Luca DR

The infinity dungeon 09

09 – Many goblins

Michael woke up, worked out, ate, stretched and was in his truck in less than thirty minutes.

The drive back to the Trail was uneventful, as usual, driving across flat terrain with the truck’s old AC working overtime to compensate for the oppressive summer heat. On the way there, Michael had plenty of time to think, having decided not to put on any music or listen to any podcast so that his mind could be sharper and less tired while fighting later. Thinking l...

The infinity dungeon 08

08 – Karate class

The next day was a day off from delving. Michael needed to unwind, if anything, and being exposed to dangerous and potentially life-threatening situations every day was not healthy even with all the possible gains factored in. Especially since it might, and probably would, expose him to even more risks during his delves, which in turn would make each run much more dangerous.

The morning began with a quick burst of healing to get rid of any stiffness from sleep,...

The infinity dungeon 07

07 – Old Dave

The wooden door clinked as it welcomed Michael into the dusty air of the pawn shop. This late, near closing time, there were no other customers in the cluttered warehouse that housed the many knick-knacks and assorted things they bought and sold daily. The counter looked far away, a long slab of solid wood and glass display cases, where the more valuable and enticing things were kept visible. It was mostly hidden by rows upon rows of old clothes and assorted memorabilia....

The infinity dungeon 06

06 – Skeleton boss

Michael stared at death in the face, and time stretched itself until it felt as if life was nothing but a movie that he could pause at will. But even then, he knew that it was just an artifice born of a mind that knew it had to squeeze every ounce of processing power out of the meaty brain that made it, if it wanted to survive.

It was during this window of time bought for him by Michael’s brain chemistry that he remembered about his gun. He didn’t even kno...

The infinity dungeon 05

05 – New mobs

The following day saw Michael waking up earlier than usual, and by the time he would normally be having breakfast while struggling to make his brain work, he was already driving his truck back towards the section of the Trail closest to where he had found the dungeon. While there was no way to know if the dungeon was going to be there again, it would be the best place to start. With him he had generous rations, as well as rope, lights and his new gun.

He had some e...

The infinity dungeon 04

04 – Real life

“Josh! Stop!” Michael tried to yell, but his friend was not slowing down.

He couldn’t run after him either, as his body was too damaged to reach him in time without stumbling and possibly breaking his ribs all over again. Left with no other option, Michael did the only thing that came to his mind in the few seconds that he had available before Josh was caught into the dungeon and unable to escape. He threw his shield at him, hitting him in the back and makin...

The infinity dungeon 03

03 – Boss fight

Michael gasped, but fortunately did not freeze up as the mountain of muscles and spittle propelled itself towards him, trying to flatten him against the solid wall of the dungeon. After a split-second decision, he dropped into a clumsy roll on the fortunately smooth ground, dodging the goblin’s mad charge by a hair’s breadth. Then the large monster slammed into the wall with a grunt, so hard it chipped the stone and its own teeth in the process, making Michael upda...

The infinity dungeon 02

02 – A taste of magic

“Always keep your core tight!”

Barely two days earlier, Michael was training in his dojo, struggling to properly hold the most basic of katas for more than a couple of steps before falling back into his old patterns of moving. The latest batch of instructions coming from his sensei were really doing a number on him, making him feel like he was back to the early days of training.

“Now, turn!”

Together, the five people turned as one, their...

The infinity dungeon 01

New novel! Let's gooo!! (Release date on RR: June 1st)

01 – The mouth of the cave

“What, you scared to explore a little cave, Mike?” Josh taunted, voice reverberating through the wide tunnel leading to the open air of the outside.

Michael cringed at the nickname. He wasn’t on such friendly terms with Josh, not yet. He was exploring a cave they found, using the torch in his phone to make sure he didn’t fall on a rock and break his legs.

“I think it�...

Hiatus notice for Punishment Reincarnation

I have been sick for a couple of weeks, during which I still had a backlog to post even though I was unable to write. However, this long pause left me a bit disconnected from the story, and I feel like I need to take a breather.

There will be another novel coming out very soon which I will write while this is on Hiatus, featuring a young guy discovering a dungeon while hiking on a trail, and reaping the benefits for himself. It's still in the early stages, but I will start posting chap...

