The greatest danger of any rift are assumptions. Assuming you’ve defeated every opponent. Assuming you’ve found every room. Assuming you solved the riddle correctly. Assuming you correctly identified the theme.

  

  Shivna

  The Grand Passage, The Crystal Spire, Kavlaka

  

  Gliding across the gem encrusted stones, feet tapping in a pleasing rhythm, Shivna made her way toward the guest chambers. Servants bowed deeply as she passed, whispering blessings or curses: she neither knew or cared which.

  Shivna’s path was straight and unwavering, her gaze locked in the direction of her destination. It had to be such, lest the all consuming glamour of The Crystal Spire distract her. Even she was subject to the influence of the planet’s wonder.

  She did not observe the stunning view over the open sides of the bridge which was The Grand Passage. Ignoring the stunning vista of perfected wild beauty beyond: lit from above by the dual blue and white stars, and lit from behind by the glimmering reflections cast by the spire proper.

  The teal sky, with its ever shifting aurora went unseen and unremarked upon. Even the incomprehensibly complex gems set into a fractal in the stone path she trod was dismissed. Only the glimmering silver door was noticed, focused upon.

  The servants Shivna passed had likely been wondering for weeks, performing their duties to the best of their abilities; constantly losing track of where they were or what they were supposed to be doing.

  The planet was perfect for her. The environment itself ignited ones inner desire for frivolity and distraction, while effortlessly fooling the senses. Whoever had made The Crystal Spire ought to be given the grandest of ceremonies and the highest of honors.

  When she had first arrived upon the new planet of which she’d been named governor, she had spent a whole year wondering blissfully about. That experience had directly contributed to her refining one of her insights. From, “The perception of truth is malleable” had been refined into, “Truth’s interpretation is subjective.”

  Since those days, she had been diligent in her duties to the planet. A starkly commoner-like approach to responsibility. The courts would laugh at her. The true-born daughter to the queen’s prime rival, a dedicated and attentive overseer? A proper governor with little subterfuge or distention among her planet’s government? Shame must flow from her like water.

  Arriving at her destination, Shivna reached down to touch the door’s handle. The living wood ornament accepted her request, emitting a soft snick. The door gently swung inward, revealing the plain but comfortable interior.

  A gentle perfume of lavender and spice wafted out, caressing Shivna and beckoning her in. Smiling as she entered, Shivna allowed her careful concentration to become lax. This environment, while comfortable, would not tempt her to hours of negligent distraction.

  Pillows sat around the four still ponds set near each of the entryway’s corners. Beings lounged and softly conversed, drooping eyes and distant smiles hinting to their state of mind. One elven man was sprawled precariously over two humans and a Shaflala’s laps. The Shaflala gently stroked golden hair with one of its long antenna. A chitin coated arm held him around the chest, not allowing the dangling man to fall into the pool despite his apparent best attempt to go for a languid swim. The Shaflala’ humanoid figure was often considered rough, cruel looking, yet Shivna thought she’d rarely seen such a tender moment.

  Peaceful smile firmly entrenched upon her lips, she passed through the entrance and navigated through the maze of hallways. The velvet and silk drapery, the gently chiming bells which swung in her wake, the barely perceivable music: it all encouraged one to relax and enjoy oneself.

  Minutes later, she found the proper corridor and appropriate doorway set into the end. Her personal guest was granted the largest, most luxurious, and most private, suite. Knocking her knuckles delicately against the living wood door, Shivna waited. Though her rap had elicited not a peep of sound to her ears, she trusted the door would relay her request for entry.

  A moment later, her assumption was confirmed as the door swung inward. Injecting a particular mix of care and suggestive undertones into her voice, Shivna greeted warmly, “Nuu, my faithful friend! I had heard you have sequestered yourself alone for days upon end and knew I must come and steal you away for a moment. A focused mind is well and good, but I wish not for your creative spark to be driven away through sheer lack of relaxation! Please, indulge me, I’d very much like to treat you to a meal.”

  Seeing the bright smile and slight flush creep onto the young fae’s face, Shivna knew she had spoken the right words in the right way. So long as the rest of today’s planned conversation proceeded in the same vein, her long walk would not be wasted.

  

  Willow

  Unknown Inn/Tavern, Unknown City, Sheerna

  

  Waking to a boisterous, shouting, racket, Willow groaned. Her body felt strained, as if she’d done an intense workout after taking a long break. The feeling strongly reminded her of the first few weeks after getting back into exercising again after her surgeries.

