"Reaching such a population seems like a luxury to me, one which I fear Spira may never have."

"Not if I have anything to say about it."

"A good reply. I am relieved to hear you say that, m'lord summoner."

"Material scarcity could be an issue, but yeah, Sin is a larger one."

"Is that a problem your world has?"

"Material scarcity? Mm, sorta? Like, we can actually produce a lot of anything if we want to because we have magical people like me – daeva – but actually doing so and then arranging to transport it around and all the logistics, uh, doesn't seem to be a solved problem?" Shrug.

"Truly amazing. Would you—but that would be presumptuous of me, as you are clearly with the summoner's party. Forgive my impertinence."

"– I don't think it'd be presumptuous of you to ask?"

"Well, as a historian, I would be truly delighted to learn more about your world and how it came to reach such astounding abundance, but that would be, I fear, too much of an imposition on your time."

"I can give you some of a history, but I'm not sure how quickly they want to get moving or if you would want to take notes…"

"We should not waste time."

Kaede glares at him, then looks at Theo and says, "You don't need to come with us if you don't want to, this is a strictly voluntary operation."

"Right, and it's probably more important that I help you than just explain the history of my world, but if you're setting off now then I can probably get a short summary then follow, and if you're exploring the ruins a bit then I can maybe give a few more details."

It seems he just ignored Auron.

Wakka looks at the ruins then at Theo. "What's there to explore? Some sacrilegious empty buildings?"

"Look, I continue to not be psychic nor know much about the local culture. For all I know it'd be dishonorable or something to just pass by these without doing some ten-minute-long prayer."

He grumbles something then says, "Sorry. No, we don't need to explore the buildings."

"Okay, so I'll give this guy a short summary and then catch up and maybe be back later to give more information if we ever come this way again? Sound fine?" He looks between them.

"Sure."

"I do not however stay in any one place for very long, usually."

Shrug. "Maybe we'll cross paths at some other point, then."

The summary he delivers will in fact be quite short, covering really ancient stuff extremely briefly, mentioning the major cultures and some major events that he recalls, going into a bit more detail more recently, and then he'll briefly answer a few questions but should probably get going.

(Kaede's a bit miffed he didn't do that summary to him but that's alright he'll listen in fascination.)

And Maechen finds this all fascinating and has several questions at all times.

Kaede asked about the history and now has the encyclopedia! If Kaede weren't using it, Theo would show the historian into a quick timeline and go through things there, not that Kaede knows that.

Theo answers the questions in pretty good depth and asks Kaede to look a few things up if he's obviously paying attention.

"I'm bored," he says, standing up from the sitting position he'd been occupying.

"– You guys can go if you want, I can catch up in a bit? Might need directions if you're not just following a path."