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5.0 Test Drive Meme
5.0 Test Drive Meme
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Welcome to Well! See the first prompt for how your characters arrive in Well. Your character arrives with only a handful of memories, clad in a mix of Old Western clothes and clothes that might fit in at a renaissance fair, and no items from home.
Anyone is free to play on the TDM, but you need an invite to apply. Feel free to use these prompts, and interact with the arrival or locations. NPCs are around, but only say a certain set of phrases. TDMs can be considered game canon.
This TDM takes place from the first week of February onward, and can happen concurrently with other events during February and March. This will be the only TDM for February, March, and April.
Applications are open January 27th until February 1st, and February 24th until March 1st. Invites are available for friends of current players.
Arrival: Six Feet Under
Content warnings: graves, being buried alive
You wake up in the ground. The hole you're in fits your body nicely. Just as you wake up, dirt spatters onto your face, into your eyes and mouth. Maybe that's what woke you up. Before you've had a chance to clear it, more dirt drops onto your body from above, again and again, in a grim rhythm. Until you get out of there it won't stop.
Unfortunately, you're six feet deep. You might want a hand.
More unfortunately, you won't get one from the person with the shovel. The gravedigger, silhouetted in black against the sky above you, will continue to shovel dirt onto you while you try to escape. Once you're out, she loses all interest and moves on to the next grave. She doesn't acknowledge you in any way.
Above the grave is a headstone: your own. It says your name and it might have your birthdate. The death date is unreadable. There may be an epitaph about your life. It doesn't look new. In fact, it looks as old and worn as the rest of the graveyard. Other open graves are scattered around in this graveyard, and other people are climbing up out of them, too. Maybe you want to lend them a hand, or maybe you want to get out of here as fast as possible.
A mossy wrought-iron gate leads out into greenery.
Now that you're out, you need to find your way... somewhere. Not here.
For current players, you're welcome to have your character wake up for the cycle like this.
tl;dr:
You wake up in the ground. The hole you're in fits your body nicely. Just as you wake up, dirt spatters onto your face, into your eyes and mouth. Maybe that's what woke you up. Before you've had a chance to clear it, more dirt drops onto your body from above, again and again, in a grim rhythm. Until you get out of there it won't stop.
Unfortunately, you're six feet deep. You might want a hand.
More unfortunately, you won't get one from the person with the shovel. The gravedigger, silhouetted in black against the sky above you, will continue to shovel dirt onto you while you try to escape. Once you're out, she loses all interest and moves on to the next grave. She doesn't acknowledge you in any way.
Above the grave is a headstone: your own. It says your name and it might have your birthdate. The death date is unreadable. There may be an epitaph about your life. It doesn't look new. In fact, it looks as old and worn as the rest of the graveyard. Other open graves are scattered around in this graveyard, and other people are climbing up out of them, too. Maybe you want to lend them a hand, or maybe you want to get out of here as fast as possible.
A mossy wrought-iron gate leads out into greenery.
Now that you're out, you need to find your way... somewhere. Not here.
For current players, you're welcome to have your character wake up for the cycle like this.
tl;dr:
- You wake up in your own grave! Someone's burying you alive! Better get out of there.
The only way out
Content warnings: being eaten alive, carnivorous flowers, intoxication
The graveyard is in the middle of the maze: a sprawling hedge maze on the outskirts of Wellstone town. The ground is soft with recent rain, and the hedges are just blooming green like it's early spring. Your shoes squelch in the muck.
It starts easily enough. As you make your way deeper, though, you'll start run into things that make the maze… harder. Gigantic flowers block the way down one path, and they titter together as you get close, swaying and moving in ways that flowers shouldn't. If you do get too close, a flower lurches forward and snaps its petals around you like jaws. Are those teeth?! They're like foot-long cactus spines, sharp and deadly. You might want to get out of there, and fast. The teeth hurt, and the inside of the flower isn't a cakewalk either. It hurts your skin, and if you're in there too long, your skin may start to burn off.
