Herman's Hideaway (Quest)

## The Quest

#### Meeting Jussi

the Adventurers travelled inside the city walls of Hogstone to meet Jussi , the blacksmith and carpenter. Jussi was showing his frustration with the poor tools and equipment with which he is trying to forge weapons to arm the people of Hogstone. He asked the Adventurers to retrieve some of his father Herman's tools from an old workshop he had on the windy outcrop island of Pavuk . A quest the Adventurers accepted.

#### The Voyage

After taking a vote, the Adventurers decided to ask Inga to sail the Jagged Pelt to the island of Pavuk. During the voyage Inga and Ronan discussed the specifications of the Jagged Pelt, the locations of large rocks that lined the northern coasts of Hogstone and the southern coasts of Pavuk and Strand, as well as swapping some stories.

Approaching the island of Pavuk, Ronan spotted what looked like freshly cut timber outside the entrance to a small cave. The Adventurers made their way towards it. Inga decided to stay with the ship, fearing pirates.

#### Herman's Hideaway

The Adventurers explored Herman's Hideaway, finding a letter from Herman in the entryway that revealed that Herman had survived the Sack of Hogstone, assuming that his son Jussi had died, and drifted out to Pavuk.

> "*Forgive me. There were too many of them, the Mutts came out of nowhere, and it wasn’t even just them, they had the Greyship clan and the Kraken’s Oarsmen with them too. We were overrun. There was no shame in running. The king was dead. The walls had been breached, there was only slaughter. My son, Jussi...I couldn’t find him. They must have gotten to him. I will wait it out here, where I spent so many good years, but as for what happens after that, I do not know. The workshop seem to be infested with spiders, I’ve been trying to clear them but have been bitten several times already.*"
> ― Herman
>
>

Finding a a small shaft covered by a wooden flap, the Adventurers decided to follow it, sending the boy Gauner down to scout first, lighting their way with a mix of magic and lanterns. Suddenly they heard the flap slam shut behind them, before spiders began crawling through gaps in the caverns above them. Gauner was bitten, but the spiders poison fangs didn't break the skin. The Blood Hunter Farrus waited patiently for a spider to strike, before dispatching it with his shortsword, and Ronan fired deadly poison magic from her flintlock to kill another. Farrus finished off the last with his deadly shortsword. They then exited the shaft through a hatch similar to the one at the entrance.

They came into a room where they found a second letter, as well as a locked door with a dial above it depicting different tools. A ladder stood to the right of the door.

> "*The bitse on my amrs have started to grow, and I have been feelign weaker. My brain hurst. There have bene men on the islnad. Are thye looking for me?*"
> ― Herman
>
>

After spending some time trying to decipher meaning in Herman's letters, Gauner eventually climbed the ladder, noticing that there were seven lines of text, written in seven different languages. All of the Adventurers could understand the first line, written in Common language, and between them, they managed to understand each language, and successfully transfer the order to the dial, opening the door.
In the next room, a larger, cavernous area, they came across the corpse of a man who fitted Herman's description, three more spiders attacked the Adventurers, but they were swiftly dealt with. Karkuro approached the corpse, and read the letter.

> "*I thkin thevye fuond teh enrtacne. I can hera tmhe from my wrokhops. Thye hvae Hsogtone amror btu hyte kolo ekil ttums…...I hvae to go bkac….btu Teh Qeuen!.... htyere heer!*"
> ― Herman
>
>

The Adventurers prepared for what they assumed meant that a Queen Spider was close, Kyanna attempted to detect any magic surrounding the area, but found none. Farrus took a poison gland from one of the spiders. Further investigation of the room uncovered a trail of blood that led from Herman to a far wall, where the words 'DONT TRUST HIM' were scrawled in blood. Ronan checked the right hand and confirmed that blood was stained on Hermans index finger. Kyanna noted that although his final written words in the letters were garbled, these words, despite the missing apostrophe, were not.

The Adventurers tentatively entered through into another room, which turned out to be Herman's bedroom area and workshop. Seeing what appeared to be a chest with pressure pads at the far end of the room, they headed toward it. Hearing a sound above them, the Adventurers all looked up in unison, seeing the Spider Queen drop from the ceiling into a space between them.

Within a few seconds of the Queen bearing its fangs at the Adventurers, Farrus Fulgrim had his longbow primed. He imbued the bow with the Rite of the Storm, before unleashing an electrically charged arrow at range to perfectly skewer into the Queens head. The spider screamed, shaking violently before regaining herself and bearing her huge fangs at the surrounding Adventurers.

The Queen lunged at Ronan, biting her arm and exposing her to deadly poison. Ronan fell to the floor, paralysed. Kyanna threw her spear at the Queen, narrowly missing her. In the end it was the shortbow of Gauner that was enough to kill the Queen, an arrow that hit an inch to the left of Farrus' earlier shot.

The Adventurers began to investigate the chest, finding surrounding pressure plates with a lever in front of th plate furthest from the chest. Observing a mouse, a bear and a dragon on a plaque above the chest, the Aasimir Maiya, remembering her dream, theorised that the plates might need to have differing amounts of weight placed on them.

Maiya, Kyanna, Gauner and Karkuro checked the room for traps, but found nothing in the areas they checked. They decided to use the dead Queen as a test. Interestingly, on their first attempt, the cunning Adventurers of Hogstone placed the dead Queen on the pressure plate where the lever needed to be pulled from. Switching their positions, Kyanna pulled the lever, feeling an arrow suddenly stick into her back. Turning around the Adventurers saw a trap behind Herman's desk.

After trying other combinations, the Adventurers eventually went back to Maiya's original idea of placing people lightest to heaviest along the pressure plates. Shielding themselves from another arrow, this time pulling the lever opened the chest, revealing a small treasure of gold coins and blue quartz stones. They also gathered up Herman's tools to return to Jussi.

Wondering how to move the paralysed pirate Ronan, the dead spider queen, and the body of Herman, Kyanna gathered a large rug from beside Herman's bed, using it to drag Herman from the hideaway. They managed to squeeze onto the already at capacity Jagged Pelt for a safe but very uncomfortable voyage back to Hogstone.

On the voyage home, Maiya had one of her intense visions, the contents of which she did not share with the rest of the Adventurers.