Mission Notes
PCs: Sarah Doherty, "Bud" Johnson, "Bic" Raker
Gaming Session 8 [August 27, 2000]
12AUG2000 (S)
2330: Longwalker, Bud, and John engage in a big healing circle
jerk. John is a little wounded still when they are done.
13AUG2000 (U)
1100: The team is called to Le Peep. They are informed
that Daryl was further examined and it was determined that the
wound to the head was in fact inflicted by an ice pick and there
were flecks of silver in the wound. Apparently the angle
was not quite right to be immediately lethal. A further
investigation of the death of a business man, John Walters,
near Wichita Falls shows a similar wound. Mr. Walters
was killed a few days ago. He was on a hunting trip in
the woods.
The team suspects a maniac that thinks it is killing werewolves
is behind the slayings.
1300: Bic and Sarah at UTD, at the student computer lab and
library, respectively. Bud at Daryl's apartment.
- Another death in Denton on Wednesday Night. Trauma
due to animal wounds, whether the cause of death or not
is uncertain. Victim was a college student at nearby
University of North Texas. Her name was Jane Septak.
There is no mention of head wounds.
- John Walters worked as a subcontractor for the Air Force
Base near Wichita Falls.
- Likely places the killer may have come from
- North: Lawton or Tulsa, Oklahoma
- South: Fort Worth
- West: the Panhandle
- There is also a small airport in Wichita Falls, so
he could have flown in.
1400: Bic continues to search the web.
1500: Bud calls about details of the fight Daryl was in.
Bud Senses the Unknown and detects a very faint trace, so
faint that it is hard to be sure what is the source; it could
even be Bud . . .
1530: Bic finds a report on a web site called The Naked Truth
about a "man in black" that killed people with an ice pick.
Bic e-mails theghost@nakedtruth.com.
Sarah finds that Jane worked in the Psychiatry department
under Professor Mallin at UNT.
1600: Sarah finds some journal articles related to Jane showing
that she worked with circadian rhythms and the criminal mind.
1630: Sarah finds that Jane's work was partially sponsored
by NASA and there are no connections between UNT and the Air
Force or Wichita Falls.
1700: Bic and Sarah head out to dinner.
1800: Further work. Obituary for John Walters shows
that he is from Waxahachie, TX. His body was transported
back there for a funeral. The funeral will occur tomorrow,
Monday the 14th, at 10:00 AM. A follow up article in
the UNT newspaper for Jane Septak shows that she is from Toronto,
Canada, and has been a graduate student at UNT for three years.
Her body is being flown back home.
Bud finds that Daryl hunted with John Walters once and Daryl
went fishing last weekend.
1900: Sarah checks out the student clubs at UNT and finds
that Jane was in a hiking and orienteering club. Bud
calls Bic and reports in.
14AUG2000 (M)
0000: Daryl dozes off
0030: Bud sets up empty beer bottles security net.
0100: Bud sees the police car sweeping the nearby houses.
0800: Bud wakes up
1000: Bic and Sarah go to the ceremony. Afterwards,
they drive in the funeral train to the burial. There
was a twenty minute delay
1100: Burial ceremony.
1130: Bic and Sarah check in with Bud. The cop outside
appears to be asleep. Bud notices footprints in the
flower bed. He checks things out and finds that the
house has not been entered. There are some traces of
dirt on the sidewalk. Bud determines that someone probably
came to the living room window, looked around, then left.
Bud looks more closely and finds out that the cop is in fact
asleep. Bud and Daryl gather up their stuff and head
out to the cabin, picking up some food on the way. They
head to the stream by the cabin and go fishing.
1145: Bob from Bic's work calls. Bic needs to
stop by work.
1230: Sarah drops Bic off at home and heads to the general
area of the cabin. She gets an electronic bug from Bic
first, along with a receiver.
1300: Bud and Daryl at the cabin. Start fishing
1330: Sarah shows up and plants bug.
1400: Bud does not pick up the bug. Sarah calls him.
Bud drops the cell phone in the water when Daryl playfully
slaps him.
1430: Bud and Daryl back at cabin.
1500: Bic done shopping, works more. Bic picks up on
stories that sound like The Society.
1700: eats with work crew and chats until 1800.
