Into the li'l cabin they go! It has a clutter of shinies and random junk and there, in the middle, propped against the tent's pole, is indeed a dwarf head.

    "Well, are you just gonna stare at me slack-jawed, or is there something I can do for you?"

"—I'm sorry. I'd, uh. Never met a piece of a dwarf."

That... can't be healthy for him. Or comfortable. This might actually be the weirdest thing she's seen all day. Not the weirdest thing she's seen ever, she wandered around in the Mists and she's seen some shit, but the weirdest thing today. It beats the pirate rat things.

"Pleasure to meet you," she says, with a polite little curtsy. She bets someone who is in... the situation this stone dwarf is in... would appreciate courtesy. "I'm Vetareh, this is James Orland, we have noticed that the island is about to explode and heard you might be able to help with that."

"James, eh? The famous Commander? Well, yes, you've come to the right dwarf," he says. "There's a torrent of magical energy building up beneath these islands. Energy that feeds directly into the volcano. My brothers and I have been tending to it for years, using four contraptions to release the pressure and delay an eruption. Then Primordus and the blasted Destroyers turned up. Wrecked the machines, killed the other dwarves. Almost did me in too, but I'm still standing. In a manner of speaking."

"Can we fix and activate the machines?"

"The machines were built with us dwarves in mind and won't respond to anybody else. Unless... Ah! I've got it! Take my thumb!"

Blink.

"Your. Your thumb," she repeats, staring blankly.

"Yes. On the ground there. Use it to activate the machines. That's one upside to getting blown to bits—I'm partially portable. You may want to move quickly. It's been awhile since the machines were run. The islands don't have much time."

She opens her mouth, then closes it, and looks at the rubble on the ground. Ah. Yes. That one is certainly... thumb shaped.

Briefly, she considers whether or not she'd like to pick up the petrified limb of a person, and then looks at James and smiles winningly. Clearly this is a job for the boyfriend. Killing spiders, opening jars, and picking up gross things: all within typical boyfriend duties. This is clearly his territory.

James grins at her fondly and picks the thumb up. "Where are all these machines?" he asks.

    "Search me, they blew up all over the place. There's four of them."

"Thank you, Rock Face."

    "Rhoban, please," the dwarf grumbles.

"Thank you, Rhoban. Would you like us to, um, return your thumb once we're done?"

"Well, yes! Someone else might need it! But for now, off you go."

"Right. Thank you."

Something about this dwarf is more viscerally disturbing than the way he's in pieces and casually handing some of them off to strangers. She's not quite sure what's bothering her, but she's still nonetheless mildly unsettled. Time to go. Maybe she can find an asura to see about the project of putting Rhoban back together. That seems like it'd be a very thoughtful thing to do.

Off they go! They even know where the first one is, which might hopefully buy them time to find the others before the islands explode.

They return to the asura.

    "Oh, you're back. Did the dwarf shed any light on our predicament?"

"The skritt were right, the islands absolutely will explode if the devices aren't activated. Unfortunately, they specifically require a dwarven touch to activate. Fortunately, the dwarf, ah. Gave us his thumb."

    "His thumb? Huh. That's... disturbing. But logical I suppose. I figured there had to be some knack to it. Being that the dwarf entrusted you with... himself, I'll let you do the honours."

James does the honours. The machine makes a noise, then starts floating and rotating and emitting steam at the top.

    "That appears to have worked! And to think, all this time, all I needed was a discarded stone thumb..."

"The dwarf mentioned that there are four of these contraptions around the island. Do you know where the others are?"

    "Four of them, eh? Well, I believe one of the other researchers spotted a similar contraption on the western coast," the researcher says, pointing in its general direction. "There's another inside the caldera. As for the fourth, I'm not sure. One of the others might know. Good luck, Commander!"

"Thank you," says Vetareh, checking her compass for confirmation about which way west is. Yep, thataway. Off they go?

Probably better to take a waypoint to the asura gate, the west coast is pretty far from here.

That would be very clever and save them time in this impending crisis, yep. She's not used to waypoints being a thing. Thank you, James.

Onwards!

And back to the small peninsula sticking out of the cave where the asura gate is. James walks out towards the west and looks around for an easier way there. His gaze is drawn towards an orange glow on the ground a ways south. He walks in that direction and, seeing something he deems useful, walks towards it with purpose.

The orange glow turns out to be a hole in the ground. Filled with magma.

"Uh, James...?" she wonders nervously, trailing after him anyway.

He turns to her, beaming. "I believe I shall now teach you how to use thermal tubes for transportation."

"Does it perhaps involve jumping into the lava hole, James," she says, already internally resigned.

"It does!"

"How did I guess." Sigh. "Right, any special thing I need to do, or just. Jump in, get spat out, presumably don't burn to a crisp in the process?"

"There is a special thing, actually. You magically redirect the thermal energy into a boost to send you flying forward. That has the advantage of also preventing you from burning to a crisp!"