Everyone, Players and NPCs alike, looked at us.

  I thrust my arms up. “What the shell are you talking about?”

  “This pool is filled with chlorine! It’s agony! Get me out! Get me out!”

  Sync darted forward and snatched him out of the water. He coughed and sputtered and trembled.

  I grimaced. “Oh… sorry…”

  Silas sputtered and rubbed his eyes with his tentacles. “I asked if there was chlorine, and you said it was fine!”

  “Mmkay, that’s what you said. My bad. Here, I can—”

  He held out a tentacle to me. “No, no. You’ve done enough.”

  A notification showed up in my feed, but with no further explanation:

  | Silas is appalled. |

  I checked my WHIM. “Mmkay, but your ‘Dried Out’ debuff is gone… so what’s the problem?”

  His furious sea-green eyes fixed on me, using four tentacles to massage himself. “The problem is I will taste that chemical for the next five hours, and my skin is sensitive…”

  “Something tells me you’ll be just fine,” I answered. “It’s better than being dried out and covered in sand.”

  His sea-green eyes became bloodshot. “Only marginally. But I do hate sand… It’s coarse, and rough, and irritating… it gets everywhere.”

  Sync bit back a laugh and handed him to me.

  Silas waved a tentacle at me dismissively. “My dear, may I rest upon your shoulder? I’m too vexed with this fellow at the moment.”

  She giggled and placed him on her shoulder. “Sure thing.”

  I sighed and walked over to the poolside ladies, giving them a scan.

  | Trisha – Level 20 Player |

  | Game/Class: SimpCity 3 |

  “No, Reggie,” Trisha groaned, “you can’t join a level-one residential area to a level-two industrial, then sandwich it in a level-three commercial!”

  Reggie bobbed his head. “Of course, Trisha!”

  I considered scanning Reggie to determine whether he was a Player or NPC. However, I decided it was better to leave it a Schrodinger’s Cat situation. Either way, it was atrocious and I didn’t want to know. What I did want to know was where my next fare was.

  I looked at Sync, who conversed with Silas. “Where are we heading next?”

  She inspected her WHIM. “Yeah, it’s not gonna be as easy as that. Part of the reason we were running all over Seaboard City was that the Data Point locations weren’t obvious. I only know the general area until I get close. Our best bet is for you to level-grind and drive us around while I work to narrow down the location. The constant changes to… Trisha’s city, here, are further complicating the matter.”

  I exhaled a long sigh that became a growl near the end. Then I side-eyed Trisha and her companions. “I’m surprised Nate isn’t here. This looks about his speed. Mmkay, let’s get moving before these simps wall us in a level-three commercial district, or whatever.”

  We wandered away from the pool area in search of a fare.

  Silas huffed. “Dumping me in chorine, I say… I’ve never been so mistreated. Well, only once… by him.”

  Sync furrowed her brow. “Who’s him?”

  Silas’s eyes hardened. “The most dastardly wastrel to ever lurk the deep. A Karjok with the three blackest hearts you’ve ever met. One so vile, I’m convinced he hatched from the deepest trench in the Underworld…” his words drifted off, and he gazed with a thousand-yard stare.

  I opened my mouth to ask more, but I decided I really didn’t care.

  “Who is this dastardly Karjok?” Sync asked, and I rolled my eyes.

  “Viktor…” Silas hissed as though the name should elicit fear. “A scourge upon the galaxy. A lamprey upon the hide! May he be torn asunder by pajama sharks and his legacy buried under layers of sediment.”

  “How poetic,” I remarked.

  Silas shuddered and closed his eyes, then adjusted on Sync’s shoulder. “My dear, while I’ve enjoyed our time, and you’re an absolute delight, your shoulder doesn’t quite have the same amount of real estate as his does. Would you mind?”

  I flexed my arm, and the striations across my deltoids looked like an accordion. “Don’t forget it.”

  Sync didn’t even notice, or worked very hard not to notice, and reached out her arm.

  Silas slithered back onto my shoulder. “I’m willing to forgive you for dumping me in chlorine, even though I repeatedly asked you not to.”

  “You were mumbling. I couldn’t hear you.”

  “Then I forgive you for not listening, too.”

  Amid the ever-shifting SimpCity, a teenager who looked about thirteen or fourteen stepped out onto the street. He wore blue jeans, tennis shoes, a denim vest over a T-shirt, and a red-and-white hat. A green exclamation point hovered over his head.

  “Finally, a fare.” I deployed my rickshaw, and Sync hopped up in the back.

  I wish I had pants; this looks very sketchy. Then again, this was probably another adult gamer with a kid’s avatar… which, upon further consideration, was just as weird as my situation.

