I Smell a Rat

I Smell a Rat

Year

1325 AE

Storyline

Personal story

Chapter

Interested Parties

Location

Venlin Vale
(Brisban Wildlands)
Skrittsburgh Tunnels
(Brisban Wildlands)

Level

20

Race

Asura

Choice

VAL-A Golem

Preceded by

Short Fuse

Followed by

Magnum Opus

API

41

I Smell a Rat is the third part of the personal story storyline Interested Parties for asura characters who chose the VAL-A Golem as their first invention. This story is selected if the player suspects it was Keppa's modifications to the player's original VAL-A blueprints that caused the golem to run amok.

Objectives

Apprehend Keppa in Skrittsburgh.

• Head to Venlin Vale.
• Apprehend Keppa.
• Fend off the Skritt.
• Negotiate with the Skritt.

Rewards

Click here to edit the reward data

All professions

• 2,808 
• Basic Salvage Kit
• Bag of Loot (4)

Profession-specific

• One of the following: Malign Chain Legs, Mighty Chain Legs, Resilient Chain Legs
• One of the following: Malign Seeker Pants, Mighty Seeker Pants, Resilient Seeker Pants
• One of the following: Malign Embroidered Pants, Mighty Embroidered Pants, Resilient Embroidered Pants

Walkthrough

Travel to Skrittsburgh to confront Keppa. Follow her as she shows you her workforce, and when the skritt turn against her you must help defend Keppa. The easiest method is to take control of the nearby Asura Lightning Turret and fire off discharges (abilities 2-4) as the skritt attack from the three different paths. After half a dozen waves or so are defeated, follow Keppa once more until she begins speaking with a skritt scavenger and then Zojja.

NPCs

Allies

Asura

• Keppa
• Zojja

Golem

• VAL-A Golem

Skritt

• Skritt Sentry

Foes

• Skritt
• Skritt Forager
• Skritt Lobber
• Skritt Pistolier
• Skritt Scavenger

Objects

Siege weapons

• Lightning Turret

Dialogue

Upon entering the story:

Zojja: Keppa's just down the road! Let's go!.

Talk with Zojja before talking to Keppa:

Zojja: Go to the mouth of the cave. I bet we'll find Keppa there.

On my way.

Approaching Keppa:

Keppa: Plenty of goodies down by the river. Fetch 'em for me quick, and there'll be double the shinies!

Skritt Scavenger: Yes yes yes! Shinies! Noisemakers! We go. We go now!

Keppa: Want to see something amazing? Follow me.

Following Keppa into the cave:

Keppa: My, there are even more of you! Good, good. Here for work?

Skritt Scavenger: Work? No! Things to trade! For rewards! Shiny noisemakers, yes! Yes?

Keppa: Rewards, yes. Here, I've a nice button for you. Call it a down payment.

Skritt Scavenger: Shiny button, yes yes! Good start! More to come, right? We go, bring things back!

Cinematic with Keppa:

<Character name>: Come clean, Keppa. You put that passel of pint-sized killer golems in play without knowing how dangerous they were.

Keppa: Killer? No, no. My market niche is lab assistants. I'm using skritt at the moment. They work cheap, but their utility has proven...limited.

Keppa: My mini-golems are going to make me rich. They fetch, haul, carry, and fight...everything a genius needs from her krewe!

Keppa: I can prove it, too. Let me just-oh, dear. Here come my skritt, clamoring for attention. Don't worry. This happens every so often.

Zojja: They sound angry.

Keppa: They always SOUND angry. But once I toss out a handful of shiny buttons, they'll love me again. Observe.

After skritt arrive:

Keppa: Why, there's so many of you now! Wonderful. Bring more things, get more shinies!

Skritt Scavenger: No more buttons. Real work, real treasure. Shiny tools, noisy machines! Pay us.

Keppa: But...my financial model is based on paying you in trinkets! Can't we renegotiate?

Skritt Scavenger: Negotiate? Yes. Give us things that make our lives easier, or we end yours!

Keppa: Golems, do your stuff. Stop these mutinous skritt!

Zojja: There's too many! Get on the turret and drive them off!

Speaking with Zojja before the skritt rebel:

Zojja: Doesn't Keppa realize that the more skritt she has, the more danger she's in?

I don't think she's figured that part out.

Upon defeating the last wave of skritt:

Keppa: It's a full-on rebellion! Follow me. If I don't mollify these skritt, we're all in trouble.

Speaking with Zojja:

Zojja: Is that the skritt leader? Oh, this should be interesting.

I'm not holding my breath.

After following Keppa:

Keppa: Please, I meant no offense. I thought we had an equitable arrangement!

Skritt Scavenger: No more buttons. Real work, real treasure. Shinies, noisemakers. We get, or we go!

Keppa: Wait, what-oh, never mind. I really need to build myself a less volatile work force.

Cinematic after skritt leave:

Zojja: You need to update your files, Keppa. Skritt aren't simple-minded: they communicate with each other much more efficiently than they can with us.

Zojja: A dozen skritt is a dozen minds focusing on the same problem. Gather twenty skritt, or a hundred, and their collective mental acuity rivals ours.

Keppa: That explains lot, actually. So all I need to do is keep their numbers below a certain threshold.

<Character name>: No, you need to stop exploiting them, or it'll come back to bite you on the backside like it did today.

<Character name>: I think we're done here, Zojja. Keppa's golems haven't run wild or tried to kill anyone. Is Mink the one we wanted all along?

Zojja: Mink isn't any craftier than Keppa here. That leaves Councillor Haia...who is, in fact, sharp enough to cover her tracks.

Zojja: I've got a new theory. Meet me back at my lab, and we'll test it.

After cinematic:

Skritt Scavenger: I don't know how to get down from here.

Speaking with Zojja before she runs off:

Zojja: Meet me back at my lab, <Character name>. We'll find a way to prove Haia's behind all this.

See you there.

Talking to Keppa:

Keppa: What do you mean skritt get smarter if there's more of 'em? I thought they were just well-motivated!

What kind of asura doesn't know about skritt? Didn't you take Ratology in College?

It was an elective! Anyway, I learned my lesson. Now I need to design a scavenger-bot—but at least I won't have to pay it.

Ah, the time-honored way of the golemancer.

We all make mistakes. Just be glad we showed up in time to save your cute, little ears from becoming rat-food.

Aw, do you really think they're cute? Thanks Savant. I'll have to pay you back some day.

I'll take you up on that.

I can understand how you got swept up in the moment. Just try to be more responsible.

That's absolutely what happened. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find somewhere else to be.

Good idea.

You can't teach those who won't learn.

My story

“ I located Keppa, but her golems aren't the ones putting blame on me for their mayhem. Did I err in my analysis of those modified golem blueprints? — My story

---

Asura storyline