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The Doomed Bastards: Reckoning (story complete)
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<blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3484809" data-attributes="member: 143"><p>Chapter 155</p><p></p><p>SHADOWS</p><p></p><p></p><p>Talen was buckling the straps onto his armor, Shay assisting him with the plates he could not easily reach, when Varo returned. The priest had a companion, a tall, lean youth with skin an unhealthy gray pallor, clad in garments just a shade darker. </p><p></p><p>“Who’s your friend?” Talen asked, as Shay handed him <em>Beatus Incendia</em>. The commander noted the way that the newcomer’s eyes followed his motion, lingering on the sword. </p><p></p><p>“This is Drakha,” Varo said. “He is an outsider, summoned to assist us today.”</p><p></p><p>Talen suppressed a sigh. “Varo...”</p><p></p><p>“Commander, we are beyond the point where we can scruple about using the powers available to us. I take responsibility alone for my companion’s activities.”</p><p></p><p>The youth made a bow that was just barely too shallow to be mocking. “Fear not, dragon knight. I am merely here to serve; I bear no love for the Demon or his servants.”</p><p></p><p>Serah came into the room from the side tunnel; she looked up at Drakha and blinked. </p><p></p><p>“I greet you, holy priestess,” the outsider said, licking his lips. Serah retreated in alarm, clutching her holy symbol. </p><p></p><p>“Wonderful,” Talen muttered. </p><p></p><p>With the morning meal consumed, and most of them fully dressed and prepared, it did not take them long to strike camp and set out again. Varo used his magic to enchant a fat bundle of arrows, which he distributed amongst the group’s archers, giving a double share to Pella. The newcomer, Drakha, followed him like a shadow, and once they had set out, hugging the cavern wall as they marched north, he tended to blend into the background, easily forgotten if you were not looking for him. </p><p></p><p>But Talen kept an eye out for the outsider, and he’d had quiet words with Pella, Shay, and Baraka before they’d departed, making his feelings about their new companion known to them. </p><p></p><p>They made their way north, with Shay in the lead. Snaggletooth, on his own initiative, had scouted out part of the cavern nearby during their time in camp, and had reported to Allera that there were at least a dozen other mine sites to the north and west along the cavern wall. All of them were deserted. Shay told them that on her last visit, the sounds of mining had echoed throughout the entire eastern half of the cavern, a constant din as the goblins had excavated the various ores they needed. Now, the almost preternatural quiet made the small sounds that did carry to them seem particularly uncanny, the echoes distorting them until their source became a complete mystery.</p><p></p><p>They continued to the scene of yesterday’s two-front battle with the ants and the umber hulks. Something had quite obviously come to clean up the mess; blood and pieces of shell were scattered everywhere, with multiple tracks heading off toward the river to the west. There were vermin everywhere, but none were larger than a man’s fist, and the companions were able to make it past without incident, giving the area a fair berth. Drakha paused at one point to pick up a beetle four inches long, chomping into it with a noisy crunch, and swallowing it with two bites. At Serah’s startled look, he flashed her a wide grin, his teeth covered with yellow gore and bits of shell; the cleric let out a strangled cry and hurried back up toward the front of the line. </p><p></p><p>“Well, I didn’t think it could happen, but we finally have someone with worse personal habits than you,” Allera said to Dar, as they continued to the north past the battleground. </p><p></p><p>Dar shot a weighing look back at Drakha, then he turned and marched forward without replying to the healer. Snaggletooth, riding invisible on Allera’s shoulder, chirped something into her ear; the healer flushed, but kept marching. </p><p></p><p>They heard the river again before they saw it. The swift-moving watercourse was narrower here, as it entered a dark tunnel in the cliff face, but it was still a good forty feet across. The goblins had erected a pulley system attached to a stone outcrop that jutted from the cliff face above the river entrance. The mechanism was still intact, and included a large basket that could be shifted from one side of the river to the other, presumably to carry loads of ore across the river. There were about a half-dozen of the goblin wheelbarrows on each side of the river, some still laden with ore, hastily abandoned. As they reached the water’s edge and shone their lights into the tunnel, they could see there was a narrow ledge on their side running parallel to the river, about four feet above the level of the water. The ledge ran straight and unobstructed as far as they could see, but only had about four feet of clearance to the rough ceiling. </p><p></p><p>“It looks like the goblins cut this from the rock,” Shay said, bending to examine the tracks that led up to the ledge. “It looks just barely wide to handle one of those wheelbarrows we saw.”