Even crude beasts and parasites take on monstrous shapes in the swampy rivers and boggy forests of the Greenbelt frontier— if “frontier” and “civilization” can truly be distinguished in such a crude land. In my first week in the Narlmarches I saw five of my porters consumed. But not by warg, or giant lizard, or titanic serpent—no, their deaths weren’t meant for such creatures of passable dignity. Those men lost their lives to fey. I can imagine few more pathetic deaths, yet daily this accursed land confounds me with whole dimensions of indignities no gentleman has ever sunk so low as to imagine. —Darvayne Gios Amprei, Pathfinder JournelKuthona 4, Early Winter
The cold winter wind blows your hair about as you pull your hats and hoods on tighter. Stagfall stands there glittering in the cold air, a proud thing rising up from the wilds, its civilization -- your civilization in this frontier lands and no one is going to take it from you. With cultists defeated, cathedral's built, and troubles now quieted you turn your attention to the south. Trolls, and Drakes, and Fey and haunted castles, they threaten your lands; so off you go to threaten them. You leave the Marshals and Army to deal with the troublesome Fey who have been plaguing pilgrims in the north, you have to take on larger dangers and you can't be everyplace at once.
So you march south along the Tuskwater on the road you're people have made for a day until your reach the Gudrin River. There on the shore you camp, able to fish a little, and enjoy your Duchy some before you head out into the deeper wilds. There is no good river crossing here, so the next day you venture up river to the bridge and the crossing, and find it unguarded and unattended as expected. From there you cut cross country over hills and rocky terrain. The land is wholesome, and you spy many animals in your travels: foxes, and woodchucks, even a small herd of Vicuña migrating through the hills to the east. The land is blanketed in light snow, it being winter now, but the snow fall isn't too deep and you are able to pick you way with your horses easily enough. A flock of late moving geese pass over head in a large V traveling south hurrying to get away from the north this late in the season.
You camp among blue spruce and eastern jack pine who remain ever green all year long providing you with shelter and wood. You close in now on the old ferry station on the gnome prospector's map on the Little Sellen River. The hills remain about the same, signs of a few damaged trees appear however as you ride past. Branches, high up, cracks and pulled down as if by some petulant child of great stature. Careful now, as you are into unexplored lands, you slow your horses and approach the river a few miles up from where you guess the ferry once stood. The Little Sellen River collects its tributaries into a mighty torrent flowing toward the lands downstream. You near the banks and gaze about the strong flowing, and icy cold waters, certain you don't want to try a crossing in the wild of this waterway. Right, to the west, and down stream someplace must be the ferry crossing you seek.
Kuthona 7, Early Winter
