They leave the cavern hastily. Jak seems possessed by an immaterial force, gripped by the vision of his daughter.

“What happened back there?” Ryker shouts ahead to Jak, trying to keep up as they race back to the ship.

“Taith is close… I saw her… it showed me!”

“How? I don’t understand…”

“We have to hurry!”

They board the ship and take off almost at once. 

“That way!” Jak commands, pointing beyond a set of distinct rock formations in the far distance. He can feel exactly where she is.

Fragmented thoughts are racing through their heads. Ryker is at a loss, trying to make sense of what he witnessed in the cavern moments ago. 

“The heat from that thing… it seemed calculated… like it was launching spears of heat at us. How did you understand what it was trying to say?”

“I don't know, I just... felt it.” His body’s sense memory of the experience feels indelible. Like tendrils of heat coursing through him. “It triggered memories I've never had. Memories of their race, and this place. You didn't feel anything?”

Ryker is quiet. He shakes his head, and looks down at his bionic arms and torso. He is unable to remember what it truly feels like to sense the elements.

“So Taith is nearby?” Ryker asks.

“Yes, the rest of the Ardor are gathering nearby and Taith is with them.”

“But why is she here?”

Jak takes a deep breath before continuing.

“It told me that the message is true. The sun is dying and they are perishing with it. They seem connected to it in some extremely significant way. There was an intensely deep melancholy in how it communicated with me.”

Ryker stares in disbelief, his mind reflexively erecting barriers of denial. He looks out of the ship's aperture window, observing a landscape of arid terrain sweeping beneath. He studies the sun; his sensors examine the environment and convert the data into a conclusion that he is wholeheartedly attached to: the red giant is alive and well.

“That can’t be true, Jak. You can’t see what I'm seeing, but I promise you that that time is nowhere near. We’ll find Taith… it’s going to be alright.”

Jak hardly hears his friend’s reassurance, instead fervently scanning the horizon for the site he saw in the vision.

They haven’t been flying for long when the two men see something approaching in the distance. There appears to be a large circular clearing amidst the jagged rocky terrain. As they close in they see a huge rock formation in the center, which has a sculpted quality to it. They can make out an amorphous array of entities surrounding the sculpture, slowly swirling in and out of one another. It has the same glowing blue-ish hue to it that they saw in the cave. It’s the Ardor.

The ship lands at the edge of the clearing. Jak grabs his binoculars and immediately rushes out of the ship. He fixes his gaze to the gathering and confirms what he thought he’d seen. It looks as if hundreds of these ancient beings are gathered around the rocky formation, with a few dozen humans spread out amongst them.

“I see them too.” says Ryker, advancing from behind.

The two old friends observe each other briefly, sharing a moment of silent nerves and anxious unease before beginning the approach towards the gathering on foot.