Rise of the Red Axe quest series
The Rise of the Red Axe quest series is a series of quests centering around the Red Axe of Keldagrim's devious plans to take over Keldagrim and then the whole of Gielinor.
Storyline
The Giant Dwarf
The dwarves of Keldagrim opened up their city for the first time since the God Wars. The quest starts when the player enters the city. He takes the boat to cross the River Kelda and breaks the statue of King Alvis, a dwarven king who lived 500 years ago, after the boatman claims to lose control over his boat. The player has to repair the statue requiring some clothes, an axe and some boots. He can choose to join any company of the Consortium except The Red Axe, because they don't accept humans (and The Yellow Fortune or The Brown Engine depending on their gender). After doing some work for a company, the player may join them and even go with them to a consortium meeting, where the company directors discuss about the statue and the head that should be carved on it. The Red Axe Director argues that his head should be carved on the statue because his company is the largest and the wealthiest, but the player interferes and chooses his own company director. The Red Axe Director then becomes furious and leaves the meeting, while shouting at everyone that they will regret this.
Forgettable Tale of a Drunken Dwarf
Hreidmar, the Red Axe Director, left the city and took the whole Red Axe with him. Commander Veldaban, the head of the Black Guard, asks the player to find out what his further plans are. The only clue he has is a drunken dwarf. The player needs to make some Kelda Stout for him. He needs to find four of his friends to get Kelda seeds. Once he has those four seeds, the player can farm them into Kelda hops, which can be brewed into the Stout. The drunken dwarf then tells him about a boarded up Mine cart trail. The player takes that Mine Cart, after asking his Company Director to have the boards removed. He arrives at a Mine Cart puzzle and has to complete it to go further with the Mine Cart. He then arrives in a cave where he sees a conversation between Hreidmar, an Ogre shaman and a henchman. He finds out The Red Axe paid the boatman to crash into the statue of the giant dwarf. After another puzzle, the player lands into a storeroom where he finds some interesting documents about The Red Axe. Finally, a last puzzle has to be done and he will enter a cave where he sees Hreidmar, the henchman and some gnomes of Arposandra. They are discussing about some experiments and Hreidmar presents an army of Chaos Dwarves to the gnome emissary. The player wants to return to tell Veldaban what he saw, but the Ogre shaman erases what he has seen of his memory. The player finds himself at the entrance of the same Mine cart trail, which is boarded up again, without any memory of the Red Axe plans. He then tells Veldaban he wants kebab and goes to the Laughing Miner Pub.
Forgiveness of a Chaos Dwarf
Commander Veldaban tells the player that more and more people are missing from Keldagrim. After talking, the player suggests that the Red Axe may be behind the missing people. They are interrupted by a Black Guard that informs Veldaban some Chaos Dwarves are attacking the watchtower. Commander Veldaban and the player then hurry to the watchtower to defeat the remaining Chaos Dwarf atop the watchtower. The Chaos Dwarf drops a Grand Exchange slip and the player discusses it with Commander Veldaban. He tells the player to go to the Grand Exchange to ask about this request. When he asks about the slip, he is given a package with some seemingly random and useless items in it. When he returns to Keldagrim, the player finds Commander Veldaban drinking in the Laughing Miner bar, in Keldagrim East. He says he is angry because he has been taken off the investigation of the missing dwarves, due to the fact that all the dwarves missing are from Keldagrim East (The East side is where all the poor dwarves live, while all the rich ones live in the West side. Since the rich invest in the Consortium, and the Consortium finances the Black Guard, the Black Guard spends more resources into protecting the dwarves from Keldagrim West). The investigation is handed to Lieutenant Brae, which, according to Veldaban, is just "a girl with a weak will" that simply does whatever the Supreme Commander Bisi tells her to do. The player talks to Veldaban about the random items in the package and gives him a Guardsman's stout, a very strong ale only given to dwarves from the Black Guard. The beer gets him drunk and he decides to confront the Supreme Commander Bisi.
