Here it is! The final roleplay! Dash and Bearsmasher join up, to bust some Penguin heads! It sets the stage for the next mission, which Bearsmasher's handler is handling. It also features some bangup action.

This's my second co roleplay, and Bearsmasher's first. I hope you enjoy it. Not much more to say, other than the next bit is the Mission Finale! Enjoy!

His name is Sebastian Dash. He's either a hero, or a self styled rogue, depending on who's definition you accept. For the near future, that distinction is probably going to get even blurrier. Although the Kingdom of Loathing was his birthplace, he'd spent a good part of his life traveling. It wasn't simple wanderlust that had driven Dash back to the Kingdom.

It was a sense of justice. That same self styled determination to do the just thing had brought Dash home again, as well. That, and an invite from a certain self styled prince, had brought Dash up to Degrassi Knoll to investigate the recent problems with the Penguin Mafia and the Knob Goblins.

Degrassi Knoll, honestly, was a place of thugs itself. Due to the internal problems within KOKOL, their Prince, BlahKing, had only been able to get a handful of recruits to handle the problem. Dash, and a member of KOKOL who BlahKing had sent him to meet with.

Dash found that although by no means a huge town, and in essence a giant lump of grass, it was certainly bigger than South Degrassi.

From the sounds of it, the Prince had used his discretion to make this a three person operation: The prince, Dash himself, and a member of BlahKing's group - Kronall Bearsmasher. The words "uphill battle" almost didn't begin to describe it. As BlahKing had explained, however, this was only a first step in a hopefully much bigger plan.

BlahKing had simply lacked the manpower to go for any larger victory.

Including the locals in the picture brought potential hostile factors up to three, which made sneaking around it no easy chore. Dash's skill in stealth more than made up for the difficulties, however. Working his way through the shadows so as to avoid being detected, Dash couldn't help but notice the vast difference between the organized, silent but obviously deadly methods of the Penguin mafia, and the loud, obnoxious, bullying tactics of the Knob Goblin thugs.

The Intel on his new ally was sketchy, too. Bigger than he was smart, but by no means an idiot. Potentially ill tempered. Rumored to be stronger than a couple Yeti's.

Tracking someone down in the small Deragassi Knoll wasn't too hard. Thankfully, he wasn't in the rat's nest underground. Upon finding a rather large and familiar figure draped in ill fitting penguin skins, Dash slipped out of the shadows, behind the large stranger in the makeshift Penguin outfit. Dash kept his voice low and tried to pronounce the name properly. "Hey, Konáll."

Kronall turned. "Who are you and how do you know my name?" he asked.

Dashed flashed a Roguish smile. This was him, all right. "The name's Sebastian Dash. Your prince sent me to talk to you. Offer you my assistance, if you needed it. And you do. Just do me a favor and keep your voice low, would you? I'm not in any hurry to advertise my presence here."

Kronall considered Dash for a moment. He had heard of this man. The description of the man he was facing matched what he had heard of Dash, and his gut instinct said that this newcomer was trustworthy. "All right," Kronall replied "You can help. As far as needing your help, I'm not too certain. So far I've been doing fine without you. Already took on three penguins and beat them." This wasn't exactly true. Kronall had beaten the penguins, but if he hadn't had the element of surprise, and if they hadn't made him so angry by hurting Spaz, then he would have been hard pressed just to take on one. And if he ran into more penguins, well suffice to say that he'd be doing a lot of running. Either that or a lot of dying.

"Three penguins, huh?" Dash let out a low whistle. "Not bad. But from the sounds of it, there's a few dozen in the area, to say nothing of the Knob Goblins stinking up the place. If you haven't gotten into it with the locals yet, I'm sure that'll change soon enough. And on top of all of that, you seem to be forgetting if we try to extract our little.. problem here by force, we could be doing more harm than good. Comprenda?"

Kronall did comprehend. And force was his favored means of accomplishing a task. Dash's ability to avoid conflict would come in handy. "All right, you want to help, that's fine with me. What did you have planned?" Kronall's plan ran something along the lines of sneaking into the penguin's lair, going as deep as he could go before getting caught, and then smashing everything in sight. Thankfully, he was open to suggestions.

