Marpenoth 16, 1485

We've pushed north then east out of Bryn Shander skirting the walls of Targos for the winding road north along Maer Dualdon.  The wind bites, our winter clothing is already ineffective to keep the ever present chill away.  Only the steady march keeps enough life in our limbs and it is only just Autumn.
Since the fall of the Ice Witch we've seen new troubles begin to pull Ten-Towns apart.  The sorceress powers may have been halted from bringing an eternal winter, yet they have brought this one much to early.  The pass south is closed, choked with snow, the Shaengarne river largely frozen as well.  Food is scarce already as rationing goes into effect and the natives buckle down for a long and lean winter among a population already bloodied from a month of constant fighting.

My merry band of cut throats and murderers may have been integral to bringing the Ice Witch low, but now a week on we're just more southern mouths to feed.  So we push north, to Lonely Wood, answering the call of a few survivors that remain there.  The Elk are vanishing from the woods, and with the Reghed tribes devastated it could be any number of savage creatures come to fill the power vacuum in an already troubled land.

Marpenoth 17, 1485

The few residents of Lonely Wood, being outcasts themselves, have taken in many of the Reghed that would have died with their tribes gone.  They've set to building a palisade with the abundant wood.  It is a stout barrier which will repel all but a determined foe.  I fear, however, if we do not settle the problem of the missing Elk, all hungry foes will be incredibly determined.

Marpenoth 18, 1485

The light is failing quickly, though not a deterrent to some of our cadre, the cold still has us all, man, elf or dwarf huddled around a fire when the sun vanishes into the west.

We set out to scout the woods, my companion Dardeion, a handsome dark skinned elf of Calimshas vast deserts has found an Orc encampment near a small frozen stream, nestled against a low cave hidden among glacial boulders.

A decision is made to antagonize the green skins, though this would prove to be folly.  What my friend mistook for a simple camp speaks much about Elven hubris, tangle foot traps, hidden archer emplacements and barricade of river stone made the fight difficult and costly.
Though victory is hours we are badly battered, our tiefling and human mages exhausted while the cave still looms bearing the ominous sign of the Cave Mother carved above its entrance.