Chapter XV: The Precursor Temple
LES: Rejoice! This chapter is going to be considerably longer than the last chapter. Things are getting easier since the end of school is near in sight! (Only four more days until summer break and I'll be a senior!)
After using the Dune Hopper to reach the island that held the home of the 'Golden Order of Precursor Monks', Jak walked up to the large double doors. The doors opened automatically, as he expected. Anyone could enter to worship, and even though Jak didn't have that goal in mind, he would still be allowed in by whatever force guarded the doors.
What Jak worried about was running into Seem, as she would never allow a tainted Dark Eco Freak to contaminate the sacred halls of the ancient temple. But, to Jak's surprise, the entrance hall was devoid of all life. Jak walked in and looked up. The temple had no covering, as was custom, which exposed the room to the elements. The entrance hall was built in a circular fashion. There were hieroglyphs on the walls depicting the famous exploits of the Precursors and even a few elves. The elf that appeared more than any other was Mar, of course.
One large picture of his ancestor caught his eye. It was too realistic to simply be an artist imagining what Mar must've looked like. Jak was sure that it was a true picture of Mar, an accurate representation of what he looked like. Jak studied this carving on the wall and noted the similarities that he and the ancient warrior shared. He and Mar could have been twins if it weren't for the fact that Mar's eyes were green, not blue, and his hair was completely green, it lacked Jak's blonde highlights. But, what really caught Jak's attention were the two weapons that Mar held in his fists. The weapon in his left hand was painted a deep purple, and it seemed to absorb the light around it, a Dark Eco blade exactly like the one that Jak could conjure. The other weapon was even stranger and it confused Jak. Instead of a Dark blade, the one in his right hand seemed to be made out of pure light. Even though the figure was nothing more than a carving, the artist who carved it somehow managed to make it seem like the sword was made out of light, and it had its own glow. It was the exact opposite of the Dark blade in his left hand. Opposite? Jak thought suddenly. Could Mar control both Dark Eco and Light Eco as well as I can control the Darkness?
He couldn't imagine the people allowing anyone with a destructive Dark Side to become King. It made him worried that if the people of Haven ever found out he was the Crown Prince… Wait… they banished me! There was hope! Maybe Haven didn't know that Mar was a Dark Eco Freak… maybe he had more control over his Dark Side then Jak had of his.
Strangely enough, the very thought that there might have been another Dark Creature angered Dark. At first, Jak was confused, then he realized… It all went down to his 'primitive male behavior', just like his aggression and his slight territorial habits. This was the dominance instinct, however. This new creature was a threat to Dark's dominance, and he wanted to put it in its place.
Mar is dead. Jak thought at his inner demon. I highly doubt that he is in the fighting mood.
Dark growled, but didn't really respond. Jak almost laughed out loud, but he couldn't help a small chuckle.
"What? What? What's so funny?" Daxter asked.
"Nothing." Jak said. This was a true 'inside joke'. Jak looked away from Mar's picture and he caught a glimpse of something. At first, he took no notice of it, and then he did a double take. He walked over, surprised. It was an idol, one made out of Dark Eco.
"Hey! No fair!" Daxter exclaimed. "She calls you 'tainted' and stuff, but she keeps stuff like this in her temple?"
Jak was reaching out to touch the idol when Daxter hit him on the head. "Ow!" Jak hissed, more out of surprise than actual pain.
"Don't you dare go all 'hypno-crazy' on me!" Daxter hissed. "I've seen you go hypno-crazy enough times during our last adventure!"
"I wasn't hypnotized. I just wanted to touch it." Jak said.
"Well, don't!" Daxter said. "You're obsessed with Dark Eco! You're a drug addict and Dark Eco is your drug!" Daxter then started to do a mocking imitation of Jak. "Oh! Dark Eco! I wanna touch it!" Then he returned back to his normal voice. "Maybe I still have trace amounts of Dark Eco inside me and that's why you're stuck around for so long! I'm your Dark Eco cat-nip!"
"Okay!" Jak interrupted before Daxter could build up steam. "That just sounds wrong! Snap out of it!" He hit Daxter across the head, with more painful results.
