After getting the centaur tribe back to the West, Frankel had his hands full helping them settle in. Zenig was training again, Lorcan was continuing to spread the ways of wom and working on the starcharts from Streck's books, and Nomistrus was researching ways to use the Crystal Cocoon to undiabolize Ganeth.
Before the end of the war, The Temple of the Wind had asked the party to visit the Icelands and investigate a crevice/tunnel to somewhere. Since magical protections are needed to simply survive in the Icelands (unless you fancy clothing so bulky you're at penalties for anything you can think of), a smaller party is much easier to manage (fewer endure/resist colds, everyone fits in the Leomund's Tiny Hut, chance of porting out when the cold protections crash, and so forth), so overall it made sense for the senior citizens to slip off and handle this little job while the young guns were otherwise engaged. (Plus it gave us something to play in Pittsburgh over Thanksgiving.)
The party had been requested because the crevice in question was thought to contain a moss forest with some sort of communal intelligence. Naturally, they walked into something completely different.