The bats are no longer in the Belfry

Suspecting an attack by unknown undead, the paladin scanned the stairs and felt the taint of foul evil. Immediately she fired off two arrows, scoring a lucky hit on the hapless wizard. The monk and cleric charged across the sand-covered floor but were unable to locate their prey, not having the sharp eyesight of the archer. Realising the confusion he was causing, the magician dropped his invisible protection to reveal his presence.

Just as he was trying to explain where he had been, four large Dire Bats swept in through the balcony window in pursuit of the bell-ringer. Combat ensued as the adventurers hacked away at the air, trying to land blows on their fast and tough foes.

The cleric was able to magically frighten away one of the bats for a few moments just as the wizard summoned a fireball high in the room where the winged creatures were flitting around. Soon one bat crashed in flames to the floor while another pair trailed smoke behind them as they fled the area. The fourth, back from its initial fright, quickly joined the first on the sandy floor of the belfry's main hall.

Filled with excitement at this victory, the party ran up to the balcony to see where the two that fled had got to. Up in the sky could be seen a handful of dire bats, including the pair that survived the fireball. Soon the number was four as an arrow knocked an injured bat out of the sky.

Squeaking with rage, a pair of slightly smaller dire bats plunged out of the sky to attack the archers on the Balcony. Blows were landed and arrows pierced the skin of these new opponents but the wounds immediately healed up.

Experience.
3 dire bats (CR2) - 225 xp each
1 wizard - 50 xp for the paladin

The Belfry

As evening drew in the party camped for the night with their target reachable soon after breakfast the next day.

The cleric and scout held the last watch and soon heard the skittering sound of vermin scurrying across the sand. Starting a sun rod illuminated the reflective eyes of thousands of tiny spiders who quickly swarmed over the priestess. Quick thinking by the scout (covering the swarm in burning oil) and the druid (running a flaming sphere through the spiders) quickly saved her from doom.

In the morning the guide led the party to the belfry, a large pleasure palace made from orange stone subsiding into the sand. Over half the building was now submerged, including the main entrance. Luckily a balcony and the upper levels were still accessible although car would be needed on the sand-covered sloping surfaces.

As they admired the site, two wights formed from the very sand and attacked the cleric. Caught by surprise, she tried to inflict wounds which only managed to repair the damage from the druid's accurate bow shot. Tenaciously, the cleric resisted their life-draining touch and the undead were soon being beaten by the rest of the party. Summoning the power of her deity, the cleric rebuked the wights and forced them to cower at her feet. The wights crumbled back to the sand from which they came. The monk's keen eyesght and the paladin's ability to see evilness showed the undead's continued presence but after a minute or so the wights flew away like grains blown on the wind.

Feeling no longer threatened, the party moved on to Belfry itself. The scout climbs into the building and explores the long room of arched windows. The windows used to contain ornate fretwork but that has been broken through long ago. Six 5-foot-high iron braziers are fixed to the floor at intervals around the walls. In the centre of the ceiling and floor are corresponding 5-foot-wide holes. The ceiling itself is covered in a vast number of sleeping bats, enough for a few swarms. Either side of the hole in the floor are staircases going down into the building.

The monk and druid decide to enter through the balcony and fine a large empty room, forty foot wide and twenty foot deep. Where the back wall would be is instead a flight of steps going down into a much larger area. Faint music can be heard all around. The monk throws in a sun rod to chase out any bats that may be sleeping instead but none appear.

The wizard summons a veil of magical invisibility and climbs up the sloping walls of the building towards the bell tower. At first the going is easy but near the top the magician slips and falls through one of the openings in the belfry, landing heavily on a huge crystalline bell, easily five feet high. The bell is no longer hanging from the ceiling but instead has, at some time in the past, fallen from its mounting and slid along the sloping floor to its current resting place.

Emboldened by the lack of bats in the lower building and the return of the scout, the party (sans wizard) venture back in to see what the sun rod is illuminating. Sand fills the right hand side of the hall but there is still a large area uncovered, revealing a large fountain (no longer functioning) and a number of empty rooms around the outside. On the floor can be seen the crisped and cracked remains of three scorpionfolk. A scorched line on the floor shows that some intense heat had killed them where they stood and a number of large draconic footprints in the sand showed the source, now obviously long gone. Scouting revealed a room where a depression in the sand showed where a large creature had slept. Two small brass-coloured scales glinted in the light.

