"I have a cunning plan"

The paladin spent the morning of the second day scouting out the area around the railway and airfield. Without giving herself away, she was able to see three flying craft on the ground. The largest seemed to be a huge 80 foot wooden cube inside a large triangle with a cockpit on each of the three tips. Her conversations with local workers informed her that this was a transport vehicle for large objects which normally took several days to unload. Two smaller craft, each about 100 feet long, were on the ground nearby. One was a long, sleek code used by some VIP whilst the other was rumoured to be a combat vehicle from an allied power to the Pit Fiend. A area around the freighter was busy with porters while only a few guards stood around the other two vehicles.

The monk was generally chatting to people in the traveller's quarter and discovered that there was a great rivalry between the three garrisons in Station. On top was the group given responsibility for the railway and airfield; second were those protecting the VIP area; bottom were left to guard the trees. It was rumoured that playing one garrison off against another could work to someone's advantage. Putting this information together with the paladin's report, the monk started to hatch a cunning plan.

The cleric, conscious that there was no visible religious presence in Station surreptitiously carved a crude representation of a skull wreathed in flames into the wall of one of the adobe buildings. This vandalism seemed to go unnoticed when she checked back later.

The monk decided to visit an establishment dealing in exotic objects and curios to see if they would be interested in a stone hand and foot. Unsurprisingly, interest will minimal until he mentioned that there had been a head as well which showed fangs. After that the man in the shop started offering gold for the two items, and then (when turned down) asking to at least borrow them for further analysis. The monk decided that he should withdraw from the shop and try to work out what the shopkeeper had been so interested in. Checking with the knowledgeable cleric, he was able to confirm that undead such as vampires are unaffected by petrification so were the objects just fragments of a statue?

Later in the day the cleric collected her adjusted suit of magical stone plate.

"Thanks, but no thanks"

After being wined and dined, Kitasu thanked the scout and made her way home alone.

The scout made his way again to the household cleaning products shop to see if Devlin was there but unfortunately the merchant had been and gone with the building now closed for the night.

Looking around, the scout decided to try out his skills on an alchemist's shop by climbing up to a second floor bedroom window and sneaking in. The sleeping alchemist heard nothing as the burglar went through the room and down the ladder to the main living quarters level.

A flight of steps lead down to the shop proper. One half was the customer-facing area whilst a reinforced and locked door prevented access to what must have been a storeroom and workshop. Without the ability to breach the lock, the scout decided to move in and slipped through the entrance into the night.

"What's a nice tiefling like you doing in a place like this?"

On top of the watchtower, the devil spotted the party slowly working their way across the sand towards to stunted forest of trees to its right.
"Adventurers approaching, captain, coming straight towards us."

Half a mile from the trees, the party were intercepted, checked and questioned on their reasons for approaching. In what could have been an ill-advised act, the knight tried using sarcasm on the barbazu platoon leader. Luckily, the bearded devil was able to sense the motive behind the joke and merely stopped to write Griz'Elda into its black book along with all the names of other people and creatures who had crossed it in the past. Before letting them go, the barbazu admonished them to avoid any manifestations of religion, theft, defamation of the name of the Pit Fiend, freeing of slaves, and any of the other 1,284 rules that applied within the Station district.

Moving on, the adventurers entered Station. The town looked reasonably normal - there were various quarters (merchants, travellers, office departments, workers, artisans) that would be expected elsewhere - although the large slave area full of cages did seem out of the ordinary. Similarly, on the Edge were ten foot high hedges blocking access to, and view of, the airfield and railway.

The trip from the Tower had taken several hours so it was now getting quite dark but, as the occupants of Station didn't come out during the hottest part of the day, this wasn't a major problem.

First the adventurers spent some time gathering information in the travellers' area while the scout demonstrated his tumbling skills to the general public (and a devil patrol that moved him on after confiscating his busker's takings).

