It ploughed over the mountains from all points of the compass. It cast giant shadows over the Crystal Sea, the Elf Rat Lands and the Plague Lands to the southwest. Winter’s onslaught had arrived, pushing forward, violating the skies, with towering storm fronts driving across Vagandrak in its entirety and depositing snow, and sleet, and bringing the bitterest cold winds the country had experienced in a century. A raven, flapping high, flew west over the barren Rokroth Marshes. A light peppering of snow covered the reed beds, the narrow channels of water, and even more narrow pathways, which criss-crossed this treacherous part of the country. Deep in the icy waters, vicious tenta eels and sharp-toothed moranga pike lurked, waiting for an unwary step and plunge; and indeed, waiting for one another. The raven coughed a cry, dipping its left wing and banking, dropping to lower, slightly warmer currents. To the north squatted the ancient and abandoned Skell Fortress, high black towers like spears, the battlements and their crennellations like so many broken teeth.
