The next morning Chronos lazily crawled out of bed well after the sun had risen.
"Morning sleepy head. You're waking up awfully late." Lyla greeted him.
Yawning Chronos responded, "Can't be helped. We did a lot of experiments and stayed up for two days and now the moon is waning too."
Lyla gave Sariah a look asking for an explanation.
"Werewolves draw power from the moon so when it's waning, they feel tired more easily." She stated.
It wasn't a big secret to her. Everyone in the Ulv territory knew about it and it hadn't caused any problems for them so it hadn't crossed her mind that outsiders finding out about this weakness could cause harm later on.
Luckily it was Lyla that she had told, and she wasn't going to tell anyone.
"Chronos, Gregory told us that you have gifts for us." Lyla said, holding out her hands with expectation.
"Yep, here. Each bag has 2-meters of internal space and can slow down time by half. You can store your spices for a long time with it; just make sure you also pack other things." Chronos cheekily smiled at her as he handed over a waist bag that could be clipped on.
"I have more than spices, poultices and potions also go bad."
"True, potions only last a few months unless they're artifact grade. Are you going to learn how to craft potions?" He asked.
"No, it's faster to learn better spells and I've never been skilled as an apothecary. Thanks for the new bags, now we have some shopping to do." She responded.
"Shopping? Where?"
"In the fortress village. Apparently, several people have started businesses while the village is being built." She took Sariah by the hand as she left for the village.
"Be careful, not all of those people are trustworthy." Chronos called out to Lyla who gave him a thumbs up.
After breakfast Chronos decided to go to the village as well.
At first, he thought that a place filled with refugees might have unknown surprises, but when he stepped out of the fortress, he remembered that they had been captured sacrifices before. If they had anything of value the black robed priests would have taken it.
Instead, he chose to look around and see what the residents had done with the place.
Looking around he found a village built half on the ground and half in the trees.
Building everything on the ground would allow local wildlife to break into the houses and put the residents at risk, not to mention there wasn't enough ground to build even a thousand buildings on.
By building safe houses on ring decks in the trees they could fight from the connecting walkways and decks while being out of reach of most of the swamp's native wildlife.
And the only thing limiting their numbers would be the number of trees, which they could fix with magic or potions.
The trees had also been enhanced by a few shamans that had been among the captured. Now even the smaller branches could hold a couple hundred pounds without breaking.
Unfortunately, the land the fortress was built on was also limited, making it impossible to build an outer wall. This prompted the villagers to become a little creative with their defenses.
The surrounding swamps had a channel dug into them creating a deep moat that circled around the fortress and encompassed several nearby islands.
On the islands they had begun building towers with a large tree acting as the central post and the nagas were growing thorn vines around the edge of each island that could act as a wall when charged with spirit. When no spirit was present the thorn vines would lie harmlessly on the ground.
Chronos noticed that the trees growing in the middle of the water also had houses built on them. That couldn't be safe, the water might wash the dirt away from its base and the extra weight would knock the tree over.
But with several thousand people to take care of and not much land to build on they didn't have much choice.
He did see a few of the shamans going around the bases of the trees casting spells to help the roots grow deeper. That wouldn't make it completely safe, but it would make it safer than not enhancing the roots.
Nearby Chronos saw people lining up to take a lift into a tree that had multiple walkways connecting it to other trees. The line was pretty long so he chose to jump onto a walkway instead.
The people on the walkways gave him an impressed look, even those at the knight rank would struggle to leap 4 meters into the air and land safely on the walkways.
Those below the knight rank could barely jump high enough to grab the bottom of the walkways and would have to pull themselves up while risking tipping the walkway upside down.
"Excuse me, can you tell me where and what shops are available right now?" Chronos politely asked a middle-aged woman walking past.
"Of course. Right now, you're on one of the central walkways that connects the fortress wall to the village. If you follow the path southward, you'll find the residential area where we have a market for daily necessities. You can find any of the basic household items you might need and the "farmers" take their products to the market too.
There's a mid-sized island to the west where we've built a couple of forges on the ground. It's just not safe to build them in the trees but if you want to purchase anything more than dishes or home appliances you'll need to visit the island to the northwest of the fortress. They're the only ones outside of the fortress that make weapons and armor.
In the north the nagas and shamans are building multiple gardens, and the apothecaries have built their shops and residences above them. You can find most of the shops for magic users in the same area, but I wouldn't recommend going there." She said.
The way she talked reminded Chronos of that one village auntie that always seemed to know what everyone was doing and liked to gossip. This village auntie just hadn't been here long enough to find out everything yet.
"Oh, why not?"
"Since everyone is asking for their help, the shamans have become arrogant recently and it's really annoying. I swear it won't be long before one of the warriors punches them. Where was I?" Asked the village Auntie.
"Just finished with the northern apothecaries." Chronos helpfully said.
"That's right~, to the east a few people are trying to build a fish hatchery, but I don't think anything is going to come of it. It's more likely that the eastern side will become a slum area since there's nothing else in that direction.
Right, I forgot, near the blacksmiths we have a chandlery going up and a couple of carpenters shops along with a loom & harness house. When your village is in the trees you need constant wood and harnesses to get around.
Unfortunately, we don't have any local specialty yet but I'm hoping I can make something special from this dracon black ash resin. Apparently, it holds special qualities." She whispered to him conspiratorially while showing him a bottle of resin.
Chronos held back his laughter as he whispered back, "Your right, I've seen a blacksmith make a bow's drawstring that was twice as strong as regular fibers and held a dragon's blessing from dracon tree fibers."
Hearing this the Auntie swiftly hid her bottle of resin like someone would hear even though they were the only ones walking on the walkway.
"Thank you for speaking with me but I should get going now." Chronos bowed as they stepped off a walkway in the blacksmiths area.
Chronos didn't have any business with the blacksmiths, all of his weapons and armor were still in workable condition, so he kept going north to the shaman's district.
Upon approaching the shamans district Chronos saw a clear difference between them and the blacksmiths. While the blacksmiths district was organized and filled with various shops, the shaman's district was covered in plants.
It was obvious that they had spent a considerable amount of time and spirit to grow every type of plant they could in the small area they were living in.
It looked like a good place to live until three shamans tried to accost him.
"Stop there wolf. This area is off limits to outsiders." Said an arrogant older human wearing robes made of leaves.
Next to him were two younger shamans wearing similar leaf robes but with the same arrogant look on their faces.
"Last I heard the nagas are the ones in charge here. Were you given authority by them or are you just being a jerk?" Chronos grinned at them.
Seeing his sharp toothy grin the two younger shamans paled.
"The dragon paladins are in charge of the fortress so naturally a human will be in charge here. Not those foolish snakes." The older shaman confidently replied.
Chronos realized that this man didn't know anything and was trying to assert dominance over the area before anybody with real power interfered. Which was a shame for him as Chronos had real power.