"Ow! Hey! Okay, I'm sorry!" Daxter said.
"Look!" Jak said, pointing. There was a single hallway leading off into the temple's depths. It was a thirty-foot long hallway with a stone door at the end. Jak stepped into the hallway, and walked five steps before he heard a clicking sound. Instantly, he leapt backwards just as the entire hallway filled with spikes. They came out of the floor, the ceiling, and the walls in a confused mess. However, the confusion only made it worse. It was impossible for even the nimblest elf to squeeze through. Even Jak, using every ounce of agility he had, could not hope to cross the spikes.
"Dax? Can you get through?" Jak asked, hoping Daxter's smaller size might help them.
Daxter studied the spikes. "That's a big negatory, Big J." Daxter said. "There are some things even I can't do."
Jak growled, looking back at the spikes. He couldn't force his way through either. Wouldn't you know it? The spikes were made out of Precursor Metal. Even a being that was ten times more powerful and stronger than Jak could never hope to bend or snap the metal. Dark Eco couldn't melt it like steel, because the Metal had been originally designed to store the deadly substance.
Jak roared in primeval rage. He would not allow himself to be beaten that easily!
"Whoa! Calm down!" Daxter ordered. "There has to be another way in."
Jak took several deep breaths to calm himself. "You're right." He said, rather grudgingly. The spikes retreated back into the walls, leaving an empty hallway once again. "What triggers the spikes?" He asked himself.
"Look!" Daxter said, point toward the end of the hallway. Floating above the door was a large eye. The slitted pupil moved up and down the long hallway, ever alert.
"A visual guardian?" Jak asked, and then he shook his head. "I don't think I could get past that."
"Don't worry, let's just go up." Daxter suggested.
"Up?"
"There's nowhere left to go expect up." Daxter said, pointing up.
"The roof!" Jak gasped, understanding.
"Exactly." Daxter said.
Jak moved away from the hallway. He looked around the room for a likely place to go up. There was a small ledge about ten feet up and Jak leapt for it, and then he swung up. He moved across the small ledge. There was a carving that was set in the stone, and it was set just far enough out of the stone that Jak could scale it, which is what he did. The carving created an abundance of handholds, so this posed no problem to Jak. At the top, there was a ledge that led to a short stair well.
He walked up the stairs. At the top, the passage dropped into thin air, thirty feet above the ground. The elf looked around. There was a ledge about ten feet away from his current position, but it didn't seem too stable. He would need somewhere else to go almost immediately. A banner sticking out of the wall on a pole caught Jak's eye. Above that banner, about ten feet up, was another banner with another ledge right next to it.
Jak jumped for the ledge and landed easily. The ledge began to crumble almost instantly, so he jumped for the pole. He caught it, swung, and let go at just the right moment. He flew straight up and fell back down, landing perfectly balanced on the pole.
He jumped up on the pole, and it bent under his weight, and then he used the whiplash momentum to propel him up into the next pole. He grabbed the second pole, swung, and let go, landing on the ledge. The roof was only a single small jump away, so Jak jumped and landed on the small platform of the roof. It was amazing, they were a hundred feet above the Wasteland, and they could see miles in every direction.
There was a strange primitive glider lying on the ground near by. "Oh, sweet!" Daxter commented.
Jak looked at the large volcano that rose over the Wasteland in the distance. "Remember how Seem said she'd lost an expedition of monks in the volcano? I'll bet they built these gliders to reach the top."
"Yeah, 'lost' being the operative word." Daxter said, sliding off Jak's shoulder. "If they vanished, don't you think that was a sign? Besides, we have an Oracle to break into!"
Jak looked around, it seemed that there was no secondary route into the temple from the roof. There was nowhere else to go. "How do you propose we get to the Oracle?"
"Uh…" Daxter said, uncertainly. "What about the vanishing monks?"
"What about the monks? You've got me, and I'm better at avoiding danger than any stuck-up Precursor monk." Jak said. "All we have to do is ride this glider into the volcano, and then it will be smooth sailing."