1800: Bic checks in then goes off to hack. He determines
that the source of the stories is another hacker called "Little
Fish", a relatively benign hacker known for wandering around
and breaking into places to look at things for the thrill
of it. "He" has not revealed a lot of details about
"The Corps", specifically stating that he does not want to
endanger them.
1845: Bic brings food to Sarah.
1900: The team hunkers down for the night.
15AUG2000 (T)
0600: Bud and Daryl go fishing. Sarah and Bic go to work.
1200: B&D go grab some lunch, then head to the shooting
range.
1330: Bud at shooting range notices message light and that
the phone is off.
1900: Bic tries to find Little Fish's real identity.
Little Fish catches him and chats a little, closing the conversation
by calling Bic "Ben" (Bic's first name is Benedict).
Bud calls Sarah to report in. Bud's going to Daryl's
to play poker. Bic and Sarah both head home.
Bic finds a message. Printed from a computer showing
his schedule for the last month, when he was
and was not at work. It closes with the comment: "Strange
schedule for a special effects guy." It is signed with
a small fish symbol.
2000: Bic meets Malcolm at Cheddars.
2100: Bic gets back on the computer. He leaves a message
for Little Fish. Little Fish refers to Bic's upcoming
trip to Tibet. Little Fish refers to "your people in
Wichita Falls" and refers to the "man in black" as being one
of "your people."
2130: Give Malcolm URL for ice pick killer story.
2145: Malcolm calls back.
2200: Poker game goes off without a hitch.
16AUG2000 (W)
0200: Poker game ends.
1000: Bic tries to contact Little Fish. No reply after
15 minutes. He runs over to work and picks up data to
work on at home.
1500: Reply from Little Fish. Bic and LF discuss The
Corps and LF is convinced that there is a cell in Wichita
Falls. "Head to Achmed's Dress Shop in Wichita Falls
and ask them." Bic reports to Sarah and then Malcolm.
1515: Bud calls Wichita Falls hunting honchos; no info.
1520: Sarah calls Bud and they finally ask Daryl about Jane.
He recognizes the name and mentions that he was in a study
at UNT that Jane and Professor Mallin conducted.
1800: Sarah and Bic meet for dinner.
1900: Bic tries to hack into UNT. He succeeds, but
the important files are not accessible. They are on
a LAN. Bic and Sarah head to UNT.
1945: Bic and Sarah show up at UNT.
2015: Bic gets into an administrative office and gets onto
the LAN.
2024: Bic collates list of test subjects.
2030: Mallin worked on John Walters.
2035: Septak and Mallin both have notes on Walters and Daryl.
Mallin also has notes on Septak, who was also a test subject.
2055: Bic downloads files on Walters, Septak, and Daryl.
2100: Mallin finally notices that her computer is being raided
and confronts Bic and Sarah. They relate info and convince
her of the connection to the study. She calls Toronto
and verifies that Jane had an injury in the ear consistent
with an ice pick. She does not turn in Bic and Sarah.
Instead she confirms that there is another similarity.
All three patients were "category 3" and that means that they
had a marked emotional response to the phases of the moon.
They were the highest category that did not require medication.
2115: Meanwhile, Brian Davies is being killed on his boat.
17AUG2000 (R)
0900: Sarah calls Mallin and brings the article on Davies' death
to her attention. There are 39 patients in and around
Dallas that they could not get a hold of.
1000: Team goes to Wichita Falls, finds agent and cell, takes
him out and snags his computer.
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Debriefing
Malcolm meets the three of you at a food court of a mall in
Plano. He points out three others in the arcade and directs
each of you to one of them. Bud heads over to a white
woman dressed in jeans and a silk blouse by the Orange Augustus,
Bic heads over to a mousy looking Asian guy by Spuds Galore,
and Sarah is greeted by a heavy set black woman sitting outside
Shanghai Wok. All of you get varying degrees of a sensation
that the stream of humanity flowing past you involved in their
petty tales and seemingly insignificant problems is not unlike
a flock of sheep. The question is are you shepherds or
wolves? You decide on an answer that satisfies you and
shake off the thought, focusing on details of the mission.
You talk and the people take notes attentively, occasionally
probing for more detail with their manner or perhaps explicitly
asking. They seem pleasant enough, but they are not very
chatty, being very intent on letting you do the talking and
not derailing your report. The edge of the mission mindset
begins to fade with the cathartic release of your reports.