</p><p></p><p>“Not much room for error,” Baraka said. “Impressive, the scale of what they’ve managed to accomplish here. Not typical for goblins, certainly.”</p><p></p><p>“There is little typical about Rappan Athuk,” Varo said. </p><p></p><p>“If you’re done nabbering on about a bunch of stupid gobbos, how are we going to get down that?” Dar said. “It’s a tight squeeze even for someone not wearing armor.”</p><p></p><p>Talen looked at Varo, who said, “That is the way we have to go, commander.”</p><p></p><p>“Look at it this way, colonel,” Pella said. “If a bunch of ‘stupid gobbos’ could get wheelbarrows loaded with ore down that tunnel without falling into the river, then surely we can manage it.”</p><p></p><p>“I don’t know if you’ve seen a goblin lately, archer, but they are pretty damned small.”</p><p></p><p>“Maybe we could just tie ropes around you and your warriors, and drag you up the stream, like barges? Your egos are surely buoyant enough to keep you afloat.”</p><p></p><p>“Listen, honey...”</p><p></p><p>“All right, that’s enough,” Talen said, cutting them off. “Take a few minutes, secure your gear, and do whatever you need to get ready. This isn’t going to get any easier for more bitching.”</p><p></p><p>“I’ll start rigging some guide ropes, in case someone goes over the side,” Shay said. </p><p></p><p>As the companions made their preparations, Drakha stood a short distance away. The outsider took a deep breath, as if savoring a pleasant odor on the air. </p><p></p><p>“Ah, chaos,” he said. </p><p></p><p>Once Shay had outfitted them with a rope that they could all hold onto, they set off down the river passage. They could only go in single file, with Shay in the lead, and Baraka bringing up the rear. True to Dar’s earlier concern, the warriors had the toughest time of it, forced to crawl on hands and knees in the tight space. After a difficult first hour of this, Talen had them redistribute some of their burdens, giving some of the extra gear to those not bearing heavy suits of armor. The knight commander himself did not offer any complaints, despite being weighed down by plate mail, a light shield, and various weapons, in addition to his own heavy pack. Fortunately the goblins had anticipated the need for frequent breaks, and there were several places where the ledge jutted deeper into the rock, forming stone shelves up to eight feet deep where they could stretch out and rest. </p><p></p><p>The only one who did not have difficulty was Drakha; as Varo’s ally made his way into the tunnel, his height diminished subtly, until he could walk along the ledge without bending over. A few of the companions sent odd looks at their unusual new companion, but there was something deeply disquieting about those solid gray eyes, and none of them attempted any conversation with the creature. </p><p></p><p>They had only one mishap, although it was quite nearly very costly. Travius lost his footing shortly after their second rest break, and plummeted over the edge of the ledge into the river. He kept his grip on the guide rope, but the current and the weight of his armor quickly dragged him down, and he might have pulled all of them over, but for the rapid response of Pella. The archer, in line just ahead of the legionary, drew her dagger and stabbed it into a crack in the rock, holding on with both hands, the rope wrapped tight around her left bracer. Her face twisted in pain as the rope, trailing back around her shoulder, put an incredible strain on her arm. But she held on, bearing most of the fallen man’s weight. That allowed Kalend, just behind Travius, to secure his own position on the ledge, while Bullo and Dar made their way back, and helped pull the soaked legionary out of the river. Shay couldn’t get back to them without crawling over several people, but she quickly hammered in a spike, and anchored the rope to it while they completed the recovery. </p><p></p><p>“Thanks,” Travius said when he was finally on the ledge, shivering. </p><p></p><p>“When I said we could pull you guys up the river, I didn’t mean you should give it a try,” Pella said, grimacing as she tested her injured arm. The shoulder wasn’t dislocated, but she was going to have a nasty bruise, if not worse. </p><p></p><p>“Pella, are you all right, or should I come back to you?” Allera asked. The healer was a few places up the line, but with only three feet of ledge, there wasn’t much space to crawl past Bullo and Dar. </p><p></p><p>“I can make it to the next rest stop,” Pella said. And she was as good as her word, although their pace continued to flag as they got more tired from the difficult crawl. </p><p></p><p>They reached another wide spot, and Talen was considering calling for a longer rest when a soft flutter of wings announced Snaggletooth’s return. Conversing quietly with her companion, Allera indicated that the river opened onto another much larger cavern ahead. </p><p></p><p>“How far?” Talen asked. </p><p></p><p>“Only a few minutes... of course, that’s flying,” Allera reported. </p><p></p><p>“All right. Pella, you okay?” </p><p></p><p>The archer nodded to the commander. “Much better since Allera healed it,” she said. “I can keep up.”