Chapter 23: Warehouse 5 Monopoly

Carl opened his eyes in his bed back in the Warehouse between jump worlds. He got out of bed, and wandered around his house, looking to see if there was anything unusual. He had already had a couple of surprises show up between worlds, so he would try not to be too shocked if something jumped out at him.

Seeing nothing unusual, he made his way back to his bedroom and opened up the terminal that Spere 037 had left for him.

Looking over his options, he chose to add My Quest Senses Are Tingling, Like Riding a Bike, APM Intensifies, and Environmental PK to his base body.

His quest senses and the awareness of the environment and how to utilize it as a weapon are a little bit esoteric for powers, but over the time he'd been in the virtual world of Aincrad he had gotten used to having those senses.

Even his life outside the virtual world had gotten a bit easier from having his quest senses. Anytime someone had wanted to ask him for help but something held them back, Carl had gotten a broad sense of what they wanted.

His quest senses had provided a huge boost in his ability to negotiate. Knowing what the other party wanted going into negotiations was a huge benefit to forming his tactics to get what he wanted out of the deal.

Add in the abilities to never lose the skill level he attains in anything from lack of training, able to adapt his skills to other systems, and speed up his base reflexes? Yeah, Carl was quite happy with his perks from the SAO world.

Carl finalized his order, and as usual passed out while the changes were being made to his body.

After Carl woke up, he spent the next couple of days puttering around. He found that as time passed and he went through more worlds, he felt he needed some time to compartmentalize before jumping into the next world. Especially if he took the option to gain a background in the world.

Every single identity was still him, but he gained another decade or two of more memories and relatives each time he took a background. It took a bit of work to make sure he put everything in perspective and was ready for the next world.

When Carl finally felt prepared, he made his way to the jump terminal. He pressed on the screen to initiate the next jump. A message notification popped up when he pressed on the screen.

Dear Jumper,

Looks like you made it through five worlds without help, congratulations! Since I'm not able to be there to help, I thought I'd set up some contingencies. Here is a little present for you. When making your selection at the jump document, you can now bank your unused Choice Points for later. Scrimp and save a little in one world, and you can then spend big in the next! Have fun with it!

-Jump-chan

"Well, that is a nice little bonus." Carl thought out loud as he considered the implications. He then hit the close message button. "What is my next world?" Carl clicked yes to the early jump option. "Monopoly Gauntlet. Okay, I'll start with 0 cp and only my bodymod available."

Carl laughed. This situation is exactly what he picked Beneath the Mod for.

"Okay, the victory condition is easy to understand, win the game of Monopoly. But of course there are rewards for victory. Let's see, I get a number of items out of this challenge."

Stovepipe Hat: adds an extra bit of class with any outfit more appropriate than sleepwear, and it will influence people to be far more likely to listen to what you say.

"A stovepipe hat, blue jeans, and t-shirt is an interesting, yet fashionable combination…" Carl grinned at the ridiculous combination.

Pocket Watch: Keep the right time for you at all times and always be fashionable. The shine on it could make a good distraction, or perhaps a good point to focus on.

"Sounds like someone is encouraging hypnotism." Carl laughed.

Rover: the little pewter pooch will travel with you. Make sure to keep him fed; he adores bacon and can actually eat chocolate, unlike regular boring dogs. Sometimes gets a bit restless.

"Having a pet to follow me through jumps will be nice." Carl didn't bother to keep his excitement off his face at the chance to get some company.

Advice of the Spirit of Uncle Moneypenny: If you need advice in investments or business opportunities, write your question down on something and the spirit of Uncle Moneypenny will show up to give valuable and relevant advice.

"That's bound to be useful." Carl nodded, thinking of ways to get the most out of it.

Property: All the property you walk out of this game with, you will find the deeds to land and buildings of equivalent worth to the Jump Worlds you find yourself in. Boardwalk will provide the highest cost property in the world you find yourself in, while Mediterranean Avenue will be the equivalent of low rent housing. But while it may be low rent, it will still provide income for you. And if you have built up houses or hotels on the land, it will no longer be low income rent, bringing in a pretty penny.

