The trading vessel Queen Aurala had left Sharn a week before, and the journey had been uneventful until that night. A vicious storm arose suddenly, tearing the ship to pieces. The next morning, the wreckage washed up on the shores of Dakaran, and there were only four survivors: Sacha Cresswell, Amos Black, El Graeve and Kuven. The four were still picking themselves up when a group of six lizards emerged from the palm trees on the island, looking for their pick of food. The four survivors quickly banded together to defend themselves against the threat. The battle proved a vicious one, with Kuven being quickly knocked unconscious thanks to two nasty bites from one lizard. However relentless work from Sacha Cresswell's greatsword, Amos Black's rapier and dagger, and El Graeve's bow gradually turned the tide, and soon all six of the assailants were dead.
The newly-formed party rested to lick their wounds and search the wreckage for anything useful, before deciding which route into the island would be most likely to lead to them being able to escape. Three paths presented themselves; the left following the shore, the centre heading uphill to some ruins that could be seen at the top of the hill that was at the centre of the island, and the right towards some smoke billowing over the palm trees. Reasoning that the local Drow tribe were unlikely to be friendly, the four decided to take the centre path to give them the best sight of the rest of the island. It took them an hour to follow the path, where they found that the ruins appeared to be remnants of the Giant civilisation that ruled over this part of the world thousands of years ago. Looking at where the other paths had led, they could see another ship beached on one path, and a Drow village down the other. They returned to their starting point, and then followed the left path to the beached ship.
On getting nearer the ship, which they could see was called The Dolphin's Mercy, they could see half-a-dozen Drow sitting on the deck, armed with spears and javelins. They were accompanied by a Giant Scorpion that was eating something. The Drow appeared to be playing cards, so Amos Black decided to sneak closer to see what could be seen; but there was nothing of interest on the other side of the ship. Sacha Cresswell then decided to approach openly; he was met with a hostile reaction from the Drow leader, Parvick, who was clearly suffering from a sickness. Parvick accused the four of being pirates that had invaded the island a week ago; a few days later, all of the Drow and their pirate captives had become sick. Several of the pirates, including their captain, had managed to escape into the Giant ruins at the centre of the island, where the Drow dare not enter. Sacha Cresswell was able to persuade Parvick that they were not with the pirates, and managed to negotiate that they would be given The Dolphin's Mercy if they could stop the illness. The party then reviewed the logbook in the captain's cabin, where they found no record of the illness. Amos Black was able to decipher the coded notes, and decided that although the vessel was seaworthy, it would shortly need repairs due to damage from the previous night's storm. There were two possible places where repairs could be affected; Second Chance or Port Starrin.
The party then let Parvick lead them to the Drow village, where they interrogated the pirates. When it became clear that the pirates had no knowledge of the sickness, the party decided to head back to the Giant ruins again to see if they could track the remaining pirates, and see what they had triggered. Along their trip through back to the centre of the island, the party were waylaid by a pair of tigers. The foursome once again proved their combat skills, though not without seeing Amos Black knocked unconscious this time. By the time the party had arrived back at the Giant ruins, night had fallen and they decided to rest for the night, before proceeding in the morning.
Dawn brought new light to the island, and with that Kuven was able to easily force open the door to the ruins. Heading down the long, Giant-sized steps, they found themselves deep within the ancient ruin. Following the twisting and turning passages, they came across the body of one of the pirates, a tiefling who matched the description that they had been given of the captain of The Dolphin's Mercy. Searching his body, they found him covered in acid burns, and holding a strange red spherical jewel. It quickly became apparent what had caused the acidic burns, as around the corner came a gelatinous cube. They faired well in the fight, as they shrugged off multiple attempts for the cube to absorb them, with Kuven eventually being pulled inside the strange creature. The party continued to hack parts off it until Sacha Cresswell was able to cut Kuven out, leaving little of the ooze remaining.
The next room contained the bodies of several more pirate bodies, seemingly killed by a pair of spectral hands that were floating above a pair of pillars spaced across the room. On Sacha Cresswell's suggestion, El Graeve fired multiple arrows to see if they could find what would trigger the defensive trap. Realising that the hands would catch and crush anything going over the pillars, slap away anything going around and crush in a clap anything going in-between, the party decided to fire an arrow in-between the pillars; when the two hands came together to crush the arrow, the four quickly ran past. The next room was heavily collapsed, with any other exit blocked by rubble. At the centre was a large pool of water, and over it a strange arcane machine left by the Giants, which was dripping arcane fluid into the water. Inspecting the device, the party quickly established that the magic was Conjuration in nature, though they couldn't work out specifically what it was doing to the water. However, they reasoned that the pollution of the water supply is what was making everyone sick, and the jewel that they found on the captain's body would wedge into the pipe that was dripping the arcane fluid. Indeed, Amos Black found scratch-marks within the pipe, indicating that the jewel had been inside it previously, before being prised out by the pirates. With the jewel back in place, the magic was blocked from the water.
The party headed back to Parvick, who was grateful for their explanation of the cause of the illness. He kept his word, and released The Dolphin's Mercy into their ownership. The pirate captives were also freed, and offered to work for the four to get off the island. They discussed their destination, and unanimously decided that Second Chance would be their first port of call. Amos Black modified the appearance of the ship so that it would not be recognised, and then the ship was put out to see, and the party headed off to the lawless pirate town seeking repairs...