"No way!" Daxter yelled. "Are you asking me to ride a rickety glider into the heart of a volcano? Are you crazy? Do you see any feathers here? Looks like fur to me! No feathers, no flya-de-Ottsel! There's no way you'll ever get me on that Precursor monk crap! Absolutely zip-o chance!" Daxter turned his back to Jak in protest. "Forget it! Finiteo! Fat chance! Not gonna happen! Nope! Nuh-nuh! Never!"
Jak merely smiled evilly. He reached down to Daxter. Daxter seemed to sense what Jak was doing; he turned around just as the larger elf grabbed him.
"Hey! Let me go!" Daxter protested, hitting Jak's hand in an attempt to let him go.
"Sorry, Dax." Jak said. "But you need to learn that you don't need wings to fly." He grabbed the glider, took a running start, and jumped off the edge of the temple.
The glider went into a nose-dive and Daxter screamed. "JAAAAK!" Then they hit an updraft, the cloth 'wings' of the glider filled up with hot air and it pulled out of the dive and soared back into the air.
The rest of the trip was easy as there were thermals all over the Wasteland. Along with sand, hot air is the one thing of abundance in the desert.
Jak flew the glider through a tight tunnel in the side of the volcano. The tunnel ended in a steep dive and Jak had to pull up quickly to avoid smashing into the ground. However, he ended up crashing into a large wooden support beam instead. The glider disintegrated, but Jak managed to land safely on the ground.
Jak looked at the sorry remains of the glider. "Well, now we can't go back the way we came. Come on, Dax, let's check it out."
"Right behind ya, partner!" Daxter's voice said from above. The elf looked up and saw Daxter hanging from the wooden beam. "Far behind ya." Daxter corrected. "Jak! Help!" He called.
"It's alright, Dax." Jak said, standing underneath him. "Just drop, I'll catch you."
"No! You'll drop me!" Daxter yelled.
"Daxter! I can catch things that weigh hundreds of times more than you do, now drop!"
Daxter hesitated a second, and then let go of the beam. And, true to his word, Jak easily caught the Ottsel. "Hey! You managed to not drop me!" Daxter exclaimed as he scrambled to his usual place on Jak's shoulder.
"Hey, look." Jak said, looking off to the side. "A Warp Gate!" he pointed at the familiar glowing ring that was set in an alcove. Then he saw the guardian eye thing that was watching him. "Great. That thing will never let me get near that gate. Hey! It's another one of those Dark Eco Idols." Indeed, there was a glowing statue in the corner.
"I know what you're thinking, and the answer's no!" Daxter said. "You've got us stuck in the middle of this stinkin' volcano, and now you've got to get us out!"
"Fine, fine, let's go." Jak said, moving down a path carved through the rock. He walked into the central area of the volcano and was blasted with heat. He guessed that the air had to be a hundred and thirty degrees. Though Jak the Havener, or Jak of Sandover wouldn't have a hope of surviving such temperatures for long, Jak the Wastelander found the excessive temperatures only slightly irritating.
However, they were almost immediately encountered with a problem. There was a gap before them, twenty-four feet long. Jak was unsure if he could clear the distance. If there was no danger should he miss, he would have tried it anyway. But down below was a pool of molten, red-hot lava. Jak was not prepared to stake his life on his jumping ability.
Then he saw it, a column thirty feet tall, right next to the gap. If it fell over, then he could use it as a makeshift bridge. Great, except it was on the other side of the gap. Then he looked down at Daxter, and he got an idea. "Dax, so do you want to learn how to fly?"
"Didn't I tell you before? No flya-de…." Daxter paused as he realized Jak's plan. "Wait! You want to toss me over there, don't you? You can't get yourself over there, but you want to throw me? Besides, how am I supposed to knock down that freakin' huge rock?"
"That is a pickle." Jak admitted. "You figure it out." He picked up the rodent and tossed him across the gap. Daxter landed safely… on his face.
The Ottsel got up, grumbling different swears and curses at Jak. He walked over to the column and noted how huge it was. He leaned against it to think when he heard a cracking sound. The pillar was tipping over! It must've been unstable in the first place. It fell and crashed, making the desired bridge. Jak ran across.