</p><p></p><p>“Everyone else all right?” </p><p></p><p>“If I see a gobbo, I’m going to crack its head for not making this damned crawl taller,” Dar said. He turned to Serah. “Say, cleric, you got any of that healin’ touch for my back?”</p><p></p><p>“You’re fine,” Allera said coolly, taking her position again in the line as they moved out again. </p><p></p><p>They set out again, setting a quicker pace with the hope that the faerie dragon had given them that the journey would soon be done. As they continued, the air grew thick and moist, and warmer as well. Soon, they were all sweating, and pausing often to wipe their faces clear of beading moisture. </p><p></p><p>“It’s getting like a freaking sauna in here,” Dar said. </p><p></p><p>Talen called a halt as Shay came back to the front of the line, and conferred with him for a few moments. “All right, pass it along, we’re getting close,” Talen said to Allera, then he turned and continued after the scout. </p><p></p><p>The air continued to grow warmer, and a fog began to rise off the river, obscuring their view. By the time that the passage walls opened onto the large space ahead, the fog was a dense cloud of warm steam vapor that swirled in the eddies of air that filled the cavern, making it difficult to see clearly even within the radius of their light sources. </p><p></p><p>“There must be a hot spring around here somewhere,” Shay said. </p><p></p><p>Talen nodded; he was having some difficulty with the heat in his heavy armor. “We shouldn’t stay here too long if we can help it. See if you can find some tracks; I’ll talk to Varo.”</p><p></p><p>The scout nodded, and by the time that Talen had come back with the cleric, Shay had found where the wheelbarrow tracks headed off to the right, close along the cavern wall. The bare stone was slick with moisture. Talen gathered them all together, and pointed out the tracks. </p><p></p><p>“All right everyone... I don’t want us to bunch up, but I don’t want anyone wandering off in this damned mist. That means you and Baraka, Shay; I don’t want you guys getting too far ahead. Keep an eye on the person ahead and behind, and if you see anything, send out a warning immediately.”</p><p></p><p>“Like as not the gobbos will use this mist to their advantage,” Travius said. </p><p></p><p>“Bowstrings won’t hold up very long to this humidity,” Pella pointed out. </p><p></p><p>“We have spares,” Talen said. “Remember, stay together as a group, I don’t want any of us drawn into an ambush. And our goal is to parlay with the goblins, not attack them unprovoked,” he reminded them. </p><p></p><p>“Gods damn it, I left my tea and biscuits at home,” Dar said. When Talen glared at him, he said, “All right, all right, commander. We wait for the gobbos to make a move, boys, <em>then</em> we smash ‘em, got it?”</p><p></p><p>Bullo laughed. </p><p></p><p>Talen nodded to Shay and Baraka. “Take us out.”</p><p></p><p>They made their way into the cavern, the mists swallowing up the river tunnel exit almost at once behind them. The details of the cavern were muted in the mists, but the ground here was mostly bare stone, with occasional stretches of cracked slate littered with broken bits of rock and gravel. The latter crunched under their boots, the sound muted in the enfolding grasp of the steam fog. </p><p></p><p>With the mist scattering the light from their <em>everburning torches</em>, none of them spotted the dark thing that observed their progress from high along the cavern wall. It waited until they were fully gone, then detached itself from its perch, swooping through the darkness in a silent arc that took it ahead of them, to a protruding jut of stone cliffs that stabbed out several hundred feet into the cavern. It landed high upon the cliffs without a whisper of noise, blending effortlessly into the darkness there. It summoned its magic, invoking protections that would aid it in battle. </p><p></p><p>It waited silently, patiently, until the light sources borne by the humans reappeared in the mists, less than a minute later. They glowed like will-o-wisps in the fog, but to the silent watcher, they were like beacons. </p><p></p><p>It did not know what these intruders were, but it had seen them clearly enough to know that they were not goblins, and therefore fair game by the terms of its pact with the lords of Grezneck. It crept silently down the cliff, careful not to dislodge any loose rocks. It let the first creature, a female, move past its perch, waiting for the larger cluster of males that followed to enter its range. </p><p></p><p>The first warning that any of them had was when the creature unleashed a cone of pure negative energy upon them, the dark tendrils twisting through the streaming funnel of power into the hapless and unaware companions, stealing the life right out of their bodies.