Retired ghoul discovers why Halloween will be ruined this year

By Calamity Janine

Staff Fun and Catastrophes Writer

BLACK LAGOON -- A ghoul living and haunting in a home on Haunted Mansion Row was busy doing nothing (because there are few to scare while most Things are in the human world preparing for the October scare-emonies) when he discovered that Halloween would, in fact, be ruined this year.

It all started when the ghoul, retiree E. Vilspirit, came across a news story in this publication regarding a time traveler who went into the future and saw the portals between the monster world and the human world closing up, leaving monsters trapped on the other side while scaring humans for Halloween.

“So I got to tinkering around with my DeLorean and some plutonium in the garage,” Vilspirit said, “and before I knew it, I was going 88 miles per hour and then lurking around in the future. Saw the whole thing. And it’s true. The portals close up. I decided to do some studies on the whole thing when I got back in time.”

Vilspirit conducted a series of experiments and, in a matter of weeks, found the cause for the permanent closing of the portals.

“You’d think it was some complicated wizard’s spell or witch’s curse put on the monster world and the portals,” Vilspirit said. “It’s not. President Count Dracula’s mandated blood misters throughout Transyl-vein-ia is the problem. The fake blood he’s using is polluting our smog and has -- pardon the technical jargon -- ‘messed’ with the witch magic that makes the portals possible.”

According to Witches Meadow portal officials, who are responsible for the portals opening and closing, Vilspirit did what no one else cared to do, which was to look into a cause of the suspected closing of the portals. Monsters are calling him a hero and a montseritarian for his discoveries.

When asked what he planned to do to fix the problem, Vilspirit said, “Nothing. I’m retired.”

What a ghoulish, evil monster.

Evidence shows cottage in Carpathian Mountains may've belonged to Merlin

By Meddi Valtimes

Staff Dark Ages Writer

A cottage discovered in a valley of Transyl-vein-ia’s Carpathian Mountains is said to have once belonged to Merlin the Magician.

According to archeologists, the structure was mostly empty when they found it, but there were a few telling artifacts that could be traced back to the great sorcerer.

“We found a skull that we believe Merlin had on the right side of the second to top shelf of his aviation bookcase in the far left corner of the cottage,” said Cy Ence, one of the experts who made the recent discovery. “After careful examination of the indentations on the floor, we could see the make and model of the bookcase that rested there and we could see when it rested there, which was around the time Merlin was said to be in these parts. By going off the deeper divots in the floor on the left side, it suggests there were fewer books on the right side of the shelf -- and we know Merlin kept his bookshelves full and that he often had skulls in his dwellings for dramatic effect -- thus we believe he placed that skull on that shelf, but on the second to top shelf because Merlin had a lot of coffee table books that he picked up from the future that he couldn’t fit in the inside shelves of the case -- he never had any room on his coffee tables because he always had experiments and model kits on his coffee tables (he loved building classic muscle car models) -- so he would have had to put those coffee table books on top of the bookshelf, which means the skull was most likely on the second to top shelf.”

When asked how he knew the skull belonged to Merlin to begin with, Ence said he and his team found a crack in the forehead, which Merlin used to prefer in all his skulls for dramatic effect. According to Ence, the skull was also made from magic, which is where Merlin got his skulls.

“He didn’t like real skulls,” Ence said. “And the skull we found was not real. We also found owl droppings in the cottage, which we believe came from Merlin’s pet owl, Archimedes.”

When asked how they examined the droppings, Ence said, “Carefully.” He brought several droppings to a lab for extensive study. There are scientists in that lab who work specifically in poop, and they found that the droppings, even though they were ages old, had traces of tea in it.”

“We now know that Archimedes would regularly share tea with Merlin,” Ence said. “And the traces of tea we found in the owl droppings were of the Sleepy Time brand that Merlin allegedly got from the future and used to drink. Upon further investigation of the tea traces under our electron microscope, which is a microscope that has the ability to make images to a resolution of half the width of a hydrogen atom, we actually found remnants of chain from the water well out front, which we determined hasn’t had a chain on it since around the time Merlin was said to be in these parts, and we could establish that by examining the rust on the well’s wheel -- if you count the rust rings, you can figure out the exact last time the wheel turned, and that was around the time Merlin was said to be in these parts, and the last chain that would’ve been used at that time would’ve been the chain Merlin would’ve had and that’s the chain remnants we found in the traces of tea we discovered in the owl droppings, which means Merlin got water from the well, probably struggled with the chain, then made the tea that he and Archimedes drank, the owl went poop, the poop dropped to the cottage floor, it remained there for all these ages, we found it, we examined it, it’s what we think it is, and thus this was Merlin’s cottage and we know it is.”

Ence and his team also found a hole in the straw roof, which they feel is the one a young King Arthur made when he fell from a tree into the cottage where he first met Merlin. They also discovered shards of glass that they deemed to be test tube glass from experiments Merlin was conducting.

“I could tell you how we came to those conclusions as well,” Ence told reporters. “It won’t take that long and it's more proof that this was one of Merlin's cottages.”

Ence did go on, and he just kept going on and on, and we don’t have enough space to go on and on with him, but his report is available online and in the Mad Science District Museum if you’re into to self-inflicted pain.

Or you can just visit the cottage. You’ll find it in the Merlin Valley Woods. The cottage has a sign out front that reads, “Merlin the Magician,” and the address is 1963 Merlin Way, which is the address Merlin had at one time during his life.