Holiday Hack 2024: Act III
Both sides want to see Christmas mission fulfilled. Will either yield? Who can bring order to such chaos?
Now Wombley’s gone and gotten the Naughty-Nice list ransomwared! Santa is not pleased…
Snowball Badge
Story
A little before noon EST on December 2, the badge updated, with a new story section:
Objectives
There are four new objectives in the badge (including four parts for Santa Vision):
This act introduces ❄️❄️❄️❄️ and ❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️ difficulty objectives.
Map
The map layout of the Front Yard looks very similar to Act II, though the challenges are in new places:
Act 1 Locations
Like Act 1 and 2, Act 3 mostly takes place in the Front Yard at the North Pole, and it’s still set up as two sides with a DMZ between them like in Act 2:
There are wrecked drones across the entire yard, and evidence of large snowballs destroying things all across Alabaster’s side of the yard.
The Dock seems the same as Act 1. The door to the North Pole Monitoring Station is gone.
Plot
Santa is back, and dismayed, and has some harsh words for all the elves:
Santa
My eyes must be deceiving me. I cannot believe what I am seeing! The North Pole in shambles, a civil war brewing amongst the elves, and the Naughty-Nice List locked away behind ransomware!
You know me, I am the face of jolly. But today… jolly is getting thrown out the castle window! These elves have made my face as red as my hat with rage! It’s a good thing I took that distress call seriously.
I was away for the last few weeks because I was on Planet Frost to ensure Jack Frost received proper justice—neither too harsh nor too lenient—for his crimes last year, and you elves start acting like trolls?
Is this your true nature? Are you all just Frostian trolls under those pointy ears and rosy cheeks? Wombley, I thought you were more insightful than this. And Alabaster, I thought you more wise.
And the rest of you, you are all one people, one family. How could you listen to these two knuckleheads and turn on each other so easily? You should all be ashamed of yourselves! You should be in court on Planet Frost with Jack!
I am so disappointed in all of you. We will decide on repercussions later. For now, you all need to clean this place up, stop broadcasting propaganda, and get the Naughty-Nice List unlocked before you ruin the holidays for the whole world!
…Oh, hello there, and sorry you had to hear all that. I apologize for the state of the North Pole. I’ll be sure you receive a wonderful gift if you could please assist these troublemakers in restoring operations. Thank you. Please excuse me and allow me a moment to collect myself… ahem…
Alabaster is disappointed in themself:
Alabaster Snowball
I must admit, I’m quite disappointed in myself. I allowed Wombley to get the better of me, even if we did prevent his coup.
But if I hadn’t played into his game, then none of these skirmishes would have happened. I’m so thankful it didn’t become all-out civil war.
Santa is right to be angry with me, and all of us. But at least we held off until he returned home. Now we begin cleanup and rebuilding.
Please help the others, as you have been this whole time, if you find the forgiveness to do so.
On Alabaster’s side, Ginger Breddie regrets participating as well:
Ginger Breddie
I really thought I was doing the right thing by siding with Alabaster. He truly thought he was doing right by Santa; we all did.
But really, the right thing we all should have done was not take sides at all, and just let Wombley and Alabaster fight by themselves.
Without a team behind them, their feud would have just fizzled and burned itself out, like a floating ember in the breeze.
And we’d be all unpacked and ready to carry on with holiday preparations. Santa would have been so proud.
This is a lesson learned for all of us. Stay calm and cool, just like the North Pole.
Wombley stands next to a destroyed laptop, and doesn’t seem to regret his actions, but is willing to help with recovering the naughty-nice list:
Wombley Cube
Blast it all! My plan was so close to succeeding. Our strike against their communications tower was successful, but it seems we were too late.
Santa received their distress signal, and now here he is, as wrathful as I’ve ever seen him.
I never intended to stop or ruin the holidays. I perceived Santa as taking them in the wrong direction, and I only wanted to ensure their integrity.
Like any self-respecting commander, I accept defeat gracefully and with dignity. I await my punishment, whatever it may be. But for now, I will assist with the recovery efforts.
My laptop was the only place I stored the source code and SSH keys to the Frostbit ransomware server, which holds the decryption key for the Naughty-Nice List.
But with my laptop destroyed in the snowball fight, our best hope is that the North Pole SOC captured enough forensics on the ransomware for us to reverse-engineer it, recover the Naughty-Nice List, and then find a way to shut down the server before it publishes the list.
Please assist the others with this effort.
Candycane Striper regrets joining Wombley’s side:
Candycane Striper
Woopsie… did I choose the wrong side? Wombley was so convincing. And that trebuchet he had was so big and cool! And these drones are so fun to play with!
I think I should have just not chosen a side at all. That was really silly of me. I hope Santa isn’t too disappointed in us.
We’ll just get everything all cleaned up and put the two sides back together again and he’ll forgive us like he always does. Hehe!
Easter Eggs
Looking at the images downloaded in the front yard, this one jumps out as funny:
