Since it's a tradition to start a new Season with a mission zero, that's exactly what I did here. The goal was to deal with the last two pesky scenarios (of the original ten) which had yet to be dealt with.

Since I used the Council, this Rollover has an especially lighthearted feel to it. I usually go with over the top comedy with the Council, and this time is no exception.

See you at the bottom for more!

 
TV Narrator guy voice: Previously, on Adventurers in Loathing....

 
Season One: Fresh off a war against the Pertene army, marked by betrayal and the death of their king, the clan Kingdom of KOL (KOKOL) becomes entangled in a dispute between the Knob Goblin Kingdom and the Penguin Mafia. Under the leadership of the clan's new King, MTiger, KOKOL resolves an ancient curse on the Chrono Dragon on the mysterious island before becoming involved in an extended rivalry with the Knob Goblins. It takes them around the Kingdom and even to Hey Daze and other dimensions.

After KOKOL petitions the Council of Loathing to get them to declare war on the Knob Goblins, the Goblin's king leads an invasion on Seaside town, nearly burning it down and infesting it with zombies. During that chaos, Catrina Whiteclaw is magically, covertly corrupted. She takes over the Knob Goblins (redubbing it the Feline Empire) and works with KOKOL to deal with the zombies but there is clearly still trouble between the two sides.

 
Season Two: Bad blood continues to build between the KOKOL and the Feline Empire, which is bolstered with both new members and former KOKOL'ers. The two sides work together to rescue several princesses kidnapped during the reopening of a bigger Seaside Town. This task takes members of both sides across the seas to the futuristic town of Honorburg, where the evil Philler (aka Kwadlin) teleports them to another dimension and forces them to battle each other. The heroes overcome Kwadlin and return home, but rifts in both factions force KOKOL's Konall Bearsmasher and Sir Fumblies to form a third faction, the Blood Clan.

 
Following a special St. Boris Day's Feast involving Father Crimbo, things devolve further. Konall's sister Kadlin had fallen under the influence of Konall's former cursed sword. Its influence grows over Kadlin, driving her to take over the Feline Empire. While KOKOL joins with allies to save Cat's soul from Hey Daze, Kadlin transforms the Feline Empire into the Empire of the Ebon Sword, driving off the former KOKOL'ers. She then tries to free the spirit from the blade, nearly destroying the world in the process. It's only killing her own brother that Kadlin realizes how far she has fallen. She gives up her life in order to seal the glaive, which Aleena disposes in a black hole.

In the aftermath, the heroes are left dealing with the penultimate airship, which the Shinpire had taken over and upgraded into the Ultimate Airship. Cattaras and Jen lead an attack against it, leading to an enemy killing the crew in a failed attempt to kill Catrina, Jen and Fahari. Elsewhere, a mysterious bugbear ship descends to crush the Farnsworthy tower, which Kadlin and the Naughty Sorceress had rebuilt as a stronghold.

A week later, Morlencir Queen Aleena arrives to help investigate the ship. The random portals continue. Our story continues a week after that...

 
------------------------------

Location: South Degrassi

Just over two weeks after Kadlin's tower fell...

No communications have been made with the other-dimensional ship nor had their intent been determined.

Things progressed fairly peacefully in the Loathing Kingdom with only a few notable exceptions. Of those exceptions, two loomed fairly large. Attempting to resolve both, the Council of Loathing earlier requisitioned a rather large field in South Degrassi and sent out the call for adventurers far and wide.

Naturally, free snacks were offered.

Three council members sat at the table for an hour, mocking a cow named Besser for being a wimp, planning a vacation for the next half wit holiday, wondering if their musician friend would stand trial for murder, and fondly recalling travelling through time to meet Hercules and mess up history.

As Knob Goblins and Gnollish teens served YummyPsuedoFood brand "yummy" tarts, grilled knob mushrooms and cheap freebies, adventurers and newscriars showed up to learn more about what would be going down. That number included several prominent and northworthy adventurers. Might one of those adventurers be your character, dear reader?

