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❅ SHITTY LITTLE TOWN ❅ PART 1
Each year in this town, the winters seem to get harder and the summers seem to get hotter, and this was no exception. After several months of sweltering afternoons and sweaty nights, fall is finally starting to break the town’s fever, although with the cooler weather comes the death of the horseflies, leaving many of the town’s flat surfaces coated in bug carcasses. The sky is overcast, the air remains humid, and in the distance thunderstorms can be heard almost every hour of the day.
During the day, people go about their usual routines, working primarily at the slaughterhouse or mines during the weekdays, vegetating in front of the television on Saturdays, and sitting straightbacked and paranoid in the pews on Sunday, fearful less of the wrath of God than the ire of the neighbors. Evenings for the average person are filled with drinking at Nog’s or Auntie’s or peering at the TV until bedtime.
This is where our heroes find themselves, waking with a new lifestory that integrates them into this, the shitty little town.
PROMPTS
a) NOG'S
Nog's bar is the preferred haunt of most of the miners and slaughterhouse workers in this town, who meet to drink their woes away, complain about their supervisors and speculate on the personal lives of the people around them. Despite Mr. Goluboy's constant harassment, Nog has managed to keep his liquor license, and as such is one of the few successful businesses in town on account of all the stress-induced alcoholism. While one won't find fancy cocktails here, if they're just looking for a beer and some scuttlebutt, this is the place.
Nog's bar is the preferred haunt of most of the miners and slaughterhouse workers in this town, who meet to drink their woes away, complain about their supervisors and speculate on the personal lives of the people around them. Despite Mr. Goluboy's constant harassment, Nog has managed to keep his liquor license, and as such is one of the few successful businesses in town on account of all the stress-induced alcoholism. While one won't find fancy cocktails here, if they're just looking for a beer and some scuttlebutt, this is the place.
b) AUNTIE'S
"Auntie's" is the name of the old-school, 1950's-esque, 24-hour diner in the middle of downtown, with big red pleather booths, checkerboard floors and a jukebox. Typically, the only difference in clientele between Auntie’s and Nog's is that the people at Auntie’s wanted a burger or a stack of pancakes alongside their beer – but unlike Nog's, Auntie’s is only barely hanging on, constantly getting ticketed for waterspots on the silverware and not having enough napkins. Thankfully, one can get a full breakfast meal at Auntie's any time of day for a few dollars.
"Auntie's" is the name of the old-school, 1950's-esque, 24-hour diner in the middle of downtown, with big red pleather booths, checkerboard floors and a jukebox. Typically, the only difference in clientele between Auntie’s and Nog's is that the people at Auntie’s wanted a burger or a stack of pancakes alongside their beer – but unlike Nog's, Auntie’s is only barely hanging on, constantly getting ticketed for waterspots on the silverware and not having enough napkins. Thankfully, one can get a full breakfast meal at Auntie's any time of day for a few dollars.
c) THE DOCKS
The town is alongside a lake, and once upon a time there was enough fish to sustain a modest fishing economy and a river that allowed for trade by boat with other nearby towns. However, with the mines' pollution, fish are no longer considered safe to eat, and only the water immediately adjacent to the springhead on the Warren Family Farm is safe to swim in. Draining from the mines has lowered the level of the river enough that it's no longer navigable. Residents will still occasionally use the lake for boating recreation, but fees at the marina keep going up (into Goluboy's pocket) and mothers are increasingly worried about letting their children get wet in that water.
The town is alongside a lake, and once upon a time there was enough fish to sustain a modest fishing economy and a river that allowed for trade by boat with other nearby towns. However, with the mines' pollution, fish are no longer considered safe to eat, and only the water immediately adjacent to the springhead on the Warren Family Farm is safe to swim in. Draining from the mines has lowered the level of the river enough that it's no longer navigable. Residents will still occasionally use the lake for boating recreation, but fees at the marina keep going up (into Goluboy's pocket) and mothers are increasingly worried about letting their children get wet in that water.
d) THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE
The other major employer, owned by Ms. Cygne. Most of the locals who don't work at the mines work at the slaughterhouse, where the work is disgusting, dreary and grueling. Sometimes people get promoted out of the trenches and into admin. Yay.
The other major employer, owned by Ms. Cygne. Most of the locals who don't work at the mines work at the slaughterhouse, where the work is disgusting, dreary and grueling. Sometimes people get promoted out of the trenches and into admin. Yay.
e) BIG TOP CIRCUS COFFEE
Dick's Coffeeshop is in the bottom floor of an apartment building, and many locals have no idea how it hasn't been shut down yet, given that the owner is famously generous with his resources in a way that clearly irritates the city council. Dick offers jobs to those who Goluboy and Cygne won't hire at the mines or slaughterhouse and frequently sneaks day-old pastries to the hungry. The coffeeshop is one of the few areas where artists tend to converge, usually at the weekly open mic night; however, whatever one expresses at the coffeeshop is likely to be picked up by the town gossips, mocked relentlessly, distorted and spread around.