The impact of the wizard sends a ringing noise throughout the building and across the sand. Looking up, he sees little bats hanging above him on the ceiling. As the magician's head clears, he realises that the ceiling is a full 40 feet away and that the bats are therefore not quite as small he first thought. Also they are no longer peacefully asleep. Deciding that a fireball might not prove adequate, the wizard dives through the five-foot-wide hole in the floor into the room of windows below (that the scout had recently been exploring). "They'll not easily get me through that hole", he thought before realising that the current room - like the belfry above - seemed to have a large number of wide, open windows. The nearby flight of stairs that lead down into safe-seeming gloom beckoned...

The adventurers are surprised to not only hear a bell ring and a scream of distress but also see prints appear in the sand on the staircase without any visible source. Strange things are afoot...

Outside the swirling of sand could be heard by the camel...

Experience:
Spider swarm (CR1) - 50 xp each
Swarm-shifter wights (CR4) - 100 xp each except 150 xp for the cleric
Evidence of dragon - 10 xp each except 50 xp for the scout

Here be dragons

Inside the tower was an area called The Strip where people and creatures congregated to exchange news and information. While browsing therem, the party and others were asked to attend the auditorium, a large area off The Strip between the canteen and the company store (where a tent was purchased by the scout).

After a short wait, a large winged devil marched up to the stage and declared the land's #1 enemy to be a brass dragon last seen at The Belfrey. This creature, the listening audience was informed, would bring an end to everything if not stopped, bringing chaos to swallow up the world and all life upon it.

Some of the attendees afterwards did not seem to enthusiastic about hunting down the dragon, either because they did not believe the devil's claims or maybe they were too scared to take on some a mighty creature themselves.

As the party weren't sure where was where, they hired a guide - cheap enough although the danger money was steep. With his loacl knowledge, the guide arranged for some pitches in the merchants' quarter for the wizard to create their lodgings for the night on. Each person was given a token to show they had permission to stay there. Sadly the tokens disintegrated to dust in the morning.

As the part slept, the druid was passed a note suggesting that the Paladin should be disposed of. The druid, being asleep during his watch, did not notice who or what placed the note on him.

Before setting off in the morning, the paladin invested in saddle and gear for riding her part-time camel. Being of a lowly level, the paladin could only summon her mount for a third of a day and the saddle could become a liability if running away became a necessity.

After the sun rose, the rain fell. The windows on the tower closed themselves to keep the interiors dry. The courtyard was also kept free from water by an invisible layer level with the tops of the walls. Once the water had trained away the part moved on out through the gates.

Towards midday black dots on the horizon grew to become a troop of fiendish scorpion folk investigating the wandering party. The guide engaged them in conversation and quickly determined that the party could easily pacify them with a donation of water.

A little later the adventurers passed by a large area of black sand a few miles away. The guide advised that the sand seemed safe but didn't really know why it was black.

Next!

Deciding that "immediately" really meant "in the morning", the party settled down for the night to wait for the wet dawn and the trip back to the tower.
Much heated discussion arose in the morning as the druid and scout argued over which direction the tower was in - in the desert everything looks the same and the tower was 20 miles away, too far to be spotted easily in the heat haze.
Eventually the party reached their destination, skirting a few quicksand death traps on the way and dining well on desert spiders collected by the druid. The gateway to the tower was guarded by two bearded devils, unwilling to admit entrance until the druid convinced them that they didn't know as much about the party's right to go through as they thought they did.
Within the thousand foot square compound was a small camped army of nupperibo being trained - or more accurately tortured and teased - by barbed devils. To the left was the red and black multi-story tower where the party needed to get their papers.
Joining the short queue outside, the party waited to get past more bearded guards and approach the citizenship registration officer, an imperious and disdainful devil that issued the paperwork and collected the 10gp fee. Two things became quickly clear - one, it had little patience for those trying to show off their limited grasp of the infernal tongue and, two, it found the paladin's aura of goodness positively offensive.
While the rest of the party continued through their registration, the monk went upstairs to set them up together (much to the scout's later annoyance) as an adventurer's guild. On the spot and under pressure, he decided that they should all be called the "Evil R Us (plus Good)" group.
Next to the tower was a small area of tents owned by authorised travellers and merchants where the party could purchase supplies. The paladin browsed the selection of saddles for her camel that she summoned from the celestial realms; the scout seriously annoyed the cartographer who through no fault of his own was not allowed to make or sell maps of the top level; the cleric tried to find some food that looked appetising and came away with a bowl of fresh intestines, some blue "beef" jerky and a blue leather waterskin (without trying to work out too hard where they may have come from).

Experience - druid 500xp for bravely bluffing his way into the fort.