Raul Sanchez had adapted quickly to his new life inside the System. After all, that was part of the essence of being a good diplomat: adapting to be whatever the circumstances required him to be. As luck would have it, he was the only one of his team that made it to shore; the rest were missing and presumed dead. But by asking the right questions and putting his recently acquired French language skills to use, he had managed to meet up with the American diplomats who had taken refuge within the U.S. Embassy in Togo’s capital city, Lome.

  Since all electricity seemed to be out all over the world, which included the Embassy’s diesel generator, there was not a whole lot that the Embassy building was good for. Sure, there were some emergency supplies, but there wasn’t anything to do…no electricity meant that nothing worked. None of the Embassy’s core functions, such as delivering messages from State Department headquarters, hammering out trade deals, facilitating military cooperation, issuing visas, and helping U.S citizens, were up and running. So Raul had decided to commandeer one of the facilities workshops, putting his racial skills to good use.

  The diplomat had always been good with his hands, and there were still plenty of skills that he could practice without electricity. There were tons of machetes and even some knives that had belonged to military folks that could be sharpened with a whetstone until their edges were razor sharp. There were pruning hooks that could be beaten into rudimentary spears. And, best of all, Raul was able to cobble together some metal armor. It was hot as sin and pinched him all over, but it was functional. More than one rat had broken a tooth trying to get through his reinforced shin guards.

  The feeling that the young man got from working with the improvised weapons and armor was exquisite, almost as if the metal had some sort of special energy inside it. Raul didn’t know much about video games or books where people got strange powers, but he thought that maybe when he got more experience that he could start tapping into that energy. Leveling up his Innovation skill seemed to amplify the feeling, so that’s what he was going to do. That, and continue to level up through both crafting and combat. After all, what good was it to make all these weapons and armor if he didn’t field test them himself to make sure they did what they were supposed to?

  However, Raul still recognized that it would have been better to take a buddy along, but none of the other Americans had wanted to go hunting with Raul. They claimed that they were earning experience in other ways, but none of them seemed to have the drive to improve that the young diplomat did. It would have been easier to find likeminded individuals among the Department of Defense personnel stationed at the Embassy, but they had all apparently disappeared shortly before Raul’s arrival, claiming that they had received orders from their own headquarters to move out.

  This had made the Ambassador furious until she too had disappeared a few days later. The Ambassador’s unexplained absence meant that the deputy chief of mission got a promotion, not to acting ambassador, no, diplomacy was too snooty for that. The official title was Charge d’Affairs, where the “e” had the special little accent to show it was better than a regular ‘e”. At first, most people just referred to him as the “CDA”. After a few days, they just called him David. The apocalypse had a way of flattening hierarchies.

  Against the CDA’s orders, Raul had continued sneaking out of the Embassy compound, taking as many weapons as he could comfortably carry and fighting against rats, lizards, and anything else that he could find that didn’t look too strong. He avoided other humans, not trusting their motives or his own, and quickly gained the Sneak skill due to his efforts to be unobtrusive. It didn’t hurt that the skill also helped him sneak out without anyone else around the Embassy knowing about it.

  After a week of hard work, Raul felt that he was thriving in the new System. He had reached level 7 and had even earned a few more Achievements. Unfortunately, the System hadn’t let him switch his Special Ability, so he was still stuck with What Doesn’t Kill You. But he had received five free attribute points at level 5, along with another pick of Special Abilities. Thankfully, Not Exactly Street Legal had been among the options, allowing him to pick it up.

  Pulling up his status for the thirteenth time that day, the young diplomat felt a surge of satisfaction at his progress.

  He then reviewed his Achievements one more time, wondering if he could find a way to get more.

  One day, Raul had snuck out from one of the endless “staff meetings” that David kept calling and made his way out to his shop. After donning his makeshift armor, the young man grabbed his usual weapons: a razor sharp machete, a small shield made from a metal target used by the Marines for shooting practice, a short spear that used to be a pruning hook, a long-handled knife left in the Defense Attache’s office, and a mace whose origins still mystified him.

  As he was making his way over the fence, the System suddenly gave him a pair of messages.

  The young man was so startled that he fell, landing in a heap on the pavement just outside the Embassy compound’s wall. Thankfully, his superhuman resilience protected him from any serious injury, but Raul was more worried about discovery than being hurt. He pulled himself to his knees, listening intently for any signs that his fall had been noted.

