One Piercing Note

One Piercing Note is a novice quest that was released on 7 November 2011. The quest continues from the legend described in the story of The Song From Before The War, found in ‘Lores and Histories’ section of the RuneScape website. It is a Murder Mystery quest, focusing on the why of the murder.

The quest contains an extensive amount of audio, and as such is recommended to be done with sound on. However, sound is not necessary for the completion of the quest.

Starting Out
Head east from Al Kharid over the stile past the Desert strykewyrms to the Citharede Abbey. A Strykewyrm hunter will speak to you before you can enter and tell you about the Abbey of Saint Elspeth. As you enter the Abbey, you will hear a group of troubadours singing, and one of the sisters waiting for you. Speak to this Sister Catherina. She will tell you that Abbess Benita has asked her to wait for an adventurer to arrive, but she doesn't know why.

Sister Anna's death


Abbess Benita says she last saw Sister Anna at Vespers the day before, and found her body when she didn't turn up for Compline. She gives you a key to Sister Anna's cell, so you can investigate in her private room. Next she wants you to inspect Sister Anna's body. Finally you have to talk with the people around.

Abbess Benita asks you to be subtle in your investigations as she doesn't want the murder to be known. She gives you a notebook to keep track of your progress. This can be useful if missing a clue, since places to search are crossed out if all the clues involved with them are found.



Cell
Sister Anna's cell is in the south-east corner of the Abbey with the rest of the cells. Read the doors to find the correct one and open it with key in your inventory. You have to find a cloth fragment here by looking around and then you have to investigate the window, which reveals it was broken from inside.

You should also search the beds in the room west of Abbess Benita to find a second cloth fragment.

Body
Sister Anna's body is in the infirmary, to the south-west of the Abbey. The abbess prepared it for burial herself and forbade the other sisters from seeing it. You can investigate the body simply by clicking on the bed covered with grey blanket. The information about Sister Anna's body and her wounds will be revealed.

People
You will also need to speak to a total of five people found in and around the monastery, and the order you speak to them in does not matter.
 * Sister Cecilia - located in the Altar Room of the abbey, with the choir
 * Sister Debora - located in the clock tower
 * Sister Elena - located in the kitchen
 * Valerio - located outside the abbey
 * Sister Catherina - located in the Altar Room of the abbey, opposite the side of the choir

You will need to help Sister Debora, who can be found upstairs in the clock tower in the north-east corner, with setting up correct time on the clock. When first encountering this NPC, she is called "Feet", as her head is inside the clock mechanism. Beware the clock is mirrored, so you must in fact do the opposite of her demands. (For example, if she says the clock is 20 minutes fast, then you need turn the clock forward 20 minutes.) If you set it the wrong way she will let you know. As soon as you set it the right way she also lets you know.

After you have collected all the clues, return to Abbess Benita and say that you are finished. If you didn't collect all the clues, she will say how many you still have to find. After you submit the clues, say who you think is the killer. The option chosen doesn't matter since it will be the same result. A cutscene then occurs and you hear a scream.

Sister Elena's death
You rush down to the cellar (the stairs to the cellar are located in the northeastern room of the abbey) to see Sister Elena's body and you have to search for more clues again. First, investigate the bloodstains and the body. Search the robe cabinet to the west. Return to Benita and ask for the cell key for Elena's room, which you'll then recieve. Search her bed and you will find a bundle of letters. Talk to Benita about them. Next, search the sacks in the room to the east and talk to Valerio and Cecilia about the murder. Finally, speak to Cecilia and learn that she saw the Ripper demon.

After you finish searching for clues related to Sister Elena's murder, you return to Benita to submit what you have found again and she will ask who killed Sister Elena. Again, the option chosen does not matter. She then asks you to bring Sister Catherina back inside.