  The endless cracking, smashing, and screaming finally convinced Willow to get out of the surprisingly comfortable bed despite her body’s protests. Continuing to ignore the cacophony which she assumed was coming from downstairs, she ran through a thorough stretching routine, followed by a light workout to both loosen her muscles. Not to mention to prepare her for whatever nonsense was going on downstairs.

  Just as she finished her set of shallow star jumps, which were surprisingly difficult to do in a cramped room with only 60cm or so of clearance, someone begun pounding violently on her door. The rough knocking was accompanied by a bellow, “Whatever you’re doing in there, cut it out!”

  Rolling her eyes, Willow strode to the door and pulled it open sharply. She met the eyes of the man who had passed her the keys and meal last night. Holding his gaze for a long moment, she waited to see if he’d say more. Instead, he straightened and just stared at her, as if waiting for her to initiate the conversation.

  Deciding she wasn’t going to play whatever this silly game was, she turned around and walked back into the ratty room. Grabbing her nearly flat backpack, she quickly slung it over her shoulder onto her back and pulled the three horizontal straps around her waist, belly, and over her chest just beneath her arm pits. Thus secured, she slipped past the creepy silent man, who hadn’t reacted further since she opened the door.

  Walking with purpose, she made her way down the still creepily long hallway then immediately down the stairs. On the main floor, she found about what she expected. A huge bar fight was taking place, a dozen men all participating in an all-out brawl.

  There appeared to be no camaraderie between anyone, as she saw each man hitting and conversely being hit by each other. She stood in the doorway and watched for several minutes, after which she realized everyone was about where they’d started when she first arrived at the bottom of the stairwell. Leaning against the frame, Willow watched curiously as the scene continued in an exceptionally smooth loop.

  The only way she’d been able to confirm with certainty that it really was a loop, and not just coincidental position, was by watching the wounds on each man carefully. Throughout the fight each wound they took immediately began to heal, or more accurately reverse.

  She watched again as one man had the jagged edge of a previously shattered bottle swung toward him yet again. Jerking his head back, his fist came up and shattered the jaw of his attacker. The bottle flew from the now staggering assailant’s hand, drawing a line of blood over the eyebrow of the first man. Eyes locked on the shallow cut, Willow watched the line of red slowly recede.

  The cut had been from the man’s right to left, it vanished in reverse at a much slower speed. The blood which initially trailed down the left edge pulled back, managing to stuff itself back into the gash even while the man flailed around and continued the fight. He was sent stumbling backwards, arms pinwheeling, by a hard forward kick which had missed its intended target and found his belly instead. Even as he crashed against the sturdy wooden wall, his cut continued to vanish. By this point it was halfway gone.

  He stood and rushed back into the fray, laying about with clumsy elbows and shouted curses. He was tackled to the ground by another combatant, who rolled off and regained his feet as soon as they both made contact with the ground. The man Willow was observing staggered to his feet with a roar and charged back in. The last of the cut above his eye vanished just as he jerked his head back, dodging the sharpened edge of a broken bottle the same man as before had just scooped off the floor.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Things were weird yesterday, but this is just bizarre. The previous night, Willow had spent some time after her minor breakdown thinking things through. She’d concluded that going off the path probably glitched the rift somehow. As if it were a dungeon in a video game and she’d broken some boundary or another.

  She’d had several issues with the hypothesis last night. The number one problem was Madrick’s strong assertion that rifts were not dungeons. The second was something she remembered from “The Comprehensive and Concise Guide to Ranking,” the book Madrick had sent to her via UICI. Namely, there was a section talking about the nature of rifts.

  Deciding the looping scene in front of her was unlikely to change just because she took her eyes off of it, Willow searched for the section. After a frustrating search through the guide.The UICI should really have a good search option… Ah, yep, there it is. Just a measly 200 R2-EB. Crawdaddy veins I hate modules. A loop or two later, she found the section in question and re-read it.

  

  No one is entirely certain as to the origin, or even original purpose, of rifts. What is certain, however, is they have a certain level of awareness. It has been confirmed, without a shadow of a doubt, over hundreds of thousands or even millions of studies, that rifts can and do adapt.

  The way in which a rift adapts is the part which the studies are never able to conclusively nail down. At the time of writing, the most popular hypothesis is that rifts adapt to either sharpen a delver’s insights, or show them areas wherein their path is lacking. This theory was initially suggested as a supporting premise for a hypothesis regarding the purpose of rifts. That theory suggests that rifts are intended to challenge delvers to progress upon their path.

  Studies which back this theory up are numerous, though there are also studies which appear to support other possibilities as well. Therefore we are still not entirely certain.

