Whiskers continued slamming into the door without making progress. I got up and looked around. The place was deserted. We were in a generic lobby of a small office building, with a reception desk and corridors leading off towards the back of the building and an elevator bank to the upper floors. The place was dusty, with some leftover boxing supplies were on the floor.

I checked the first few rooms, and they were all empty. Whoever was here before had moved out. I found a janitor’s closet with a mop and an orange cone warning people not to slip. I couldn’t read the writing on it, but the figure forever caught mid-slip-and-fall was more armadillo than human. I wondered why they needed the warning. Wouldn’t they just roll up into a ball?

What was clear was that litigation culture was alive and well in the universe, and therefore, Wet Floor Cones were a thing in many cultures. I took both the mop and the cone into my inventory. Going back out to the lobby, I found a couple of rolls of duct tape, the staple of tinkerers the universe over. Ransacking the reception desk drawers, I found a precision knife, a clipboard, and a tape measure. Office life begat the parallel evolution of equipment. I imagined walking around looking important with a clipboard under one arm was a trope in Armadillo culture as well.

It was time to improvise. I took out the clipboard. It was an old aluminum clipboard with a clip at the top. It seemed pretty tough, and banging on it produced a loud metallic noise. It would not serve as a stealth item. I took out the tape measure, placed the hook under the clipboard’s clip, and then pulled the tape along the clipboard’s length to the bottom, leaving it some give so that it angled above the surface of the board. The tape left enough space for my arm to fit under. I wrapped the tape measure around the back of the clipboard until it reached the top again. I repeated the process until the whole tape was wrapped around the board multiple times, flush with the board on the back, angling above it in the front. I took out the precision knife and cut the end of the tape from the case. Taking the duct tape, I wrapped it around the tape lengthwise, holding it in place on the board and smoothing out the sharp edges. I now had a makeshift shield.

I placed my arm through the strap I had just made from a tape measure and duct tape. I swung it around a few times. It’d hold for now, though I didn’t know how sturdy it was. It was an office shield.

A notification popped up:

You have crafted a new item. Do you wish to name it now? Yes / No

Well, that was interesting. Something or someone recognized that I had created a new item. Let’s give it a name and see what happens. I thought about what name I’d give it, then selected yes. When the prompt appeared, I chose “Security Clipboard of Shielding.” I might as well stay on theme.

I felt something drain from me, and the clipboard suddenly flew off my arm, floated in the air, and started rotating faster and faster. It was getting hard to see its details, though I noticed the colors were changing from that dull metal color to something brighter, light shining off of it. The clipboard kept rotating, causing a vortex of wind to spin up around it, and a label popped up above it, labeling it with the name I’d given it. It then slowed down and plopped onto the counter. It was now made from a solid but see-through material. The strap I’d improvised turned into a firm grip, making it possible to use the clipboard as either a shield or a weapon to bash with. The grip no longer covered the entire length of the clipboard, and the clip at the top was usable again, bringing some of its usefulness as a clipboard back.

That was fascinating. I picked up the clipboard that was now clearly a shield and banged on it. It felt incredibly durable. I put it in my inventory and tried to figure out where the drain I perceived came from. I didn’t feel weaker. Looking at my character sheet, I saw that my Political Potential had gone down. Crafting this item had cost some part of my available pool. I could do a couple of these, but this wasn’t something I could perform endlessly. Political Potential acted like energy or Mana. I wonder if it’d refill itself over time, but this still felt like potential well spent.

I needed a weapon as well. I took out the orange wet floor cone. I used the precision knife to make a couple of notches inside the cone, then lodged the now-empty tape measure case between them. I could reach my arm inside from the base of the cone and grab the case, allowing me to easily maneuver the cone. I took the precision knife and duct-taped it to the top of the cone, sticking upwards. I now had a weapon of sorts that would also protect my arm. If a gauntlet and a knife had an unholy child in a field of cantaloupes, this would have been the result.

I practiced a bit of jabbing, swinging, and parrying with my new Wet Floor knife. I knew nothing about real knife fighting, but then, this wasn’t a typical knife.

Again, a notification popped up:

You have crafted a new item. Do you wish to name it now? Yes / No

The power of naming was clear, and what it did for the clipboard was magical. I thought for a bit and had it. Selecting yes, I entered my selection.

I felt the drain, and then the cone flew off my arm to hover in the air. In retrospect, I probably should have taken it off before starting this process. It started spinning, and I took a step back, just in case the knife flew off. It shone, its shape changing, becoming narrower and more arm-like. The knife seemed to extend, though it was hard to see at the speed at which it was rotating. The label with its new name popped up above the cone, designating it as “Armadillo Wet Floor Cone of Death.” It stopped spinning and dropped to the counter. A quick check showed that I’d again lost Political Potential points.

The cone was now more like a medieval gauntlet and vambrace in one. It was orange and had armadillo-like bands of orange plastic that covered parts of the hand and arm, all the way up to the elbow. It had a place for the fingers to go as well. The knife had transformed into a two-edged long knife, almost a short sword. Putting my hand through the cone, I could easily grasp the handle and control the blade direction while keeping my hand completely protected. Since I wasn’t a fighter and didn’t know any fencing or swordplay, this was very handy. It looked like the knife could be detached and the head replaced by other attachments, like the bayonet on a rifle. I might be able to upgrade the weapon further in the future.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I did a quick check of the bathrooms and found some paper towels and toilet paper and added those to my inventory. I was learning way too much about space armadillo bodily functions. Do all sentient creatures lose the ability to just go in the woods?

I found a medicine cabinet and took the whole thing.

