Grafting On The Doom of the Savage Kings

Because I pre-ordered my copy of DCC, I received a free copy of Dungeon Crawl Classics # 66.6 - The Doom of the Savage Kings. Not being the type to be wasteful, and because I found the adventure module to be excellent, I have integrated it into my campaign.

There is an old hermit, named Eustus that lives in the forest near Bluestone Village.  He is sought out by the PCs to help them with their friend who so wantonly donned the necklace of the Serpent Folk at the end of the character funnel sessions.  It seems that he is suffering from a curse, and they hope the Eustus can help them to break it.  He agrees, but says that he wishes them to solve a problem being experienced by the folk of Hirot, up in the foothills of the mountains...