Rewind: A Grimdark LitRPG Series (Pyresouls Apocalypse, Book 1) James Callum (best large ereader .TXT) 📖

but made it easier to deal with. He wondered if there was something that the Fire Oppa’s fire could do beyond what was useful for survival.

Could the adorable little creature heal the scars on a person’s soul if given enough time?

His reverie was cut short as the Fire Oppa found what he was looking for, dragged it out of the flames, and deposited it at Jacob’s feet. “There you go! Thought I was going to need to do my whole spiel about ampoules again! I was hoping you weren’t going to try and run off without some.”

Jacob reached down and picked up the five small glass vials, each one attached to the next by a red knotted waxed cord. Each ampoule contained a tiny glowing red cinder, no bigger than a grain of sand. When the ampoule was broken, the cinder would instantly restore a large portion of Health.

Or try to, if you were clumsy and accidentally crushed the ampoule at full Health.

As Jacob put the [Cinder Ampoules] away they were whisked into his [Boundless Box] by a swirl of black ash. He looked at the Fire Oppa. “I don’t suppose you could help me out and come with me?”

The Fire Oppa deflated, though the look in his beady black eyes was eager as always, the fires that flared from his ruddy fur coat dulled and cooled as he laid down. “I would like nothing more. But I am bound to the Pyres. If I leave them, they will gutter and die… taking me with them. I will help you when and where I can if you promise to light six of the Pyres in Lormar.”

I don’t know if I’ll have the time to do that. Jacob bit his lip, mulling over the Fire Oppa’s proposal. In any other game, this would have been considered a Quest with a capital “Q.”

But Pyresouls didn’t work like most games. There would be no minimap – there was no map at all actually – and there would be no bulleted list that explained what steps he’d taken to complete the quest and what was yet left to accomplish.

He wanted nothing more than to help the Fire Oppa. He always had a fondness for the thing even when he thought it was an NPC. Its disappearance from Earth after the Collapse was one of the greatest travesties of all time.

But to go out of his way to light more Pyres would slow him down. And yet… he couldn’t just say no. “You got yourself a deal,” Jacob said, reaching out his hand to the Fire Oppa.

A flaming human-like hand emerged from the flames of the Pyre and shook Jacob’s. “Of all the millions of people who think they’re playing a game, this is the first instance any person undertook this task that I can recall. Most people think I’m trying to slow them down or an NPC trying to give backstory. It’s so frustrating I can’t tell them!”

That set Jacob back. “Wait, why can’t you tell them?”

“Because they don’t ask!”

“How was it you could tell me what you did then?”

The Fire Oppa gave him the stink eye. For the second time that day, it made Jacob chuckle. Seeing such a tiny, fiery little thing give him such a disgruntled look was so endearing and strange.

“Because you asked,” the Fire Oppa responded.

“But you greeted me as if you already knew me,” Jacob countered.

“I can do that. But I can’t reveal my task to players unless they ask about it or ask for something in return. Most players listen to my ‘Pyre Pitch’ about what they can do at the Pyre and what I can help them with. Respawn, yada yada, healing, yada yada. And then most of them leave. Few have enough Souls to spend so early to reinforce a parameter like you.”

“So if I asked you a whole bunch of questions, you would be able to give me more information about Lormar and the workings of Pyresouls?” Jacob asked, incredulous.

It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

“Yes, and no,” the Fire Oppa said. “I can only give you information related to the area my Pyre is in. I could tell you the number of deaths already incurred by the Razor Pass. I could tell you the number of people who have made it here already and I could give you some background to the Razor Pass if you wanted.

“For each Pyre you reignite, I grow stronger and my influence – as I’ve already said – grows. That includes my knowledge of the area and my ability to help you. The more Pyres you or anybody else relight, the better I am able to help. You humans are literally leaving me on the wayside like some annoying sidekick instead of letting me help you.”

The Fire Oppa turned to the side and blew out a plume of fire in an exasperated sigh. “The Nelana would never treat me like this,” he added under his breath.

“What’s a Nelana?” Jacob asked.

The Fire Oppa gave him the whale-eye, a thin crescent of white appeared at the edge of his dark beady eyes. Jacob faintly recalled that, at least in dogs, it meant they were spooked or sometimes guarding something they weren’t comfortable sharing.

Padding the air between them, Jacob said, “Nevermind, don’t worry about it.”

That seemed to put the Fire Oppa at ease.

Getting to his feet, Jacob looked down at the Fire Oppa with renewed fondness. He wanted to pet him. In all his time in Pyresouls he never managed to bridge that gap. At first, it was because he thought this was all a game, and wasting time petting a digital creation was silly.

Now, it felt somehow wrong to treat the Fire Oppa like a common ferret. Like some kind of pet, when he was trying to help humanity all while being constantly rebuffed.

Had there been nobody from his original timeline that took the Fire Oppa up on his task? It seemed ridiculous, almost improbable, that millions of people would