Rewind: A Grimdark LitRPG Series (Pyresouls Apocalypse, Book 1) by James Callum (reading tree .txt) 📕

tell you’re any different?” The Fire Oppa snorted, twin jets of bright flame flared out of his black nose. “Give me a break.”

For the first time he could ever think of in the game, he chuckled. Far from one of the sounds he ever thought he’d make within Pyresouls. “Fair enough little dude, so you can tell something’s up with me? What’re you gonna do with that?”

The Fire Oppa gasped and paused his pacing. “Why help you of course! That is all I have ever wanted! If you’re less of an idiot now then maybe we can actually get something done for once.”

Jacob rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Can you tell if anybody else has lit a Pyre yet?”

“Oh, you are different! Good, good!” Fire Oppa pranced about the flames giddily. “Yes, yes, I can. And the answer is no. You are the first.”

“That’s good to hear,” Jacob said. “Fire Oppa?”

“What can I do for you, Jacob?” he squeaked. Somehow it comforted him that the Fire Oppa knew his name. He keenly recalled introducing himself to the creature before.

“Are you at every Pyre in the game?” Jacob shook his head. “I mean, in Lormar. Or are there multiple versions of you or something?”

“Not every single Pyre,” Fire Oppa explained, lifting a paw to his muzzle and licking it. Gouts of flame erupted from the side of his snout. “I have a few brothers but all of the Pyres that you humans have managed to reach, it’s me and only me. Time… works differently for me. The Pyres are all linked outside of the normal flow of time.

“It’s what allows me to reset the local area when I undo your hurts or bring you back from the dead. That’s why all the monsters come back too. I can’t do one without the other.”

“Can you… send a message to another player?” Jacob asked hopefully. Maybe he could send a warning to Alec somehow or find a way to coordinate.

The Fire Oppa shook his head. “No, can do, Chief. There are rules, and while I’ll be the first to leap through a loophole, that’s one I’ve never been able to get around.”

“Damn,” Jacob pulled his knees up to his chest and thought for a moment. “So you remember everything I did last time?”

“More or less.” The Fire Oppa laid on his side lazily. The stone turned black and scorched around him. “I can’t follow you outside of the radius of a Pyre. The more Pyres you reignite the more my influence spreads, however.” He lifted his head and looked Jacob up and down. “I take it you don’t need to hear my spiel about what I can do for you?”

Jacob shook his head. “I’m sure you’re tired of it by now.”

“You have no idea.”

He set his mace down and summoned the [Soul of a Loving Father] to his palm. Suspecting that this was once a living person and not some code in a game changed the way he looked at everything. The sapphire wisp danced in his upturned palm.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to it. “I’ll do my best to make your sacrifice mean something.” Jacob tightened his grip on the wisp and crushed it. The Soul contained within flooded into his body. It wasn’t much, only 150 Souls but it was enough to increase one stat.

Fire Oppa perked up at that. “Looks like you got some Souls to spend.”

Stats could only be raised at an ignited Pyre. Jacob didn’t quite understand how the Fire Oppa was able to use the Souls to make him stronger and in the end, he didn’t care very much.

When the Collapse happened and Earth’s rules were rewritten, the Pyres didn’t make their appearance. And neither did the Fire Oppa. Without the Pyres, people couldn’t respawn and more importantly, they couldn’t spend their Souls to become stronger.

“Yeah, I’d like to raise my Temper,” he said. A stream of white wispy energy flowed out of Jacob and into the Pyre.

The flames leaped high into the air, licking the roof of the cave and then calmed. An ember flew out of the fire and touched Jacob’s robes. It melted into his chest and a brief look at his Status confirmed his Temper had gone up a single point.

[Status]

Jacob Windsor

Covenant: None

Race: Kemora - Fae-touched (Human/Fairy)

 Level: 2

Health: 124

Stamina: 86

Anima: 0

Souls: 27

Required Souls: 690

Parameters

VIT: 3

AGI: 6

END: 3

TMP: 9

STR: 4

DEX: 5

INT: 8

FTH: 3

 

Curse: Fractured Sight

Curse Level: 0

Spell Gem: No Spell Inscribed

One more point and he would be ready to equip the Knight’s armor when he found it. According to Alec, he could find a Knight’s corpse bearing the armor just after the cavern that led out of the Razor Pass and into the valley beyond.

From there he had three choices. Either he could descend the mountain into the Stalking Wood, go northwest to Weslyn’s Watch and the horrors beyond or continue northeast to the Steps of Penance that inevitably led to the dreaded Asylum of Silent Sorrows.

Naturally, that meant his next destination was the Steps of Penance where he’d find the dead Knight and finally get some decent armor.

It was also a path he never took before.

Jacob looked at the Fire Oppa. “Don’t you have something for me?”

“I thought you’d never ask!” He got up and scampered over to the fire. Digging through the ashes, he sent embers, and what should have been scalding hot ash all over Jacob.

Rather than hurt him, it felt warm and comforting. Like snuggling under a warm blanket after spending hours in the freezing cold outside.

The Pyre’s heat seeped into his very bones. He hadn’t realized how much he missed its soothing warmth. From the accounts he read on the forums, more than a few people stayed at the first Pyre until the Collapse happened.

At the time, he had a hard time understanding why.

But after ten long years of the apocalypse, his soul was wounded again and again. Every loss, every final goodbye, every hope dashed.

Sitting in front of the Pyre soothed that pain, it didn’t numb it like a drug