"The mortal world is – where all the people are, at least – mainly a large planet. Spherical-ish thing floating in space, has a moon and is near other planets and has the Sun at the center of the solar system and such! The planet itself has a few different continents, we have pretty good travel between them, relatively good average standard of living but I don't know what that'd be in relation to here, haven't got a feel for this place properly yet but it's probably a bit better average? – Do you have an internet, interconnected technological devices, contains a lot of information like a big library, because I'm assuming you don't."

"No internet—I kinda want more details than that. Does everyone dress like that?" He gestures at Theo's jeans-and-T-shirt. "How many countries are there? How big is it? What are the cultures, the languages, what kind of science do you have, of technology..."

"Not everyone dresses like this! There are different fashions and different places on Earth and some gendered clothing that's sort of becoming less so, but what I'm wearing is kinda typical for lots of people, with variations in colors and styles. A bunch of countries and cultures and– you know, I think I have an encyclopedia downloaded on my phone so I can just recite from that if you want precise numbers and details that I might not recall?"

"What's an encyclopaedia?"

"A book about a lot of things? Explains basics of what things are, how they're used, how they factor into things, describe them and give some facts and history and such about them?"

"Oh, no," she mutters.

"You have that on you?!"

"On my phone," he repeats. "Downloaded. It's huge. You will not be able to get through it in even a few years, maybe not your whole lifetime, I don't think, but you could, like, read through from something that catches your interest if you're careful with it?"

He makes grabby hands.

Theo puts it on the page for 'Earth' and lets him browse.

He'll ask some clarifying questions about navigation.

Theo will be happy to answer them!

And now he's lost in his little world of Learning Everything There Is To Learn About Another World.

Hopefully he'll enjoy that, then.

Theo will keep walking. See if Auron or any of the others look talkative.

No one seems up to talking until they reach some old ruins a bit farther ahead, when an old man catches up with the group from the direction they came and asks, "Do you know what those ruins are from?"

This place is so weird.

"I have no idea," says Theo, looking them over. Ruins, lovely. "Have there been any attacks here? I don't know much about– it all."

"Indeed! This used to be a sprawling machina city, but now all that's left is these ruins, a terrible testament to Sin's power. I tremble every time I see them. Compared to Sin, humans are mere mudpuppies!"

Pause. "Mudpuppies meaning 'not as powerful as', because Sin is a large, powerful fiend-like thing?"

"Capable of tearing through our ranks like we were no more than toys, yes."

"Sounds awfully defeatist of you."

"I hope you aren't, like, some creepy cultist about to ask us to sacrifice ourselves or something."

"By no means! Where are my manners? I am Maechen, a scholar. I am on a journey, studying the history of our world, Spira, seeking its stories and secrets..."

"Any particular stories and secrets? Because I'm not really sure it's of Spira, but I'm from another world and have a magic you guys apparently haven't seen before – got summoned like-but-not an aeon, dunno if you'd want to write about that."

"Oh! That's remarkable, I would love to learn all about your world. I do hope you do not have to face problems as dire as Sin is here."

"We don't, no, not unless something major has changed since I was there last or you count things like poverty, starvation, all the wonderful things like that that can cause issue in a world of a bunch of like ten billion people."