The view in The Drift is awesome… for an hour or so. I don't exactly have a watch. After that… eh. It's beautiful scenery… but it's just scenery. There's no end to it, and it really doesn't change. OK, yes, there's the occasional clump of matter that gets imported into the plane every time someone uses a drift engine, and I look at those in passing, hoping for… something useful. Which… usually they're just clumps of dirt or water.
I mean, think about it: It's grabbing a random chunk of a random plane. Earth is covered in 70% water… which means - if a ship grabs a few hundred yards of the surface of the Earth - it's more likely to grab some seawater than it is anything else. And that's assuming it hits the surface! A random hundred yard radius sphere is more likely to be from deep underground than anywhere else. You're more likely to win the lottery twice than to get nabbed.
And that's assuming it picks Earth! The gas giants are big enough to not notice Earth's weight, nevermind the sun. And, you know, the umpteen zillion other solar systems, and the vast reaches of nothing between. So yeah, while Drift travel is theoretically dangerous for everyone… it’s effectively harmless, unless the authors of the adventure paths need it to “randomly” cause a problem. So the probability of there being anything anyone would miss on those clumps is pretty astronomical.
Still, I have NOTHING outside my own skin, I have no schedule to keep, and I am just that bored. So yes, I stop at each one of the random clumps of dirt and rock I see and look around: I figure I might get lucky and find some pants. It would be nice if my block and tackle wasn't waving around for everyone to see, you know?
On one such stop, I encounter three women arguing. Well… I use the term “women” loosely here; they’re super slender, about seven feet tall, with extra-long limbs… with hands and feet that end in disturbingly sharp, silvery nails. Their hair sort of floats around them, framing their faces, and each wears a black robe decorated with an intricate pattern of stars.
I know better than to tangle with creatures that outnumber me at level 1! Yeah, I'm durable for level one, but my offensive punch isn't all that great. And as my skills aren't telling me what these ladies are, I can be reasonably confident they're out of my league. And there's three of them. So I simply flee.
… not that it helps. One of them shoots me before I can react… twice, both shots land in my gut… and I hear Patricia's voice, “Thirty three damage. We won't survive another volley.” She seems… amused?
And OH does that hurt. And it's COLD. They're apparently shooting ice guns? Ah, Zero pistols. They do cold damsge.
Sadly, I don't have REAL flight. Spaceflight and Slip Drive, yes, but those… just don't work for maneuvering on this scale. Starship combat, sure, but I'm too small to target. And there's no way I'm beating these folks. Seriously, one blew through half my hit points already, and there’s THREE of them.
Spells won't work in a vacuum, because I can't speak. I'll need to get a workaround for that ASAP. For now, I put up my hands and try to shout, “I surrender!”... but there’s no air here. Nothing comes out.
Another one pulls her gun and fires twice… again, both shots hit, and as my eyeballs freeze and my consciousness fades, I hear Patricia's voice: “... and that's thirty six. Let's pick this up in a few days…” right. She has access to my build choices, and knows I'm properly immortal.
When I come to, I feel fine. I mean, I'm still naked, and I'm laying face down on rocks, but I feel fine. There's air, at least. Gravity too… right. These clumps of matter maintain the traits of where they came from. I guess I fell here when I was reforming? I roll over and… my chest wiggles? I look down… huh. When did I get moobs? Come to that… my chest hair is completely gone, not that I ever had much. And… my rod seems slightly shorter? Hard to tell, I need a reference, and I don't have a measuring stick.
I sit up and look around as I chat with Patricia, “Any idea how long I was out?”
She tsk's in my head, “No… I'm out when you are, and we don't have a watch.”
Great… oh, hey: My corpse landed next to me. That's… ugh. I feel sick… good thing I haven't eaten, I guess? I look my corpse over: Lethal frostbite… skin has blackened a bit, but… huh…
I put my hand by corpse's … yes, my hand shrank slightly when I came back. I do a quick finger measurement on my rod and my corpses… I'm a little shorter there… I do a few other comparisons, and… longer hair, my jaw is a little less square… my nipples slightly longer… this is…
“Hey, Patricia, why don't I match my corpse? Am I…” I trail off. I mean, it's ridiculous, right?
Patricia sounds a little sheepish, “It's my fault, sort of. I'm the one gathering the energy to build all these structures, so it gets captured, ‘digested’, and integrated by me, then you get to use it… and well, it's become my essence by the time it gets to you, and that makes you more like me.”
Lovely. “I should have asked this before, but what are you, exactly?”
“You don't have the words to get it exactly right, but basically I'm a bunch of emotions and thoughts from many people that were similar enough to congeal into… well, me. I can live off the emanations of the thoughts and feelings of people, converting their energy to match my own … ‘wavelength’ … but things dying feeds me faster. But as to what you want to know… I'm fundamentally a specific feminine ideal. And when my power… yours, now… is applied, it pushes whatever it works on closer to me.” OK, that's a little long-winded…
… but I think I get the gist of it, “So when I die, I come back slightly more feminine?”