Dash shrugged, then smiled a bit. "Still working on it. I've been planting a few falsified documents which BlahKing provided me. If we can convince the Knob Goblins and the Penguin Mafia to take their fight to the plains, we might be able to make our mark. Give them something new with which to concern themselves."

"Hmm..." Kronall said, "now that you mention it, I think I have something. A few years ago, I was traveling through there with a plexiglass orb. I needed it to use as a lense in a solar converter for a meat engine. It fell out of my hands and rolled into a crevice. If we were to call it 'The Orb of the Sun,' or some such nonsense, and reveal to both factions that recent prophecies had revealed its location on the plains in the bowels of the earth or something, then we might be able to get them to fight over it. It's worth a shot at least."

Dash almost smiled. "You're smarter than you look. Let's start there, and see what else we can come up with. The Penguins are big on honor. If we can convince them they're being outright disrespected, they'll be easy to manipulate."

"I think that will-" Kronall started before he was interrupted.

A group of Knob Goblins walked on to the scene, trying to look menacing, with mixed results.

Their leader spoke up. "Hand over all your meat and valuables, now!"

"That's not going to happen," Sebastian responded. He knew they should probably try to talk their way out of the situation, but the goblins' sewer smelling breath put him in a fighting mood. "Why don't you crawl back under whatever rock you came out of?"

"I got a better idea," the toughest looking Knob thug decreed. "I think we'll kill you instead!"

Kronall asked, "As one of the good guys, I just have to ask, is it possible we could settle this with a nice, non-judgmental discussion of values? No? Guess that means we're going to have to do things the fun way."

Kronall let out a berserker roar and charged the leader. All eyes turned towards the seal clubber for an instant, just enough time for Dash to slip into the shadows. Two goblins intercepted Kronall. More specifically, the first intercepted the butt of his haxxor, the second intercepted the hammer end with his head.

The leader had backed up to the rear of his group. Dash stepped out from behind a stack of crates and struck the goblin from behind, without being heard over the commotion Kronall was causing. The rouge took out another goblin with a slash, causing heads to turn, while he continued his slash into the midsection of a third Knobling.

Kronall spun his haxxor, taking off a goblin's head with the blade, and then twirled it the opposite direction, slamming into another with the hammer part. Hearing a noise behind him, he turned, seeing his assailant poised with his sword ready to strike. It was then that he noticed one of Dash's throwing knives embedded in the warrior's skull.

Dash found himself fending off two swordsmen. One lunged, but Dashed ducked to the side and buried his sword in the the goblin's back. He spun, knocking the second opponent's blade aside and striking his neck on the second rotation.

Four more rushed in to take their place. But before they could get close enough, a fifth came flying in, knocking half of the assailants on the ground. Dash caught a glimpse of Kronall with his haxxor finishing its upswing, and knew immediately what had launched Icarus the goblin. He was distracted by a charging spearman. He knocked the spear aside and plunged his sword into the goblin's chest. Kronall threw his haxxor like a javelin. Though it was heavy, the weapon managed to make it the ten feet to spear the final standing goblin. Dash took care of the three who had been knocked down before they could get up.

Then Dash noticed a final knob goblin cowering behind a barrel.

He tried to run from Dash, but Kronall had already drawn his bow. The frightened Knobling went down with an arrow to the back leg.

Dash turned, basking in the victory. Unfortunately, a few thugs didn't really mean much in the long run.

"Well, that was fun!" Kronall pulled the injured Knobling to his feet, shoved him up against the wall, and demanded, "Where is the Orb of the Sun? Tell me now!"

The goblin replied, "I, I, I don't know. Please, don't hurt me."

"What do you think Dash?" Kronall asked, turning to Dash. He winked, though the goblin didn't see it.

Dash caught on quickly. "Knowing how powerful that orb is, there's no way the goblins aren't looking for it. They'd be idiots if they weren't."

"So," Kronall said to the goblin, "We know from the prophesy and some other information that the Orb of the Sun is in a crevice somewhere on the nearby plains, the question is where. Tell us."

"I honestly don't know!" the goblin replied.

"Well, then you're no use to me then, are you? Get out of my sight."

The knobling was in no mood to disagree. He scrambled out of sight. Within the next few minutes, Bearsmasher figured, he'd be telling his superiors about this "powerful orb" and Kronall's description of where it was. The goblins would be moving out to find this ball by sundown. Now to start working on the penguins.