As I’ve stated previously in this work, rift challenges have as much variation as there are universes within the world. That is to say, we have never found any limit nor theorize one.

  Despite the lack of finite possibility, there are broad generalization which might reasonably be applied. These generalizations are often referred to as the rift ‘type’ or ‘theme.’ Besides the catch-all ‘aberrant’ category, there are ten generally accepted types.

  

  Willow

  Cat Room, Sheerna

  

  At first, Willow and the others retraced their steps back along the path of the second story catwalk. Stopping when they found themselves in a spot without any cats particularly nearby, they took a moment to regroup and quietly discuss their next steps.

  “We’ll have to find the cat girl.”

  “What was her name?” Ravvy asked, a knowing gleam in his eyes.

  Squinting in thought, Willow dug deep. She was getting better, thinking about other people more, surely she’d remembered the cute little girl’s name! “Gem!” She proclaimed, quiet but exultant.

  Luzzi’s hand rubbing her face and Ravvy’s snicker brought her crashing back to reality. “Jemin.” Reminded Luzzi softly.

  Fighting through her soul crushing defeat, Willow bravely changed the subject. “So, how do we find her without waking up the kitties?”

  Rubbing the back of one hand away with the other, Luzzi said, “Her scent is very similar to many of the other cats. I will recognize her once we’re close, but I won’t be able to find her easily. Perhaps Ravavka can spot her or catch her scent?”

  Turning to look at the unassumingly creepy little five-eyed alien, Willow raised a single eyebrow in challenge. He scowled in Luzzi’s direction, “You know full well only my center eye can see anything at all. Just because it’s superior to both of a human’s eyes in every conceivable way doesn’t mean you should assume I can spot a little brat amo… Oh, there she is.”

  Head snapping to follow Ravvy’s finger, Willow saw a small tuft of dark black hair sliding carefully between a pair of jaguars. It was unlikely they’d have spotted her quite so easily had she been still. Of course, Luzzi hadn’t turned to look. She just nodded, “Let’s go, then.”

  Before anyone could start moving, Willow quickly raised a hand, “One sec…” She turned to look for a path. They currently had the height advantage, which was the only reason they could see the carefully moving girl in the first place. The room was simply too full of random cat trees and nick-nack shelves for them to see much of the room from the ground floor. A solid minute passed as she tried to sus out the best way to go. Just as she heard a soft intake of breath behind her, probably Ravvy about to complain, she finished plotting their course.

  “Okay.” She murmured, “We should go over there, drop to that black cat tree that has the weird dangley bell on it. We’ll need to be careful not to hit loudly enough to move the tower and jingle it. From there we’ll need to go between where that lion is laying and the little chipmunk looking cat. Then we hook a left at the huge water bowl and go until we get to the little mesh crawling tube. I can’t tell if anything is in it, but if we walk quietly along the right side of it we’ll be really close to where she’s hiding. Then we just have to figure out how to get between those jaguars to reach her hiding spot. They’re way way too close together… My vote is we have Ravvy do it cuz he’s small.”

  “I might be small, but you’re more expendable!” He snapped back at her, fake fire in his soft voice.

  Waving dismissively she retorted, “Like Madrick’s gonna get you free rift delves.”

  “Nepo baby.”

  “Cry-baby.”

  “I agree with the plan, shall we go?” Luzzi broke in, exasperated.

  “Uh, right… Hey if we get separated, can you find us again Luzzi? Obviously you’ve never had trouble navigating anywhere as far as I’ve seen, but can you find us if we end up on opposite sides of the room?”

  “Yes, you both have very distinctive scents, especially in contrast to the cats. It will be no problem.”

  “Great! Let’s go then.” Quickly putting her plan into action, Willow led them across the planks toward the spot she’d designated for them to descend. Half way there, they all froze as they heard a small giggle. Looking back, they saw Jemin. She was sitting on the edge of a beam with her legs dangling off the side. She kicked them while staring directly at the trio. Then she disappeared.

  Disbelieving, both Willow and Ravvy quickly scanned the area they expected to find the little girl. Her little head of black hair was nowhere to be seen. “Well that’s annoying.” Ravvy muttered. Willow could only silently agree.

