The DP/LIFE conglomerate has been making a series of raids to capitalize
on the discovery of Sor and Kiriel's pathways. After making our way
through the dread passage (which, while not routine, has a much better
success ratio nowadays) and beyond the known foothills.

The raid yesterday reached the foothills and reconnoitered the
initial beachhead. There is a series of snells there arranged in a
rough rectangle, chocked full of big red orga, big lightning hurlers,
and zealots. To the north of the safe(ish) valley and west of the
northern section is a meadow populated by various varieties of tree
giants and spriggens. Because I saw two spriggens "doin it" there, I
think this is the Spriggen Breeding Ground. Hopefully that name will
stick. Sor was the first to find a way from the safe valley and the SBG
and has christened the passage "Sor's Shortcut."

To the East, we have located a snell that has lots of lightning
hurlers, and a log section blocking a passage. I'm not clear on whether
that leads to an orga stronghold or if we doubled back to the other side
of it or not. No one in our group seems to have seen a path there, but
it strongly resembles the path in the dread passage.

To the far southeast, we located a cave that appears to be inhabited.
There is a mined stairway down to a second level where we observed a
desk with an open book and various noids. There has been a lot of
speculation that this may belong to Trillbane; if so, he has a noid
problem.

Further east, we located a waterfall that one of our pathfinders
(someone want to attribute this properly?) found a passageway behind.
The room beyond is chock full of nasty noids (olive and malachite) and
provided a fierce battle. Unfortunately, splitting our forces in and
outside the cave proved to be too much for us to handle, and we ended up
being crushed between the orga and the noids. The noid battle was
progressing well, and winnable, but we pressed it too far and lost the
outside battle.

The area is still under exploration; we will keep you (the collective
you) informed.

Phelps.