Once there was a mighty castle.  A mighty structure of stone nearly as old as the hills themselves.  This fortress had repelled invasion after invasion of enemy forces.  The castle was occupied by the usual sort you would expect; a regal King, and his court and guard... And rats.  Lots of rats....

  Too many of the vile rats dwelled within those stone walls for the King's taste, to be certain.  As the castle had quite a treasury, the King sent out for the finest rogue in the lands to rid his fabulous castle of these unwanted vermin.  The promise of piles of gold to the rogue who eliminated the rat problem attracted a very skilled rogue, who didn't mind playing exterminator for a court, so long as the gold was there.

  After the formal introductions, the King set the rogue to his task. The rogue went about the passages of the castle, setting traps to catch the tiny buggers.  A chambermaid, arms full of chamber pots, ran afoul of these traps, which caused her to fall face-first into... well, unpleasantness.

  Traps were forbidden to this rouge at this point.  But rogues have many wiles.  His next plan involved some poison soaked crusts of bread laid at strategic points...  Points the not so well fed Jester liked to bumble around in.  The King did, it should be known, find the writhing of his fool amusing... until the jester stopped drawing breath.

  The Rogue decided to take the rat problem more seriously.  He hid at ground level in the shadows, soori ready to puncture any rat that wandered past.  It was not long at all before the prostrate rogue saw his fuzzy prey.  He let loose a flurry of soori, only to hear a mighty scream.  The King's concubine, apparently, preferred fuzzy slippers to walk the cold cobbles of the stone castle.

  The rogue was finding himself apologizing to the king profusely of late.  The royal chambermaid was still refusing to change the chamber pots and his concubine was still recovering from her wounds.  The time for idle tricks was past.  The rogue decided to seal up all the rat holes around the castle, to keep the rats from ever gaining entrance to the court in the first place.

  He performed this task with all the speed of the rogue.  Another chambermaid was doing the laundry in the courtyard soon thereafter.  When she opened the dumbwaiter, expecting to find the soiled linens of the upper levels, she instead found herself showered in a mighty river of rats.  The rogue was given a lashing for soiling the royal linens so.

  Desperate for that pile of gold, the rogue ventured into town and purchased a flute from a local enchanter.  It had the power of Suen imbued within it.  The rogue was uncertain of its effectiveness, but walked the halls playing a tune, anyway.  Soon he heard the rats squeaking behind him.  It was working!  Overjoyed, the rogue began dancing as he walked the battlements, leading the entire rat population of the castle toward the gates.

 Dancing, however, is not a very sure-footed way to travel.  The rogue tripped upon the uneven cobbles, and dropped the flute, which bounced off the battlements, across the courtyard, and in trough a window, straight into the throne room...  Landing on the King's lap.  The king stared at the flute with a puzzled look.  His puzzlement gave way quickly to horror as the king found himself overrun by the entire horde of rats.

 The rouge, hearing the King's royal scream, decided to hide in the shadows... for as long as he could.  The King was quite insane after his ordeal.  He could no longer talk, merely squeak.  The royal court decided that the mighty castle was surely cursed, the plagues that had befallen this castle were signs.  And so they packed up and left the castle, taking all but the splintered remains of the King's throne.

  The rogue wandered into the ruined throne room after the royal court had left.  His dream of a pile of gold seemed impossible to achieve, now.  As he stared despondently at the throne, a rat climbed onto it, standing upon its haunches.  The rouge stared for a while, laughed, then sighed.  He knelt and pledged his fealty to the King of Rats.  And in that service, he did indeed realize his dream of a pile of gold... Golden cheese.

Moral: Dreams can come true in many ways.