Chapter 7

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He grumbled disappointedly, he must have been imagining things. The girl seemed to have left during his tirade, was probably the one who'd slammed the door shut, not the damn wind.

Lock didn't know where that thought had come from, it was literally one of the lines in horror B-movies that caused the most deaths. He made to leave, enthusiasm for the church gone, he suddenly turned around and glared at the crucified god.

No movement or unnatural expression. Alright, he must have been imagining things then. Rising levels of annoyance were not something he knew to cause hallucinations, but that explanation was more likely than some divine intervention.

Magic was hard to use in places of worship so that was the only thing it could have been, but while the divine existed, Lock very much doubted that one of them would ever grace him with their presence.

At least at this stage of his life. He exited the church, noting that the mage was gone. Very likely to have been a relative of the blind girl. He idly wondered if he'd made some enemies today, definitely from the girl, you didn't get so mad that you stormed out of a church and bear no grudge whatsoever.

The question was if the girl had any connections beyond her brother, who seemed to be a stylishly dressed if a bit weak-looking mage.

Probably not. This wasn't a genre where'd you get ganged up on by the entire extended family for making their young mistress slightly uncomfortable.

He sighed, wondering what he would do now, the conversation between his grandfather and uncle was probably still ongoing, and his enthusiasm for a church visit had just tanked some major motivation.

Did Trydan have any brothels?

 

-/-

 

It was almost night out by the time Lock returned to the The Fisher’s pier. He hollered a greeting and a gangplank was lowered. Grandfather and fishing uncle were seemingly done talking, which was good. Fishing uncle was also apparently done doing anything, really. He didn't even receive a greeting as he walked past the bleary-eyed men sitting inside the cabin. Grandfather wasn't present.

Lock noted that there was only one bed present, and a sack full of hay. He stowed away the book he'd bought in Trydan's marketplace into his bag and pulled out his hammock. Which was at the top. He remembered putting it somewhere in the middle of his large rucksack.

He guessed he was learning new things about camping on this trip. The things you use everyday, like the hammock and food, should be on top. Hindsight is 20/20 indeed. Though calling it camping was a bit of an understatement. From what Lock remembered of his old world, campers didn't usually face the wildlife in battle, sword in hand.

And even if they did, earth's 'wildlife' certainly hadn't included any death knights. It was more like... extreme camping, yeah. He rolled his eyes at himself as he set up the hammock. Or just he could call it adventuring, the actual name of the activity. He sighed. “What a worthless train of thought...”

He had way too much free time to think in a world without internet.

Though one of the things he appreciated about this new world was the lack of things trying to take up his time. Sometimes you just needed time for yourself, time to think and consider, that was hard to reach in a world where there were thousands of distractions surrounding you at all points in time. Be they in the form of technology or governments’ extortions making you waste your life away with their incessant regulations. His new world was better in that regard, although he would have appreciated regular access to showers and toilets again.

He laid down in his hammock and considered if he felt like burning some of the light crystal so he could read his newly acquired book. It was a decision quickly made. He stretched out his hand for his pack, precariously beginning to position himself closer and closer to the edge as he tried to reach it.

“Nahhhh.” He groaned and pulled back. The risk was too great; he was already lying in his 'bed,' so he'd just have to go to sleep.

...He'd made his bed, now he had to lie in it.

-/-

Lock backstroked his way across the milky way. It had been shaping up to be a pretty fun dream all in all. First he'd been dumped into the amazon rainforest where'd he'd swam up a waterfall and turned into a dragon. Then he'd flown around the entirety of the world, eating every living thing he saw, until he was large enough to fly off into space, where he once again turned human.

“You seem to be enjoying yourself,” a voice commented, and Lock turned around to see a little girl, ten years old or so, floating alongside him. She wore a dead expression on her face, her shoulder-length black hair contrasting greatly with her almost chalk-white paleness. Her hair was blacker than black. Really, it seemed to not only be an absence of light, but something that actively swallowed it. He was sure he wasn't just imagining it. Small light motes, flying near and getting extin-

“Does my form arouse you?” the child asked curiously.

Lock sputtered. While the girl was nude, she hardly had anything womanly about her. But still, being accused of paedophilia, in his own dreams no less...

“Not particularly, no,” he managed to wrangle out through the audacity.

The girl crossed her arms and turned her head towards some amalgamation of stars Lock didn't know the name of. It was a gesture associated with petulance, but the absolutely neutral expression turned it into something else, an empty husk of a movement. The girl quickly abandoned the pose, thankfully. “Sorry if I'm coming off as annoying,” the child said, and bowed slightly.

Her hair was right in front of him, hanging down her bowing head like a curtain, still extinguishing lights. He wanted to touch it, so he did.

The pretence that he used was a head pat that was meant to signal forgiveness. “I forgive you,” Lock said, laid down his hand, and was ripped from the dream-world, from a face that finally showed an expression other than apathy.

Eagerness.

-/-

Lock shot awake and straightened himself almost instinctively. He had forgotten he was in a hammock though, so that earned him a one-way ticket to the floor and a nice little bump on the head.

He lay there numbly, staring at the ceiling of the cabin he was in, feeling the rhythmic movement of the ship.

That had been an interesting dream. The usual reason for getting ejected from a dream was the dreamer’s death. The brain, unable to show what came after, made it wake up instead, unwilling to spend energy on calculating likely hypotheticals.

But he'd only touched a child's hair. Unless... had touching the hair killed him? Lock wondered as he looked down at the hand that had done the deed. There was nothing special about the appendage that he could discern. It was maybe a bit sweaty.

