The Lennox Triplets
Dramatis Personae:
Tilea Aervavil'A'Sum, the Wild Elf Circle of the Moon Druid Barbarian
Scritch, the Weremonkey Squirrel Thief and Tilea's Animal Companion
Sachi Kno, the Vistani Weremonkey Thief
Tabitha Marie Lennox, the Human White Witch of Mystra
Spot, Tabitha's Homunculus
Nikko, Tabitha's Flying Monkey familiar and Warlock
Dot, the Homunculus and White Witch
Pip, Dot's Flying Monkey Familiar
Bruenar Shieldwall, the Shield Dwarf Shield Fighter the party hired
Isabella Catalina Hazelgrove, the Human Assassin and Scritch's Knight
Isabeth Katherine Hazelgrove, the Human Assassin and Catalina's sister and Knight
Junior, theHalf-Orc New Guinea Singing Dog
Comrades we have lost:
Pineck, Anvil's Horse- turned into soup by a cursed crate
Kithri "Quickshadow" Tealeaf, the Lightfoot Halfling Werebat Order of the Lycan Blood Hunter and Ruin Raider- left to become Archivist
Forgrotken Anvilrocker, the Blugrim Forge Cleric of Moradin- killed by the Talmot Wives
Lythana, the Human Werewolf Order of the Ghost Slayer Blood Hunter-captured by the Talmot Wives, then turned evil mauled to death by Tilea
Syndal Al'Vherin, the Human girl who Tilea released from an amulet- kidnapped by Strahd, now working with Talmot
Tilea Aervavil'A'Sum, the Wild Elf Circle of the Moon Druid Barbarian
Scritch, the Weremonkey Squirrel Thief and Tilea's Animal Companion
Sachi Kno, the Vistani Weremonkey Thief
Tabitha Marie Lennox, the Human White Witch of Mystra
Spot, Tabitha's Homunculus
Nikko, Tabitha's Flying Monkey familiar and Warlock
Dot, the Homunculus and White Witch
Pip, Dot's Flying Monkey Familiar
Bruenar Shieldwall, the Shield Dwarf Shield Fighter the party hired
Isabella Catalina Hazelgrove, the Human Assassin and Scritch's Knight
Isabeth Katherine Hazelgrove, the Human Assassin and Catalina's sister and Knight
Junior, the
Comrades we have lost:
Pineck, Anvil's Horse- turned into soup by a cursed crate
Kithri "Quickshadow" Tealeaf, the Lightfoot Halfling Werebat Order of the Lycan Blood Hunter and Ruin Raider- left to become Archivist
Forgrotken Anvilrocker, the Blugrim Forge Cleric of Moradin- killed by the Talmot Wives
Lythana, the Human Werewolf Order of the Ghost Slayer Blood Hunter-
Syndal Al'Vherin, the Human girl who Tilea released from an amulet- kidnapped by Strahd, now working with Talmot
NOTE: Things will be mostly from Tabitha's perspective, anything in italics is from a third party view, since the Witch can't be everywhere at once.
***** Hetedik Honap 25, CY 745, Farrah's Lair in Mount Ghakis
After much discussion, Bruenar eventually gave us the ingredients for a satchel for me, for only one hundred million gold. I tried to teleport back to my Temple to work on it, but discovered it wasn't working. I asked Tilea to ask Strahd to turn it back on, since she's buddy buddy with him, but she didn't do it. Catalina and I ended up working on the satchel at Bruenar's instead.
***** Hetedik Honap 27, Outside Castle Ravenloft
Sarah was flying around near the Castle, and she seemed to have more enhanced power. We were pretty sure Talbutt was feeding her power from the Heart. We needed to cut him off from the Heart completely to take him down. Bruenar thought he could remove the souls from the Heart and absorb them into himself. Tilea wanted Junior- the half-orc boy she won in a drinking contest who was reincarnated into a dog- to be the one to do it, but I objected; that child was too weak to handle this. After a bunch of bickering we decided to flip a coin, and it landed on Bruenar. He wanted to get drunk just incase he died tomorrow, so we headed back to my Temple.
***** Hetedik Honap 28, Temple of Mystra
Bruenar was gone in the morning. He left a note saying he went to get the souls without waking us because he didn't want to risk us doing something stupid before he could get it done. The note said we needed to just keep an eye on Sarah, and we'd know when she began to lose power.