"Good job, Dax." He said.
"Ah… it was nothing!" Daxter bragged. "It was only a toothpick! I could take on rocks three times that size!"
"Sure, Dax." Jak said, rolling his eyes at Daxter's irrepressible ego. He moved deeper into the volcano.
After several minutes of walking they came across another problem that Jak alone could not solve. They came to a river of lava. There was an island in the center and on top of the island sat the Dark Maker Satellite that they were looking for. However, it was too far away for Jak to jump.
Have you ever heard the phrase 'You cannot jump a chasm in two small leaps'? The same idea can be applied to a river of lava.
What Jak needed was a way to make it safe for two large jumps. He looked around his surroundings, and then up. There was a ledge far above his head with a medium-sized rock hanging over it.
Jak grabbed Daxter without warning from his shoulder. "Dax, you see that rock? Get it down here." Jak tossed him up on the ledge.
This time, Daxter managed to land on his feet. He got up and glared down at Jak angrily. "Go 'head and say it, Jak! Fetch it, Daxter! Fetch the rock!"
"Nonsense!" Jak said, then he grinned. "You only tell a crocadog to fetch. Ottsels are 'get'!"
"Hahaha." Daxter laughed sarcastically. "You're a riot." Then he began to work on getting the rock down to ground level. He pushed it, shoved it, pleaded with it, and even swore at it, but it refused to budge. Finally, he was reduced to jumping up and down on it angrily.
Suddenly, it began to move and Daxter was going down with it. He then realized just how screwed he was.
Jak looked away just in time as the stone landed. Then he looked again. Daxter was no where to be seen, meaning he was under…
"Oh God!" Jak rushed forward and picked up the rock. Daxter was there, and he seemed to be alive. "Dax! Are you all right?" Jak asked worriedly.
Daxter looked up at his friend with glazed eyes. "Mommy, is that you?" He asked in a dazed sort of way.
"No, Dax, snap out of it!" Jak said. It took a short while, but Daxter came too.
"Jak?"
"Oh, good, you're all right." Jak said, relieved that his friend was now himself and not calling him 'mommy'.
"What happened?" Daxter asked.
"Er… nothing." Jak said quickly. He helped Daxter on to his shoulder, and then he picked up the rock again. He walked over to the lava river and tossed the rock. It landed about twenty feet away. Before it sunk into the lava, Jak jumped, landed on it, and jumped to the island. He landed safely.
The Dark Satellite sat there, but that is not what first caught the duo's eyes. It was a monk holding another Dark Idol. The monk was dead, mummified by the evil powers of Dark Eco.
Another victim of Dark Eco. A scream of pain was frozen forever on the monk's face. It made Jak slightly uncomfortable. It was yet another reminder of just how dangerous and deadly the force inside him was.
Daxter jumped off Jak's shoulder and stared at the monk. He pointed at the Dark Idol the monk still had clutched in his arms, even in death. "Looks like it didn't agree with him." Daxter remarked.
"That's the third time we've seen those Idols. I guess you're still going to refuse to let me touch it, huh?"
"That's right!" Daxter said, moving toward the Idol and raising his hand to touch it.
"Don't touch it, Daxter!" Jak said suddenly when he saw Daxter's intentions. "Who knows what more Dark Eco will do to you."
"Look at me, Jak!" Daxter yelled. "I'm short! I'm hairy! And I itch in strange places! I couldn't do worse. Besides, I come in contact with Mr. Purple all the time, and I haven't been affected. Relax, I know what I'm doing." He moved up to the monk and reached out to the Idol, but his hand stopped about an inch away.
Jak moved closer, worried. "Dax?"
"Yuck! Cold… clammy dead hands! Oh, I can't look!" Daxter looked away and grabbed the Idol, with no harm to himself, and he began to tug.
Suddenly, it came loose and Daxter, not expecting it, lost his footing. He fell back and tossed the Idol into the air. It started to come down on Daxter…
"Look out, Dax!" Jak jumped forward and made a diving catch. Then, in that instant, to Daxter's amazement, Jak disappeared into thin air. The Idol went flying off; hit the ground hard, and broke into a thousand pieces.
