Forgettable Tale...

Forgettable Tale of a Drunken Dwarf is the second quest in the Rise of the Red Axe quest series, in which you must track down clues to find the truth behind the Red Axe corporation.

Development team

 * Developer: Vincent van M
 * Graphics: Anthony A
 * Quality Assurance: Adam D
 * Audio: Ian T

The Red Axe
A fast way to reach Keldagrim is by using the cart trapdoor in the north-western part of Grand Exchange. Another method is through the use of the mine carts from the Dwarven Mine, just north-east of the Falador lodestone and south of Ice Mountain. Alternatively, if you have completed Death to the Dorgeshuun, you can take the train to Keldagrim - the station can be found on the first floor of Dorgesh-kaan, to the south-east. (A Dorgesh-kaan sphere is handy to get to the city)

To start this quest, talk to Veldaban, Commander of the Black Guard in his house west of the Keldagrim bank. He is rather shocked to tell you that, after the incident at the end of The Giant Dwarf, the Red Axe company has left Keldagrim and will soon be kicked out of the Consortium.

However, he finds it rather suspicious and wants you to investigate the mining group. The only lead they have currently, is a dwarf living in east-Keldagrim who expresses strange behaviour when the company is mentioned.

Quid Pro Quo
Agree to help Veldaban and you will automatically be transported to the dwarf's house, ensuing a short cutscene. Speak to the dwarf, who is rather drunk and will ask you for a drink. Pass him a pint of frothy ale - beer can be bought in the Laughing Miner or King's Axe Inns for two coins. He, however, wants "some of the REALLY good stuff", which is an incredibly alcoholic drink called Kelda Stout.

Kelda Seeds
To make the drink, you need to grow some kelda hops from 4 kelda seeds, which some of his drunken friends are carrying around, namely Khorvak, Gauss and the rowdy dwarf.


 * The drunken dwarf gives the first seed to set you off.
 * Outside the Laughing Miner pub to the south, you should see a Rowdy Dwarf. He asks you for a random item in exchange for his seed. When you talk to the Rowdy Dwarf after relogging, you can select the option that you don't know where to get the item and he'll ask you to get another item.




 * Go to the White Wolf Mountain by either using the mine carts or taking the Taverley lodestone and running north to the shortcut entrance, facilitating access to Khorvak. In the pub, talk to Khorvak, a dwarven engineer. Take a dwarven stout off the table and give it to Khorvak to get the seed - or just talk him out of it. You will "borrow" the seed if you manage to convince him you will "return it".


 * For the final seed, go to the west side of Keldagrim and talk to Gauss. He is in the King's Axe Inn south of the bank. He will ask you to do a toast with him. Buy a beer and talk to him again to get the seed. If you buy a dwarven stout, you won't drink it during the animation and you can use the glass in the next step.

Growing the Hops
Once you have all the four seeds, go to the hops farming plot in front of the palace in West Keldagrim. Ask the gardener for advice on planting the seeds there, and he tells you that some reason, sunlight is harmful for kelda seeds and hence you can only grow it underground.

Weed the garden using a rake, plant the hops, and wait 20 minutes. You don't have to be online, but you'll get a notification when the hops are ready saying: "Perhaps I should take a look and see if my Kelda hops have grown...". The hops don't require attention for water and cannot get diseased. Fortunately, they are known for having a remarkably fast growing speed.

If you need something to pass the time, you can talk to the gardener to deliver a letter for him. Take it to Elstan, the gardener at the allotment south of Falador (you can quickly reach him using the cabbage port from the Explorer's ring), then go back to Keldagrim to get two herb (marrentill) seeds.

When your seeds have grown, pick the Kelda hops.

The Kelda Brew
Go upstairs back in the bar in East Keldagrim. Use two buckets of water on the vat, add two barley malt, and finally the Kelda hops.

Pick up the empty pot in the corner of the room and ask Blandebir to fill it up with ale yeast for 25 coins. Put this in the vat, then wait 5–20 minutes. Again, you don't have to be online, but you'll get a notification when the ale is ready saying: "Perhaps I should have a look and see if my Kelda brew has brewed...". The colour of the liquid in the vat will change from translucent/dark into a white/opaque colour with a ring when it is close to being done.

