Door 1 - The Snow Realm (The North Pole)

[Jokerman-EXE]

"Hmph. Too easy."

Smoke began to pour from his collar as he began to puff a cigarette (presumably). He glanced over at Andreas. "What did I tell you guys about using those powers like that?"

He went over and offered the fallen man his hand as smoke began to obscure his head.

Henry put his hands on his knees and sighed.  

[Venom3001]

Andreas snorted some blood out into the snow. "Hey, hadda do sunthig," Andreas managed in spite of the pouring blood.  

[Jokerman-EXE]

"Reasonable," Shepard said as he pulled him to his feet. "But next time, remember that you must know not only your enemy, but yourself. Know your limits better. Had I not been around, that might have been your end."  

[NativeForeigner]

With that, they all made the tedious climb to the top of the chasm where they were supposed to meet up with Carpenter. However, they just found a note scribbled on old parchment.
Shepard picked it up and read it silently.

Hey Shep,
Had to go ahead and take care of something important back in the manor. The Dukes are up to no good.
The door's fixed, by the way, I thanked Mick for you.
Go ahead and hurry your a** up, I'm gonna need help with this.

-Carpenter

Shepard sighed, "Alright, let's go, hustle."

*

Within minutes, they had detoured around the toy factory filled with possibly angry elves and arrived at the door.
Where they met Mr. Jingles, tapping his foot impatiently along with a score of other elves.  

[Jokerman-EXE]

Henry became acutely aware that he no longer had a knife. He slid slightly behind Shepard and extended his danger sense as far as he could.  

[Venom3001]

"Howd it goig," Andreas greeted Jingles, pinching the bridge of his nose.  

[NativeForeigner]

Shepard reached into on of his many pockets and then quickly moved his hands to behind his back. He was holding the three knives, as he had forgotten to return them earlier.
Arthur's steak knife was in rather poor condition.

"Not too well." Jingles replied curtly, his eyes narrowing.

"Care to explain?"

Shepard sighed, "Listen, there was nothing else they could do, he was beyond recovery."

"You killed him. What the ******** are we gonna do now, huh?!"  

[Jokerman-EXE]

Henry took his knife smoothly as he slid forward. "Look," he said, "it's better that he's gone and you find a different path than he were alive and killing you, or making you into a zombie."

He looked at the group and said, "Maybe you can come with us. I mean, this place is pretty much just full of zombie elfs and no purpose for you. What do you say?"  

[Venom3001]

"HE WAD FUGGIG INSANE!" Andreas protested, blood spurting from his nostrils again. "HE WAD MADE OF VIRUS AND INSANIDY AND HORROR!" he screamed. "HE WAD FUGGIG WALKIG AROUN' WIDDA PEG LEG, A GAS MASG, AND FREDDY KRUEGER CLAWGLOVE s**t! HE STABBED ELFS IN THEI' HEADS!"  

[NativeForeigner]

Ro took his knife from behind Shepard's back and tucked it into one of his pockets.

Jingles sighed and rubbed his temples, "We were working on FIXING HIM! Then you jackasses had to go and ******** KILL HIM."
He practically growled, "You could have ran, you could have NOT gone to the castle, but noooo, you had to kill him."

He promptly shook his head at Henry's suggestion. "Hell ******** no. How are we to know you won't just kill us? Huh? Huh?!" He grunted and kicked a rock at the group, "Just get the ******** out of here, we have work to do."

Jingles opened the door and he, along with the rest of the elves, moved aside. Beyond the threshold of the door, it was pitch black, much like from the other side.

Gregory, meanwhile, has having trouble breathing and was limping along.

Shepard silently led the way through the door, followed by Ro, Henry, Andreas, Arthur, and Gregory (who was apologizing profusely as he limped through the door).

They experienced the same sensation as before as they passed through the door into the Tower Room.

(Please move all posting to the Empyrea thread.)  

[NativeForeigner]

Henry stepped through the other side of the door and into freshly-fallen snow, making a slight crunch as he steped closer to the fire, still somehow burning. The sky was actually clear and there was some pleasant sunshine. However, it was still very, very cold.

The others soon followed through, led by Gregory who was quick to pull his jacket up over his ears.

"Well," he began, speaking in an unusually loud volume for him, "Let's get g-going. To the castle, r-right?"  

[Venom3001]

"Aye. Back to Santa's corpse, more specifically," Andreas agreed. He paused, then added, "It feels really weird being able to say I killed Santa. Like, really weird."  

[NativeForeigner]

Greg grunted, "Yeah..." he said, thinking back to when Andreas flung Santa out of the castle window, "Well, let's try t-to avoid the toy f-factory."  

[Jokerman-EXE]

"I don't bet them Elfs are excited to see us around, either," Henry drawled as they set off. His head swept from side to side, though his eyes weren't actually taking in the landscape; it was more of a reflex as Henry focused on his TK. His eyes drifted half shut as they walked, like he was focusing hard on music or trying to remember something.  

[NativeForeigner]

They had just about reached a four-way split in the path when Henry's eyes shot open as he felt a sudden ping in the back of his head. "Trees, now!" he blurted out, dragging Gregory, as he was the nearest, off of the path and into the thickly-forested area. Andreas and Orion quickly followed. No sooner had they hidden themselves that the sound of snow crunching and a familiar voice.

"Stop whining about the cold, you wusses." it was definitely an older elf, "We've almost got him! He couldn't have gotten far, it's only been a ******** day! I want him found by nightfall, dammit! We can't let those bastards get to him first."

Before long, the group saw Mr. Jingles wearing an bright-green M1 helmet in place of his usual hat marching along the path perpendicular to the one they were traveling. Immediately behind him marched twenty-five nutcrackers in lines of five. The first five were halberd-wielding nutcrackers and the rest wielded rifles. Behind the nutcrackers were twenty elves adorned in brightly-colored military gear and wielding various, toy-like weaponry. They marched in similar formation to the nutcrackers and were mumbling amongst themselves.

Then something more unusual marched by, accompanied by the sound of machinery, two elves controlling machines akin to an AT-ST (only much more toy-like and painted white) marched by side-by-side. The walkers stood at about chest level of compared to an ordinary human. Attached to each one by a chain was a very large, green gift box with red ribbon. Behind the walkers were two twin bed-sized tanks (similar in design to a T-64 tank). Each was painted white. Each one had a large, steel cage attached to them via chains. The cages had red and green bows on top of them and held between seven and ten infected elves within, some of which were sleeping and others which were throwing themselves against the bars to escape. Three elves walked along the outside of each tank and two elves managed the infected elves with lengthy prods.

Behind the tanks was a single catapult, about the size of the walkers, manned by six elves and accompanied by five nutcrackers, two halberd, three rifle, directly behind it.

Before long, Mr. Jingle's obstinate yelling soon faded as did the sound of machinery. It appeared that it was safe to remove themselves from cover and continue. Henry's TK suggest no different. His TK was, however, was not providing a conclusive idea of what to do next, he was stuck between continuing on their own or trying to make nice to the army of elves.

Gregory was speechless.