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With the demon wounded grievously by Kawaii, it and the rest of the giants were soon taken down by The Red Order, and Fallcrest was free again!  The population of the castle were malnourished, locked up in their own dungeon.  Markelhay and most of the menfolk were dead, but The Order stayed long enough to see the survivors well before heading off toward the Shadowfell rift.

Once again, Winterhaven needed help, it too having been captured by giants, this time locking all the citizens and people from outlying farms in metal cages in the town square.  The Order freed them also, discovering in the process that the giants were intending to sell slaves to the drow; perhaps the slavemasters hadn't been as thoroughly defeated as they'd like to think.  The giant that had survived

The Red Order needed intel before they could even begin to think about retaking Fallcrest from the fire giants that had seized it.  Kawaii - the only member of the party not so heavily armoured or clumsy as to be useless at stealth - went ahead and reported back that smoke and helmeted heads could both be seen rising above the walls of the town's keep.

Alone, they'd be unable to do much good against a foe of unknown size, so The Order headed off to find someone capable of explaining what had happened.  Heading out from their own (red-painted, ghost butler'd) tower, they set off for the other, former home of Nimozerin the Green.

En route, a group of fire giants demanded to see their papers, but got to see their swords instead.  One guard ran off to get help, but Kawaii pursued

The drow priestess allowed the undead Gregeon to deal with The Red Order, returning to her ritual as the combat progressed.  The three pillars surrounding Pehri-knoth's prison seemed to be key as the first split open, and the earth titan that The Order thought they had slain previously returned to attack them once again, with many tiny brethren swarming around its feet.

Our heroes cut through them, Arthur cutting Gregeon's torso free from his spider-legs while Lenwe gave the drow a few arrow-wounds to think about.  This broke her concentration just a little bit, and all present were surprised when LOLth herself tore a portal into the Chaos and slew her servant.  Before The Order could get any ideas about the capricious goddess deciding to honour her part of the Paragon Compact,

This was King Snarrrr himself, with a group of fire giant lackeys and a fire titan shouting orders.  The Red Order went to work, keeping the titan confused while cutting through the lesser giants to allow Kawaii to behead Snarrrrr himself.  Ralvpherion took command, directing Lenwe to the titan's weakest spots so that it could be felled, only to be clobbered himself by one of the giant stragglers.

Pulling themselves together, the group realised that there was no sign of the Engine anywhere; it must have been through the portal where the drow was lurking, a portal that had closed shortly before the fight.  Snarrrrr had a portal key that would re-open it, but The Order were still rather beaten up, not in the best condition for an assault on the Elemental Chaos.  Lenwe

The Red Order proceeded onwards into the central space of the tower, coming across another fire giant forging moulds for the Divine Engine, in the company of yet another archon and a genasi with a double-bladed sword.

The Order went for a subtle approach, Arthur distracting the giant with banter while everyone else jumped on the archon.  Unfortunately, once the deception failed and it turned out that the archon could teleport, a supposedly simple operation degenerated into another brawl.

Its comrades dead, the genasi made to flee down a pit, but Lenwe shot it between the shoulder blades to drop it rather more suddenly into the dark.  The Order had a quick look around the forge, finding the moulded components to be cheap, easily breakable replicas, and finding a new sword for

The Red Order fled through the reconfigured tower, Arthur using his Jedi mind tricks magical powers to bluff them past some more azers.

Back at the portal, Arthur and Akra sabotaged the portcullis while Shibboleth began preparations for the ritual to get home.  Pursuing giants began attempting to bash their way through in pursuit, but through the simple expedient of throwing hams at them The Red Order persuaded some nearby gargoyles to pounce on them.  While the monsters fought amongst themselves, our heroes returned to Vermillion.

Obanana was relieved to see them, as were the resident kobolds, but the wizard insisted that they head back as soon as possible to stop the giants' plans.  Glenn was perfectly content to remain dead and gently reposing, and raising Gregeon

It was fortunate that Kawaii remembered the mysterious Ankh that she'd picked up at some point during previous escapades.  It was capable of reanimating Glenn's remains for a short time, meaning that The Red Order was fighting at full strength as the drow continued their ritual.

Disrupting said ritual proved to be easier than anticipated; shoving the two chanting drow and the rakshasa into the magical circles (some thanks to Glenn's powers, others thanks to good old-fashioned bull-rushing) proved quite lethal to the former, and injured the latter quite a bit.  It assumed Kawaii's form to hide itself, leaving two shifters duelling.

The drow rangers were pressed against the walls by Gregeon and Arthur, unable to bring their crossbows to bear, dying soon thereafter.  Once

Crafting a magical key out of pure elemental ice was a trivial task for The Red Order, taking but a few minutes of fussing around Helstaff's forge.  With it in hand, they set off to the door behind which the frost giant jarl was hiding, opening it to discover the corpse of the white dragon that had dogged them some days previous.  One more loose end tied up.

The fact that it was missing its heart was somewhat worrisome, as nothing good can ever come of tearing such organs from chests, but The Order would deal with that situation when they found it.  For now, they hurried down a tunnel into the depths of the earth, emerging into a frozen lake which suspiciously tentacle-like forms visible beneath the surface.

The jarl was performing unspeakable rituals over the dragon's

Of course, before flitting off to the giants' tomb to deposit the bodies of the traitors, The Red Order would need to round up the last of the three urns that their geas-granting ghostly chums needed restoring.  A trip all around the island seemed potentially exhausting, but finding some giants cowering in a cave in the mountains solved the search.

Trapped, the frost giants put up a struggle but were eventually defeated, the final urn having been centrepiece of their gambling.  Restoring it to a more respectful place (the bottom of a bag of holding for the moment), The Order set off for the tomb, corpses and crematees in tow.  Hopefully, the recipients wouldn't notice that one of the urns had had its seal broken.

A windy (as in, a breeze blowing, not snaking) bridge passed