She considers, “That too. But… basically any application of our power that affects a thing will make that thing more like me for as long as the effect lasts.”
Oh. Great. “And coming back from the dead is Instant…”
She completes the thought, “Which means the effect will last forever, yes. Something like that Lesser Vigor spell you selected will only apply for the duration, though, and if you successfully Charm someone…” she giggles, “it should apply to them, too, for as long as they're Charmed.”
Wait… “Is that why my stubble went away when I… shaped my first level?”
She replies instantly, “Yes.”
That's it? Well… I suppose it's a simple answer… “Can we stop it from happening?”
It takes a while for her to answer, “No… it's fundamental to my existence. If you learned some illusion we could cover it, but….”
I complete that one, “... but the illusion itself would progress things physically, I imagine. Any suggestions?”
“Try not to die? But… it's inevitable you'll change. I can't not feed, and even if you get a thousand miles from everything, your soul produces what I need. It would be very, very slow that way… but you'll be forced to ‘level up’ again eventually. We're self-sustaining.” She sounds sorry, at least.
I sigh, “It's not your fault. I'll just… have to get used to changing, I guess. You said my Lesser Vigor spell should have a temporary effect?”
“Yes, as will any other spell you cast on yourself directly. A fine way to test.”
Well… I grabbed Read Magic, and cantrips are at-will. Normally casting the same spell on a subject twice just uses the latest, but… let's see how bad it is, huh?
I cast Read Magic, paying careful attention to my chest… and yes, the lumps swell slightly. I wait out the duration, counting to six hundred (the spell lasts ten minutes at first level… and yes, I can time counting to seconds; it's useful, and not hard to learn: Just pay attention to a ticking clock for a while in a quiet room, then replay it in your head as you count), and watch the change recede on schedule.
I nod, and next up… I stack the spell. I recast, over and over. I'm not a great judge, but… I think I cap out at an E or F cup? I'm used to the American standard, but still… big. And not nearly as big as my first view of Patricia before the merger. On my way to that stage, I also notice other things… my waist and shoulders narrow, my rear balloons out in all directions, my hands and feet become dainty, and just going by touch, my face becomes more feminine as well. And yes, at about a C cup, my twig and berries flatten, and I develop a cleft there shortly thereafter. The funbags on my chest are just the most pronounced change, it seems. I wait and… yes, the changes revert as the layered spells expire. That's good at least.
So I am going to be a woman eventually. The only question is when.
The view in The Drift is awesome… for an hour or so. I don't exactly have a watch. After that… eh. It's beautiful scenery… but it's just scenery. There's no end to it, and it really doesn't change. OK, yes, there's the occasional clump of matter that gets imported into the plane every time someone uses a drift engine, and I look at those in passing, hoping for… something useful. Which… usually they're just clumps of dirt or water.
I mean, think about it: It's grabbing a random chunk of a random plane. Earth is covered in 70% water… which means - if a ship grabs a few hundred yards of the surface of the Earth - it's more likely to grab some seawater than it is anything else. And that's assuming it hits the surface! A random hundred yard radius sphere is more likely to be from deep underground than anywhere else. You're more likely to win the lottery twice than to get nabbed.
And that's assuming it picks Earth! The gas giants are big enough to not notice Earth's weight, nevermind the sun. And, you know, the umpteen zillion other solar systems, and the vast reaches of nothing between. So yeah, while Drift travel is theoretically dangerous for everyone… it’s effectively harmless, unless the authors of the adventure paths need it to “randomly” cause a problem. So the probability of there being anything anyone would miss on those clumps is pretty astronomical.
Still, I have NOTHING outside my own skin, I have no schedule to keep, and I am just that bored. So yes, I stop at each one of the random clumps of dirt and rock I see and look around: I figure I might get lucky and find some pants. It would be nice if my block and tackle wasn't waving around for everyone to see, you know?
On one such stop, I encounter three women arguing. Well… I use the term “women” loosely here; they’re super slender, about seven feet tall, with extra-long limbs… with hands and feet that end in disturbingly sharp, silvery nails. Their hair sort of floats around them, framing their faces, and each wears a black robe decorated with an intricate pattern of stars.
I know better than to tangle with creatures that outnumber me at level 1! Yeah, I'm durable for level one, but my offensive punch isn't all that great. And as my skills aren't telling me what these ladies are, I can be reasonably confident they're out of my league. And there's three of them. So I simply flee.
… not that it helps. One of them shoots me before I can react… twice, both shots land in my gut… and I hear Patricia's voice, “Thirty three damage. We won't survive another volley.” She seems… amused?
And OH does that hurt. And it's COLD. They're apparently shooting ice guns? Ah, Zero pistols. They do cold damsge.
Sadly, I don't have REAL flight. Spaceflight and Slip Drive, yes, but those… just don't work for maneuvering on this scale. Starship combat, sure, but I'm too small to target. And there's no way I'm beating these folks. Seriously, one blew through half my hit points already, and there’s THREE of them.
