This Song is for the Rats
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This content has been retired and is no longer available in game. |
While you're feeling your way along the labyrinthine corridors of the cellar, you hear someone playing a haunting refrain on the bagpipes. Not haunting as in "sweet, ethereal, and faint," but haunting as in "chains rattling and dishes breaking."
You follow the sound and run smack into the huge belly of a man wearing a kilt. He's surrounded by the corpses of rats, all of which have blood leaking from their ears. He stops playing, which suits you just fine, and addresses you.
"Hey there, laddie," he says. "A long time agooo, the owner of the Tavern sent me down here to help with his rat problem. I tried lurin' the wee beasties away with a song on my flute, but I couldn'a do it; I dinna have the power. Then I switched to the bagpipes, and tha's killin' em for sure, but I got lost down here. Can ye help me out?"
You lead him back upstairs, and he buys you a beer for your troubles.
 | You acquire an item: ice-cold Willer |
Occurs at The Rat Infested Tavern Cellar (pre quest)
Notes
- Once you have completed the Typical Tavern Quest, this adventure will no longer be available.
References
- "This song is for the rats" is the opening line of "Cotton" by The Mountain Goats from the tour-de-force 2004 album '"We Shall All Be Healed"' - "This song is for the rats / Who hurled themselves into the ocean / When they saw that the explosives in the cargo hold / Were just about to blow."
- "I tried lurin' the wee beasties away with a song on my flute" comes from the tale "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", in which a man kills all the rats of a town by attracting them to a river with the song of his flute, where they all drowned.
- "I couldn'a do it; I dinna have the power" is a famous line attributed to Scotty from Star Trek (The Original Series). Google "I dinna have the power" if you have no fear of fanfiction, and you'll see what I mean.
- "A long time agooo and the Scottish nature of the character may be a reference to the game "The Bard's Tale" for the PS2 in which you begin the game in a tavern, fighting off rats with the songs you can play.