We decided to draw Sarah away from the front lines, to try to reduce casualties of our allies. Cat decided the best way to do this was to paralyze Sachi, turn him invisible, and throw him into the middle of the army. He blew up a circlet of blasting right in the middle of them. She turned the rest of us invisible too and we began dropping fireballs and and lightning bolts on the army, killing at least 150 soldiers. Sarah roared and began heading our way. After about two more minutes, she suddenly stopped moving and just hovered like something was wrong- hopefully Bruenar.
After a while, we decided to antagonize Sarah a bit; Tilea turned into a gold dragon and I turned into a red. About a minute later Sarah began flying up; we followed, and she'd occasionally stop to let us start to catch up before speeding away. Eventually she stopped, and with a flurry of wings and a shockwave she turned around... She had six heads.
Scritch randomly gave Junior, who'd been drug along with us, a potion and told him to drink it if he feared for his life... he drank it and began screaming in pain before turning into a fucking pit fiend. Sarah screamed at Tilea in rage- I think our antagonizing may have been working at least a little. I got hit with her acid breath, and it killed poor Dot, who'd just wished herself to being a living being. Nikko grabbed her and reincarnated her into a Cheetah Tabaxi Shifter.
Three of Sarah's heads began chanting in ancient draconic. I tried to use a spell to reduce her intelligence, but my magic seemed to wash over her. Cat was hurling daggers at Sarah, Scritch was trying to use a weird staff, and Junior was launching fireballs at her. Suddenly, all of her heads looked like they were in pain and her skin seemed to be cracking open, like an egg hatching, a red light was glowing inside. Tilea shot Sarah with a massive bow and she screamed in pain and began clawing at the arrow. I raked my claws over her and sunk my teeth into her.
A message came through from Bruenar: Get ready. The spell three of the heads had been casting went off and the bitch healed completely. Then all six heads started chanting. Scritch dive bombed Sarah, leaping off of Tilea's back and slamming into her. Energy began to spark between the six heads, so we all launched a brutal attack on her. It was odd fighting physically instead of at a distance with my magic; I didn't really like it.
Dark clouds rolled in as Sarah's spell went off and the earth began to shake. Then the dragon screamed in agony and the cracks appeared again, more than before. We all pounced on her. Black ichor began to seep out of the cracks and the red light began to glow brighter. Her screams were suddenly cut off by an instant fortress item appearing in her neck, severing her head. I rushed to her soul, used the satchel, and instantly absorbed her soul. I don't get why the others had so much trouble doing that.
With the Wives dead and the souls removed from the Heart, we all climbed on Tilea's back and flew toward the frontlines to look for Talbutt to end the bastard once and for all. Someone turned us invisible for this so we'd have the element of surprise. I dropped daylight on a cluster of vampires but nothing happened. Either they weren't vampires or they were protected somehow.
We spotted a group of people in black cloaks carrying something heavy. They saw through our invisibility, so we killed all of them, while Sachi slipped off the blow up the command tent. Turns out it was Talbutt they were carrying. Catalina jumped off Tilea and called her other six duplicates and they all threw special daggers into him; fifteen appeared in his chest, burning him badly before they vanished- presumably returning to the hands of their owners. Kittie jumped off Tilea and stabbed a sharpened bone into Talbutt's chest, he screamed in pain- as did all the nearby vampires grabbed their heads in pain too- as Kittie jumped back there was an explosion of bright light.
It took about half a minute for the light to fade, and my ears were ringing for a bit longer. There was a pile of dust on the ground and scorch marks were everywhere. Kittie was unconscious, but Cat revived her; the girl had nearly killed herself in the process of killing Talbutt.
I felt a familiar tug and realized Sypha was nearby; at the same moment, Tilea realized Syn was too- they were together. We rushed to the Castle, crashing through the gates, and Tilea stuck her head in the window of the throne room, announcing to Strahd that assassins were on their way in. I realized my Fates cards could remove the soul brands on both Syn and Sypha; I tried Syn first and hit some sort of wall. I tried using a wish to fuel the attempt and Vecna's face appeared in my mind, saying "not now" and wagging his finger at me. I got an instant headache and my nose began bleeding; Nikko fixed me up right away. Tilea then challenged Syn to a duel, they both vanished and reappeared in the garden.
