The Space Between Worlds
The Drift Expanse is outer space, just not the kind filled with stars and planets.
It is the vast, empty stretch between worlds, where souls, thoughts, and half-finished journeys pass through when they don’t immediately land somewhere else.
If normal space separates planets, the Drift Expanse separates realities.
You don’t breathe air here.
You don’t fall.
You don’t need a ship.
You move by wanting to go somewhere.
In the Drift Expanse, movement doesn’t come from engines or sails.
It comes from intent.
If you know where you’re going and believe you can get there, you will move.
If you hesitate, doubt yourself, or lose focus, you will slow down or drift aimlessly.
Someone with clear purpose can cross distances that would normally take years in moments. Someone who is lost inside their own head can remain stuck in place forever.
Ships do exist—but they aren’t required. Most are used as:
Safe places to rest
Ways to keep groups together
Mental anchors to prevent drifting apart
Experienced travelers often abandon ships once they understand how the Drift works.
The Drift Expanse is dark and quiet.
There are no stars, suns, or constellations. Light comes from:
Floating ruins
Glowing currents of energy
Strange false suns made of memory or belief
You’ll see:
Shattered cities drifting endlessly
Broken ships frozen mid-journey
Massive structures left behind by gods or civilizations that didn’t survive
There’s no up or down. No horizon. Just distance in every direction.
Time doesn’t work normally here.
You don’t age, but you don’t feel timeless either.
Some places feel like moments that never end. Others feel like years passing in a breath.
You might remember things out of order.
You might feel like something happened before it actually did.
This is normal.
The Drift Expanse isn’t empty.
You may encounter:
Lost souls that never finished reincarnating
Creatures born from broken thoughts or memories
Ancient gods, dead or forgotten, drifting like enormous ruins
Travelers who learned to survive between worlds
Some beings are hostile. Some are lonely. Some barely remember what they once were.
The Drift doesn’t judge them.
It just lets them continue.
The biggest threat in the Drift Expanse isn’t death.
It’s forgetting who you are.
Stay too long, and you may:
Forget your name
Lose pieces of your memory
Watch your body slowly change
Become part of the environment without realizing it
People who completely lose themselves don’t disappear.
They turn into drifting debris, strange landmarks, or living hazards.
Dying here doesn’t work the same way it does elsewhere.
Your body may break apart, but your existence doesn’t immediately end.
Some people reform somewhere else.
Some are caught by strange places designed to hold the lost.
Some never come back at all.
This is why certain locations act like cosmic taverns or waiting rooms—places where people who failed to reach a world end up instead.
Most worlds reject things that don’t fit.
Atherfall doesn’t.
When someone survives the Drift without falling apart—when they manage to stay themselves long enough to land—Atherfall accepts them.
That’s why people from so many different worlds end up there.
The Drift Expanse is the journey.
Atherfall is the place that lets the journey finish.
Travelers have many sayings about it:
“The Drift doesn’t care if you’re ready.”
“You don’t sail the Drift. You decide through it.”
“If you don’t know who you are, the Drift will take a guess.”
None of them are jokes.
The Drift Expanse isn’t a test.
It isn’t a punishment.
It isn’t a reward.
It’s just space—the space between worlds—where you move by knowing what you want and survive by remembering who you are.
And if you can’t do either…
You’ll keep drifting.