Buzzster Hooperham
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The Quizmaster
Player Character
Posts: 132
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Buzzster Hooperham
OOC Username: D-Bug
Arena Points: 70
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Post by Buzzster Hooperham on Apr 22, 2023 10:36:06 GMT 9
"Mercury? Like the planet? Mate I don't know what sort of space juice they fill thermometers with where you're from, but we just use regular old apple-cider vinegar, extracted straight from the seeds." The metallic liquid seeped straight into Zac's skin, but he didn't seem to notice.
Zac looked around the cave, absentmindedly scratching his arm where the mercury had been absorbed. He noticed the plaque, and read it aloud. "Look to the stars for guidance. The constellations are the key." He looked around for stars, but just saw his Pokemon, La Trixxia, Petal, and-- "Charlie Sheen!" he shouted, holding up the terrified Surskit. "You're a star, right? They even put your name on Hollywood Boulevard!" He put the Pokemon down on the raised pedestal. "Charlie! What do you know about astrology?"
"Me? I only hatched last week," squeaked the little bug.
"An Aquarius, huh? That explains a lot." Buzzster arranged the metal balls to resemble the constellation of the water carrier. Nothing happened. "Verai! Quick, when's your birthday!"
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Buzzster Hooperham
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The Quizmaster
Player Character
Posts: 132
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Buzzster Hooperham
OOC Username: D-Bug
Arena Points: 70
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Post by Buzzster Hooperham on Apr 22, 2023 10:23:43 GMT 9
"Huh?" Buzzster said, trying to buy more time as he palmed a few palmiers. "Nah mate Sneee's a cat! See the ears and whiskers and tail and assorted catlike attributes? He's a cat just like me and you. Well, you at least. I'm a human. But you're a man-cat type thing, right? And Sneee's a cat." He turned to his fox. "Show 'em you're a cat, Sneee."
"Meow."
"See? Now that we've got that settled, is there coffee to go with these pastries?" he asked, putting a lamington between two almond cookies and taking a bite as if it were a high-carb sandwich. "The biscuits are great but a little dry."
Zac's mind was much slower than his hands, and as he filled his pockets with 'thinkin food' he twigged to something Verai had said earlier. "A class? Huh. Yeah okay. I consider myself a lifelong student. What's on the agenda, teach?"
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Buzzster Hooperham
•
The Quizmaster
Player Character
Posts: 132
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Buzzster Hooperham
OOC Username: D-Bug
Arena Points: 70
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Post by Buzzster Hooperham on Apr 22, 2023 10:00:11 GMT 9
"Only cults and mistresses offer free breakfasts!" The last words of Zac's grandmother rang in his head like the warning alarm of a DUI ankle bracelet. "Heads or tails, ay?" he said to Sneee, his cat for the day.
"Heads I win!" Snee replied, eager for any sort of interaction with his master. Sneee was a Nickit, and though he most closely resembled some sort of goth/fox/mop hybrid, he did possess a cat's self-confidence and love of gambling.
"Tell ya what. If nobody calls you out as not being a cat the whole time we're here, then you win. Otherwise I'm bringing La Trixxia next time." Buzzster poked his head in the door. The place looked normal enough. Smashed windows, no door, broken porcelain, way too much dust, Danishes. Buzzster entered without shame or hesitation.
He was a man with boundless confidence. A confidence man with no bondaries, if you will.
And then he spotted Verai at the breakfast table. "Howzit going man!" Buzzster said, approaching way too fast. "It's been ages since we've caught up. Are you here for the food or the cat care lessons?"
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Buzzster Hooperham
•
The Quizmaster
Player Character
Posts: 132
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Buzzster Hooperham
OOC Username: D-Bug
Arena Points: 70
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Post by Buzzster Hooperham on Apr 22, 2023 9:29:08 GMT 9
Zac rubbed his scalp, which was still dotted with lines of little tooth marks. "Thanks for the help little girl," he said, handing the flowers off to La Trixxia.
Suddenly, Buzzster recognized Aero. Maybe it was the snowman comment. Maybe it was a brainwave brought on by mild cranial injury, but either way a smile split his face like a flash of dental lightning. "Hey you're the one that helped me out before! At the slopes! Did I ever thank you for that? You know what, here you go." He reached behind Fuecoco's ear hole and pulled out an egg! "Huh? La Trixxia, weren't you holding this?" he asked, turning to his Vulpix.
Frowning, she opened her tails to reveal a little nest of golden coins. With a sound of disgust she shook them out into the tub.