You have rooted out and destroyed another evil. This evil
was a little more gray than you would have liked, but Malcolm
has reassured you that preliminary reports confirm that the
agent you killed had murdered innocent people as well.
The whole incident raised an interesting question - can one
be a Creature of the Unknown and still do good?
Malcolm promises to investigate things further. A few
agents have been freed up from another mission and they are
better suited to long term low risk research like this.
He does mention that it does appear that there is another
covert group involved in the fight against the Unknown.
Preliminary investigation shows that they call themselves
SAVE.
Bud's Story
Bud plops himself into one of the molded plastic chairs in the
food court across from the woman agent. He flashes a smile in
an attempt to charm her, but quickly moves on to the debriefing
when he sees her disapproving professional return look.
"Right," begins Bud, "We got sent out to check out a death
that was similar to how my buddy, Daryl, got attacked. Someone
tried to jam a silver ice pick in his head and had succeed
against this businessman-hunter named John Walters.
"I settled into hanging out with Daryl and watchin' him.
We figured that this psycho might try to attack him again
seein' how he survived the first attack. We reckoned that
he thought Daryl and this other guy were werewolves or something.
"The other two set about finding out all the info, something
to connect Daryl with Walters or something else interesting.
Found out about another person who had been killed, Jane Septak,
a student head shrink up at the university. Bic also found
something out about another group of evil hunters based out
of Wichita Falls. Something about him hearing about a man
in a suit who killed people with an ice pick. He was convinced
he was connected, and turned out he was our killer.
"Daryl told me he had volunteered for this psycho experiment
up at the place Septak worked and that he also knew Walters,
from him being a hunter also. Bic and Sarah broke into the
university and stole some files on their experiment.
It was one about mood swings related to the moon, I think.
Septak had also been in the experiment.
"So they talked to the head professor, Mallin, and I think
told her about the killings. They didn't really give me lots
of the details on their talk with her. You should check with
them. Anyways, her and her students called up the other test
people and warned them about the killer. I don't think they
came right out and said there was a killer, but something
to make them careful.
"We were going to hand things over to the police 'cause although
the killer seemed to be coming kinda south, there were like
39 more targets that hadn't been warned in the city and there
was no way we could watch or warn all of them. Oh yeah, the
night they was talkin' to her some other guy got killed on
a boat. The killer made it look like an accident like the
others though.
"Instead of callin' anyone we decided to go check out this
Achmed's Dress Shop that Bic found was the cover for this
other group. We were pretty much ready to kick in the door
and lay down the law, or at least I was. Sarah checked the
place out with her flying mojo trick and found a guy upstairs
at this place. He was some kind of secret agent guy and he
was working at a map muttering about a werewolf killin' all
his partners. There were a bunch of dead bodies there too.
"Sarah went in and distracted the shop clerk while Bic and
I went upstairs. A swift kick by yours truly and the door
blew off its hinges. He was on us with his ice pick stabbing
and jabbing. No real time to try and talk to the man. I saw
he was getting all furry-like and figured maybe he was bitten
by a werewolf. I whipped out my .44 Smith & Wesson and
along with Bic blew the guy away. Sarah ran up near the end,
I think. We grabbed the body and snuck out of the place quick
before any police showed up."
Bud leans back, "And here I am, talkin' to you, gorgeous."
He flashes another smile at the woman.
Bic's Story
"Well, let's see. We were called in because Daryl, Bud's
friend, had been attacked in his cabin. We thought it
had been by that Vampire kid, Joey, but now I'm not so sure.
See, Daryl had been attacked by something with claws, but he
had been hurt by what turned out to be a silvered ice pick jammed
into his ear. So we immediately thought it might be the
work of someone who thought he was killing werewolves.
Which is kind of funny, since my initial thought in the last
case was that maybe Daryl was a werewolf. Hmmm...."
"Anyway, we found out that there was another similar killing
not long ago; guy's name was John Walters. He was attacked
while out in the woods hunting. So Sarah and I both
try to look into whether there had been any other similar
killings in the area, and Sarah found out that this Septak
girl, a grad student, had been recently killed. Although
it looked like she was killed by an animal attack, so I don't
know what tipped Sarah that she was involved. Regardless,
we dug up what info we could on the both of them while Bud
kept watch over Daryl, in case the ice pick guy came back
to finish the job, which he never did."