  Many hours later, Willow was feeling tired for the first time in a long time. She thrived in high action environments, expending huge amounts of energy, sustaining crazy marathon fights, whatever. That was all fine. What wasn’t fine was slinking around, trying not to wake up a bunch of huge cats while searching for an infuriating little brat who could apparently teleport or go invisible or something. It wasn’t fair at all!

  Once, Willow had reacted immediately upon hearing the giggle. She’d activated her moment of focus, extending it as fast and far as she could manage. Turning back, she’d found the cat girl who had definitely just giggled at them from just behind, wasn’t there. If she had been, then she’d somehow known Willow was going to activate her ability and ran away. Or, more terrifying, she was able to entirely ignore her most potent power somehow.

  Waving to the others, Willow lead them back to a spot she’d noticed before. There was a kind of small alcove at the intersection of several beams underneath the big arching end-to-end tube. A tube which they’d discovered was occupied by a cat that seemed somehow related to a snake, as they’d seen several layers or body coiled in on itself. Backing slowly out of the tube had been nerve wracking enough. Hearing one of those giggles, which Willow was slowly beginning to feel were more nefarious than innocent, had nearly stopped her heart. Thankfully, the fluffy noodle hadn’t been disturbed by the sound.

  Being underneath the tube which held that oddly intimidating length of cat was a bit off-putting. Unfortunately, it was the best spot she’d seen so far for what she had in mind. Especially given the only side with enough space for them to squeeze in could be easily covered with a random bit of fabric. Something which had been easy enough to pick up from the shockingly abundant supply on their way. The cat-lady motif extended to having random bolts of cloth around: some cut into, some entirely unused. All of them terrible patterns of clashing colors or strange subject matter. Every so often there was a nice one, like the black cats on a silver background which became their makeshift base’s entry flap.

  Draping the fabric around intersecting beams to hang down, there was still plenty of the material left. Taking a moment to pull the sharp dagger she had brought out of her pack, Willow quickly cut the cloth a few ways and used as much of it as she could to drape the insides with more cloth. It was rough, but maybe it would help contain any noise a bit better.

  There was enough space inside the little alcove for them all to sit without touching, and probably enough for them to lay down if they didn’t mind getting nice and cuddly. Once she was done decorating - sound proofing - and they were all sitting somewhat comfortably, Willow took a deep breath, “We need to change tactics. This isn’t working.”

  “Agreed.” “Yes.”

  Were the immediate replies.

  “Luzzi, you can make illusions… Can you see through their eyes?”

  “Not exactly, but I can experience enough to roughly control them. The extent is essentially walking around mostly open spaces and talking, though. I’d be hard pressed to keep the illusion from running into things left right and center in a cluttered room like this.”

  Thinking that over, Willow shrugged while performing the paavaras hand-motion for the same, “Does it matter if the illusion runs into things? It’s not physical, right?”

  “My illusions can be physical, but they do not need to be if it’s better for them not to.” She confirmed.

  “Could you make an illusion for each of us, of us continuing our search, while we hide here or somewhere else? I want to try and lure the little demon-cat to try and taunt us, and grab her from behind when she appears.”

  They sat in silence for a bit, thoughts churning through each of their minds. “It might work, the only real issue would be-” Her gentle voice cut off as a long growling yawn came from below. Quickly glancing in that direction, Willow saw movement through the small gaps left between her cloth patchwork.

  Carefully pulling a bit back, she and Ravvy both looked out, bumping heads and grumbling at each other for a moment before managing to find a good position to watch. The yawn had come from the white tiger with black stripes. It had woken up and was currently sitting regally in front of the CRT, licking a paw.

  “Heeeere kitty kitty!!!” Came a loud, trembling, voice.

  Dropping the cloth, Willow and Ravvy scrambled to the other side, lifting another corner. Looking down, they saw a giant woman who appeared to be in her late seventies, maybe early eighties, holding a box with equally large cans and an electric opener. Walking through the chaos, following the mostly clear path, the elderly woman navigated through the room to the coffee table.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Willow and Ravvy moved along the edge of their little room as they needed to keep her in view. The entire way, cats begun streaming out of every nook and cranny rub up against the lady and made pitifully adorable noises. Huge lions made affectionate chuffing sounds. Cheetas chittered. Several just straight-up meowed.

