Vlad

It is late October 1904. My name is Camil Constantin. I am a chronist at the Kronstadt registry and this is aggregation report number 411-1904-101. My assignment lies in gathering all available information about the “Drac Incidents” that took place more than 400 years ago.

My work involves a journey to Schäßburg, where the registry of Kronstadt maintains an outpost. I am writing this from the coach that is supposed to bring me to the local registry. It is my third day in this torturing vehicle, it rains all the time and we have to make many stops. A gathering with the local director is scheduled for tomorrow.

The Drac Incidents are events that we classify as type D. The Hermetic Society must under no circumstances be known to the public. Type D cases are large breaches of this rule. I have the honour to follow up on one of the most famous of them. Unfortunately, the latest developments demand a thorough reappraisal.

Why do I have to deal with such an old case now, you might ask? Well, the reason is a much more recent incident of type B, filed under the name “Stoker”. It is about the publication of a book by the honourable Hermetic Society member Bram Stoker.

This man is currently listed in the Registry of Dublin as a level 7 Hermetic. However, he is better known for his athletic abilities, electro shock experiments and his writings. The reason for this investigation is his novel “Dracula”, published seven years ago, which is based on the old Drac Incidents, but consciously gave a wrong interpretation of the events.

It is now on me to find out what in the book is historically correct, what is poetic imagination and what could be dangerous for the Society. I am absolutely sure that Stoker will land in front of a Hermetic court and that these investigations will bear all evidence for the case. Time will tell if he will be convicted or not. I for one promise to be as impartial as possible.

I was hoping to stay overnight in Schäßburg before my planned visit. But the coach, the road holes and the weather disrupted my plans. Totally exhausted, I came to the huge wooden door in one of the city wall towers, the tailor’s tower, and knocked using a heavy iron ring decorated with a wolf’s head.

I sensed quite some hermetic power as someone approached the entrance from the inside. The heavy door opened slowly and with the appropriate, authentic sound. The administrator was smaller and younger than I expected, a scraggy little guy with goggles on his nose.

“Who is this?” he asked in a voice that told me that he probably hadn’t talked for weeks.

“My name is Camil Constantin,” I said. “I believe we have an appointment.”

“Ah, yes, yes. I expected you yesterday. I hope everything is fine. My name is Maxim Radu Lazar. Please come in!”

“Yes, I’m glad to be here now”, I answered while I stepped into the dark and low entrance hall. I had to duck and watch my head.

Directly after a small snack that Lazar had prepared, he showed me the archive and the relevant sections. During the next days, we took our time to dive deeply into the material of that time. We had to research five years of primary and secondary sources. I myself had analysed the higher level sources already in Kronstadt. Here in Schäßburg there was one name that dominated all reports, Egmond Bedeus von Scharberg.

He was an archivist here in the Registry for over two decades in the mid 15th century. He seemed to have eye witnessed the case and reported more or less all of the files. The first fact I found unusual was that he was also was responsible for some secondary material, not at all according to the Registry’s standards. Conclusions had to be made by an independent other person and not by the same guy who collects the bare facts.

Another part of our research therefore concentrated on the messenger himself. Egmont was a dominant guy. He seemed to have only one assistant at that time and in his conclusions, he always was very reluctant. That might be the reason why the incidents lasted so long. He must have been involved personally.

In the end, it took us five full days to sift through and catalogue the material. Nine out of ten resources came from Sir Egmont. So we focused mainly on the other ten per cent and the material I brought from outside. That gave us a somehow more reliable picture of Vlad Tepes.

For all we know, he was a charismatic man, not at all like his crude father, the one they called “Dracul” at first. Vlad didn’t slaughter men and ate them for breakfast. Instead, he gathered groups of Hermetics around himself, held parties and presumably also orgies. He had a big entourage and surely some of them were shadier than the average Transylvanian, while others were renowned members of aristocratic families that came from all over Europe.

The core of the scandal around Vlad, however, was something different. He wanted to go public. He wanted to break rule number two of the Hermetic Society and tell the world who we are. That was why Egmond the Chronist tried to stop Vlad.