The next day, Mystery Incorporated was awoken by Shaggy's mournful cry. "NOOOOOOO!" he shouted helplessly at the sky. Scooby joined him with a sorrowful howl.
"What in the world?!" Velma exclaimed, jogging out the meet the duo.
"Like, someone smashed our castle!" Shaggy exclaimed.
"Mine, too!" "What gives!?" "I spent two days on this!" The other contestants' complaints mingled together as everyone tried to make sense of what happened.
Joanne tried to allay everyone's fears, but nothing mitigated the fact that most of the contestants had to start all over again.
While Scooby and Shaggy began their castle again, Fred, Velma and Daphne headed off to see what clues they could find.
"There's something very fishy going on here," Velma said. "Did you notice that only some of the castles had been knocked down?"
"I sure did," Fred replied. "I think there's more to this competition than meets the eye."
"Let's take a look around," Daphne replied. "I think we can get to the bottom of this…"
Fred, Velma and Daphne approached one of the contestants, a sandy-haired man in a black coat and boots, working hard on a snow version of the Taj Mahal. "Wow," Velma exclaimed. "It looks like you've got a great sculpture."
"Yeah, yeah, this is only my third time building the dang thing!" he scowled. "That ol' snow monster's going to the death of me if it keeps knockin' down my buildings!"
"Have you seen the snow monster, Mr…uh…?" Fred asked, suddenly realizing he hadn't learned the contestant's name.
"Winter, Sam Winter," the man replied, offering his snowy gloved hand to shake.
"…that's fitting…" Fred murmured.
"And no…no I haven't, actually. I've just heard the others talking, plus, y'know, all the legends about the yeti and all that sort of thing…"
"Okay, well, we'll let you get back to your work," Velma said as she, Fred and Daphne ambled away.
By Shaggy and Scooby, Joanne circulated through the contestants, offering words of encouragement to ease the pain of starting from scratch. "Wow, this looks good," she said, surveying Shaggy and Scooby's food-based castle.
"Rhank rou," Scooby barked, sculpting out the details of the hamburger-shaped parapet.
"We're, like, getting really close," Shaggy replied, rolling out a clump of snow to make sesame seeds for the bun. "We just need to finish up the pizza pie parapet and the french fry drawbridge."
"Well, don't let me stop you," Joanne replied, striding away to check out the next castle.
"Like, it's not you I'm worried about," Shaggy murmured.
After interrogating a few more of the contestants, the trio made their way into the woods by the hotel, to discuss their findings. "Jinkies, what's this?" Velma exclaimed, plucking a small scrap of fur from a low-slung tree branch.
"It's fur," Fred announced.
Velma rolled the scrap between her fingers. "Fake fur, no less," she replied. "I think I have a good idea what's been going on here, but we should probably catch that snow monster to be sure."