"Here ye, here ye!" called one of the three council members, Dewey, Cheetham and Howe. I bet someone in the crowd brought a "Cane Dewey!" sign.

"The ye's are heard!" called another of the three.

"The ayes have it!" called the third.

"Knock it off, you two knuckleheads!" cried the first. Dewey, I think. "Let's get down to brass tacks."

"I brought a Tic Tac!" said one of the other two council members, but Dewey just slapped him. Or was that Dewey that got slapped?

"Adventurers gathered from far and wide, many with perfectly fitting names for heroes," cried out Dewey. "We are here to address the growing concern of us being out of Diet Angus Dyspepsi Lite, and quite frankly, this isn't going to happen until we take back Seaside Town from the Penguin Mafia!"

That was quite the popular line. The audience went into a frenzy.

It was short lived.

At least Howe managed to deliver it with enthusiasm. "We're going to work with the Penguin Mafia to come up with a satisfactory solution for all involved parties!"

That... got the cheering to stop and the confused "What's" and "Huh's" to begin.

"Yeah," Dewey replied as Howe and Cheetham shrugged. "We're not so keen on a full all on out war if we can avoid it. Besides, they've built up quite the support in the few months since the strange bugbear ship appeared. No news on that, by the way."

"But it's definitely making you locals nervous! You cowardly sheep!" Howe threw his hands up and waved them as the crowd booed intensely. Howe stopped doing that when Dewey bopped him in the head with a hammer to the cheers of the fans.

"They've hired four powerful black knights," Cheetham said, ignoring Howe as he lost consciousness. "A valkyrie from Lil Canadia. They're also getting support of a lot of Knob Goblins, since the mafia supported the Knob Goblin revolution."

"We've also seen bee-masters, who'll turn their bees against anyone who dares oppose them!" added Dewey, tossing his hammer off stage where it naturally hit a cat. "And hobos from underground, who are much tougher than normal hobos because screw logic. Am I right?"

The audience responded with confused silence.

"Urrrrgh, my head," whined Howe, dazed. What a dazed whiner.

"That's right, Howe!" said Dewey. "There's still a number of citizens in Seaside Town who could be hurt in the crossfire if we take the mafia on in battle. Great point!"

"See, here's the thing, right? We know there's been a portal problem, and this portal problem has been particularly problematic for the penguins of Seaside Town. So the mafia will let us resume control of the town as agreed upon, but only if we send adventurers to take investigate and come up with a solution for the problem!"

Howe moaned in pain and said something about Degrassi sucking. This got him booed again.

"So your first task will be reporting to the Penguin Associate Program!" Cheetham said, ignoring Howe. "Which you can find at the entry to Seaside Town. Not like you can get in without it. Adventurers aren't welcome without a pass! Oh.. grab a pass there, too."

"Just don't start no trouble," Dewey said. "Work with them and things will be fine. You'll probably be able to find other goals there as well. Could be things like helping the locals, or getting penguins something they fancy. Or dealing with a problem around the Kingdom. Either way, it can't hurt to curry favor with our friends the Penguin Mafia!"

"I'm sure you'll get some kind of reward for this," Dewey said with a fake smile. "So.. get to work! And no joining the underground resistance movement against the penguins! Er.. not that there is one. There isn't, so don't look into it!"

Cheetham smiled. "Secrets are great. Er.. but leave that one a secret. See ya later!"

"Bye!" echoed Cheetum. As the crowd started dispersing, the injured council member finally regained consciousness.

"W.. what happened to me?" Howe said, holding his head.

"You got hammered," Dewey responded, trying to hide a smile.

 
_ _ _ _ _

 
Across town, and several minutes later, many of the aforementioned adventurers, possibly including yours, dear reader, had found the underground movement. Which wasn't hard, since they had set up a tent with the name "Underground movement" on it.

Olin, a large Viking, slammed down his mug and yelled, "And that's when I told the guy, 'Don't dare try to speak for us. They're welcome if they need respite or wish to trade. We just hate penguins.'"

