Solving the Rat Quest In Discounty

Within a few days of completing the tutorial in Discounty, your character will awake one day to see rats have run amok in the town. These rats are part of a lengthy questline that lasts from early game to late game, but they play a pivotal role in traversing the town map more easily. This guide will break down how to appease the rats and solve their problems, and what each successful encounter unlocks for you.

Contains spoilers for the later parts of the game's story.

Hardware Store

The Hardware Store is one of the more useful grates to unlock early to give you a quick route to unload old furniture and recyclables from Discounty. However, the item you need, unfortunately, won't unlock until you gain access to the Forest first. Approach the rats until they scatter from a white dish, then go and talk to Ted about the problem. He will say the rats are harmless and only want their usual snacks. Like with all rats, their favorite is cheese. To access goat cheese, you'll need to help Karl the Farmer and advance his trading perks to level 2.

• Gain access to the Forest.
• Sell 30 of his oats and unlock two perks of your choice.
• Help Karl find his favorite sheep in the forest.
• Head to the forest, once it is unlocked, and find the sheep to the far north at Solruna's summoning area.
• Head back to Karl and aid him in culling the sheep, but go to Hilda first for advice.
• Return and tell Karl you're ready and mark every single sheep before talking to him again.
• Convince him of Hilda's plan of selling goat cheese to unlock the trading option.
• Collect the crate and drop it off at Discounty and grab some cheese.

With the cheese in hand, travel back to the Hardware Store and place the cheese in the bowl. The rats will be appeased, and the grate will open. This grate will lead you to Discounty and any other grates you have unlocked so far.

The Harbor

The Harbor rats are a strange case, as you need to chase them off on the right side of the harbor and talk to Fisher and Barbara about what to do next. The fisher won't be that worried at all. Barbara will mention that rats should be at home, not out in the cold. As vague as her words are, the next step is simple.

Go to Solruna's antique shop and buy the pink dollhouse for 25 shills and head back to the harbor near the grate. Near the grate is a yellow crate that can be interacted with. Place the dollhouse on the crate, and the rats will reside there instead. This will unlock the Harbor grate, and your character will use it to lead you to Discounty, automatically connecting with any other previously unlocked grates for fast travel.

The Forest

You'll need to finish the story mode up until you ride to the Lapley Plastics Factory in the back of Guy's delivery truck. Once you unlock the trade deal between yourself and Tammy, you'll be sent back to where you first boarded Guy's truck. The next day, the forest will be open to you. Enter the forest where the yellow tape used to be and head down the path. Go north until you hit asphalt, then run to the left. You will come across an abandoned factory and see a strange sheep on the grate.

After you interact with the sheep, run to the farm and speak to Karl. He'll scoff and say that it wasn't one of his sheep, but it was one that always lived out in the forest area, and that when it played with the kids, it seemed energetic and lively. If you haven't already, you'll need to unlock the energy drink and take one to the sheep.

Here are the steps you need to take:

• Go to Discounty.
• Unlock the Energy Drinks with two perk points and order a crate from the computer's Perk tab.
• Wait for Guy and collect the crate, placing it in storage.
• Take an energy drink from the crate and return to the forest to the sheep.

Your character will be concerned about the ramifications of providing the sheep with more energy drinks, but once you do, the sheep will disappear from the grate into which the character will automatically enter. The grate leads to Discounty and will be connected to any other grate you have unlocked. While this quest doesn't directly deal with rats, it is still a part of Vermin Ties and is needed to complete the questline.

Teller's House

This quest will not be unlocked until Chapter 3, after the protest to boycott Discounty is postponed. Choose to find out why the sea is turning green from her list of demands, and Ms. Anderson will send you off to the Harbor to investigate. You need to go and talk to Barbara (who is only available from 07:00 to 20:00) and Fisher at the docks. The rats at the bus stop grate can be chased away, and a glowing yellow crate is nearby. Talk to Teller, and she will say she once saw them munching on radioactive waste. Gaining access to this item involves the quest mentioned earlier and a few requirements to be met.

• You need to be at level 2 trade, dealing with both Fisher and Barbara.
• Have perks that increase Barbara's products, as well as some attractive deep freezers for fishy fish and fishy sticks.
• Solve the disappearance of the fish demand from Ms. Anderson first.

Talk with Barbara, and she will purposely dodge the question. Next, question Fisher, who doesn't know much, but will say that he thought he heard something falling into the ocean in the evening. To find the next step, go and talk to Hilda at the Drunken Tern and learn that Ted has been wandering around the harbor at night, at the same time as the incident happened.

Go to Ted at the Hardware Store and ask about what happened. He would seem scared and would admit his relationship with Grace has been distant, and he went to the cliff for some air. He claims he heard something splash into the water late at night and that he was so scared he didn't get a good look at who was doing the dumping.

Go to the Harbor at night and witness the dumping of the large pipe that is owned by Poseidon's Galley, leading them to be the main cause. After the next day, confront Barbara. She will relent and will give you the waste as well as access to their latest product to sell at the store. However, she will warn that she will sue you and Discounty if you ever tell anyone the truth. Take a barrel of waste from Barbara's usual pick-up area and take it to the rats. Place the barrel on the yellow crate, and the rats will unlock the grate. This connects you to the bus stop and Discounty, along with all previously unlocked grates.

The Farm

The last grate you will be able to unlock. While this is a useful grate, sadly, by the time you unlock this, you'll be near completion of the game as a whole. For this, you need to solve the curse of the Nisse and help Karl with his issues in Chapter 3 before you can solve the rat problem here.

• Solve his problems with the Nisse.
  • Have Karl's perk level 2 and be ready for an upgrade.
  • Obtain fishy Hake mix from Barbara after selling 10 fishy sticks in a single day.
  • Obtain an infused apple by bringing an apple to Solruna and have her infuse the apple with magic at her shrine at the designated time.
  • Bring the items to Karl and lift the Nisse curse, which is actually feeding the rats.
  • Confront him about the fertilizer pollution caused and unlock his last trade deal with his potatoes.

• Bring an apple, a fishy stick, and oats with you. All three can be found at Discounty.
• Combine the three ingredients into the glowing dish at the farm and unlock the Farm grate.

You'll automatically travel to Discounty through the newly opened grate. And with that, you have conquered the rat problem and unlocked all available waypoint grates in the game.