  The entire time, the woman tottered while loudly telling the cats they were all “good kitties.” The sight of a human outside of peak physical age was odd, after over a month of only seeing people in their primes. The woman’s skin was badly wrinkled, her plump body covered by a formless night gown with blue and yellow flowers stitched onto it. Her hair was up in curlers and her slippers had tips shaped like little white house cats. Several of the large predators batted or even bit at the intruding “cats”. None of them were real attacks, it almost seemed playful.

  “Ew, is that what old humans look like?” Ravvy asked.

  Willow ignored him.

  “Her scent is quite different from a normal human, it’s interesting.” Luzzi commented. Et tu, Luzzi? The poor woman’s probably got church or something tomorrow and is just trying to feed her cats before a good night sleeping with those rollers in.

  She continued ignoring as she watched. Once the box was placed beside the table, which only came up a bit above the woman’s shins but would have been waist-high to Willow, she pulled a stack of bowls and the can opener out. The cat’s cacophony instantly intensified, the felines excited by the prospect of food. Chuckling and cooing, the lady opened the first can. Once complete, she plopped into a bowl and patted it down with a fork which appeared to be real tarnished silver.

  Proffering the meal toward the CRT, she called, “C’mon little greenie, the others won’t eat till you do. Don’t be mean to your brothers and sisters, now.” So saying, she tapped the side of the bowl with the fork and placed it on the table.

  Yawning and stretching with a slow, languid, careless, aura ‘little greenie’ hopped from the television directly to the coffee table. It wrapped its tail around its body, each tip twisted together in a way very reminiscent of Luzzi, then loafed down to enjoy its meal.

  Meanwhile, three other bowls had been prepared. Just as the granny serving them had predicted, none of the other animals took a bite. There was a brief skirmish over who would get the first few bowls, but they didn’t immediately dig in. Instead, they waited and watched the smallest among them. Willow even spotted the extremely long cat snake, which was wiggling excitedly as the victor earning one of the first four bowls.

  Apparently uncaring about the tension it was causing, the green cat slowly enjoyed its meal. Almost two dozen bowls were filled before it decided it was done. Sitting up in a regal straight-backed posture, it licked its chops while looking around disdainfully. It seemed the rest of the clowder held their collective breaths before it gave the softest, most dainty, “mew.” Willow had ever heard. At that moment, each cat who had managed to claim and hold a bowl dug in ravenously.

  “That wasn’t…” Luzzi said in a voice barely audible over the chaos of the animals feasting and the electric can opener buzzing.

  Apparently as curious as Willow, Ravvy asked, “Wasn’t what?”

  “That sound, it didn’t come from a small furred animal with a tail similar to mine? With round paws too large for its body?”

  “That about sums it up, yeah. It’s green, too, if that matters.”

  “I wouldn’t know its color… But it is dangerous.” She was quiet for a while, then rubbed the back of her paw in a circle with the other, a kind of sigh. “I suppose it doesn’t change much of anything at this point. Its senses should be much keener than the other animals here, and should have killed us before we knew it was here.”

  “That’s pretty ominous. What is it?” Asked Willow, interest piqued.

  Curling her tail tightly around her waist, Luzzi answered, “A sorcharas. They are the most dangerous predator from my tutorial. Canny, cruel, and deadly. Their ability to blend into their environment is legendary, as they’re nearly impossible to detect before they are already on top of you. They have two sets of claws, one for climbing and slashing, and another to stab their prey and inject a powerful venom.”

  Watching the vibrantly green little cat strut over to one of the cat towers and languidly sink its claws into it, Willow had a difficult time believing it was quite so dangerous. Maybe it has big-sharp-teeth? She pondered.

  “That thing is impossible to miss. No way it’s a master at hiding.” Ravvy burst Luzzi’s bubble.

  A few moments of silence, then she asked, “Can you smell it, hear it?”

  Before Willow could ask how in the world Ravvy would be able to smell anything without a nose, she stopped. Now that she thought about it, he could hear but also had no ears. He was staring hard at the tiny green cat.