When the stout has fermented, turn the vat valve and use a beer glass on the barrel. Go back to the Drunken Dwarf and use the option that says "I need to know about the Red Axe" to give him the Kelda stout.

The Drunken Dwarf
The dwarf tells you about how quite a while ago, he resigned from his company, the former Magenta Accordion. He went to the now-abandoned southern Keldagrim mines to explore and accidentally "almost fell into the Abyss and encountered pink dragons", amongst other things.

Head to the mine tracks to the south and speak to the cart conductor, near the middle tracks leading into a boarded up tunnel. Ask him about the closed off tunnel, to which he mentions that it cannot be opened unless the Consortium orders so, so you must go talk to an influential friend.

Talk to the director of the Consortium mining company you joined during The Giant Dwarf. If you do not remember which mining company you joined, you can speak to Veldaban and he will remind you. They'll be glad to open up the tunnel for your help. With the boards removed, ride the cart into the tunnel.

On the Edge...
You find yourself before a gigantic abyss at the end of the cart ride. A short cutscene shows the vastness of the area, along with tracks floating out in all directions. You can only proceed through one of the many exits on the other side of the chasm.

If you log out at anytime while in the cave, you will be transported out in the city, and your progress will be saved.

Room 1: A Chasm
To do so, you need to complete a cart puzzle. Collect the square stones from the box next to the controls and set them in the dwarven machinery so that you can travel to both the blue marks and the destination red cross. The highlighted line controls the path the cart will take.

Your goal is to set up a connection between the red square all the way to the left and the boxes that are to the right. To place/rotate a stone in a junction, click once for green, twice for yellow, third time to remove the stone.


 * 1) To get past this room, operate the controls and place the yellow stone on the farthest spot to the left and the green stone one spot below that, as shown to the right. Hop onto the cart, and search the box on the platform that you reach to obtain another green square stone. Take the cart back to the control box.
 * 2) There are 2 ways to go forward with the next one: Either Green, yellow, green or Green, green, yellow. Ride the cart again, search the box for a second yellow stone, and return to the control box.
 * 3) Finally, connect the stones to the red cross, with the two green blocks on the right hand side and the yellow blocks on the left hand side. Ride the cart to reach the second room.

Room 2: Eavesdropping
In this room, you eavesdrop on a conversation between Hreidmar, an Ogre Shaman, and Colonel Grimsson dicussing the cross-breeding of dwarves and ogres. You learn that Red Axe bribed the boatman into deliberately crashing into the statue so that they could blame it on a human in the Giant Dwarf quest. Crawl through the hole at the opposite end of the room from where you entered.

Room 3: Another Chasm
You'll now be in another mine cart abyss. Search the box to receive 2 yellow and 1 green stone.


 * 1) Put the green stone on the far left, a yellow one above it, and another yellow one to the right. Ride the cart, search the box, and ride back.
 * 2) Put a yellow stone at the far left, another yellow one spot below that, a green one below that, and another green to the right. Ride the cart, search the box, and ride back.
 * 3) Put a green stone on the far left, another green one spot above that, a yellow one spot above that, a green to the right and below, and a yellow to the right. Ride the cart into the fourth room.

Room 4: Reports
You appear in a small archive room, with a number of bookcases and crates, the ones with visible contents being searchable.


 * Search the three crates. One contains papers concerning taxes, profits, etc. The other two, however, are much more interesting.
 * There is a copy of a letter addressed to the dwarven boatman, signed by Colonel Grimsson. It speaks of the bribe, which was part of the plans you overheard earlier, so that the boatman takes along some gullible human on his boat to blame and destroy the statue of King Alvis.
 * The other letter is a report on an exploring dwarf who entered the mines - your new buddy, the drunken dwarf - whose memory was wiped to avoid any risk, which resulted in him never recovering. The spell had been altered to entail a craving for beer and kebab, so that the dwarf, in case he remembers something, would not be taken seriously.
 * One of the books in the bookcases contains information on Red Axe employees, in particular Colonel Grimsson and Grunsh. The former is the henchman you met earlier, who, after the Battle of Barendir, was fired from the Black Guard and employed by the Red Axe. The latter is the ogre shaman, who was found frozen on top of the troll mountains and taken care of by the company.