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I approached the door to the street. The rat was still crashing into it and scratching at it, trying to get at me. It was time to see if my gearing up did anything, otherwise I’d be stuck here. The building door opened inwards. I dragged a couple of large lobby chairs over and stacked them against the door, restricting how much the door would open. I then armed myself, Security Clipboard of Shielding on the left, Armadillo Wet Floor Cone of Death on the right, and carefully pressed the handle of the door down to let it open.

The rat smacked into the door, causing it to swing inwards, and started pushing its way in to get at me. The door opened about a hand’s width, then stopped on the two chairs I stacked against it. The rat didn’t give up, pushing its way in and lodging itself into the doorway. I held the clipboard ahead of me so that I could see through it and protect myself against any bites or scratches.

The rat’s head was inside, and I smacked it with the clipboard a few times. I did not relish killing it. I wanted to see if I could make it leave. Smacking its nose a couple of times as it snarled and tried to bite the shield, I managed to get it slightly bloodied and very enraged. It doubled its effort to get at me, pushing hard, almost climbing up into the door, though it was still too big to make it through the part that was open. Still, it was strong, and I worried that if it pushed hard enough, it will dislodge the chairs that were holding the door from opening completely. I tried hitting its eyes with the shield’s edge, but that just exposed my arm to its teeth, and it almost bit me.

The door was inching slowly open, and I didn’t have much time before the rat was fully inside. I didn’t know if I could fight it once it was here with me. Girding myself, I aimed my knife. I decided to stab at its eye, trying to cause some damage and make it afraid enough to run away.

I aimed and thrust, moving my shield out of the way. At the last second, the rat moved to engulf the blade with its mouth, and my hand went in, passing through the top of its mouth and into its brain. Its claws tried raking my arm, but the Armadillo armor protected me. The rat made strangled sounds, gurgled, and died.

Congratulations. You’ve killed a rat. Are you expecting accolades? Join a pest control company. Fine, it was a mutated rat. You’re now level 2, Happy?

Letting out a long breath, I pulled the knife out of the rat. It was bloody, but I cleaned it on some boxes and put it and the clipboard back in my inventory.

What did this snarky level 2 message mean?

I opened up my character sheet and saw that I had a stat point to assign. Other than this rat, I didn’t know what to expect in this world. It wasn’t a difficult fight once I geared up and used the environment. I needed to find someone who knew how this worked before making any decisions I couldn’t undo. Would it be better to become stronger? Faster? Get more health? What does Dexterity influence? What was Political Savviness?

I did notice that my Political Potential points have reset to their max, so leveling up at least did that. It was a good thing I’d crafted before. It was time to head out and continue my quest.

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I stepped out of the building and back onto the street. I once more thought of the door to the company that I needed to find, my company, my employer. This was still the most important goal in order to survive. I again felt the general direction, away from the skyscrapers. I started walking, keeping an eye out for any more mutated rats.

I thought about the fight and the leveling up I did. I needed to find someone who could help me understand this world and how things worked here. Where should I assign the point I just received? How did crafting work? How do I use the pathfinder well?

It was half an hour later, as I was thinking about needing some advice, that I suddenly felt a pull to my left. I looked over and saw another street stretching out with a mixed set of buildings. Somehow, it looked darker and older, as if the light wasn’t strong there the way it had been on the street I was on. The direction of the door I was aiming at, my main goal, was still forward. This was curious. I stopped and concentrated, trying to figure out what I was sensing.

When I concentrated on my main goal, the door, I felt the pull forward. What made pulled me left? What was I thinking about? It was about needing help. Wait, one of my missions was to find a coach. I concentrated on that, and the pull to the left became stronger. I didn’t have a strong idea of distance, but this felt much closer.

“What do you think? I’m getting a sense that I might be able to get some help or advice in that direction. Worth the diversion?”

- Would they be able to tell us what I am?

“I don’t know. Let’s find out.”

I turned left and started walking. As we walked into the side street, which was more of an alley, it immediately became night. I stopped in my tracks. The time of day just changed as I crossed the intersection. I took a step back, and daylight returned. It didn’t feel like I was entering a portal, which the pathfinder was supposed to let me use, so this was something else. Maybe the Great Potential was a patchwork of many places and times.

I walked into the alleyway, and night descended again. This wasn’t just night in the sense of the time when the Sun’s on the other side of the planet, preparing to come back. It had more of a sense of finality, like the ending of things. It wasn’t completely dark, with some streetlights still gasping their last. They weren’t all of the same eras. Some were electrical, some were old-style oil lamps that were flickering as if running out of oil. Some I could only call magical since I couldn’t even guess at the technology behind them if it even was technology.

I was being pulled towards a building a few minutes walk down the alleyway. To call it a building was charitable. While it might once have been one, all that was left was the entry facade. It had large columns supporting a triangular roof of a Roman-style building. I could see the night sky through the columns. The top once had a statue gracing it, but it had broken off, and all that was left were two feet standing on the top of the apex of the triangle. The actual building, past the entry, had collapsed a long time ago.

I stood in front of the building and felt the pull to go inside, but inside what? The sides of the building were blocked by the nearby structures, and the collapsed insides had blocked up the actual entry. I approached the front columns and noticed that a portal stretched between them. It was not noticeable until I stood right in front of them. I focused on it, and a message popped up.

Abandoned Mercantile Exchange of the Planners. Do you wish to enter? Yes/ No

Unlike the previous portal that transported me from one place to another, this felt more like entering somewhere. Was this a pocket dimension? A dungeon? Would I be able to leave if I wanted to?

“Any ideas?”

- The planners didn’t plan well? Let’s go!

I didn’t know what to expect on the other side. The pathfinder led me here because I’d asked for help, for guidance. This world had been dangerous enough so far and I was lucky to be alive. If there was help to be had here, I needed to find it.

Preparing myself, I chose yes.