For dinner, Grinny and I shared a large stuffed crust supreme pizza with lots of extra cheese. Part of me expected her to hate it, but she quickly devoured two pieces. She belched and remarked about how lucky I was to enjoy something like this on Earth. In response I told her that she should try it for breakfast after it was refrigerated. That earned me a curious look before she bit down into her next piece.


    During our dinner we decided that we would party up for a bit and tackle the tunnels together. In order to do that we would have to leave the garage at the same time to make sure that we were put in the same version of the highway.


    Before we headed to the sleeping rooms, I was tempted to check out the casino, but Grinny talked me out of it. I pouted about it, but then realized it was for the best since I only had a fair bit of gold to my name at the moment and I would need it to repair any damages to the beetle. I didn’t want to be doing anymore debt quests for people. When we finally did go to bed we split off into separate areas, with Grinny going to the one specified for Solarems and me going to the Dryad room again. I rather enjoyed the springiness of the nest beds there.


    The next day the first thing I did before getting into the beetle was open the trunk and pull out the bumper sticker. It was green with black cursive lettering that said, “Look at Me. I’m So Random.” The two O’s in ‘look’ were made to look like googly eyes staring off into opposite directions. I peeled away the backing from the sticker and placed it on the left side of my bumper.


    As soon as I started the engine, Tooty’s voice came over the radio. “Milo, I see you have equipped the ‘Look at Me I’m Random,’ Bumper Sticker. It grants you…one percent damage reduction on the left rear window. I also see that you have discovered the location of the scabbard. I have heard that a lot of humans find worms creepy. Do you?”


    I thought back to science class and the time we dissected worms and shrugged. “Not really.”


    Scrolling through my menus, I brought up Social and put in Grinny’s ID number. Thanks to the information dryad, I was able to learn how to do this. She was also able to look up my number and give it to me. The dryad had found it in a ledger book that she had hoisted out from under her desk. Typing in the ID number, which was a pain thanks to having no keyboard, was a lot like sending a friend request to someone. As soon as they accepted, communication was now possible through the radio like a phone call.


    As I pulled the beetle out of the parking spot, a loud rhythmic ringing came out of the speakers and drilled itself into my skull, nearly making me side swipe the vehicle next to me.


    “What’s happening?” I yelled over the sound.


    “You are receiving a call from Driver Venomgrin,” Tooty said back.


    “Well, answer it.”


    The ringing thankfully stopped, but it was replaced by Grinny’s voice who rattled the windows as she spoke.


    “Hello.”


    “I can hear you,” I said over the ringing in my ears. “Give me a moment.” I turned down the knob on the radio. “Okay, now we can speak.”


    “What are we…?” I covered my ears. Grinny’s voice had not gone down at all.


    “Tooty! Is my speaker broken? Why didn’t the volume go down?”This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    “Because Milo, you turned down your radio volume.” There was a hint of annoyance in Tooty’s response.


    “Well, how do I turn down the call volume?”


    “It’s in your Social menu.”


    I growled under my breath as I navigated the menu. The volume was set to 65. I clicked the down button until it was set to 25.


    “Okay,” I said, covering my ears. “Let’s try this again.”


    There was a pause before Grinny spoke again. “Everything good, little worm?”


    I breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, I’m fine now. Where are you?” The GPS didn’t work inside the garage.


    “At the entrance.”


    As I drove down the ramp I was passed by a couple of different vehicles. One looked like an oversized toy race car while the other was a literal glass box on wheels. I looked to see who was driving them, but all of their windows were tinted. I rounded the final corner and caught sight of Griny’s Cinderella-carriage-pumpkin-car. Its color had changed from brown to an acid green color. Due to its truck wheels, it towered over the beetle, even with the rocket launcher on top.


    “How does that thing not collapse under its own weight?” Grinny asked.


    “The real question is how can you see out of that thing?” There were no visible windows anywhere on the vehicle.


    Grinny laughed. “That’s my secret, for now at least.” She drove up to the guard box and opened the door, leaning out to give the dryad guard her parking pass and some gold coins.


    “Are you two leaving together?” I heard the guard ask Grinny through the radio.


    “Okay then as the door opens please do not leave the doorway or you may be put in a different instance of the highway. Understood?” Grinny nodded and then shut the door.


    I rolled down my window and drove up to the guard box as Grinny made room. Lira, the same dryad from when I entered, sat in the booth. She held out her hand. “Parking pass please.” I gave it to her and she quickly glanced at it before tearing it in half and laying it on her desk. You stayed one night. Two gold pieces please.”


    I gave her the coins and she ushered me through. Following Grinny, we both ended up on the highway next to each other. In my rear mirror I could see the garage door close and then disappear like it had never existed.


    “That’s good,” Grinny said. “Seems our destination isn’t too far to travel to.”


    I looked at my map. The Tunnels of the Tunnel Digger Worms, as the place was called, was only a couple miles away, which equated to only about two or three minutes travel time.


    “Do you see any of the Dragon’s Minions?” I asked. I figured Grinny’s height advantage could give us a heads up.


    “Looks clear to me.”


    That was good. A short travel time and nothing on the horizon meant that there was little chance of anything happening between here and there. Unfortunately, the odds were not in our favor. We had only traveled for no more than thirty seconds when a bell rang and the world dissolved around us. It was another random encounter.


    The world came back into focus and both of us were now in a roman style arena with a metal fence blocking off the center. It looked similar to a horse track. While there was nobody in the seats, there was still the roar of a crowd followed by an announcer’s voice.


    “Welcome to the Chariot Death Race.” It was the same announcer from the dirt bike track. “Your goal is to race around the track and defeat Ratanus the Gold. And by defeat we mean, obliterate.”


    From behind an engine roared. The kind you would hear from a sports car with a heavy duty engine. The kind that a middle aged man would buy to try and impress women ten years younger than him. In between Grinny and I a long vehicle pulled up and stopped. It had the thin front of a stretch limousine with the back of a wide hummer. And as the name suggested, the entire car was gold except for the windows and the tires.


    The windows were not-tinted so I could see the driver, which was a rat man wearing a toga, with dozens of gold piercings in his ear. He turned to me and flashed me a grin before looking over to Grinny’s vehicle and revving his engine again.


    “What an ugly thing,” Grinny said.


    “On your marks,” the announcer called. “Get set. And Go.”