Down another path are more flowers. These are smaller, and oddly fleshy in color and scent. At the center of each flower is an eye. Some of them seem familiar, although you can't figure out why. As you pass, the eyes roll, following you closely. If you make eye contact and any of these flowers, you feel a chilling wave of fear that roots you to the spot. Your stuck in its gaze, staring back at it as it stares impassively at you. You have the horrible feeling that if you stay here, something awful will happen. It grows worse and worse, more acute, but no matter how strong that fear, you can't move your feet. Someone, or something, has to break your eye contact with the flower.
At a final turn in the maze, the sweet, soft scent of lilacs fills the air. You're sure that scent means you've found the end, and that you should follow it. Naturally, it doesn't. It leads to a dead end. Again. This one, at least, is beautiful: it's a little meadow surrounded by hedges, blooming in lilacs and lavender and little purple-headed poppies. The scent is heady and overwhelming. It fills you up. It settles into your head like a haze, making it hard to focus. It seems like an amazing idea to just… stay here. Lie down, maybe, among all those nice flowers. Just for a little while, you tell yourself.
Only, it may be more than a little while. The longer you sleep in this lovely little meadow, the more vines and flowers will grow over and around your body. Eventually, they'll make their way into your nose, your ears, your mouth and start to pull you down into the soft earth. Someone's going to have to wake you up and get those vines off unless you want to stay in this maze forever!
When at last you find your way out of the maze, past the treacherous flowers, you set your sights on Wellstone: a town in the first bloom of spring, a light mist making everything dewy and bright.
tl;dr:
The graveyard is in the middle of the maze: a sprawling hedge maze on the outskirts of Wellstone town. The ground is soft with recent rain, and the hedges are just blooming green like it's early spring. Your shoes squelch in the muck.
It starts easily enough. As you make your way deeper, though, you'll start run into things that make the maze… harder. Gigantic flowers block the way down one path, and they titter together as you get close, swaying and moving in ways that flowers shouldn't. If you do get too close, a flower lurches forward and snaps its petals around you like jaws. Are those teeth?! They're like foot-long cactus spines, sharp and deadly. You might want to get out of there, and fast. The teeth hurt, and the inside of the flower isn't a cakewalk either. It hurts your skin, and if you're in there too long, your skin may start to burn off.
Down another path are more flowers. These are smaller, and oddly fleshy in color and scent. At the center of each flower is an eye. Some of them seem familiar, although you can't figure out why. As you pass, the eyes roll, following you closely. If you make eye contact and any of these flowers, you feel a chilling wave of fear that roots you to the spot. Your stuck in its gaze, staring back at it as it stares impassively at you. You have the horrible feeling that if you stay here, something awful will happen. It grows worse and worse, more acute, but no matter how strong that fear, you can't move your feet. Someone, or something, has to break your eye contact with the flower.
At a final turn in the maze, the sweet, soft scent of lilacs fills the air. You're sure that scent means you've found the end, and that you should follow it. Naturally, it doesn't. It leads to a dead end. Again. This one, at least, is beautiful: it's a little meadow surrounded by hedges, blooming in lilacs and lavender and little purple-headed poppies. The scent is heady and overwhelming. It fills you up. It settles into your head like a haze, making it hard to focus. It seems like an amazing idea to just… stay here. Lie down, maybe, among all those nice flowers. Just for a little while, you tell yourself.
Only, it may be more than a little while. The longer you sleep in this lovely little meadow, the more vines and flowers will grow over and around your body. Eventually, they'll make their way into your nose, your ears, your mouth and start to pull you down into the soft earth. Someone's going to have to wake you up and get those vines off unless you want to stay in this maze forever!
When at last you find your way out of the maze, past the treacherous flowers, you set your sights on Wellstone: a town in the first bloom of spring, a light mist making everything dewy and bright.
tl;dr:
- After you leave the cemetery, you find yourself in the maze. There are flowers that are obstacles along your way.
- There are large, flesh-eating flowers full of teeth that want to eat you.
- There are fleshy flowers with eyes in the middle that, if you meet their gaze, hold you with fear.
- There are lilacs that lull you and make you want to lie down and take a nap. If you do, vines will wrap you up, making it very difficult to get out.
