There are moments when a disappearance answers a question.
And there are moments when finding someone creates an even bigger one.
When Shapoklyak tore our group apart, the Reality Drift scattered everyone across places we did not understand. Clown Cat vanished through one portal. American Idiot and TON CAT disappeared through another. Those left behind could only watch as people who had been standing beside them moments earlier were thrown somewhere beyond reach.
We knew Clown Cat had gone somewhere.
What we did not know was where.
Until now.
The Reality Drift has carried us into another world.
Welcome to the Shattered Sea.
And meet Rica.
Somewhere Beyond the Reality Drift
The first thing we see is not Clown Cat.
It is the Shattered Sea itself.
An enormous ocean stretches beneath a burning golden-orange sky. Islands break the horizon in every direction, but this is not an ordinary archipelago.
Some islands rise naturally from the water.
Others do not.
Landmasses hang impossibly in the sky. Waterfalls pour from floating islands hundreds of feet above the ocean. Ancient ships and fragments of vessels appear where they have no business being.
The sea is beautiful.
But something about it is wrong.
Then reality tears open above the water.
A portal appears.
Something is violently expelled from it.
SPLASH.
For a moment, there is nothing but disturbed water.
Bubbles descend beneath the surface.
And then, finally, someone emerges.
Clown Cat.
Soaked.
Confused.
And, unsurprisingly, not particularly happy about any of this.
After everything that happened during Shapoklyak's attack, we finally know where he went.
He landed in the Shattered Sea.
The mystery should have ended there.
Instead, it became much larger.
Clown Cat Is Very Far From Home
Clown Cat floats alone in an ocean he has never seen before.
Behind him, the impossible geography of this realm stretches toward the horizon.
He does not know what happened to American Idiot.
He does not know where TON CAT went.
He does not know what happened after Shapoklyak sent him through the portal.
And most importantly, he has absolutely no idea where he is.
The Shattered Sea is not another region of the world he left behind.
It is another realm.
That distinction matters.
Reality Drift has never been about all of these worlds simply merging into one giant setting. The characters have been displaced across different realities, each with its own environment, inhabitants, history and rules.
QUBY's Realm of Echoes showed us one possibility: peaceful hills, crystal streams, flowers, cottages and a world seemingly untouched by the chaos elsewhere.
The Shattered Sea gives us something entirely different.
Adventure.
Pirates.
Ancient settlements.
Floating islands.
Unstable geography.
And something waiting beyond the horizon.
But Clown Cat doesn't know any of that yet.
At first, he only knows that he is wet.
Then the sunlight disappears.
Something Is Behind Him
A shadow begins moving across the water.
It reaches Clown Cat.
The atmosphere changes immediately.
The gentle sounds of the ocean are joined by something deeper.
Creaking timber.
Ropes tightening.
Sails moving in the wind.
Clown Cat turns.
And behind him is an enormous pirate ship.
Its dark wooden hull rises over the water like a wall. Weathered sails hang from towering masts. Rigging stretches across the deck while warm lanterns glow against the sunset.
Clown Cat suddenly looks very small.
But the ship itself is not the most important part of the reveal.
Someone is standing on it.
High above the water, silhouetted against the sunset, is a woman holding a brass telescope.
She is watching.
For the audience, she is initially only a shape: a pirate hat, long hair moving in the ocean wind, the unmistakable outline of someone who belongs to this strange sea.
For Clown Cat?
She's another problem.
And then we finally see her.
Meet Rica
Rica is a pirate of the Shattered Sea and the newest character to enter the expanding Baby Ladyverse through Reality Drift.
Red hair flows beneath an enormous black pirate hat. A skull-and-crossbones marks its front. Her pirate clothing, brass telescope and commanding position aboard her ship immediately tells us something important:
Clown Cat has entered her world.
She is not the stranger here.
He is.
Rica studies this bizarre floating cat through her telescope.
Then comes the obvious question.
What exactly has the sea delivered to her?
Her reaction is more amused than frightened.
Clown Cat's reaction is considerably simpler.
He wants to go back.
Except there is one rather serious problem.
Back where?
That question is more important than it initially sounds.
Clown Cat knows where he came from.
He does not know how to get there.
Rica knows the Shattered Sea.
She does not know where Clown Cat's world is.
