Mid-Session Report: Briars Expedition - Ol' One Fang Is No More!

After the last session we woke up to a hearty breakfast and 4 pots of coffee, talked a bit, and sat down for the early session.

The party learned that Ol' One Fang (OOF) had put a stone over his lair's entrance. Seeker cast Audible Glamar to mimic the sound of the party falling into the pit trap nearest cavern and OOF charged out, boulder ready and the fight began.
Brigid pulled out her rarest of weapons, a Wand of Lightning Bolts, and blasted OOF for - very little damage after he saved. Godfrey, Nigel, and Thorin used the last of their enchanted arrows, pouring on fire, and Seeker engaged in hand-to-hand. OOF missed Seeker!
Then first thing in the second round, OOF tagged Seeker for minimum damage vs. a non-human - 15 points. Seeker fled. Godfrey and Nigel used their last enchanted arrows and Sparrow - engaged the female hill giant that had been this close to ambushing the party. Sparrow is a thief, but was using a great sword one-handed (magic items!) - he was overmatched. Brigid confronted OOF as OOF chased Seeker, who was running for his life. She struck with Mor Altach and hurt OOF. Then OOF hit Brigid with Manbreaker for 36 points, below average, and put Brigid well inside 'minimum damage kills you' range. She held firm.
The third round was the same with the party pouring everything into OOF while Sparrow held off the female hill giant by himself. Brigid got in a mighty blow with Mor Altach as Nigel, Godfrey, and Thorin all had excellent, top notch rolls with mundane arrows and Seeker fired his bow, also hitting and...
...OOF went down.
  Brigid began a coup de grace  as the female hill giant broke into a dead sprint for OOF. The archers shifted fire to her, Sparrow hit her (finally), and even Thorin tried to block her, but she kept racing for OOF, crying out 'Father!' in giantish then - snatched up Manbreaker and kept running! The archers got off another salvo before she slid down a steep slope and vanished into the thick briars. Godfrey pursued her (as the party called him back) and hit a pit trap on the prepared escape route that damn near killed him! He hobbled back to camp with 3 h.p.
  The party found 3 slaves in the lair and spent 3 days healing, clearing traps, etc. The cash loot was tremendous and they got a few nice magic items. They also found a Skull Mountain style door. A door that had been forced, then hidden. They found more of OOF's loot in the vestibule, and a narrow corridor went further back.
In the back room was a metal wall covered in 144 small hemispherical piece of crystal that flashed various colors, each one with a rune by it. The ceiling was a sort of smoked glass that lit up as they entered. On a side wall was a panel of metal that had weird glass plates on it with writing. The writing was in the ancient tongue used by wizards and looked like this:

There was no key hole, although there was a narrow slot off to the side.

At this point the players threatened to murder me over the female hill giant getting away and the fact they now feared blanketing the Briars with fallout if they messed with the panel too much.

The players rested and healed then resumed mapping after sending the slaves to Skull Mountain via broom. After a few more days they encountered a band of brigands and kobolds hired by the kobold king to find the exile by searching Skull Mountain. The party rushed back and prepared, but the brigands came, inspected the eyes, and left.

The party now suspects the g6 key opens the door in the back of the eyes.

They decided to have the party rest at Skull Mountain for a week and we took a real-world break, too.