The Great Mrs. Claws Caper

Expedition

Mrs. Claus has gone missing! It's up to a carefully selected group of volunteers to find and rescue her.

One snowy Christmas day, the Big Man himself calls an all-hands meeting in Christmas Hall. Every elf is there, even those from Krampus' Department of Punishment. With great stress and distress, Santa informs everyone that his wife has gone missing! He is especially worried because the Christmas Cookies haven't been finished yet. Looking around for a group of volunteers, he finds 6 hands/mop-heads raised in aid of the Missus.   Bessie and her husband/handler Burpo, Happy the Reindeer Wrangler, Cedar (the PA of Krampus himself), Icicle (the PA of Cedar herself), and Garglebarf (GB to his friends) all cheerfully volunteer to head out and perform the search and rescue.   Stepping outside they find a wagon drawn by the North Pole's fastest turtles, all yoked up and ready to zip down the road. They are quickly raced down the road toward the Candy Cane forest. Along the way the turtles are forced to brake themselves as a massive herd of proud white stags, antlers dangling with icicles, are blocking the road. A few suggestions are offered, Happy attempting to reason with them, but the only thing that does the trick is Cedar suddenly discovering her ability to throw fireballs. The Stags are scattered, and the Turtles take off, without giving Happy time to get back in the wagon! He only barely makes it on with help from Bessie's lovely mop dreadlocks grasped between his teeth.   The wagon races on until they pass by the mythical Grate Tower of Snow. Authors Note: It's a little known fact that all the perfectly driven snow that layers the north pole and floats about like dancers on the wind is actually very finely grated parmesan cheese. This snow is produced at the aforementioned tower by a magic, infinite block of parmesan that floats itself against the rough side of the tower and constantly releases a cloud of fine cheese particles into the air. Stopping for a quick snack, GB tries to toss his knife up into the cheese and cut free a chunk of it, but his knife gets stuck! Icicle, discovering her latent psychic abilities, summons the knife to her hand and returns it to GB. Subsequently trying to use her newfound skill, she aims to rip out a chunk of cheese for herself, but the magical cheese proves resistant to her efforts. Their hunger continuing they head back into the "snow" and are whisked away down the road.   Sometime later they are carted toward a beautiful waterfall, spray sparkling in the light of magical North Pole eternal day. The wagon proceeds straight on as if everything is normal, but they group soon finds themselves careening, wagon, turtles and all, off the edge of the cliff! Some desperate moves are made, Cedar unfurls her wings, GB attempts to whittle his way out of the situation, Happy tries to cling for dear life, and Burpo leaps off into the drink. All seems lost until they come crashing down... into a soft bed of jello, the waterfall seemingly crashing down and immediately forming into the pool of