Sypha told me she had to end this now, but she loved me and always had. As she moved to cast something at me, I used my other Fates card on her. Everything froze and I heard a voice: "That's not what I expected. You're clever; I should have gone for you, you goody-goodies always find different ways of doing things. I can't stop this, but we will meet. Thank you for revealing yourself to me and showing me your cleverness." Everything started again and Sypha doubled over, vomiting black ichor. She fell unconscious, but she was alive. I rushed to my sestra's side.
Everyone else went to the windows to watch Tilea and Syn fight. They tried to join and help, which pissed Syn off. She told Tilea she'd abandoned her, and Tilea tried to explain that it was Zaul-Guud who held the party in the Mists for ten years. Syn summoned the fiend and Tilea tried to goad him into confessing. Instead, Zaul-Guud used some sort of telekinesis to choke Tilea and fling her away. He turned and advanced on Syn, who was shocked he'd beaten Tilea so easily.
With a wave of her hand, a black aura began pouring from Zaul-Guud from his mouth as he choked. Tilea stabbed him in the back three times as he stumbled toward Syn. The druid attempted to eat him, but Syn said "no," and stabbed him in the thigh with a twisted-looking dagger. He screamed and energy burst from him, surrounding both Syn and Tilea. The energy split in half, with half of it dissipating and the other half running through the dagger, up Syn's arm, disappearing when it reach a mark on her arm.
Syn drew her Sunblade and stalked toward Tilea, swinging her sword at her- Tilea parried each swing. They danced around the courtyard, dodging and parrying each swing, the sun and the moon at odd, until Tilea landed a painful blow on Syn. Tilea told Syn to leave the dark and come back to her. The girl responded by swinging her blade, and after missing again, she said "curse your magic" and crushed a crystal and an aura began swirling around her.
The defiant teenager thought Tilea was just trying to manipulate her, because she'd chosen the soul brand. She wanted her real parents and if she did what Vecna wanted, he said he'd tell her where they were. Supposedly her parents were gods, because only the offspring of a god could wield the true power of the sun as she did.
A gray form slipped into Tilea and Tatyana took over her, just as Syn scored a nasty blow to the druid; it hurt the spirit instead. Tatyana told Syn this wasn't how any of this was supposed to go; Syn, of course, placed the blame squarely on Tilea. Tatyana told her it was truly Zaul-Guud's fault, not Tilea's, and that she could give Syn exactly what she sought, if the girl would be patient.
Sypha came to a few minutes later and asked how long she'd been out; I remembered Grant telling me she'd been taken about twenty years ago. Sypha wasn't evil anymore, thank gods, and I spent the next few minutes catching her up on everything I could. She had a way to fix Agatha, and with all three of us, we could save Syn. We needed someone fast and stealthy to make this work, so I recruited Sachi, giving him hexbags to plant on Aggie.
Sypha said we needed to leave now so that Tatyana could get into Syn. I scryed for Aggie and she pulled Sypha, Sachi, and I right to her coven; Sachi was well hidden though. Agatha forced Sypha and I to sit as her coven disarmed us; she began ranting about the Demon Queen wanting her to turn both of us to her side... The Demon Queen in question was Lolth, of course she's the one who duped Daddy.
Aggie and I went back and forth again, with her explaining that I should join her and me stubbornly refusing. I told her she could just come back to me, but of course, she insisted it should be the other way around. This was a dance my sestra and I had done many times since she was taken. Sypha watched our exchange in silence. I didn't know where Sachi was, but I knew he'd pop out when the time was right. Suddenly, Agatha said we'd join in death if not in life, and Sypha and I were strapped to tables. She held two twisted, vile looking daggers, one in each hand, and was standing between the tables, a dagger poised over each of our hearts.
Sachi appeared, grabbed Sypha and I and pulled us into his paradise. We had to go right back, since we hadn't enacted Sypha's plan yet. Aggie began slowly killing me, draining my life away, while I glared at her stubbornly, refusing to let her see the pain she was causing. I would rather die than turn away from the light. Besides, we still had Sachi as backup, and I knew he'd save me.