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lazybones, post: 3484809, member: 143"] Chapter 155 SHADOWS Talen was buckling the straps onto his armor, Shay assisting him with the plates he could not easily reach, when Varo returned. The priest had a companion, a tall, lean youth with skin an unhealthy gray pallor, clad in garments just a shade darker. “Who’s your friend?” Talen asked, as Shay handed him [i]Beatus Incendia[/i]. The commander noted the way that the newcomer’s eyes followed his motion, lingering on the sword. “This is Drakha,” Varo said. “He is an outsider, summoned to assist us today.” Talen suppressed a sigh. “Varo...” “Commander, we are beyond the point where we can scruple about using the powers available to us. I take responsibility alone for my companion’s activities.” The youth made a bow that was just barely too shallow to be mocking. “Fear not, dragon knight. I am merely here to serve; I bear no love for the Demon or his servants.” Serah came into the room from the side tunnel; she looked up at Drakha and blinked. “I greet you, holy priestess,” the outsider said, licking his lips. Serah retreated in alarm, clutching her holy symbol. “Wonderful,” Talen muttered. With the morning meal consumed, and most of them fully dressed and prepared, it did not take them long to strike camp and set out again. Varo used his magic to enchant a fat bundle of arrows, which he distributed amongst the group’s archers, giving a double share to Pella. The newcomer, Drakha, followed him like a shadow, and once they had set out, hugging the cavern wall as they marched north, he tended to blend into the background, easily forgotten if you were not looking for him. But Talen kept an eye out for the outsider, and he’d had quiet words with Pella, Shay, and Baraka before they’d departed, making his feelings about their new companion known to them. They made their way north, with Shay in the lead. Snaggletooth, on his own initiative, had scouted out part of the cavern nearby during their time in camp, and had reported to Allera that there were at least a dozen other mine sites to the north and west along the cavern wall. All of them were deserted. Shay told them that on her last visit, the sounds of mining had echoed throughout the entire eastern half of the cavern, a constant din as the goblins had excavated the various ores they needed. Now, the almost preternatural quiet made the small sounds that did carry to them seem particularly uncanny, the echoes distorting them until their source became a complete mystery. They continued to the scene of yesterday’s two-front battle with the ants and the umber hulks. Something had quite obviously come to clean up the mess; blood and pieces of shell were scattered everywhere, with multiple tracks heading off toward the river to the west. There were vermin everywhere, but none were larger than a man’s fist, and the companions were able to make it past without incident, giving the area a fair berth. Drakha paused at one point to pick up a beetle four inches long, chomping into it with a noisy crunch, and swallowing it with two bites. At Serah’s startled look, he flashed her a wide grin, his teeth covered with yellow gore and bits of shell; the cleric let out a strangled cry and hurried back up toward the front of the line. “Well, I didn’t think it could happen, but we finally have someone with worse personal habits than you,” Allera said to Dar, as they continued to the north past the battleground. Dar shot a weighing look back at Drakha, then he turned and marched forward without replying to the healer. Snaggletooth, riding invisible on Allera’s shoulder, chirped something into her ear; the healer flushed, but kept marching. They heard the river again before they saw it. The swift-moving watercourse was narrower here, as it entered a dark tunnel in the cliff face, but it was still a good forty feet across. The goblins had erected a pulley system attached to a stone outcrop that jutted from the cliff face above the river entrance. The mechanism was still intact, and included a large basket that could be shifted from one side of the river to the other, presumably to carry loads of ore across the river. There were about a half-dozen of the goblin wheelbarrows on each side of the river, some still laden with ore, hastily abandoned. As they reached the water’s edge and shone their lights into the tunnel, they could see there was a narrow ledge on their side running parallel to the river, about four