

“What’s your name?”

“My name,” The girl shivered. “Is Christina Rivers, I’m Charles’s girlfriend.”

Elsewhere in the Rochest manor, Mary got to the top of the manor and had still not found anyone else in the manor yet, but then she decided to start looking for secret doors. She was now in the room where the kids had first discovered the FIRST official Rune stone and was looking around carefully when she heard the distinctive sound of some-one crying for help.

“Hello?” She called.

“Mary? Is that you? Mary, sweet-heart, help us!” Lex shouted.

Mary looked around in fright, trying to find out where her father’s voice was coming from.

“Where are you, dad?”

“I don’t actually know, Mary, but hurry please. There isn’t much air in here.”

Mary started checking things at random around the room, hoping to find a secret lever to let her father escape. She was just getting closer to the back of the attic when the thing she didn’t want to hear most clanked up the hall-way. Mary knew, instantly, that she didn’t have much time before the living suits-of-armour discovered she was in that room. She prepared her gun just in case and continued to search for a secret lever or button around the room. Finally she found one. It had been a secret movable brick in the back wall of the attic. When pressed, it revealed an open door-way five bricks away that lead into the room where her parents and grandmother were. They looked at her, relieved.

“Mary! You saved us!” Lex coughed for breath.

“Are you all alright?” Mary asked desperately.

“Not really. We’ve been banged on our heads and forced into a room with no air and now the suits-of-armour are coming to get us. So, no, we’re not ok.” Alice complained.

“Is grandma ... dead?”

They pointed at the body of Helen Rochester and Mary saw it was moving, very slowly.

“We’re not sure how she is still alive either. That staring soldier robot definitely shot her, so how could she still be alive?” Mary’s father asked, worried.

That’s when Mary noticed something odd about Helen’s head.

She inspected it carefully and saw a bad bruise that was swelling up. The strange thing about that was the fact that it had a smaller, round shaped bruise caused by maybe the flat part of a nail in the middle of it. Mary quickly inspected her parents’ heads and found they had the same bruising. She had to get them to inspect her own head to discover her hit was different. Mary had thought, for just a second, that she had solved the mystery. But she was wrong. She turned back to the attic door and sighed. “We don’t have much time. I have my gun, you have yours, dad. Together we might stand a chance of protecting mum and Grandma. I just hope that there aren’t that many soldiers to fight.”

Lord Libertas and King Karel looked around carefully. For the past three hours, Eagles and Vultures had been constantly swooping through the mountain sides, searching for any sign of Lord Libertas’s hide-out. Now, all of a sudden, everything had gone quiet, and when it was totally quiet, Lord Libertas knew something wasn’t right.

“Lord, send out a scout party to see if the birds have left. If they have, we could leave and go somewhere further away, if they haven’t we should stay here and wait for news from Charles and his siblings.” King Karel said.

“I told Charles I would send news to him, not the other way around. I suspect that if we send a scout party out, we’ll just be playing into the Grabbers’ hands. The birds could be waiting for movement from within the tons of caves around here and they will capture or kill any that come out. No, it is best to wait to see what’s happened.”

Elsewhere in the same secret cavern, Joe, Jasper, Jarryd and Frebil were trying to solve a maze one of the maid monkeys drew for them. Joe, being the most fidgety of the three, was the first one to start complaining.

“I hate waiting in the shadows while Charles and his brother and sister are having all the fun. Why didn’t the Bear Lord send us with him?” He asked his friends.

Frebil was upset too, mainly because he was not good at mazes.

“Indeed I, too, want to be out having battles and helping my friend Charles. But I’m sure the Lord has a good reason for us staying behind.”

Jasper had barely gotten through a quarter of the maze when he answered. “Robert told me that for a while he suspected the bear to be on the Grabbers’ side what with the fact he could see the “future”. But he started to lose his suspicion when the bear was on death’s bed. He told me that if a bad guy’s spy was trying to get the other side’s defence down, he wouldn’t just send Charles out to the house with only his bird friend to accompany him. So we know for sure that the Bear lord is on our side.”

Jarryd, who hadn’t been working on the maze at all, nodded in agreement. “I happen to know, and I’m sure Frebil agrees to this, that Lord Libertas would NEVER be on the side of evil. Right, Frebil?”

