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

were protected by strange unnamed walls of drifting gray fog. No other creature in the game seemed to be aware of them. So the players came up with their own name for them, “fog gates.”

Fog gates existed only in two places: before a bosses’ arena, and before a Crossing. They were impossible for any monster to pass through, only players seemed to have that right. Not that a creature couldn’t attack you as you were passing through, but it was rare.

And Jacob had just burned away the barrier. He still didn’t understand how and as curious as he was about the ruby flame he summoned, he wasn’t keen on doing it in front of an audience.

“You’re not going to try and backstab me, are ya?” Kim asked as they continued into the small room. She stepped gingerly around the shattered clay pots in the light of the small rippling blue fires set in twisted iron lanterns on the walls. “Mind the shards, they’re covering the traps.”

Picking his way in her footsteps, Jacob shook his head. “Not unless you give me a reason to. I’d rather get through than risk fighting and losing Souls, y’know? Lots of time lost getting back down here.”

He hoped he didn’t sound like a coward. Even though this wasn’t the Kimberly he knew, he cared what she thought. As stupid as that might be.

On a more practical level, showing fear meant he was weak. And the weak were easily preyed upon.

The woman that stood before him might have better morals than most, but it wouldn’t do to tempt her too much with an easy target.

Chuckling, Kimberly turned to look him in the eyes. “Huh, so you’re not as stupid as you look. That’s good, maybe we can work together then? Unless you’re one of those edgy loners.”

“Our chances of surviving are higher together,” Jacob agreed.

“Good.” Kimberly rested her glaive in one hand and reached the other toward him. Dismissing his shield, Jacob grasped her hand and shook it. “Ya got yaself a partner. For as long as we’re together, that is. Call me Kim.”

“Jacob.”

“Jake, eh?” she said with a teasing grin. “That’s an old name. Your parents big eSports fans or something?”

He suppressed a groan and shook his head. “I’m not named after Jacob Callor.”

“Sure you aren’t,” she said unconvincingly, sliding her visor down over her face. “Your parents were probably eSports groupies and didn’t want you to know. My parents were nerds too, so’s I understand.”

Trying once more to lower his visor over his burning face, Jacob finally gave up with a frustrated snort and followed Kim into the next room. Traps were a common element of Crossings, as were merchants. Though he doubted even the hardiest merchant would dare brave the catacombs.

Not after he came to understand that they were thinking beings. The Desecrated Catacombs were legitimate insanity. He never wanted to come back.

The ghostly blue lantern light provided just enough illumination that Jacob didn’t feel the need to expend his last use of Heat Blade.

Three paths stood before them after the first few rooms of simple pressure plate traps. The first path, straight down the middle, was filled with spikes. The left path was a sheer drop into a room filled with milling skeletons and various undead.

Jacob went to check out the right passage, but just as he poked his head to look inside, Kim grabbed his armor and yanked him back hard. A crossbow bolt skipped off the stone where his head was a second ago, followed in quick succession by three more.

With that little glimpse, he saw a series of floating platforms in a dark room. “Archers and crossbowmen,” Kim explained. “Looks like a platforming puzzle.”

“Thanks,” he said, silently chastising himself for not leading with his shield out. Being near Kim again was scrambling his thoughts. She probably thought he was an incompetent idiot the way he was acting in front of her.

“You got a preference?” he asked.

“I do, in fact, c’mere.”

She stood in front of the hall filled with spikes. An impassable network of jagged metal defenses with no way to traverse them. They stretched from the ceiling to the floor in a complex mesh all the way to the far end of the hall.

“Okay, Jacob, here’s the thing. We can go left or right but I saw three dudes come through already and I haven’t heard a damned thing from them yet. They said they’d come back and open the middle path for me from the other side but they’re probably dead already.

“However, see this little lever here?” She reached into a small slot in the stonework, pulling down a metal lever. With a grunt of effort, she shoved it down so it stuck out at a ninety-degree angle.

Jacob distinctly heard the ticking of clockwork machinery within the walls as the spikes retracted to reveal a clear path forward.

“This little baby keeps the path free and open,” she said, snapping her fingers to catch his attention. “There’s another one on the other side, and there’s the rub. We gotta have some level of trust, right? If I hold this down for you to go through, you need to trust that I won’t use it to kill you and take your goods.”

“And you have to trust that I’ll return the favor when I cross,” Jacob finished for her.

It was an interesting trap. More a social experiment than anything, when it was in a player’s best interest to work together as far as it took them to gain an advantage and then backstab their partner.

She looked at him, trying to read him. A much easier feat since his visor was stuck in the raised position.

Taking her hands off the lever, it stayed in place for a scant few seconds before it began to ratchet back into its original position.

The spikes didn’t shoot out immediately. They grew slowly, but fast enough that even if Jacob put all his parameters into AGI, he wouldn’t have reached the halfway mark before the spikes impaled