Chapter 2: So much to learn
"Ugh, that has got to be the worst I've ever slept." Daxter complained when the trio woke up in the morning.
Jak rolled his eyes. Daxter hadn't shown any indication of discomfort during the night and his friend at least had the benefit of a warm body to act as a mattress.
Stretching, Jak groaned audibly as his bones popped in multiple places, feeling stiff and cold. The hard surface of the ground had not been good for his body, and while it hadn't been too cold outside during the night, the ground had still done a good job of leaching all of the heat out of his body
The kid Jak had decided to take responsibility for until further notice looked as content with his sleep as Daxter did and Jak was worried that he was going to throw a tantrum. It didn't help that the kid, as well as Jak and Daxter, were hungry on top of their poor sleeping conditions. As horrible of a thought it was, Jak was sort of glad that the kid was a mute, meaning that he wouldn't scream and draw attention to them when the tiredness and hunger finally caught up with the young boy.
Jak looked through his bag and the items he had in it, which wasn't a lot, he hadn't exactly packed his bag with being lost in a new city in mind. But it would hopefully be enough to trade for a good amount of lari which he could then use to buy food. But first Jak needed to actually find someone who was willing to trade for lari.
As the trio wandered through the Bazaar, with Jak having to pull and increasingly frustrated kid away from every stall that piqued his fancy, and asked around for a trader, Daxter decided to keep note of how much everything was worth in lari in order to try and get a good judge of what lari itself was worth.
Unfortunately, before the boys could find a trader, the kid stopped and refused to move, pointing at a food stall nearby. The aroma of freshly-made food was coming strong from the stall, taunting the boys with the fact they didn't have the money to buy it and bringing a painful awareness to their empty bellies.
The kid opened his mouth but still no sound came out, so he instead pointed insistently at his open mouth while trying to tug Jak towards the stall.
Jak sighed sadly, shaking his head, which caused the kid to stamp his foot in frustration.
"Kid, we can't just get food for free." Daxter informed "We need this lari stuff first, which we're trying to get. Just wait a bit, then we can get food."
Unfortunately, a hungry and cranky child could not be reasoned with the same way someone older could be, too young to understand that goods needed to be traded before they could be had, and that what someone had couldn't always be traded for what they wanted. So, it wasn't a surprise when the kid dropped to the ground and began to cry silently, large tears streaming down his face.
Jak and Daxter looked at each other in concern and the slightest tinge of fear.
They had no idea how to deal with an upset child.
Jak crouched down to the kid and tried to place a comforting hand on him, only for it to get smacked away.
"Come on, kid, calm down." Daxter said unsurely, having no idea what to say to help. "I said we'll be able to get food, just not now."
The kid continued to cry silently, his frazzled mind unable to understand why it couldn't be now.
The kid continued to cry for a few more minutes before Jak became aware of the stares they were getting. The kid's cries may have been silent, but a child sitting in the middle of the street with tears running down his face was still something that attracted attention. So, Jak decided to pick the kid up and resume their search for a trader, hoping that they'd find one soon so that he could get the kid some food to calm him down.
Still upset and frustrated at Jak specifically for not getting him food, the kid began to struggle in Jak's arms and hit him repeatedly. Jak winced with each hit to his arms and chest, the kid was surprisingly strong for his size, but kept a firm hold as he walked.
Thankfully, the kid eventually tired himself out, his head hitting Jak's chest with a final thump, continuing to silently cry into Jak's tunic. Jak's nose wrinkled when the kid decided to use his tunic as a tissue.
Daxter sighed in relief when the tantrum was over.
"We need to get food asap, before we get another one of those." He said.
Jak nodded in agreement.
…
By some miracle, the boys found a trader round the next bend.
"Hmm." The trader's eyes gleamed as Jak began pulling out what he had to trade, taking note of the teen's youth and how out of place he was in Haven.
Daxter managed to catch the man's eyes widening slightly in shock and interest when Jak produced a few Precursor Orbs from his pack before he schooled his expression. The boys had traded away every single Precursor Orb they had collected in their journey to Gol and Maia's citadel in return for Power Cells, but Jak had managed to find a few more Orbs washed up on the beach since then.