  The kid adjusted his baseball cap, revealing tousled black hair, and he shifted the mini-backpack-looking thing strapped to his shoulder. It was orange and white with a black stripe in the middle and looked vaguely familiar.

  Before I could scan him and ensure I wasn’t opening a can of worms here, he glanced over to me, then his gaze fixed on Silas.

  The kid beamed. “Hey! Is that your Shouldérmon? Are you going to the fights, too?”

  Ugh. He sounded like an actual kid, too. I didn’t know if Avatar Stations let players change their voices or not, but either way, there was a decent chance this Player actually was a kid in real life.

  I scanned him and glanced at the results.

  | Nash Ketchup – Level 12 Player |

  | Game/Class: Shouldérmon |

  Great, another horrid mashup of one of my parents’ and Nate’s favorite deck-building games. One I never got into.

  I suppose that sort of explained the backpack-thing on his shoulder.

  “I’m Nash,” the kid said. “But you scanned me already, so you know.”

  Yep. Unlike the kidult who’d been playing Painbow Seven, this was clearly a kid playing as a kid.

  He scanned me in turn. “Rickshaw Riot? Never heard of it. How are you only Level 6, bruh? Where’s your Shouldérpack? And why don’t you have clothes? Kinda sus, my guy.”

  “I don’t wanna talk about it. Let’s just say my Luck stat isn’t very high.”

  “Or his personality, or morality, among other things,” Silas added. “Work-in-progress.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  Nash’s gaze drifted to Sync, and he blushed. “H-hi, I’m Nash. Dude, you must be the rizzler if she’s following you around.”

  Sync smiled. “Hey, Nash. I’m Sync. Nice to meet you.”

  He looked down and blushed again, then met my gaze. “So you’re heading to the Shouldérmon fights?”

  “I’m just giving rides,” I said. “Speaking of which, I’ll give you one, but you gotta pay the fare.”

  Nash flashed a lopsided grin. “Can I sit next to her?”

  “Sure, but that’s extra,” I answered, glancing back at her.

  She narrowed her eyes at me, and I grinned.

  As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t actually charge him extra. The game seemed to moderate my fares based on demand and availability. But at least I got a chuckle out of it.

  Nash fist-pumped. “Alright, dude. Let’s roll!”

  “Let’s Rickroll!” Silas added.

  | Objective: Deliver Nash Ketchup to the Shouldérmon battlegrounds |

  | Fare: $350 AllCash |

  | 150 XP |

  Nash hopped on the rickshaw, awkwardly chatting up with Sync. She was gracious, introduced herself politely, and asked him questions—tactful ones like what grade he was in.

  She employed the exact amount of condescension required not to sound glitchy but also to remind him he was a child and nothing was going to happen there. She had it down to an art. Then again, she’d probably used these tactics with all sorts of guys for most of her adult life, looking the way she did.

  After a few moments, Nash called down to me, “Hey, so is the octopus-thing your Shouldérmon? I don’t recognize his type.”

  “He’s just a child, just a child…” Silas muttered, cringing. Then he snapped anyway. “No, you ignorant Earth protozoa. I’m not an octopus, nor am I a Shouldérmon.”

  “But you’re on his shoulder? I thought maybe you’d be joining the fights, too. You can get a lot of XP and make good money even with the entry-level fights. Even with low-level Shouldérmon. Can’t wait to get to the gym matches and the pro matches. Those will be fire.”

  I glanced back at him.

  He flashed a coy smile at Sync. “I’ve been winning every one of my fights. Soon I can go to the gym competitions.”

  She forced a smile and feigned interest.

  My interest shifted when he mentioned the rewards. “So, Ash…”

  “Nash,” he corrected.

  “Whatever. How much are the payouts from these competitions?”

  “Oh, dude, like, I got a cool G in AllCash from the first one, a G and a half on the next, and leveled up twice each time. So did my Shouldérmon.”

  After another few miles, which took way longer than it needed to because the Simps kept changing the city at the behest of groups of gorgeous women, we arrived at a paved lot devoid of cars and penned in by a chain-link fence. The surrounding area was a more commercial portion of the city with high-rises aplenty.

  Players and NPCs congregated within, along with little cartoonish mutant creatures. Some looked like big blue turtles, some like stupid little dragons. One was a plant-thing.

  They all looked like they’d ventured too close to a reactor meltdown. I remembered a lot of them from the cards and the companion video games, albeit these were the AllVerse knock-offs.

  NPCs and a few Players gathered on aluminum bleachers or outside the chain-link fence, watching.