- Once you make it through all the obstacles, you can make it out of the maze into Wellstone.
Scent of death
Content warnings: bad smells, potential for body horror
It isn't just the maze blooming with the coming of spring: Wellstone itself has burst into bloom. It seems that everywhere you look, flowers have invaded the town. Sweet snowdrops poke their heads up between cobblestones. Violets wink from shadowed corners. Morning glories climb walls and line windows. They all smell wonderful, good enough to make you want to bend down and take a good, long sniff.
Except for one. Blooming in the courtyard of the Staywell, just in front of the door in a little garden circle, is a corpse flower. The flower is massive: over three meters tall, giant stamen thrusting up to the sky with frilly red leaves around its base.
It's hard to avoid the flower: any time anyone opens the door to the courtyard, the scent enters the lobby, the parlor, the cafeteria. It seems to permeate the Staywell at random times. And the scent is strange: if you try to talk to anyone about it, they don't agree with you on how it smells. And they won't agree on how it affects you.
Smelling the corpse flower makes you feel a little... strange. Its effects vary by person, and even when a person smells it more than once, the effect might change. At first you feel a rush of disgust, then nausea, then--well.
When you smell the corpse flower, you might smell:
Comment below if you'd like a random smell (or feel free to select for yourself). Effects last anywhere from half an hour to an hour. Characters can experience different effects throughout the TDM. The corpse flower will be in bloom the first week of February and the first week of March, and closed the rest of the time.
tl;dr:
It isn't just the maze blooming with the coming of spring: Wellstone itself has burst into bloom. It seems that everywhere you look, flowers have invaded the town. Sweet snowdrops poke their heads up between cobblestones. Violets wink from shadowed corners. Morning glories climb walls and line windows. They all smell wonderful, good enough to make you want to bend down and take a good, long sniff.
Except for one. Blooming in the courtyard of the Staywell, just in front of the door in a little garden circle, is a corpse flower. The flower is massive: over three meters tall, giant stamen thrusting up to the sky with frilly red leaves around its base.
It's hard to avoid the flower: any time anyone opens the door to the courtyard, the scent enters the lobby, the parlor, the cafeteria. It seems to permeate the Staywell at random times. And the scent is strange: if you try to talk to anyone about it, they don't agree with you on how it smells. And they won't agree on how it affects you.
Smelling the corpse flower makes you feel a little... strange. Its effects vary by person, and even when a person smells it more than once, the effect might change. At first you feel a rush of disgust, then nausea, then--well.
When you smell the corpse flower, you might smell:
- The most delicious thing you can imagine. You're suddenly extremely hungry and feel compelled to eat as much as possible.
- The most wonderful, nostalgic scent. You feel compelled to proclaim your loyalty and friendship to the next person you see.
- The most relaxing thing. Your body feels loose and relaxed and you feel at peace. You want to spread the love and feel compelled to get everyone else around you to chill the fuck out.
- Sugary sweetness. You feel an intense draw of affection toward the people around you and feel compelled to compliment them in increasingly over the top ways.
- The scent of raw, rotting meat. Everything around you suddenly look strangely... meaty. Is that chair made of meat? That wall? You're very acutely aware that you are made of meat, and that everyone around you is made of meat.
- The smell of death. You feel a horrible, creeping sense of guilt and feel compelled to confess something awful you do or do not remember doing to the next person you see.
Comment below if you'd like a random smell (or feel free to select for yourself). Effects last anywhere from half an hour to an hour. Characters can experience different effects throughout the TDM. The corpse flower will be in bloom the first week of February and the first week of March, and closed the rest of the time.
tl;dr:
- There's a corpse flower blooming in the courtyard of the Staywell.
- When you smell its scent, you'll smell a scent that makes you do--something! Select from the list what you'd like to happen, or comment below for a random effect.
b.
The whoosh of his slurping fills up the hollow silence ringing in the wake of Blythe's dire words.
"Yeah," Alec says, letting the straw pop out of his mouth, "You're gonna fit in great around here."
And the damnedest thing about it is that he apparently means it as sincerely as a fifteen-year-old can mean anything.
