Rifts are naturally occurring phenomena which we hold very few concrete facts about. The science, philosophy, and speculations regarding rifts are rampant and varied. Most beings do agree that rift-born creatures are not real, but rather some form of artificial existence. If you’re interested in additional speculation, read my book A Rifter's Philosophy to Delving wherein I spend many chapters exploring the endless mysteries which are rifts.

  For now, let us focus on the practical. Rift delves, or runs, are the key to advancing through ranks quickly. Regardless of the kind of rift, they all present challenges to those who pass into them. Some are simple gauntlets of battle, waves of enemies throwing themselves recklessly against the delvers. Others are mazes, puzzles, or intellectual tests, designed to challenge the mind. Beyond those are more exotic variations, each more difficult to explain than the last.

  The scope of a rift may be as large as a grand epic which the delvers much integrate themselves into in order to sway the tide of a pre-ordained loss into a victory, or as simple as helping a worm find an appropriate patch of soil in which to burrow.

  Whether large and epic, or small and pointless, rifts reward challengers who successfully complete the task they’re presented. Most rifts provide multiple rewards upon completion, but at least one reward is a given: Raw Potentia.

  

  Willow

  Sheerna Entrance, Outside Vesheen City, Shee

  

  The torn looking edges of the two dimensional-looking surface were hypnotizing. They writhed and twisted in ways that seemed impossible, strands appearing to occupy the same space while still being somehow distinct. Edges thinning to the point they should be invisible, yet somehow pulled an observer’s attention and made them the most obvious thing in the world.

  Shoved from behind, Willow staggered. Snapping her head to her right, where she’d been shoulder checked, she glared at the half-dog half-man who’d clearly pushed her intentionally. He confirmed that assumption with a bright grin and kissy lips. Scowling, she turned her back on him and faced Luzzi and Ravvy. They both had their game faces on. She assumed. They pretty much always look the same, Luzzi’s mouth is slightly raised in a smile and she has no eyes to read. Ravvy’s got all five of his weirdo eyes locked on the portal and is… Drooling? Okay, that’s not game face material.

  “Hey! Ravvy!” She clapped in front of him, making the hazzabi flinch in surprise. He turned to look up at her, going for an expression like a stoic adult looking down on a misbehaving child.

  “You’re drooling.” Willow ruthlessly ruined her party mate’s affectation.

  Bringing one of his spindly hands up, he wiped his chin clear. “My thanks for informing me.”

  She almost snickered. Almost. He’d been acting very cordial today. Probably worried if he annoys me too much I’ll prank him again inside the rift. As if I would… Probably not. Maybe not.

  Looking them both over, Willow asked “Are we ready?”

  “Yes.” Came two simultaneous answers.

  That left only herself. Am I ready? She checked over her gear for probably the hundredth time today. She had the odd bag which Ravvy had recommended she pick up strapped to her. Within was a week’s worth of provisions, some tools, a change of clothes, and a kit to clean her armor. Never running around the wilderness without a way to clean my clothes again.

  Nodding, Willow confirmed that she was also ready. Which was good, since they were the third party in line. When they’d arrived she had done a full lap around the rift, looking at it from every angle. No matter where she looked at it from, the perspective was exactly the same. As if it existed from every angle as the exact same two dimensional object.

  Beyond the mind-bending rift itself, even the locale was odd. It was situated several dozen kilometers outside of the city. Besides not being as close to civilization as Willow had assumed the planet’s main attraction would be, the area was also by no means maintained.

  The rift itself, a plane of ever changing, swirling, reds and oranges floated in the air just above what seemed almost like a stage. The massive flat stone it floated above had ringed tiers like steps which allowed delvers access. The surface of the stone itself was marked in interchanged flowing and jagged scripts which seemed to twine in and out of each other like two languages competing on the same page.

  The flowing lines reminded Willow of what she now tentatively recognized as the ‘normal’ enchanting language. The jagged, almost runic, ones were entirely new to her. She watched as a party, lead by a tall bipedal woman who looked more closely related to eagles than humans, stepped into the rift one after the other.

  From what she’d learned in her research leading up to this point, Willow knew they didn’t actually have to step into the floating plane of color. One could simply reach out and touch it, and they’d appear within. However, most delving guides recommended stepping. All sources she’d found mostly agreed it reduced the disorientation and allowed for faster reactions if someone was ambushed immediately upon entering. It was harder to quickly move a stationary body than it was an already in-motion one, after all.

  Each member of the eagle lady’s party vanished the moment any part of their body touched the rift. They all went through more or less at the same moment, all five of them having been lined up shoulder to shoulder.

