“Serious as a maelstrom on the Cape of Storms,” the octo-jok-thing said. “And why not? Nearly dead naked beggars can’t be choosers. It’s free.”

  Was the thing even usable? It looked like a dinosaur had chewed it up and spat it out—which was possible, since we’d ported at least three variations of the Triassic Park games in here.

  I rubbed my hands against my face. “Why… why does everyone else get a taxi, but I have to use a rickshaw?”

  From my WHIM, Lucretia replied:

  [All other Loot and Class boxes have been claimed.

  All Players must adopt or purchase a Game and Class before the conclusion

  of the Launch Day Tournament. Any Player who fails to do so will be

  automatically and permanently disqualified from future gameplay.]

  I took a deep breath and fought the urge to do something violent. According to my WHIM, I still had over twenty hours to select a Class, but with no AllCash to my name, and this thing being the only option left…

  With a resigned sigh, I dragged my still-glittering, well-sculpted, yet critical-condition legs over to the rickshaw.

  The handles were tarnished metal, the passenger seats were rickety wood with a rotted cushion that screamed “staph infection,” an old tattered canvas covered the weatherworn bench, the wheels had cracked spokes, and the tires were flat.

  I touched it, and its status materialized before me in a hologram.

  | Class/Game: Rickshaw Riot |

  | Acquisition Price: $0.00 AllCash |

  | Claim this class? |

  It gave no additional information—just the game name and the price, which was indeed free.

  “Whatever. It’s better than nothing.” I selected the claim icon, and a second message popped up.

  | ARE YOU SURE? |

  | This claim is permanent. Any and all upgrades applied to this vehicle are

  permanent, nonrefundable, and do not carry over to other vehicles. |

  | Claim this class? |

  I shook my head. “Yes, fine.”

  I was a strong gust of wind away from dying and had no other way of making money or earning XP thanks to that class-stealing gamerat who’d knocked me out.

  I selected the rickshaw, and the message flashed with light.

  | Class Adopted: Rickshaw Riot – Level 1 |

  | Earn fares to upgrade your rickshaw! |

  | Status: Claimed |

  | Rarity: Unique |

  I blinked at the message before it disappeared, then I looked at the run-down old rickshaw again. “How is this thing Unique rarity? It’s a piece of skit.”

  Again, not what I really wanted to say.

  Silas shrugged all eight of his tentacles at the same time. “Whoever left it behind obviously didn’t take care of it. Ever heard of a ‘diamond in the rough,’ mate?”

  “If it’s Unique, that means it could be really good, right?” I asked.

  “Or it means there’s only one of this class in the game,” Silas said, dampening my growing enthusiasm. “I may be from another planet, but I’ve never heard of any game called Rickshaw Riot before.”

  I’d never heard of it, either. I wasn’t sure if that was good, bad, or otherwise. “So… how do I use this thing?”

  As if on cue, a tutorial popped up, which I skimmed. I learned I could carry the rickshaw in my inventory, which was a thing I hadn’t known about until that moment because I’d had nothing to put in it thus far. But I could bring the rickshaw with me and use it almost anywhere except inside buildings. I could take fares from Players or NPCs, upgrade it, and so on.

  It’s not like I’d have this thing forever—just long enough to get out of here.

  I grabbed the rickshaw poles, left Silas behind without another word, and ran over to where the taxis and Lübers were picking up people. Now that I had the rickshaw, I seemed to be able to run a little faster than normal and with less effort, despite the cart creaking, groaning, and practically dragging behind me because of its condition.

  Also for the first time, I noticed a handful of NPCs with red exclamation marks over their heads in the vicinity. It didn’t take a rickshaw scientist to figure out what those meant.

  I ran up to an NPC—a generic-looking businessman in a gray suit and tie with one of those red exclamation points over his head. “You need a ride, sir?”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  He looked me up and down, disgusted, and shook his head. “No, thank you.”

  Then he wandered away, hailed a taxi, and hopped in.

  “What? Then what was the exclamation point for, dirkhead?”

  I ran around the city blocks, looking for more potential fares, lugging the rickshaw behind me, but each prospective rider I approached all gave polite but firm refusals. Then they walked away, or they got into a Zany Taxi or a Lüber instead.

  “What the fruit is going on?” I asked, exasperated.

  I frantically searched the streets and sidewalks, avoided getting hit by cars, and clung to what little life I had left. As I did, I wondered just how big this world was. It seemed to go on forever. I mean, we’d designed it that way, but being inside it was surreal in ways I couldn’t express.

  I saw a group of Hall of Duty soldier Players with a green exclamation icon over them—different colors for Players than NPCs, apparently. I ran up to them, cutting off an inbound Lüber. The driver honked, and for some reason, it sounded like an actual goose honking instead of a car horn.

  I ignored it and pulled up on the curb, trying to angle my censor bar away so it didn’t look… Well, there was no way to make this look good. “Need a ride, guys?”

  The soldiers eyed me, then my rickshaw, then the censor bar. “Not from you, bro.”

  I sighed and ran to another Player, a woman with pointed elf ears and long red hair, dressed like she was going to a Renaissance fair. “Hey, uh, need a ride?”

  She curled her lip and recoiled. “Not if I had broken glass in my feet and the hospital was miles away.”

  The next group I approached, a bunch of colorful pro-wrestling types, also declined. In a Macho Savage voice, one of them said, “That’s a hard pass on the tetanus-mobile and the sick exhibitionist driving it, dude!”