Next they tried the tiny ticket office near to the railway area. A thousand pieces of gold would obtain a ticket but that would not help get one if there was no official permit to leave on the train to go with the money. Deciding that they would need to find a different approach to getting a ticket, the scout engaged Kitasu, the female tiefling behind the desk, in conversation and arranged a meeting later that night by the nearby water tower.

The paladin and cleric went shopping for armour upgrades.
[[Needs update]].

In the merchant’s quarter, the knight found lodgings while the warlock (and companions) failed to get past the bouncers at the “Drunken Dervish”, one of the half-dozen private bars the area boasted (Public bars – or, more accurately, tents-with-a-barrel, were located in the traveller’s quarter). Apparently, entrance was by invitation only and the warlock’s blank expression was all the doorkeeper needed to see.

Deciding that he needed to get on the guest list, the scout passed the bouncer some silver and obtained the name of a merchant that sold small magic items for personal maintenance. The shop, owned by Devlin, was still open at this hour and Fred, the only member of staff in this household cleaning products establishment, was more than happy to sell a bell that cast Prestidigitation once a day when rung (200gp). Within moments, the dusty adventurer was cleaner of body, emptier of purse, and marching off down the avenue towards agreed-upon meeting point. Kitasu was there waiting and the pair went on into town for a meal where the scout surreptitiously probed her for information.

"You're all individuals." "Yes, we're all individuals."

Deciding that visiting the fire giants again would not be a healthy option, the party turned Downwards and Station. After several hours they noticed a column of people walking slowly through the desert. Closer inspection showed them to be a few dozen men roped together being forced to march through the oppressively hot desert by half a dozen nupperibo, devils not known for the caring attitude to others. Above them flew a spinagon, directing the column to its destination.

Without too much thought, the paladin and monk put themselves in front of the slaves and demanded they stop. Immediately the spinagon ordered the foot soldiers to slay the foolhardy obstacles. Mewling and whimpering, the devils marched forward to hack the adventurers into rough cubes of meat.

The cleric summoned a fiendish giant wasp and set it to occupy the spinagon while the party concentrated on the land battle (except the scout who decided that he would just empty his quiver into the sand by firing at the small, nimble flying devil instead). This summoning provided a good distraction and, though it was too slow and lumbering to sting the spinagon, it did soak up a lot of diabolic rage that would have rained on the party otherwise.

On the ground, the nupperibo were mildly effective and made large incisions in the cleric before collapsing in to the sand. And getting up again. And being knocked down again. And finally ripped into gruesome pieces that finally stopped moving.

Above them the spinagon decided that fleeing was the best option and headed towards the Tower. From his vantage point looking after the camel and observing the party's performance, the warlock stuck out an eldritch hand and blasted the devil out of the sky. The scout prodded the devil's corpse and found a pouch of papers empowering the holder to escort three dozen miscellaneous resources to digging site 17B.

A ragged cheer rose from the band of slaves as their last tormentor hot the sand. They had been saved! Once their relief had passed, the ragged band pleased to the paladin for protection, food, water, weapons to defend themselves with, shelter... (apart from one who run off into the sand dunes laughing to madly himself)

"Bugger", thought the paladin.

"Don't look at me," said the scout. "I never wanted to rescue them in the first place".

Plan after disastrous plan was discussed until the paladin started to get desperate.

"Look, there's a lovely lake a few miles away that is bound to have an oasis where you can hide out for a while. No, I've never been there but I'm sure it's lovely with cool water and lots of shade."

Convinced by her words, two dozen freed slaves staggered off through the burning heat in the vague direction of water. The remainder were not so easily swayed by travel brochure descriptions so the rest of the party focused on them in an effort to get the slaves off their hands.

"Face it, you're screwed, stuck in a desert run by an evil Pit Fiend. Here, take these wicked-looking blood encrusted halberds to protect yourselves with and march off to the Tower. They might let you off, you never know. And if they just capture you again then you're no worse off than before, are you? What have you got to lose?"

As the group of ex-slaves tried to work their way through the twisted logic they'd been confronted with (and argued over who got to have a halberd), the adventurers quickly made their escape towards Station.