  “If you were any less observant, you probably wouldn’t have seen the fence in the first place,” a rich masculine voice interrupted. Turning faster than he would have ever thought possible, the man whipped around to see who was speaking to him. A lion was sitting on its haunches, staring intently but not unkindly at Raul.

  “Aslan!?” blurted the young diplomat, having been a fan of the Narnia series in his youth, and particularly happy that Liam Neeson was the voice of the magical lion.

  “What, no! What type of name is Aslan, anyways? My name is Chip. Are you the kid that Brett wants me to pick up? If not, I suggest you go back over that wall pronto, because I’m feeling a little peckish if you catch my meaning.”

  A million thoughts whirled through poor Raul’s head all at once. God was real, his name was Brett, and he had sent a magical lion to be his friend. He would make barding for the lion with matching weapons and armor for himself and they would roam the lands, fighting evil and being the best of buddies. Or, maybe he had hit his head really hard when he fell off the wall and was still hallucinating. Or, maybe he hadn’t survived the plane crash after all and this was actually heaven. No, he discarded that hypothesis immediately. Amanda would have made it if this was heaven, and she’d have her own tigress sidekick…

  “Kid, you’re starting to worry me,” the lion said, somehow not moving its mouth at all. “Did you or did you not get a Quest from Brett? With a capital Q.”

  “Y…yeah,” Raul finally managed to get out. “It said that I am supposed to go with you. Well, not specifically you, you know. It said that a great cat would arrive at my location and to go with it. So God’s name is Brett, huh, that’s pretty random.”

  The lion snorted.

  “Your deity’s name is Brett. Mine’s Felissa. What have you humans been up to in there for the past week that you don’t even know the basics of the game we’re playing? I bet you didn’t know that humans, cats, and…blarg…dogs are all on the same side. Most other species are against us, and that includes things that we can’t even see, like parasites and bacteria. If anyone randomly disappears, the either got killed by something stealthy, or their body was taken over by something microscopic.”

  “Well that does explain why the dogs I’ve seen haven’t bothered me,” he said out loud. “But what’s all this about a game? Humanity had a really good thing going, why would this guy Brett want to give that up? And why would cats and dogs go along with it? You guys were indoor pets…you had pretty good lives, right?”

  Somehow Chip managed to convey the idea of a shrug without being able to move his shoulders the way that a human could.

  “That’s way above my paygrade. I’m just following orders. I got a Quest, same as you. Run to Lome, find what used to be the U.S. Embassy, and rescue some kid in homemade armor. Well, that’s step one of the Quest anyways. Step two says I need to help you level up so you can get your class.”

  “What level do I get a class at?” Raul asked, excited to hear that the lion would be sticking around for a while.

  “You get a class at level 10, just like every other creature out there. Man, what have you been doing in there? Seriously how are you all so bad at this? There are human Champions pushing the upper 20’s already. You’re level 8.”

  “To be fair, I was just made a Champion. That’s why I fell off the wall,” the young man explained, rubbing at the back of his neck with a sheepish grin.

  “You know what, that doesn’t really make it any better,” Chip said with a sigh. “Not only am I going to have to get you leveled up, we need to work on your skills too. That will give you the best odds of getting a good class when you hit level 10.”

  “Man, is there any place I can look up all this information?” Raul wondered out loud, hoping that there was some sort of System access terminal where he could sit down and ask all the questions that were rattling around in his head.

  “Just ask the System and it will tell you most of this. The rest you should be able to figure out on your own. I’m not here to babysit you, I’m here to get your level, skills, and attributes pumped up.”

  “But why? Aside from having a Quest to do this, what’s in it for you?”

  “Besides earning my deity and Patron some serious divinity and helping to ensure that my species survives and thrives,” the great cat retorted, clearly annoyed by the question.

  “Yeah, that,” Raul affirmed. “Looking at it from a perfectly selfish point of view, what’s in it for you?”

  Chip the lion rose to his feet, his massive bulk dwarfing the human in front of him. Then he padded closer, his eyes blazing, his nose coming to a stop just before it impacted the man’s face.

  “Oh, I’ll tell you what’s in it for me, young human,” the lion growled. “There’s a certain rooster out there that I’m fixing to kill, and you’re going to help me do it.”