  The orc man on the far left wasn’t actually near enough to be stepping into the rift really, his right hand just kind of brushed the edge. That was enough, as he disappeared with everyone else.

  Moments of silence passed, before the chatter in the line continued. Willow watched the next party get ready, lining up similarly. Shoulder to shoulder had been a common entry formation for all dozen or so party’s they’d seen enter. The attendant, a bored sounding man with grey hair and grey eyes called his usual reminder.

  “Fifteen minutes before the next party can enter. Attempts to enter before the rift instance cycles is considered an act of aggression toward the previous party. When you return from the rift you will be tried with either intent to party wipe, if the other party returns, or simply charged with party wiping if they don’t come back. We don’t give a shit about the actual circumstances and excuses, so don’t even try.”

  Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

  Leaning toward her own party, Willow asked softly, “Is it weird that a rift previously owned by orcs and now owned by fae is policed by a group of humans?”

  “Nah,” Ravvy answered, “Humans are literally the least valuable and most numerous race in the world! Why not put them to use doing menial stuff?”

  Willow rolled her eyes. She wasn’t even really annoyed anymore, as she fully understood the little alien man was only poking to try and get a rise out of her. It wasn’t like he actually believed that kind of nonsense. Probably doesn’t.

  “While he’s being extremely ungracious toward your race in terms of value, Ravavka is correct about the quantity available. For every ten beings of another race, there is at least one human. They are considered second only to eusocial beings in terms of numbers. Having said that, the ranks of eusocial beings are generally made up of thousands of hollows to every real.” Luzzi’s silky voice confirmed part of Ravvy’s answer.

  “Eusocial like… Ants and bees? Colony creatures?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Oh, okay.” She wasn’t really sure what else could be said there. Though, the rest of the explanation did bring up some interesting questions.

  As the timer slowly counted down, she asked “What’s a hallow?”

  A scoffing laugh was Ravvy’s response. How typical of him. He even rolled his eyes as Luzzi began to explain, “A hallow is a being born here, in the real world. Most beings avoid procreation, as offspring die true deaths. They do not respawn. Many believe they are forced to enter the tutorial, and in this way supply souls. However, it’s entirely uncertain. Most simply believe that hallows disperse on death. Their lack of talent when it comes to advancement somewhat seems to support the notion, as talent is generally considered a direct measure of the innate strength of ones soul.”

  Willow stared with a slack-jawed expression, brain stuck in a boot-loop. Finally catching onto one of the dozens of threads of thought, she blurted, “Wait… That’s why there are no kids anywhere?!”

  “Indeed. You’ll encounter very few. There are still beings who desire offspring due to biological imperatives, a sense of moral duty, or just a lack of care to prevent pregnancy of course. However, they are very much a minority. Most beings can disable their own reproductive functions easily by the second or third rank, so there are very few accidental births.”

  Sliding one hand down the other, away from herself in a shrug, Luzzi finished, “Most of those who do have children are either following some form of fertility path, are eusocial, are lonely, or have some kind of nefarious intention toward their future offspring. Hollows aren’t protected by any laws, after all. They can’t even see or interface with the UICI.”

  That entire thing was insane. So many implications, so many problems with them. The last part was the worst. How could any parent have ‘nefarious’ intentions toward their kids? It was ludicrous. Yet, no one had corrected Luzzi’s explanation. Ravvy certainly would have, if only to show off how much smarter he was than them. The party of small monkey-like beings behind them, who had gone quiet and were clearly listening with some kind of morbid amusement, hadn’t made any noises of disagreement either.

  Time flew by as Willow wrestled with the many implications the revelation of hallows brought with it. Feeling a slight nudge at her elbow, she looked over to see Ravy had given her a light nudge. He jerked his head up toward the rift, “You ready?”

  Well I was ready, before getting a massive bomb-shell dropped on my head! Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders, bounced in place a few times, then looked back at Ravvy and nodded. She hadn’t even noticed the dog-centaur’s party going through the rift. It was a good thing Luzzi and Ravvy were still paying attention.

  “Alright, next.” Willow stepped forward with her party, putting aside thoughts of children who may or may not be real. She knew for a fact that this, here, now, was real. More than that, she knew it was dangerous. The plans and drills they’d run had all pounded that fact home. She took her position at the point of the little arrow formation they’d agreed on and walked forward.

  She maintained a steady, deliberate, pace which her companions could match effortlessly. The closer she got to the weird swirling surface of color, the faster her heart beat. There was something truly exciting about approaching something so alien and hazardous.

  Just before her toe touched the edge of the rift, she saw all of the colors brighten and shift. The previously orange-red suddenly shifted into an all-consuming ocean blue.