Glancing out a window told him that it was still dark out, and the overlapping snores, only now starting to penetrate his ears told him that his two crewmates were still sleeping. Grandfather had returned sometime during the night, then. He was sure that if he laid down again and fell asleep, he would meet the black-haired girl again. The question was, did he want to?

Lock chuckled a bit. Of course he didn't want to.

He made his way outside and noted that the sun would rise in half an hour or so. The westward mountains were already showing a small crown of lighter purple. There wasn't much to do on a small ship like this, and he was unwilling to read his newly acquired book about war alchemy by candlelight or waste the mana stone’s time.

Normally he would start the day off with a swim, but a look at the dark waters below dissuaded him from the idea. Who knew what was lurking in those depths? Probably nothing (Trydan was close enough to the capital to be monster-free), but still, what if there was something down there?

So he sat there, taking in the sights and organizing his thoughts. He meditated for a while, and then solved calculus problems in his head for a bit. The mind was just another muscle, after all. The sun slowly rose, and he abandoned a particularly hard calculation to take in all its majesty.

There were steps behind him. Very quiet, as if the person was trying to sneak up on him. “Good morning fishing uncle,” Lock said cheerily, not taking his eyes off the celestial body. A grunt answered him and he felt more than saw fishing uncle sit himself on the railing next to him, the ship tilted a little bit.

“I have a name you know,” the grizzled voice, ruined through copious use of tobacco, muttered. “What's on your mind?”

“Thoughts mostly. They seem to lean prevalently into the 'wondering about the future' direction at the moment, though. I don't even know where grandfather is taking me.” Lock was slightly afraid of what was to come. He'd never fought a monster before. The only combat experience he had was against other humans.

“Well, if there's one thing you can trust dad with it’s his adventuring skills. It's hardly going to be an insurmountable quest. I even know what you'll be doing,” fishing uncle admitted, trying to calm him.

“Really?” Lock asked, surprised. Why had his uncle been told before him? “What is it, then?”

An amused look came up to wrinkled eyes. “Well, I'm the one who found the dungeon you'll be spending your next days questing inside of, so it would make sense for me to know.”

Lock blinked in surprise. Unclaimed dungeons were rare, and from how fishing uncle was describing it, Lock and grandfather would be the first to really explore its depths.

“It's nothing special mind you, one of the low-energy variety. It would have disappeared in a few weeks on its own, nobody being the wiser. Full of stinking weak Cyclops is what it is,” fishing uncle said with a guffaw.

“Weak Cyclops? Run that by me again. I was under the impression that was one of the more dangerous species one could encounter in a dungeon,” Lock said with amusement.

Fishing uncle guffawed again. “Yeah, big, mean, and ugly is how one would usually describe them. Thing is though, that particular tribe was unlucky enough to have their dungeon appear underwater, something which Ezili wasn't very happy about.”

Lock had to crack a grin at that one. Ezili was the goddess of beauty, sweet water, and love. She would understandably not be very pleased to have her domain intruded on by a bunch of ugly brutes that were only capable of procreating through rape.

Fishing uncle had laid in a pause so Lock could come to the conclusion himself, and now that he had he made a hand gesture to urge his uncle to continue with the story. “Well, Ezili wasn't able to just banish the lot. Their transgression was only their dungeon forming at the wrong place. But the transgression was still there, enough to justify placing a curse on the cyclops. A small one mind you, but the “Curse of a Blinded Eye” isn't an easy curse to bear when you only have one eye in the first place.” Fishing uncle laughed and Lock couldn't help but join in.

That was quite hilarious really. He would have to make an offering at Ezili's church when he came back from the dungeon crawl; the situation was simply too delicious. The cyclops were even perfect to level his Assassin class on, as blind creatures weren't particularly hard to sneak up on and cyclops were notorious for their bad hearing as well. The only problem could prove to be their sense of smell, but as long as he had enough potions of scent-masking he would be fine. They were thankfully too dumb to make good mages. Sensing skills were the bane of every Assassin.

“How did you determine the energy variety of the dungeon, though?” Lock couldn't help but ask once he'd stopped internally gushing over the situation that had fallen into his lap. Dungeons were natural occurrences, sure, and everyone knew about them, but fishing uncle was a civilian. He should have no way of determining what kind of dungeon it was.

Fishing uncle shrugged. “It's underwater, so some of my Fisher skills apply there. I was clearly able to see that the energy the dungeon needed to sustain itself was drastically lower than the energy present in its surroundings. I think anyone could have determined its energy status to be honest. The cyclops are just too weak-looking for a significant place such as Trydan.”

Lock nodded, it all made sense. “So how do they look? You've made me curious with your descriptions.”

“Human-sized and spindlier than me. Now I'm not a twig by any means, but still.” Fishing uncle raised his left arm and flexed it. Impressive for an old man, but hardly amazing.

Was it really the correct assumption to make that these monsters were cyclops though? Lock asked himself. Small and thin were hardly attributes one normally assigned the species. Fishing uncle made them sound like a weird race of one-eyed humans.

“They're not humans,” a new, much older voice suddenly said. “They're simply a mutation.” Abraxas said as he ducked out of the ship's cabin.

“Gerald just doesn't know to mention what makes them different. Like the language that he heard them speak, their skin tone, horns, and the ornaments present in the cave,” he finished. Fishing uncle shrugged and sent an apologetic smile towards Lock.

“Yeah, sorry about rambling, suffice to say don't trust civilian descriptions of monsters too much. We don't really know what to look for to identify them.”

“It's fine. I got carried away with my thoughts, thanks for catching up to me and putting a stop to it,” Lock said with a nod to his grandfather, receiving one in return. He rubbed his hands together greedily. “So? When are we leaving?”

“Now.”

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