At this point, Bic gets an indecisive look on his face.
The mousy Asian taking notes quietly asks, "Is there something
wrong?"
"No, not really," answers Bic. "I'm just not sure how
to tell you what happened next. Let's just say that
I uncovered a source on-line with some interesting information.
I found one of those paranoid conspiracy theory
type sites that had a story about a 'man in black' who killed
with an ice pick. I thought this was interesting, given
our current case, so I poked around on the site some more
and found a story about a group very much like ours who fought
evil. There were no real details, though, and it seemed
that the author did everything he could to not give away any
sensitive information. But more about that in a minute."
"Meanwhile, Sarah and I went to John Walters' funeral, to
see if anyone suspicious showed up, but nobody did.
Later that day I had to take some time to work on my actual
job, but I also took some time to look into the author of
that article on the group like ours. I guess I wasn't
so subtle as I wanted to be, because he found out more about
me than I did about him. In the end, he didn't seem
likely to expose me or anything else he knew about, and he
ended up giving us crucial information that enabled us to
finish the mission."
"But first, Sarah had found out that this Septak woman worked
at UNT doing some Psych project. Then I guess she asked
Bud to talk to Daryl, and it turned out that he knew both
Septak and Walters, and that all three of them had been involved
in some study of circadian rhythms at UNT. I tried to
hack the UNT system, but the data was on a LAN, so we had
to get on campus, which we did. That didn't go so smoothly
either, because we got caught by Mallin, the prof that Septak
worked for. Luckily, Sarah managed to talk our way out
of that one, or else she might have turned us in to the police.
But instead we managed to convince her that there was a serial
killer using her test results to kill people he thought were
werewolves. I know that sounds like we might have said
too much, but it was actually her that brought up the werewolf
aspect, and we played it up like the guy doing the killing
was probably nutty."
"So she got in touch with those people she could on the list
to warn them, but already ice pick boy had struck again.
We knew we were not going to be able to stop him easily, and
we also knew that you didn't want the
police brought in if we could avoid it. So I decided
to talk to the person I met online again and see if he could
help out."
"Without saying any more than I had to, I found out that
he had info about a cell from a group that sounded like ours
in Wichita Falls, but I also found out from Malcolm that we
didn't have such a group. I was also told that ice pick
man was part of that cell, and that their front was a dress
shop called Achmed's. We didn't have a better plan,
so we grabbed Bud and headed to Wichita Falls."
"We found Achmed's and Sarah scouted the place by leaving
her body. Upstairs she saw a bunch of dead people at
computer consoles, looking like they had been killed by a
werewolf or something else nasty with claws. She also
saw one guy recording a log about how he had been eliminating
hostile lycanthropes, so we figured he was our guy.
As a team we went in, and while Sarah distracted the shop
clerk, Bud and I went up and confronted the guy upstairs.
He was obviously deranged, and immediately pulled his ice
pick out and attacked us, calling us lycanthropes. We
tried to take him down without weapons, but it didn't seem
to be working well, and that's when we noticed him getting
hairier. Well, Bud pulled out his gun with silver bullets,
and that did seem to work, so I did too and then Sarah showed
up too, and pretty soon he was dead. We grabbed him,
and his computer, and got the hell out of Dodge. And
that's pretty much it."
"As for the person I found online, I'm not sure what to do
now. He was a huge help to us, and he also obviously
has enough information to hurt us, but hasn't done anything
but help so far. Plus, I'm sure if we tried to go after
him he'd find out and just disappear, and then he might have
a grudge against us. Believe me, this guy is good.
So I think we might either try to recruit him, or at least
keep him as a friendly if possible, because I don't think
going after him will work."
The mousy Asian answers, "I think it's best if we let your
friend remain a freelancer for now, but you should make efforts
to more clearly assess any potential threat he might possess.
A lot of our comrades don't take to well to hackers."
He smiles, slips out of the molded plastic chair, and walks
out of the food court, nodding slightly to Malcolm as he leaves.
