Harrowing the Hook, Part 3 (Monday, Kuthona (XII) 23rd, 4707 AR)

The hill giant did his best to hold off the heroes while the ogres in the clanhold gathered weapons and came to their aid. The heroes killed him.

The Clanhold. Fire and thick black smoke reigned here, spewing from black pits in the bedrock where forge fires glowed. Anvils loomed throughout this enormous cavern. Giant hammers and glowing half-forged blades and axe heads lay next to the anvils.

A work crew of ten ogres slaved away, toiling at these forges to craft giant blades and other weapons from obstinate iron. A single Kreeg taskmaster ordered the ogres to attack the heroes, laughing as they stumbled to their deaths. The Kreeg snatched up a red-hot blade and went to work as well. The heroes killed all of them.

The Rune-Bound King. This gigantic statue was of the rune giant Gargadros, a onetime general in Karzoug's army. In the chaos that followed the fall of Thassilon, Gargadros seized Hook Mountain and the surrounding environs as his own, becoming the first of the line of Dread Kings.
As the Dread Kings of Old. This gigantic chamber extended into darkness to the east, sloping upward between two wide ledges on which loomed statues with angular faces, stern brows, and strong jawlines. Above, the ceiling opened to the slate grey sky above. The ramp led up in tiers, finally coming to an end before an immense stone throne.

As the heroes worked with the Black Arrows to retake Fort Rannick, they found more and more clues as to how the fort fell to the ogres, and treachery was suspected. The heroes noticed Kaven Windstrike trying to slip away as soon as he could, but he was confronted. Kaven had retreated to the Hook Mountain Clanhold, and the heroes encountered both him and Lucrecia at the stone giants' side.

Lucrecia spent her time in her humanoid form: an aristocratic-looking human woman with fire-red hair and alabaster skin. Her face was pure elegance - high cheekbones, demure but lust-stirring green eyes, and perfectly shaped eyebrows to accent them. Her true form was similar from the waist up, while from the waist down she had the body of an emerald green snake.

Lucrecia greeted intruders with open arms and a smile - she wanted to offer the heroes a chance to join her masters before she killed them - going so far as to say "Mokmurian would love to meet you!" When the heroes rebuffed her, she shrugged coyly and assumed her true form. Kaven reacted to her changed appearance with obvious guilt and shock. Lucrecia assumed her true form when combat began, pulling out her daggers.

This open-air cleft in the lee of Hook Mountain's summit had become the den of stone giants. When encountered, one of the stone giants sighed wearily before waving an arm at his stone giant bodyguard (and Lucrecia) and saying (in Giant): "Deal with these mites. They've caused enough problems for me." The stone giant could fly and had a ghostly hand floating around him. 

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