Daxter got up off the ground and looked around for his friend. Jak was nowhere to be found. "Jak? Jak! Buddy? Where are you?" He called.
"Dax? I'm right here." Jak's voice said.
Daxter spun around, but saw no trace of his friend anywhere. "Jak?"
"Dax? Are you blind? I'm right here." Jak's voice said.
"Where?"
"You're looking right at me."
Daxter looked dead in front of him. There was a slight shimmering in the air, barely noticeable. "Jak?"
"Yeah?"
"Uh… look down at yourself." Daxter said.
There was a pause, and then. "Hey! My body's gone!"
Daxter moved forward, his arms held out like a blind man. Then his paws came into contact with an invisible solid something. "Is this you?" He asked.
"I'm invisible!" Jak exclaimed. "How could I be invisible?" A pause. "The Idol! This must be a Dark Power!"
Suddenly, Daxter felt something pick him up. "I'm praying to the Precursors that that's you." He said.
"It's me." Jak assured him.
"This is creepy." Daxter said, looking at the ground below him. "I can feel you holding me, but it looks like I'm floating in mid-air."
"Hey! If these Idols can turn me invisible…" Jak began.
"We can use them to sneak past the eye guardians!" Daxter finished.
Jak set Daxter back down on the ground. The invisible elf noted the rather upset look on Daxter's face. "Are you all right?" He asked.
"Sure. But I can't help thinking that if you moved that fast a long time ago, I'd still be wearing pants!" Daxter started to walk away, and then he stopped and shook his head. "Do you know what I really miss?"
"No, but I'm about to find out, aren't I?"
"Soft underpants." Daxter said with a sigh. "You know how it 'lifts and cradles'?"
"…"
Daxter sighed again, irritably this time. "You wouldn't understand…"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jak demanded angrily. "Are you saying I have no…"
"What I'm saying is you robbed me!" Daxter accused.
"Of what?"
"PANTS!" Daxter roared. "You try walking around with no pants!"
It was impossible to tell Jak's true reaction to this statement, for he was still invisible. "I believe that is illegal." He said. "It's called 'Indecent Exposure'."
"Whatever." Daxter said. "Let's get out of here." A pause.
"So… when do you think this will wear off?" Jak asked offhandedly, referring to the invisibility.
"Hmm. Who knows?" Daxter said. "You could be stuck this way forever."
"What? I can't be invisible forever!" Jak yelled.
"Think of it this way, you'd be wicked good at 'Hide-And-Seek'."
"…"
"You'd be great at 'Guess-Who?'"
"… Dax?"
"Messing with people's minds! Making them think they are hearing voices!"
"Dax!"
Daxter looked and Jak was returning to the visible spectrum. "Oh, forget that then."
"Come on, Daxter." Jak said, Daxter jumped up onto his spot on Jak's shoulder. "We've got a temple to break into." They walked back to the entrance.
Back at the entrance, Jak walked right up to the Dark Eco Idol and touched it. He watched as his hand disappeared before his eyes.
"Jak? We've got a problem." Daxter said.
"What?" Jak asked, looking at Daxter. Wait… 'looking' at him? "You're not invisible!"
"I guess it doesn't work on me." Daxter said. "What do we do now?"
Jak thought for a second. The answer was clear, even though Daxter might get slightly uncomfortable. "Get inside my holster."
"What?"
"Where my Morph-Gun used to go." Jak said. "That should hide you in my invisibility."
Jak waited a second, and then came Daxter's slightly muffled voice. "Okay… I'm good…"
Jak moved towards the warp gate and walked underneath the eye without it noticing. Jak jumped into the Warp Gate and disappeared.
LES: I hope this chapter was more satisfying than the last one. I think I've always wanted to call Jak 'Big J' and have Daxter make fun of Jak's ability to turn invisible.
Daxter: You forgot to mention that an invisible Jak could bust his way into a babe convention! (aside) That's what I do.
Jak: Wouldn't Keira get made at me?
LES: … Are you scared of Keira?
Jak: Have you ever seen her really mad?
LES: Whoa… that's something you don't hear every day.
