[MP/Trickett party] not all treasure is silver and gold [Jari]

Janne might have been in the middle of a crowd of Tricketts, adults and children alike pushing by her toward the food or to refill their drink, but the only people Janne was aware of were her two brothers. The siblings had begged their mother to bring them back a special rune from her shop in Diagon Alley that would lead them to a century-old treasure that could be anywhere nearby. She had teased them by withholding the rune, insisting that they get ready for the party before she offered it up.

The outfit Brianna had picked out for her daughter, however, wasn't much to Janne's liking: a frilled white shirt and simple pink skort ("It's not a skirt, dear") that were meant to dress her up a bit for the "fiftieth" birthday party of one of her uncles. According to her notes, Janne felt sure that Uncle Alberich was, in fact, not turning fifty, and that such a non-significant party hardly required anything more than brushed hair and freshly-washed overalls. In the end, she had won the battle by putting on her mother's shirt under her denim and stretching the skort over the thick and loose material to pull it up to her waist. Her mother had resigned herself to the look, hoping that Janne would get too warm and decide to remove the long pants before the evening was up.

Janne pulled the rune out of her deep pocket and presented it to Jari and Sven. She expected Sven might lose interest after a while, choosing to eat his cake rather than hunt, but she knew Jari would see their task through to the end. "You can take this," she told her older brother before pulling a small notepad and golf pencil from her pocket. "According to my notes, that first symbol means..." she paused for a moment, scanning carefully down her list that was organized in reverse alphabetical order by meaning. "Sugar," she concluded, double-checking the symbol on the rune against the one she had copied from a textbook she had found on her mother's shelf just before coming over. The book was safely stored in her chest pocket in case the geocoin showed them something more uncommon, but she felt confident that at least for starters, her basic glossary would do.

"What do you make of that?" she asked the other boys, ready to follow any command.

After spending so much time away from his family both during the term and now because of summer school Jari was thankful to finally have a chance to spend one on one with his siblings. He loved spending time with all of their uncles and aunts and cousins and sometimes when he thought someone was a cousin they actually turned out to be an uncle or vice versa, but there was something extra special about time spent with Sven and Janne. It felt more personally, special even. Their large family was extremely supportive, closely knit, and the young wizard always had a good time with them but sometimes Jari felt like just another cog in the Trickett wheel. A misshapen and out of place cog in a giant forever moving forward machine. Turning toward Janne as she pulled the rune out of her pocket Jari retrieved it from her hands and held it face up.

His hazel eyes examined it, completely taken by its wonderful magic and the potential of finding treasure, and almost didn't hear what she was saying. The rune glowed slightly as he held it, clearly full of its own magic, and when she pulled out her notebook he tuned into her words. "Sugar... hmm." It seemed simple enough, if it meant sugar than it must of been one trying to guide them toward one of the snacks right? But which one.... there were many. "If I was treasure which dessert would I be near?" He asked out loud, comfortable talking his thoughts through out loud with her as they always did. "Cake! Definitely cake." It was obvious to him now. Turning around and leading them across the room he held the stone out in front of him like an egg walk and watched as it began to resonate. The markings on top began to form into something new the closer they got to the table that held Great Aunt Sissel's famous dirt cake fully stocked with magical candied worms that wiggled their way in and out of muddy pudding holes. It was a sugar lovers dream and Jari's stomach rumbled as they got closer.

"Janne!" He called out even though she was probably right next to him, excited and exuberant as always the growing wizard shouted once more, "Janne its doing something!" The rune had changed and he stopped abruptly to show it to her. A great big smile on his face, and the plan to eat cake in a moment on his mind, the older Hufflepuff waited for her to explain what this meant. They had a new clue and Jari was ready to decipher it.

As Jari spoke, Janne lifted her thick glasses from the bridge of her nose and rested them against her forehead. She had a few ideas of her own, of course, but Jari was the creative genius behind most of their adventures and Janne was glad to keep it that way until she was asked for her help. Jari was the one who led them to success, and she trusted him completely.

Janne took off after her brother, Sven close behind, not wanting to miss a moment of his thought process. Her pen and notepad were still out and she took notes as he spoke, documenting his thought process in case they needed to retrace their steps. She was about to caution him, wanting to be sure they got a good look at the decadent dessert before digging through the area, but Jari diverted her attention first.

"Let me see!" She answered eagerly, reaching out to pull her brother's wrist toward her. She nodded her head sharply so that her glasses would fall back onto her nose before getting up close. The simple rune had transformed into a trio of symbols, all of them unfamiliar. This might be more complicated than she had originally anticipated. "Take these, please," she told the youngest Trickett, handing the notepad and pen off so that she could pull out the heavy textbook she had been wearing around all evening.

"Help me match the symbols!" The syllabary was enormous, but organized by type of rune. "We're looking for one with a right angle in the corner..."