The others gathered around the table, consisting of other Vikings (mostly from the Blood Clan), Knob Goblins who still had a problem with Penguins, and the Gnollish tire tosser, all laughed loudly. Olin took a swig from his beer as and spat out a chunk as he looked up at the trio approaching the table. "Ahhh, just the man we're looking for! What's our plan, Thinky?"

Daemon "Thinky" Thompson stood there, a bandage wrapped around his head and his arm in a cast. Thin for a Viking (though still fairly muscular by ordinary standards), he didn't look very pleased to be here.

"They did it," he said, frowning. "The Council took the bait from the unscrupulous Penguins. They plan to work with the Penguins. Penguins say they want to get the portals under control so they're willing to work with freelancers. They're obviously just buying time but the Council is either blind to that, or corrupt enough to go with it. Either way, they're complicit."

Olin frowned. "So it's up to us to attack the Penguins? Only problem is, I hear our new bosses planned to make those meetings. If he's going along with this..."

"Crush 'em!" a random Viking said. He was quickly stared into silence and turned to nursing his scotch ale instead.

"I'm not ready to leave the Clan yet," Olin said. "Not until things shake out, anyway. Thinky, give us something."

Thinky, well, thought on it for a bit, downing several elixirs of wisdom by which I mean fancy girl drinks.

"Here's what I propose," he started.

"Then here's what we're doing," Olin said, slamming his fist on the table.

"We'll organize an underground movement," Thinky said. "Sure, they mafia will catch on, and probably soon, but this way, we don't have to go directly against the Council and the rest of the clan. At least, not initially. Besides, they've got some extremely tough hired help. Some of them might even be bad dudes. We'll sneak in and fight where we can. If and when the Council's plan goes south or peters out as we expect, we turn to the honorable and time honored tradition of mindless and widespread violence. That should shake things up.

"But our first goal," Thinky continued, "is going to be information gathering. I hear your moaning. Stop. I know it's boring, but they've reorganized their Somber Six. We know a third of the members, the Boss Bat and Rat King, are in town acting as enforcers. We don't know who else is in the Six at the moment, nor do we know where they are in town.

"We'll need backup, so we'll be hiring Adventurers. Cheap. People who believe in our cause. People we can trust, and that means one thing. Random adventurers."

"So it's an open door policy on who wants to help our underground movement?"

Thinky frowned at the question from a random person. "I suppose so. If they can find us, that is. In which case, they wouldn't need our trust to rat us out. It isn't a perfect plan but it's the best we've got."

Olin nodded. "We'll find you adventurers. Or they'll find us. But what do we do once we find them?"

Thinky only stopped a moment while the others watched him plot.

(That was really singable, don't you think?)

"We'll set up a committee to meet with the adventurers on our side," Thinky said in a gritty, determined voice. "We'll need to be subtle to begin with. We can't rush in guns blazing. Once we get intel, if needed, I'll signal an all out assault.

"Just make sure the adventurers know that unless the Penguin Mafia thinks they're in Seaside Town on Council matters, they'll be ejected from town, assuming they make it in. And if they realize an Adventurer is working with the resistance, they'll be targeted. So those adventurers will either need to be good at lying, stick to the shadows are both."

"What's the goal?" asked Olin, ready for a fight.

Thinky shrugged. "Infiltrate. Dig up information on the Somber Six. Do anything they can to get rid of the penguins, up to and including, if we call for it, a full scale attack. Maybe we can pass some food, beer and wads out to our resistance MVP's.

"Well that's it," Thinky concluded. "Get to work, everyone. Get me some adventurous adventurers!"

Check out our extensive RP notes for information on starting and roleplaying for the mission.

That was fun to write! I made sure to quote a Cameron line from the first time Olin showed up as well. I definitely feel a more dry humor from the Underground part, minus the sign saying they're an underground movement, anyway.

There isn't a ton of roleplays, and since I'm writing this only a month and a half after posting it, there isn't a lot to say on the impact of this mission, but read on and enjoy.