Other than the Precursor Orbs, the only things Jak had in his pack was a carved whistle he'd received from his uncle years ago, and a small stone carving of an ottsel that the sculptor had made and given to the boys just before their trip through the Precursor Ring. Daxter glared at Jak when he pulled out the ottsel carving and Jak rolled his eyes in response, stuffing it and his whistle back in his pack.
"Well, Precursor Orbs, you have a good ability for finding things." The trader complimented.
Jak raised an eyebrow at that. It wasn't exactly hard when they were lying everywhere, even if he and Daxter had cleared out the land from Sandover to the Citadel.
"Since you brought me a set, I'll give you eighty lari." The trader offered.
Daxter grabbed Jak's head to stop his friend from nodding and agreeing to the trade.
While Jak was more concerned in just getting lari at all, Daxter was savvy enough to realise that the trader was trying to rip them off. The way the man reacted to the Orbs spoke to them being worth much more than he was offering.
The old Explorer hadn't directly taught Daxter much, and Daxter listened to what he taught even less, but one of the things Daxter did remember was the act of bartering. The Explorer had grumbled more than once about trading an item on his travels, unaware of the true worth of the item he was trading while the other person did, and had made the boys promise not to make the same mistakes when they started on their own travels. To make sure his nephew and other charge were sufficiently prepared, the Explorer had taught them the various tells for when someone was trying to rip them off, and how to barter for higher pricing.
"Eight-eighty? Ha!" Daxter acted like he was shocked and insulted by the offer, as if he knew the true worth of the Precursor Orbs in Haven. "If you wanted to rip us off, you could at least have given us a more believable number."
The trader looked at Daxter in shock, obviously not having expected the animal on Jak's shoulder to talk.
"Eighty is a very reasonable offer." The trader defended to Jak. "And I'm the only one around here that's going to trade you for them."
The trader could have been telling the truth, they had wandered around for a while before finding him after all, but Daxter knew from the Explorer that it was a common lie used by traders to make their offer seem like the only choice.
"Really?" Daxter raised a furry eyebrow. "So, if we go to the East side of the Bazaar, we won't find someone who will be happy to buy our Orbs for what they're actually worth?" He bluffed.
The trader startled at the bluff, giving away that there likely was another person willing to buy Precursor Orbs out there.
"Come on Jak, we're wasting our time here." Daxter jumped down off Jak's shoulder to put the Precursor Orbs back in Jak's pack.
Jak followed his friend's lead, trusting that Daxter knew what he was doing.
"Fine." The trader huffed before the boys could leave. "I'll up it to ninety."
"P-lease." Daxter drawled. "These are easily worth a hundred each." He spit-balled a price, hoping he wasn't over estimating by too much or still undervaluing.
This time, it was the trader who laughed at Daxter's gall.
"A hundred for all of them, maybe, but not each." He upped his offer.
Jak and Mar watched in fascination as Daxter and the trader bartered back and forth, Daxter gradually lowering his offer while the trader gradually upped his, until they reached a price they agreed on.
"A pleasure doing business with you." Daxter grinned as Jak traded over the Precursor Orbs in return for the agreed-upon lari.
"Yeah. Get out of here." The trader muttered, put out that he hadn't been able to take advantage of the seemingly easy targets.
As they walked away, Jak offered up his hand to Daxter for a high-five, then gave his friend a thumbs up.
"I know. Where would you be without me?" Daxter gloated.
Jak let his friend bask in his accomplishment, he deserved it. If it had just been Jak, he would have lost out on so much lari, too blinded for the need for any amount of money to remember his uncle's lessons about trading.
The kid clapped for Daxter. He didn't understand exactly what the ottsel had done, just that it was apparently an impressive feat.
With lari in hand, the boys didn't waste any time in going back to the nearest food stall and buying a large breakfast for all three of them, already eating half of it in the short trip from the stall to the closest bench.
As they ate, Jak remembered what he had planned the prior night, to find a library, which would hopeful give him and Daxter the information they needed on Haven city to finally understand where they were. And, Jak thought as he watched the kid happily kick his legs as he ate, find out where they could take the kid.
Thankfully, Jak and Daxter didn't need to ask around for a library, finding a city map that had the library as one of the locations pinpointed on the map. Unfortunately, actually getting to the library wasn't a simple matter of just walking there.
"What in the abyss is this?" Daxter echoed Jak's own thoughts as they stared at the energy field blocking their way.
Jak had seen that there was a "security gate" on the map, but he hadn't realised that this is what it meant. Warning signs next to the gate made it clear that touching the thing would be a very bad idea.
Why would the Bazaar and main part of the city be separated like this?
"Maybe there's another way around?" Daxter suggested.
Jak frowned, recalling the map and the other security gates that had been on it.
Just then, someone walked through the security gate, flashing something in front of a scanner that briefly turned off the energy field to allow them through. Apparently, they needed some sort of pass to get through, which was very inconvenient since they had no idea how to get one, and the best means of finding out was on the other side of the barrier.
Thankfully, getting past the security gate was a simple matter of walking through while someone else had just opened it, though the act had earned the boys some looks and the Krimzon Guard wandering around did start to keep a closer eye on them.
Jak had a feeling that he didn't want to be doing that too often, those security gates were up for a reason after all.
Jak sighed in relief when they finally reached the library, the building full of books. Finally, they could get some answers.
…
Jak groaned audibly as his head thumped down on the table he was at. He had never read so much in his life.
It didn't help that there was so much information to cover, much of which the books he was reading treated as common knowledge, and therefore didn't explain properly. It didn't help either that some of the words the books used were completely new to Jak and the way the sentences were written out were different too, not drastically different but different enough to make reading much more of a chore than it needed to be.
But Jak believed that he was at least getting a gist of what Haven was.
The books called Haven "the last great bastion of elven civilisation", only within its walls were people safe from the scourge of the Metal Heads, apparently. Given that Jak had never heard of Metal Heads before, not even from his uncle's explorations to the furthest edges of the known world, and he knew for certain that Haven was not "the last great bastion of elven civilisation", Jak and Daxter had clearly landed far away from Sandover.
As for the "Metal Head scourge", they seemed to be a rather big threat that kept everyone in Haven confined behind the city walls, beasts that wanted only for destruction. They appeared centuries ago, slowly overtaking the "world" until the only safe places to live were big defensive cities. There was a lot of information there about the history of the Metal Head wars that Jak wasn't really taking in.
"Yah know, I'm fairly sure you have to look at the books to read them."
Jak sat up to look at Daxter, who had wandered off on his own not long after Jak had started reading.
"Any luck?" Daxter asked.
Jak closed the book he was reading and then slammed the book against his forehead, as if the miracle of blunt-force-trauma would automatically transfer the information into his head.
"That bad, huh?" Daxter snickered.
Jak dropped the book and sighed loudly, looking down to his side to make sure the kid was still occupying himself with thick-paged books full of colours and textures meant for children. He tilted his head to the kid and raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, I looked." Daxter assured, as if he'd been asked to accomplish some huge task. "And I found something that will make this all easier for us. Come on."
What Daxter had found was a computer, which apparently accumulated all of the information from the library and beyond into a single source that could be searched through with just some keywords, then display that info on a screen. Much easier than searching through several different books in hopes of finding the right information.
Keira had explained this very idea to Jak and Daxter before, so it wasn't a completely alien concept to them. But Keira had also said that this idea was just speculation for now, that technology wasn't yet at that point, though hopefully would be soon.
Apparently, Haven had this "speculative" technology already.
It took a bit for Jak to work out how to use the computer, but he was eventually able to pull up the information he needed on screen. The information on Haven and the Metalheads was a lot more concise and easier to find with the computer, links and keyword searches allowing for clarification on the information that the books either left out or took too long to get to.
Pulling up maps, Jak looked them over in hopes that he could use the knowledge imparted to him by his Explorer uncle to work out where Haven was in relation to Sandover, but that only turned into an exercise in frustration.
The landmasses didn't look like any Jak remembered from his uncle's collection of maps. Actually, that was a lie, the landmasses did look rather similar to the large map of Jak's home country, though there were definite differences such as islands in the place of continuous land and the coastline not quite matching up. So, it had to be just coincidence.
If Jak had bothered to pay more attention to his uncle's lessons about geographic coordinates, maybe he would have had more luck in placing Haven in the world.
Even though he didn't expect to get any results, since Haven likely wouldn't have heard of Jak's home if he hadn't heard of Haven with an Explorer for and uncle, Jak still typed 'Sandover' in the search bar and was surprised to get some results. Apparently, Haven did know about his home.
