The Custodian Chronicles: The Adventures of Daff the Janitor

Part IGenre: LitRPG Fantasy, Progression FantasyAuthor: D.C. Martin Daffodil "Daff" Al-Najjar is a high school custodian who takes pride in a profession most people overlook. Practical, resilient, and quietly compassionate, Daff spends his nights cleaning classrooms and surviving the daily chaos of public education. His life is uprooted forever when reality fractures around him during an evening shift, transforming his school into a deadly proving ground where inanimate objects awaken as monsters and the laws of physics cease to apply. After narrowly surviving an attack by monstrous classroom desks using nothing more than a vacuum backpack and its attachments, Daff awakens to discover that Earth has been incorporated into an interstellar system of trials overseen by mysterious cosmic intelligences. Guided by an insecure and pop-culture obsessed artificial administrator, Daff learns that he is now a "Proovent," one of many unwilling participants forced to run a gauntlet of magical challenges that will determine their fate, and the future of their world. Granted a game-like interface and empowered through a LitRPG progression system, Daff's janitorial tools evolve into magical artifacts: his vacuum becomes a rocket pack and its attachment a deadly axe, his whistle generates sonic attacks, his coveralls transform into enchanted armor, and everyday custodial skills become the foundation of increasingly powerful abilities. Unlike traditional heroes, however, Daff's greatest strengths are not martial talent or ambition, but observation, improvisation, emotional intelligence, and a refusal to abuse or abandon others. As he progresses through increasingly dangerous trials hidden within the transformed school, Daff confronts monsters born from academic environments, psychological attacks that prey on fear and distraction, and historical reenactments twisted into lethal arenas. Along the way, he forms unexpected bonds with both allies and adversaries. Most notably, he develops a complicated relationship with the AI administering the trials, discovering that the being responsible for his suffering is itself trapped within a rigid and oppressive hierarchy. A defining challenge arrives within the History Department trials, where Daff is forced to survive a sequence of escalating historical battle simulations. There he allies himself with artificially created captives, leading them through harrowing scenarios ranging from a slave ship revolt to a defense against Mongolian warbands. What begins as a tactical exercise becomes deeply personal as Daff grows attached to companions who were supposedly never "real" to begin with. Their courage, sacrifice, and humanity force him to confront one of the central questions of the series: what truly qualifies as a person, and who has the right to decide? As Daff pushes deeper into the transformed school, he finds himself caught between two impossible goals: surviving long enough to free Earth from its induction into the trials, and uncovering the truth behind the Custodianship itself, a mysterious position of power whose promise of freedom may conceal an even darker reality. Editor Positioning The Custodian Chronicles combines the progression systems and character growth of modern LitRPG with the emotional depth of progression and portal fantasy and the social commentary of contemporary speculative fiction. The novel's unique premise transforms the overlooked profession of custodianship into a source of power and identity, while balancing humor, action, philosophical inquiry, and deeply human character moments. At its core, it is a story about dignity, resilience, compassion, and the value of people whom society often fails to see.