Read through each document and continue your exploration.

Room 5: Yet Another Chasm
Moving forward from the reports room, you arrive at the final chasm. Search the box for 2 yellow and green stones.


 * 1) Put a green stone on the far left, a green stone one above that, a yellow stone one above that, and a yellow one to the right. Ride, search, and ride back.
 * 2) Put a yellow stone on the far left, another yellow one below that, another yellow one below that, a green to the right, a green above that, and another green above that. Ride, search, and ride back.
 * 3) Put a green stone on the far left, another green one above that, a yellow one above that, a green to the right of that, a yellow above, a green below, a yellow above, then a yellow below. Ride to the sixth and final room.

Room 6: Chaos Dwarves
A cutscene starts, where the Red Axe director will show off his army of Chaos Dwarves. But before you can report to Commander Veldaban of what you've seen so far, Grunsh the Ogre shaman catches you prying into their plans and casts a spell that eliminates all your memories of the caves.

Kebabs and Beer
Go back to Commander Veldaban. Alas, you don't remember any of what had happened, but your instincts will tell you to go to the Laughing Miner pub and have a beer and kebab.

Buy a kebab from Kjut, the store owner on the east side - immediately south-west of the Drunken Dwarf's home - and a beer from the pub to the south. Once you're inside, drink the beer and eat the kebab to begin a humorous cutscene. You must do this inside the pub.

Congratulations. Quest, complete!

Reward

 * 2 Quest Points.
 * 5,000 Experience
 * 5,000 Experience
 * 2 Mature dwarven stout
 * 2 Marrentill seeds, if you delivered Rind's letter.
 * 2 extra spins on the Squeal of Fortune

Music unlocked

 * Forgettable Melody
 * Right On Track

Required for completing
Completion of Forgettable Tale of a Drunken Dwarf is required for the following:
 * Forgiveness of a Chaos Dwarf

Cultural references

 * If you look at your quest journal after your memory was erased and the boards were broken, it replaces all of the text with a few random lines. The phrase 'bad wolf' appears in this text, a reference to a running theme in the 2005 series of Doctor Who.Bad Wolf.png
 * The part of the dwarf's story with "Pink dragons" is a reference to seeing pink elephants, an euphemism for alcoholic hallucinations.
 * If you talk to Gauss after you drink with him, he says "I say, I say, a toast to this fine human!", which is a reference to the popular musical Fiddler on the Roof.
 * When eavesdropping on the Red Axe, Grimsson says, "And we would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for that pesky human," which is a play on the popular dialogue from the Scooby Doo TV Series.
 * When talking to the Rowdy Dwarf, he'll say at some time, "Mmhh, beer.", which is a frequently repeated line from the animated TV series, The Simpsons.

Trivia

 * At the start of the quest the commander asked "Player_name, have you heard?" to which the player responds "You mean, half the world has suddenly become a farmer?" This refers to the Farming skill that was released on 11 July 2005 just a few weeks before the quest.
 * During the Drunken Dwarf's first mention of the Kelda stout, he says it is "Ash blue ash the river! Ash strong ash ole Dondakan's rock. Ash foul tasting ash ash." "Dondakan's Rock" is the rock in the Between a Rock... quest.
 * Upon the completion of this quest, one's Adventurer's Log will read: "I investigated a Red Axe threat to Keldagrim...and I don't remember what happened next. I keep thinking about beer and kebabs."
 * After completing the quest if you talk to Kjut, the kebab shop owner, and select the option "Talk about the drunken dwarf", he will reply "I thought you would know plenty."

Forgettable Tale of a Drunken Dwarf Forgettable Tale of a Drunken Dwarf