He quickly showed off the glowing stone to his sister and awaited her intelligent response. He might have been the creative genius but she was completely the brains of the operation. He had a big wild imagination and his mind went a hundred miles a minute but she kept them on point. They would of never gotten even to the cake table with out her and Jari was acutely aware of just how important she was to him. He was unbelievably excited for his kid sister to join him at Hogwarts this year. Sure he had cousins in pretty much every year level but it wasn't quite the same as having Janne there. One day Sven would be there too and he could show them both around the same way that Freya had when he started his first year.

Holding the rock up to her and then receiving what she was handing off Jari struggled to juggle everything before dropping the pen and rune stone to the floor. "Shoot." He mumbled as he fell to the ground. Tucking the notepad under his arm before collecting what he had dropped he watched the rune stone with a panic in his eyes. He hoped that it wouldn't stop working because he had dropped it. He was nervous that they would have to start over and that it would be all his fault and he hoped Janne wouldn't be upset. Luckily that wasn't the case and almost as soon as his fingertips came into contact with the stone it began to glow rapidly again. The soft light coming off of it was met with a relieved sigh as his sister pulled up a large book and started flipping through the pages.

Jari kept the rock held up next to the book and took a step to the side of her, so they could both look at the pages and the stone. "Wait go back," He said suddenly, taking another close look at what was etched onto the stone and what was on the pages of her over sized text book. "It kind of looks like that right?" He pointed to a drawing on the page that was clustered with a few others and was elated when he found out that another one of the markings on the rock fit something drawn on the opposite page. "That one is the moon, and that one is the trees, not sure what that one is though...." He chewed on his lip trying to figure out how it all connected. Hazel eyes trailed the lines on the text book page up toward the top and that was where it all clicked together. "Look at that!" He exclaimed, using the hand he had wrapped around the stone to motion toward the chapter header on the top of the page.

"Nature, their all about nature, what do you think that means?"

Janne was oblivious to any malfunctioning of the rune, so focused on the translation was she. As Jari indicated each rune in the book, she reached across him and carefully copied the sequence down into her notes, balancing the heavy book in one hand as she carefully traced the patterns onto the paper her brother was still holding. Sugar, moon, and trees were the clues so far. But how were they related? Janne puzzled for a moment, trying to see a connection between the meanings beyond the obvious: all nouns, all natural. Her train of thought was broken when Jari excitedly indicated the pages' header: a more complicated rune that matched the third one they were searching for. "That one means 'leas', it indicates a grassy area, you know?"

Still puzzled, Janne looked at her brother. "What if we aren't supposed to link each clue together? What if it's a path leading the way?" The initial rune indicating 'sugar' had disappeared as soon as they approached the cake, after all. Convinced that this was the appropriate strategy, Janne turned on the spot, spinning around until something caught her eye that might lead them further. "Out there!" She exclaimed, pointing excitedly at a side door through which she could spot the moon glowing. "Maybe we need to find trees and grass lit up by the moon!"

She proceeded to march right toward the exit, letting Jari hold on to the rune and notes in case they needed them again. Who knew how many steps it would take them to find something amazing? Sven had already lost interest, wandering off to see if he might be served a piece of cake, but Janne was committed to see this through, even if it took them the whole party to do it. The tall girl dropped to her knees at the hole and turned, tucking the heavy book under her arm so that she could climb down the wooden slats that had been nailed into the tree trunk. "Be careful!" She called up to her brother. It would be no good at all if he slipped and knocked them both to the ground in the process, especially if he dropped the rune that was their guide.

Hearing Janne's words everything seemed to click into place for Jari and his face lit up to reinforce that. "You're right!" He exclaimed to her with a renewed enthusiasm before holding tight to the rune in his hands and turning to follow her outside. It was a cool night, maybe a little breezy but he was confident they wouldn't catch a cold without their coats. Ever the Hufflepuff Jari had to make certain that he didn't let Janne get sick, especially not before her very first year at Hogwarts. Following her to the hole of the massive tree house he waited a few moments to give her all the space she needed before turning to join her on the descent. Jari took very careful and deliberate steps but careful and deliberate for Jari meant as slow as molasses. It was the only way he could guarantee his kid sister's safety so slow and steady it was. She'd reached the bottom a good couple minutes before he realized he was going slow for nothing. A few feet from the ground Jari got bold and let his feet slide from the rungs, looking to slide fire pole style down the rest, but of course that didn't work out quite as expected.

The toe of his sneaker caught on one of the pieces of wood, throwing a wrench in the whole plan, and Jari fell the last foot or two to the ground before landing firmly on his backside. "Oof!" He said as the wind knocked out of him but he rolled it off quickly. Smiling up at her from the soft grass he pushed himself off the ground, a professional at getting up after falling down, and brushed off the seat of his pants. "I'm good." He claimed with a low chuckle before spinning around a few times to survey their surroundings. He clung to the rune he'd managed to hang on to even during the fall and then held it out toward her. It was still glowing, pulsing even, but only just barely.