After a pretty heated argument, Commander Veldaban goes to bed and falls asleep. The player decides to figure out the secret link between the recent Chaos Dwarf activities and the missing dwarves. He investigates the area around the watchtower and coincidentally, all items from the package help him to find and track down clues, eventually leading him to a secret Mine Cart cave with a control panel that looks strangely familiar (he controlled some minecarts with a similar control panel during Forgettable Tale of a Drunken Dwarf, however near the end of the quest he was brainwashed so he couldn't remember anything he found in the cave), and realises that the green and yellow stones found in the package are used to control the Mine Cart rails. Since he can't control all the rails at the same time with just 2 stones while riding the Mine Cart, the player leaves and comes back with Veldaban to solve the maze with him. They get to the other side of the maze, revealing a cell with all the missing dwarves inside. When they set them free, one of the dwarves refuses to leave until they find her husband Brunolt, who was taken from the cell by Chaos Dwarves. After going through a tunnel, the player and veldaban arrive at a cave, just in time to see Brunolt being brainwashed by Grunsh and turned into a Chaos Dwarf. Upon seeing this, Veldaban screams "Hilda!" and blows their cover, resulting in the player and the Commander being spotted. After hiding in a safe room, Commander Veldaban tells the player about him and his (not mentioned, but obvious) love interest Hilda, who stumbled in here searching for her brother. However, they were caught, and while Veldaban's memory was erased, Hilda was transformed into a Chaos Dwarf (because she was from Keldagrim East, while Veldaban was too important to disappear unnoticed by the Black Guard, which would lead to them finding the secret cave unless The Red Axe released him). Colonel Grimsson reveals that Hilda was amongst the Chaos Dwarf battalion that attacked the watchtower earlier, and since none of them had returned, it is implied that Hilda was unknowingly killed during the battle, even going as far as to suggest that she was the Chaos dwarf hand cannoneer killed by the player and Veldaban atop the watchtower. Upon hearing this, Veldaban vows to take his revenge on Grimsson. Using another tool from the package, now obviously ordered by Hilda, the player and Veldaban manage to find another escape route out of the cave. They then immediately hurry to the Consortium to report the situation. During the meeting, the Company Directors decide to post Colonel Grenda's Black Guard division in the entrance cave to the Red Axe base to stop the Chaos Dwarves from entering the city. While Veldaban thinks the Red Axe must be stopped at once, the directors don't think the problem is serious enough to launch a full-scale assault on the base, since "no one important" went missing. Veldaban replies that Hilda was brainwashed and transformed into a Chaos Dwarf and that he should be in charge of investigating the Red Axe. Before the Supreme Commander Bisi can reply, Veldaban resigns from the Black Guard and throws his commander insignia to the floor in anger. He now tries to investigate the Red Axe on his own.
King of the Dwarves
The fourth installment in the series, King of the Dwarves, was released in January of 2011.
The player saves a group of miners from an explosion in the Lava Flow Mine. It turns out that a chaos dwarf had caused the explosion, causing a riot to arise in Keldagrim. Hreidmar convinces the crowds of protesters that the age of monarchy must return.
Together with Veldaban and the leader of the Monarchist Society, Meike, the player manages to discover the rightful heir of the throne. Unfortunately, this heir happens to be Hreidmar. While Meike alters the family tree, the player and Veldaban are confronted by Colonel Grimsson in a cave on the other side of the River Kelda : the Barendir cave. Colonel Grimsson mocks Veldaban with the loss of his girlfriend and it dawns on Veldaban that Grimsson had been brainwashed by The Red Axe, with which he starts to tease him. This makes Grimsson very angry and he begins to attack Veldaban. Together, the player and Veldaban defeat Grimsson (who then runs back towards his army of chaos dwarves, further into the cave) and realise they must find reinforcements. The player visits the trolls, meets up with My Arm, and passes a test of strength. Finally the troll warlord Pretty Flower agrees to assist in the fight against the chaos dwarves.
When the player returns to Keldagrim, the consortium announces it steps down and becomes an advisor body under the new king. Veldaban is crowned king instead of Hreidmar. Furious, Hreidmar threatens to take over the city with his army, but a black guard arrives and announces the trolls have defeated it. Veldaban orders the black guard to arrest Hreidmar, but he escapes through the crowd. Veldaban then grudgingly takes the crown from Meike and becomes the king of the dwarves.
Part 5
Jagex has revealed that the Rise of the Red Axe quest series will be a five quest storyline. The fifth installment is planned to have a rank of Grandmaster.
Related Quests
These quests are not directly part of the series, but feature plot elements of the series or tie into it indirectly.