"I'm Alec," he announces, which doesn't have the same heft as what Blythe said, "Welcome to the torture theme park nobody can escape. It sucks here. Has anybody given you the run down yet?"
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"Blythe," she offers, sure of that name now that the haze has cleared and she's been walking and conscious for a while. "You would be the first." There's a detached air that clings to her words now that she isn't actively talking about flesh, but it's still on her mind, make no mistake. The interest is just being thinly paved over by a gentle coating of morbid humor. "But describing it like that, you may as well be talking about life anywhere. What makes this any different?"
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He plops himself on the low edge of a bench opposite her and stretches his legs out in front of him, toes idly splaying outwards. Blythe. It's got a ring to it.
"This one happens to be a fucked up mind games emporium run by mysterious unknown powers, so if you've got that figured out, maybe you don't even need the tourist's guide." He sips his lemonade. "You're already getting hit by one of them, right? This flower thing? That happens. Plants, food, the general atmosphere, it's all going to fuck with your head. If you feel like you're losing it, you can either ride it out or try to find whatever the trick is to getting it to stop. Let's see...last run, there was mistletoe that wanted us to kiss, which, personally? I found a little suspect."
This is definitely a coherent, easy to follow explanation so far.
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"And this feeling of being incomplete," she starts, with no frame of reference, "This... un-whole-iness. That is from the fucked up mind games emporium as well?" She feels the corner of her mouth twitch upward to say it using the same words. Like she's part of this conversation for real. "What is the trick, then? Or is it not so simple?"
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He knows it's not actually great news, an understanding underlined by his eye roll when he says it. He actually rolls his eyes in their sockets, as opposed to the usual flicked upward gesture mean by the phrase.
"It's usually pretty simple. It's just it usually changes. You have to kind of feel it out. For example - " He jerks his thumb at the flower behind him. "I have no fucking idea what we're supposed to do about this."
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"Is it having some kind of effect?" she asks, like she hasn't noticed, then tilts her head to one side like she's trying to hear the flower—but that obviously won't get her anywhere. "Or do we simply hate corpse flowers here?" She remembers the words for it; good, she thinks. With her attention back on her companion, "If it's so much of a nuisance, I can remove it."
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He hasn't been paying attention to this, isn't even aware of it, but he's been looser, lately. A hair's breadth less guarded by default. He doesn't stop to think if Blythe might want something in exchange.
She's a new member of the team. It makes sense she'd want to prove herself, even if it's just with some weeding.
"I think it's making me hungry," he reports, belatedly, "But I am not fucking eating that."
He's not eating anything, in fact, despite the roaring clamour of hunger. Call it spite, maybe. Call it a test. He's reaching a limit of what he'll bend on with all this shit.
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And she begins walking towards the courtyard, but stops after only a few steps. "Will you be joining me?" she asks over her shoulder. It could be an invitation, or it could just be a normal question.
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Blythe standing up reminds him of Ariane, a bit. There's a similar cling of sickliness and occasional dab of unexpected blood. It doesn't bother him with Ariane, and it doesn't bother him with Blythe.
Maybe they'd get along. That'd be nice for them. He should mention her to Ariane the next time they're messing around with the walkie-talkies.
"And yeah. I want to see this." He saunters after her, comfortably coming within easy Alec-grabbing reach without worry. "What's the plan?"
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"I will kill it," she says easily, and pushes open the door to receive the full blast of the corpse flower's payload to her nose. It only reinforces what she's already believed, but she casts a glance over her shoulder and thinks back to her earlier comment. Her stomach rumbles, the timing almost comical, but the joke never makes it to her face. Instead, she turns her attention back to the flower, reaches out, and presses her open palm to it.
She says the word "yes" loud enough to be heard, but feels nothing flow from her body into the flower. Her thin eyebrows raise up. "I said yes," she repeats, and shakes her bony wrist like it will do anything. Like perhaps her toxins have backed up. After another second, she curls her fingers into her palm and lowers her arm. "I don't understand."
cw: meat horror
"That happens," he says, resigned, "Lots of stuff here - especially this stuff - trumps our powers. It's probably not you."
