The
Funky Christmas music fades into the distance as the sock puppets escape.
"We need to catch-up to the others before they walk unprepared into the dangers ahead," Lego-Lass says with an involuntary shiver at the thought of the Santa-pede.
"Have no fear, I have my trusty Indiana Gnome's Map with me. It allows us to cross great distances in relatively short periods of narrative time."
Unrolling
the map from his pack, Indiana Gnome shows it to the camera as thematic music begins to swell. The important landmarks of the Fae Wilds surrounding the North Pole are marked and a line marked Indy begins extending from The Snowbank towards The Grove. It then changes directions and continues until it merges with another line marked Sprungli, Winter Willow and Buddy, at which point it turns again and extends towards the Icing Ridge Mountains ...
---
Before Buddy rendezvoused with Sprungli and Willow Winter, he had gotten lost in the forests of the North Pole. Tired and freezing he had found himself wandering through a frozen swamp beginning to lose hope until he saw a fire through the icy mists. Upon his approach he discovered the fire was warming a giant cauldron with three old ladies fussing around it. Their skin was grey like frozen tundra and their hair shockingly white, frosted with icicles. They sang strange words as they danced around the pot, occasionally tossing ingredients inside.
"Excuse me, may I warm-up by your fire for a bit?" Buddy asked politely.
The figures turned in surprise and then cackled,
"Ha ha ha ha ha, we are the Witches of the North and you can only join us if you have an ingredient we can add to our brew, ha ha ha ha ha."
Buddy pulled out the strange candy crumbs that he had found in the footprint on the floor of Santa's Workshop.
"How about this?"
One of the witches takes the crystals from him, tastes them and then throws them into the pot, laughing maniacally.
The warmth of the fire increases significantly allowing Buddy to finally relax and recover.
The witches then spoke,
"These crystals were from the 5th level of the Candy Cane Forests ... we know who used to live there ... ha ha ha ha ha ... a strange and evil warlock who likes to experiment on creatures of all sorts ... his favorite experiment was fusing creatures together to make chimeras or worse ... ha ha ha ha."
The fumes from the brew induced a vision in Buddy's mind. He could see the warlock they described but he was holding Santa's Sack, greedily looking inside and laughing.
Snapping out of it, he jumped up, warmed and refreshed and with new knowledge of the dangers ahead. He thanked the witches and ran off into the night looking for his fellow heroes yet again, the sounds of wicked laughter fading behind.
---
Meanwhile, the rest of the fellowship had made it into the mountains. The Grinch and Candycorn were crouching behind a snow covered boulder, peering around the side.
"That's the Warg's Den," the Grinch said pointing towards a cave opening ahead. Among the paw prints going in and out, there were dozens of boot prints as well, almost as if squads of 12 men had been marching in and out of the cave. The entrance was dark and quiet at the moment.
RuDolph and Zero volunteered to lead the way, their noses glowing bright. As they cautiously lead the fellowship towards the den, it was not clear whether they could see the Magical Avalanche Trap that had been laid by the Warlock at the entrance to the cave ...