Sypha couldn't handle watching me be slowly killed, and just as she said "stop, I'll do it," Sachi appeared and yelled "surprise!" Then he threw two philters of love into Aggie's face. Sypha said "this works too, pulled down the collar of her dress to reveal a twisted looking rune carved into it, and slapped a bloody hand to it. A wave of energy pulsed out and Agatha began puking black ichor. One of her witches tried to do something to Sachi, but he countered it and stopped time.
While Sachi froze time, he set up philters of love next to fans to blow the potions onto the members of my sestra's coven. It worked... Oddly... I grabbed my sestras and took us back to Castle Ravenloft. Sachi followed a few minutes later with nine of her witches, who were currently madly in love with the little monkey.
Outside mist was clearing, Tilea was behind a barrier and Syn looked like she was about to launch herself at Tatyana. Aggie and Sypha said we needed to be able to see Syn, and we needed the Book. I went to get it while Agatha went for the ingredients. She manipulated Sachi into making the circle for us while we worked. I found it mildly amusing that we were setting all of this up in the middle of Strahd's throne room. I'm not sure where he ended up.
We got the ritual going, and I tasked Nikko and Dot with standing guard for us. We'd be too focused on the ritual to deal with anything else that may come up.
Tilea made it through the barrier just as the triplets began their ritual. She invited Tatyana back in, and her dragon took the opportunity to try to fight Tatyana and escape. Tilea was frozen in place while the two spirits battled inside her. Syn still threw herself at Tilea, intent on fighting, not even aware of what was happening inside her surrogate mother.
A gravelly voice startled Sachi, as Corvane said she was disappointed no one invited her to this party.
Just as Syn swung her sword, Scritch threw Talmot's Heart between Syn and Tilea.
After much discussion, Bruenar eventually gave us the ingredients for a satchel for me, for only one hundred million gold. I tried to teleport back to my Temple to work on it, but discovered it wasn't working. I asked Tilea to ask Strahd to turn it back on, since she's buddy buddy with him, but she didn't do it. Catalina and I ended up working on the satchel at Bruenar's instead.
***** Hetedik Honap 27, Outside Castle Ravenloft
Sarah was flying around near the Castle, and she seemed to have more enhanced power. We were pretty sure Talbutt was feeding her power from the Heart. We needed to cut him off from the Heart completely to take him down. Bruenar thought he could remove the souls from the Heart and absorb them into himself. Tilea wanted Junior- the half-orc boy she won in a drinking contest who was reincarnated into a dog- to be the one to do it, but I objected; that child was too weak to handle this. After a bunch of bickering we decided to flip a coin, and it landed on Bruenar. He wanted to get drunk just incase he died tomorrow, so we headed back to my Temple.
***** Hetedik Honap 28, Temple of Mystra
Bruenar was gone in the morning. He left a note saying he went to get the souls without waking us because he didn't want to risk us doing something stupid before he could get it done. The note said we needed to just keep an eye on Sarah, and we'd know when she began to lose power.
We decided to draw Sarah away from the front lines, to try to reduce casualties of our allies. Cat decided the best way to do this was to paralyze Sachi, turn him invisible, and throw him into the middle of the army. He blew up a circlet of blasting right in the middle of them. She turned the rest of us invisible too and we began dropping fireballs and and lightning bolts on the army, killing at least 150 soldiers. Sarah roared and began heading our way. After about two more minutes, she suddenly stopped moving and just hovered like something was wrong- hopefully Bruenar.
After a while, we decided to antagonize Sarah a bit; Tilea turned into a gold dragon and I turned into a red. About a minute later Sarah began flying up; we followed, and she'd occasionally stop to let us start to catch up before speeding away. Eventually she stopped, and with a flurry of wings and a shockwave she turned around... She had six heads.
Scritch randomly gave Junior, who'd been drug along with us, a potion and told him to drink it if he feared for his life... he drank it and began screaming in pain before turning into a fucking pit fiend. Sarah screamed at Tilea in rage- I think our antagonizing may have been working at least a little. I got hit with her acid breath, and it killed poor Dot, who'd just wished herself to being a living being. Nikko grabbed her and reincarnated her into a Cheetah Tabaxi Shifter.
Three of Sarah's heads began chanting in ancient draconic. I tried to use a spell to reduce her intelligence, but my magic seemed to wash over her. Cat was hurling daggers at Sarah, Scritch was trying to use a weird staff, and Junior was launching fireballs at her. Suddenly, all of her heads looked like they were in pain and her skin seemed to be cracking open, like an egg hatching, a red light was glowing inside. Tilea shot Sarah with a massive bow and she screamed in pain and began clawing at the arrow. I raked my claws over her and sunk my teeth into her.
