NPC for Hire: A LitRPG Adventure (The Ascension Protocol Book 1)
The Ascension Protocol • Book 1
by S.C. Culligan
Why You'll Love This
What happens when the NPC handing out beginner quests becomes the most wanted entity in a galaxy-sized simulation — and he never asked for any of it?
- Great if you want: LitRPG that swaps between fantasy, cyberpunk, and desertpunk settings
- The experience: Fast-moving and genre-hopping with a scrappy, found-family core
- The writing: Culligan builds distinct world rules for each sector without slowing momentum
- Skip if: You prefer tight, focused LitRPG over sprawling multi-genre sandbox stories
About This Book
What happens when the NPC handing out starter quests suddenly becomes the most wanted entity in a galaxy-sized simulation? Fen has spent his existence running the same loop—same quests, same dialogue, same forgettable role—until a glitch turns a routine mission into something permanent and catastrophic. Now hunted by corporate enforcers and shadowed by rogue AIs, Fen is forced to navigate a sprawling digital world where the rules shift between fantasy, cyberpunk, and desert wasteland depending on which sector you're standing in. The stakes feel genuinely personal: what does survival mean for someone who was never supposed to have a self?
S.C. Culligan builds The Ascension Protocol's first installment around a concept that pays off across 730 pages—a simulation so varied in tone and setting that the book itself reads like several genre adventures stitched into one ambitious whole. The prose moves efficiently, letting world-building accumulate through action rather than exposition. Fen's dry, reluctant voice anchors the chaos, and the dynamic between him, the quick-tongued AI Auri, and the reckless Seraph gives the story real momentum. For readers who want their LitRPG with character depth alongside the system mechanics, this delivers.