A Grimm Scary Tale – The true story behind this year’s event!
Anyone who’s been following the Nothe of the Living Dead, knows the saga of Ronald Dump. The self-proclaimed genius or ‘magical genius,’ as he now insists, after declaring himself Supreme Sorcerer of All Realms – a title he embroidered onto his velvet robe and tweeted about before being banned from SpellcasterNet for ‘abusive hex behaviour,’ has been up to mischief again! And here’s how the unfortunate tale unfurled….
Once upon a time, Ronald Dump was the proud owner of a golden tower. A tower so valuable it was stolen by goblins from a faraway kingdom called Russinka. Determined to regain his fortress, or, if not his own, someone else’s. Ronald began using his uniquely terrible talents to dabble in time travel.
“I’m going to go back,” he declared at his last press conference, held in the ruins of a melted ice palace in Greenlandicus. “Back to when everything was better. Cleaner. Whiter. Like snow – the good kind, not that woke powdery stuff.”
Now, anyone who knows Ronald knows he’s tried to time-travel before, but with disastrous results. During a blood moon, with greasy fingers and half a cheeseburger wedged in his mouth, he’d read aloud from an ancient, cursed scroll, mispronouncing key incantations and skipping vital footnotes, resulting in him unwittingly summoning hordes of the undead from history, instead of him travelling through it to the past.
But Ronald, as ever, had blamed someone else. “It wasn’t me. It was a bad spell. Rigged spell. Witch hunt, really. Sad!”
And so, determined to try again, he stood in his marble-lined spell room, surrounded by gold-plated everything and self-portraits where he was always taller than dragons, and cracked open his new favourite book: The Grimm Lexicon: Cursed Fables & Occult Bedtime Stories.
“This one’s it,” he announced. “The perfecet incantation. Totally verified by experts – very magical people. Probably German.”
His only remaining assistant, Greg – a very tired human in a wrinkled suit, clutching an iced coffee and the last fragments of his sanity – watched from the edge of the room.
Greg sighed. “Sir, that’s not a time-travel book. That’s a…”
“Silence, Greg. I know words. I have the best words.”
With the confidence of a man who’d never read a warning label in his life, Ronald began chanting. Mispronounced Latin filled the air. A nearby plant caught fire. A portal cracked open. A cold wind blew across the room, lifting Ronald’s mystical toupee like a possessed pancake.
Then, silence. Ronald grinned. “See? Told you. Perfectly executed. Just like everything I do.”
A second later, the sound of glass dragging on marble, then a giggle, and finally a terrifying, princess-gone-feral scream, which made Ronald’s right ear mysteriously start to bleed (not for the first time).
From the shadows emerged a twisted, putrid corpse. Princess Cinderella’s corpse! She held a shattered glass slipper in her hand, wielding it above her head like a prison shiv. In her matted, blonde hair nestled a rusted tiara, and, on her shrivelled, jaundiced body, draped a gown, ripped and ravaged by the very woodland creatures that were once her friends. She reeked of mouldy pumpkin spice and moral decay.
Behind her shuffled Snow White, skin grey, eyes glowing, apple chunks still stuck in her teeth. Farther back came seven dwarves, mangled and mutated, chanting something that sounded suspiciously like, “Heigh-ho, you’re gonna die slow.”
Ronald squinted. “Wait a minute… I don’t remember these guys from history class.”
Greg slapped the book shut and threw it at Ronald’s head. “YOU SUMMONED FAIRY TALE ZOMBIES, YOU ORANGE-SKULLED MANIAC!”
“Not my fault,” Ronald huffed, brushing ash off his shoulder. “The book looked very official. And those fairytale characters? Very low ratings. I prefer real princesses, like Ivank – I mean Melani – I mean, NEXT QUESTION!”
More figures shambled in – three deformed and grotesque piggies, a half-eaten Prince Charming, a horrifying Humpty Dumpty held together with duct tape, and Little Red Riding Hood, now fully wearing the wolf.
And from the mirror, a voice hissed, “Mirror, mirror on the wall… who’s the most undead of all?”
Ronald turned pale beneath five layers of bronzer. “Okay, maybe it was the wrong spell.”
Greg groaned. “This is exactly like the time you tried to fix climate change by building a magical wall around the sun!”
Ronald adjusted his cloak – bright red, embroidered with MAKE MAGIC GREAT AGAIN in rhinestones, and puffed out his chest.
“Look, it’s not a disaster. It’s a very beautiful apocalypse. People are saying it’s the best one yet. Historic. Magical. A real ratings boost.”
Sleeping Beauty floated by, snoring midair, levitating… and holding a bloodstained chainsaw.
Ronald gulped. “Alright. Plan B.”
Greg: “What’s Plan B?”
Ronald beamed. “We get some totally loyal, very patriotic, easily suggestible members of the public, maybe folks who wear a lot of red hats, to go find the ancient runes and reverse the spell for me. I’ll tell them it’s a treasure hunt. Or a sacred ritual. Or a TikTok challenge. They’ll eat it up!”
Greg blinked. “You’re sending civilians to recover deadly, cursed magical runes… because you don’t want to?”
“I don’t do manual labour, Greg. That’s socialism.
The question is – did they all live happily ever after, or is this one fairytale where the wicked witch and her uncharming army emerge as the victors over humanity?
Only you can determine the answer by taking on the challenges and solving the mysteries that lie within the fairytale flooded tunnels of Nothe Fort!
BOOK YOUR TICKETS NOW FOR THE HOTTEST HALLOWEEN SHOW IN DORSET.