Punishment reincarnation 80

80 – Seeing the sun

Melina shot glances at Lisette’s swords floating in the air, which were a sight to behold as they trailed in the air behind her, bobbing up and down according to her gait. They twitched sometimes, for instance when Melina spoke to her, as if they were reacting to her mind’s state. Ishrin had tried to divine how the bracers worked with some diagnostic magic that he knew, but all his spells were too low-Tier to work. He would have to reach Tier 5 and hopefully ga...

Punishment reincarnation 79

79 – The bracers

Beyond the alcoves of the three automata, following the lights, the team found a large pillar at the center of a platform, surrounded by a trench filled with solid obsidian. The pipes on the ceiling and on the walls were cool, dripping with condensation now that the hot gases that once warmed up their surfaces were all scattered through the compound, following the immense damage caused by the automaton in its last rampage. The pillar was a key, but it didn’t work an...

Punishment reincarnation 78

78 – Interrogatives

“Why did you try to kill me? What’s your fucking problem?” Ishrin connected with Sir Westys’ chest while the kid was still encased in the block of ice where he had been stuck for the last hour or so.

The impact shattered the ice and sent the youth flying until he bounced off the wall, but he wasn’t much worse for wear. His Tier 4 body was more than enough to resist the relatively weak punches Ishrin was delivering. What followed was a series of more...

Punishment reincarnation 77

77 – Strong bonds

Ishrin was holding his side, hands stained with thick freezing blood while the magic in his system was running wild from the disrupting properties of the null-magic crystal he had been stabbed with. A few paces away, stuck in a retreating position by the advance of the ice, was Sir Westys. His head was free of the ice, but the rest of the body was encased in it. He was holding the long and crooked knife, the tip of the crystal chipped and about to shatter from the fo...

Punishment reincarnation 76

76 – Betrayal

Melina grunted a very contrite yes, and she and Lisette swiftly disappeared, dashing back into the gas and fluid filled room that separated them from their mechanical pursuer. They hid in the corners, using the intermittent lights and shadows to their advantage, since it seemed that the automaton was using visible light to track them. Had it been using magic, they would have shone like beacons to his sight, but it lost track of them whenever they hid in a gas cloud of be...

Punishment reincarnation 75

75 – Ishrin’s full power

Lisette and Melina both stared down at the three towering automata walking towards them with slow, deliberate steps as if to mock them for being too weak. The two girls were standing together, side by side, their bodies coiled up springs ready to discharge all the energy they had even if they knew it was futile. Their enemies were terrifying hulking machines, powered by heat and steam, seemingly unbeatable. Covered in disjointed plates of metal that were som...

Punishment reincarnation 74

74 – Steampunktopia

Little sounds, groans and hisses of the pipes, strains of metal and mechanism seemed to come from all around. While what they could see was all perfectly still, the noises betrayed that somewhere below the apparently peaceful façade, things were alive and moving, and perhaps watching them with unknown means. Sir Westys’ and his team were walking cautiously now, their pride long forgotten, squeezed between Melina at the front and Lisette at the rear for more prot...

Punishment reincarnation 73

73 – The Ruins

“I figured it out!” Said Lisette enthusiastically. She was practically hopping up and down in excitement, staring at Ishrin with shining eyes.

They were at the door soon after, and Lisette explained the logic behind her every move as she carefully arranged the moving parts to fit the pattern she had divined. “See,” she was saying, “when I rotate this cog here, the steam only comes out of the left hand pipe. But when I rotate it together with the...

Punishment reincarnation 72

72 – Adaptive armor

“Oy, any progress on the door?” Sir Westys’ voice came from the far end of the tunnel, where his team had been relegated to wait. It was for their own safety, but not for the reason the young men thought.

It was to protect them from Lisette, most of all.

“Tell them that, should they ask again, I will personally disembowel them.” Said the woman in question as she listened for clicks and interactions of the gears in the door’s mechanism, and s...

Punishment reincarnation 71

71 – Signals in the dark

As Lisette turned to leave, she first headed outside to lend Ishrin a hand with the unruly gang of children, then the small glowing blue cube followed, leaving behind a dark room with Melina looking dumbfounded. Outside, she found Sir Westys’ team, diligently sitting down on the floor with an empty gaze. She wondered what kind of savage tactics Lisette must have used to extract obedience from the four boys, especially from the Duke’s son, that left them in...