"Ooh, the ability to add more property and money to my growing list of assets. Nice." Carl thought back to how much he had worked and worried to keep a portion of the Chase fortune out of the hands of the IRS in his first jump world, and how he had made the dangerous decision to hunt vampires to add to his fortune so he and Cordelia wouldn't be destitute and on the street in demon country.

He then thought about how easy his second jump world had been with rich and good parents that gave him the best of everything. How he had benefitted immensely from access to the pokemon tech and networking.

And he thought how currently, if he wins the Monopoly Gauntlet, he basically won't have to worry about money in any of his future jumps, Carl couldn't help but get excited for this opportunity. Instead of having to spend cp to make sure he had money in each world, he could have it already available.

After taking a while to go grab a mug of root beer and calming down, Carl continued where he left off.

Free Parking: Don't worry about paying to park, ever again. In fact, even parking where you shouldn't will have no negative consequences.

Carl laughed. The things he could get away with, with that little perk.

Money Changing: Any currency you acquire in one world will be converted into another seamlessly.

"Huh, that's pretty good. I currently have a huge pile of pokedollars that I'm sure wouldn't spend well in any country on most Earths, so getting that converted will be nice. And if I went to a jump world where gold was the currency, for example, having my money converted without paying the fees will be really nice."

After looking over the perks and drawbacks, Carl had a pretty decent idea of how he would win with just the synergy of perks and drawbacks. There were even some perks that would help him out in future jump worlds.

Since Carl started with 0 cp, he started adding in the drawbacks.

Embarassment +100cp: Play the game with your least favorite Monopoly piece.

Annoyance +100cp: Makes the players annoying.

Ankle-biter +100cp: Some of the annoying players act immature.

Just Make It Stop +200cp: The players act like the most detestable of inlaws.

Only the Dead Can Know Peace From This +300cp: Everything the players can do to irritate you, they do.

Free Parking +200cp: Everyone but you can win the money from Free Parking.

More of Them +200cp: Two more players join the game, for a total of five (including you, player 1).

Too Many Cooks Spoil the Soup +300cp: Three more players enter the game, for a total of eight (including you, player 1).

Go Directly to Jail +200cp: You are now twice as likely to land on Go To Jail or receive the Go To Jail card from the chance pile.

Do Not Pass Go +300cp: Every five turns spent out of jail, you end up going to jail.

Do Not Collect $200 +300cp: Now every two turns out spent out of jail, you end up going to jail.

Stop Right There, Criminal Scum +400cp: Get Out of Jail Free cards do not work for you.

Eternal Pauper +300cp: Barred from collecting $200 when you land on Go!

Shrewd Fellows +300cp: Opponents have a decent amount of business savvy.

Strictly Business +300cp: Opponents are professional economists and trained financiers.

Trust Buster +800cp: Your opponents are famous rich people. Three of your opponents are J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie. Assume the other players are also suitably business savvy.

And now that Carl has banked up 4500cp, it's time to spend some of it on perks. Carl rubbed his hands together as he prepared.

Fast Track 100cp: Once every five turns, you can simply hop on over to the nearest Railroad, and buy it if nobody owns it yet!

Cash Advance 300cp: Everyone starts Monopoly with $1500. You get an extra three $500 bills.

Rainy Day Fund 600cp: You double the money you would normally start with.

The Landlord's Game 400cp: Any other player will now sell you any property they have, regardless of strategy, provided you offer 1.5 times its value. I dare say this would work wherever you went…

Savings and Loan 500cp: It seems the other players trust you enough to let you act as the Bank! This also means you'll be more trusted with money wherever you go – only gross misspending will break that sort of trust.

Trust Building 600cp: No one, it seems, is willing to come after you for purchasing a full set of properties or Railroads. I can't say why. Perhaps you could even get away with deals like that in the future…

Winning When Losing 700cp: It appears you can collect revenue even while incarcerated! This is a useful trick wherever you are!

Carl's whole strategy relied on him being in jail for most of the game while gathering rent money. With the ability to buy a property whenever he wants for 1.5 times the cost, plus the perk from Farmville that lets him always get the best price for anything he sells and the ability to sell anything he wants, he figured he will control the board. He could force the players to buy and sell the properties in order to ensure the flow of the game went how he wanted.