  Personally, I do believe rifts are intended to help us progress on our paths. Furthermore, the idea that they adapt to help us in that effort is entirely rational. The study I find most compelling was conducted by Sulvrop Hemkem under the Sentekko faction’s sponsorship. You can purchase the full white paper for the study here.

  Although she didn’t have enough information to know whether the rift was trying to help her in some weird way or not, the fact that rifts adapting was a known phenomena made her think it was unlikely it would actually be ‘glitching.’

  More likely, whatever was going on had some form of purpose. That thought was backed up by the weirdness going on in front of her. The never-ending brawl was beautifully choreographed and it hadn’t been immediately obvious that it was looping. Other than the idea of an energetic bar-fight like this lasting for more than ten minutes at most being somewhat silly, one had to really pay attention to realize what was going on.

  If the rift was actually glitched and messing up, as the other oddities seemed to suggest, why would this detail be so perfect?

  Maybe I should look at it from the other side, then. Why would someone intentionally create a glitchy-seeming mess of a rift?

  The question sat heavily on her mind. Deciding she wanted to see more of this new challenge than the same brawl over and over, Willow adroitly wove her way through the carnage. Besides thinking she likely could have gotten through unscathed anyway, having watched every step of this fight for a while allowed Willow to easily slip around the combatants without so much as having to dodge a punch.

  Arriving at the door, she pushed through it and exited the inn. In contrast to the careful chaos within, the cobbled streets were calm and orderly. She watched people shouting to each other as they went about whatever normal tasks they had to perform. After waiting by the door for a good ten minutes, she didn’t see anything repeating.

  Choosing a direction at random, Willow began to explore the city. Taking several turns at random, she found a large fountain which marked a large gathering circle. Around the cobbled circle, stalls were setup with various wares. Why are there merchant carts if nothing can be paid for?

  Approaching, Willow looked over the items on display. She noticed that not a single vendor gave her so much as a glance, as if she wasn’t even there. They interacted with each other, chattering away happily and gossiping the day away. No one took anything from any of the stalls, and none of the stall owners seemed intent on selling as they never mentioned anything they were offering.

  Each stall was a simple, but large, wooden table with an awning built over it to provide shade and possibly protection from any sudden rainfall. The items on display seemed innocuous enough: thread, cloth, tools, eating utensils, sea-shells, bread, kabobs of various types, random nick-knacks. Pretty much the kind of things she’d expect from any open air market.

  Deciding to watch this too, wondering if it was also a looping scene, Willow made her way over to one of the permanent buildings nearby and stopped to lean on its stone wall. Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes later, she hadn’t seen any looping. What she did see, however, was interesting.

  A squat figure slunk between shadows. It was covered from head to toe by a long but ragged brownish cloak. With jerking motions, it dodged around corners and slipped behind obstacles as if trying to avoid detection. Despite being plainly obvious from almost any angle. Watching as the figure ‘sneaked’ toward the baker’s cart, Willow was curious to see if the baker would even notice or care if a loaf was taken.

  With a quick lunge, a lanky hair-covered hand flashed out and ripped one of the still-steaming loaves from the stand. Spinning around, they ran out as if being perused by the devil himself. Not a single pedestrian reacted, or seemed to care in the least.

  Shrugging, Willow followed languidly behind. The furtive and careful way the figure moved made it easy to keep up, despite walking at barely half her normal pace. Part of her wondered if she’d be noticed even if she walked directly up to the fleeing thief and grabbed its arm.

  She assumed this would be the rat-king, or maybe one of his cronies. After all, the first thing she’d been given upon arriving in this city had been a wanted flier. Is this still an Interactive Story dungeon? Can the theme change?

  After a good hour of very-obviously following the extremely bad thief, it finally did something interesting. Glancing around carefully, cloak hood swishing this way and that, it ducked into an thin alley. Up until now, it’d just been acting as suspicious as any being ever could while walking along main roads.

  Following, Willow saw it climb a small ladder set into one of the buildings. She wasn’t sure what kind of building, they pretty much all looked exactly the same. It’d be a surprise to learn any of them actually had any significant interior. The thought almost made her stop to go check, but she reluctantly followed instead.

  Trotting across the rooftops, the would be bakery-bandit leapt and slid. Again, it acted as someone was in hot pursuit. Yet failed entirely to do anything to lose said pursuit. Technically, Willow was following. Kind of. Does it count as following even if you barely have to try? I guess so. Maybe more like stalking? Yeeeah! Willow stalks her prey over the homely cottage roofs… The… Uh… What’s this stuff, shale? Slate? The tile things on the roof go clatter-clatter under her masterful steps…

  So entertaining herself by narrating her ‘exciting’ chase, Willow maintained her line of sight to the treat-thief but otherwise just enjoyed hopping across rooftops. She’d always wanted to, after all.

