So the purple portal was back! Have to say, purple has always been my favourite colour of portal, so obviously I jumped right in. We found a makeshift camp set up to the left, about half an hour travel away. In the sky, a massive Astral creature could be seen, best described as a cloudy crab-man demon although I feel like my friend Fred the crab might take offence to that comparison. Much smaller things could be seen leaving that area and arriving in Icewind Dale, thought the larger main creature seemed far too big to escape thankfully.
On the way to the camp, weak kobolds attacked us, at least by our standards, popping out of the trees with a strangely gleeful abandon. A deathwish, one might go as far as to say. Were these Kobolds perhaps simply fleeing something far stronger? In the ensuing fight, Jarvis got a single cut that's about it- we dispatched the group quite easily. Arriving at the camp, we saw a line setup and people being searched upon arrival. We mentioned to the guards that we knew Stonewell, Flinn & such & were allowed to go see the Dwarf Lady Stonewell who had gathered about 100 survivors here in this camp. She was upset at Stonewell's death, sorta blamed us for leaving too early. We explained we didn't control the portal or when we arrived here, and she seemed to understand at least somewhat. We asked how we could help and were told that a little girl had disappeared within a cave where a bull-like creature was seen. I couldn't find any tracks with all the snow from the blizzard, so we entered the cave. We heard a dripping sound ahead then spotted this armoured-bull-like creature that charged right at us. Recent arrival Etherume was able to Entangle the bull with a well-placed spell then Haeldir cursed his strength so he couldn't escape & we could pepper it from out of its reach so that encounter also went very well for us. I was able to pull 8 of its armoured plates off of it, perhaps those could be useful crafting something later. We venture further in soon, I believe hopefully Furet was catching up to us to assist.