in reply to 2 basic questions

  1. The string increment is magical, but no other string operations are. Therefore, if you do not want to resort to ord arithmetics, you have to repeat the increment: 
    my $check = 'a';
$check++ for 1 .. 5;

    [download]
  2. TIMTOWTDI. You can for example use substr: 
    my $check = 'cd';
substr $check, 0, 1, q();

    [download]

    Or, use a substitution: 

    my $check = 'sp';
$check =~ s/^.//;

    [download]
لսႽ† ᥲᥒ⚪⟊Ⴙᘓᖇ Ꮅᘓᖇ⎱ Ⴙᥲ𝇋ƙᘓᖇ

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom