"So, remember what I told you about how the spirits of the dead can become fiends?" Zei asks Edmund after a bit of walking. Then he gestures with his head a small ways ahead at a bulbous succulent with three orange flowers. It's swaying a bit too much for the wind in the area, but seems otherwise harmless.

"That's... a fiend? The succulent?"

"Mmhm. Watch it. 'Lu, give us a show?"

"With pleasure," she says, and a cutting gesture with her hand sets the succulent on fire.

The succulent does not succumb to the fire. It screeches and shrinks its main flower into itself then starts swelling up—

—and it shoots a seed—stone? something—two-thirds the side of a watermelon at the party, but Kimahri intercepts it with a lance taller than he is and then jumps into the air, higher than should be possible. He lands with his lance onto the creature and it starts squirming and thrashing even while it's impaled.

"Burn," says Lulu, and the fire triples in size and intensity, until the creature shrivels up into a blackened husk.

...at which point it dissolves into pyreflies, same way the shower sphere did earlier.

Kimahri jumps out of the way, then, pulling the lance out of where it had managed to sink into the ground with unreasonable ease given its size. He taps it against a tree to get the worst of the dirt that got attached to its blade to fall off, then hooks it onto the harness on his back and falls back in with the group.

"Impressive! Still, I'm guessing that's not the most intimidating form fiends come in."

"Nnno it's not."

"Heard some guards talkin', ya?" says Wakka. "'Bout some big Ochu here somewhere. So get ready for that."

"Also plant-based, but huge and with tentacles and they sometimes attract bug fiends around," Zei translates.

"Fun! I should probably see how I integrate into the team, then. I generally fill... approximately Kimahri's role, really, I suppose we can do a kind of pincer action."

"I confess I'm very interested in the idea of watching you stab things with great prejudice." He looks at the sky dramatically, resting the back of a wrist against his forehead. "My dashing hero."

One of Letty or Datto was listening in and snickers at that, and Zei does a two-fingered gesture that's probably contextually rude in their direction without looking.

"Well, now there's pressure."

Onward?

Onward!

They will run into some smaller fiends of the plant variety as they go. Lots of them take a similar bulbous succulent shape, though no two are identical, but some are different (but locally plausible) plants. They also run into a couple of large lizards, roughly the size of large dogs. They're none of them a lot of trouble to kill, though.

Edmund does manage to get some violence in, but none of it is worth getting worked up about.

"Sap is disgusting," Oni-Goroshi opines after the third or so plant. "I don't care that it turns into pyreflies after, I want a bath."

After the first lizard: "...acceptable."

After some more walking, they reach a long stone bridge guarded by two people, but the reason why is obvious enough: just across the bridge, looking like it's resting, is an enormous fiend. It, too, sways more than the breeze should allow for, but it seems content to otherwise just sit still not doing anything over there.

"Crusaders," Zei explains to Edmund and Oni-Goroshi in an undertone. "Yevon's foot soldiers, they help protect people against fiends most of the time and Sin occasionally."

    "Halt," says the older of the two. "We must advise you against this route. The Ochu Lord has been subdued after Sin's attack but it's a cut above the rest of local fiends."

"A worthy foe, finally?" Oni-Goroshi says hopefully. "...who named it Lord? Is it an appointed position?"

    "It is a way to distinguish this one from its lesser cousins."

        "Who said that?" wonders the younger Crusader, squinting into the group for the source of the voice.

"I think we can probably deal with the fiend for you," says Zei in lieu of replying.

"...that would be risky," says Lulu mildly. "You're sure?"

"Summoner and guardians, come on, it's in the job description."

"Not if you die on the way, ya?"

"Scared of a little flower?" Lulu wonders with some mirth.

"No way! Bring it on."

    "If the Lord Summoner wishes to help," says the older of the crusaders, now that he's sure the group understands the risks and isn't about to just barge in blindly, "we would welcome all of the aid you can lend."