Leaving the orc camp (see ST06. The Ruins at Tokomara), the party decided to rest for the night. In the morning, they headed to the other camp that they had seen, which had House Cannith banners flying over it. On the outskirts of the camp, the quartet met up with Ying and Tregin, who had decided to leave The Demon's Mercy and join in the expedition.
Scouting out the camp, they saw a group of orcs that were ransacking the place. Realising that they had to move quickly, the six pirates stealthily attacked, with Tregin distracting some of the orcs with Dancing Lights on the far side of the camp. Ying chose to go in first, climbing up the wooden wall and quickly despatched the orc on guard on a raised platform. Amos Black used the Ring of Jumping he had found the previous day to quickly get to another orc, while Sacha Cresswell charged into what seemed to be the main structure at the camp. Kuven took care of the orc on the second platform, while El Graeve continued to snipe from afar. The initial onslaught proved decisive, and the orcs were never able to regain ground. Even the appearance of a larger and tougher orc from within the main building could not turn the tide in the orcs favour, and Sacha Cresswell gladly took possession of the greatsword that the hidden orc had possessed.
Searching through the devastation, the party were able to glean little. Most of the House Cannith records had been destroyed. The only thing that they found was a Letter from Canton Busby, which led the party to try to come up with some theories on the relationship between the House Cannith researchers, the pirates, and the orcs; but nothing proved satisfactory. Frustrated, the sextuplet decided to head towards the black dome at the centre of the crater, to see what they could learn there. They quickly realised that the dome was in fact a large meteorite, that had fallen from the Ring of Siberys, and was now buried deep in the sand. Tregin tried to work out if the meteorite had destroyed the Giant civilisation, or if they'd build their town around it, but was unable to establish the history from his observations. Meanwhile, Amos Black circled the meteorite and found a large opening that had been cut into the side, large enough for a Giant to fit into it. He also found a set of Tinker's Tools adjacent to the doorway. Using ritual magic, Tregin found traces of Transmutation magic, but could not work out what had been previously there.
Inside, they could see Giant-scaled stairs descending into the darkness. Tregin cast Light on a stone and threw it down, only to see the stone come to rest against a body. Cautiously making their way down, the party realised that this was the body of a woman. Initially checking to see what had killed her, they were startled to find out that she was in fact alive, but unconscious. Sacha Cresswell lent over and kissed her under the guise of doing a kiss of life, while simultaneously using Lay on Hands to heal her. She came conscious in a confused state, and pulled away from Sacha Cresswell quickly. She introduced herself as Hale Vown Cannith, a member of the archaeological team. They had come to the island to look for what was inside this meteorite, but had only recently succeeded in breaking the arcane seal that protected the doorway above. Before they could properly explore, they had been attacked and captured by pirates. But then the pirates had also been attacked by orcs, that had apparently appeared at a grove of trees near to the House Cannith camp, possibly using Transport Via Plants. When the party showed her the symbol that the orcs were wearing, she recognised it as that of The Gatekeepers.
Hale Vown Cannith was slightly confused, but determined to continue to explore the meteorite. She referred to as a Gift of Siberys, and was hoping that there would be rare golden Siberys dragonshards embedded within it. She also mentioned the leader of the orcs was never without his wolf, which led the party to suspect that they had not fought the leader yet. She also revealed that the blood that the orcs were gathering was designed to rebuild the arcane seal that had protected the meteorite; it had taken months to remove the previous seal due to the unusual nature of the components used to originally forge it.
She asked for their help, which they offered; but they were still determined to follow through and return whatever was discovered to Felix Ravenson in Second Chance. Still, for the moment, the young researcher might prove useful, so they agreed to accompany her further within. They soon came to a large cavern, with the ruins of bridges leaving gaps between several platforms within. A pool of water dominated the bottom. Before they could properly explore, the party were attacked by a trio of constructs still in operation, using lightning jolts and buzzsaws to attack the interlopers. The party quickly split up, jumping their way over the gaps as best as they could.
Amos Black and Ying ended up attacking the construct to the left, but also stumbled across a strange statue on the platform that they were on. It was surrounded by a brass handrail, and Amos Black found that by turning it, the central bridge would rotate. Meanwhile, Sacha Cresswell and Kuven ended up pushing one of the constructs into the water, and then had to scramble up the remaining supports to get within range of the others. El Graeve and Tregin continued to attack from range, and in the end the constructs were defeated. The party stopped for a rest, before continuing on.
The next corridor was strange; it was dominated by a sweet smell, and the skeletons of several rat-sized creatures could be seen embedded in the ceiling. The party were confused, but lacking an explanation chose to continue on down the hall. Sacha Cresswell and Kuven took the lead, only to find that they triggered a trap when the floor tiles gave away. Sacha Cresswell elected to stay stationary, but Kuven decided to move, which caused the floor tile to eject him upwards, where he found himself stuck to the ceiling with a strong-smelling adhesive. The ceiling also started to move, and Kuven found himself on the underside of a conveyor belt heading towards a pair of snipping blades. The party leapt into action; Amos Black disarmed the floor tile that Sacha Cresswell was stood on, before heading further down the corridor. El Graeve and Sacha Cresswell followed Tregin's lead and started firing magic and weaponry into the gap between the ceiling tile and the wall, in the hope that they could damage the weaponry. Ying followed on after Amos Black. Amos Black was slowed by triggered another floor tile after his attempt at disabling it failed, so he joined Kuven on the conveyor belt. Ying ran past and tried to bash his way through the door to the next room. Fortunately, the repeated attacks on the mechanism worked, and the conveyor belt slowed and then stopped, allowing first Kuven and then Amos Black to free themselves. They were sticky and without some of their clothing, but they were alive.
And so, the party continued further down into the meteorite, to see what this rock that had fallen from Siberys had to offer them...