When they arrive, they find the place abandoned, with the road ending at a blackened hilltop pierced at the center by what appears to be a relatively small, five-foot-diameter sinkhole. It was from this hole that the violet fire once burned, but now, the hole has collapsed on itself, forming a funnel-shaped dent in the ground that's just over 3 feet deep. The bottom half of the depression is filled with strange, rippling black fluid, the surface of which swirls with a prismatic sheen. Now and then, a bubble forms and bursts, giving vent to strangely incongruous scents like vanilla, burning wildflowers, crude oil, citrus, vinegar, and countless others.

The shaft from the hill down to the buried reactor vent below has completely collapsed (and was originally less than 6 inches in diameter). If the reactor is restarted, the vent vaporizes the rubble when the fail-safe kicks in, but digging down to the reactor below should be a difficult, if not impossible task.