feet above the level of the water. The ledge ran straight and unobstructed as far as they could see, but only had about four feet of clearance to the rough ceiling. “It looks like the goblins cut this from the rock,” Shay said, bending to examine the tracks that led up to the ledge. “It looks just barely wide to handle one of those wheelbarrows we saw.” “Not much room for error,” Baraka said. “Impressive, the scale of what they’ve managed to accomplish here. Not typical for goblins, certainly.” “There is little typical about Rappan Athuk,” Varo said. “If you’re done nabbering on about a bunch of stupid gobbos, how are we going to get down that?” Dar said. “It’s a tight squeeze even for someone not wearing armor.” Talen looked at Varo, who said, “That is the way we have to go, commander.” “Look at it this way, colonel,” Pella said. “If a bunch of ‘stupid gobbos’ could get wheelbarrows loaded with ore down that tunnel without falling into the river, then surely we can manage it.” “I don’t know if you’ve seen a goblin lately, archer, but they are pretty damned small.” “Maybe we could just tie ropes around you and your warriors, and drag you up the stream, like barges? Your egos are surely buoyant enough to keep you afloat.” “Listen, honey...” “All right, that’s enough,” Talen said, cutting them off. “Take a few minutes, secure your gear, and do whatever you need to get ready. This isn’t going to get any easier for more bitching.” “I’ll start rigging some guide ropes, in case someone goes over the side,” Shay said. As the companions made their preparations, Drakha stood a short distance away. The outsider took a deep breath, as if savoring a pleasant odor on the air. “Ah, chaos,” he said. Once Shay had outfitted them with a rope that they could all hold onto, they set off down the river passage. They could only go in single file, with Shay in the lead, and Baraka bringing up the rear. True to Dar’s earlier concern, the warriors had the toughest time of it, forced to crawl on hands and knees in the tight space. After a difficult first hour of this, Talen had them redistribute some of their burdens, giving some of the extra gear to those not bearing heavy suits of armor. The knight commander himself did not offer any complaints, despite being weighed down by plate mail, a light shield, and various weapons, in addition to his own heavy pack. Fortunately the goblins had anticipated the need for frequent breaks, and there were several places where the ledge jutted deeper into the rock, forming stone shelves up to eight feet deep where they could stretch out and rest. The only one who did not have difficulty was Drakha; as Varo’s ally made his way into the tunnel, his height diminished subtly, until he could walk along the ledge without bending over. A few of the companions sent odd looks at their unusual new companion, but there was something deeply disquieting about those solid gray eyes, and none of them attempted any conversation with the creature. They had only one mishap, although it was quite nearly very costly. Travius lost his footing shortly after their second rest break, and plummeted over the edge of the ledge into the river. He kept his grip on the guide rope, but the current and the weight of his armor quickly dragged him down, and he might have pulled all of them over, but for the rapid response of Pella. The archer, in line just ahead of the legionary, drew her dagger and stabbed it into a crack in the rock, holding on with both hands, the rope wrapped tight around her left bracer. Her face twisted in pain as the rope, trailing back around her shoulder, put an incredible strain on her arm. But she held on, bearing most of the fallen man’s weight. That allowed Kalend, just behind Travius, to secure his own position on the ledge, while Bullo and Dar made their way back, and helped pull the soaked legionary out of the river. Shay couldn’t get back to them without crawling over several people, but she quickly hammered in a spike, and anchored the rope to it while they completed the recovery. “Thanks,” Travius said when he was finally on the ledge, shivering. “When I said we could pull you guys up the river, I didn’t mean you should give it a try,” Pella said, grimacing as she tested her injured arm. The shoulder wasn’t dislocated, but she was going to have a nasty bruise, if not worse. “Pella, are you all right, or should I come back to you?” Allera asked. The healer was a few places up the line, but with only three feet of ledge, there wasn’t much space to crawl past Bullo and Dar. “I can make it to the next rest stop,” Pella said. And she was as good as her word, although their pace continued to flag as they got more tired from the difficult crawl. They reached another wide spot, and Talen was considering calling for a longer rest when a soft flutter of wings announced Snaggletooth’s return. Conversing quietly with her companion, Allera indicated that the river opened