Luca DR

Punishment reincarnation 60

60 – Threats looming

Melina kept watch over the caravan, sitting at a small fire while Lisette slept inside the tent. The air was chilly and moist, the smell of rain carried by the cold wind that had picked up half an hour ago. In the distance she sometimes saw the brief flashes of a thunderstorm, and the muffled and low rumble of thunder reverberated across the fields and the hills until it reached her sensitive ears, carried by the wind that was her friend. She had felt her connecti...

Punishment reincarnation 59

59 – End of Obscuria

It was only after several seconds that Ishrin finally pulled out his hand from deep within Lucius’ chest. By the time he did, the former regent of Obscuria was nothing more than a shriveled shell, a dried-out husk devoid of magic, vitality and anything that could be passed as life had long vacated the premises. The rush of power flowing into Ishrin, comparable to more than ten times his current level of power, was intoxicating—and he knew that a lesser man wou...

Punishment reincarnation 58

58 – Execution

Ishrin walked a good distance away from the caravan, letting the magical and mundane lights fade in the distance until he could barely see them anymore. He had dined and chatted with the merchants, but now they were all preparing for the night, each of them in their own assigned wagons so that they could keep watch over the goods. Melina and Lisette had set up the usual small tent they used every time they had to sleep outside, taken from Ishrin’s inventory. They had ...

Punishment reincarnation 57

57 – Smite with the power of the sun

Melina scanned the horizon, her keen eyes missing nothing even as her mind wandered. Her cultivation had mostly recovered from whatever was holding her back, her constantly growing worldviews—expanded by sheer osmosis because of Ishrin’s presence alone, and even more so by his and Lisette’s active help—had allowed her to regain the spark that had dimmed in her core so long ago. Yet, sitting at the peak of Tier 6, she knew that breaking thro...

Punishment reincarnation 56

56 – Immoral Merchandise

The party spotted Taiival’s caravan as soon as they left the forest and its intrusive mist behind. Before them were the vast plains that made up this little triangle of Nocturnia of the Winds between the mountains, the forest they just emerged from, and Noctis. The caravan was made of three covered wagons pulled by beasts that looked like horses but weren’t quite right, being more muscular and a bit taller than them. Even more recognizable about these beas...

Punishment reincarnation 55

55 – Water wisp

The light drew closer. Before long, it emerged from the fog that was obscuring its features, revealing itself for what it really was. There floated a spherical blob of magic, shining bright when seen with magical vision, and weakly when seen with normal eyes. An untrained adventurer, not used to searching the magical spectrum, might not have been able to see the little floating blob until they were so close to it that they might get attacked. But not Ishrin’s party: ...

Punishment reincarnation 54

54 – Back in the wild

Ishrin gently opened his eyes to the sound of voices. He had been busy absorbing the last of the energies from his cultivation ritual, pushing himself to the middle of Tier 3 in the process, and regaining some of his shrinking lead on Tiers that he had lost when he absorbed the energies. Even though he would never admit it out loud, the process had been very similar to active meditation, furthering his cultivation. He had been properly cultivating for the first...

Punishment reincarnation 53

53 – Awful secrets

Lisette was standing stock-still, staring at Lucius who was sitting at the head of the table. Guards had rushed into the room, brought to stillness by a single hand gesture of the regent who was staring at Ishrin intently, as if Lisette was not even there at all. Another mind game was being played, and it was hard to tell who was winning.

Except, Ishrin thought as his face betrayed nothing of his inner amusement, he was not playing the same game that Lucius ...

Punishment reincarnation 52

52 – Playing games

Later that night, the party was summoned by a servant and told to meet the regent for dinner. Surprisingly, instead of arriving early to the room and be made to wait, they were greeted by Lucius himself right outside the room, and he personally welcomed them inside, entering last. The room was large, but the complex assortment of little wooden things, carpets, drapes and the single long darkwood table at its center made it appear cramped and small.

Fingers o...

Punishment Reincarnation 51

51 – The mansion

“What is your name?” The scaled lizard-slash-man was at the lead, only treating Ishrin as an equal and leaving Melina and Lisette to struggle against the force of the crowd.

Whether they kept up or not did not seem to matter to him, and observing his behavior had Melina wonder if perhaps Ishrin felt the same, or if his act was simply that good.

One thing was certain: gone was the old Ishrin she thought she knew from his time in Noctis. Whether that m...