Sister Catherina's death
Next, go outside and talk to Sister Catherina, who is dancing with the troubadours. Pick the option to take her back inside. She agrees to go with you, but then another cutscene occurs. Catherina is locked outside and player may only watch as "The Ripper" kills Catherina and then see Valerio rushes to try to save her.



Climb up the ladder near the gate and operate the winch. Investigate the body or talk to Valerio. After a brief conversation with Benita who also appears, you are tasked to go to a meeting with her and Valerio in Abbess' office. You again have to choose an option for who you think is the murderer, but it again doesn't matter. In further conversation, you have to suggest making a trap to catch "The Ripper". Suggest some new bait for the killer. After the conversation, pick up a cabbage from the small field and then head downstairs to the cellar. Move the candelabrum next to the Reliquary and put the cabbage on it. Search the robe cabinet for a set of Citharede robes, put it on the candelabrum and hide in the cabinet.

The Final Conflict
Another cutscene appears where "The Killer" arrives and attacks the fake dummy. You should exit the cabinet and you try to knock it out, but it runs away. You chase it around the abbey. It heads to the kitchen, then outside to the gate, which is but closed, so it turns around, runs through the altar room and finally climbs to the uppermost level of the clocktower.
 * Note that your character loads into a separate instanced area to chase the killer, and it is possible to leave this area and return to the regular game area. If this happens, go back down into the cellar and then up, this should reload you into the instanced area and allow you to chase the killer and continue the quest.

Once at the clocktower, the killer takes Sister Debora as a hostage and it reveals itself as Sister Anna. You cannot fight her, only have a conversation with her. She explains that she killed all the sisters because of their lust to dance, which she finds evil in her possessed mind. She believes she is the Spirit of Saint Elspeth and that Saradomin wished the dancers to die, and there is no way to convince her to release Debora and surrender. The trick is in going one floor downstairs, operate the clock mechanism and set the time to just before the hour, so the bell will ring when you return upstairs.

As you talk to Sister Anna again, the bell will ring, causing her to cower due to the noise. Sister Debora pulls off Sister Anna's claws, throwing them off of the tower. Talk to Sister Debora and she will leave. Three options will appear as you talk to Sister Anna. However, any of them result in Sister Anna being thrown off of the tower either by herself or by the player.

===Finishing Up === After the cutscene you are moved to Abbess Benita's office, where you can either reveal Anna as the culprit, or you can hide the sad truth and insist that "The Ripper" demon is the offender. Regardless of your choice, Sister Benita will thank and reward you. Congratulations, quest complete!

Rewards



 * 2 Quest points
 * Citharede robes
 * The ability to recharge 33 Prayer points per second while listening to a Musician (when wearing all 4 Citharede robe-pieces).
 * 250 experience
 * Troubadour Dance emote
 * Ability to make Illuminated god books (with a requirement of level 60 and )
 * The first time an Illuminated god book is made, you will receive 10k experience in both Prayer and Crafting experience per book: making a total of 60k experience in both Prayer and Crafting)
 * The ability to obtain Saint Elspeth's Holy Cithara from the Reliquary beneath the Abbey and gain an additional 50k Prayer experience. Certain items, listed on the Holy Cithara page, are needed to achieve this.

Music Unlocked

 * Valerio's Song - upon entering the Abbey (quest not required)
 * Traveller's Tale - upon exiting the Abbey gate during Sister Elena's murder investigation
 * Troubadour Dance - upon exiting the Abbey gate when tasked to escort Sister Catherina back
 * Citharede Requiem - during the first cutscene of funeral ceremony

Pre-release
In the lead-up to the quest, the Lore The Song From Before The War was released, containing hints about the quest and the lore attached to it. A One Piercing Note developer's blog was also released.

The location of the quest was revealed at RuneFest, and the desert was altered in an update a week before release to make room for the Abbey.