A message came through from Bruenar: Get ready. The spell three of the heads had been casting went off and the bitch healed completely. Then all six heads started chanting. Scritch dive bombed Sarah, leaping off of Tilea's back and slamming into her. Energy began to spark between the six heads, so we all launched a brutal attack on her. It was odd fighting physically instead of at a distance with my magic; I didn't really like it.
Dark clouds rolled in as Sarah's spell went off and the earth began to shake. Then the dragon screamed in agony and the cracks appeared again, more than before. We all pounced on her. Black ichor began to seep out of the cracks and the red light began to glow brighter. Her screams were suddenly cut off by an instant fortress item appearing in her neck, severing her head. I rushed to her soul, used the satchel, and instantly absorbed her soul. I don't get why the others had so much trouble doing that.
With the Wives dead and the souls removed from the Heart, we all climbed on Tilea's back and flew toward the frontlines to look for Talbutt to end the bastard once and for all. Someone turned us invisible for this so we'd have the element of surprise. I dropped daylight on a cluster of vampires but nothing happened. Either they weren't vampires or they were protected somehow.
We spotted a group of people in black cloaks carrying something heavy. They saw through our invisibility, so we killed all of them, while Sachi slipped off the blow up the command tent. Turns out it was Talbutt they were carrying. Catalina jumped off Tilea and called her other six duplicates and they all threw special daggers into him; fifteen appeared in his chest, burning him badly before they vanished- presumably returning to the hands of their owners. Kittie jumped off Tilea and stabbed a sharpened bone into Talbutt's chest, he screamed in pain- as did all the nearby vampires grabbed their heads in pain too- as Kittie jumped back there was an explosion of bright light.
It took about half a minute for the light to fade, and my ears were ringing for a bit longer. There was a pile of dust on the ground and scorch marks were everywhere. Kittie was unconscious, but Cat revived her; the girl had nearly killed herself in the process of killing Talbutt.
I felt a familiar tug and realized Sypha was nearby; at the same moment, Tilea realized Syn was too- they were together. We rushed to the Castle, crashing through the gates, and Tilea stuck her head in the window of the throne room, announcing to Strahd that assassins were on their way in. I realized my Fates cards could remove the soul brands on both Syn and Sypha; I tried Syn first and hit some sort of wall. I tried using a wish to fuel the attempt and Vecna's face appeared in my mind, saying "not now" and wagging his finger at me. I got an instant headache and my nose began bleeding; Nikko fixed me up right away. Tilea then challenged Syn to a duel, they both vanished and reappeared in the garden.
Sypha told me she had to end this now, but she loved me and always had. As she moved to cast something at me, I used my other Fates card on her. Everything froze and I heard a voice: "That's not what I expected. You're clever; I should have gone for you, you goody-goodies always find different ways of doing things. I can't stop this, but we will meet. Thank you for revealing yourself to me and showing me your cleverness." Everything started again and Sypha doubled over, vomiting black ichor. She fell unconscious, but she was alive. I rushed to my sestra's side.
Everyone else went to the windows to watch Tilea and Syn fight. They tried to join and help, which pissed Syn off. She told Tilea she'd abandoned her, and Tilea tried to explain that it was Zaul-Guud who held the party in the Mists for ten years. Syn summoned the fiend and Tilea tried to goad him into confessing. Instead, Zaul-Guud used some sort of telekinesis to choke Tilea and fling her away. He turned and advanced on Syn, who was shocked he'd beaten Tilea so easily.
With a wave of her hand, a black aura began pouring from Zaul-Guud from his mouth as he choked. Tilea stabbed him in the back three times as he stumbled toward Syn. The druid attempted to eat him, but Syn said "no," and stabbed him in the thigh with a twisted-looking dagger. He screamed and energy burst from him, surrounding both Syn and Tilea. The energy split in half, with half of it dissipating and the other half running through the dagger, up Syn's arm, disappearing when it reach a mark on her arm.