Sarah's Story
On Sunday morning we were told that Daryl was impaled in the
ear by a thin metallic object that left silver residues (probably
an ice pick coated with silver), that's why he was bleeding
from his ear when we found him. Lucky for him that we
showed up, otherwise he would have been dead within a couple
of hours. What made this incident even more puzzling is
the fact that a man in Wichita called John Walters was killed
by being impaled in the ear by a thin metallic object while
he was out on a hunting trip. Of course the official cause
of death was that he fell and hit his head on a rock.
There seemed to be a connection between Walters' death and the
attack on Daryl. The residues of silver suggested that
the person doing this might be a man that believes he
is hunting werewolves. In any case, we thought it best
if Bud kept an eye on Daryl just in case the Impaler decided
to came back and finish the job. No attacks were made
towards Daryl, although Bud noticed some footprints in front
of Daryl's living room window on Sunday or Monday, I don't remember.
Bic and I did some investigation and found out that there
was another death, a woman named Jane Septak. Reports
said that she might have been mauled by animals in the park.
She was killed on Wednesday in Denton. At that point
we knew that Walters was killed in Wichita on Sunday or Monday,
then Septak was killed in Denton on Wednesday, and Daryl was
attacked in McKinney on Friday. It looked like the Impaler
was killing people every other day, and was moving in a southward
direction. Bic also found a site that is dedicated to
conspiracy stories and the such, there he found a story about
a man dressed in a dark suit that used an ice pick to kill
people; I believe he was called the "Ice Pick Killer" or something
to that effect. Bic also found a story about an organization
called the "Corps" that hunted down and destroyed evil
creatures. Bic thought the author was talking about
the Society and probed a little more. But the author
of the story was somehow able to find Bic's name, address
and occupation. This really scared Bic and I, because
we had no idea who this person, called Little Fish (LF), was
and how much information he had. Bic asked LF how he
found out about the "Corps", LF told him that he hacked into
the computers of the Wichita location. When asked
if he knew about the Ice Pick Killer, he said that the killer
was one of us (the "Corps" that is) because his name was on
the roster of agents. LF also said that the Wichita
Cell was located in Ahmed's Dress Shop. After talking
with Malcom, we were assured that the Society did not have
a Wichita location. This was very confusing to us. Was
there another organization like the Society that had a safehouse
in Wichita? Was this just a ruse to get our team there
to be ambushed by Unknown agents? We knew we had to
investigate the Wichita location, but before that, we needed
to find out if there was a connection between Daryl, John,
and Jane.
Bud Probed Daryl and found out that he knew both John
and Jane. Apparently Daryl met John on some sort of
hunting trip. As for Jane, she was a psychology graduate student
at UNT, and Daryl was a test subject in one of her research
projects. I had found out about Jane earlier and knew
that she worked for a Dr. Mallin. So Bic and I thought
it would be useful to find out the nature of the research
project and the subjects involved. Unfortunately we
had to get onto the psychology department system directly.
So Bic and I sneaked into the psychology building and then
to an office. Bic logged on and started to download
information. We found out that John, Daryl, and Jane
were all test subjects in a study about Lunacy, that is, people
whose moods and behaviors are effected by different phases
of the moon. As we were downloading information, Dr.
Mallin discovered us and was about to call the police.
We told her that three people in the study were either attacked
or killed. she was not convinced of a connection, so
we told her about how both John and Daryl were impaled in
the ear. At that point she called Jane's coroner and
asked him to check Jane's ear; the coroner verified that there
were signs that Jane was impaled in her ear. Dr. Mallin
started to trust us and told us that she will get a hold of
all the patients in the area and warn them about the Impaler.
All she knew of us is that we were Daryl's friends and were
trying to figure out what was going on; therefore, there were
no mentions of the Society or of what we do.
The next morning we found out that there was another death,
this time it was in Dallas. It was of a man that died
on his house boat, the report stated that there was blood
from his ear, which they thought occurred after falling and
hitting his head. Of course we knew better. This
man was another patient in the Lunacy study. We had
to do something quick. The only lead we had was the
Wichita "Corps" location. So we went there. I
Left My Body and looked around in Achmed's Dress Shop, the
supposed location of the headquarters. There I found
an office area on the second story. In it I saw a man
with his throat torn up and flies buzzing around his body.