  At the entrance stood a booth with an NPC who took applications for the street tournament. He wore a dress shirt and slacks, had salt-and-pepper hair, and a dapper goatee.

  I pulled up near the entrance, and Nash hopped off. He transferred the AllCash to me for the fare, which was humbling since this teenager had far more scratch than I did, and the game awarded me the 150 XP.

  “Sync, you, uh, wanna stay and watch me battle?” Nash asked.

  She smiled. “I’d love to, but we have some very important missions to complete. Good luck, buddy.”

  Her deliberate and tactful reference to him as “buddy” seemed to deflate his ego and infatuation slightly. “Oh, okay…”

  He reached up and unzipped his shoulder pack, which rotated backward down toward his shoulder blade on its own. In a colorful electric discharge, a yellow rat-looking thing materialized onto his shoulder where the pack had just been.

  I glanced at Sync. “Aw, you don’t want to watch his Shouldérmon battle?”

  She winced. “Not particularly. I was never a huge fan of the original, anyway.”

  “Hey now, we have that in common.” I flashed a winning Erik Shaw smile.

  “I guess we do, buddy,” she shot back.

  I sighed through my nose. Ouch.

  After Nash entered the tournament, the dapper NPC taking admissions—named Alfred—called out to me next. “You there. Unclothed chiseled man. Are you entering your Shouldérmon in the tournament?”

  “Huh? No, I don’t—”

  | Enter NPC Companion: Silas in Shouldérmon Level 1 Tournament |

  | Entry Fee: $250 AllCash |

  | Victory Reward: $2,500 AllCash |

  | 1,000 XP |

  | Additional Tournament Opportunities |

  | Accept? |

  My refusal stalled in my mouth. “Wait, seriously? Silas, you should strongly consider being a Shouldérmon for the next hour. We could make bank.”

  Sync shook her head in surprise. “He counts as a Shouldérmon?”

  I shrugged. “Seems so.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “It’s simple.” Alfred smiled. “He rests upon the Player’s shoulder. And he’s cute.”

  “Listen to him,” Silas said. “The man’s got good taste.”

  “Those can’t be the only reasons,” Sync asserted.

  Alfred nodded enthusiastically. “He certainly qualifies!”

  “Those two qualities have gotten me through a lot of life, love, and laughter.” Silas tapped his chin-area in contemplation, eyeing the arena and other combatants, then he stretched his tentacles and shadow-boxed. “Can’t be too hard. I’m up for a little friendly competition. A little one-two action.”

  I sighed. Considering his usefulness in our previous fights, maybe this wasn’t a good idea. My Animal Flossing detour had seemed easy, too, like a good way to make some extra AllCash… and look how that turned out.

  I scratched my head and tousled my perfectly feathered hair, wondering if I was about to flush my hard-earned AllCash down the toilet by entering this farce.

  “I can’t believe I’m asking this,” I said, “but what are the rules?”

  A tutorial bubble the size of a small novel popped up on my HUD. I waved it away. “Never mind. Silas, think you can win against these things?”

  He gave a salute. “I will try my best.”

  Sync raised an eyebrow. “You sure about this? I’m not loaning you any more AllCash.”

  I clenched my teeth. This could be the quickest way to level-grind, but it might just set me back again. I looked at Silas, and he gave me a confident nod.

  “Ehh… what the shell.”

  I hit “Accept.”

  “Wonderful!” Alfred exclaimed as the $250 AllCash disappeared from my count. “Remember: the Shouldérmon must begin the battle on your shoulder, or you will be disqualified. Now, what is the name of the combatant, and what type of powers does he have, please?”

  “Silas, and… I don’t know. Water powers, I assume, right?”

  “Kickboxing,” he corrected.

  I scoffed. “How do you kickbox?”

  His oceanic eyes widened with incredulity. “Are you kidding me? I have eight legs, fool. All I do is kick! Behold!”

  He slapped me in the face with one of his tentacles. It was so hard that it caused actual damage, albeit not much, and corresponding numbers tumbled out of my head.

  “Kick! One you’ll never forget,” Silas announced.

  Sync nearly toppled over laughing, as did a few people waiting for the tournament to start.

  Instead of getting even, I just gave an AllVerse-weary sigh. “I’m gonna regret this.”

  Alfred let us in the gate, and we lined up with the other Shouldérmon Players. A painted white circle, one half orange and the other half white, with a dot in the center, adorned the middle of the lot. Probably the fighting ring.

  Alfred called, “First to battle is an up-and-comer who’s already won two other street tournaments: Nash Ketchup!”

  The surrounding people whooped and hollered like rednecks watching a dirt biker about to hop a tire fire.

