literature

A hidden chamber

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“Are we there yet?”

Daxter looked anxiously around himself as he walked on not more than one step away from Jak, holding on to his belt as if not to lose him.

Jak looked at him over his shoulder and sighed.

“Seriously, Dax, I won’t disappear if you let go of me.”

Daxter pouted and put up a stubborn face.

“And seriously, Jak, I might disappear if I do,” he said in a childish voice. “Have ya’ thought about that?”

“Come on, stop whining,” Jak muttered with a slight smile on his lips. “According to the map, we’re going to get to the big hall any moment now.”

“Uh-huh,” Daxter snorted disbelievingly. “That’s the same map that didn’t say anything about a death trap some mile or so further back in this corridor, or have ya’ forgotten nearly getting killed already?”

Jak didn’t answer. He’d been keeping an eye open for any sign of more traps ever since then, but they hadn’t come across any more traps at all, which only made him look even harder. Relaxing at the wrong moment could have them both killed and he knew that.

As the corridor made a sharp turn, Jak suddenly heard a whistling sound, like that of a strong wind forcing itself through a small hole, and almost instinctively he ducked down, putting a hand onto Daxter’s arm to force him down as well.

One second later a large number of glittering darts rushed through the air and hit the stone wall behind them, digging into the hard material as if it had been but a mere cardboard display, just about the height where their heads would’ve been, had they not ducked.

Daxter looked up at the needle-like objects in the wall and swallowed hard.

“As I was saying; that map is going to get us killed before we get to the spot.”

Jak didn’t listen; instead he examined the floor for the mechanism that had set off the darts.

As he found a loose stone sticking up about one centimetre from the rest of the floor, Jak reached out his hand towards it.

At the last moment he stopped himself and turned on his head so he could see Daxter.

“Stay down for a little while longer, ok?”

Then he pushed down the loose stone.

The whistle was heard once again and not long after it, the darts followed, sticking themselves to the same wall as the previous ones, only a little bit further down this time.

“Interesting...” Jak hummed at this and got back up on his feet.

“Is it safe to get back up now, or should I simply go on keeping my head down for now?” Daxter asked in a loud whisper from the floor and Jak laughed slightly at the sight of him trying to stay as close to the floor as possible, his face pressed down on the stone he laid upon and his hands clasped together on top of it.

“It’s all right, Dax,” he assured him and helped him to get back up. “Just don’t trip on the loose stone, or you’ll set off the trap again.”   

“Alrighty then. Just paint it brightly red and I’ll make sure to avoid it next time we’re in the neighbourhood,” Daxter said dryly and got back up on his feet, looking suspiciously at his surroundings as if the very shadows created by the alien red light shining from the signs on the wall would attack him if he made one wrong movement.

They didn’t get far before Jak suddenly stopped again.

“What now? Is your Jak-sense tingling or something?” Daxter commented, but Jak just hushed at him.

They stood in silence for what seemed like several minutes. Daxter could feel his skin prickle with the feeling of discomfort, having to endure the silence in these strange and dark surroundings. The red glow of the signs on the walls almost called out for someone to make a sound unless they wanted an unpleasant surprise.

Just before Daxter was about to lose his patience, Jak finally broke the silence.

“We’re not alone.”

Daxter hick-upped and swung around to see if there was someone behind them, but as he didn’t see anyone, he turned back around to face Jak.

“Very funny, buddy...”

“I’m serious Dax. I can sense it. It’s the eco... Metalheads.”

This made Daxter nervously look back over his shoulder.

“But, where are they? And why, but mostly, how can they be here? “

Jak shrugged silently, being just as confused as his friend.

“We’ll have to hurry. I’m not sure how much ammo I’ve got for the morph gun and I can’t tell how many of them are coming. I just know that it’s metalheads. And they’re getting closer.”

“So where’s the friggin’ hall?” Daxter whispered with a strained voice and tried to see if it was visible anywhere close, an opening they’d somehow missed.

Jak once more pulled out the map to look at it and a wrinkle appeared in his forehead as he studied the faintly glowing screen.

“That’s odd...”

“What is?” Daxter asked and tried to look over his shoulder to see the map for himself.

“The door should be right in front of us.”

They both looked up simultaneously and stared into a wall, knowing it was the very location where the map showed an opening.