"Maybe we follow the moonlight?" He asked allowed before trudging off a few steps toward the distant glow of the moon. The rune pulsed a tiny bit faster and Jari bounced excitedly. "This way Janne!" He led them further away from the tree house but subconsciously tried to remember the direction they came from, really not trying to get her lost in the woods, their parents would not appreciate that.

When her foot finally reached down and found the soft grass instead of another slat, Janne breathed a sigh of relief. She stepped backwards onto the forest floor, clearing the way from the base of the tree so that Jari would have room to descend as well. But it seemed her brother was still only halfway down the long trunk: he was descending timorously, clearly being incredibly careful so as not to drop any of their tools. Janne was grateful for his foresight and waited contentedly until he reached the ground a good two minutes later.

Jari had righted himself from his fall before Janne had even been able to check that he was alright. She looked at him for a moment through her thick glasses, searching for any obvious sign of injury, but he seemed alright so she relaxed her shoulders and turned to look in the way that Jari was indicating. She figured he must have found another clue because he had that excitement in his voice again. Janne ran after him with the book she had found among her mother's old Hogwarts things, trying to flick through the pages as she dashed across the lawn and not paying the slightest attention to where they were going.

"Is that the last clue?" she asked eagerly when they had slowed, looking around at the ring of trees that they were standing in the middle of, all shining in the silvery moonlight. The rune now glowing in the middle of the coin was one Janne could easily recognize: stone. The clearing her brother had led them to was surrounded by trees, but in the center stood a large boulder. "Stone," she told him, hoping he would be able to figure out the last bit easily. "But how do we dig?"

Falling down and getting back up was kind of Jari's trademark move. His uncle joked that he spent more time doing the falling down bit than anything else and Jari was starting to agree with him. He felt like he'd grown more this summer than he had the rest of his short life and the difference in height made him feel awkward. He was already clumsy enough but now even more so. His chubby legs carried him further away from the treehouses and though he stumbled over rocks, twigs, and sometimes nothing, he managed not to fall down again before the reached a clearing in the trees.

Janne was behind him and he turned to look at her as the rune glowed a new symbol that he didn't recognize. She was so much better at the text book stuff than he was and it made him feel a surge of pride that she remembered the rune off hand. "Stone, cool. Yeah this must be the last one." He replied with a smile and a hand running through his shaggy brown hair. He pondered the possibilities with a bit of a pout and then shrugged at her.

"It's too bad we can't use magic, that would work." He recalled his earlier conversation with Freya about how nice it was to be able to use her wand anytime that she wanted. Jari's generation relied on their wands more than generations before them might have. Hogwarts had taught them that magic would always try to hurt them and it was magic that they would need to defend themselves. Jari relied on his wand, he needed it, and during the summer when he wasn't at school he felt lost with out it.

Of course he was still a Hufflepuff and magic or not he wasn't about to give up. Especially not when they were oh so close to finding the buried, literally, treasure. Placing his palm on the boulder as he moved to get onto his hands and knees to begin digging manually Jari was half way to the ground when the stone itself began to glow. It seemed to reverberate some kind of magic that was placed into it but it wasn't complete, almost like it was missing half of its energy source. Jari had seen something similar during his time in the Gauntlet, they had had to work together in order to unlock the gate, maybe this was like that?

"Hey Janne try this," He motioned with his free hand and made it the rest of the way to the ground, kneeling with his body facing the rock but looking behind him up at her. He waited for her to place her hand on the stone to see what the magic would reveal.

Janne nodded in agreement at once. Not that she had grown to rely on her own magic yet, but she certainly was used to having parents around to do spells for everything whenever they needed it. Parents always had the answer, that was for sure. But since they were on their own this time, Janne was counting on her older brother to lead the way. He had already completed two whole years of school, and as far as Janne was concerned, her brother was an expert and the leader of their expedition.

As her hero began to dig, Janne bent down to pick up all the tools he had dropped, including the rune. This might be the final clue, but Janne wasn't sure they should just abandon it. It might be important for the next century, when people came looking again. At the very least, it was cool. Her attention was torn away from the magical object when the rock Jari was exposing began to glow. She bent over behind her brother, peering over him to get a better look at what he was digging. The stone seemed to glow more strongly when Jari's hand was near it; could it really be that simple?

After carefully shifting her pile of resources so that they were tucked under one arm, she reached down to touch her free hand to the rock. At once, the stone began to splinter, lines running in all directions out and around until the entire rock face fell away. Janne gasped and then cried out, "Look, Jari, look!", the complete superfluity of her comment unimportant given the excitement of the moment. This was unlike any magic she had ever seen or read of before and Janne wished she had a way to record it. Then she could come back and study it in detail later.

All that was left among the glowing rubble was a small box, engraved with runes that flowed in every direction, creating an abstract pattern that could only be comprehensible to a master runic translator. "Should we open it?" she asked in a hushed voice, looking to her older brother again for guidance and initiative.