Yeah, sorry about that. I was making pretty good progress on reposting the images to my scrapbook, but then the bandwidth was exceeded a couple of days ago, so progress is stalled until the 4th. It was much better than losing the images way back on the 14th, which is when I got the warning. If I hadn't switched everything to private security, they would have likely exceeded bandwidth the very next day. (There were a couple of chapters that I couldn't switch, due to them being over the character limit, which is why the bandwidth was still eventually exceeded.)

I'm a little confused by your statement, though. I didn't think chapter 20 was visible either.

I do intend to get all this cleared up as soon as I can after Oct. 4, so don't worry. I'm way too sick of exceeded bandwidths now, so I'm going to settle that issue once and for all (well, really, only a permanent account would achieve that, but one can dream...).

I'm glad you think it holds up on the second reading. You'll likely pick up on some of my hints hidden in there, though I was trying to be pretty subtle about my winks and nudges in the beginning. They're still in there, but you almost need to know what you're looking for to notice them. Ripp, for one, does pretty much express his future dilemma in the very first chapter. I used the word "fascinated" there for a very specific reason, which slowly becomes clear later.

Thank you for reading (again)! ^_^ It makes me very happy to know you were interested enough to do that.