Two characters have met across realities, but neither possesses the information necessary to undo what the Reality Drift has done.
And that is where this chapter begins.
Not with an answer.
With a new mystery.
The Shattered Sea
The Shattered Sea is more than a backdrop for Rica.
It is its own realm within Reality Drift.
Across the ocean are tropical islands, rocky settlements, pirate ports and old structures built by people who have learned to survive here.
But geography in this realm does not always behave.
Some islands float.
Some appear where maps insist they should not be.
Others can be seen suspended high above the ocean.
Old ships and fragments of vessels can occupy impossible positions.
Compasses cannot always be trusted.
Maps can become unreliable.
The farther someone travels from familiar waters, the less certain the Shattered Sea becomes.
And somewhere beyond all of it lies something even Rica does not completely understand.
The Dead Horizon.
The Dead Horizon
Every sailor understands a horizon.
It is the boundary between what you can see and what lies beyond.
The Dead Horizon is different.
Something happens there.
Under the right circumstances, distant shapes can appear beyond it—places that seemingly do not belong to the Shattered Sea at all.
Perhaps another coastline.
Perhaps another city.
Perhaps another reality.
They appear.
They disappear.
And reaching them is another matter entirely.
For Rica, these phenomena were mysteries of her world.
Then Clown Cat fell out of the sky.
That changes everything.
Because suddenly the impossible things she has observed may not be illusions.
They may be other realities.
And Clown Cat may not be the first evidence to reach the Shattered Sea.
That is why this chapter deliberately does not explain everything Rica knows.
We could answer the question immediately.
We won't.
Reality Drift is becoming larger precisely because every answer exposes another layer of the mystery.
We finally found Clown Cat.
Now we have to ask what Rica found before him.
Reality Drift Is Expanding
Reality Drift began with characters being separated.
It is becoming a way for worlds to meet.
That difference is important.
The Baby Ladyverse is not intended to be a place where every character simply exists in the same city because a crossover happened.
Characters have homes.
They have histories.
Their worlds have identities.
When Reality Drift connects those worlds, the meeting should mean something.
Clown Cat does not suddenly become a pirate because he landed in the Shattered Sea.
Rica does not stop being Rica because she has entered a Baby Lady story.
Instead, their differences become the story.
What happens when Clown Cat encounters a civilization whose rules he doesn't understand?
What has Rica already witnessed near the Dead Horizon?
Can the Reality Drift be navigated?
Are these arrivals random?
And if Clown Cat can fall into Rica's world...
what else can?
Those questions will remain unanswered for now.
From Crossover to Community
This chapter also represents something larger outside the story.
Baby Lady has always been strongest when collaboration means more than placing several mascots in the same image.
A crossover should create something.
A story.
A relationship.
A reason for communities to discover one another.
So Rica's arrival in the Baby Ladyverse will not remain entirely inside Reality Drift.
To celebrate this chapter, the 77 largest Baby Lady holders will each receive:
🏴☠️ 100,000 RICA
🤍 10,000 QUBY
Across 77 holders, that means a total community distribution of:
7,700,000 RICA
and
770,000 QUBY
This is not being presented as a promise of returns or a prediction about what either token will do.
It is a crossover distribution connected to the communities and characters participating in this expanding universe.
RICA represents the character whose realm we have just entered.
QUBY represents another character whose story has already become intertwined with Reality Drift.
And Baby Lady is becoming the connective tissue between these worlds.
The story crosses communities.
So this time, the crossover does too.
Token-specific information and distribution details can remain where those conversations belong: within the community channels built for them.
Here, the important thing is the story.
Rica's Story Begins Here
Clown Cat has been found.
That should feel like progress.
Instead, somewhere aboard an old pirate ship in an impossible ocean, one question has become several.
Where exactly is the Shattered Sea?
What is happening at the Dead Horizon?
What has Rica seen there?
Who—or what—came through before Clown Cat?
And while Clown Cat is floating around demanding someone put him back...
Does anyone actually know how?
For now, the pirate ship sails beneath the golden sky.
The floating islands remain suspended above the sea.
The Dead Horizon waits in the distance.
And Reality Drift continues.
Welcome to the Shattered Sea. 🏴☠️
Rica is the creation of artist Valeriya Sikorskaya, creator of the original Rica Telegram sticker pack.
The Baby Ladyverse will continue.