Carl had considered getting a couple more perks to make his winning easier, but he stopped himself in time. The whole point of cheating like he was doing, was to gather as much property as he could before the game ended.

If he got the perk that made it so he had one house on every property he bought, the balance of the game would disappear, he'd run people into bankruptcy too quickly, and he would miss out on getting every property upgraded before the game ended.

Plus, he just found out that he could bank those Choice Points to spend them in a later jump. That was a game changer that he was taking full advantage of while he could. He had no idea when he would come across a jump world with powers that he just had to have, and would get tempted to taking game ending drawbacks in order to afford them. He would rather avoid that kind of no win scenario.

As it was, he had an extra 1300 cp to spend in the future. And maybe he'll just keep that extra cp until after the 15th jump. Spere 037 heavily implied that he would want a lot of points to spend when whatever it was happened.

At first Carl had assumed it would be something good happening. But as time passed, and he remembered the opening document Spere 037 had him read, Carl had started wondering. The document had labeled Spere 037 as a third party meddler. Carl just wasn't sure anymore how much of his benefit these powerful entities cared about.

Did he, in his original world, care about the ants that are scurrying about their ant business? No. The best the ants could hope for is that he wasn't malicious enough to mess with them or destroy their nest. Maybe accidently drop some crumbs from his sandwich that they could grab to supplement their food. But for ants to actually expect humans to care about them? That was a silly thought.

Spere 037 had implied at least part of his and the Jump-chan's motivation was entertainment. What might be entertaining to them, wouldn't be so fun for those going through the "entertainment". The death games in the coliseum in Rome had also been labeled "entertainment".

So, ultimately, Carl thought it might be a good idea to make sure he had some extra banked cp around to deal with whatever "surprise" he got after the 15th jump. And if he got pleasantly surprised, then he would just chalk his paranoia up to paranoia and be happy.

"Well, enough stalling. This Monopoly game isn't going to win itself." Carl said before entering the gauntlet challenge.

Carl found himself sitting at a square table with seven other people also sitting at the table. Carl saw the Monopoly board sitting in front of him, and the ratty old shoe piece was directly in front of him.

"I think we should introduce ourselves, then. I'm Carl." Carl kept his introduction short.

The person to Carl's left snorted in disgust. "This game is a waste of my time. I'm J.P. Morgan, and I'll be taking you all to the cleaners on this game." He was dressed in an old time suit, and had a suitably nice bushy mustache.

The next man in line laughed. "Only if you've got the balls, boy. The name's Jed Clampett." The man was dressed in what looked like homemade trousers, shirt and a jacket. His hat was pretty ratty and he had thick eyebrows the same grey color as his bushy mustache.

The next man in line had a silver, closely trimmed beard and mustache, and wore a bowler hat. "Andrew Carnegie. You'll find you have your work cut out against you, going up against me."

The next man had yellow skin and devious, squinty eyes. He put his fingertips together and laughed. "I am Mr. Burns, and this game will be like stealing candy from a baby."

The next man was also dressed in a suit, wearing a hat. His intense eyes glared at his opponents across the table. "The name is Charles Foster Kane. It will take your best efforts to survive in this game."

The next man had his sideburns run down into his mustache, but left his chin free of hair. "The name is John D. Rockefeller. I'll be making new records for beating this…game. Unfortunately, it will be at you fellows' expense."

The last figure was a five foot tall duck. "The name is Scrooge McDuck. And you're going to have to work both smarter and harder to have a chance against this Scottsduck."

Carl was laughing on the inside at the inclusion of some of the characters. He so wanted to moan "Rosebud" but manfully restrained himself. Mocking a man's dying words to his face, no matter how much the internet lampooned it, was in poor taste.

But by the end of the game, Carl would have completely changed his mind on the matter due to the drawbacks he picked.

Carl counted his money before starting off. He had $6000. Looks like the perk Cash Advance was applied before Rainy Day Fund, thus doubling his entire starting fund, rather than what he originally started with. Carl couldn't say he was displeased with how those perks were applied.

Looking around the room, Carl saw a table set up on the side with drinks and snacks available. Carl tried to open up his Warehouse, but found it was unavailable. Too bad, he could really used a drink of root beer right now.

