Requirements:
-Completed Gertrude's Cat
-Completed Itchlarin's Little Helper
-Must have a cat
Items:
-1 Cat
-1 Catspeak Amulet
-1 Kwuarm (Herb used for super strengths and weapon poisons)
-1 Red Spider Eggs
-1 empty vial
NOTE: If you don't have kwuarm or red spider eggs, you can get a rat poison from the Ardougne Clock Tower Dungeun by going through the white square door. If that's the case, you won't need a guide either.
-4 Cheese
-1 Bucket of milk
-1 Marrentill
-1 Ground Unicorm Horn
-Some cat food like tuna, milk, and sardine.
-1 pot
-1 weeds
-1 tinderbox
-1000 + coins (You'll only spend 100)
Teleports:
-2 Varrock (If not already there)
-1 Ardougne
-3 Falador OR games necklace and 2 glory amulet charges
-1 ring of duelling
Quest Length:
-Long (Took me 4 hours, but I was writing this guide during it)
Quest Difficulty:
-Intermediate
Quest start:
-Speak to Gertrude west of Varrock.
___________
Speak to Gertrude.
She will tell you about 2 sisters in the Varrock Sewers.
Head down there and go to the quest star.
They will be unimpressed (and funny) at you, and will test you by ordering you to catch 8 rats.
Don't worry. If you lose count, simply check your quest log.
Afterwards, the sisters will have a good laugh, give you a rat pole, and tell you to visit Jimmy Dazzling in the Ardougne Inn north of the castle. Teleport to Ardougne.
He will give you a mission. I prefer to call them 'stealth missions', because you have to get past guards and all unseen by timing your movement correctly. Just like at the witches house and Trollheim when getting goutweed.
Here is the preferred path. I stop at safe areas, but don't get too confident. Watch the guards movements (Be patient, they're slow), and strike when you have the chance.
Don't worry if you're caught. You're merely teleported and have to try again. I screenshoted in safe areas in map pictures.
You start here:
Break for this garden here when the guards circle it.
From there, wait for the guards to return to the front and head over here.
Watch the position of the guard. You'll know when to go.
Once he's further south behind the shrubbery, head to here.
Now, if you look on the backside of the building, you'll find something you can climb on.
Make sure there are no guards nearby, and climb up. It may be a good idea to check up there before you go.
Once you're up there, you've hit what I call a 'checkpoint'. When you're caught, you appear right below the back of the house so you can quickly return.
You must be patient. There are 2 guards here, but they can see nearly all travelable areas. A safe spot would be here. Get as close to the plantpot as you can.
Now, there are 6 rats to catch. The first is in this bedroom.
And the next 2 are over here. This area can be tricky to get into, so I suggest you make for the other bedroom, then go for it.
Once you hunt those rats, go down that ladder.
You'll emerge here. Don't worry, it's completely safe ... at least when the doors are closed.
The last 3 rats are in these 2 rooms. Kill them, have a chat with your cat if you have the catspeak amulet, and now you have to get out the same way you got in.
However, getting caught isn't going to do it. You hit a checkpoint that'll bring you back here to the kitchen if you're caught.
Not to worry, though. Just get to the balcony and climb down. You'll teleport back to the inn so you won't have to go through the garden again.
Talk to Jimmy again to get a manual of the rat pits.
Then he'll suggest Hooknosed Jack for cat trainers.
He's in the enclosed section of Varrock. Before you go there, you might want to grab a bottle of rat poison from the Ardougne clock tower dungeun. While you're around there, you can easily get back to Varrock via the spirit tree. Othwise, merely teleport again.
Once you're in Varrock, speak to him.
He's also got a job for you. You need to make some rat poison and put poisoned cheese in a warehouse to kill off the rats.
Good thing I told you to get these already. Or did I?
Not a problem. Spider Eggs in the Wilderness dungeun in Edgeville, churn cheese in Lumbridge, buy or identify Kwuarm by kiling men or something, and viola, you're ready.
Otherwise, there's rat poison in the Ardougne Clock Tower Dungeun. But I doubt you'd rather go that far.
Head behind the nearby bar.
If you head upstairs, you'll find rat haven with Pox hunting rats. Pox is Jack's cat. If you look around on the walls, there are 4 rat holes. Use (don't eat!) the 4 poisoned cheese on them, then you can leave. Or, you can stick around and hunt rats with your cat too if you want.
