Felix Ravenson continued his suggestion (see ST08. The Secret of the Giants), that the party would have to break into prison to talk to Reinhart. The wizard had been captured several years prior, though the details of why and where were not known to the cartographer. Felix Ravenson was able to produce a Map of Darkreef Prison that he had drawn up the previous year, when a team of pirates had gone to the island to rescue someone close to Adira the Bloody. However within a week of leaving the island, everyone who had stepped foot on it was dead, seemingly by asphyxiation. Because of this, it was known that the Dark Lanterns who ran the island did not keep the prisoners in cells, as the island itself was enough of a prison wall. It was also known that the guards were cycled out on a monthly supply vessel, so it could be reasoned that there was a way to avoid this fate, but only the people involved would know for certain.
The party asked Felix Ravenson to give them as much information as he could on the supply ship, which he agreed to do if they could give him two weeks. The party then took some well-earned downtime. Kuven spent his time practising picking locks, while El Graeve concentrated on learning new spells. Sacha Cresswell was much more ambitious with his time; first, he commissioned a portrait of himself to hang in his cabin. Then, he volunteered with a local group building some homes for sailors that had fallen on hard times, during which he ran into Marta. The two of them went back to The Bottomless Mermaid for many drinks, before ending up back at Marta's place. She seemed to want the encounter to be repeated. El Graeve also ran into her at the jewellery shop where she works, while he was buying a diamond to use for Revivify.
After two weeks, Felix Ravenson informed them that the supply ship and left Sharn, and if they left on that day it could be intercepted. The party decided to sneak on-board the ship, grab one of the guards, and interrogate them to find out what the secret behind the island's curse was. They left within a few hours, and agreed that The Demon's Mercy would drop them off in the rowing boat, where they would lurk ahead of the supply ship's path, and attempt to sneak on board. Kuven, El Graeve and Sacha Cresswell decided to take Coreen with them, due to her vampiric spider-climb ability. The quartet put to sea in their rowing boat around midnight, and waited about an hour before the supply ship came into sight. They rowed over as stealthily as they could, and then Coreen and Kuven climbed up the rigging to the deck. Unfortunately, Coreen wasn't as stealthy as the crew had hoped, and she managed to attract the attention of one of the deckhands. Kuven quietly snuck over to him, but Coreen's attempts at helping only alerted the rest of the crew. Kuven grabbed the deckhand, and Coreen took him down to the waiting boat, while Kuven dived into the water.
Sacha Cresswell and El Graeve detached their rowing boat, and the quartet tried to make their escape. The alarm had been raised though, and before they could slip away into the night, several guards appeared on the deck and started firing crossbows. Most of the party were hit, but the one that took the most injuries was the deckhand. Sacha Cresswell used Lay on Hands to keep him alive, and eventually they slipped out into the dark, to wait for The Demon's Mercy to come and pick them up. While they waited, they interrogated the young deckhand. He was terrified, but told them what he knew. He had done the trip to Darkreef Prison several times before, and everyone who stepped foot on the island was given a potion before leaving by Harper, the alchemist who was based there. The potion tasted awful, and produced several side-effects, including several days of bizarre dreams. But it prevented anyone who drank it from dying. The deckhand did not know what it was that caused people to die, or much more about the specifics of the prison. El Graeve offered the hostage a job, but the deckhand refused, citing loyalty to king and country. When the rendezvous with the ship happened, the deckhand was therefore sent down into the brig, to accompany Hale Vown Cannith until both of them could be safely left somewhere.
With this information at hand, the party decided to use the beach to get onto the island, and avoid the guards in the stockade. They got into the rowing boat again, though left Coreen behind this time. As they rowed through the shallow water, they were attacked by a strange crab-like creature, that capsized the rowing boat, and plunged the three of them into the cold sea. It quickly grappled Kuven and Sacha Cresswell within its pincer-like claws, while it used its tentacle mouth to try and poison Kuven. The battle was fierce but brief, as a well-aimed hit from Sacha Cresswell proved critical; and with his Divine Smite, he tore through the creature. The trio then swam the rest of the way to the beach. The island seemed curiously quiet and idyllic; the palm trees swayed in the wind, a parrot flew by overhead, and a squirrel could be seen amongst the grass. The party headed inland, not even stopping to rest.
Soon they came across a clearing, where they saw a man scrabbling up a rock in the centre of a pond, as he sought to get away from a water elemental. The trio charged into the fight, wading into the water. Sacha Cresswell quickly found himself overwhelmed by the water elemental's slam attacks, especially as his wounds from the previous fight had not been healed. He found himself unconscious and sinking within the waist-deep water, though El Graeve was able to bring him back with a quick Healing Word. The water element fought on, but eventually succumbed to the onslaught. The party then climbed up the rock to speak to the person that they had seen.
He introduced himself as Maddox, a prisoner on the island. He had been captured the year before by the Dark Lanterns after he had found himself whisked away to Symbaroum, with the spy organisation interested in both the strange chaotic magic that he had learned there, as well as the potential for a threat if others found the way to travel between Symbaroum and Eberron. He had been snatched away from a bar, and brought to the island to be interrogated. He was unable to use magic, thanks to a bracelet around his wrist, which El Graeve immediately resolved by casting Dispel Magic on. Maddox was grateful, and offered his assistance to find Reinhart. He didn't know where the wizard was, but offered to guide the party around the island. He mentioned that he had been looking into the nearby Drow ruins to see if the dark elves had previously had a way to leave the island, which seemed a reasonable assumption, given the amount of travelling they did within the archipelago. So the quartet set out in that direction, resolving afterwards to head to the stockade to see if more information could be found there.