Everyone at the table meandered over to the snack table and grabbed a drink before returning to the table. Cheating at board games was a time honored tradition that was only punished if caught, so Carl kept a wary eye out to make sure nobody was trying to cheat before the game even started.

With everyone distracted by getting drinks, Carl reached out for his magic, and found that he had access to it. He employed a little bit of telekinesis while everyone's backs were turned to move the dice on the table.

Carl almost grinned madly when he found no limitations on his telekinesis, but caught himself in time to not give anything away to the other players.

He felt a momentary pang of regret. If he had fully trusted that he would have access to his magic and that nothing stopped him from cheating his way to victory with it, he could have banked another 1000cp by not taking some perks. But he felt it was best to hedge his bets and make sure he had a winning hand, no matter what. And since he hadn't done a gauntlet before and still had some paranoia about Spere 037's "gift", he thought playing it safe was better.

Carl settled down at the table as his opponents began setting up for a game of Monopoly. Carl picked up the dice, and rolled his character to his first property he would pick up. Carl settled down and prepared to cheat his way to owning the board.

But what followed was the single most exercise in frustration, triumph, patience, and sheer crazy that Carl had ever engaged in.

The triumph obviously came from Carl cheating like a madman. He kept every player relatively even through most of the game. He kept anyone from going bankrupt, and everyone passed Go! many times to get a lot of currency in circulation.

He manipulated the dice rolls to make sure each player had a monopoly so they could build houses and hotels on his future property. And he continued to make rent while staying in jail.

Then, towards the end game, when everything was built up and Carl had enough money saved, he went on a rampage and bought every property out from under the other players. Within a few more turns, everyone but him was bankrupt. He won, hands down, and owned the board.

The frustration came from dealing with all the alpha, prima donna personalities in the room. No matter what kind of dignified persona the rich usually use to maintain their dignity and public appearance, in the end they are all people. And these particular people were affected by the drawbacks Carl chose to act like the most obnoxious, irritating, godawful relatives ever imaginable.

Morgan got his freaking cheetos dust all over the money, dice, deeds, and chance cards. The man, under drawbacks, was an annoying slob.

Jed Clampett moved between smoking a pipe blowing the smoke in everyone's faces, to chewing tobacco and replacing other's drink cups with his spit cup. He thought it was hilarious. The bastard.

Carnegie was fond of telling everyone about all his surgeries, sicknesses, and foul bowel movements. Under the drawbacks he turned into an oversharer who tried to disgust everyone to distract them from the game.

Mr. Burns took a page out of Bart's playbook and acted like a freaking 13 year old. Blowing spitballs, hawking loogies, trying to swipe more money out of the bank so Carl had to guard against him. The four fingered asshole was pretty good at being irritating.

Charles Kane ended up getting stuck in politician mode. He made all kinds of promises that he broke the next round. He tried to get other players to "donate" to his cause. And he made speeches. God, did he make speeches. If Carl never heard another political speech, it would be too soon.

The less said about Rockefeller under the influence of drawbacks the better. The man liked to fight, let's leave it at that.

And Carl didn't even want to touch on the weirdness of the humanoid duck world Scrooge McDuck came from. They never even wore pants. Three words were enough to explain that. Birds are dicks. Yup, despite being a humanoid bird, Scrooge McDuck was still a bird.

So throughout the entire game, Carl had to practice his patience. The loud noises, the nasty smells let off, the obnoxious conversation, and the death threats, all caused Carl to grit his teeth in determination to see the game through to its conclusion. He wasn't about to give up before he ripped fully built up properties from everyone's hands.

"A little bit of annoyance now, gives a big payoff later." Carl kept chanting in his mind to get himself through the tough times. Eventually Carl remembered he had magic, and started blocking off smells and sounds from the rat bastards that he was playing against.

And the crazy dialed up to 11 when Carl began buying everyone out. Alpha personalities do not like to lose. And despite the perk that ensure people wouldn't go after Carl when he was getting monopolies, those players felt they had to let some steam out somehow.

That room got wrecked. And some of the players probably would have died if the game room didn't seem to keep them from doing so. The only intact furniture at the end was the table the Monopoly board was on. It was apparently protected by the magic of the jump chain, to make sure the game could continue.