Talk to Jack. Oh no, his cat has been poisoned! He'll tell you to go to the apothecary.
Talk to him about cats ('Talk about something else' if you did 'A Tail of 2 Cats' quest) and give him the ingredients, which include a bucket of milk, a marrentill, and a ground unicorn horn. You'll get the cat antipoison.
Talk to Jack. He'll thank you, but say your job isn't done yet. You and your cat now have to take on the biggest nastiest rat in the warehouse!
Go to it.
There it is! But how to get to it? The door's boarded up!
See that hole in the corner? Examine it. It'll give you a pretty good idea of what to do.
Use the cat on the hole to begin your first catfight. It's like you VS a monster, with hits and everything! You can select your attack style at the start. 'Be careful' is a defensive approach while 'Go get him!' is offensive.
NOTE: Watch it, though. The rat is good. If you have a young kitten, it'll have 4 hitpoints and if you have a grown cat, it should have 6 hitpoints. The rat should have around 10. You can feed the cat to heal him by using food that the cat will eat like salmon, shrimp, trout, tuna, and milk on the hole. Unless you're really lucky, you'll have to give your cat food at least twice.
If you're in a tight spot, simply run away from the hole to save your cat.
Once it's dead, talk to Jack. For overgrown cats, he'll suggest another cat trainer named Smokin' Joe in Keldagrim. I teleported to Falador and went there vis tracks in the dwarven mines or the white wolf mountain, but you can use a games necklace and teleport to Burthrope, then the White Wolf mountain to Keldagrim.
The rat pit is just north of the cart tracks in the bar. Look for the red star.
Joe's not there. Instead, he's around the east side of the pickaxe shop north of there.
Talk to him. He's got major lung problems, but his method of smoking rats out is pretty clever. He'll tell you how to make your own smoke pot. It requires a pot (get from upstairs the bar you were just at) and some weeds (rake up the kelda patch east of the consortium).
Light the pot of weeds and go back to Smokin' Joe. There are 2 rooms, each with a rat hole. Put your cat down, and use the pot on this one.
No luck. Try it again. Your cat will interfere and devise a strategy. You smoke them out and he'll OWN them by means of cinema.
It works! Talk to Smokin' Joe. He'll tell you to try Port Sarim and talk to The Face for training wiley cats. Yes, ANOTHER one.
Go to Port Sarim, nearby the house with a range. I teleported to Falador again and walked to Port Sarim. A faster way is to teleport to Karamja via Amulet of Glory.
The Face, ugly as she is, will tell you to talk to Felkrash, who's in the rat pit in the second room.
She'll tell you she wants to write a poem and you must wipe out every rat in Port Sarim in one fell swoop. What's more is she won't tell you how. Makes you think she didn't do it herself and wants to learn, huh?
Nope, she really did it and had a witness. Talk to The Face again. She'll tell you how, and mentions the snake charmer of Pollnivneach.
You can see where this is going, huh?
Go to Pollnivneach. I used a ring of duelling to get to Al Kharid, then to the Shanty pass. You can ride the magic carpets there from the Shanty Pass if you've done The Feud. Talk to the Snake Charmer who's behind the bar. you'll have to use your coins on his pot (gives him 2) to get his attention.
Offer him money after a brief chat, and he'll ask for 1 coin more then you have. Tell him to forget it after he says that you're a resourseful adventurer and walk away slowly (click the menu). He'll decrease the price multiple times. Stop when it says so, and you'll come to an agreement over 100 coins.
Return to Port Sarim by Glory amulet or Falador teleport. You'll have to play these notes by clicking a note, then turning the page. Once they're all filled, click 'play'. Here's the notes.
You also have to click the octave mark when you play the note that it's over top of.
Play it anywhere in Port Sarim. Once successful, enjoy the show.
Talk to Felkrash once again.
BLAMMO! YOU'RE FINISHED!
If you get an overgrown cat, you can bring it to the Port Sarim rat pit and talk to Falkrash to train it to a wiley cat. You can give it a 6 letter name (nothing inappropriate please) to match as well! Plus, they can also hunt butterflies and kalphite larva as well as rats.
Be careful, though. If you don't take your cat hunting often, it'll become lazy. Once that happens, however, just train it up a bit by chasing a bunch of rats (it might decline) and it may once again turn wiley. You can ask how it's doing to get a rough status of its well-being.
Enjoy the rat pits!