Audio hints were released through Skaldrun's Images forum thread, the first time audio hints have been used:


 * http://soundcloud.com/keildest/choir-part-1/s-736Mg
 * Lyrics: Holy Elspeth guide our tongues to sing to Saradomin's grace. Grant us the vision that you saw to hold before us all our days.
 * http://soundcloud.com/keildest/choir-part-2/s-DG95j
 * Lyrics: Teach us to stand fast, as you stood, undaunted by the demon's crys. The clash of battle shook you not, nor he did use Zamoraks lies.
 * http://soundcloud.com/keildest/choir-part-3
 * Lyrics: Teach us that single piercing note that rang out with your final breath. Thou shook to ash the demon's heart; brought it to silence and to death.

Trivia

 * On the first day of the quest's release, the reward portion on the quest help said "The spoilers departed with a shrill scream. We'll reveal more soon, once we've pieced together the evidence."
 * Before the quest was added to the game, a low rock wall was visible just after where the entrance is now. Therefore players who run up to the wall before the system update took place would get the automatic message from the strykewyrm hunter when they run out of the place, not in.
 * After the quest, players can talk to Cecilia, the sister that leads the choir. She'll ask the player if she needs to leave the abbey and be a traveling musician instead.
 * One of the suggestions you could make when trying to find the killer is "I'll kill them all and Saradomin can sort it out". This is a reference to the phrase "Kill them all and let God sort them out", supposedly said by one of several historical leaders about capturing multi-religion cities.
 * Right clicking the dummy shows it to be named Sister Cabbage.
 * In addition to being the first fully NPC voiced quest, this is also possibly the most violent quest to date, featuring not only relatively high levels of blood, and textual descriptions of corpse mutilation, but also a fully animated death sequence. The only other quests up to this point that involve NPC death are Ritual of the Mahjarrat, While Guthix Sleeps, The Void Stares Back and Dragon Slayer, and in most of those cases the sequence involves immolation, whereas One Piercing Note involves an NPC being stabbed to death, complete with blood and sound effects.
 * A bug occurred that you added a clue, even though you finished the quest.
 * "The Ripper" is more than likely a reference to a British serial killer Jack the Ripper a man who killed many people in mortifying ways of which most were women. The quest seems to have multiple relations to Jack the Ripper including the mortifying death of Sister Anna.A_clue_after_finishing_the_quest.png
 * The plot of the quest has many similarities to the Italian novel The Name of the Rose. This has been stated to be completely coincidental.
 * The quest is both similar to and different from the quest, Murder Mystery in multiple ways. Both are novice, no-requirement murder mystery quests that take place within a relatively confined area. Also, both feature a character named Anna (Anna vs. Sister Anna). The quests also have characters whose names begin with the first few letters of the alphabet (Anna, Bob, Carol, David, Elizabeth and Frank in Murder Mystery vs. Sister Anna, Abbess Benita, Sisters Catherina/Cecelia, Sister Debora and Sister Elena in One Piercing Note). The two quests are explicitly contrasted in the developers' blog released before One Piercing Note, which stated that the main difference between the two is that Murder Mystery focused on the who of the murder while One Piercing Note focused on the why.
 * When you ask Sister Debora about what she thought of Sister Anna she makes a reference to the Clock Maker analogy. This analogy is a philosophical argument that compares the world to a clock, and God to the clock maker. The most famous philosopher who advocated this argument was William Paley.
 * Troubadour is a style of poetry that arose out of northern France in the High Middle Ages. This poetry dealt with the issues of love in the feudal society, where marriage was arranged. Common themes include: forbidden love (between non-marital couples), secrecy, and - ergo - a third agent standing between the two "star-crossed" lovers. Troubadour (Troubdritz for women writers) poetry is said to be incluenced by the Thousand and One Nights.
 * The killer bears a resemblance to the monster from the film The Village.
 * A major bug occurs when you are chasing the "The Killer" and instead of following "The Killer" to the clock tower you go down to the Reliquary when you come back up every NPC will be gone and you are stuck at this part in the quest.