Me, currently a Rogue/Sorcerer (7/4)
Tarn, The Barbarian Cleric and now Templar of Kord (4/5/4)
Shaendra, Tarn's Cohort (Barb 1, Cleric 11)
Ragnar, Paladin/Templar of Heronious (6/4)
Iceal, a Monk/Necromancer (7/3)
Coletan, Wizard (12)

We secured the first level of the stronghold before going down to the second level. There we encountered several groups of well trained ogres. Some groups were trained in the monkish ways, others seemed to have barbarian skills. Also, several times a frost giant would appear out of nowhere, still frosty with cold to aid the ogres. Tarn nearly got his ass kicked by a hill giant hag with a silver whip. She kept disarming him until he had no effective attack. We had a tough time helping him because of all the other troops. We eventually prevailed and started moving through the rooms. We found a smithy with 5 fire giants. Coletan's mega-blast of cold spells made short work of those.

Eventually, it seemed we had cleared the level, but there was still no sign of the red-robed guy and the hill giant leader. We went into "super-search" mode and finally discovered some peep holes. The second level did not have any access to the space behind the peep holes. But in the mean time, Tarn had wandered off to the first level on a hunch. While the rest of us were looking for a way into the peep-hole-space, we began to hear the sounds of combat from within. Tarn was battling some kind of crystalline creature and yelling, "There's a stairwell on the first level!" So, we Hustled up there and found the secret room that Tarn discovered and the stairwell leading down into the peep-hole room.

Tarn was battling a humanoid crystal creature that seemed to take very little damage from his sword. With Ragnar's help and Coletans magic, the creature was swiftly defeated. The creature was guarding a room with several magical portals made out of stone. We also found another room. I opened the door to be shot in the chest with a mighty crossbow bolt. We had found the hill giant leader. He had the red-robed wizard with him and two highly trained ogres for a personal guard. There was a bit of a log-jam as we tried to rush in and they closed with us. The barbarian ogre was hit five times with deadly strikes (five crits in a row!) from Tarn and Ragnar and quickly fell. The monk-ogre was more long lived and troublesome. He hit Coletan with some funky-fu punch and disabled him. Tarn closed with the leader and I provided the usual cover-fire via the safety of improved invis. We prevailed in the end, although we had all taken heavy wounds. Only the red-robed guy got away with another teleport.

Going into super-search mode again, we uncovered a magical chain. A nearby scroll-tube had instructions saying that if the chain was formed into a figure-eight it would teleport anything within it to the frost giant lands. We also found an incriminating document regarding military strikes by someone named Eclavdra. We destroyed the stone portals and then returned to Bran Scoril in Marsember with a full report.