Jak and Nik each stole a zoomer immidiatly after getting into the city again, and Nick pulled out her map, taking the lead as she pinpointed the fastest route to the bazaar. "Hey Jak, This map seems to have some kind of location device in it... But theres another beacon other than the witch in the bazaar... Maybe we should check it out?" The two of them braked and lowered to the pedestrian level, nearly hitting a few people coming down. Jak leaned over to look at the hologram.
"Looks like its in the swamp. I don't see why not. It isn't like she is expecting us." Without bothering to switch drive-zones, the two of them shot forward, Jak now in the lead with the map in Daxters hands.
As they reached the swamp they had to take care not to sink their zoomers by leaving them on the precariously narrow walkways. But once the two of them had parked, they walked curiously into a run-down shack with a crooked door. The sight left all three of them speechless. What looked like soldid precursor bronze was shaped into a gigantic idol with a long trunk and precursor writing at the base. It glowed with blue lights coming from within, accentuated by the hundreds of candles set up around it. Even more surprising, is when Jak stepped forward, it spoke.
"Greetings, great warrior. I sense there is a dark rage burning within you. And in time, it will destroy you with its madness. Only the last power of the precursors can save you. Destroy my enemies, Those creatures you call the metal heads. Bring me twenty five of their skull gems, and I will teach you how to control these powers!" Nik stepped forward curiously, and the statue seemed to burn brighter in rage.
"But you! You should not belong here! You have come of unreal means, And you're presence may well interrupt the flow of time. Leave Jak now, or face concequences that likely will involve more dangerous changes to this world than you can imagine, and the deaths of those who are not meant to die..." The lights within the statue abruptly went out, and the trio were left listening to the distant traffic, and the nearly inaudible flickering of the candles.
While curiousity agreed with Daxter as he tried to jump up and examine the statue for someone inside it, Nik and Jak decided that leaving was a MUCH better idea. They turned and jumped back onto their zoomers without a word to eachother, nearly leavin Dax behind.
"What was that back there huh! You two keep getting so goddamn quiet I'm going to have to bite one of you to get some attention! Why is everything so mystical about you!" Nik turned at Dax, managing a clearly fake smile while Jak remained silent.
"Dax, the precursers were gods. Some people even believe they foresaw their own destruction and thats why they dissapeared in order to avoid death! What that statue said about Jak was all well and good, but what it said to me... Well you know. I might well be the cause for somone to die just by being here. Its a lot to swallow." Dax gracelessly jumped from Jaks shoulder to Nik's zoomer and clumbed up to her shoulder. He waved his hands dissmissivly and made an obsene noise.
"Why should you listen to some glowy statue! There was probably some delusioned old guy sitting in there with a voice modifier or something. He'd probably be laughing his ass of at you two taking that joke as serious as you are." Dax curled up around Niks neck like a boa and leaned on his hands relaxedly since she wore no bulky armor to prevent streaching out across her shoulders.
"Where are we headed now anyways?" Jak abruptly started talking again, but he kept his eyes to the road, more because he didn't want to look at Nik rather than for safty reasons. They still dodged pedestrian traffic and gunshots from the krimzon guards.
"We're going to see that soothsayer Onin that Ashelin was talking about. Maybe she can help us sort things out." Dax scowled and groaned exasperativly.
"Oh can't we ever take a break! Its like we've got five missions at once going on? Doesn't the underground have any other Go-To Guys!" His question was answered as both Jak and Nik braked their zoomers to an abrupt stop as they came to a tent in the middle of one of the bazaar open markets. The two stepped off their zoomers and walked in casually. Dax immidiatly perked up despite the spiders crawling all over the floor. He stood up on Nik's shoulder and poked a dead bird hanging by what looked like its tail from the ceiling.
"Cool! Check out the dead stuff!" The 'dead' bird abruptly woke up and bit Dax's finger, pointing at Dax as he splayed a wing across his chest.
"Touch the goods again, rat-boy, and you'll be arrkk! Counting with your toes!" The bird abruptly swung himself into the air and spoke as he flew backwards towards a decrepid old woman sitting in the center of the tent. She had a large disk on her head, which he landed on gracefully.
