Abraxas was taken aback after the first hour, exasperated during the entirety of the second, and regretting the entire trip by the third. Thankfully they reached the city of Trydan sometime between the fourth and fifth hour, or Abraxas might have actually despaired at the completely inane topics of conversation Lock was bringing up.

He'd never been a man for philosophy and the arts, and that would hardly change in the one week he still had on this mortal coil. Beautiful things were nice, and you would rather surround yourself with them instead of ugly ones. Any more dissertation on the topic was hardly necessary.

Lock stopped talking about the importance of an aesthetically pleasing place of worship for any religion, comparing it with the proverb of one's one body being a temple, when he glanced at the shimmering lake by which Trydan lay.

The sun was at its high point, having just started its descent, and so the sun rays reflecting of the lake were practically blinding in their luminosity. Small black spots of what must have been fishing boats moved across it, serving as a contrast to the light show. The shanty but warm city next to the lake finished the utterly serene picture along with the surrounding forests.

“It's been a few months since our last visit. I wonder how uncle is doing.”

“Do you really need to ask that question?”

Lock shrugged. “I guess not. He's probably just sleeping his days away on his ship while occasionally rousing when something catches on his fishing rod.”

“Like always,” Abraxas grunted, a displeased look on his face.

“Now now, I know that all your children are disappointments, but they wouldn't have made good adventurers anyway if they had gone into it half-heartedly,” Lock said chastisingly.

“They would have made dead ones, not a drop of conviction between the lot of them,” Abraxas continued to grumble. He seemed not out of breath despite the four-hour-long walk and his old age. Lock was beginning to wonder if his grandfather was actually as frail as he assumed him to be, and if his suspicions were correct and he wasn't, why he was so eager to die.

Lock tactfully refrained from mentioning that the reason why none of his uncles had been willing to become adventurers might have been their father’s lacking parenting style. “It doesn't matter much, you have me now,” he said instead. Drawing aggro away from the rest of his family.

“I do, don't I.” Abraxas smiled.

Lock envied his fishing uncle sometimes, mostly when he was in the midst of more self-inflicted gruelling training or when he was being smacked around in spars. He always reoriented himself back onto his path fairly quickly, though. Fishing uncle might live a relaxing life, but nobody could deny that it was in the end a relatively meaningless existence.

Dreaming big, that's where life was at. Setting yourself on a course, and enjoying the journey.

“We'll have time to visit him though, right?” Lock asked, more for grandfather than himself. While he enjoyed talking with fishing uncle every now and then, this was the last chance grandfather had to meet him before his imminent demise. Maybe even reconcile with him a little.

“Yes. We'll be bunking on his ship today, I imagine.”

“You'll talk with him as well, right?” Lock asked, gaining a slightly reluctant-looking nod.

“I won't have the chance for much longer, and,” a sigh, “despite our differences, he's still my son.”

Lock didn't push any further than that. A meeting was well within his expectation of how far he could push his grandfather. Suggesting reconciliation was a bit beyond his means. The act wouldn't mean anything were it not offered freely anyway.

-/-

They found fishing uncle’s ship fairly quickly, as it was quite distinctive with its fish figurehead and bright colour. The lake was small enough that if one shouted long enough, one could be heard even by the innermost vessel.

It took a dozen or so more minutes before fishing uncle made it to the town's pier, where Lock greeted the scruffy but clean man with a hug, and then promptly ran off into town after making sure that 'The Fisher' would stay anchored at the pier until he came back.

Grandfather and fishing uncle had exchanged heavy, slightly scornful gazes as they greeted each other. It was important that they talked; family was important. But that did not mean that Lock wanted the dubious honour of being present for what was probably going to be a very awkward conversation.

He rather preferred taking a stroll through the cozy little town, enjoying the challenge that its uneven cobblestones presented. The architecture was enjoyable as well due to the style and the many colours. Even the smells became enjoyable after he put enough distance between himself and the pier, beset by the everpresent smell of fish guts as it was. It smelled like moss and freshly-baked pastries. The family in charge of the town had outdone themselves with its governance, and it seemed like Trydan became more beautiful every time he visited.

There was no obvious correlation between combat effectiveness and the ability to govern a town, but the Trydan family made him suspect that there was one. Mages were always more intelligent than their oftimes brutish warrior counterparts, he supposed. Lightning wasn't an easy element to master either.

