Characters

Bob Brown
Junior QA engineer. Reluctant wizard. Professional pessimist.
Bob's talents include breaking software features, losing arguments with emoji designers, and taking extremely long baths. None of these prepared him for being yanked out of the tub into a System Initiation with nothing but his wits and a towel's worth of dignity.
Bob doesn't want power. Bob doesn't want glory. Bob wants to go home, where the kettle works and somebody has to feed the dog.

George
Golden retriever. Sleepy sentinel. The reason.
George is a large, fully-grown golden retriever with a talent for parking himself in front of exactly the door you need to use. He is terrible at following instructions and world-class at being loved.
Every mad plan Bob makes, every monster he bluffs, every impossible thing he survives — it's all so one specific dog doesn't spend another night wondering where his human went.