At one point early on through the game Carl briefly considered if he should feel bad for cheating so hard that no one stood a chance at winning. Wasn't it wrong not to have some sense of fair play? To not leave some path of hope or victory for his opponent? Wasn't that unfair of him?

Whatever lingering sense of fair play Carl felt over the matter took a hit with the spitball that went in his mouth. Then he was pelted with cheetos, popcorn, and salsa. Finally, when drinks were poured down his back, Carl lost any sense of wanting to give these enemies room to breathe.

If he couldn't kill them because of the magic of the jump chain, then he would totally ruin them and grind them into dust, leaving them with no hope or assets at the end.

Fair play was for games with family where nothing was on the line. Where the point of the harmless game was family or friendly bonding and good feelings.

These…things, were obviously his mortal enemies, and must therefore be crushed beneath his feet. Real property and assets were on the line that would greatly impact his future. There was no way he was leaving the game before he ripped every last dollar bill and deed from these bastard's hands.

And when Carl won the game, owned every deed, and had taken every dollar those bastards had, he found himself back in his Warehouse between worlds.

Sitting up in bed, Carl took a shaky breath as he rubbed his face with his hands. It took him a bit to calm down. That…game, had been a little intense. The irritation had built and built until all he felt was anger and rage.

He would have ripped them apart if he had been allowed to. He could have, with the strength he possessed.

"Well, that's one thing to add to the list of perks to look out for." Carl muttered. "Something to help me keep my temper. I swear I have never lost my temper so badly before. Guess I've been lucky to not have had the proper 'stimulus' required to make me lose my cool. I've been able to protect everyone I care about, and haven't had to be stuck in the same room as those things before." Carl referred to his Monopoly opponents as things because he was trying to keep calm and not let his temper go again. He had called them much worse in the course of the game.

Carl got up and took a long hot shower. He visualized letting his troubles get washed away by the water, and flowing down the drain.

After getting dressed, he made his way downstairs, where he found a cute Welsh Terrier dog sitting at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for him. The dog didn't look like he was made of pewter, he looked like a normal dog.

"Hey there boy. Are you Rover?" Carl asked, and then laughed when he saw Rover crack open his mouth with his tongue lolling out, and his stubby tail wagged. "Who's a good boy?" Carl asked as he let Rover sniff him, before petting the adorable dog. Carl was feeling much better already. Rover was apparently going to be his therapy dog.

"Let's get some grub, how does that sound?" Carl asked. Rover barked happily in agreement. "Alright, let me fix us something good. How does cheeseburgers sound?" Rover barked excitedly.

Carl entered the kitchen, with Rover behind him. He saw his pocket watch, stovepipe hat, and the land deeds sitting on the table, waiting for him. Carl ignored them for the moment and concentrated on making the best burgers he could, topped with bacon, onion, cheese, lettuce, and pickles.

Rover seemed to enjoy the meal, and he happily drank the root beer Carl put in a bowl for him. He wouldn't feed a normal dog onions, root beer, other such human foods. But the jump chain let him know it was fine for Rover to eat such foods.

After Carl looked over his deeds and placed them in his office filing cabinet, and put his hat and pocket watch away in his room, he sat on the couch with a t.v. show playing. With Rover by Carl's side so Carl could pet his new dog, he started feeling like himself again after the rage incident of Monopoly.

"I'm gonna have to watch out for those drawbacks in the future, Rover." Carl commented. "It seems I was right originally to be worried about them and avoid some of them for the most part." Carl shuddered when thinking about some of the drawbacks on offer in the BtVS world.

This brief run in with simply "annoying" opponents as drawbacks was enough to totally make Carl lose his cool, and if not for his magic allowing him to shut out their voices, he might have lost the game from sheer frustrated anger and the desire to end it as soon as possible.

But in the BtVS world, there were far more deadly drawbacks. All his memories of the BtVS world removed? Being tortured daily by demons? Losing his soul and a demon taking over after a number of years? Having unrelenting demons always after him?

Yeah, those drawbacks were no joking matter.

As Carl continued to relax next to Rover, he vowed he would be cautious of any seemingly harmless drawbacks in the future. He had definitely paid the price to get some extra cp. He felt he had more than earned it, after that Monopoly experience.