"Huh. Well anyway-" Buzzster said, turning back to Aero, but as he did he stepped on a golden coin, slipping and falling into the boiling water, along with his egg!
He popped out a moment later, gasping in surprising and holding the egg to his chest.
The shell started to crack. "Trixx! Look!"
A black and red snout pushed through the thin out layer, sniffing the steaming air. It pulled back in, and a single, dark-lashed eye took its place.
Nickit has hatched!
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Buzzster Hooperham
•
The Quizmaster
Player Character
Posts: 132
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Buzzster Hooperham
OOC Username: D-Bug
Arena Points: 70
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Post by Buzzster Hooperham on Apr 17, 2023 21:32:51 GMT 9
"Another pair of hands and eyes is always appreciated," Buzzster said, giving Taylor a wink. "I've been searching all over the bloody place for her, but there's only so many wheelchair accessible places, so we'll find her eventually."
Zac tapped his chin, thinking. "The no catchphrase thing is a bit of a worry, but so is our transport situation. If we're gonna be roaming we should get something that can really eat up the miles, ay? Then we can workshop the catchphrase on the ride." He didn't wait for her to answer, and instead snuck over to the Poke-Ride Rental. There were a fine selection of Blitzle and Ponyta hitched to the posts, but Zac felt his eyes drawn to the Galarian Ponyta at the end of the line. It was eating out of a trough, and Zac felt an instant connection to the over-the-top horse. "Unhitch that one for me, and grab one for yourself, ay? I'll settle out accounts."
Despite his clear offer to pay, Buzzster instead headed around the back of the shop. Perhaps there was a back door. It probably wasn't worth worrying about.
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Buzzster Hooperham
•
The Quizmaster
Player Character
Posts: 132
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Buzzster Hooperham
OOC Username: D-Bug
Arena Points: 70
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Post by Buzzster Hooperham on Apr 17, 2023 21:24:57 GMT 9
"Ah! The little bugger has got me prize winning pompadour!" Zac said, bursting out of the water like a kaiju and whirling around. He tried to fling Fuecoco off his head without hurting the little guy, but the powerful, reptilian bite was clamped on hard. Buzzster tried to think rationally. "Okay, uh, I've got this. Uh, are ya hungry?" he asked the dangling crocodilian. "What if I traded you a delicious egg for letting go of me scalp? Trixx! Where's the egg?!"
An unamused looking Vulpix sauntered along the edge of the steaming bath. She had a creamy egg nestled in her bed of tails, and blinked languorously at the outrageous scene in front of her. "Noh'," she said, refusing to acquiesce her egg. She'd bonded with it in the last week, and there was no way she'd part with it now. It was so close to hatching!
"Okay, well what about if I give you....THIS!" With a flourish Zac produced a massive bouquet of flowers from a surprisingly roomy part of his swimsuit.
"Ze ans'er iz still noh'" La Trixxia said, and she curled up on a dry seat, well out of Zac's reach.
"Well, uh, how about you, miss?" Buzzster asked, offering the bouquet to Aero. "Help me get this little devil off?"
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Buzzster Hooperham
•
The Quizmaster
Player Character
Posts: 132
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Buzzster Hooperham
OOC Username: D-Bug
Arena Points: 70
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Post by Buzzster Hooperham on Apr 10, 2023 14:20:57 GMT 9
Zac loved the Western District. Everyone dressed in spurs and cowboy hats, and they all had cool facial hair and guns and loved drinking and gambling. It was just like being back in Vegas! It was almost like there was an unspoken dress code among the NPCs of this area, which made it very easy to pick out newcomers.
"How's it going!" Buzzster said, approaching Taylor at a brisk walk. "Buzzster Hooperham's the name and magic's the game. But that's neither here or there. I'm actually looking for someone. A player." It was the same speech he gave every player he met. After all, he'd been invited to play the game by his adoring niece, only for her to disappear! Now here he was, prowling the cowboy part of town and stopping strangers outside the Poke-Ride Rental shop hoping to stumble into a lead.
"Do you know a Bergamot Gristleborg? Brown hair, teen, might have a wheelchair. Very kind eyes. Favorite color is...I wanna say blue? Anyway I'm out here looking for her."