Syn drew her Sunblade and stalked toward Tilea, swinging her sword at her- Tilea parried each swing. They danced around the courtyard, dodging and parrying each swing, the sun and the moon at odd, until Tilea landed a painful blow on Syn. Tilea told Syn to leave the dark and come back to her. The girl responded by swinging her blade, and after missing again, she said "curse your magic" and crushed a crystal and an aura began swirling around her.
The defiant teenager thought Tilea was just trying to manipulate her, because she'd chosen the soul brand. She wanted her real parents and if she did what Vecna wanted, he said he'd tell her where they were. Supposedly her parents were gods, because only the offspring of a god could wield the true power of the sun as she did.
A gray form slipped into Tilea and Tatyana took over her, just as Syn scored a nasty blow to the druid; it hurt the spirit instead. Tatyana told Syn this wasn't how any of this was supposed to go; Syn, of course, placed the blame squarely on Tilea. Tatyana told her it was truly Zaul-Guud's fault, not Tilea's, and that she could give Syn exactly what she sought, if the girl would be patient.
Sypha came to a few minutes later and asked how long she'd been out; I remembered Grant telling me she'd been taken about twenty years ago. Sypha wasn't evil anymore, thank gods, and I spent the next few minutes catching her up on everything I could. She had a way to fix Agatha, and with all three of us, we could save Syn. We needed someone fast and stealthy to make this work, so I recruited Sachi, giving him hexbags to plant on Aggie.
Sypha said we needed to leave now so that Tatyana could get into Syn. I scryed for Aggie and she pulled Sypha, Sachi, and I right to her coven; Sachi was well hidden though. Agatha forced Sypha and I to sit as her coven disarmed us; she began ranting about the Demon Queen wanting her to turn both of us to her side... The Demon Queen in question was Lolth, of course she's the one who duped Daddy.
Aggie and I went back and forth again, with her explaining that I should join her and me stubbornly refusing. I told her she could just come back to me, but of course, she insisted it should be the other way around. This was a dance my sestra and I had done many times since she was taken. Sypha watched our exchange in silence. I didn't know where Sachi was, but I knew he'd pop out when the time was right. Suddenly, Agatha said we'd join in death if not in life, and Sypha and I were strapped to tables. She held two twisted, vile looking daggers, one in each hand, and was standing between the tables, a dagger poised over each of our hearts.
Sachi appeared, grabbed Sypha and I and pulled us into his paradise. We had to go right back, since we hadn't enacted Sypha's plan yet. Aggie began slowly killing me, draining my life away, while I glared at her stubbornly, refusing to let her see the pain she was causing. I would rather die than turn away from the light. Besides, we still had Sachi as backup, and I knew he'd save me.
Sypha couldn't handle watching me be slowly killed, and just as she said "stop, I'll do it," Sachi appeared and yelled "surprise!" Then he threw two philters of love into Aggie's face. Sypha said "this works too, pulled down the collar of her dress to reveal a twisted looking rune carved into it, and slapped a bloody hand to it. A wave of energy pulsed out and Agatha began puking black ichor. One of her witches tried to do something to Sachi, but he countered it and stopped time.
While Sachi froze time, he set up philters of love next to fans to blow the potions onto the members of my sestra's coven. It worked... Oddly... I grabbed my sestras and took us back to Castle Ravenloft. Sachi followed a few minutes later with nine of her witches, who were currently madly in love with the little monkey.
Outside mist was clearing, Tilea was behind a barrier and Syn looked like she was about to launch herself at Tatyana. Aggie and Sypha said we needed to be able to see Syn, and we needed the Book. I went to get it while Agatha went for the ingredients. She manipulated Sachi into making the circle for us while we worked. I found it mildly amusing that we were setting all of this up in the middle of Strahd's throne room. I'm not sure where he ended up.
We got the ritual going, and I tasked Nikko and Dot with standing guard for us. We'd be too focused on the ritual to deal with anything else that may come up.
Tilea made it through the barrier just as the triplets began their ritual. She invited Tatyana back in, and her dragon took the opportunity to try to fight Tatyana and escape. Tilea was frozen in place while the two spirits battled inside her. Syn still threw herself at Tilea, intent on fighting, not even aware of what was happening inside her surrogate mother.
A gravelly voice startled Sachi, as Corvane said she was disappointed no one invited her to this party.
Just as Syn swung her sword, Scritch threw Talmot's Heart between Syn and Tilea.
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