Unfortunately, the information provided was far from clear. The name of Sandover was referenced as part of the first settlements to be attacked by the Metalheads, which couldn't be possible since the rift gate only opened the previous day, and referenced in a historical context such as trading. But Jak couldn't find any information on where Sandover was in relation to Haven.
Aside from Sandover, Jak also found Rock Village referenced a few times, mainly named as frontline base against the Metal Heads when they first invaded and where people first retreated to. Where the 'great hero' Mar first drove back the Metal Heads. Jak had no memory of a hero by the name of Mar or Rock Village ever serving as the frontline against an invading force of Metal Heads, maybe it was now with the Metal Heads coming out of the rift gate, but the text was clearly about an event from centuries ago.
"Different villages?" Jak signed the suggestion to Daxter.
"Probably. I never heard of any of this stuff happening." Daxter agreed.
Locations in different parts of the world sharing a name wasn't exactly uncommon after all.
With finding home a loss, Jak ended up looking into the 'great hero Mar', finding out that the man built Haven city and became the first king, rulership of the city passing down through his family. Only, Haven City was currently ruled by a man named Baron Praxis, not a king or queen.
The kid had gotten bored with his books by the time that Jak and Daxter were learning about the coup that dethroned the previous king, wandering over and pulling himself onto Jak's lap to get the teen's attention.
"Wow, and I thought the mayor was bad at his job." Daxter commented as he read the article about the king.
King Damas, as he was called, was apparently a highly incompetent and uncaring ruler who was driving Haven into ruin. Just the last in a line of poor rulers who were called a shame to their legacy, part of an outdated system that was of no use and needed to be removed before it was too late. So, the people rose up in a coup led by a General Praxis, installing a new ruling government with said General installing himself as the new leading Baron.
Jak scrunched up his nose as he read the information. He didn't know what, but something about the article seemed off to him.
Alongside the text was a painting of the dethroned monarch, a young man looking very regal in fancy-looking clothes and a familiar-looking amulet around his neck.
At the sight of the digitised portrait, the kid's face lit up and he pointed at it eagerly. His mouth opened and closed, quiet grunts coming out but otherwise still silent.
"Uh, what are you trying to say, kid?" Daxter questioned.
The kid pointed at himself and then the king again, face screwing up in frustration when Jak and Daxter still didn't understand.
He then grabbed the amulet around his neck and showed it off, practically shoving it in Jak's face.
Jak looked at the amulet and then his eyes widened in realisation.
"Oh." He let out a rare vocalisation.
The amulet matched the one worn by the king in his portrait. And a quick search revealed that said amulet was the official seal of the house of Mar, to be worn only by the royal family.
"Wait, is he your daddy?" Daxter questioned loudly, earning him a shush from Jak.
The kid nodded frantically, bouncing up and down on Jak's knees in his excitement.
Jak and Daxter shared a sad and panicked look as they realised what this meant.
The computer wasn't clear about what happened to the deposed king, but both boys were familiar with enough historical tales to know that the man wouldn't have been left free, or alive, by those who deposed him. It wouldn't do to allow a deposed leader the opportunity to try and retake their place after all.
Though neither boy had paid attention to the disparity of the current date with the date of the coup.
"I guess that there's no parents to find then." Daxter commented, much to the kid's confusion. "We still need to find a place to drop him off though."
Jak thought about it and then shook his head.
"Dangerous for kid." Jak signed.
"How?" Daxter questioned. "Wait, you don't think…?"
It was a horrifying thought that neither teen wanted to entertain. But if this kid really was the son of the deposed king, then Baron Praxis and others like him would not want the kid around to threaten his rule. Such barbaric acts had happened more than once in the Explorer's history lessons.
And they had been letting the kid walk around with a symbol that easily identified him as the son of the king Praxis had deposed.
Hastily, Jak tucked the kid's amulet inside the boy's shirt out of sight, hoping that no one had taken notice of or cared about it before now.
"So, what do we do about the kid now?" Daxter asked. "His dad's got to be dead, and this city will likely try to kill the kid too."
Daxter realised his mistake as soon as the words left his mouth but it was already too late by then, the kid's eyes welling up with tears.