  I saw a group of nuns—no idea what game they were from—and decided to avoid them entirely.

  I bared my teeth. This was all so, so far beneath me, it strained human credulity.

  “Do you people have any idea who I am? I made this world! I own it!” I spouted an ongoing stream of profanities that all sounded like gibberish thanks to the age-appropriate setting, and it only ticked me off more.

  Turns out, yelling random nonsense words to yourself while naked and pulling a rickshaw through modern city streets is juuuust about the pinnacle of lunacy, second only to wasting endless hours gaming.

  To make matters worse, when I looked down again, my censor bar had shrunk even more. I didn’t know what was causing it, but compared to what it had been before that blonde chick knocked me out, it was way smaller now.

  I tried to convince half a dozen other Players to hitch a ride until I finally ended up back by the depot, at a loss for what to do, and still nearly dead. I realized that this might be the end. To be honest, I was surprised I wasn’t already a goner, given how low my health was. One nasty trip and fall would’ve done me in.

  “So this may come as a surprise, but not many people want a ride from a naked bloke with a rickshaw,” Silas said from his perch on the awning outside the depot. He rubbed his head with a tentacle. “And those who do are not the kinda people you want in your life, believe me. I learned that the hard way.”

  I sighed through clenched teeth. “Everyone sees the problem, but no one has solutions. What do you suggest, octopus?”

  He pinched his eyes shut. “I’ll let that slide one more time, because I can see you’re distressed and almost dead. I, too, have spoken words I later regretted while in that state. The name’s Silas.”

  I shook my head. “I know that.”

  “Then use it, mate, before it goes out of style.” Silas sighed. “And, since you are so obviously devoid of manners, what’s your name?”

  “Erik Shaw,” I growled.

  He chuckled. “Rickshaw Erik… Shaw. Blimey, that’s some top-grade rubbish.”

  I closed my eyes in fury. I hadn’t even realized the dumb connection between my name and the cursed device now tethered to my existence until he’d put it together for me.

  “Anyway, listen,” Silas continued, “I’m in a bit of a bind myself. I’m not native to this planet and have some pressing concerns. I don’t have a whole lot of scratch, but I can give you something if you’ll take me where I need to go. Get you out of the soft-lock, at least.”

  I hated every part of this. Earlier that morning, I’d awakened from a restful night of sleep on my $80,000 mattress, complete with Egyptian cotton sheets and silk utopia pillows. I’d eaten a French truffle omelette with fresh-squeezed Valencia orange juice for breakfast, then I’d donned one of my countless made-to-measure suits and headed to my cushy job at the literal top of Seaboard City.

  Now I was being reduced to shuttling an NPC octopus to wherever he had to go on a shoddy old rickshaw in a video game world—none of which actually existed in real life.

  But as before, I had no other choice.

  As I frowned at Silas, I realized something odd. He was an NPC, yet he seemed to recognize and even empathize with my predicament instead of just rambling inane one-liners or dread-inducing philosophical statements.

  “You’re a lot more… lifelike and interactive than the other NPCs around,” I ventured. “Are you a prototype? Are there others like you?”

  “A what, mate? I’m just Silas the Karjok. If you’d like to hear the lore of my people, I can read the Karjok Codex to you.” He somehow produced a weathered old scroll, its edges tinged green as if it had spent considerable time underwater, and began to read. “We, the Karjok, are a proud and noble—”

  “No. Skip, skip,” I blurted. “For heaven’s sake, skip.”

  He truncated his looming exposition, narrowed his eyes, and jabbed a tentacle at me. “Karjok lore and biology are considerably more interesting than your life story, I can promise that. You’ll come around. Now, we doing this or not?”

  I swung my head around in exasperation. “Fine, hop on.”

  “Uh, first off… here.” As with the Karjok Codex, he produced a pair of boxers out of nowhere.

  They were deep-blue like ocean waves, with little green octopuses printed on them. Until that day, I’d never seen an article of clothing so hideous, and I’ve seen the clothes Nate considers fashionable, so that’s saying something.

  Silas waved them at me. “I’m not going anywhere with you until you put these on.”

  He threw them at me, and they automatically equipped. As much as I hated them, it was better than my ever-shrinking censor bar. A notification pinged somewhere in my interface, and I checked the stats on my WHIM. For a pair of ugly boxers, they were pretty good, and evidently they were a Unique item. They’d even level-up with me.

  | Eldritch Horror Octo-Boxers of the Karjok – Level 1 |

  | The torrid history of the Karjok people is fraught with suffering and struggle, yet hope remains—hope for a savior. An ancient prophecy has foretold the coming of a Messianic figure, a warrior of great renown who will ransom the Karjoks’ dying world from the terrors that threaten to destroy it forever. |

  | That glorious hero exists in some distant time and place. When they finally descend to Karjopia, they will be wearing these boxers of eldritch proportions. |

  | Until that person shows up to claim them, you can keep them warm. |

  | Grants the Water-Breathing Ability – 10-minute base; Cooldown: 30-minutes |

  | Grants resistance to all Water-Based Attacks – 15% base |

  | Grants the Suction Limbs Ability – 1-minute base; Cooldown: 1 hour |

  I started to drill down into the first of the boxers’ special features, but Silas flung himself off the awning and onto the rickshaw. His lithe body slurped through one of the holes in the canvas covering, and he plopped down onto the nasty old cushion.

  “Also, here… since you’re nearly dead and all.” He reached out several tentacles and smacked them right into my face.

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

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