“Great, we’re lost!” Daxter exclaimed. “Let’s just head back to the others and think up something else.”

Jak didn’t answer to this. Instead he put the map away and walked up to the wall.

He studied the glowing signs on it with a focused expression in his face, before he slowly reached out his hand towards the wall.

“Jak, come on, what’re ya’ doing?” Daxter whined, but stayed at the same spot, not wanting to accidentally step on something trigging another trap.

Then Jak’s hand went right through the wall.

Both of them gaped at what they saw and Jak instantly pulled his hand back and looked at it to make sure it was intact.

“Holy precursors, what did ya’ do?” Daxter asked him and took the few steps keeping them apart, looking from Jak to the wall and back again.

“It looks solid enough to me,” he said as he checked the wall again. “What did ya’ do?”

Jak shook his head.

“I don’t know,” Jak answered in a perplexed manner, the surprise clearly showing in his face. “I just figured I could make something happen if I touched the signs again, like when I made them glow. I never thought my hand would go right through the wall!”

Daxter stepped closer to the wall and stared at it as he tried to figure out where it became an illusion. As this gave no result, he stretched out his own hand, and felt solid stone under his palm.

“I don’t get it. What is it with you and these places?”

“Maybe you should try a little bit to the side?” Jak suggested and Daxter sighed as he did so.

As his hand hit nothing but air, Daxter suddenly fell through what looked to be a solid wall.

“Whaaa???” he shouted out before he hit the ground. “Ouch!”

Jak quickly stepped through and looked down at him with a glimmer of a smile on his lips.

Daxter grimaced as he looked up at him.

“Not...funny...” he muttered.

“Ah, come on, you would have laughed if it had been someone else,” Jak pointed out as he got him back on his feet.

“True, but that’s different. It’s not fun when it’s happening to me.”

Jak only smiled at this and turned around to look at where they’d gotten. He could feel his chin dropping slowly as his eyes slowly adjusted to the slightly darker environment. From the shadows he could make out the shapes of the great hall spreading out in front of them.

“Dax, I think we’ve found the place...” Jak managed to mumble.

Daxter didn’t answer, instead he stepped up beside him and looked at the scenery in a moment of awe.

The ceiling was too far off into the darkness above to be seen, as was the far end of the room, but in the faint light coming from the transparent “wall” behind them, he could see the shadowy shapes of great pillars shaped out as enormous statues of religious background.

Images of the precursors, the way they had wanted to be remembered by their worshippers, as supreme beings of perfected features, gazed down with empty eyes of polished stone at Jak and Daxter from high above.

Looking up, they could see three rows of open stone floors, all of them without anything connecting them but thin pipes of orange precursor metal running from the floor and up to the far off ceiling on one side, and the stone walls of the hall on the other.

The middle of the room was filled with a pool of dark water, glittering faintly from some hidden source of light. At the centre of this pool stood four statues with their backs to one another, arms stretched upwards to hold a platform of large proportions from which a number of thick ropes hung down, probably being the remains of rope bridges from the upper floors of the room, originally leading across the open space above the water and out to the platform in the middle.

Daxter whistled a low tune.

“Let me guess,” he said slowly as he looked at the majestic statues in the centre of the room, “whatever it is that we’re here to get, it’s placed on that platform over there at the ‘off limits’-zone, right?”

“You’re probably right about that,” Jak agreed and tried to figure out just how they’d get up there.

“Well, I guess it’s a pretty safe stash, right? Why move the thing? We can simply get out of here and leave it be, preferably before the big drooly metals finds us and decide to have a snack.”

Daxter started to turn around to leave, but Jak stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“We have to get this weapon before they do, and believe me Dax, they’ll find a way to get it.”

“Yeah, but how tha’ heck d’ ya’ suppose we get up there?” Daxter objected and gestured towards the platform with flailing hands.

“If there’s a will, there’s a way. We’ve managed worse, right?” Jak said and walked up to one of the pipes connecting the floors above.

“Don’t remind me, all right? Besides, back then I was small and fuzzy and could climb anything. Do I have to remind ya’ I don’t have paws or claws anymore?”

Jak grabbed a hold of the pipe and swiftly hiked himself up to the second floor. He turned around and looked at Daxter.

