Chapter 487: Pass the Snacks and Roll the Dice

Zander moved two of his workers and declared, "And my usual two here. Time to stock up on more swill and scraps for my workers."

Rosie shook her head and said "No soup for you!"

Zander's face lost all animation mid-turn as he was moving his minion tokens across the board. Several were placed in strategic places, ready to collect resources if he managed to draw the corresponding chits. Others were in chemical distilleries and manufactories, earning pay and slowing accumulating skills. He had just placed two in front of a large warehouse owned by Rosie.

Zander stared at her, considering his next words. The two cheese fiends were very hard to read, their attitudes those of small girls one minute and viscous predators the next. Milo seemed to be only person who could deal with them without problems. They had a very loose deal with him for mutual support during the voting rounds. Zander was building a small, elite workforce, and aiming for jobs that would open up in later rounds as the massive laboratories in the Noble sector began hiring. All of his resources were spent on skills and upgrades. This meant he was relying on cheap housing and cheap food being available for purchase. For the last seven rounds he had used two minions to buy the supplies he needed from Rosie.

The girls had taken a non-standard start, based upon some comments made by the snails. 'Everyone has to eat.' made sense to them. They had deployed all of their starting resources in the Slave Sector, populated by ratkin, goblins, and other races that formed much of the workforce in Bloth. After three rounds of gathering resources and only deploying a few minions to do delivery quests, Rosie had placed down several of her hoarded tiles at once. "The Slop and Gruel shop has a tax lien thingy on it. I'm using my small windfall token to pay the taxes and Possession is 10/10ths of the Law card."

She turned to Buttercup, "We can turn it into a cookie and cheese shop! But I need help getting food and stuff to make the cookies."

Her sister had clapped in delight. "I know where to get it. If you do quests in the sewers you can draw Raw Resources tokens and get Strange Meat and Some sort of Plants."

Buttercup had placed all of her workers in the sewers and picked up all the available hunting quests there. She began to gather a steady stream of resources but was losing workers each round to the monsters. Rosie drew a Monster Hunters token and traded it to her sister for six barrels of sewer weed. Buttercup quit losing workers and her meat and plant production began to grow. Most of this was supplied to Rosie, who in return supplied her workers with double rations each day. Her minions were rapidly accumulating experience and gaining fighting levels, causing some worry in the other players.

Rosie began selling cheap food of a dubious nature. Since the game didn't define what was in the food, she declared they were cookies. Cheese was much more difficult and she only gained a steady supply of low-quality cave cheese after forming an alliance with three ratkin clans to store and distribute their cheese. Not enough cheese for a clan was a big problem, but excess was worse. The clan would argue about who got the extra, and they had to be careful about being raided by other clans. In exchange for getting a 20% cut, Rosie distributed daily cheese rations to each ratkin and kept the excess cheese under lock and key. Slowly, she expanded her number of workers, and her Cookie and Cheese shop became the number one resource for food in the Slave and Manufacturing Sectors. She was Zander's only source for food, and her short statement was making his mind whirl as he tried to buy time.

"I will be happy to purchase any of your fine foods, as I have been doing for several turns."

Rosie shook her head, "No, you called it bad names. No soup for you this turn."

"I assure you..."

"No soup for two turns."

"I'll pay double!" The cost of finding another food source would mean spending resources to move his workers, roll dice, and hope he could negotiate with an NPC food seller.

Rosie considered it. "Triple this turn. Double the next three turns, and you say nice things about my cookies in public to raise my reputation."

Zander considered the cost, it was cheaper to find someplace else to get food...or maybe even acquire such a place. "Algernon old buddy, old pal, you had an idea last turn about a certain place that made certain things. Back me on acquiring such a place so I can feed my people, and I will give you 55% of the profits for 10 turns before we split evenly for the rest of the game."

Algernon added up his resources. He had put forth the plan that investing in a factory that made canned food paste would make a tidy profit and break the monopoly that Rosie and Buttercup were creating. He hadn't really expected Zander to agree. His brother liked to continue with plans and not deviate. But he was in a bind here and also hated to let anyone dictate terms to him, something Algernon was also going to do. "66% for five turns, and 55% thereafter. You're short on funds and I'll have to provide working capital in excess of my share of the cost. But...I also have something special I've saved that will let us increase market share very quickly."

"Which is?"

"Not saying. Agree quickly, you are running out of time."

"Dammit, ok. Let's do it." Zander and Algernon spent their resources, and he shifted his two workers to their new factory. He put his nose in the air and said in a haughty voice, "I find your terms deplorable madam, and I'm taking my business elsewhere."

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Rosie and Buttercup laughed. "That's a funny voice. You have to always talk that way for the rest of the game."