It took a long while to calm down the kid this time.
Consequences for Daxter's lack of brain-to-mouth filter had only ever resulted in derision, grounding and the occasional threat of violence before, he'd never made a kid cry before and now it was making him feel like the world's biggest asshole.
The boys had ended up having to leave the library. Apparently, the kid's silent crying and Daxter's poor attempts at calming the kid down was 'disturbing the peace' of the library.
Jak continued to rub circles into the kid's back as the boy's quiet sobs trailed off into hiccups. The front of his tunic was a mess of tears and snot by now but he didn't pay it much mind.
"So, what now?" Daxter asked again. "We still don't know how far we are from home and are basically trapped here. And, well, we need to do something with the kid."
"Keep." Jak signed.
"Keep?" Daxter repeated. "Wait, you mean keep the kid?"
Jak nodded.
Despite the short time, he'd grown attached to the kid. And with the revelations in the library, he didn't want to risk the boy's safety by leaving him anywhere where he could be recognised as the city heir and put in danger.
It didn't occur at all to Jak to just take away the boy's amulet, the thing that would identify him being part of the royal family.
"Jak, think this through." Daxter pleaded with his friend. "We have no idea how to take care of a kid. Not to mention we're in a city we don't belong in with no home to go to."
Daxter had a good point. They had spent the night on the ground, a sheet of metal for shelter, which was not good for them and especially not a kid, and neither of them had any experience in dealing with children before picking up the kid.
But at the same time, how much safer would the kid be if they left him with someone who could possibly alert those in charge to his identity? The kid would have no where to run and no one to turn to if that happened. And, besides, Jak had some money now, which he didn't the night they spent on the street, so it wasn't like they'd be keeping the kid on the street with them.
Jak gave Daxter a determined look.
Daxter sighed, realising that his friend wasn't going to be budging on this.
"Alright." He said. "If we're only here for a few days, we can look after the kid for that long."
He really hoped that he and Jak would be able to find their way home sooner rather than later.
Jak smiled in triumph and then frowned.
"Name." He signed.
Daxter nodded. They would need to call the kid something, but with the child mute and likely unable to write at his age, they didn't know his name.
"I guess we can call him Mar for now." Daxter said.
It was the name usually given to children who'd been lost or abandoned without a name of their own and/or unable to give it. A child couldn't just be given a new name to replace their lost/ungiven name like it didn't matter, names were an important thing after all. So, 'Mar' was given as a placeholder name, until either the real name of the child was discovered or the child chose a new name for themselves.
Jak himself had been a Mar until Daxter had started calling him Jak and it just stuck.
Though, there were those who decided to keep the name of Mar, out of convenience or to prove some point. Jak's uncle had a friend who had come to the village once or twice when Jak and Daxter were too young to really remember him, he had been a Mar. And the founder of Haven city was apparently another Mar who'd kept him name.
The kid looked up at the name, almost as if he was responding to it. That was silly though, who would intentionally give their child a name used for lost and abandoned children?
"So, now that's sorted. What next?" Daxter asked.
"Shelter. Food. L-A-R-I." Jak signed, like his plan would be easy.
"Right. I'm sure we'll have an easier time of finding a place to stay than yesterday. I mean, look at how many people were falling over themselves to let us in their homes." Daxter said with heavy sarcasm.
With how people apparently were in Haven, it was clear that unlike back home, the kindness of the community was not something that the boys would be able to rely on.
Jak smiled assuringly at Daxter, confident that they'd get through it.
Daxter decided to remain sceptical for now.
Author's note: Please comment
Something that bothers me slightly about Jak 2 and 3 is how there doesn't seem to be any culture-shock, with the characters, Jak especially, not having any issues with operating in the future despite the centuries of time difference. I mean, look at what our lives and beliefs were like three-hundred years ago. So, I'm trying to actually address that in this story, though it is a bit hard to work out what should be alien to Jak and Daxter since they already had communicators and machines in PL.
The meaning behind Mar's name is something I added so that I didn't have to call him the Kid all the time, and so I didn't have to give him a completely new name like Jim or something. Plus, it's another thing to add for the "changes with time" aspect of the story; with Mar becoming known more as the name of a hero and founder of Haven instead of a name for lost children like it was in Jak and Daxter's time.