  “No… I can’t. It even feels a bit weird. I would expect it to be soft from what it looks like, but it feels more like nothing. Like a light ball of decompressed fluff.”

  “Excuse me? Do you have an insight that lets you cast your senses or something? That would be so useful! You’ve gotta tell me!” Willow was already thinking about the possibilities. Recon would become a snap! She’d get the insight, improve her eyes, and bamb, anywhere she could see she’d also be able to hear. She could become the world’s best PI! No need for fancy lip reading or laser-based sound detection for long range ops!

  “Hazzabi eyes aren’t just for show.” Luzzi answered softly. “The center eye sees, similar to a human. The second pair processes particulates, allowing them to feel, smell, and even taste. The third pair allows them to hear. You may have noticed Ravavka generally looks at whatever he’s listening to? For a human that might be polite. For him, it is required to hear quickly and fully. The reason he often takes a moment to reply if you ask a question while behind or at his side isn’t because he’s thinking long and hard, it’s because it takes him longer to hear. The sound waves have to reach his audio processing eye pair, and enough of the waves to make any sense at that. If you meet a newly arrived Hazzabi, you’d likely feel they’re unfocused or easily distracted. The world if vastly different from their tutorials and it takes much to adjust.”

  Head turning, Ravvy looked at her for a long moment, “Huh, I didn’t realize you knew that much about my people.”

  Seeing Luzzi’s tail tips wrap and unwrap around each-other while the rest of the tail remained around her waist, Willow tried to decide what it was a sign of. She couldn’t quite remember if Luzzi had told her about that one, maybe irritation.

  “That’s all really interesting… But it looks like the cat lady’s done feeding them.” They watched as the woman slowly doddered back in the direction she’d come from. Watching carefully, the three of them saw her walk directly into the paper clad wall, vanishing.

  “Think the wall’s an illusion?” Willow asked, excited. Ravvy stared at it for a long time before shaking his head, “I don’t think so. Maybe, but I think it’s unlikely.”

  Luzzi still hadn’t moved from her seated, tail around waist, position, “Is it worth investigating?”

  “Hmm… Maybe.” Ravvy acknowledged. “Not now, though. The cats are all active.”

  Looking back down, Willow saw he was right. All of the cats were moving about, doing things. Some of them chased each other, others hid and pounced. Some tended their claws on the many cat towers or the furniture, a few simply sprinted around the room at top speed.

  “Guess we should settle in. Also, where’d Jemin go?”

  The next three or four hours were spent doing their best not to crowd each other while watching the massive cats play like little kittens. All except the green cat, which had found its way up onto the catwalk and simply watched from on high. Its eyes glinted with a disinterested kind of intellect.

  After four days of sleeping in a pile, Willow barely even minded waking to Ravvy’s foot shoved against her ribs. Yep, not annoying at all.

  She stopped the groan that wanted to spill from her mouth as she carefully extracted herself from the tangle. Cuddling with Luzzi? Awesome. She was fuzzy, soft, and barely moved. Add Ravvy to the equation and it became a mess. The little man moved more in his sleep than while awake and despite being the smallest, somehow took up the most room out of all three of them. Not to mention Willow suspected he had an insight which gave him an infinite number of elbows and knees with which to dig and shove.

  Another day, another search for the little devil brat whilst carefully avoiding detection by apex predators. Simple. Easy. Willow wanted to scream. This room sucked. To make it worse, they’d ended up trying to go back through the door they’d entered. They couldn’t find it. The door, as far as they could tell, had disappeared entirely. After realizing that, they had tried checking the wall the caretaker lady came and went through. It was entirely solid, so far as any of them could determine. None of this made any sense.

  Giggle. To make matters worse, Jemin hadn’t gotten bored at all. She disappeared entirely during feeding times, but other than that she wandered around and taunted them. Sometimes she giggled just behind or beside them, others she was way in the distance. Even when they were above, looking down at her, she seemed to know they were watching. Sometimes she would look up and wink, or wave, or even stick her tongue out. They had become trapped in an obnoxious cycle between ‘careful not to wake all the big scary animals’ and try and catch that stupid girl in the brief moments they found her, before she disappeared again.

