Typical Tavern Quest

As of October 16, 2005, the details of this quest changed. Information below reflects post-change operation of the quest.

Description

We've received word that the owner of The Typical Tavern, in The Distant Woods, is having a bit of a rat problem. I'm sure he'd reward you if you took care of it for him. You will not receive this quest unless you have completed the Spooky Forest Quest.

Tasks

In the new quest you enter the Typical Tavern and enter into an area just like The Barrel full of Barrels and have to hit the "rat faucet" adventure. Turn the faucet off to complete the quest.

Before turning off the faucet, you can continue to adventure to encounter Baron Von Ratsworth. Defeating him will grant you a rather nifty item (there are three different items he can drop, depending on the current setting, if any, of The Super-Secret Canadian Mind-Control Device, detuned radio, or The Annoy-o-Tron 5000). You cannot fight him once you have turned off the faucet. He can be quite difficult to defeat, as his stats scale to yours.

Besides the Baron, the only enemies in the cellar are rats, who can be troublesome because of their ability to dodge. Known item drops are rat whisker and rat appendix.

At least one square of the tavern will always produce a non-combat adventure in which your player gains an ice-cold beer, a fotie, or, more rarely, liquor or a mixed drink (e.g horizontal tango).

The necessary faucet adventure and the Baron Von Ratsworth are both randomized per person, but don't change during that ascension run. For example, if you found the Faucet in square 3, you can leave it alone until you find and defeat the Baron and it will still be in square 3.

Reward

• shiny ring
• 3 of a "Mixed drink", given to you based on your class:

Class	Drink Received
Seal Clubber	You acquire 3 whiskey sours
Turtle Tamer	You acquire 3 screwdrivers
Pastamancer	You acquire 3 wine spritzers
Sauceror	You acquire 3 whiskeys and soda
Disco Bandit	You acquire 3 vodka martinis
Accordion Thief	You acquire 3 strawberry daiquiris

Council Text

On initial visit: We've received word that the owner of The Typical Tavern, in The Distant Woods, is having a bit of a rat problem. I'm sure he'd reward you if you took care of it for him.

On subsequent visits:

The owner of the Typical Tavern is still bugging us about his rat problems. Perhaps you could help him?

Tavern Text

On initial visit:

You approach the Typical Tavern, and the bartender runs out the front door to greet you.

“You've gotta help us, Adventurer. The cellar is so full of rats that we can't get down there to restock the bar!”

The bartender shows you where the cellar door is (you pause a moment to admire the phrase) and you descend into the darkness.

Man. It's really dark down here.

On subsequent visits:

Man. It's really dark down here.

Upon turning off the rat faucet:

You turn off the rat faucet. From all around, you hear the sounds of rats disappearing down drains.

After a few moments, the bartender comes scuttling down the stairs and says:

"Thank you very much for taking care of my rat problem. Here's a reward for you."

"And hey! Stop back by the tavern any time you're up for a bit of the old 'drunken debauchery.'"

You acquire 3 whiskey sours

(if Seal Clubber)
or

You acquire 3 screwdrivers

(if Turtle Tamer)
or

You acquire 3 wine spritzers

(if Pastamancer)
or

You acquire 3 whiskeys and soda

(if Sauceror)
or

You acquire 3 vodka martinis

(if Disco Bandit)
or

You acquire 3 strawberry daiquiris

(if Accordion Thief)
and

You acquire an item: shiny ring

You can return to the cellar after completing the quest (although there is no link in game anymore, you can manually access rats.php), but clicking on any of the "Darkness" locations will only generate the message: "All of the rats are gone. There's nothing to do down here anymore."

References

• Pausing to admire the phrase "cellar door" refers to a claim, made by linguist and fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien, that most English-speaking people would find the phrase "cellar door" itself, disassociated from its sense and its spelling, to be beautiful. This claim was probably most widely popularized by the movie Donnie Darko, where Donnie's literature teacher relates it as "A famous linguist once said that of all the phrases in the English language, of all the endless combinations of words, that 'cellar door' was the most beautiful."
• The rat faucet is a possible reference to the Frank Zappa album Waka Jawaka, whose cover shows two faucets, labeled "hot" and "rats."
• The quest as a whole is a reference to how, in many role playing games, one of the first quests is to kill a number of rats.
• "Rats in the Cellar" Is a popular Aerosmith song.
• "I Think I Smell A Rat" is also a song sung by The White Stripes, and is featured in their album "White Blood Cells".