Forgettable Tale of a Drunken Dwarf is part 2 in the Rise of the Red Axe series, focusing on the dwarves and their capital city of Keldagrim. After the events in The Giant Dwarf, the Red Axe Mining Company has departed the city and set up a new headquarters in a remote underground location, and their place at the Consortium has been taken by the Orange Flame.
Veldaban, the Commander of the Black Guard in Keldagrim, wants you to investigate the case and find out if the Red Axe is planning anything nefarious. The problem is, the only lead he's got is an extremely drunken and kebab-obsessed dwarf. But hey, it's something, so go talk to the guy, won't you?
The drunken dwarf won't tell you anything before you get him a pint of Kelda Stout. No tavern around actually sells it, so you'll have to make some yourself, using four kelda hops seeds you can get from the Drunken Dwarf and his three friends. Kelda hops grow quickly and don't require watering, but they only grow underground, so you'll have to plant them in the Kelda Hops patch in Keldagrim. Once they've grown, you can turn the hops into Kelda Stout at the distillery upstairs in the Laughing Miner pub. Once the dwarf has his beer, he'll tell you some stories of his expeditions into the tunnels around Keldagrim, ending with one where he can't remember what happened. The tunnel is closed, but you can fix that with a word to the company you joined duringThe Giant Dwarf.
Go investigate the tunnel, and you'll find some very illuminating things. For one, the Red Axe was actually behind the last quest- they had sabotaged the statue and paid the boatman to crash into it, to make it look like an accident that could be blamed on you. The plan was then to re-create it with Hriedmar's face, but that one failed because you became a tiebreaker and voted for someone else. For another, the drunken dwarf had found them out in the same tunnel you're in, but was caught and hit by a Laser-Guided Amnesia spell that had the side effect of making the victim crave beer and kebabs (the idea was to make them look drunk so they won't be believed on the off chance they remembered something, but the ogre shaman who did the spell put it on a bit too strong on him). Also, the Red Axe is making an army of corrupted Chaos Dwarves to invade Keldagrim.
Unfortunately, you don't get to tell Veldaban this development, as you are caught and subject to the same Laser-Guided Amnesia spell. The quest ends with you telling drunken stories in a bar while eating kebabs, as Colonel Grimmson gloats that nobody will believe either you or the drunken dwarf. The Red Axe's plans continue uninterrupted.
This quest contains the following tropes:
- Anti-Frustration Features: Kelda Hops grow quickly, don't need any care, and don't get diseased, meaning players can't accidentally kill the Plot Coupon. The Kelda Stout itself brews very quickly, meaning you don't have to wait days (as in, real life days) to be able to complete one step of the quest. You also get messages when your hops have grown and your stout has brewed, so you don't have to waste your time checking in on it every so often.
- The Cuckoo Lander Was Right: The Drunken Dwarf. Replace 'kebab' with 'chaos dwarf', and you have the Red Axe's plan in a nutshell. During the quest, you discover that he really did discover what the Red Axe was up to, but was caught and his brain was scrambled, so what little he can remember is mixed up with his cravings.
- Downer Ending: The Red Axe is free to continue their plans, and even on the off chance you do remember, nobody's going to believe you.
- Ironic Echo: The quest name is called "Forgettable Tale of a Drunken Dwarf". In the end, the player's mind is wiped of the events and similarly replaced with cravings for kebabs and beer, and though they believe they're under a spell of some sort, they made a laughing stock out of themselves with their drunken kebab rambles at the Laughing Miner and no one believes them anymore.Player's journal: They think my stories are just some forgettable tales of a drunken human.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Happened to the dwarf who discovered the Red Axe turning normal dwarves into Chaos Dwarves, and happens to you at the end, after you're caught investigating.
- Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: After you're caught and subject to the Laser-Guided Amnesia spell, the player's quest journal is wiped of all information about the Chaos dwarves and the Red Axe base and is instead replaced with the following:Hi hi hi ha ha ha ha.
Lalalalalalalalalala.
Rock hat nice butterfly bad wolf sing song down the river.
I saw... I saw... I saw kebabs? Wearing silly hats! Yes!
AHAHAHAHA, I've gone totally mad! AHAHAHAHA! - Red Baron: Colonel Grimmson, the Butcher of Barendir.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: One of the (drunk) dwarves you need to get seeds from is willing to lend you his seed (you can give it back once you've planted it and brewed the resulting plant into alcohol), but later realizes that you're not going to give it back- because after you've drunk a pint of Kelda Stout, you'll be too drunk to remember. He relents when you tell him you're not going to drink it yourself.
- Sociopathic Soldier: Grimmson. It's why he was kicked out of the army and recruited by the Red Axe. He got his nickname when he kept killing trolls in a battle even when they were already routed.
- Unwitting Pawn: The Red Axe was trying to make you this in the previous quest. It didn't quite work out the way they planned.