Dick's Coffeeshop is in the bottom floor of an apartment building, and many locals have no idea how it hasn't been shut down yet, given that the owner is famously generous with his resources in a way that clearly irritates the city council. Dick offers jobs to those who Goluboy and Cygne won't hire at the mines or slaughterhouse and frequently sneaks day-old pastries to the hungry. The coffeeshop is one of the few areas where artists tend to converge, usually at the weekly open mic night; however, whatever one expresses at the coffeeshop is likely to be picked up by the town gossips, mocked relentlessly, distorted and spread around.
f) THE FARMER'S MARKET
Because Mr. Goluboy's malicious prosecution of small businesses has essentially shut down any legal avenue for a farmer's market, a few of the residents of the town have established a black market for homegrown fruits and vegetables, small-batch soaps and candles, and other small products. Words gets out through a whisper network, and a few times a month everyone in the know meets in a parking lot, opens their trunk, and does some bartering and selling with each other until they get found out. Sheriff Mallard and her deputies have arrested many people at these pop-ups and confiscated their products. By now, these pop-ups have around forty people trading and selling at a time, and the city council has announced that out of concerns for food safety the sentence for being caught vending homegrown produce will be increased to a misdemeanor with jail time.
Because Mr. Goluboy's malicious prosecution of small businesses has essentially shut down any legal avenue for a farmer's market, a few of the residents of the town have established a black market for homegrown fruits and vegetables, small-batch soaps and candles, and other small products. Words gets out through a whisper network, and a few times a month everyone in the know meets in a parking lot, opens their trunk, and does some bartering and selling with each other until they get found out. Sheriff Mallard and her deputies have arrested many people at these pop-ups and confiscated their products. By now, these pop-ups have around forty people trading and selling at a time, and the city council has announced that out of concerns for food safety the sentence for being caught vending homegrown produce will be increased to a misdemeanor with jail time.
g) THE LIBRARY
The library, once well-stocked and indulgently funded, is now kept alive sheerly by the passion of the one paid librarian, Aziraphale, and the volunteers who work there. There is no interlibrary loan program and there have been no new books in years. The library is reduced to loaning damaged copies missing pages, and story hours or public events are difficult to organize due to the complete lack of resources. The city council has also forced Aziraphale to put up a sign against loitering or using the library "for any purposes besides the borrowing of books." An organization of local busybodies drops in frequently to comb through the stacks for "objectionable material," which is then destroyed at Ms. Cygne's behest.
The library, once well-stocked and indulgently funded, is now kept alive sheerly by the passion of the one paid librarian, Aziraphale, and the volunteers who work there. There is no interlibrary loan program and there have been no new books in years. The library is reduced to loaning damaged copies missing pages, and story hours or public events are difficult to organize due to the complete lack of resources. The city council has also forced Aziraphale to put up a sign against loitering or using the library "for any purposes besides the borrowing of books." An organization of local busybodies drops in frequently to comb through the stacks for "objectionable material," which is then destroyed at Ms. Cygne's behest.
h) WILDCARD/NEW LOCATION
Feel free to set things around town anywhere you want or make up new locations.
Feel free to set things around town anywhere you want or make up new locations.
i) THE SPOOKY WOODS
Outside the town, there are foggy, dense woods, difficult to navigate by foot due to thickets and brambles that come up to a grown man's waist. The city council has done what they can to ban people from going into the woods, and the gruesome animal maulings are a compelling disincentive.
Note: Let the plot mods know when your characters are going into the spooky woods.
Outside the town, there are foggy, dense woods, difficult to navigate by foot due to thickets and brambles that come up to a grown man's waist. The city council has done what they can to ban people from going into the woods, and the gruesome animal maulings are a compelling disincentive.
Note: Let the plot mods know when your characters are going into the spooky woods.
❅ OOC Plotting: Here. More locations can be found there. You can also ask the players running the plot questions there.
❅ Event Length: This part of the plot is to establish CR and characters' roles in town. It will last about a week and half before future parts that allow the characters to start digging into the mysteries of the town.
❅ New Characters: If your character is introing at this time, assume they arrived just in time at the location the plot takes place in to be caught up in the magic drawing everyone in. They would have gotten the Man in the Moon's spiel from the welcome page right before being magically sucked in.