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Buzzster Hooperham
•
The Quizmaster
Player Character
Posts: 132
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Buzzster Hooperham
OOC Username: D-Bug
Arena Points: 70
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Post by Buzzster Hooperham on Apr 10, 2023 14:05:29 GMT 9
"What sort of puzzle?" Buzzster chuckled. "Well they're all the same, right? Every puzzle is made by some bloody nerd boy who thinks he's the best thing since Peppermint Schnapps." He rearranged a few of the balls, mixing them up terribly in the process. "Huh." He rearranged them again and, completely by chance, returned them all to their starting spots. "So we've got to get into the mind of the designer, you see, puzzle making is just applied philosophy." He finally heard Verai's voice, and trailed off as he noticed his adventuring buddy was staring at the ceiling. Buzzster followed the man's gaze, and his eyes widened as he rook in the picturesque aquatic landscape that seemed to live and swell in the roof of the cave.
"Whoa! Trippy!" Buzzster said, as a drop from the ceiling splattered onto his suit. "That's some real graphics up there. It's like one of those M.C. Hammer paintings!" He grabbed one of the metal balls and, logically, hurled it right into the lake on the ceiling. The splash from the orb sprayed the room in liquid, which beaded in silver droplets on every surface, flickering and wriggling. The beads pulled together in tiny puddles, and Zac, curious, licked a droplet off his hand. "Huh. Tastes just like those old thermometers."
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Buzzster Hooperham
•
The Quizmaster
Player Character
Posts: 132
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Buzzster Hooperham
OOC Username: D-Bug
Arena Points: 70
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Post by Buzzster Hooperham on Apr 10, 2023 13:54:15 GMT 9
Zac didn't know anything about passwords or secret doors, and beyond the sheer dumb luck of accidentally hitting on a waitress by calling her a 'Spring Kitten' he had absolutely 0% chance of stumbling upon the daily password.
However, he did have a knack for finding unsecured ventilation shafts, and after a quick slide and shimmy down the chrome tubing he found himself in the men's changing room. He 'borrowed' one of the 'rental' swimsuits that had been safely locked away in a courtesy locker, and slipped into the largest of the unisex tubs.
"Oh yeah. That's just what the doctor ordered," Buzzster said, leaning back against the smooth stone wall of the steaming tub and feeling the heat of the water leech into his body. Charlie Sheen, his Surskit, skated across the surface of the water, moving in little bursts of speed before stopping and slowly turning in place. Zip! Pause. Zip! Pause.
Zac watched her for a while, slowly sliding further and further under the waters, until only his hair and eyes remained above the waterline. He was like a redheaded crocodile, only with far more golden teeth and less of a propensity to ambush antelope.
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Buzzster Hooperham
•
The Quizmaster
Player Character
Posts: 132
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Buzzster Hooperham
OOC Username: D-Bug
Arena Points: 70
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Post by Buzzster Hooperham on Apr 10, 2023 0:42:55 GMT 9
Finger sandwiches? Abandoned on their tiny plates. Sweet tea? Spilled on the blue and white picnic blanket. Scones? Left half-smeared with jam and cream, never to be nibbled.
"There's no scene more devastating that an abandoned picnic," Buzzster said, shaking his head at the tragic loss of lunch. He his behind a massive tree, hoping to avoid detection by the hundred furious Beedrill that had swarmed their delightful picnic. "This is just like Pearl Harbor. Bastards came at us without warning or provocation. What do they even want?"
"Maybe they're hungry," Petal suggested. She had seen Beedrill drawn to fruits and flowers before, and the combination of sweet and fragrant picnic choices may well have been the reason for the insect invasion. She watched as one of the Beedrill stabbed a jammy scone with its drill and fed it carefully to another Beedrill.
Zac shook his head. "Nah, they're after something else. You can't trick a trickster, and this trickster's still got a few tricks up his trousers." Buzzster gave Petal a wink that suggested a far more robust plan than he currently had. "Okay Petal. Just follow my lead, okay?"
"Huh?"
Zac leapt out into the picnic clearing, where the smothering buzz of the Beedrill made the air quiver. "Hey! Look at me ya stupid insects!" Buzzster shouted. A dozen sets of compound eyes turned, boring into the redhead.
With a flick of the wrist Zac pulled a bouquet of fake flowers from his sleeve and tossed them high into the air. The insect eyes follwed the brilliant flowers as they arced high and fell right at Petal's feet. "Buh!?"
"Grab 'em Petal! Run run run! Draw 'em to the lake!"
"What lake!?"
"It doesn't matter, any will do! Just go!"
A chunk of the Beedrill swarm was already in the are, and they surged after Petal as she scurried away at top speed, fake flowers clutched in her sweaty vines.