So much for seeing it catch on fire, or something.
"Mine doesn't really work on the meat room under the hotel, either," he offers, as consolation, and then brightens slightly with a gleam of off-kilter enthusiasm, "Did anybody tell you there's a meat room yet? It's fucked up. The walls are made of it and there's a big pool of acid at the bottom of these creepy stairs. I don't know if they've got the door open again yet, but you'll probably love it. It's gross."
If she's into weird meat, that's definitely the weirdest meat he can think of. He privately congratulates himself on what an excellent tour guide he's being.
no subject
She spends much of this boy's explanation looking at the palm of her hand like it's a faulty weapon. It's only when he says that the meat room is gross that she begins talking as though she's been listening the entire time. "A meat room," she repeats. "Flesh walls and an acidic floor. A stomach?" she asks without expecting an answer. She's sounding a little more in the moment, such that the moment is, as she begins thinking about meat again.
"Cities eat, too. Above-ground pits governed only by hunger, feasting on life and love and money." She's smiling as she mentions all of this, like she's finding familiar territory in her own head. She closes her hand and drops her arm back to her side, and seems unaware of how intense and menacing her chosen words have become. "We are only meat for this town. How do you spend your time beyond this? How do you prepare yourself for the butcher?"
no subject
In the same vein, he's unfazed by her shift in intensity and her thoughts on cities and their impending butchery, respectively. If anything, it's a little refreshing to have someone be straightforward about their thoughts.
"Pretty much a stomach," he agrees, smiling slightly, "Personally, I've been vandalizing the place and playing cards. Not much better to do if you're not one of the local brain trust working on, you know, the whole fucked up meat situation."
"I wish this was a city," he adds, with faint wistfulness, "At least there's stuff to do before cities eat you."
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The world is a processing plant for the meat being obliviously conveyed through it all, she thinks, and she breathes in deeply. The scent of death fills her nostrils again and anew, and she smiles, and she shows teeth. It's as though she can feel each individual fiber in her neck move and turn as she looks at this poor boy who must think her a monster indeed. Her eyes burn gold.
"There is leisure here, then? True leisure, no longer a distraction from leasing everything we are for the chance to stave off death for another fourteen days?" Her think, cracked lips close, but the arc of her smile doesn't change. Though she still feels detached from her own humanity right now, no different than cattle on the killing floor with a bolt gun pressed to her own temple, she says something that might come off as outright pleasant. "I would like to learn how to play cards."
no subject
"It's not that hard," he says, with a loose shrug, "You mostly pretend to remember what the rules are until someone tells you that you lost or you're ruining the game."
He left his lemonade on the bench. He wishes he had it now to quiet the gripping emptiness in his stomach where Blythe's stretched grin seems to echo.
"Want to go inside and I can teach you a couple of the easy ones?" He suggests. "And, also, maybe you can run me through that whole faceless man in a suit thing again? That sounds fucked up."
no subject
"The faceless men in suits," she says, the menace slowly replacing itself with disdain. "Are people who were ruthless enough to stomp on the lives of millions and clever enough to convince the world they were doing it for good. The people who sow poverty and scarcity and death just to reap legacy and add time to their lives." The sharklike nature of everything she's been saying and doing for the past few minutes has passed. Her words aren't coming out sharply or particularly quickly, maybe like she's trying to sound a very particular way.
She still feels no need to introduce something more complicated to the conversation, so she holds her tongue between her teeth and redirects her words towards something simpler. "They are very good at cards."
no subject
Still.
"You mean rich people," Alec says, and disappointment is tempered with some satisfaction at putting it together. He's not worked up about it like Blythe clearly is, but he does have a general sense that he doesn't approve of the shady, unreachable powers that be, at least to the extent that he thinks they're all probably mostly assholes.
"So maybe we skip tycoon," he muses, after finishing off his drink and carelessly dumping the tankard on the far end of his bench. "I gotta go get the cards from my room. If I leave you here, you're not going to fuck off, right? Because if I have to climb all those stairs to get you something and you're not here when I get back, I'm not hunting you down."
no subject
"It would be extremely impolite to tell you that I would like to learn something and then leave in the middle." She presses her feet a little more firmly against the floor as though rooting herself. "Besides, I'm yet to make myself used to the halls of this manor—I would get lost all over again if I tried."