❅ Opt-out: Anyone that doesn't want to play in the plot can handwave their character didn't go on the mission that put the characters in the location where they were sucked in. You can thread your characters back at the Pole or send them on another smaller mission with other characters.
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Lady doesn't even get the chance to answer the first man's question or start moving the other way before she's lifted off the ground.
"What the fuck!"
The air leaves her lungs as her gut presses against the other man's-- Ash? Aston?-- shoulder. By the time she's able to respond they're already in the light, but she still jams her knee as hard as she can into his chest. Her leg strength is considerable.
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The bullets do seem to slow them down, although Dan gets the sense that it's more about the noise than about the physical damage. Dan takes off towards where he heard Aster run, catching a glimpse over his shoulder of one of the monsters doing a full jeté, not bothering to process that bizarre sight because he needs to focus on his feet and not getting tripped up in brambles and fallen pine. He scrambles and slides, but he's getting away.
He makes it to the light just as he feels one of those clawed, bony hands grab the hoodie to his sweatshirt, and then he hears a hiss and a shriek as the hand retracts. He whips around to try and see what happened, but the blurs are already fading back into the fog.
He looks around and sees Aster carrying Lady, Lady struggling mightily. He holsters his gun and runs over. "It's okay, we ain't trying to do no harm!"
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"Jeeze, you're welcome," he grunts at Lady, waving Dan over, hand out to grab his shoulder as he herds Lady to keep on going, away from the fog and whatever's in it, back down this hill and the rest of the way back into town. "No point waiting around here, if you're gonna walk yourself, walk away from danger, not at it."
Something from the fog calls out with a voice Aster doesn't recognize, but Lady will. Adam Bryant's voice, scared and exhausted, calls from the fog - "Where are you? I can't get out! Help me!"
Aster looks at Lady, and gets between her and the fogline. "Don't listen to it, it's not whoever it wants you to think it is," he warns, arms spread to catch her if she tries to run past him.
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She freezes, her mind blank as instinct takes over before rationality can kick in.
But no, Adam's dead. She found his body-- what was left of it-- herself. Whatever is out there is using his voice as a weapon, and that makes something long-buried in her gut start to burn.
"I know," Lady snarls. She doesn't even look at Aster, she's busy trying to see around him. She needs to see the things that fucking dare use her brother's voice.
With the way these guys were running, she expects the things she had gotten a glimpse of before to come barreling out of the fog, but they don't.
"Are they- are they stuck there?" All she can see are twisting shadows in the mist as they continue to cry out in a voice that doesn't belong to them.
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He stiffens at the cry for help, but he knows from Lady's reaction who it is.
"Lady, I don't mean to boss you around, but I reckon we should stay together and stay out of the fog until we figure more of what's going on." He gives Aster's hand on his shoulder a reassuring clap and then staggers to a tree to lean on as he catches his breath. "Whatever those are, they mean harm."
Probably the same harm as whatever happened to Adam, and Dan doesn't want Elle to meet the same fate just because she doesn't have parents around to tell her no.
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He doesn't want to pick Lady up again when they aren't actively being chased, but as the mist drifts around the trees and shifts on the path before them, he might do it.
"Were you out here looking for that?" he asks, remembering that this is the girl whose parents opted for the kind of neglect only the very wealthy can get away with, and left her out here alone. "Did you know anything about them before this?"
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"They're staying where it's thicker... Do you think it's the fog or the dark?" She's talking to herself, mostly, but the words are loud enough for the other two to hear. The next time she sees a moving shape she clicks on her flashlight and points it in that direction to see how it reacts.
"I didn't know what I was looking for," she answers. Lady has her suspicions about the unnatural occurrences around the town, but the proof in front of her is difficult to process. It's easier to analyze the things' behavior than to think about what they actually could be.
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"Little column A, little column B," he says, finally feeling like he's caught his breath but still feeling so exhausted. "But either way, reckon we don't want to be caught out after dark here. They way they chase, I don't think the fog slows them down because I don't think they're using eyesight to hunt."
And that's what it felt like, like he was being pursued.
"Are we far from town?" he asks Lady.
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Not wanting to seem paternalistic is the farthest thing from Aster's mind. He's ready to throw both of them over his shoulders again if he has to.
"Think about it," Aster says. "Some of the bodies have been found in town, but only overnight. The fog might not keep them in after sundown. We're about five miles from town," he tells Dan, a pit in his stomach already at how very close this already is. "That doesn't make any sense. We got to the twenty mile mark before the car broke down. We haven't walked twenty miles today."