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Lock meandered his way to the church of Kruto, thinking all the while of the multiplier he could present to lightning magic users if he taught them the basic concepts of electrical engineering, magnetism and such. He wouldn't do it, naturally. There was no need to show all his cards quite yet. And he wasn't in a position to make himself into a person of interest, anyway. Knowledge could be dangerous if one was not powerful enough to deflect the danger that came with it.

The smell slowly changed as Lock's surroundings turned more and more into a forest. The churches of Kruto always kept their distance from the towns they were bound to. He stopped seeing any people by the time he'd fully stepped on the small forest path. Not that he missed them, mind you, it was just an observation. A pleasant coolness set itself upon his body as the sunlight gradually failed to penetrate the leaf coverage. Sadly, he would apparently not be entirely alone in the church, Lock noted as he came into sight of it.

There was a man leaning against the wooden wall next to the simple little church’s door. He looked like a mage, dressed in wide-brimmed white robes with a staff in his hands. The only thing missing was a pointy hat. His posture indicated that he was guarding someone in the church. Although he did not seem overly bothered as Lock passed him and entered the building.

The rusticness stole his breath away, as always. There was just something refreshing about the simple-yet-pleasant décor. So much wood, so many crude carvings, left there by people who had grown from their hardships. There were no seats that one could rest upon while one gazed at the cruel face of Kruto, crucified on a cross, elevated on a podium as the god was.

There was a little girl, about eleven or so, with chestnut brown hair standing in the corner of the church. She seemed to be balefully glaring at him with blind eyes. The floorboards would have been an absolute nightmare to use stealth on, so Lock hadn't even bothered. Probably how the milky-eyed girl had noticed him.

She was dressed in the same way as the man at the entrance. Just without a staff. Siblings? Lock ignored her, gazed once more upon the visage of his patron god, closed his eyes, and started mumbling the usual greeting before one got to the meat of the matter.

“Oh cruelty, I gaze upon thee and wish for your embrace so I might grow, a pleasant hardshi-” before he was rudely interrupted by the girl.

“Why bother? Praying never helped anyone before,” she grumbled, as if it was a coincidence that she had spoken amidst his prayer.

Lock ignored her. Annoying children usually left after receiving no reaction. He continued his prayer wordlessly.

“What good are hardships when they're impossible to move past?” the girl continued.

Lock moved her one more step up the annoyance ladder, but couldn't help replying. “No hardship is insurmountable,” he said. If a man living in a world without magic could perfect the concept of reincarnation, then a blind girl in a world of magic could learn to see.

The girl snorted hatefully. “You're wrong.”

Ah yes, the argumentative prowess of children. “How nihilistic of you. Next you'll tell me that what you do in your life doesn't matter because you'll die at the end of it anyway?” he asked, annoyance slowly turning into amusement.

The girl leaned her head in his general direction, face blank. The gesture probably signalled some sort of disbelief. Leave it for the blind girl to never learn the proper way to signal emotions with facial expressions. “Life has no meaning.”

“Of course it doesn't. Nothing has an intrinsic value. It’s up to you to give it value.” Lock wondered when he'd sunk to the point where he literally spent his time debating children.

The girl grew slightly red in the face, and stomped her foot petulantly.

Lock turned away from her and continued while locking eyes with Kruto on his cross. “Saying that life has no meaning and acting upon that notion is simply an attempt to throw away any and all responsibility one would normally take upon oneself for one's lot in life.”

Did the crucifix just move?

No matter. “That's the motivation for discarding meaning, isn't it? The loss of responsibility. Yeah sure, your moral structure has collapsed and you're unable to make yourself do anything useful with your life. But you've made it collapse, since it's a hell of a lot easier than actually acting out your will in the world and trying to move it in a direction that would be good for you.”

Was Kruto weeping? Lock was fairly sure that his arguments weren't bad enough to make even statues cry. This required further testing.

“The price you have to pay for that tranquil sense of worthlessness is just some meaningless suffering anyway. You can always find someone to cry with over that, that's for sure. A small slice of martyrdom for the simple act of doing absolutely nothing is quite a good trade all in all.”

Lock was quite sure that he wasn't imagining things. The perpetual frown that Kruto wore lightened slightly as he spoke. A bang resounded and Lock whirled around just fast enough to see the doors shake as someone slammed them shut.

Upon turning around he found that the carving of Kruto's face had reverted back to its previous visage.