"The person you're looking for might be Maechen. He was at the travel agency."

"He was! Surely he's not the only one who knows interesting trivia?"

"He's probably the only one that stores it in his head as 'interesting trivia' as opposed to, like, background facts. Is the fact that this lake is magically frozen by the fayth interesting trivia? Sounds like it'd be."

"… Why is the lake magically frozen by the fayth?"

"This aeon's element is ice."

"… Do all the aeons have mysterious effects related to their elements nearby?"

"Yes, didn't you—oh you didn't actually visit the Djose temple. Well, Ifrit's sits atop a volcano."

"Huh. And the fayth just do it… for the aesthetic?"

"The fayth's very presence influences the environment, and the local pyreflies react to their presence. In effect, they leak magic."

"I don't suppose you know for sure this doesn't adversely affect people in the local area?"

"If it does, the past thousand years have smoothed that over."

"Hm." He shrugs. "How old are the temples?"

"Depends on the temple. This one is around eight hundred years old."

"What about the oldest one? Or the average one?"

"The oldest is a thousand, the newest six hundred."

Nod. "Are all the effects very – neatly categorized, into the various elements? Around the temples, I mean – the aeons too, are they all grouped into the elements?"

"No, the next one is Bahamut who's not elemental and the Final Aeon changes."

"Uh-huh."

"Any more questions?"

He shrugs. "None that I can think of? Temples: have been around a while but not forever."

"You'd think this'd convince people maybe something should change..." Rikku mutters.

"How long's Sin been around relatively?"

"A thousand years."

"Right, but – the temples popped up in response to Sin, or?"

"We do not have much in the way of history before Sin came, but summoners already existed before—and Zanarkand was their holy city. There were presumably temples there, but they were probably destroyed by Sin."