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Her mind is racing. Adam had been missing for a week, then one night she could've sworn she heard him calling out for help. Her parents kept her from running into the dark, told her she was imagining things. The next day she did go into the woods, and that's when she found him- the body. The doctors said he had been dead for days.
For almost two years Lady's been hearing his voice at night. After the first few times, she went to her parents. Her mother said it was grief. Her father said it was a psychotic break. She told them it had stopped, that it was just her being upset, but it didn't. It hasn't.
She isn't crazy.
"I know the way back," Lady starts. A way forward is beginning to put itself together in her mind. "We don't have that long before the sun goes down, but we should get far enough that they won't catch up before reaching my house. You can stay there until the morning."
She feels better for having something resembling a plan.
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He hates that he's sort of listening for a voice he recognizes in the fog, but the creatures have left for now, and with them any hope of hearing Ellie's voice again, even in simulacrum.
He turns his attention instead to the girl in front of him. It's not going to help his and Aster's already terrible reputations to be going to a strange girl's home at night when she lives alone, but Dan doesn't feel there's any salvaging his reputation anyway, and answering all these questions - potentially saving lives - is more important than trying to win friends.
She doesn't seem frazzled, really, and that's also a bit of a concern. If she were falling to pieces, he'd be worried, but the fact that she isn't also worries him.
"I appreciate it, Lady. I reckon the deputies are going to start shooting on sight if they catch me out after curfew again." He taps his holster. "And I don't want them confiscating my piece."
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Suddenly Aster is the one protesting, because he knows he's safe, and he believes Dan's safe, but Lady doesn't know that and is inviting two strange men to sleep in her house overnight.
But it's got the two of them moving, and they won't reach the Warren farm before sunset, and they have to process everything they just experienced, and what it means about the town they live in. Aster hustles after them, dreading the inevitable questions they'll have to answer when some nosy busybody sees them.
"I wonder if the Sheriff's department knows about them," he mutters, as he catches up with Dan and Elle. "I always thought a curfew that heavily enforced was a lot in response to some aggressive bears or cougars."
Beneath his beard, he's burning with embarrassment that he bolted and left Dan in the woods, and dreading it being brought up, for him to have to own.
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"The woods go right up to my neighbor's place, and they'll be watching TV when the sun goes down. We can cut across their backyard without anyone seeing us, I do it all the time," She assures Dan, only realizing what kind of admission she's making after she's said it.
Well, it's too late now. All Lady can do is hope neither of them are paying enough attention to draw any conclusions from it.
"We don't get cougars up here, we just have bobcats, and they sure as hell aren't going to hunt full-grown humans for sport. The only bears around are black bears and they're rarely aggressive. Coyotes are opportunists and won't normally go up against things bigger than them."
Lady has done extensive research on the predators in the area so she can confidently say that the claims about animal attacks make no goddamn sense. This is the first time she's talked to anyone about what she knows, much less what she suspects, about the town.
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He's glad to know that Lady has a covert route, but he does wonder what she's been doing sneaking out. Her reputation about town is prim and mannered, the well-behaved daughter of upper class parents, which Dan suspects could be a strong motivator to sneak out, do drugs and neck another teen in the woods; her presence here, however, less suggests teenage rebellion and more indicates furiously worrying a mystery like a dog with a bone.
More than that, he wonders who we is composed of.
He nods at Lady. "We don't got fishers or wolverines here, and they only attack when threatened anyway. Look, by now I'm pretty familiar with the Sheriff and her deputies, and I don't reckon any of them know about all this. Putting it lightly, they're cowards and they're bad at keeping secrets."
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"How long have you been doing your research?" He asks, guessing it began as soon as her brother died. She very clearly is speaking from a researched point of view.
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Her ankles and knees are beginning to protest the rough terrain. She'll probably have to ice at some point tonight. She needs to pick up arnica in the morning before dance. If she wears her darker tights, her still-healing bruises from today's practice shouldn't be too noticeable.
"Sheriff Mallard is protective of her case files," Lady presents the information neutrally.
She remembers the response she got when she asked to see Adam's file. She had every right to access it-- it's all public record and she's a family member-- but the interaction was hostile enough that she's never pushed the issue. She didn't want it getting back to Ms. Cygne, and she especially didn't want it coming off as anything other than the pleas of a grief-stricken teenager.
It might be time to try again. Lady's sure she can come up with a reasonable excuse if anyone asks.
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He's listening, but Dan's also keeping a trained ear out for the sounds of the woods. What his hearing lacks in reach - he's a little deaf on the left - it compensates for in discernment. The tones and positions of the birds and insects gives him information, and the fact that everything seems at peace keeps him from feeling like he has to walk with one hand on his holster, ready to draw. There are none of the crows that announced the arrival of the creatures. Lady and Aster may note that Dan moves almost silently through even the heavy undergrowth, the result of plenty of years of bowhunting in the woods for venison and goat for winter.