“Come on now, it wasn’t that hard. Like climbing a tree back home.”

Daxter walked up to the pipe and looked up at his friend with doubt oozing from his very being.

“I don’t know. I haven’t climbed a tree since pre-fuzz. And ya’ can’t compare me with ya’ self. I mean, you’ve had all these years of building muscles while all I had to do was run around and...”

“Stop whining and just give it a try all ready. We haven’t got all day, Dax.”

Daxter shut his mouth and harrumphed at the comment, but never the less he grabbed the pipe. Jak had to reach down and pull him up half way, but at least he got up to the second floor.

“Geez,” he exhaled heavily and avoided to look down as Jak got to the task of getting up to the next floor. “How many floors do ya’ think we’ll have to climb?”

Jak stopped as he got to the third floor and stepped down at the stone floor to look out towards the statues holding up the platform.

“I’d say it’s best if we get all the way up to the fourth floor.”

“Figures...” Daxter mumbled as he grabbed the pipe again and climbed as far as he could before Jak could reach him and help him the rest of the way.

They repeated the procedure one more time and as they both sat down on their heels to rest for a moment, they directed their eyes towards the platform, which was still a little bit higher up than they were.

“Seriously, Jak, my arms hurt. And there’s no way we’ll be able to get across this without some sort of bridge.”

“Or wings...” Jak suggested silently.

Daxter looked at him as if he’d gone mad.

“Are you crazy? There’s no way you’re using up what light eco you have left on a flight of that distance! There have to be other ways around this!”

“Like what?”

Daxter bit his lower lip in concentration as he looked around to find a solution to their problem and was about to give up, when his eyes caught a glimmer from something close to the wall a few steps away.

He rose to his feet and got over to the spot and Jak followed him curiously.

As Daxter bent down to look at what had glimmered, he realised he was looking at a very small version of an eco-vent, placed on the wall.

“Jak! Look at this! It’s...”

“Blue eco,” Jak cut in and stepped closer. As he touched the vent, a surge of energy rushed through his veins and raised his heartbeat somewhat, making his skin prickle with an electric buzz.

“But why is it here?” Daxter continued his wondering. “ I mean, what’s the use? You can hardly run up there, no matter how fast you are.”

Jak noticed a marking on the pipe closest to them and recognised it from long ago. Without thinking about it further, he reached out, touched the marking and let out the surge of energy he’d collected from the blue eco, and the marking began to glow.

“Hey, what the...” Daxter started saying as he turned around and saw what was happening.

A dull tune sounding from the pipe cut him short.

Jak looked at him with new eagerness in his eyes.

“My guess is we’ll have to find more of these vents and markings, and we better do it fast.”

“Yeah, you load up and take on the far end and I’ll try to get as many as I can from this end then,” Daxter said slowly, trying to point out his incapability of making any use of the eco.

Jak didn’t listen though, he just touched the vent once more and filled his body with the energy needed and took off at high speed, stopping at every pipe, trying to find a marking or a vent. Three pipes away, he called for Daxter and waited for him to get to the spot.

“This marking is for red eco,” Daxter noted as he got to him.

“Yeah, but where’s the vent?” Jak asked and now Daxter noticed the lack of a vent glowing red. Instead the vent on the wall was giving off a light of yellow eco.

“Now this makes it trickier... I thought it was a little too easy,” Daxter mumbled as he tried to figure out what to do.

“You stay here, and I’ll go round to find either the red vent or the yellow marking.”

Daxter didn’t have time to object before Jak set off.

“I hate it when he does that...” he said to himself and sat down with his back against the wall to wait.

About two minutes later another humming tune was heard somewhere on the opposite side of where he was, and not long after Jak was back with him, sweating from the strain and panting hard after running at high speed for such a long time.

“Jak, ya’ ok? Ya’ don’t look too well, buddy...”

“I’m fine,” Jak objected and pushed away Daxter’s hand as he reached out to give him some support to stand. “I’m just not used to this anymore. It’s a long time since I last did this, you know.”

“Yeah, whatever, and I’m your grandma’. Jak, don’t push yourself like this! I bet it’s your wounds making you weak. You’re still healing up!”

“Don’t bother Dax, I’m fine.”

He reached out for the marking on the pipe and let out the red eco he’d collected, and the pipe gave off a tune similar to the other two.