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Buzzster Hooperham
•
The Quizmaster
Player Character
Posts: 132
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Buzzster Hooperham
OOC Username: D-Bug
Arena Points: 70
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Post by Buzzster Hooperham on Apr 7, 2023 1:54:05 GMT 9
Sneaking around in abandoned caves was always a bit of a risk. You could step on rusty nails, fall down abandoned mineshafts, become stuck underneath a hibernating grizzly, or stuck when you accidentally set off a complex puzzle!
Thankfully, Buzzster was a seasoned expeditionaire, so he didn't panic when he set off a complex puzzle and the steel door slammed shut behind the pair, leaving them in darkness.
"No worries mate, I've got this one nappin," Buzzster said, sending out La Trixxia. The Vulpix delicately ignited the braziers set into the room's alcoves, and in the thick, smoky light of the torches they observed what was stopping them walking right back out of the cave: a puzzle.
The room had two doors: the now sealed entrance, and a second, smaller door leading further into the carved cliffside.
The entrance door had been triggered when he had picked up a gleaming metal ball from the pedestal in the center of the room. It was one of nine metal balls, each nestled in a hole in the pedestal. Buzzster dropped the ball back in the hole and it snapped back into place, drawn in by the natural magnetism of the iron-rich stone that the mountain cave was carved from.
"Well it's simple, right? We just have to solve the puzzle and then we can go!"
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Buzzster Hooperham
•
The Quizmaster
Player Character
Posts: 132
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Buzzster Hooperham
OOC Username: D-Bug
Arena Points: 70
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Post by Buzzster Hooperham on Mar 30, 2023 1:18:45 GMT 9
Zac hated graverobbing. It was always messy, often fruitless, and bone dust had this weird smell that was hard to get out of car seats. Besides, the word 'graverobbing' was so judgy. Who was being robbed, really? The deceased didn't need their items, and anything of value that was intended to remain in the family should have been willed to a loving son or cold-hearted step-daughter.
"Hey! Find anything over there?" Buzzster called over the rounded headstones and blunted crosses. He was deploying the classic 'divide and plunder' strategy, and while he briefly scanned each gravestone for signs of pre-deceasement riches his B-Team of Petal, La Trixxia, and Charlie Sheen scoped out the mausoleum side of the yard.
"Uh, nope! I think all the treasure is back in that sunny grove we passed an hour back," Petal said. Something hooted from the crooked trees nearby and her head whipped around. "Trixx!" she hissed. "Tell me you found something!"
"Noh. Ai've been loo'ing after zis, 'ow you say, 'eg'." The Vulpix has her baking tails coiled around the egg from Zac's latest breakfast hunt. It was a rusty brown, like her own coat, and she was hoping against hope that inside was going to be another Vulpix, or at least someone with more than coins or acorns rattling around in their head.
Zac finished checking a row, and was absentmindedly brushing the leaves off of a marble headstone when a vision stopped him cold. He wasn't touching marble at all. No. Instead he was reaching out to touch thee frozen, snow-crusted wrists of a winter corpse. He jumped back, bumping into another headstone, which set rocking like the long-empty chair of some missing grandparent. "Ah! Bugger off ghosts! I haven't even taken anything yet ya greedy spirits!"
The leaves underfoot coiled around his ankles like deciduous serpents, and he stamped them away, stumbling back down the line of graves. His foot his against something solid, and he spun around to see two corpses lying on the ground. The first was a young girl with crazy green hair and bright purple clothing. She wasn't his type, and was too old to be a potential assistant, so her appearance was more shocking than alluring. But the second corpse was what really caught his eye.
It was a handsome man with bright red hair, a suave suit made for on-the-go chicanery, and a winning smile, even when lying dead in the dirt. "That's...me?" Buzzster said, just a moment before his knees gave out. "Still got it," he mumbled, as he collapsed into darkness.
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Buzzster Hooperham
•
The Quizmaster
Player Character
Posts: 132
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Buzzster Hooperham
OOC Username: D-Bug
Arena Points: 70
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Post by Buzzster Hooperham on Mar 22, 2023 22:59:29 GMT 9
Zac tested the vine. "The secret is to make sure it can hold your weight," he told Petal.
"That's not a secret. That's just good sense!" replied the Chikorita. "Otherwise you'd fall!"
"Fall?" Buzzster asked leadingly, "why, it's barely even Spring!" He pulled a clenched fist up into view with a flourish. "And do you know what my favorite Spring flower is?"
