After a brief bout with food-borne illness, the Crown and her crew arrived in the dim morning light at Watchdog Island. With Zia’s mysterious intelligence fresh on their minds, the crew located an anchorage and launched their excursion onto the island, leaving Camouflage in charge of the deck.
They would find on the little mile-wide island:
A wrecked cutter, several months old, bearing an Everbright Lantern, A desecrated temple to Dol Arrah, watched over by a troublemaking faerie dragon, A hungry plant mass that nearly satiated itself at Evie’s expense, and a field of Dreamlilies, tended to by the marooned and disgruntled Neave d’Jorasco. Fox reported that the Crown had sighted an approaching Q’Barran corsair, and the crew devised a plan to hide the ship from view and potentially ambush the interlopers should they decide to investigate the island.
Meanwhile, Neave described her woeful circumstances and warned the crew about the Sentinel, a reptilian terror that disguises itself as a stony statue and kills an intruders on the island not wearing the charmed, dragonsharded brooch that Neave bears.
After slaying the sentinel of Watchdog Island and escaping the island, the Crown posted lookouts on the highest points of the island to watch for the approaching Q’Barran corsairs. They had a few last questions for Neave, and her answers illuminated their search for captain Tyrn. She recognized their description of the captain: he had been selling Dragonshards to and buying Dreamlily from Captain Arazka. But why?
As a last point of business, the Crown sprang its trap on the Q’Barrans, cornering the ship in the bay with its exploratory party stranded on the shore investigating the long-wrecked cutter. The Crown scuttled the ship and made off with its cargo of rum, spices, and fruit, and then she laid in a course for Port Verge, seeking Arazka’s base of operations… and answers.