onto another much larger cavern ahead. “How far?” Talen asked. “Only a few minutes... of course, that’s flying,” Allera reported. “All right. Pella, you okay?” The archer nodded to the commander. “Much better since Allera healed it,” she said. “I can keep up.” “Everyone else all right?” “If I see a gobbo, I’m going to crack its head for not making this damned crawl taller,” Dar said. He turned to Serah. “Say, cleric, you got any of that healin’ touch for my back?” “You’re fine,” Allera said coolly, taking her position again in the line as they moved out again. They set out again, setting a quicker pace with the hope that the faerie dragon had given them that the journey would soon be done. As they continued, the air grew thick and moist, and warmer as well. Soon, they were all sweating, and pausing often to wipe their faces clear of beading moisture. “It’s getting like a freaking sauna in here,” Dar said. Talen called a halt as Shay came back to the front of the line, and conferred with him for a few moments. “All right, pass it along, we’re getting close,” Talen said to Allera, then he turned and continued after the scout. The air continued to grow warmer, and a fog began to rise off the river, obscuring their view. By the time that the passage walls opened onto the large space ahead, the fog was a dense cloud of warm steam vapor that swirled in the eddies of air that filled the cavern, making it difficult to see clearly even within the radius of their light sources. “There must be a hot spring around here somewhere,” Shay said. Talen nodded; he was having some difficulty with the heat in his heavy armor. “We shouldn’t stay here too long if we can help it. See if you can find some tracks; I’ll talk to Varo.” The scout nodded, and by the time that Talen had come back with the cleric, Shay had found where the wheelbarrow tracks headed off to the right, close along the cavern wall. The bare stone was slick with moisture. Talen gathered them all together, and pointed out the tracks. “All right everyone... I don’t want us to bunch up, but I don’t want anyone wandering off in this damned mist. That means you and Baraka, Shay; I don’t want you guys getting too far ahead. Keep an eye on the person ahead and behind, and if you see anything, send out a warning immediately.” “Like as not the gobbos will use this mist to their advantage,” Travius said. “Bowstrings won’t hold up very long to this humidity,” Pella pointed out. “We have spares,” Talen said. “Remember, stay together as a group, I don’t want any of us drawn into an ambush. And our goal is to parlay with the goblins, not attack them unprovoked,” he reminded them. “Gods damn it, I left my tea and biscuits at home,” Dar said. When Talen glared at him, he said, “All right, all right, commander. We wait for the gobbos to make a move, boys, [i]then[/i] we smash ‘em, got it?” Bullo laughed. Talen nodded to Shay and Baraka. “Take us out.” They made their way into the cavern, the mists swallowing up the river tunnel exit almost at once behind them. The details of the cavern were muted in the mists, but the ground here was mostly bare stone, with occasional stretches of cracked slate littered with broken bits of rock and gravel. The latter crunched under their boots, the sound muted in the enfolding grasp of the steam fog. With the mist scattering the light from their [i]everburning torches[/i], none of them spotted the dark thing that observed their progress from high along the cavern wall. It waited until they were fully gone, then detached itself from its perch, swooping through the darkness in a silent arc that took it ahead of them, to a protruding jut of stone cliffs that stabbed out several hundred feet into the cavern. It landed high upon the cliffs without a whisper of noise, blending effortlessly into the darkness there. It summoned its magic, invoking protections that would aid it in battle. It waited silently, patiently, until the light sources borne by the humans reappeared in the mists, less than a minute later. They glowed like will-o-wisps in the fog, but to the silent watcher, they were like beacons. It did not know what these intruders were, but it had seen them clearly enough to know that they were not goblins, and therefore fair game by the terms of its pact with the lords of Grezneck. It crept silently down the cliff, careful not to dislodge any loose rocks. It let the first creature, a female, move past its perch, waiting for the larger cluster of males that followed to enter its range. The first warning that any of them had was when the creature unleashed a cone of pure negative energy upon them, the dark tendrils twisting through the streaming funnel of power into the hapless and unaware companions, stealing the life right out of their bodies. [/QUOTE]
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The Doomed Bastards: Reckoning (story complete)
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