And, perhaps inspired by how receptive this person has been to her at her strangest, she adds, "Unless you would prefer to do the learning in a place that isn't falling victim to strange smells?"
no subject
He rocks on his heels after, considering her second question. It's probably not a bad idea to get out of the miasma of weird compulsive smell.
"We could go to the tavern after I get back," he suggests, after running through the tragically limited options, "They've got unforbidden meat. The jukebox sucks, though."
no subject
She leans back in her seat, putting her palms in her lap and maybe trying to relax a little bit. It's easily the most casual she's looked this whole time. "And I think I have been without food for too long. Let us feast, fellow meat." This time, it is a joke. This time, her smile is making fun of herself. "And then you can best me in cards and be very satisfied with yourself for beating a sick woman."
no subject
"Wait until you hear the jukebox before you make that call," Alec cautions, with a reciprocal little smile bordering on the sharp edge of a smirk, "Otherwise, sounds great. Fellow meat feasting and beating up sick women."
A slight spindling of Blythe's words, maybe - and Alec does it on purpose, going by his chuckle.
"Be right back," he says, turning on his heels and beelining for the stairs. He isn't actually right back. He doesn't like running, and his room is annoyingly up one that one flight of the stairs.
He returns with a shapeless bag dented with more than one squared off shape inside of it slung over his shoulder, and there's a flicker of mild approval when he sees Blythe really hasn't fucked off.
"Come on." He heads past her to the door, rocking up onto his toes as he throws most of his weight into hitting it open with careless teenage abandon. "Let's go get your ass kicked."
no subject
"I am looking forward to it," she says, and she breathes in the air deeply, free from plants as it is. She looks around, her examination stopping only briefly along the path of the hedge maze, then gives Alec the attention that she's somewhat been failing to pay.
"Did you arrive with those cards?" she thinks to ask, remembering how she'd pulled herself out of that grave lucky to be in this dingy outfit. "Or are there places to buy them? And—what is it that you all do for money around here?" She can't avoid the disdain that spoils inside her mouth.
no subject
Better things to do with your time than think about where they all came from. Like explaining the total lack of an economy, for example.
"I got them from the general store," which is why the face cards are all aliens with bulging eyes, but she'll see that for herself, "Which isn't actually a store. It's just pretending to be one. There's no money here, even if the puppets talk about charging things to your room from time to time. Not that I'd pay the imaginary bill, anyway, considering the kidnapping. Room's free, food's free, pick up whatever you want anywhere and keep it. Doesn't matter."
He steps around a mud puddle in the road, then hums a little to himself.
"Did I get into the puppets yet?"
no subject
"So there's no need to work yourself to death to survive," she starts, "Or hand over everything you create to another person who had no role in it, or stay away from the ones you love for hours and hours every day. There's no one laying down roots and sucking the soil dry so the whole world can bask in his shadow." She never thought this day would come, and now it's here, and she has no idea how she is supposed to react to it. She steps in the mud puddle in the middle of all of this, not even having noticed to care.
"I... would like to hear about the puppets. I feel as though there must be a number of catches to living here, beyond the obvious."
no subject
"Yeah. About that." The tiny tightening around his mouth dissolves with a quiet sigh. "'Catches'."
Alec generally keeps his opinion on the puppets to himself. People don't like hearing it and he doesn't care enough to push it. If pretending they're not what they are lets people cope with it, maybe he can even see the point.
But Blythe gets it. It's all just meat, sizzling with electricity until it dies. Alec doesn't have to act like it's anything else.
"So someone made these human-shaped meat puppets for the town," he says, bluntly, "I don't know if they grew them in a vat somewhere, or if they used to be people, or what. They repeat their lines, they do their fake jobs, but if there's anything 'left' in there above the neck, it's fucked. Zeroed out. Flatlined. But you have to act like they're real people, not puppets of whatever is running this place, or most people around here act like you dropkicked a baby."
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