Trash Tier

The System doesn’t want a hero. It wants a janitor. Ted Miller is tired. He’s forty-something, working the night shift, and living paycheck to paycheck while his car sits in the shop with a transmission he can't afford to fix. He’s the invisible man—the guy who cleans up the messes other people leave behind and fixes the things nobody else notices are broken. So, naturally, when the interdimensional reality show The Gauntlet comes calling for a "Chosen One," Ted isn't on the list. But a budget cut and a spilled coffee later, he’s the one dropped into Sector 7: The Sprawl. It’s the galactic trash heap—a rusted world of industrial waste, recycled nightmares, and toxic sludge. The "Producers" want him dead to save on production costs, the monsters are made of radioactive scrap metal, and his only weapon is a wrench he duct-taped to a washing machine motor. He isn't alone. He has Ava—a ten-pound chihuahua-terrier mix with the Napoleon complex of a wolf and a salvaged training collar that translates her primal thoughts into robotic toddler-speak. Between the sarcastic vendor droids, the delusional paladin who fights with a stop sign, and a High Proctor trying to boost ratings by dropping pianos on his head, Ted has to rely on the only skill he has left: [Scavenger]. He can’t cast spells. He can’t lift a magic sword. But he can take apart a mech suit with a screwdriver and rebuild it into a flamethrower. He’s not here to save the world. He’s just here to clean up the mess.