“That’s three. One to go.”

“Jak...”

Jak didn’t stay to listen. He charged up with the yellow eco and took off. Soon after, a fourth tune was heard and now four beams of light in the colours of the different ecos activated shone from the pipes and towards the platform. A vibration travelled through the stone of the floor Daxter sat on and he quickly got up on his feet as the pipes slowly started to bend towards the platform.

Jak was back by his side before he had the time to draw his breath and call for him.

“What’s happening?” Daxter asked as he watched the pipes bending.

“My guess is that it’s a way to get across,” Jak said slowly.

As the movement stopped, the markings on the pipes, as well as the light at their tops, vanished, leaving the room in a sudden lack of light.

“I wish I’d packed down the hover board,” Jak grunted as he got up on the pipe closest to them.”

“Jak, ya’ sure about this?”

“Not really, but it’s our only option. You stay here and I’ll be back in a moment or two.”

“Be careful!” Dax called out as Jak climbed out on the thin pipe, using both hands and feet to get forward without risking to slip.

As he got to the platform a nervous climb later, Jak rested for a moment at the edge of it, so that he’d be able to walk upright, without falling over the very moment he got up.

He felt like he’d been crushed and mangled by giant hands and then put back together in the wrong order.

The blue eco had taken more tribute on his body than expected, and he could feel something like bruising on the inside of his muscles spread throughout his legs. He hadn’t lied to Daxter; it had been too long since last time he’d used the blue eco, but that wasn’t the only reason for him to be this worn down by it.

”One man can only take so much abuse before his body starts to break from it.”

Samos’ words suddenly appeared out of his memory as Jak remembered a lesson given way back when his life hadn’t been this complicated.

Jak guessed he’d just about reached his limit, that his body was finally breaking down, but he wasn’t going to tell anyone about it yet, especially not Daxter. He didn’t want him to worry.

As soon as he’d steadied himself enough, Jak got up on his feet and looked at what he had in front of him.

In the middle of the platform there was a large crystal hovering right above a huge engraving in the floor; showing the mark of Mar. Inside the crystal shimmering tails of light in the colour of all the ecos mingled in a stream of ever shifting movement.

Jak could feel a premonition of danger as he got closer to the centre of the platform and the only thing making him go on was a slight tingle of curiosity.

If the weapon hidden here was so dangerous, what exactly did it do?

The moment Jak’s feet touched the mark on the floor, the crystal started to spin and the tails of light inside it increased their strength, making the crystal shine brightly as it moved. Jak didn’t like the feeling he got as he slowly stepped closer.

“What am I supposed to do?” he thought as a slight panic started to rise inside of him.

Soon after he’d thought this, the crystal suddenly stopped spinning and lowered itself down on the floor. As it came in contact with the stone of the platform, an almost inaudible clicking sound was picked up by Jak’s ears and as he watched, the crystal slowly opened itself, each piece melting away into thin air as it did, leaving only a previously hidden object hovering in midair for him to grasp.

It was small.

Jak had to blink to check if he was seeing right.

There it was; the supposed to be most dangerous weapon ever created by the precursors.

Jak took the remaining steps and gently retrieved the object floating in the air before him.

The small octagonal jewel wrapped in precursor metal fitted in the palm of his hand.

Still doubting this could be what he was looking for, Jak put the stone in his backpack and returned to the edge of the platform to get back down to Daxter, who was waiting nervously at the fourth floor where he’d left him.

“Ya’ got it?” Daxter called out the moment he spotted him.

Jak showed him thumbs up and got himself ready to start the down climb, when suddenly a movement some way to the right of Daxter caught his eye.

He looked at it again and realised what it was the very moment he recognised the yellow spark giving away the whereabouts of the otherwise invisible creature.

In an instant, his heart sank in his chest.

“Dax, run! Metalheads!” he called out as a panicking sense of urgency shot through his nervous system.
---
This time the text took a little longer to put up here. I've been a buisy girl lately... Anyways, hope this long chapter can make up for the wait. ^^

Jak is getting agnsty... poor boy...

Jak and Daxter belongs to NDI

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First part: [link]

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emily27871's avatar
yeah! i may be a few countrys away from home but i still wouldn't miss your updates great job!!