drift
/drift/ – noun
The word representing the invisible force that reshapes reality across time. Miss it and you die. Ignore it and you die. Underestimate it and (you guessed it) you die…
Oceans surging and retreating to devour coastlines over thousands of years, the relentless wobble of Earth’s axis as it spirals through the cosmos, worlds sliding through the universe across unimaginable eternities…
All of these are examples of Drift…
Drift is the term Star Benders and Anchors wield to explain how places and spaces transform over time.
Drift tracks the slow but massive upheavals that reshape worlds across years, centuries, millennia and entire epochs. These metamorphoses creep forward so slowly that most mortals never perceive them—but they’re always there, always moving, always shifting and transforming.
Drift is communicated with brutal precision—percentages, distances, temperatures, forces and other razor-sharp metrics. These numbers reveal to StarBenders exactly how much reality has shifted or will shift in the time they are aiming to tether to.
Critical Warning: When drift readings are botched, ignored or abandoned, Star Benders perish. Fumble these measurements and you’ll emerge lost in the maze of time and space—or worse, you’ll materialize inside crushing stone, into searing infernos or in the merciless void of space. Mastering drift isn’t just vital—it’s the razor’s edge between arriving alive and dying in agony.