Spells won't work in a vacuum, because I can't speak. I'll need to get a workaround for that ASAP. For now, I put up my hands and try to shout, “I surrender!”... but there’s no air here. Nothing comes out.
Another one pulls her gun and fires twice… again, both shots hit, and as my eyeballs freeze and my consciousness fades, I hear Patricia's voice: “... and that's thirty six. Let's pick this up in a few days…” right. She has access to my build choices, and knows I'm properly immortal.
When I come to, I feel fine. I mean, I'm still naked, and I'm laying face down on rocks, but I feel fine. There's air, at least. Gravity too… right. These clumps of matter maintain the traits of where they came from. I guess I fell here when I was reforming? I roll over and… my chest wiggles? I look down… huh. When did I get moobs? Come to that… my chest hair is completely gone, not that I ever had much. And… my rod seems slightly shorter? Hard to tell, I need a reference, and I don't have a measuring stick.
I sit up and look around as I chat with Patricia, “Any idea how long I was out?”
She tsk's in my head, “No… I'm out when you are, and we don't have a watch.”
Great… oh, hey: My corpse landed next to me. That's… ugh. I feel sick… good thing I haven't eaten, I guess? I look my corpse over: Lethal frostbite… skin has blackened a bit, but… huh…
I put my hand by corpse's … yes, my hand shrank slightly when I came back. I do a quick finger measurement on my rod and my corpses… I'm a little shorter there… I do a few other comparisons, and… longer hair, my jaw is a little less square… my nipples slightly longer… this is…
“Hey, Patricia, why don't I match my corpse? Am I…” I trail off. I mean, it's ridiculous, right?
Patricia sounds a little sheepish, “It's my fault, sort of. I'm the one gathering the energy to build all these structures, so it gets captured, ‘digested’, and integrated by me, then you get to use it… and well, it's become my essence by the time it gets to you, and that makes you more like me.”
Lovely. “I should have asked this before, but what are you, exactly?”
“You don't have the words to get it exactly right, but basically I'm a bunch of emotions and thoughts from many people that were similar enough to congeal into… well, me. I can live off the emanations of the thoughts and feelings of people, converting their energy to match my own … ‘wavelength’ … but things dying feeds me faster. But as to what you want to know… I'm fundamentally a specific feminine ideal. And when my power… yours, now… is applied, it pushes whatever it works on closer to me.” OK, that's a little long-winded…
… but I think I get the gist of it, “So when I die, I come back slightly more feminine?”
She considers, “That too. But… basically any application of our power that affects a thing will make that thing more like me for as long as the effect lasts.”
Oh. Great. “And coming back from the dead is Instant…”
She completes the thought, “Which means the effect will last forever, yes. Something like that Lesser Vigor spell you selected will only apply for the duration, though, and if you successfully Charm someone…” she giggles, “it should apply to them, too, for as long as they're Charmed.”
Wait… “Is that why my stubble went away when I… shaped my first level?”
She replies instantly, “Yes.”
That's it? Well… I suppose it's a simple answer… “Can we stop it from happening?”
It takes a while for her to answer, “No… it's fundamental to my existence. If you learned some illusion we could cover it, but….”
I complete that one, “... but the illusion itself would progress things physically, I imagine. Any suggestions?”
“Try not to die? But… it's inevitable you'll change. I can't not feed, and even if you get a thousand miles from everything, your soul produces what I need. It would be very, very slow that way… but you'll be forced to ‘level up’ again eventually. We're self-sustaining.” She sounds sorry, at least.
I sigh, “It's not your fault. I'll just… have to get used to changing, I guess. You said my Lesser Vigor spell should have a temporary effect?”
“Yes, as will any other spell you cast on yourself directly. A fine way to test.”
Well… I grabbed Read Magic, and cantrips are at-will. Normally casting the same spell on a subject twice just uses the latest, but… let's see how bad it is, huh?
I cast Read Magic, paying careful attention to my chest… and yes, the lumps swell slightly. I wait out the duration, counting to six hundred (the spell lasts ten minutes at first level… and yes, I can time counting to seconds; it's useful, and not hard to learn: Just pay attention to a ticking clock for a while in a quiet room, then replay it in your head as you count), and watch the change recede on schedule.
I nod, and next up… I stack the spell. I recast, over and over. I'm not a great judge, but… I think I cap out at an E or F cup? I'm used to the American standard, but still… big. And not nearly as big as my first view of Patricia before the merger. On my way to that stage, I also notice other things… my waist and shoulders narrow, my rear balloons out in all directions, my hands and feet become dainty, and just going by touch, my face becomes more feminine as well. And yes, at about a C cup, my twig and berries flatten, and I develop a cleft there shortly thereafter. The funbags on my chest are just the most pronounced change, it seems. I wait and… yes, the changes revert as the layered spells expire. That's good at least.
So I am going to be a woman eventually. The only question is when.
