I have had time to think on this, and looking at the next quest I dislike the Chelaxian noble bit as it's forgettable and a bit overdone. Two of my characters chose backgrounds that involve the drug shiver (ones mother having died of it and the other having kicked the habit) so I thought it might be cool to play that up.
I was thinking something along the lines of getting sent on a mission outside of town and stumbling upon a shipment of shiver, finding out where it's coming from, Devargo. Tying them back to the origonal story, then Devargos info could be that the noble is funding the shiver trade. They will relish getting both that and dealing with Devargo personally. They are a bit overpowered so i'm not seeing the boat as an issue.
All I need is an outside mission that gets them outside of town, one of my players expressed the need for some beastly opposition as a change of pace since he knows once we get into the meat of the AP there will be more and more urban.