Frebil didn’t answer. He was quiet for a few minutes, as if deep in thought about something else at the moment. Without even giving an answer, he continued working on the drawn maze with Jasper.

Joe suddenly had an idea.

“There’s other tunnels right? What if we were to find one that lead to another exit, one where the Grabbers’ birds wouldn’t see us escaping?”

“Then we might just have a chance of getting out of here and doing something useful.” Jasper said, realizing Joe’s plan.

Frebil thought it was a good idea as well, but he felt they should tell someone.

“We’ll tell Lord Libertas before we go, so he knows what to say to the others. If we find a way out, one of us will have to go back and tell Lord Libertas.”

“That’s a great idea.” Jarryd replied.

So the four of them walked out to the bear lord and asked him if it was ok.

King Karel wouldn’t hear about it.

“We can’t have anyone wondering off alone. What if you got caught or killed?”

Lord Libertas, however, saw that the boys’ plan was a wonderful idea.

“If one of you is caught or killed, the others must come back straight away. You are free to go and do what you wish.” He argued. This was enough for the boys to start their own little quest and King Karel couldn’t argue with Lord Libertas.

The boys ran back to their room and gathered a few things. Joe got three torches, a large amount of rope and a sword. Jasper grabbed a map, a book and a pen. Frebil had a light load; all he had was his sword, the same with Jarryd except he had his bow and arrows instead of a sword. They all had bags to put their stuff in, so they didn’t have to share the load too much.

“Now where should we start?” Frebil asked.

“Well, according to this map, there should be another way out somewhere in here. But I wonder where?” Jasper said, looking at his map.

Joe ran to the cupboard and opened it up.

“What’s he up to?” Frebil asked, curiously.

Joe knocked on the wood at the back of the cupboard and heard an echo behind the wall. Then he hopped out and pushed the cupboard away from where it was.

“When in doubt, always check behind the cupboard.” He said as they went down.

During their travel down the tunnel, to keep their spirits high, Jasper tried to start a friendly conversation.

“Isn’t it odd how we never used to know each other, you two, and now we’re best friends?” Jasper pointed out to his new friends happily.

“It’s the way things work out, my friend.” Frebil said.

“What do you think Charles is up t---ooowch?!!” Joe exclaimed, as he stumbled on something. Jasper pointed his torch at the thing Joe tripped over.

“It’s just a stone, that’s all.” He said, rather annoyed.

Frebil looked at it as well, but he saw something odd about it. Joe turned on his torch and looked around.

“Darn it. Dead end, there’s nowhere else to go.” He said.

Frebil walked on to the stone and it went down a tiny bit, suddenly the wall in front of Joe moved a little and light showed from behind it.

“It’s a weighing rock. We’ve got to get something heavy for the wall to completely open. Which one of us is the heaviest?” Jasper realized.

The three looked at him suddenly. It was a well-known fact that Jasper was the older, fatter kid out of the seven.

“Only joking, I knew it was me.”

When Jasper stood on the stone, the wall and the stone moved and the gap was just big enough for all of them to go through at the same time.

“You guys go ahead, I’ll take my bag off and put it on the stone and then I’ll join you.”

“You’ll need it again.” Frebil pointed out.

“The wall moves slowly, so maybe I can run through the tunnel and catch up to you before I get squished, without taking my bag off.”

“Just be careful, you don’t know what to expect around here.” Joe said. They went through the wall-door and continued down the tunnel, turning off their torches because of the light up ahead. Jasper waited until they were out of eye-sight and then ran as fast as he could off the stone and through the wall-door. He had made it.

Lord Libertas and King Karel, back in the main section of the secret cave, had called a meeting together explaining what was going on.

“It appears we have two adventures happening as we speak, my friends. While Charles is off trying to save his family, his friends Frebil, Jarryd, Joe and Jasper have decided to do us a great favour and try to find a second way out. If they succeed, we could make our way out of here and the Grabbers won’t even know, isn’t that fantastic?” Libertas announced.

The animals nodded in agreement, mainly because they didn’t want to bring the Grabbers’ birds into the cave. They knew also what that meant. They had to be prepared for moving, and for a possible battle as well. So without even being told what to do, every animal bowed to the Lord and the King and departed, preparing themselves for leaving and also preparing themselves for a battle.