Blind Mew on May 16, 2014 wrote:

[SPOILERS]

I can break it down for you:

Jack is a ghost (instead of simply being dead) because he's haunted (no pun intended) by his guilt: before he joined Ratbeard's crew, he worked for Avery - but he was a spy, he was ratting out Avery to the Sharks (heh, another pun!).

He was selling them security secrets, but he didn't know what they were planning. So for the rest of the quest chain, you go find out. You unravel the conspiracy slowly, uncovering the following secrets:

• The Sharks mean to kill Avery and take over Skull Island
• The Sharks have a LOT of double agents sprinkled throughout Avery's staff
• The Cutthroats are actually being directed by another Shark clan, the Threshers
  
• The real center of the Conspiracy aren't even Threshers - they're Prawns: weird psychic Shrimp that are an ancient evil that's recently returned from some kind of absence "outside". The Prawns disguise themselves as Sharks using psychic illusions, but the PC manages to get magical immunity to it.

At every point, you fight either agents or Sharks or Prawns, and finally trace your way to the Prawn stronghold and defeat Emperor Prawn, wrecking their plans completely. In so doing, you eliminate the threat to Avery and Skull Island, which Jack was directly contributing to via his spying. This done, Jack can find peace. End of quest line.

Does that help? Admittedly, of the new quest lines, this was the Gonzo one - it feels more fantastical than the others, but it also features a big threat to Skull Island and a nifty dungeon at the end. Once I wrapped my head around the Prawns and got a feel for them, they were so funny that I couldn't resist some odd embellishment.