  That’s probably normal. Her final step landed on a spongy material instead of hard stone and she immediately entered her moment of focus. This was the entire reason she’d entered first, after all.

  Quickly scanning the area, her initial assessment found no danger. Seeing both of her companions were beside her, arriving in the center of her moment without her even noticing, was a bit disconcerting. A few beings had been able to resist her abilities, of course. Madrick, when she’d first met him, and possibly that last obnoxious pop-hopper-bosser. Even then, though, they hadn’t been able to suddenly appear at the very center of it without her feeling them fighting against it.

  Looking back at every time she’d used her ability, she hadn’t even realized she could feel the strain of someone pushing against her ability. The contrast was clear now, as she had two people trapped within and couldn’t feel even the slightest hint of the strain she usually took for granted. It was like whatever hint they got before being consumed by her moment gave them a warning to resist, but lacking that warning they simply couldn’t. Hm, I’ll need to think about that.

  Putting that oddity aside, Willow performed a more thorough scan of the surroundings. The sponge-like surface she’d landed on had stopped sinking the moment her focus hit it, and she did feel the tiniest bit of strain from it, as if it wanted to move and she was actively not allowing it to. It almost feels like one of my imperative commands, but maintained. Another thought to explore later.

  The surface of the floor was the same in every direction, so far as Willow could see. Under her feet, she could see the small pores speckling the entire surface. Looking up beyond the color-draining effect of her ability, she could see it was a slightly pink color.

  Besides the odd floor, they were surrounded on all four sides by walls. They weren’t in an outdoor biome as all of the information they’d purchased and scrounged from locals suggested. The only doorway was directly in front of her, every other wall was entirely blank.

  Hoping it wasn’t a bad idea, Willow released her moment. As soon as she did, her boots began to sink again. The soft sponge-like surface wrapped around her boots and embraced her ankles firmly. Carefully, she pulled one foot up. The sponge held firm for a moment, but released reluctantly as she maintained a constant upward force.

  “Shit! What is this!?” Was Ravvy’s eloquent complaint. Though, glancing at the little man who had sunk past his knees into the sponge, Willow could understand. Oddly, he seemed to have sunk even deeper than herself, despite being smaller and lighter.

  Luzzi was pulled further down as well, though not quite as dramatically. She was looking around distastefully, but hadn’t started spewing an endless stream of curses like their hazzabi companion. After several seconds of struggling, Ravvy suddenly exploded up out of the sponge floor. He hovered above the floor with a furious expression on his face. His feet were shining with the intensity of pin-prick distant stars and were actually a bit painful to look directly at.

  Sighing, Willow pulled off the band-aid and pointed out the obvious, “I think we got bad info.”

  Ignoring Ravvy’s continued expletives and variations on ‘no duh’, Willow asked Luzzi, “Can you hold yourself out of the ground for a few seconds? I think I can make it solid if you do.”

  Without answering, Luzzi exploded straight upward with a powerful leap and grabbed hold of a wire hanging from the ceiling. A wire which definitely hadn’t been there before. Pushing through her desire to ask questions, Willow accepted the oddity and moved on.

  Trying to replicate Luzzi’s successful hop, Willow ended up slapping face-first into the soft ground. This taught her something new about the weird surface, it was moist and smelled of week old fish. Shoving herself upright she gagged a bit and struggled to get to her feet. Every movement she made just made her situation worse, as every part of her body which touched the surface was gently, but firmly, wrapped around and held by the sponge.

  Finally having enough, she sent out an imperative command, ‘do not grasp.’ The bits of sponge which were holding her didn’t immediately let go, but as she slowly freed herself she found the rest of the floor wasn’t taking the opportunity to get handsy as it was before. Finally standing on top of the floor, which was only sagging slightly under her instead of trying to capture her feet, she tried to spit the taste of rot from her mouth.

  Waving Luzzi and Ravvy down, she explained, “It shouldn’t try to grab you anymore. If it feels like it’s starting again let me know right away and I’ll tell it to knock it off.”

  “You’ll… Tell it? Is that how your spell works?” Ravvy asked, curious despite clearly still being furious. The odd thing was, while he was acting spitting mad Willow got the impression he was simultaneously enjoying himself.

  Ignoring the probing question, she gestured toward the door at the end of the room. Upon first arriving, she’d thought it was just a casual stroll over. Now she realized that the rift’s challenges had already begun. The weird floor wasn’t dangerous by itself, but if any enemies had been nearby to take advantage it could have been devastating.

  The grim thought helped her center herself. She felt her mind slowly shifting back into the danger-aware mentality which she’d begun to cultivate on Savria.