Kai: a Jak and Daxter Story

Kai - Spider Cave

"I have spent my life searching for the answers that my father, and my father's fathers, failed to find. Who were the Precursors? Why did they create the vast monoliths that litter our planet? How did they harness eco, the life energy of the world? What was their purpose, and why did they vanish? I have asked the plants, but they do not remember. The plants have asked the rocks, but the rocks do not recall—even the rocks do not recall." -Samos

Kai could only hear drips of water beading down the andesite spires of the spider cave. His head pounded, his ankle throbbed, and his eyesight was blanketed by darkness. He groaned and rolled over.
    'Didn't see the drop off. How long have I been out? I must have hit my head on the way down. Precursors!'
He sat up and immediately smashed his head on another rock and collapsed once more.
    The second time he woke, he also had no idea how much time had passed. He made sure to place both of his hands on the cold stone above his head, so he didn't knock himself out a second time.
    'Precursors! I've done it again. The Red Sage, he'll have my hide,' Kai thought to himself.
    He sat there in the darkness. It was silent; a remarkable fact indeed. There must be scores of lurkers—well—lurking around above him, in the spider cave.
    He stood up and felt around the area with his head tilted back. There was a small circle of light, not too far up.
    'One wrong step.' He thought and shook his head. He tucked his lips and scowled as he placed both hands on the rock face. He pulled himself up with muscular arms and continued to feel for jutted edges or cracks to dig his fingers into. It must have been fifty seconds of immense ankle pain before his hand clasped onto something metal. His eyes shot open and a hopeful smile crept across his face.
    "Yes!" he shouted, and it echoed across the chasms. He knew that cold metallic surface anywhere. A precursor lift. He'd jumped on hundreds of them training with his old friend Jak.
    'I've got just the thing for you.'
Kai reached into a his utility belt and pulled out a small glass vile that hummed like a lurker bee. It was a vial of blue eco, an electrical substance that powered all manner of mechanisms across the land.
    It was just enough to wake the platform up from it's slumber. He felt around for the marbled outline of an electrical bolt engraved into the surface of the platform.
    'There you are,' Kai thought as his fingertips traced the symbol. The buzzing vial glowed in his hand as he rose it above his head and brought it down with great force. The vial smashed in every direction and the blue energy transferred into the platform. It illuminated much of the cave as it came alive. Kai held on for dear life.
    He skyrocketed upwards, back from which he came. The lift propelled until he could see the space in front of him again. The light of the torches that lined the upper reaches of the cave were a blessing.
    As the platform grew closer and closer to a ledge he could get off on, it began to slow. The blue eco vial wasn't enough to sustain it for long. Kai bit down and focused his vision to a stone ledge. The platform began to shake and wiggle. The blue electric light began to flicker. He leapt with all his might and no shortage of pain to land on the side of the ledge. The rocks dug into his chest and through his red tunic. He cried out and nearly fell. The platform plummeted back down the pit, clattering and singing against the stones all the way down.
    There was then a voice in the darkness a few meters in front of where Kai hung. A rather odd, uninspiring, and quite frankly, outright stupid voice!
    "Hey uhh Gordy, I think he's gonna fall."
    "Willllarrrd!" Another, angrier voice echoed across the caverns.
    Kai sputtered and tried to call out, even without breath, to the two voices. "Guys...hellllp."
    The angrier voice came closer. "Oh alright kid, get your ass up."
A strong hand pulled him up off the ledge and he gasped.
"Now if you're done whaling like a hiphog, I SUGGEST you get up and help my friend and I get some of these crystals out of the cave."
Kai saw two men. The angrier voice belonged to a short burly man with a dirty tan shirt and suspenders. The other voice belonged to a taller man with similar attire, whom had a caged bird atop his skull. Both of these men carried a pickaxe. There was a wheel barrel filled at all sides with shining blue crystals. Kai looked at them and fought for air. "Ah...yes...you did save my life...I suppose that's...only...fair."
Kai sat up, caught his breath, smacked his lips and felt his belt to make sure his other eco vials were still in tact. They were.
"You must be Gordy and your friend is Willard? I don't suppose you'd be willing to part with ninety precursor orbs for-"
"NO POWER CELLS!" Gordy yelled. "Now get up and get those feet to work. I don't care if your ankle is swollen. I saved your life, remember? YOU...OWE...ME!"
"Don't wear it out," Kai said and stood up off the ground. He dusted his tunic and scorned. "I am to be the next Red Sage, you know. You should show at least an ounce of respect."
"Gee uh...we're not from around here. I've never heard of a uh...uh...uh." Willard struggled to speak and the bird flapped it's wings.
"A SAGE BIRD BRAIN! A SAAAGE!" Gordy yelled into Willard's ear and shook his meaty hands. "Look, kid, what feathers MEANS to say is, we don't give a lurker's ass about your eco, never have, and-NEVER...WILL! So...help me move these crystals, or shut up and leave us alone."
Kai frowned, but took up the wheel barrel from Willard's grip. "To the closest exit then."