"That's a forbidden potion, isn't it?" Asked High priest Morgan.
"Yes, but it would allow a single person to rival the swamp lord for a short time. With someone restraining the lord a single person could break the crystal." Chronos responded.
The arguments and plans continued for hours as they refined a plan to counter the swamp lord and break the crystal.
What would happen when it broke, they could only guess at, but hopefully it would improve their situation.
Exhausted, High priest Morgan announced that it was time for a meal and excused everyone.
Leaving the tent Chronos and Lyla made their way to the field kitchen where most of the paladins were gathering.
Entering the field kitchen, they collected a tray and loaded it up with food. Today they were serving a vegetable curry with a side of rice, Chronos noticed the distinct lack of meat.
Thinking about it they probably couldn't get meat inside the void. Any living creature would turn to stone while the dark beasts vanished when you beat them, plants could still be grown but unless you brought meat from outside you couldn't acquire it here.
"You think they are going to act immediately or gather more statues first?" Lyla asked as they sat down.
"Gather more statues. If they can find more priests over the next couple days, we'll have a proper military force instead of the small battalion we have right now." Chronos replied
"Then you should eat while you can, we'll definitely be sent out to retrieve the statues." Added a paladin sitting nearby.
"Even if they don't send us out we might just leave on our own. I saw several statues on a nearby island when I was searching the area." Chronos said.
"Don't be so eager to leave camp, the dark beasts are becoming more active on the neighboring islands the longer we're here." A paladin further down the table called out.
"That's why we need to leave camp. If we spread out some it becomes easier to thin the enemy numbers." A younger paladin replied.
"That only works when we have scouts familiar with the terrain or a good defensive placement. In the void our only advantage is that we can bunker down on this island, the enemy outnumbers us and they know the terrain better than we do. Leaving to fight right now is practically suicide." A paladin with a scar on his right eye said.
Chronos was surprised to see him, the last time he saw the old paladin was over a meal just before marching into Dracon Fen. He was a veteran paladin with white hair and beard with a grizzled appearance; there was a scar over his right eye that looked like it came from a spear.
"Old man, you're still alive? Did you have trouble making it here?"
"No trouble, these dark beasts aren't too difficult to beat, they're just numerous. Now eat quickly, we could be deployed at any moment." He grumpily replied.
"You're as straight forward as ever."
Chronos didn't know why but he got the feeling the grumpy old man knew much more than he liked to let on.
After finishing their meal Chronos went to the armory, for some reason Lyla was following him.
"Why are you following me? I'm just going to get new weapons; it's not anything interesting."
"I have a feeling that if I follow you, I will get the chance to see lots of interesting sights from now on. Besides, with that many armory amulets you're going to need several weapons to replace the ones you've lost right.
The battle priests won't let you take more than one for free and I doubt you have the money to pay for the others."
"I humbly ask for your assistance, great priestess." He asked while fawning over her.
"Stop that! It's giving me the creeps, you're much better when you're acting confident. Acting like this just reminds me of those simps."
Chronos almost laughed at the look of disgust on her face.
Looking forward they had arrived at the armory tent and one of the priests sharpening a sword stood up to greet them.
"Hello, if you need a weapon sharpened or repaired you can leave it with me."
"No, my hammer is doing fine but I lost all my other weapons while I was in the swamp. Can I get some replacements here?"
"If you already have one I can't give you another." He said while crossing his arms.
"I'll be paying for him. He will need at least two weapons, possibly three." Lyla responded.
"Lyla, you're willing to pay for him? Well in that case you can select some of the spare weapons and buy those for cheap. Don't expect much, half our shipment was lost when the tear expanded."
He directed them to a side of the armory that had weapon chests for smaller weapons.
Most weapons would be repaired in the field and with the order priest's magic they could fix almost anything, returning what was broken to a proper order, the only time they needed new main weapons was when you lost it.
Due to this the battle priests rarely carried a full shipment of weapons with them. Unfortunately, the void had separated many of them and the battles had been fierce causing many weapons to break.
A number of priests had returned to camp with only half their weapon while the other half was lost somewhere in the swamps.
The constant replacement or rebuilding of weapons had depleted their stores of spares.
Looking at what was left Chronos saw gladius', daggers, stilettos, small falchions and a few trench clubs and spikes.
Chronos noticed that several of the clubs were not made by priests but instead had sharp obsidian stones along its edge. They were likely picked up from the swamp.
"Did we really lose so much that we're down to homemade clubs?"
"Some of the paladins grabbed them from lizardfolk statues, they last longer in the swamp than most of our blades do and are easily replenishable when we can't get more metal for new blades."
"I see, I will take two small falchions and a dagger."
"Alright, don't lose them this time. I doubt Lyla can buy too many more with her merit points." He replied with a chuckle.
Lyla handed over an enchanted stone in the shape of a ring that showed a set of numbers on it. Chronos saw the number drop to half of its total before it was handed back.
"Thank you for these weapons. I don't feel complete without at least three weapons on me."
"No problem, just remember that you owe me now." She said with a cheeky grin.
Seeing her grin Chronos knew that this would come back to bite him later.
He stored the dagger in his left amulet and returned his hammer to his back; both falchions rested at his hips, hanging there.
The spear's inside of the tent had all been broken or already owned, otherwise he would have requested one of those to replace his old one.
Walking back towards the command tent they saw Vice-Commander Adam leave it with a stack of papers in his hand. Walking over to a board in front of the command area he spoke into a stone that amplified his voice causing it to echo throughout the entire camp
"I have deployment orders here. Everyone not on guard duty is being placed in teams and sent out to recover our fallen brothers, we'll be doing this for three days in preparation of our next move. I don't want to hear about anyone getting beaten or captured, so only bring back those you're sure you can safely return with."
"Yes, sir" Replied all of the paladins in the camp.
He posted a list on the command board then returned to the command tent.
Walking over to the command board Chronos and Lyla looked at it with several other paladins. Going down the sheets took a few minutes before Chronos found his name together with Lyla, Gregory and Sariah.
They were team 58 and were assigned to recover statues from the first vortex that Chronos had seen.
"Looks like we'll be together for a while, huh? Please take care of me." Lyla's humble attitude felt weird to Chronos.
"This is revenge for earlier, right?" He asked as he felt several glares land on his back.
"Just a little." She replied as she made her way to the medic's tent.
Chronos called out as they approached, "Hey, we're here to pick up the two we dropped off earlier. Are they still petrified or have they been restored already?"
"We're freeing them right now; it will take us a few minutes to bind them to an artifact before they can leave. They're rather lucky that they are bound to an artifact instead of a priest, this way you can carry it with you instead of having to rely on a priest."
As they talked for a few minutes about the advantages of an artifact over a priest, the healers in the other room finished setting up the circle and moved his friends onto it.
After a brilliant flash of light, they were freed from the stone, and a softly glowing chain surrounded them as they became bound to a necklace resting on a pedestal.