  As each day passed, Luzzi also seemed to become more and more unsettled. Her fur stood on end and she jumped at minor noises. Once, she’d vanished from sight and appeared several beams away just because Ravvy had kicked a small mound of fabric from a rafter. The cats ignored most little noises entirely, apparently used to small things shifting and moving around them as they slept.

  At one point, Willow suspected the entire thing was a trick. She thought that maybe, just maybe all of the cats were an illusion and they were just being scared into believing they were a threat. So, she’d found an isolated smaller cat, some kind of bob-cat, and had touched it. It was definitely real, and its eyes snapped open the moment her fingers brushed the fur on its side.

  Having been prepared, just in case, Willow activated her moment and quickly retreated. She kept the halting effect on the cat until she had broken line of sight and quickly scampered further up into the much tighter rafters which sat above the catwalk. There, she waited while doing her best not to breathe hard. Or give off too strong a smell. Thankfully, she’d escaped any real notice and the feline decided whatever touched it had been mundane and went back to sleep.

  The discussion of whether they should just try to fight all of the cats had come up plenty of times. Especially given Willow was pretty confident she could control any that got close enough with her ability, giving the others time to kill them. Besides the obvious: killing cute cats felt gross, Luzzi was also less than convinced it would be that easy. She was entirely convinced that the sorcharas would have a way to defeat them, regardless of what the others could do.

  There were also other cats which none of them really knew the capabilities of. The snake-cat, a super fat cat which seemed so buoyant that it sometimes floated off the ground, a cat with nine tails, a cat which sometimes exploded into flame. There was a good chance, according to Luzzi, that one or more of them had some kind of resistances to Willow’s ability.

  Watching the feeding once again, Willow stopped as she realized something for the first time. The eyes of the sorcharas, they were pink.

  The day had ended normally, with the clowder rushing around and having a grand time. The sorcharas had decided to make its bed in the plastic tube above their makeshift home today. Taking a deep breath she made the choice. “I’m just going to try it. If I die, it’s on me. You guys can keep doing looking for the solution. I’m gonna go mad in here if we keep doing at it like this, though.”

  Ravvy was silent, showing a greater amount of solemnity than Willow thought he could. Luzzi just shook her head and muttered, “It’s madness.” But didn’t argue further. They’d already done all the arguing earlier.

  The cats had all settled down, so Willow left their little hideout and quickly made her wait to the end of the tube. Stepping into it she walked toward the center, where she found the sorcharas. Its eyes immediately opened. Familiar pink irises stared at her, full of childish amusement. Reaching her hand out, Willow tapped the cute little kitty’s nose, “Gottcha Jemin!”

  Yawning, the sorcharas stretched and stood, then rubbed her body against Willow’s bent knees while purring. Then she turned her head back and winked. Tail flicking, Jemin left the tube. Following her out, Willow asked, “Do we have to be so quiet?”

  A soft giggle and a very slow and deliberate head shake was enough answer. She called out to the others, who made their ways to her quickly. It was actually very touching that they were so quick about it, considering Luzzi looked resigned to a respawn. Ravvy looked ready to go down fighting, eager even. They both stopped, looking surprised, when they found Willow standing beside the regal, but tiny, lime green cat. It yawned widely and turned, leading them toward the door.

  Seeing the other cats all watching with varying degrees of lazy interest and boredom made Willow irrationally angry. They’d worked so hard to go unnoticed, and the whole time it hadn’t mattered at all! When they reached the door, Jemin reached a paw up and tapped it. The locks all clicked and a soft, clear, bell like chime sounded throughout the entire room. Turning back, the cat-girl version of Jemin appeared to her right.

  She giggled again and leaned forward, arms clasped behind her back and chin jutted out proudly, “Gottttcha! Good thing you didn’t try to run away without playing with me.” Her vibrant pink eyes suddenly turned an equally vibrant red, “That would have been against the rules.”

  Quietly thanking Jemin for playing with them, the trio filed through the unlocked doorway. Somehow, when Willow felt the influx of xp which told her they’d completed the rift’s challenge, she felt mocked.