A large group of priests swarmed the gate after hearing the sentry's call. Mixed among them were paladins from the Tri-Goddess church and the Dragon god church.
"Oh, good, it's not just priests here. We'll have a better chance getting out with actual warriors on our side." Chronos thought to himself as he tried to greet them. "Hello, we've traveled a fair way and could use some help wit..."
"Silence dark beast, you can't trick us. Now let go of Lyla and Karl." Shouted a priest with blonde hair as he came to the front of the crowd.
Looking at his robes, he had the markings of the Goddess of order but there weren't any markings of leadership or even seniority within this group, he shouldn't be speaking before the sentries had a chance to confirm who they were.
Glaring at him Chronos said, "If you aren't one of the camp guards or leadership you shouldn't be speaking. There are protocols for identifying friend from foe."
"I said silence!" He shouted as he stepped outside the camp doing his best to put on a brave front while waving his sword at Chronos.
He continued in what Chronos assumed he thought was a gentle voice but honestly just felt a bit creepy.
"Come over here Lyla, I will protect you from this beast."
Looking at Lyla Chronos just chuckled as he recalled their first meeting, she was the last person that needed, or wanted, protection here. From the disgusted look on her face this wasn't the first time something like this had happened.
Instead of moving towards the priest she stepped in between him and Chronos lazily swinging her mace in a circle.
"If any of you try anything before the Head Priest arrives, I will personally bash your brains in then heal you so I can do it again." She said with one of the brightest smiles Chronos had ever seen.
Seeing that things were about to get violent Karl tried to calm everyone down.
"Now hold on, there's no need for violence we can sort this all out with a few truth spells. Why don't we have one of the order priests cast the spell?"
He suggested this knowing that the Goddess of Order wouldn't tolerate any lies when using her magic; it would be easy to prove that Chronos wasn't a dark beast like that. Unfortunately, he underestimated the stupidity of horny young men trying to show off for their crush.
"We don't need to do that. It's obvious, if he doesn't have a god's blessing then he is a dark beast." Said the blonde-haired priest as a chorus of agreement echoed from the crowd.
After those in the camp heard that some priests had returned with a dark beast the bravest of them left the camp to surround them.
The sentries weren't sure what to do. If they backed up the blonde priest there would be a fight, but even though this werewolf lacked a blessing he didn't look like a dark beast and wasn't trying to start a fight either. In fact, the more they looked at him the more they felt they shouldn't fight him. But the priests weren't allowed to leave the camp right now either, if they moved to stop them before confirming that Chronos wasn't a dark beast then he might try something.
Just as the crowd was going to rush forward to "rescue" Lyla and Karl a shout stopped them in their tracks.
"If any of you move, I will have you digging latrines for the rest of the war!"
The crowd parted to allow a very angry looking Vice-Commander Adam through. As he stomped his way over to the blonde priest, he never stopped glaring at him.
Turning white in the face, the blonde priest tried to keep his voice steady, but it grew softer with each word he spoke. "S-Sir, t-this is a matter for the priesthood not the paladins. W-We can handle a single dark beast."
Glancing at Chronos, Vice-Commander Adam asked, "And since when do dark beasts bring us the statues of fallen comrades?"
"T-That's um..."
"Since when do they not draw their weapons the moment they see us?"
"Ugh."
"Not only have you left the camp, but you have accused a brave man of being a dark beast without any proof!"
"B-But we do have proof!" The blonde priest interrupted him before he could finish scolding him. "He doesn't have a blessing!"
Chronos grimaced as the blonde priest practically shouted at the end. It was never a good thing to shout in your superiors' face unless you wanted to be punished, or you were being ignored and needed a higher rank individual to resolve it.
"Oh so, you know every possible way to avoid the petrification in existence. It never crossed your mind that he might be using a potion to avoid petrifying, like those in the second order did at first? Or that he might have a unique item on him that stops petrifying?"
"B-But I thought..."
"Regardless of what you thought you failed to perform your duty, you failed to follow protocols for confirming an ally, and you placed an extra burden on the sentries hindering them from doing their jobs by leaving the camp without permission! Every one of you outside the gates right now will be placed on labor detail until you can recite the protocols from memory! Now get your butts back in the camp, report to priest Farnud for your detail within ten minutes!" Vice-Commander Adam was shouting so loudly at them that the Head Priest had come to see what the commotion was about.
As for the blonde priest and his friends they took off running through camp to find Farnud before they got in even more trouble.
"Is everything under control here, Vice-Commander?" Asked the Head Priest.
"Yes sir, I just need to set some hot-headed idiots straight before they get themselves killed." He stated. "Let me introduce you to Chronos, he's a strong werewolf that has been training with my order recently. Though, I don't know why he hasn't turned to stone yet."
"He's not being controlled, Head Priest. I checked several times since meeting him." Lyla interjected.
Chronos stepped forward to speak now. "Greetings Head Priest, I don't know how I'm not a statue either. If you would like to cast spells on me to verify what is going on I would greatly appreciate it."
"Very well, I'm Head Priest Morgan. First, I will cast a spell to examine your physical condition and then I will cast a truth spell to hear your story."
Once Head Priest Morgan cast the first spell, he got a very confused look on his face then cast it twice more to confirm whatever the spell was telling him. He seemed to accept whatever it told him then cast a truth spell before beginning his questioning.
Head Priest Morgan asked so many questions that by the time they were finished Chronos had told him almost everything that had happened since he left his family's territory, in excruciating detail. After nearly two hours Head Priest Morgan finally decided that they were done, but he didn't look very satisfied.
"Looks like you didn't find what you wanted, Head Priest?" Chronos asked him as they wrapped up the questioning.
Hesitating for a moment, Head Priest Morgan decided to tell him the truth. "Well, if I'm being honest, I'm not satisfied. When I scanned your body, my magic told me that you were naturally resisting the void on your own, on top of that the void is applying double the pressure to you compared to anybody else. It's like the void hates you in particular but you have no troubles resisting it.
Everything I know as a priest tells me that this shouldn't be possible, yet here you are. I would never believe it if you weren't standing in front of me."
"No, it is suppressing me, my senses are weaker than when I'm outside. I think my healing is weaker as well but that's harder to measure. Are there other ways to resist the void? Maybe one of those is affecting me." Chronos said.
"You could use items to do so but once the energy runs out you still turn to stone, potions also work but the end is the same. The second order paladins used those methods at first, but now they've become statues after their supplies ran out. Besides, I can detect it if it's a known method or related to a known method. No, I don't think it's any method the church knows of; it could also be that you just naturally possess a very high resistance to abnormal ailments. Until the church has time to examine you and research it, we won't know for sure. The one thing I do know is that you're not an enemy." Head Priest Morgan said as he gave up trying to understand it.
"That's good enough for me. Shall we go inside before a dark beast finds us?" Chronos asked
"Certainly, I need to know where you encountered the swamp lord dark beast so we can plan our next moves too." The Head Priest said as he guided them through the gate.