  It had taken another two hours to finally finish the silly chase. By this point, Willow was mostly convinced she was just being messed with. So, she didn’t take it too seriously. She was humming a self-made theme song as she stepped into the shack her quarry had slipped into. Of course, it’d slipped in after circling the block twice to ‘carefully’ look for anyone following.

  The inside was entirely empty, just a rickety structure made of scraps built to hide a hole in the ground. Classic trap-door. Why wasn’t it at least covered or something, though? Lazy.

  Looking down, Willow could just make out dirt at the bottom. Shrugging, she hopped down and landed easily with her legs bent slightly. No one stood ready to challenge her entry. Continuing her leisurely stroll, Willow entered a large room with packed dirt walls. Rat men were spread around the room, but didn’t acknowledge her as she entered.

  They were all apparently more interested in whatever meals they were crouched over, examining, or chattering to each other about. Seeing there was only one last room, Willow simply followed the path through and into another chamber. A chamber which was simultaneously familiar and alien.

  A throne made of scrap wood, random bones, bits of plastic, and other junk sat near the center of the room. To Willow’s left stood a rat man with a spear, wearing a gladiator-like uniform. Squatting on the throne was another rat man. His feet were on the chair, chest resting against his bent knees. One finger was on his lips as long teeth gnawed on one of the huge overgrown nails which passed as its claws.

  Feeling a bit annoyed Willow was just about to turn and just leave, but was halted by the rat king’s voice.

  “So much for following your own path. You still ended up here, didn’t you?” A squeaking laugh rang out from the guard-rat.

  Slowly turning around, Willow stared at the rat-king with a frown, “I just followed a suspicious thief…”

  “Just like you were supposed to.” The king agreed smugly.

  Annoyed, Willow decided she’d just end this before it could start. Activating her moment of focus, she stepped forward and threw a hard kick infused with an imperative command to ‘break’ at the guard. She hit his spine solidly and was certain he wouldn’t be a problem for her. Ignoring the pain which racked her body, Willow pushed through just as she would have in the ring no matter how sore and bloody she might have been from a previous match. She ignored her desire to cast back into it as a spell, still mostly certain it’d do more harm than good.

  Rushing forward, she slammed her fist into the rat-king’s throat. Still maintaining her ability, she proceeded to strike him twice more. Again in the throat, and once in the head for good measure.

  Every hit had clearly deformed the creature’s body, so as she released her ability she was certain he was dead. The rat king exploded as a furious shriek filled the room. The remains of the body immediately began to writhe and twist, coming to life just as they had before.

  “Don’t you dare groundhog day me, you stupid rift!” Willow shouted into the air even as she rushed passed the throne and through the doorway at the far side of the room. Continuing to run as she ripped off annoying rat-blobs, Willow hoped against hope she’d never see that stupid rat-king’s face again.

  A hope dashed less than a half hour later as she skidded to a halt in a dark forest which had suddenly appeared. Standing a mere dozen feet away was a familiar rat, though much cleaner and less squat. Throwing the end of the deep black cloak he was wearing, the rat-king spun on his heel and sprinted into the undergrowth.

  Willow perused.

  This time she ended up finding a campsite which she carefully scouted, avoiding every sentry and the few tripwires laid around as warning devices for the war-band’s scouts. She was certain the king would be in the largest tent, so she wasn’t going to enter it. She wouldn’t fall into the same narrative again. Wouldn’t give the smarmy rodent the satisfaction.

  Instead, she stole a bow and quiver of arrows from one of the supply wagons as she slipped through the camp like a wraith. Continuing her purloining of resources, Willow wrapped a strip of linen around the arrow head and dipped it in lamp oil. Standing outside the camp, Willow pulled the bowstring back, aimed, and fired.

  Satisfied that the tent was ablaze, she left. It took her almost two days to find a town. When she did, she was ecstatic to be clean and fed after being given a place to bathe and food to eat. Her mood soared as the inn keeper suggested sitting in the lounge and listening to stories told by a local bard who had recently arrived. She agreed and followed him into the back room.

  A heavy crash marked the door slamming shut behind her as she stared at the crouched rat king upon his throne. The guard was there, too, but she didn’t give him a second thought.

  This time she noticed the claw the rat king was gnawing on was blackened and burned in appearance, rather than just being dirty. The slimy coating was still confusing, as was the creature’s ragged appearance. When she’d seen him at the beginning of this scenario, he’d stood tall and had moved with surprising speed and grace. His fur had also been clean and well maintained.

  “Your path, indeed.” He chucked darkly.