Hi readers, just wanted to thank y’all for sticking with the story this far.  We’ve finished introducing all of the POV characters at this point.  This upcoming Wednesday will start the main story line.

If I can be forgiven a cheeky beg, I’d like to ask anyone who thinks this story is good to use the “Vote for TFD on TopWebFiction” button on the upper right corner of the page.  It looks like if we can get 5 or 6 of y’all to do so we’ll get to spend a week on the bottom of Topwebfiction’s list, which would give me some much needed exposure.

Please continue to read as we head into the main storyline.  Schedule isn’t changing, so story updates on Wednesday evening (2.5 k words), and supplementary updates on Sunday evening (words vary widely.  Usually couple hundred).  Hope you like what’s coming.

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Haunter: Our world, ashes and dust.  Our dreams, revealed as fantasies.  Our charges, defiled and ruined.  Our mission, ongoing…

Indulger:  I try hard not to be a jerk.  It can be super hard, but I give it my best.  I think if more people did that things would be better.

Preventer:  It should be obvious to the faintest intellect that the present situation is utterly untenable in any kind of long term analysis.  The general lack of panic means one of two things.  Either virtually none of those in my situation are capable of this basic thought, or I am surrounded by individuals with a capacity for deception which quite exceeds my discernment.  I can’t decide which is more frightening.

Nirav:  The absence of a past is not freedom, but impotence.  The saying that those who do not recall history are condemned to repeat it does little justice to the amnesiac’s plight.

Condemner:  Fire transcends all things.  In flame all are rendered alike unto ash.  Fire warms.  Crowd it’s glow and be safe from the cold.  Fire illuminates.  It reveals what the darkness would hide.  But above all, fire burns….

Fisher:  Patience, above all else, distinguishes the predator.  The gatherer has no need for patience.  What he picks isn’t going anywhere.  But the killers, the beasts….we learn to wait.  When Prevailer seized the world I started waiting.  I knew I’d get my shot.  I am waiting still.

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Adder:  An old philosopher, a sort of paid thinker, once taught that a society should be set up as though you did not know what role you would occupy.  A veil prevented you from this knowledge.  I would propose a refinement of this idea.  A society should be structure such that if any member of the society was granted absolute power the newly empowered person would not desire to destroy their system.  This test is that which the old world failed.  We must do better.

Subtracter:  People give me shit about being second best.  I always get heated when they do, but later on I’m like “#2 is actually really good.  There are a lot of Ultras.”

Answerer:  To give the responses that will satisfy those who ask is simplicity itself.  To give them the answers that they need to hear is also simple.  But, they are usually two different things.  That’s what makes it tough.

Snitcher:  If you don’t want me seeing it, don’t see it.  Blaming me is ridiculous.  You control what I see.

Torturer:  If I don’t look at them, I can make myself think that they aren’t real.  I can tell myself that the screams are just really really unpleasant music.  I can tell myself that the decaying bodies are just really foul smelling garbage.  I can tell myself that the meat is chicken.