Mina -- femme fatale (28 April 2007)

London, 28th April 1907

Story confirmed story, the evidence was overwhelming.

Dracula was back!

The rumours were maddeningly vague or contradictory about his location. We couldn't ignore them any longer. We were scattered around Europe. Mina on the French coast, Dr Seward in Spain, Dr Van Helsing in Italy and Lord Godalming in Budapest. The hunt was on, we were ill equipped and had no idea where He was, so we moved randomly, looking for clues, and things that might be useful in our fateful quest.

Then a breakthrough, newspapers reported suspicious activity in Frankfurt. The trail was fresh. The hunters converged on northern Germany. Mina was closest and when she got to Hamburg -- Dracula stuck. How like that damnable coward to attack the weakest member of our team? But he underestimated her. The resourceful Mina had garlic and magic bullets, and proved more than a match for the lord of vampires. Lord Godalming arrived to protect our brave Mina and also managed to grapple with Dracula, inflicting more injury, before the monster fled to sea.

Unsure where he was heading three of the hunters spread themselves along the coast while Van Helsing investigated Dracula's back trail in Germany in case there were any vampires. Unfortunately he was struck by lightning which killed his dogs and left the veteran vampire hunter injured. Not wanting to give Dracula any opportunity to gain extra power Van Helsing refused to rest and recuperate and pressed on.

Where was Dracula's ship heading? Down the English Channel? Out into the Atlantic to land the undead Count in France, Spain or Portugal, or was he heading for home via the Mediterranean? While we were bickering among ourselves about Dracula's likely course, our spys were at work. Information arrived to say that Dracula had travelled to the Irish Sea, but was now on land. We pored over the map. There are only three ports to investigate: Dublin, Liverpool and the small port of Swansea. Mina found a fast ship and good weather and raced to Liverpool, but found no sign of vampire activity and Dracula had time to move on.

With both the doctors at sea and not due to land for awhile, Lord Godalming also had luck with the weather and reached London in record time. Luck was with the aristocrat and he found that Dracula was in London but encountering one of Dracula's minions he only had time to send a telegram to Liverpool. Where the redoubtable Mina chartered a special train to reach London and deliver the coup de grâce using a fresh supply of garlic and magic bullets.

Going though Dracula's personal effects we found his diary (yes, we too were surprised that he had such an English habit). In it we found evidence that his attack on Mina in Hamburg wasn't an accident but calculated decision to reduce the number of hunters by attacking the weakest (there was also an indecipherable reference to gaining 2VP). He also wrote of his intention to rest up and feed in Swansea but Mina's swift arrival in Liverpool changed his plan. He seems to have thought the hunters were having too much luck. We prefer to think of it as God's will.

Guatemala Café (21 April 2007)

For a change of pace Lance taught us his new game Guatemala Café. In this game you are buying coffee sheds, workers and ships and laying roads from the coffee sheds to the ships. The resources to buy are laid out in a grid with a path around the outside. A "Coffee buyer" walks around this path, and you can only access the resources on the row or column he is adjacent to.

The only way to get money in this game is to trigger a scoring in one of the brands of coffee instead of buying (this gives you $8). The brand that is scored is also determined by the where the "Coffee buyer" is on his track

Everyone who has workers and a shed of this brand score a point per worker. If they are connected to a ship of this brand as well that score is doubled (trippled for 2 ships and quadrupled for 3 ships).

This game is more devious than I've made it sound as Lance demonstrated at one point by taking advantage of my peniless state to force me to do a scoring in a brand that he had and the rest of us didn't!

As money is very tight throughout the game it is good to build one or perferably two medium sized plantations early (to score with) and worry about ship and road building later (which will bring big scores).

Lance 42
Ian   24
JohnB 19
Anne  11