Punishment Reincarnation 50

50 – Ambush

Melina’s eyes immediately darted around to scan the place as soon as the road began emptying itself of people. Five seconds ago the street was like a flood, an uncontrolled stream of people walking and shuffling, elbows and limbs moving chaotically, but in the span of what felt like five seconds the chaos and overall busy-ness of the street had vanished like evaporating mist. Mist that was still very present, in the form of smoke and concealing thickness to the air, wh...

Punishment reincarnation 49

49 - Obscuria

True to Melina’s word, the party made good time. On the way to Obscuria, they encountered some beasts, nothing more than normal wildlife that had been touched and warped by mana and rendered feral. To anyone below Tier 1, such beasts were true monsters, dangers that were more often than not fatal. They were the scourge that roamed the wilderness, even the more tamed wilderness that made up most of Nocturnia of the Winds. Any animal could turn into one such beast if tou...

Punishment reincarnation 48

48 – New quest

In all fairness, despite his pompous declarations the dwarf failed to produce much useful information, enough so that Ishrin was quick to grow restless. He was deep within enemy territory, and making small talk with a weapon seller was not the best way to pass time. The well of useful info had dried up quickly after a couple pointed questions, and Ishrin took his leave to sneak out of the city once more.

Night had fallen in the meantime, the last light of the sh...

Punishment reincarnation 47

47 – Dangerous visits

Lisette smiled at that. Ishrin was right to worry that she might have killed Goddard again, and she was very giddy to instead surprise him by telling him the opposite. She had realized how important the man’s redemption had been, at least to Ishrin, and thus she had adapted her behavior. Truly a masterful insight and capacity to adapt.

“I did not.” She said, a hint of a smile on her face. “I have no qualms with him. He had some informatio...

Punishment reincarnation 46

46 – Personal growth

A word of power, and the ritual came alive at once. But Melina’s attention was not on the ritual itself, even though the display was impressive, because a much more pressing issue had imposed itself at the forefront of her mind, momentarily sending her in a state of panic.

Suddenly the air felt empty. It was as if someone had removed all oxygen from it, and even breathing was like breathing nothing at all. All smells were gone, all thickness and substanc...

Punishment reincarnation 45

45 – Cultivating

Melina watched with interest as Ishrin prepared himself for yet another ritual. He was holding a small booklet in his hands, and sat cross legged at the center of a perfect circle drawn with quartz and enriched with diamonds and pearls. How he had come into possession of such things was beyond her, but his inventory basically encouraged kleptomaniac tendencies, and while she couldn’t really be sure that she witnessed all the times he used it, the time that she did...

Punishment reincarnation 44

44 – Dynasties and dystopia

“I’m going to disband the party,” Melina said.

Lisette grunted. It could have been in approval, or she could have been laughing at her, but Melina felt like she could not tell anymore. She did not trust her instincts on the matter, not after what happened.

“Don’t be so hasty,” Ishrin said after inhaling loudly. He pressed two fingers on his forehead to deal with the raging headache he was feeling, spurred by the mess of emotions sw...

Punishment reincarnation 43

43 – Hope and conflict

Lisette limped ahead, pale as snow, holding herself up with her two blades sliding on the ground. The sound they made when they grated against the stone floor was unbearable but Melina, behind her, paid it no mind. She dragged the stretcher as she moved like a mindless zombie, eyes staring ahead, fixated on the singular point of light that was the passageway leading to the 5th floor.

She checked herself, from time to time, listening to the faint sensatio...

Punishment reincarnation 42

42 – I blame you

“Let’s go.” Said Lisette.

She threw the creature core, a Tier 6 blue one she just extracted from the carcass of the slain monster, at Melina. Judging by her tattered armor and appearance, one could think that the fight had been hard, and that Lisette had only managed to come out victorious thanks to her strategy and skills. One would be wrong to think that. The fight had been completely one-sided: if anything, the recent events had lit a fire inside of L...

Punishment reincarnation 41

41 – Damage

An explosion rocked the cavern. He saw, right before the currents of space and time sucked it all away, the far end of the room explode as the excess power was routed through broken circuits, devoured by the collapsing of the realm because he waited too long. He tried to scream, to warn Lisette not to use the shields as he told her earlier because they had no aft shields now, but he was already alone. A mind, information racing through the multiversal stream in a raft ma...