  Nash strode up and raised both arms. He smiled when he saw Sync and winked. “Kickachu, I choose you!”

  The yellow rat thing hopped off his shoulder and into the ring. Electric sparks crackled from the ends of its whiskers.

  I wasn’t paying attention when Alfred introduced the challenger, so I missed the guy’s name, and the guy summoned some wasp-looking thing from his Shouldérpack.

  “Waspthra, I choose you!” he declared.

  “Waspthra?” Sync asked. “Really?”

  “Watch closely,” I whispered to Silas. “I need you to win this.”

  “On it, mate.”

  The combatants ordered their Shouldérmon around with specific attacks, just like in the original version of this game. A cartoonish battle ensued, and soon Kickachu and his lightning powers knocked the wasp-thing unconscious.

  The defeated trainer hung his head and opened his Shouldérpack to recall the wasp-thing while Nash skipped around, all proud of himself, hugging Kickachu.

  This didn’t look difficult at all.

  “Next up is another unknown challenger,” Alfred announced. “Can he defeat Nash Ketchup and his trusty Kickachu? Let’s hear a round of applause for Rickshaw Erik Shaw and Silas!”

  No one clapped. Instead, everyone turned curious stares at me walking up half-naked with a Karjok who definitely wasn’t a Shouldérmon.

  “Silas, go get ’em,” I mumbled. “Please don’t lose.”

  He glared at me. “Oh, very enthusiastic mate. Your unending confidence warms my hearts.”

  “You’ll do great, Silas,” Sync called from the bleachers. “I believe in you! Go in Salacia’s grace with the kiss of the deep.”

  Silas pointed to her. “See? Now that’s a blessing, mate. Work on that.”

  “How do you know so much about Karjok?” I blinked at her. “Never mind. Don’t answer that.”

  Nash folded his arms and looked very confident. Kickachu bounced side to side, and sparks of electricity shot from his tail and his feet.

  “Kickachu!” he squeaked.

  I grimaced, realizing I may have made an egregious mistake.

  Silas hopped off my shoulder and slithered into the ring opposite Kickachu.

  “Begin!” Alfred announced.

  Silas crawled forward and extended a tentacle to shake “hands” with Kickachu. “Alright now, mate. Let’s have a friendly and clean—”

  “Kickachu, use Thunderbolt!” Nash yelled.

  “Kickachuuu!” the Shouldérmon squeaked.

  ZAP!

  Kickachu flashed with yellow arcs of electricity and shocked the krill out of Silas, sending him tumbling back near the white line on the pavement.

  “Ah, bloody shell,” Silas groaned. His body smoked, and he shuddered.

  The crowd cheered and laughed. I hung my head, knowing exactly how this was going to go.

  Nash cackled. “Kickachu, use Iron Tail!”

  “Kick-a-chuuuuu!” His Shouldérmon darted forward. His tail glowed red-hot like molten steel, and he hammered Silas with his Iron Tail, knocking him outside the edge of the ring.

  “Remain in the confines of the ring, or you will be disqualified,” Alfred announced. “It’s in the rules you didn’t read.”

  I glanced at Sync, and she grimaced. “Order him to attack, maybe?”

  “Silas!” I yelled in desperation. “Do something! Anything. Attack!”

  Silas shook off the hit and crawled back into the ring.

  “Use Electric Kick!” Nash called.

  Kickachu darted forward and leaped at Silas with his foot extended, crackling with electricity. “Kick-a—”

  CLAP.

  “Kick-a?” Kickachu squeaked.

  Silas snapped a tentacle out and caught the kick, and a malicious glint filled his sea-green eyes.

  “You call that a kick? You ain’t seen nothing yet, mate.”

  Rickshaw Riot chapters will be posted every weekday. If you don't want to wait, follow us on Patreon:

  https://www.patreon.com/collection/1588880

  break--Royal Road. They call us the Critical Hitters.

  In the desolate desert of the North American Sector, the government harvests the Soul Energy of siblings Eos and Maxima in secret.

  When their powers attract the attention of a dangerous criminal organization, their routine lives are shattered. Eos and Maxima must search for freedom and the truth about their past as hostile forces close in.

  The answers they seek lie behind one word—!

  Occam's Favor

  A grizzled ex-mech pilot is drawn back into the Everwar, a decades-long conflict raging across Jupiter’s moonscape.

  This time he refuses to fight alone, bringing a crew of misfits and a mech powerful enough to rewrite the war itself.

  is a can't-miss power-scaling mech series. Read it now!

  ------

  Dungeon Crawler Carl Audio Immersion Tunnel for Soundbooth Theater, and he's the lead writer for the Dungeon Crawler Carl Role Playing Game.