"I am Pecker!" Upon seeing all three of the newcomers stiflin snickers he scowled and continued. "Yes, yes I know... My mother she was... Very vindictive. I am Onin's interpreter." The old woman sudddenly lifted her head and opened totally blind eyes as if on cue, slappin her hands together with a burst of sparkly blue smoke. Then as she began to wave her hands around and leaving the sparkly smoke everywhere, Pecker seemed to well.. interpret her motions as she appeared to be both blind and mute. "Onin welcomes you... blah, blah,blah, blah, blah... The usual boring salutations... She says it is good to see you again Jak." Nik looked at Jak curiously as he placed a hand on his hip quizzically. Dax looked just as surprised that the woman recognized him.
"But we've never met before." The bird abruptly started speaking again. "Before... After... It is all the same." Pecker's expression quickly drooped as Daxters shrill voice cut into his heavily accented translations. Jak watched Dax amusedly as Nik erupted into another fit of snickering giggles.
"Oh! Oh! Let me try! Ahh... She wants a... She wants a yakow bone! A yakow bladder! No... No... I got it! For many moons... She has... Waited for... A juice pop?" Jak seemed almost concerned for his friends sanity as Nik had to lean on a wooden staff lying by the door to prevent herself from falling over in laughter. "A jewel shop? Oh... Oh... I know! She's got a hairball! A hair lip? A hairy chest?" Pecker floated over to a barrel near them and listened as if humouring Daxter before abruptly interrupting him with vigor.
"Close... But NO! Onin says you seek answers... aarrkk... About the tomb of Mar" Jak crossed his arms and looked at Pecker with a skeptical look, his face somewhat bored as the sky began to darken into night outside.
"So what do we need to know?" Pecker began his enthusiastic wing-waving again as he started up his translations of Onins hand-waving.
"She's going on and on about mystical energy channels, evil curses, stupid 'oooooo' crap. Forget all that! I'm gonna sum this up quickly because now you're cutting into my siesta time! Onin wants you to recover three precursor artifacts from the precursor mountain temple." while Pecker was busy ranting, Dax stuck out his tongue and whirled his finger around in the universal sign of insanity. Jak grinned and nodded in agreement. Aparently none of present group were very big on religion. Meanwhile, Onin's waves became significantly easier to understand as she simply held up her fingers relative to what Pecker said. "Not two, not four, THREE! Use the warp gate at the north west side of the city. And bring back the artifacts you find." Pecker floated back to his perch on Onins head and took on her position in a gracefull way before waving his wing in a shooing motion to indicate he was finished.
"You've been going in the target practice a lot lately Pat, anything on your mind?" Pat shook his head at his buddy in armor as he came across him patrolling while walking out of the shooting range.
"Just relieving some stress." His friend continued almost without listening.
"You hear 'bout the new P.A.L's? I hear one of them is a chick. I kinda get the feeling the Baron knows exactly what we need to look for but won't tell us. I'm really starting to get paranoid about that bastard you know? He keeps too much from us to expect us to support him. We aren't slaves like the lurkers." Pat nodded in silence, smiling in pride at the dissent in one of his best friends from his training. The mans name was Harly and despite popular opinion, he was rather opinionated about the so-called glory of haven city. Having grown up there, having his father die in the first attack, and his mother arrested for 'obstruction of justice' IE, attempting to prevent the guard from forcing his younger brother into training, he wasn't the most devout soldier.
"Yea well, I'm sure they'll get caught eventually." Pat didn't worry about it too much. There was a high likelyness the trio he met before were the PALs but even though he felt that strange connection, it wasn't like he knew them. They were just a bunch of renegades.
"I'm not so sure I want them to be caught man. The winds of change are blowin' man and I can't wait to see the fireworks!" Harly was older than pat by at least six years (they didn't celebrate birthdays too much so it was only guessed, no one really cared how old you were when you could die the next day.) but he acted like he was ten years younger than Pat. That childish nature was part of the reason he helped Harly along and they became good friends. He waved harly off as he walked towards Vin's place before getting a call on his communicator. He took it off his belt and stopped walking, speaking clearly and slowly into the crappy transmission device.
"Whats up?" Harly's voice broke out on the communicator, rushed and scared. Pat rushed back towards the harbor before hearing a huge explosion there both through the communicator and from where he was standing.
"goddamn it Harley you better be alive!"
Nik: Wow.. Hey I made that pretty long! I decided that Patak doesn't get enough screen-time because he's just a guard, so I figure he should have his own friends and stuff to give him some more action. Hope you like this installment! Tell me what you think! Oh! And PLEASE DON'T MAUL ME! cowers