To Zander's horror, Milo tossed a chit to the center of the table. "I'm calling for a VOTE. All in favor of Zander having to talk that way with his nose elevated?" Everyone including Algernon raised their hands. "The VOTE carries." Zander said nothing, leaning back in his chair, being careful to keep his nose up and a haughty look on his face. Algernon went next, paying resources into their new business and generating food tokens that represented large barrels of food paste that other players could buy. At the end of the turn he pulled a chit from his stack, and grinned at Zander.

"Be ready to laugh in a funny voice. Our competitor may have a small problem to deal with. He laid down the chit in front of Buttercup: Swarm of Giant Mutated Alligators.

The card represented a section of the sewers being overrun with the creatures, increasing the chance of casualties by 300% and dropping all harvesting by 66% as the gators ate anything in sight and bred quickly.

Everyone craned their necks to read the text, and several looked nervously at the two girls who had just been dealt a terrible blow that might drive them into bankruptcy. Rosie looked like she was going to cry, but Buttercup carefully read the text on the chit, working her way through the words.

"These are monsters?"

Zander said in his funny voice. "They certainly are."

"And dumb? They don't think?"

"Yes, that would be what non-sentient means. Have fun dealing with them. When you're ready to give up, we can talk about buying out your shares in the sewers and the cookie shop...maybe."

Buttercup nodded, pulled a chit from her pile. "I play the PETS chit. I've been saving and hoping for a big, dumb monster to invade so I could tame it. This is perfect. Sister? Can I have a lot of food to tame our new pets on my next turn?" Rosie laughed and agreed, then gave her sister a hug.

"I have lots of food. We can give them double food for a taming bonus. We get 3d6 giant alligator pets immediately and another 1d6 on each of your turns since they breed fast. They'll patrol with your sewer soldiers and help us clear out all the monsters under the Slave Sector. They'll eat a lot, but we can harvest ten times as much each turn. Thanks Algernon. Thanks Funny-Voice."

Number Twelve rolled his eyestalks, "Oh, the horror of having ones careful plans upset while everyone laughs. But, I'm sure you two are used to it."

The snails continued their running commentary on what they saw happen each turn, referencing games they'd seen, and others they had learned of from Thirteen. The later were always either games the Ur-Khemyst had dominated, or had lost and still held a grudge. Milo suspected that most of them didn't actually refer to a game, but to Bloth itself, with the snails not able to tell the difference from their limited perspective.

After the events that led to the rise of the Gator and Cookie Food Company, alliances quickly shifted around the table. The price of food dropped over the next ten turns, driving Algernon and Zander into bankruptcy. Milo bought them out and made a deal with Rosie and Buttercup to sub distribute their food in the Manufacturing Sector. Everyone else made sure to compliment the fine cookies and avoid Zander's fate.

What caused Rosie and Buttercup's Empire to pause wasn't anything in the game. Like all large board games, Blothopoly ground on and on, with each full round taking more and more time. The snails demanded that negotiation timers be implemented to keep each turn from turning into a chat session. Players had five minutes each to make deals, gather and spend resources, and move their markers. This kept each round to roughly an hour and at round 18 a person entered the room and a shadow fell across the board. Gendifur had given the girls as much time as she could, but was fully aware of what happened if they didn't get enough rest. Milo and everyone else noted that they were becoming more aggressive in the game.

"Come, you two. It's time for a late snack, stories, and bedtime."

"But mama! We just taught our gators new tricks! We're going to conquer the sewers and start making surprise attacks!"

"It's just getting to the best part!"

Gendifur began tapping her foot and looked at the board. "How long is this game going to take?"

Butch said, "Hours. Many more hours. We're just getting past the initials build phase."

The snails all giggled that someone thought a full game Blothopoly could be finished in only a day with thirteen players. Twelve yelled out, "Days and Days! In the Midgame the Noble Sector opens up and things get interesting! The fight for supremacy has just begun."

Gendifur pointed at the snails, "Sounds like there's time for a good night's sleep and you can be back here bright and early. Pick a snail each to play for you, and Milo can double check their moves."

Everyone looked at Milo, dreading him having access to so much power. He held up both hands, "I will play by the 'Neutral-Non-Aggressive-Advisor' rule set until they return. It's part of the additional rules in update #202. I invoke my right for five minutes to talk strategy with the proxy players the girls pick"

The girls selected Six and Seven to play for them. Milo huddled with the two snails on the floor, speaking low, then he'd pop up his head, point at someone, and the snails would giggle. Eventually, they returned to the table, Milo looking smug and the snails rolling their eyes at everyone. After the two yawning little cheese fiends followed their mama off to bed, everyone settled in for another round.

Twelve yelled out, "Pass the snacks and get ready to roll dice! This is Blothopoly, where only the toughest snails survive."