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.

Thankfully, after this week of dusty research, we had some leads to follow. I took Maxim with me, this time on a much longer journey to the archives in Vienna.

The weather on this trip was not better than my previous experience. But this time I had company. Maxim was a pleasant travel partner and throughout the days, we could even work on some of the material. After three weeks, we arrived at the biggest registry of the region in Vienna. And we had a plan on how to start the search.

Only two hours later, we already had reasonable doubts about our past findings. Vlad the son was the devil, not his father. The father, Vlad II., only made the mistake to sell his son in young age to a sultan and somehow caused all this misery.

Another fact awakened our interest. Lady Lucy Westenra appeared in several reports in the archive and also in Bram Stokers novel. Many others seem to be fictional. Westenra, however, was a registered hermetic at level 6. She either seemed to play the role of a conspirator or a seduced victim. The sources were at that point still unclear. So we had material to speculate while staying over night.

It was clear that we needed more time.

Twice. We investigated twice in the wrong direction, first Vlad and then this Westenra lady. This is not me. Usually, I don't make these kinds of mistakes. I seemed to be biased. So the next steps had to be done with more clarity. We moved our focus to the prosecutor, who was appointed to the case after it escalated due to the incompetence of Scharberg, Observer Abraham van Helsing.

That part in Stokers' book sounded absurd and unrealistic, but we stumbled upon the name in one of von Scharberg's notes and later on, we found the official assignment papers. This man existed. So we tracked him down. He was registered in the Amsterdam registry at level eight. What a surprise, a worthy arch-nemesis for Vlad. So no wonder that someone made a book out of it.

He was an executive observer for the Hermetic Court in Vienna at that time. So after the first rumours reached the city, the authorities handed him over the case. His task apparently was not only to catch Vlad and drag him to court. No. His task was to end this episode, to crush the vampire cult in the making.

Of course, we also found more twists around the plain historic facts. The notes of van Helsing showed many details and references to Mehmed II., the great emperor. Vlad had been held hostage in the Ottoman Empire for some years in his youth. Some sources said he grew up together with Mehmed and his siblings. Others said, he just heard about them in his cruel prison.

In any case, Vlad, the powerful Hermetic, held a grudge against Mehmed II., a grudge so huge that he impaled Mehmed's envoys and entourage in the Walachia and attacked Ottoman territories in Bulgaria. This included the slaughter, that we expected from him in the meantime.

Anyway, back to the novel. Vlad formed the idea of his cult from the time when he escaped the prison of his youth and grew it bigger and bigger throughout and after his countless battles. And that is the fabric that Bram Stoker's book is made of.

The case was now crystal clear to me. Just in time for the hermetic court.

It is July 1905. I am at the Hermetic High Court in London and it is right before the start of the trial against the famous Bram Stoker. I just made my last observation regarding the case today, here at the courthouse.

Throughout the past arduous months, I have collected all the details of two cases, the one that is on trial today, Bram Stoker against the Hermetic Society and the quite disruptive case of Vlad, the Impaler. I've travelled through the darkest regions of Europe and got buried under tons of bureaucratic reports and unreadable paperwork.

I have uncovered all the relations between Stoker's novel and the real events and all its witnesses and collaborators, except for one name. Jonathan Harker, the solicitor in the novel. And today, I have found out that it is the name of Bram Stoker's barrister. I saw him here in the halls and it is very likely that Bram Stoker based the fictional character on the real one. Last mystery solved.

"Camil Constantin?" the announcer called out. It was my turn.

I stood up and entered the courtroom. The strict and conservative Judge Farcas had the chair. But there were also others in the room. Bram Stoker was not there yet. Jonathan Harker represented him and said that the writer would arrive later when I was supposed to give my statement.

There were also four representatives of the Registry and the Observers, I assume lawyers and two further judges that monitored the neutrality of the procedure. A hermetic trial differs a bit from a civil one. Farcas, the judge fully owns the process. He is asking questions and he manages the timing and the heard witnesses. The backup judges can only veto if something unjust is happening.

So Farcas was swearing me in and explained the circumstances and the charge to me. After about half an hour of bootstrapping procedure, he called for a lunch break.

Now, two hours later, I am standing here in front of him to give my interpretation of the proceedings around Vlad Tepes and Stoker and filling them with so much proof that the case should be clear.

I was nervous as I entered the witness box. My heart was pounding another bit more when the door opened and the accused, Bram Stoker in person came in and sat down next to his lawyer.

Farcas took his wooden hammer and called for silence. “Let us get started," he began.

“Please state your full name and role in this trial”, continued the judge.

“Constantin, Sir”, I said slightly shyer than I usually am. “My name is Camil Constantin, and I am a chronist for the Hermetic Registry. About one year ago, I was assigned to this case and took over a full research procedure in several of our archives.” I continued setting out the boring details of my assignment and the sources I had used. Then the judge posed the opening question.

“What according to your sources happened four hundred years ago, Mr. Constantin?" he started.

“Vlad Tepes, your honour, is Dracula. This is clear to me now. Several facts of the historical figure and the book are aligned. But what actually happened is in some important details different than what the book says. Vlad’s father was called Dracul. He was a knight in the Catholic Drac Order, hence the name, and fought against the Osman Empire. Vlad the son was called Draculea or Son of the Dragon, hence that name, that later turned into Dracula. The father had to give the son away to the Osmans after losing several battles.

What none of the parties knew at that time was that Vlad was a level eight hermetic who had just started to develop his abilities. Now you add rage against his kidnappers and against his father. And you get a glimpse of the person Vlad Dracula had become.”

