Chapter 5: Alyss in Wonderland

Summary
After some downtime, the deputies decided to take on the task of locating Stanshome's missing mystic. Apparently, Chelsea has known them for a long time and wants to make sure everything is okay. The party had learned a tidbit about that on their own during their last adventure, and headed off to meet with Narra in her swamp. Discovering that the mystic had headed into the mountains to the Northwest, the party headed to Little Los Angeles to prepare for an excursion into the deadly Rocky Mountain Range.

After witnessing the the magician Alice struggling against an invisible force, they collected the strange map she had dropped, which took them on an interesting journey through the mountain range. Several weeks of traversing strange and snowy lands later, they eventually tracked Yanzi down to a frosty cave. Taking refuge in a hunting cabin, they decided to venture inside the cave and find their quarry. Meeting Chixu, a paladin on a similar mission to Zeek, they made an attempt on the frigid kobold den. At the same time, backup arrived from Stanshome in the form of Alexis and James (following Lexi who had an actual map of the range.)  After braving cave-ins, yetis, and abundant kobold traps, they eventually found the one called Yanzi: a mute woman named Alyss. Bizarrely enough, she had been waiting for just such reinforcements to assist her in liberating the orb from the icy golem it was entombed in.

Originally, the golem refused every last party member access to the orb, but relented when he detected the presence of the magical map - which was a disguised Alice. Her explanation was quickly cut short by a blast from Vrem's rifle, and the fight was on.

Fighting something described as 'chaos given form' is, as expected, a crazy time that is hard to completely keep track of.

Many things that occurred during that battle were notable:

Marta's curse of spelling mistakes compounded in triple; a green pixie was smashed into a wall, followed by the Protean Lord that had smashed her; a yellow pixie named Sol was summoned into combat straight out of her date; the no-longer-possessed and undergoing-culture-shock Terra Yanzi (γ) joined the group in total confusion; A TV set was won off the back of a massive Corn Flakes box; a Yeti gained a Paladin level and joined the group; Jukjukhwei was transported to a small town in Austria; the Orb of Ice was transformed into a cube; Alyss, Arthur, and Lexi were inadvertently abandoned in the Rocky Mountain Range; finally, a live show at Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament in Phoenix, Arizona was completely ruined. At the end, though, the party somehow emerged victorious - in an arena somewhere in Arizona, but victorious nonetheless. Having banished the Protean Lord of Tantrums back to her own dimension and with the Cube of Ice safely tucked away, they all began making their way back to Stanshome... followed by a performer that had retrieved the enemy's nail-bat, known locally as Whoa Nellie.