"The Magnolia?" Chikorita asked excitedly. That was her favorite flower, and she felt it deserved more representation.
"No. The goldenrod!" he announced, opening his fist to reveal an oversized gold coin. "Now check this out!" He waggled his fingers magically and the coin raised itself up onto one edge and started to spin slowly in place.
"Wow! That's so cool! How are you doing that?" Petal asked.
Zac chuckled. "A magician never reveals his secrets for free." He winked at the Gimmighoul that was hidden behind the coin.
"Let me try! I can make stuff appear too!" Petal said. She clenched her eyes and a fountain of multicolored Magical Leaves shot from her head. They sprayed into the canopy, cutting vines and swatting at least one Pidgey out of the branches above them.
"Hey that's pretty good! I bet I could put that in my act somewhere." Buzzster nodded to himself, and was deep in thought when a brilliant magenta leaf floated stem-first right into his eye. "Stevie Wonder's ghost!" Zac swore, stepping back and clutching at his injured eye.
Unfortunately, the tree branch was far thinner than required for such a natural reaction. Buzzster grasped at the open air, his fist closing around a vine just in the nick of time.
His downward momentum levelled out as he swung at high velocity through the branches, and in a fantastic display of temporal synchronicity he shot straight past Aero, missing the youth by just a few pixels. He gripped the vine with white knuckles, teeth grinding like a box of dice as foliage whipped past him at high speed. NEXT PROMPT (46): [Tower]a|pkn5fX1d501d50
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Buzzster Hooperham
•
The Quizmaster
Player Character
Posts: 132
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Buzzster Hooperham
OOC Username: D-Bug
Arena Points: 70
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Post by Buzzster Hooperham on Mar 15, 2023 11:39:31 GMT 9
"Venomous? Nah you're thinking of poisonous!" Zac said, accepting the strong hand of his fishing friend and clambering, sopping wet, back into the boat. "I had a whole plate of 'em when I was in Bali and I swear I mustn't have built up a natural immunity to them as a kid because I had to have my bloody appendix out!"
He caught the massive urchin, only pricking himself a few times on the venomous spikes. "Ouch! This little devil's got a bit of a poke to him though. Huh...Does this look swollen to you?" But Verai was gone! He'd already jumped into the water and surfaced a moment later with his own, snapping, catch! "Whoa! Look at the coloring on that guy!" Buzzster said. Roles reversed, he now helped Verai and his Litten back into the boat.
"I was trying to echolocate," Buzzster explained , once they were all back in the boat. "Bats use it for prey, dolphins use it to find fish. It just makes sense, right? You just do a little of this," he closed his eyes and did the clicking again, as if this were a brief tutorial for animals on YouTube. "And then you just stick your hand in and-" he plunged elbow-deep into the water and pulled out a [Bigness]eB9AxalI1d100 [Description]1d90 [Blarney]1d100. Buzzster blinked, and dropped his catch into the bottom of the boat before looking Verai dead in the face. "Not gonna lie to you here bud, I didn't expect it to be that easy."
Apparently the fishing system for the event was very forgiving.
1d100·1d90·1d100
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Buzzster Hooperham
•
The Quizmaster
Player Character
Posts: 132
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Buzzster Hooperham
OOC Username: D-Bug
Arena Points: 70
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Post by Buzzster Hooperham on Mar 13, 2023 23:01:29 GMT 9
Zac helped the other man back into the boat. He was entranced by the new Pokemon that Verai had just caught. It was tiny and frilly. It reminded him of his stage assistants in Vegas.
"Okay gimme a go," Buzzster said, putting his rod away. He closed his eyes and, more surprisingly, his mouth.
Silence spread like Crisco across the lake.
With his eyes closed he felt his other senses strengthen to compensate.
He could almost feel the fish wriggling around below them.
Almost sense them.
Almost taste them...or was that just the salty Corsol from before?
The thick quiet was broken by Zac making a high pitching clicking noise. The sound reverberated off the water, ricocheting like sonar waves.
He clicked again. His tongue snapping in his mouth as he let out the strange clicks, eyes still closed.
Suddenly his head whipped around, and he pointed out to starboard. "There! Two feet down!" he yelled, before diving into the water.
He surfaced a moment later, victorious, with a [Bigness]f7OBd5yv1d100 [Description]1d90 [Blarney]1d100 gripped in his hands. 1d100·1d90·1d100
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