I just started getting excited about telling the whole story when the judge interrupted.

”OK, thank you Mr. Constantin”, he said. Can you jump forward a little? What has happened to the Draculean Society?”

“Sorry, your honor", I replied, “Of course. Allow me one last sentence about the person we are dealing with. Vlad in his early twenties was both frightening - he impaled dozens of people, mostly Osmans - and charismatic. As a Walachian aristocrat, he had a lot of influence. And as a Hermetic, he surely had the mental power to convince others easily.

After some failed attempts by local Hermetic authorities to introduce him into an order, he founded one himself, the Draculean Society. And charismatic and well connected as he was, he attracted quite a few hermetics not only from the region. They came from far away. Lady Westenra was one of them for example. By the time he was twenty-seven he had assembled quite an entourage in his castle.

Now I come to the core of the story, your honour, I promise.

After all I found out, I am sure it was Vlad himself, who planned to go public with the Draculean Society. That means, he wanted to break the second major rule of the Hermetic Society and tell everyone about Hermetics and our shadow world that pulls the strings.

He had convinced all of the puppets he gathered around himself and he already had an infamous reputation in the region. So I assume he already had made the first steps when our authorities started to investigate.

There was a chronist called Sir Egmond Bedeus von Scharberg, who did a lot on his own initiative and therefore complicated the situation rather than solving it. And then there was the Observer Abraham Van Helsing, finally instated by the Hermetic Court to deal with the situation.”

“Very well, now I suppose we get closer to the heart of this case, don’t we? Good Mr Constantine. So now let’s jump forward another bit. I have read the novel in preparation for this case and we have already heard testimonies of the publishers stating the popularity of this concotion. How is this now connected to the actual events?”

“Well as you have read the book, some of the characters that I have mentioned in my statement might have sound familiar, haven’t they?”, I told the judge, who looked back at me as if I had used swear words and I returned to my humble self again.

“Sorry, you honour. Van Helsing is a prominent example with many similarities to the character in the book. I could trace back many others to historic figures and registered Hermetics and unmask some as pure fictional. So there are certain parallels.

Also some of the historic facts themselves align well with Stoker's story.

But the book diverges in important details. It does not mention Hermetics explicitly although it contains some aspects of mind manipulation. It also doesn’t mention the secret lodges or other structures of the Hermetic Society. It adds additional fantastic elements, Stoker calls it Vampirism, which is in my eyes so unrealistic, that most people will automatically depict it as pure fiction.

If you ask me, the whole drama will be forgotten soon and everybody will live on again as it always happens.”

“You better leave the conclusions to me," said the judge harshly. “But thank you. Now that is enough for now. You are preliminarily dismissed, Mr. Constantin. You may follow the trial in the audience. Please stay until the end in case I need you for clarifications.”

To be honest, I felt bad after my statement. It was as if I had done something wrong. Probably I was too brisk as always. I sat down on a bench in the audience. But the session for today was almost over anyway.

After hearing another witness for only five minutes, the judge gave the sign.

“The trial will continue tomorrow at eleven”, he said and went out of the court room through his personal door followed by the other judges and the usher.

My research was really thorough. The dossier I created has been handed over to the judge in addition to my statement. So I was sure that all was correct. And yet I didn’t sleep very well that night. I was also not really sure what I wanted, what verdict I expected. Did I want Stoker in jail? I guess not. After all the novel was not so bad, I admitted to myself. I reassured myself that I was so neutral, that I didn’t even form an opinion about the accused.

The next day, when I entered the court room, Stoker wasn’t late. He already sat in his chair next to one of his book characters and I had to think about that again. Probably we’re talking about fiction and art after all, aren’t we?

“All rise”, shouted the usher as Judge Farcas came in. Following a few seconds of adjusting and waiting for silence, he started.

“I have heard enough”, Farcas said followed by a murmur in the audience. There were at least five witnesses left on the list.

“The case is clear. I could make up my mind through a thorough comparison of the novel itself with the actual events as reported by Mr. Constantin over here in addition to the evidence he and some other chronists had brought to the table. At this time I have no reason to doubt these documents, nor their testimony. Therefore, all rise please.”

The murmuring and whispering in the audience grew again and the noise of a small crowd standing up and moving chairs was added to the carpet of sound before everything fell silent again.

Then he began to read out the verdict. “The accused, Mr. Bram Stoker, honorable member of the Hermetic Society and the Trinity Order, Second Division, registered in Dublin Ireland, is hereby found guilty of infringement of Rule Number Two of the Hermetic Pact. You have violated the commandment of secrecy.” After this announcement, the murmur continued and the old judge had to make a gesture to calm the audience down to be able to continue his remarks.

“I hereby sentence you to pay one pound sterling to the hermetic society”, he said and just like everyone else in the room, I had to think a little to understand. A symbolic sentence. Then I also saw the relief coming back into Stoker’s face. “You may remain a member of the Society and also of your local lodge in Dublin.”

“Let me explain my reasoning. You may all sit down”, he then continued. “There are quite a few parallels between the real events and the fictional story. Therefore, you have indeed misused your secret knowledge and brought a significant part of Hermetics into public consciousness. But on the other hand, the story is distorted to such an extent that the very nature of our organisation can’t be deduced.

I want to add one personal note. I disagree in one point with Mr. Constantin's interpretation. I think this story will not fade away anytime soon. It will stick. I’m sure we’ll hear more about these vampires at other times. Urban legends are challenging to control and you, Mr. Stoker have set one of them free and connected it forever with the Hermetic Society.

So don’t repeat that mistake. Rest assured that the next sentence will not turn out so mildly.”