dear folks, 

     Howz ever'one on da farm? Adventurin is swell here in the. Borderlands. The orcs is risin it seems, what keeps us busy. A couple of weeks ago we had us a big old battle with da orcs in the Caves of Chaos, it wuz fun, beat 'em up sumpthin horrbel. Took us two weeks to get our strength back.

     Well, after that we all gathered at the Wobbly Owl to plan our next moves. Wendi, Mortaleg the wizard, Clarance of Pan, and Varnish did most the talking and the figuring, I kinda got distracted with the macreme and ale, but it was decided to march back to the caves to clear out the bugbears lair. It was a cunch, the wizards did most the work with spellcraft making it pretty easy to beat down the monsters. We got some keys though, and found some cells of prisoners what we freed. One was a fighter named Verf, who gave some valuable info about the danged ol' orc. Seems the orcs are drumming fer war. Somethins up in the Mountains up North, a volcano where the wild pigmen are getting magic blades. We prolly eventually have to go there and drum some hurt into them eventually...

     but before we take that up, we aim to clean the caves up completely so we got nothing behind us to worry on.

and that's why we decided to tackle the penultimate (Clarance says that means next-to-last) cave-hole. So a few days ago we started in on that. We poked our heads into a dark cave, soon it kinda progressed to a worked tunnel where we happened on to a room with four gnolks...well a gnoll is a kinda sort of giant kobold, and pretty tough too! Those four put up a great fight...and we didn't do so goid as normal, I busted my favorite mace!  I think I am gonna replace it with a big ol sword or halbard, seen Mr. Krask do some real clobbering with his...anyhow, 

     After we bested them, we went a wee bit farther but stopped because ahead seemed like there was a score more and we was pretty wore out already. Well, we sprinted back to the keep before dark to get our breath back so to speak.  That night wile everyone had a pint and talk, i was staring at the fire, and got a real good idea. I went right out and got a small cask from the cooper and filled it with rancid fish oil. Everyone decked out with rags and oil flasks and the like, and we snuck back into the gnoll lair. Down some steps we come to a big room chock full of gnolls! Meybbe 12 or 20 of em! So many! Before they could react to us just suddenly being there i smashed in the oil cask and hurled it into the room, while Wendy, Clarance, Busk, Mortaleg, Nishim, Loric, and Varish threw their flasks all aflame into the mess...KER-FLOOOM, the biggest, smokiest, awfullest fire ever set all them monsters aflame. They was screeching, howling, and a few came out of the smoke with orange flames in their fur looking like very devils from hell. We laid into them with a will, and shortly they was dead to a man, or man-dog-thing anyhow.  Thats when some of their friends come around the corner mad as bees and out fer our blood. I didn't even stop ta think, i grabbed up a flaming dead gnoll by his arm and a foot, and hurled him like a big burning shotput right into the bad guys, and everyone else threw oil and fire their way. We didn't do much hurt to them, but it put a goid wall and smokescreen up, behind which we could withdraw and hie ourselves back to ye olde keep. Thats where I am writing you from now...a table in the Wobbly Owl, which is why there are stains on this parchment, but from them you can see we eat good and drink healthy brown ale and good root beer, just like at home...but not quite as tasty as Ma's.

well, all muh love, Thewsome. Yer fifth son.