"...huh. Okay. Noted."

"Azym mentally adds 'befriend Kimahri' to his to-do list."

"That's not that impressive, you know, it was pretty obvious I wanted to."

...because he's used to having more friends than he currently does, i.e. arguably maybe two, and he misses it.

"Someone's prickly today."

...is he? Yeah, he kinda is.

"Sorry."

Zei dismisses it with a hand. "It's fine. You've been through stuff."

"What did you..." Wakka and Lulu can definitely overhear them, but he can't really think of a reason he wouldn't want them to. "What did you tell them?"

"That you remembered what your life was like before, and that when Sin attacked you and took you to Besaid he also hit your friends and family."

Another adept of the "not technically a lie" school of thought, Zei seems to be. But Azym nods. "How much should I..."

"We can talk about that later, if you want, but I don't think spending time focusing on it right now is what you want to be doing."

He's... not wrong. And also managed to answer Azym's real question without really giving it away.

"I don't," he agrees.

Zei smiles again. "Anyhow, you've earned some of the red spheres from the battle with the sinspawn yesterday. You got your pick between Power, Speed, and Mana."

...he still doesn't really understand how this all works. "Uh, how many?" he asks instead because that might... help?

"We got enough of them that you can get to your temp max, probably."

He gives Azym a look.

What does the look mean.

...oh. Yes, that is the obvious question, isn't it.

"Do you have suggestions?"

"Yeah! If I were you I'd grab three Power and two Speed, or four Power and one Speed, depending on where you want to take things. Based on your fighting style, that is."

Zei thinks he needs more Power than Speed? Oh, probably because he already is pretty quick, relatively speaking. Meanwhile his sword strikes were... well, even Gatta who is probably like 15 seemed more effective than he did, there.

"Four and one seems right," he nods.

"Kimahri," Zei calls over his shoulder. "Four Power and one Speed, please?"

The ronso wordlessly reaches into a small pouch attached to his waist and draws four spheres from it, piling them on an arm against his chest, then reaches into another small pouch for the final one. He offers them to Azym one by one.

Four Power spheres, he wants to enhance something like... his physical strength. Three for arm strength, one for legs, if he's gonna be running and jumping a lot. Then the Speed sphere goes into... reflexes, that seems to be the rough shape of one of the ways Speed spheres go.

He doesn't really... feel much different? And he especially does not feel like he reached a "temp max", whatever that is. He'll have to interrogate Zei later.

"Thank you, Kimahri."

Kimahri nods and doesn't say anything.

They're harassed a little bit by various thankful villagers who want to show the summoner their appreciation. He's graceful enough, although Azym can definitely detect some lines of stress in his eyes whenever he's reminded of what happened yesterday. But anyway, it's a small village, and they're soon past the gates and into the jungle.

As is to be expected, the jungle is teeming with fiends. "Even with the Sending," Zei explains conversationally, "the local spirits get restless after an attack, and furthermore many of them ride with Sin itself and join the locals. So not only does Sin bring destruction by itself, it also leaves the whole surroundings more dangerous. It's good we're here."

Most of the local fiends are not very threatening, however; at least not to a party as large and well-prepared as theirs. They make good time, and make the jungle safer as they do.

There are paths cleared in the jungle, trails and beaten foliage. They're not very wide, though, and the party can only walk three abreast. They assume formation, with Kimahri in front, Wakka in the back, and Lulu and Zei square in the middle of the group. After some thinking, Azym joins Kimahri; his style definitely seems more offensive than anything.

The flora starts becoming a bit sparser as they approach what sounds to be a river. From the noise, it's probably narrower but faster than the rivers in Besaid, and that impression is confirmed when they actually reach it. There's a stone bridge erected over it, but the Crusaders Gatta and Luzzu are there.

"Halt," says Luzzu, stepping between the party and the bridge. "We must advise you against this route. The Ochu Lord has been made agitated by Sin's attack and it was already a cut above the rest of local fiends."