Near him was a living man that seemed to be recording mission
logs about killing lycanthropes to avenge his fallen comrades
and deciding where to strike next. I knew this was our
man. I went back to my body, and then I went into the
shop and distracted the clerk while Bic and Bud sneaked up
to the second floor. Then I heard some commotion on
the second floor, and I ran up there. There, I found
the Impaler, Bud and Bic in hand to hand combat. We
did not know if he was evil or just insane, so we just
wanted to incapacitate him. But amidst the fight Bud
and Bic pulled out their silver chambered guns and started
shooting at him, later on I noticed that the Impaler was getting
hairier. So we had to kill him before he transformed
into a Werewolf. We took his body, weapon and computer
with us before we ran away. I would like to mention
that I interacted with the store clerk before I ran upstairs
to help Bud and Bic, so he can definitely identify me to the
police if he wanted to.
|
Epilogue
John Brockway's Investigations (while the team was on mission
3)
Warning: If you are not playing John Brockway but you are
reading this, keep character knowledge separate from player
knowledge.
It really tore at you not to accompany your new team mates,
but your loyalty is not that easily one and you could not
ignore your old loyalties. Besides, the three of them are
a little sloppy, loud, and squeamish about wet work. Their
hearts are in the right place though. You have seen many "tough"
agents that would have run screaming from the things that
your Society team has faced.
As with most investigative work, it was slow starting. A
rumor of a witness from a friend of a friend of a snitch,
and so on. Nothing new. Within a few days of using your skills
to encourage people to "help" you out, you finally tracked
down the lead you had heard of. It was an uncomfortable position
to be in. You were pushing the bounds of official company
work so you could not get backup and you did not want to press
your buddy at the home office. He has a family and this is
not his sort of work. Give him a computer and he's dangerous;
give him a gun and he's more dangerous to himself than anyone
else.
In the end, it was the smell that got to you, which is strange
since you don't smell much. The contact was a junkie in the
worst way. He was about eighteen years old going on eighty.
Hygiene was a forgotten memory. The need for a fix so overwhelmed
his sensibilities that you couldn't get any information out
of him. You finally subdued him and drove him to a cheap motel.
Locked to a bed, you helped him get through withdrawal the
hard way over the weekend. The promises and offers that accompanied
his please for a fix became more increasingly depraved. You
were more than a little uncomfortable that some of them almost
sounded reasonable or intriguing. After one particularly grueling
session of insults, please, and vomiting, you found your gun
pressed into his mouth and your finger on the trigger. You
didn't remember consciously doing it and your detachment almost
frightened you.
After you got him cleaned up and he started making sense,
you politely squeezed him for all he knew. He had little new
information to offer, but what he did have was very interesting
indeed. Your dead friend had been associating with a mysterious
stranger that the junkie had seen many times in his area of
town. He related seeing the two of them meeting where the
junkies tended to congregate. The biggest shock came when
you sat him down at a laptop to generate a composite image
of the man he only referred to as "Mr. Pale." It was the same
man from the dream about Joey Mathers. The composite has yet
to turn up anything, but it does occur to you that if the
man was in fact a Creature and older than fifty or a hundred
years old, then there may be nothing in the systems you use.
The only new detail you have about the man is that he had
a slight French accent.
You turn the boy loose. Hopefully he'll stay on the straight
and narrow, but you don't hold out hope. You head back to
your home and check your messages, resuming your dual existence
with the company and the Society, satisfied that you've done
all you can on this lead.
What Next?
With the last days events and the time away from work, there
is little complaint when Steven tells the team that their
trip to Tibet has been postponed again. The Society staff
is working hard to crack and analyze the files taken from
the "SAVE" cell in Wichita Falls. The initial answer is that
Lycanthropy is not as cut and dried as one would hope, but
that helps explain the seemingly conflicting reports that
the Society has heard.
Steven sighs, "For now, go get some rest, get back into
the swing of normal life. Forget about guns, ghouls, and glyphs.
A local team is assisting Frank in Tibet right now and we'll
make sure you are kept informed of anything we find on this
Daniel Masterson. Initial reports indicate that the boy went
on an expedition into the mountains that never returned. I
know the work is exciting and your normal work may seem to
pale in significance, but I have also seen too many people's
life crushed out of them from too much contact with the Unknown.
I promise we won't call you for at least a week, now get out
of here." He says smiling. The team issues out quietly, each
person still processing what has happened recently. They stop
outside to discuss plans to hook up with John soon and find
out how he's doing.
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