The people in this section are not full Wanderers. They never signed the charter, and most of them never will. They belong in this book anyway, because you keep them close, and the Board watches anyone you keep close.

Allies come first. These are the people and groups who work beside the company without joining it. The desert-elf gunsmiths shared their rifle craft with you and make the ammunition the company cannot buy anywhere else. Ulysses Stone hunts the same slavers you hunt, with methods you do not trust, and the two of you work the problem together anyway. An alliance holds as long as the goals line up. The Library marks the places where they stop.

Family comes next. Some of these people crossed over from home beside a Wanderer. Others are still being searched for. Dora’s family, the Copelands, sit here because she does. Blood pulls on your people in ways the Board has learned to use, so the Library records who each member would walk into a war to bring home.

Friends come last and weigh as much as the rest. These are the ones you pulled out of cages, off transports, and out of holding cells, who stayed near the company once they were free. They owe you nothing and stay anyway. That choice is its own kind of loyalty, and it holds when paperwork does not.

Read these entries as the edge of the Wanderers. Take one of these people away and the company survives, but it loses something it was trying to protect, and you have never taken that kind of loss well.