Punishment reincarnation 40

40 – Ritual setup

Ishrin was the one to stay behind, to prepare the room for the ritual. As he drew lines on the floor and on the walls all the way up to the ceiling, the girls went out hunting. Liù also joined them, to provide some extra firepower to the team. They were going to need at least three cores, Ishrin told them, to have enough power to access the Dirac Sea and punch through the dimensional barrier to join the multiversal stream.

No longer did they need to simply r...

Punishment reincarnation 39

39 – Dangerous plan

A small very unstable portal opened at the base of the mountain. From it, three shapes emerged, accompanied by another smaller shape that flew in the air above the three. Ishrin was the last of the three to appear, and immediately rushed to the portal behind him to close it, as if in a hurry. And indeed, barely one second after he did, the whole mountain shook and rumbled, explosions going off one after the other in a chain reaction of ever stronger blasts. Chunk...

Punishment reincarnation 38

38 – Actionable plan

Melina surveyed the room but was still within earshot of the other two as they cast the modified spell together. It was not lost on her that both Ishrin and Lisette had performed sophisticated math calculations in their heads in a matter of seconds. She tried to do the same math herself, but the numbers felt all twisty and slippery, coming in and out of focus as she tried to manipulate them. Eventually she gave up, trusting them to handle the matter. However, sh...

Punishment reincarnation 37

37 – A crazy plan

Melina pulled on the metal handle of the door. A hiss, the rush of air, then the heavy slab of metal slowly began to move. Beyond the threshold they could see the deep light of something, blue like the rest of the energies of the mountain, cast a long shadow. A shadow in which they could also see another light, very faint and much lighter, a cyan that was of the same blue as the other light but different, like the way shallow waters are of the same water as the dee...

Punishment reincarnation 36

36 – Emotional tension

The party stared at the two identical holes in the wall. They all led to a dark tunnel, devoid of ice, that went up an almost identical slope. There were few differences in the rock, but none that would indicate that one path led them to the center of the mountain.

“Which one?” Ishrin asked.

“They look identical.” Lisette said.

“Wait.” Melina said. “I got this.”

She kneeled on the ground and brought her hands to her lips...

Punishment reincarnation 35

35 – Powerup

“What do you mean maybe?” Lisette’s stare was unbearable. Usually, it wouldn’t have been. Ishrin had been able to stand defiant even when faced with the god of multiverse himself, and yet he found himself faltering.

The more he looked into her eyes, the more he found himself thinking about the words the monster had uttered when they faced it, words Ishrin better thought forgotten, lest his thoughts go in circles around the topic. Had his wife been here bef...

Punishment reincarnation 34

34 – A dark shape

The dark figure didn’t move. Its rags undulated in the frigid wind of the cavern, which seemed to originate from nowhere at all, lit by a scant light that seemingly vanished upon touching the black cloth that covered the figure.

“You are back…” the words echoed from a remote corner of the icy cave, reflected on the deep blue surfaces.

“What do you mean I am back?” Ishrin yelled through the sound of wind. “I have never met you before today....

Punishment reincarnation 33

33 – Fights

The door opened with a hiss, revealing another long tunnel of ice. However, the deeper they ventured inside the impossible mountain, the more the technological aspects of its making became harder to spot. They were more sophisticated, less damaged, and more integrated with the structure of the rock until they appeared completely natural to the eyes of the adventurers. Only Ishrin, who had visited many worlds where technology had been the focus of civilization rather than...

Punishment reincarnation 32

32 – Old friend Mekano

Melina sat and watched as Ishrin and Lisette assembled something on the ground. It didn’t look like a ritual to her, but then again Ishrin’s rituals rarely did look like normal rituals.

They made a great ring of black stone, taller than a person, with small little crystals inscribed with glyphs at its four cardinal points. Then, they took the Tier 6 core and lifted it up in the air, where it began to float. Below it they constructed an altar, with th...

Punishment Reincarnation 31

(Changed title to reflect the new RR title)

31 – Locked door

Melina got up and walked over to where Lisette was currently stretching and flexing her body. She had cleaned herself after learning Ishrin’s spell, or else the foxgirl would have never approached her. The spell had worked quite well, removing all the gunk and foul smells and leaving a faint trace of a flowery scent she couldn’t quite place. It reminded her or a spring breeze, of prairies and open fields.