"When I came to, I was in the hospital," Veger continued his story, "and two of my friends were by my side… Praxis and Damas."

"Say what?!" Daxter yelled, shocked.

"They were my best friends, but…" Veger looked up at his cellmate. "I can never forgive that bastard Damas for betraying me. He had the Guards retreat just when we needed them most."

"Wait, wait, wait, Damas?"

"Praxis didn't usurp the throne until about three years ago," Veger explained. "This all happened over a decade ago. Damas was still in power."

"That's what you think," Daxter scoffed.

"What do you mean?" Veger asked.

Daxter looked at the older ottsel. "I mean, Praxis must have been running the show from behind the scenes. Torn used to be a commander in the Krimzon Guard, and he told me and Jak about what happened there… He said that Praxis ordered them to pull back."

"Wh-what?" A look of absolute horror crossed his face. He looked down. "Oh, God… I made a terrible mistake… how could I have been so blind?" He placed his face in his hands. "I should have known better than to believe Praxis… I'm such an idiot! I can't believe I screwed up so badly…"

"What did you do?" Daxter asked, as if he didn't know.

"I've told you enough!" Veger snapped. "Besides, you know exactly what I did…"

"You betrayed your best friend," Daxter said flatly.

Veger flinched. "Shut up."

Suddenly the door to the shack swung open. A Marauder walked in, carrying a bucket. He tipped the contents into the cage, splattering the ottsels with the gray, lumpy glop.

"What the hell is that?" Veger asked.

"I think we're supposed to eat it," Daxter replied, nudging a lump with his foot.

The Marauder started to leave when he noticed something on the ground. Veger's locket. The Marauder bent down and picked the broken trinket up. As he looked the pieces of the gold necklace over, Veger watched helplessly from his cage.

Finally, the Marauder decided it was a nice decoration and shoved it into his pocket before leaving. Veger sighed forlornly. "That locket belonged to my wife… I'd give anything to get it back…"

Daxter gazed sympathetically at Veger. As much as he wanted to hate him, as much as he wanted to revel in his pain… he couldn't help but feel sorry for Veger. He'd lost so much. His home had been destroyed, his wife and son were brutally killed, his best friend betrayed him and blamed it on his other best friend, he was rooming with Kleiver… It was amazing he hadn't offed himself in despair or gone completely mad.

The young ottsel looked out the window. He smiled a bit. "Y'know… Jak's probably on his way here to rescue us right now."

"He's on his way here to rescue you," Veger spat. "He'll only laugh in my face before leaving me here to die."

"Jak wouldn't do that…" Daxter said. Veger looked at him with a raised brow. "Really! He's… He's a good guy, and uh…"

"And he hates my guts," Veger finished.

"Well… We could always break ourselves out," Daxter suggested.

Veger scoffed. "Right. And how do you propose to do that?"

Daxter thought for a few moments, looking around his cage. Suddenly he noticed a gap between two bars that looked larger than the others. Daxter walked over to it. "It looks like there's a bar missing here. We might be able to slip through."

"It would still be a tight squeeze. We'd need something to grease it up, something to make it more slippery."

Daxter picked up a handful of the gruel and looked at Veger, holding the slime out at arm's length. Veger, knowing exactly what he was thinking, wrinkled his nose in disgust, but sighed and scooped up some of the muck himself. If it would get them out…