"Do she keep them at the jailhouse? I, uh, got a bit of insider access that ain't as easy for the two of y'all to come by." But if anyone can talk the deputies into handing over a file, Dan has faith in his own capacity to spin a yarn.
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He has relaxed as the background noise of the birds and insects assures him the veiled women aren't nearby.
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The 'next time you get arrested' comment gets a raised eyebrow, but Lady doesn't say anything. She's not ignorant to Dan's reputation, Ms. Cygne has certainly had plenty to say about the kind of threat he and Aster pose to the community. It just... something about it all doesn't add up. It's not been enough for her to weigh the risks in favor of giving either of them a chance in the past, but she isn't finding herself particularly concerned in this moment.
If something happens, something happens. She'll be another pitied statistic for the town to pretend to mourn. They'll search her house and say she must've had a some kind of mental breakdown, or maybe that she was just too naive to know who she was inviting in. It'll all be bullshit.
Either this will go well or it won't. Either Lady can outrun them or she can't. At least it's a risk that she's choosing to take.
"I might be able to get in," she muses. "I could tell Ms. Cygne I want to shadow Mallard for a day, that kind of stuff looks good on applications. I bet I could get it signed off as volunteer hours."
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He still doesn't feel good about going to Lady's place at night, if only because her apathy to it makes him concerned that she's got the same ambivalence about what happens to her that he does.
"You have Ms. Cygne's ear?"
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"If we staged a fight, they might bring us in together," Aster says, already forgetting how much he hated being in jail, already moving past the damage that he and Dan seen together can do to each other's image. They have such bigger, more interesting problems all of a sudden than bad reputations. "I could help you pick 'em out."
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She falls silent for a moment after Dan's question. "Ms. Cygne comes by every so often. Sometimes I go over for lunch."
Her voice is a little quieter than before, but she's doing her best to keep her tone consistent. Dan and Aster don't need to know that Ms. Cygne's the only company Lady gets these days-- the only person asking after her since the Bryants left town. She asks about Lady's dancing, her schooling, whether she's taking care of herself. Whether she's been spending time with friends (no, she's focusing on her studies) or if any boys have caught her eye (no, she's focusing on her studies). Stupid, superficial shit like that.
Lady hates how starved she is for it, every time.
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Be careful with Ms. Cygne, he wants to say, but there's no way he can say that without sounding condescending, and he's sure Lady's already aware.
"Who's the last person whose body got chalked up to animal attacks? Someone a few weeks back?" Maybe there's another way to get the information they're looking for.
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He hates that Lady's way of getting in sounds more efficient, because he hates that this girl is already as involved as she is, was left alone to follow her very good instincts that would have put her directly in the path of monsters. Her route of gathering info is more efficient than theirs. But he doesn't like involving a child.
Not least because he hears the loneliness in her tone, speaking of Cygne, but he almost feels it more than he hears. Her big house is no less artificially, recently empty than his is. Unlike him, her loved ones chose to leave her in that house all by herself. Aster can't imagine the devastation of it - being a child whose caretakers decided they were better off leaving them to their own grief, all alone and mired in the place where it happened.
He hates that he has no real grounds to tell Lady that she deserves more than Cygne's crumbs of attention. He isn't a source she can believe it from, but he wishes he could track down her parents and force them to do better.
"You know who would know something?" He says, instead of launching into how Lady deserves more than lunch from a role model every once in a while. "Whoever's autopsying the bodies. The papers all said the animals were mauled, but those women, they were filthy, not bloody," he recalls. "The one I saw up close, the only blood on her was her own." He shudders, thinking of those sharpened teeth, how she'd ground gouges in her own lips, how her tongue was ragged past those pointed fangs. "If they were mauling prey they'd be covered with more than dirt. Any bodies they left in the woods would have time to get gnawed on by any number of scavengers. They must kill some other way."
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"It's been nineteen days since the last attack." Lady gives a new entry for 'normal information to have memorized off the top of your head'.
She tries to think back to that day, to remember what Adam's corpse looked like when she stumbled across it, but every time she looks too close her mind starts to turn to static and this horrible whine starts to build in her throat. It makes her feel like some pathetic, wounded animal. She stops trying when the noise gets too close to escaping.
She'll try again later, in the privacy of her room where there won't be any witnesses to what it takes to claw through her own mental walls.
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cw: bugs, light body horror, light passive suicidal ideation
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