Chief Ojin’s scouts led the party up into the mountains to the glacial rift of the frost giant jarl. But that was as far as the kobolds were willing to go.

Goder, Mythri, Reschi, Sauerkraut, Smak, and Urza lowered ropes and climbed down into the rift, where they found the entrance to the frost giants’ lair.

Goder scouted ahead and found a guard post. He tricked the frost giant into coming out into the open, at which point Reschi used charm monster to befriend the giant. The companions learned that the new giant in charge here, Grugnur, had killed the previous jarl and established the worship of the Horned King.

Smak, in a moment of clarity, explained that the Horned King must be a reference to Baphomet, which made sense because frost giants didn’t normally live in maze-like structures like this rift here. Baphomet was the demon lord of savagery and brutality, and had a fondness for labyrinths.

Reschi and Sauerkraut tricked the frost giant into storming off and picking a fight with the other guard. And so, while those two duked it out, the party slipped past them down the tunnel leading directly to the jarl’s hall.

This is when Sauerkraut wanted to scout ahead. The satyr found a cavern littered with refuse and bones, and a barracks full of frost giants all resting and relaxing. Continuing on down another tunnel, Sauerkraut found a great hall, and a side passage blocked by a huge boulder. Sauerkraut returned to the party, got a pygmywort mushroom from Smak, ate it, shrank down to tiny size, and then went back to that blocked passage, slipping in through the gap between the boulder and the wall.

And here he found a white dragon, dozing upon a mound of treasure.

Sauerkraut tried to steal a pricey trinket, but alerted the dragon, who flew into a rage. Sauerkraut barely made it out of there alive. The dragon’s fury could be heard all throughout the complex. The giants in the barracks rushed down to investigate.

The adventurers didn’t know what was happening until Sauerkraut came and told them everything. They prepared themselves for the dragon’s arrival. Having the drop on their foe gave them a considerable advantage, and they managed to defeat the dragon with their bigwig mushrooms and lots of spells.

Two frost giants and half a dozen ogre servants arrived at the scene. They beheld the body of the white dragon, and would have attacked, but Smak (still huge-sized from the mushrooms) convinced them that he and the huge kobold over there—Goder—brought a new, more powerful dragon to replace the lame old one. Somehow the deception worked. The giants ordered the ogres to clean up the mess, and returned to their posts.

The huge-sized companions passed many giants on their way to the dragon’s lair. Whenever anyone asked, they just said they were hill giants bringing in a new dragon for the jarl. The mound of treasure was all theirs for the taking! Sauerkraut loaded up his bag of holding.

Now it was time to find and confront the frost giant jarl.

The muffled shouts of a prisoner caught their attention. Goder thought it sounded like a giant shouting threats at her captors. So the party detoured down another tunnel to check it out. Here they found a storm giant chained up in a cavern with a table and some chairs and rugs and dishes.

After they freed her, she introduced herself as Princess Serissa, daughter of King Hekaton. She said that Jarl Grugnur had requested a meeting with all of the giants’ leaders. She had been chosen to come hear him out. But Grugnur was mad, she said. He wanted the giants to worship some demon lord and join together in hunting down and slaughtering all the humanoid races. She agreed to join the party in defeating him.

They made their way toward the jarl’s throne room, but got stopped by a guard on the way. Smak couldn’t deceive this one so easily, and combat ensued.

The noise of the fighting caught the attention of Jarl Grugnur himself, as well as the fire giant he was talking with. Grugnur sent one of his guards, and the fire giant, and his two winter wolves, to go kill the intruders.

There was an epic battle!

In the end, Jarl Grugnur was defeated. But at great cost…

Smak died.

The party looted everything they could stuff into Sauerkraut’s bag of holding, then carried Smak’s body back to Dragon Rock, where they mourned the loss of their friend.

Princess Serissa agreed to accompany them west as far as Luskan. Reschi hoped to meet back up with his troupe of traveling entertainers there. And maybe they could find a high-level cleric to resurrect Smak.