Castle Bran is set to be handed over to the Royal Family of Romania from the city of Brasov on Dec 1st of 1920. The Castle was run by the Forestry Administration until 1918, at which point they mysteriously decided to turn it back over the city. Everyone keeps playing hot potato with the castle and no one seems to know why. The Royal Family gave Mr. Prescott's Company authorization to inspect the lands for mining rights. Armitage and Carter want the party to see what he's up to there.
Herbert West meets with the party members in Rome, sent by Armitage and Carter. It was West who investigated Jenning and found that the town had been destroyed by extensive strip mining after the inhabitants were frozen to death.
The adventure begins on October 3rd, 1920 (four weeks until halloween). The trip from Rome to Brasov is four days drive. The party rents a truck. Dr. Smithy, Sister Agatha, and Herbert West ride in the front while Madeline rides in the back of the truck.
They are waived through customs at the Slovenian border without trouble. In Hungary, Madeline charms the guards into letting them across the border without trouble. As they enter Romania they bribe the guards to let them through with their weapons and other strange gear (they had taken an interested in Herbert West's glowing re-animation fluid).
On the mountain road in carpatians, they first pass a gypsie caravan on the narrow mountain road, then later something large and hairy jumps out in front of car and Smithy drives them off the road. They pay the gypsies to help them get their truck back on the road and help the gypsies ride into town. As the sun sets they hear a wolf howling in the distance.
When they arrive in town they come to an inn. The innkeeper is convinced that madeline is a gypsie because she was riding in the back of the truck with some gypsies they drove for helping them. She is forbidden to enter the inn. Smithy helps her climb in the back window of the building. Later she disguises herself as a nun with one of Sister Agatha's habits and goes down to talk to some locals who speak German.
Madeline finds that the city has been plagued by disappearances and mutilations, including a gypsies woman who was attacked just recently. They find the local constable and he suggests they go to the local doctors office during the night and investigate further. He says that he will leave the door unlocked for them.
They rise early the next day and go to the doctors office. They find that the body had an arm removed with surgical precision and blood was drained from two puncture marks in the neck. They find the location of the encampment where the body was found in the local records they also see that the last person admitted to the body was struck by lightning.
At the gypsie camp that was abandoned after the woman was attacked they find a lone wagon has been ransacked and stripped of valuables. Wolf prints surround the area and it looks like the roof was torn from the wagon. There is no blood inside.
They talk to the gypsies at the girls funeral and find that they were attacked by giant blackbird creatures the size of a man. Also they speak with the constable and he says there have been reports of giant moths. The constable gives them a tommygun.
They head toward the castle and see they can enter by the graveyard or by the front gate. They check out the graveyard first and see most of the graves have been opened and their contents chewed on. They also find a squat tomb building below ground. They etch and elder sign above the entrance then open the tomb. Inside they see three humanoid figures with pointed ears and fangs. One is reading and the other two appear to be lounging.
Sister Agatha's eyes roll into the back of her head as she sees horrible visions of the dreamlands and the creatures dancing around there. The other party members open fire on the creatures killing them. Sister Agatha recovers.
They find one of the monsters was trying to escape into an open crypt and find a passage towards the castle there. The passage opens up in the tomb of Vlad Teppes, the historical and legendary figure of Dracula. Dracula's remains appear to be a mere pile of bones in the crypt. They explore further and find a room with a strange giant metallic cube suspended over a shaft by a pulley system. They also find a wine cellar and make some molotov cocktails.
As they head upstairs they see a couple of guards armed with tommyguns. Sister Agatha tries to sneak up on them but they turn and open fire. She kills one before she herself is gunned down. The rest of the party takes out the guards. Herbert West tries to re-animate Sister Agatha but the process drives her made, her spirit trapped in visions of the dreamlands like those she saw earlier. Outback Jack, an adventurer who was with Herbert West in Jenning arrives through the main gate, drawn by the sound of gunfire. He was delayed on his journey to Europe from Arkham.
They head upstairs and find a lab where strange experiments are taking place. A doctor is grafting body parts including the dead woman's missing arm to a cadaver and they have removed the brain and put it in a Mi-Go cannister. Outback Jack impales the doctor with his fetch stick and he bleeds to death slowly. They examine the lab's contents but find no other clues.
They head upstairs to the tower structure above the lab and find two metallic pylons decorated in skulls with a swirling vortex of bluish energy between them. Smithy uses his view gate spell and sees an alien landscape on the other side of the gate with two Mi-Go approaching. They open fire on one of the pylons with a tommygun, destroying it as one of the Mi-Go moves through. The creature is cut in half as the gate collapses. It flops around oozing fluid everywhere then expires.
They head up some stairs to the top watch tower and hear a buzzing and clicking on the roof unlike any they're heard thus far. Herbert West has a rope tied around his waist and tries to climb up on top of the roof to get a look at the buzzing. He slips and falls over the side railing. The sound of his fall draws a great black bird/bat creature that swoops down and bits him with it's beak, latching onto him. Outback Jack stabs the creature with his fetch stick and it dies, still holding onto Wests body.
The party pulls on the rope with a great heave and gets Herbert over the rail where they manage to pry the beasts beak off of him, sending its corpse falling to the ground. Two more of the bird/bat creatures swoop down along with a Mi-Go to attack them. They dispatch the two blackbird creatures then retreat back inside the tower just as the Mi-Go opens fire with a great blast from its lightning gun. Outback Jack steps into the electrical storm brazenly and tosses a molotov cocktail at the Mi-Go setting it on fire and sending it spiraling to its death on the courtyard stones below.
They find a hall with a library off the tower room below and inside is Prince Hotep, the man they saw in the desert with the hyenas during the last adventure. They ask him why he is taking their resources and he replies because he can. He says they can join him in his enterprise if they wish to serve him. They refuse and set him on fire. With a gesture he extinguishes the flames unharmed. He calls two alien dog-like creatures that step out of transdimensional portals in the corners of the room and attack, flying across the library towards them.
With tommyguns running dangerously low on ammo they defeat the creatures just as Prince Hotep is fleeing down a secret passage behind a bookshelf. They find paperwork showing the mining operation in Jenning and also suggesting that a similar operation is set to begin on October 31st, four weeks from now in the city of Visoko in Yugoslavia. It also shows that the current operations here in Brasov have not yet begun.
They learn that the great metal cubes are mining machines that draw materials up through the soil for extraction. There are two more of the devices in the trucks outside. The party decides to drop one of the devices into the pit to sabotage it and to take the other two with them.
As they leave the castle a great earthquake starts and both trucks run off the road. Herbert West escapes from his truck as it sinks into the earth. Outback Jack Madeline, and Sister Agatha drive away the car without trouble. Smithy's truck sinks into the earth and he cannot escape. He dies deep in the bowels of the earth.
The party excavates for Smithy's truck which takes about a week. They find the holy grail and his body which Herbert West Re-Animates but the mining device from the truck has sunk deeper into the earth below, never to be found again.
Herbert West takes Sister Agatha and Madeline back to Rome to join Sadie in the Asylum. Madeline cannot speak coherently, but appears to be convinced that she's a character in some sort of game. She also screams madly whenever they try to remove the habit she borrowed from Sister Agatha.
The party sends a wire to Armitage in Bucharest who instructs that they should head to Visoko immediately to stop the mining operations from beginning there. He says he's on his way personally to offer help, but fears he will be unable to make it in time. Visoko is in grave danger and the whole town could perish if they fail to act.
Survivors: Dr. Herbert West, Outback Jack, Dr. Smithy
Sent to Asylum: Madeline Rammstein, Sister Christy Agatha
