They moved rapidly over the wasteland reaching home in just a few hours, except what they found wasn't the familiar treehouse they had left two days ago.
In front of them was a grove of trees with several large trees in the center. Each tree had a small house on it connected by walkways and the entire grove had a holy feeling to it.
The swamp hag and the matron must have been busy to create this.
"Should we say something?" Gregory asked Chronos.
Staring at the grove Chronos shook his head, "Nope, it's not our place to tell gods what to bless and what not to bless."
Having a holy grove on the edge of the wasteland was definitely going to cause problems later on but as far as they were concerned, it wasn't their problem once the army arrived.
"Oh, hey they're baack." Yelled a child running on the outer ring of the grove.
"Get back inside the grove. I've told you several times not to go near the edges." Came the matron's voice as she chased the kids back inside where it was safer. "Welcome back. There's a message from Commander Stan waiting for you in the central house."
"Thank you." Bowing they went to listen to the message.
The whisper bird crystal was sitting on the table waiting for them, touching its beak it began replaying the message.
"Chronos, if this doesn't reach you in the wasteland be sure to tell us, we haven't tested whether they work in that chaotic environment or not yet but given their delicate nature I wouldn't be surprised if it won't fly in the wasteland.
Anyways the lizardfolk hunters have tracked the trolls to where they exited the swamp along the southeastern border of Dracon Fen, you should be able to find it if you go a bit further south from your current location. I want you to track their movements within the wasteland as much as possible.
Of note is that they have left the fishmen behind, this has prevented the tribes in the swamp from assisting us. They are focusing on clearing them from the swamps first and will only move towards the wasteland afterwards."
That was new information, they hadn't been able to tell how many enemies had left the swamp for the wasteland due to how messy the tracks were. But this meant that the orphanage they were building was at risk of being attacked by fishmen now.
He continued listening to the message, "The Dragon Paladins are still coming to your location along with the Black Fang unit and we expect the army to arrive within a week of us. But the Leybound Crucible knights are arriving by flying boat to start building the castle ahead of them. As for the merfolk, they're moving to build castles along the southern edge of the wasteland."
A flying boat? Chronos had only heard about them, apparently, they could fly using wind magic and rare gravity magic. He was looking forward to it.
"The plan is to box the trolls in and force their king into a peace agreement without losing too many troops.
P.S. An Archivist is looking for you and has already visited your home. You didn't do anything to upset them, did you?" Commander Stan finished.
An Archivist was looking for him? That was very strange.
Archivists were a group of powerful mages that watched and recorded what happened in the world; they didn't interfere unless it was to confirm what happened. And even when they did move it was nearly always their apprentices that were doing the grunt work.
But Commander Stan had said it was the Archivists not the AA, Archivist Apprentices, looking for him. Has something large enough for them to personally take action happened?
Thinking back on his journey since he left home, Chronos realized there were several things they might want to ask him about.
Hmm, this could be a good opportunity. While the Archivists gathered information, they also shared their knowledge within certain limits. Some of the knowledge they collected was better off not being known.
Keeping that in the back of his mind Chronos began dictating a message for Commander Stan.
"Commander Stan, we believe we've found the base of the troll army however; it is in the middle of a desert within the wasteland. The desert is quite large with intense heat during the day and a chilling cold at night. Meanwhile the surrounding wasteland has a massive number of deep worms in it as well making any type of approach difficult.
My honest opinion is that any sort of assault is ill-advised and will result in massive casualties for the attacking party. Unless the kingdom is willing to invest a huge number of resources into the assault there would be no point in attacking.
If we can somehow stabilize the wasteland, it would be a different story but right now I'm against it.
Unfortunately, we haven't been able to locate the black robed priests. We've only found the remains of their attacks which amounts to five burned down villages and a number of orphans who we've taken in.
Along with this message I've sent back a map with the three locations I believe are best for constructing a castle and a few alternate locations we've found. We await further orders at the orphanage grove now."
Finishing his message Chronos put a small leather map in the bird's feet before charging it with spirit and sending it off. He chose to ignore the part about the Archivist until he had more information to work with.
The three locations suggested offered good defense but not much else.
The first was to the south of this location where two rivers left the swamps near each other and could form natural borders, the second was right outside of the grove on a large hill that they could turn into a killing road from above, and the last was to the north on the edge of a lake.
Each one had a strong defense but trying to grow crops or raise large livestock would be difficult as the weather and environment of the wasteland was too erratic for such things. Most of the food supplies for the castles would have to come from the swamps or be shipped in.
The secondary locations weren't any better but until the Crucible knights took a look at them Chronos couldn't be sure where the castles would be built.
"Um Chronos, do you have time to teach me today?" Birk hesitantly asked from near the door as the message bird left.
"Sure, you've already built up your body so today we'll focus on laying a strong foundation. I think the Guardian's Steel breathing method is best for you. It's not powerful but greatly increases your endurance and recovery speed, especially in combat." Chronos said.
"Okay." Birk excitedly ran to the training area.
It was his first time practicing a method and this would be his first step on the path of aura, that was if he could feel aura in one day. Which Chronos thought would be very hard unless he was a genius.
When Chronos stepped onto the training field he found it filled with kids hoping to be trained.
Seeing their hopeful faces Chronos gave in, "Alright, I'll train all of you but only if the matron gives her permission."
"Yay!"
They went running to the matron to ask while Chronos started reviewing Birk's combat forms.
Birk wanted to learn to fight bare handed like his father. While Chronos didn't know what martial style Birk's father had used he did know the Fangbound martial arts.
He would have to teach an adjusted version of it given that Birk lacked the fast recovery of werewolves, but it was renowned as one of the best hand-to-hand combat methods in the world. So, it surely had forms that would work for a bearfolk.
At least if you believed what the elders of the clan said.
The version he decided to teach Birk was called Fangbound: Denweight form; it had been developed by Bjarke to account for his large size.
Unlike the original Fangbound martial arts which specialized in rapid movements, sharp attacks, and disabling moves the Denweight form focused on planting yourself on a location, effectively making a den around yourself, and attacking anything that enters it.
Denweight would still let you disable your opponent, but your speed of movement greatly decreased in exchange for immense strength and a steady defense against intruders.
Its greatest strength was that even if you took a hit from someone stronger than you head on you could deflect it without much issue as long as your arms were still free.
This form was hard for a werewolf to use as they didn't have the weight or durability to take the hits but for the bearfolk who were both heavier and more durable it was a nearly perfect combat style.
While reviewing all of Birk's forms the rest of the kids returned with Gorvak.