Punishment reincarnation 70

70 – Liù is back

They felt the change before they saw Ishrin shift in place, changing from his lotus position to one where he was sitting with his back to the door, hiding what he was doing from them. Both Melina and Lisette got up at the same time, walking towards the room Ishrin was in but stopping at the threshold, beyond the soundproofing barrier.

They could see better, from their new vantage point. His right arm was outstretched, disappearing into a void filled with strang...

Punishment reincarnation 69

69 – Inner developments

Sir Westys decided it was time to feign weakness to lower Ishrin’s guard. Despite the man’s apparent lack of power, Sir Westys had seen what his rituals could do once he put in the work, and had some help. And Sir Westys was not stupid. His father had taught him well, to never underestimate his opponents and let pride blind him. Thus, he decided on the course of action to follow, not much realizing that pride was still blinding him, although in a way that h...

Punishment reincarnation 68

68 – Conspiracy

Sitting on opposite sides of a fireplace, two figures were staring at a man sitting cross legged on a large stone. Behind the two, people were chattering and arguing, but what could be mistaken for lighthearted banter at a first glance was actually a fractured team arguing among themselves about who should be blamed for their failures. The two girls did not interfere in the discussion, their role was to simply escort the team of four and not babysit them like children....

Punishment reincarnation 67

67 – Sorting problems out

A ray of healing energy then hit Tom, coming from Morin. And not a moment too early, for another charge from the monster sent Tom to his knees even with the powerful healing energies still flooding his body.

It was with a look of defeat that Tom stared at the gaping maw of the rabid monster, ready to tear out his face. Then Sir Westys was there. The noble brat was keeping the monster occupied with his glowing sword now, managing some grazing cuts and cl...

Punishment reincarnation 66

66th chapter released the 6th of April, fun numbers 666 lol

66 – Darkness below

There they saw it, in the distance, the entrance to the tunnel system that snaked below the earth close to the Chasm itself. Like a lesser copy of the bigger chasm, the entrance was a gaping hole in the land a steep and dark plunge in the road leading to the Chasm proper, where they would meet in undisclosed depths. Nobody had managed to map those depths, and their impossible geometry was still as mu...

Punishment reincarnation 65

65 – Groundwork for the future

Ishrin thought about breaking through to Tier 4 on the way to the Chasm, but then reasoned himself out of it. It would be a dangerous breakthrough, given the possibility that some shards of Lucius’ soul could still be within him, and he wanted to be safe rather than risk doing it on the move. Also, there were other things to do to maximize his gains before breaking through, things that needed their due time.

With the threat of Syrma and the Dynas...

Punishment reincarnation 64

64 – Sir Westys

A deluge of rain curtained the sky, darkening the early hours of day and deafening the ears with its incessant white noise. The town of Semiluminal was, when shrouded in rain, distant and empty. The stores were not closed, but felt like ghostly apparitions with their windows barely visible, and the streets between them were almost completely deserted, with scant few people daring to step outside in the cold. Everyone sought refuge inside where they could. It was cold. ...

Punishment reincarnation 63

63 – Distorted truths

“Be more specific.” Said Syrma’s distorted voice, coming from the Farcaster Orb.

“They entered the city of Semiluminal through the main gates at 16:28, together with a merchant named Taiival. We believe that he was transporting illegal goods from Obscuria to Semiluminal, which is also compatible with an escorting Quest that’s been accepted at the Noctis guild around the time the targets left the outskirts of the city.”

“What did they do ...

Punishment reincarnation 62

62 – Babysitting quest

The party didn’t have to wait long before Taiival got in touch with them, having found someone who was willing to share information with them, and by noon of the next day they were walking down the main street of Semiluminal apparently all the way to the edge of the city, where lonely stood a great white palace. As they got close to it, the city slowly shifted from a normal nameless town, where people were either farmers or miners who ventured down what was ca...

Punishment reincarnation 61

61 – Semiluminal

Ishrin woke up to the sound of yelling. Curses and threats were flung in the air, and among the many voices he could make out the shrill voice of Melina and the deep, calm and threatening tone of Lisette.

Getting up, he saw that there were a dozen or so people surrounding the caravan, training weapons and magic on his teammates. A quick look told him that they were all Tier 3 and a couple of 4s. However, since they were human opponents and not monsters, both Mel...