The APC ride back down into Santagrad is tense. So much death!

“I believe this will work out okay,” says Catbug.

“I believe,” seconds Rod.

“That’s the spirit!” says Chordette, who is loading bean-bag rounds into a riot shotgun.

“We’re murderers now,” says the ambiguous in-flight meal. “We’re going to have to live with that for the rest of our lives. I could be either chicken or fish.”

“Murder is delicious,” says Venom.

Angry civilians outside are pelting the hull with ornaments and old egg nog cartons. The driver turns up Holiday Sing Along with Mitch.

You approach an underground tunnel, which does not appear to be lit.

“Hey, uh,” says Comet the Wonder Reindeer, “do you have a flashlight or something? Bad things seem to happen to us in the dark.”

“Sure!” says Chordette. She reaches into a wall-mounted case and tosses Comet a flashlight. Comet doesn’t catch it, on account of having hooves, and it is instead caught by Scrooge.

“Are we sure?” he asks. “Darkness is cheap and I l-”

“JUST TURN IT ON,” shrieks Comet as the tunnel looms.

“Bah,” says Scrooge, and flips the switch. You are rewarded with a cone of dim yellow light, which goes out after three seconds. The APC sweeps into the darkness of the tunnel.

“Can we stop?” asks Comet.

“Trust me,” says Chordette, “you do not want to stop in here.”

There’s a royal-sounding “Hyah!” and you hear a sceptre come down on a head, followed by the sound of a body wearing a tacky sweater hitting the rubberized floorboards.

“Dave,” Morally Ambiguous Man Wearing This Sweater (Spookyfriend) has died. He (she) was a SANTA ASPIRANT (Vanilla Town).

“Ohgodohgod,” says Comet.

A muttering of voices fills the compartment, then the sound of a man in a Santa suit collapsing.

“Ugh,” gurgles Tobias, the Make-a-Wish Santa. “They stabbed all my organs. Every one.”

Tobias (no, the other Tobias) (Sic Humor) has died. He was a SANTA ASPIRANT (Vanilla Town).

“Shitshitshit,” says Comet.

You hear an unearthly cackle, and the unmistakable sound of a raisin bouncing around.

Red the California Raisin (Flubba Gunto) has died. He was SANTA’S ILLEGITIMATE CHILD (originally Town, turned by the dark side of Christmas to a WOLF).

“Fuuuuuuuck,” wails Comet, as the bright side of the tunnel races up. Scrooge’s flashlight comes back on as soon as it hits sunlight.

“Well would you look at that,” he muses. “It must be charged by this here solar panel. I do believe the internal battery is dead.”

Comet bursts into tears. “I’m sorry I wasn’t a better reindeer! I’m sorry about the burglary and the arson and the check fraaauud. I don’t wanna diiiie.”

“You are already dead,” says Dr. Manhattan, “and also you were never born.”

Kevin McCallister slaps him across the face. “Christmas can be traumatic! Just ask my parents!”

Dr. Manhattan rubs the slap. “That didn’t hurt,” he says, almost reproachfully.

The driver finds a seemingly arbitrary place in the ruins to pull over. You all hop out and do breathing exercises, as instructed by Lucy.

“When can we breathe out?” asks Jack Frost from between puffed cheeks.

“When I say so, blockhead.” Beat. “Now is good.”

You all exhale, and feel a little better.

“Now!” says Chordette, clapping her hands together. “Who’s ready for caroling?”

“I am,” says Carol, in an unnervingly quiet voice.

“Great!”

Chordette points you down a side alley, where you run into a pair of festively armed elves.

“Don’t move,” says the male elf, who has a revolver wrapped in Christmas lights

“State your business,” says the female elf, who is shouldering a rocket launcher with a bow on it.

“You know,” says Scrooge, conversationally, “St. Peter cursed my soul and said I can’t die. If you wanted to help me test th-”

“Mom!” says Chordette, running up. “Dad! How have you been?”

“Terrible,” says her mother.

“We’re under a boil-water advisory,” says her father. “We’re also supposed to boil all the food.”

“It’s bland, Chordette,” says her mother, sadly. “It’s really, really bland.”

Chordette reaches up to the shattered wall fragment they’re standing on and hugs them. “It’s okay,” she says. “Christmas is about being together.”

“Honey, it’s December 6.”

“Can we at least come inside?” she asks, still hugging them. “We’re gonna get shot by snipers if we stay out here any longer.”

The inside of their tenement was probably nice when it was new, which looks to have been circa 1980. There’s a live Christmas tree in the living room, and eight more dead ones stacked up in the bathtub. The sink is full of ornaments.

“These are the new Santa Aspirants,” says Chordette, as she and her parents arrange folding chairs for all of you across a rug made of sewn-together sweaters. “You heard about Mrs. Claus’ will, didn’t you?”

“No, dear,” says her father. He flips on their television set, which is made out of wood and has something written across it in Russian. “All that’s on are these ads.”

“Vote for me!” says Glomar Evergreen. “The new government! The new Christmas!”

There’s a brief chime, then another ad.

“Vote for me!” says Gazprom Snowdrift. “The old government! The old Christmas!”

Chordette looks at her parents. “It’s just these two ads over and over again?”

“Not always,” says her father. As he speaks, a card of the next day’s weather pops up (chilly!) while an unidentified announcer reports that the threat level remains at orange.

“Say,” says Jack Frost. “We’re at the North Pole! Almost! Why is there no snow down here?”

“The anti-missile laser array,” says Chordette. “It zaps all the flakes before they can make it down.”

“Aww.”

Dude Love raises an enormous arm. “We’re not going to have to vote, are we? I don’t want to have to pick sides. That creates division.”

Chordette waves a hand dismissively. “Of course not!”

Her parents’ rotary phone rings. Chordette looks at you, then reaches down and picks up the receiver.

“Uh huh. Yes. Understood. Thank you, sir.” She hangs up. “You have to vote in the election.”

You look around uneasily.

“How much surveillance are we under?” asks Catbug.

“A lot,” say Chordette and her parents in unison.

“But they don’t catch murderers?”

Chordette makes a stressed face. “Well,” she says, “you see. The thing is…”

“There’s some surplus population to decrease, isn’t there?” says Scrooge, grinning wryly.

“There… might be,” says Chordette, in a very high voice. She clears her throat and switches off the TV “Now! Who wants to sing carols for my parents?”

Carol shoves her way to the front. “Please,” she says urgently. “We’re all marked for death here. Just let me make this day count.”

And so you sing every single verse of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Carol has never felt more alive, and Comet manages to forget about all the bad checks she wrote.

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Daylong Game Event: Today is time to elect a new Chancellor for the Yuletide Council! Participation is extremely mandatory! Your choices are:

• Glomar Evergreen (Incumbent, kind of an asshole)
• Gazprom Snowdrift (Previous office holder, also kind of an asshole)
• Write-in

The office can only be held by a North Pole resident (that is, one of the NPCs you’ve met so far, not any of the players). If neither of the official candidates are to your liking, you can write in any NPC you want.

This vote will take place in a separate thread (the Yuletide Council Election Thread) than the regular vote thread you use to kill each other. Careful not to confuse them!

The results of this poll are being monitored by an extremely elderly League of Nations official who doesn’t know the League of Nations doesn’t exist anymore, and will probably not be rigged.

The results of this vote will not affect the gameplay, but will affect what happens in the story. Vote wisely!

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Day 3 will end Sunday, December 8 at 7 p.m. EST.