Title: The Forsaken

Author: Link Worshiper

Pairings: 1=2, maybe some others if I feel like it

Rating: PG-13

Stuff: Fantasy AU, fluff, sap, language, adventure, WoW nerdiness

Disclaimer: I own Gundam Wing action figures? Warcraft and its lore belongs to Blizzard Entertainment. Both things are being played with out of fangirl love.

Thanks to danse and Natea for the once over. Despite the fact this is part of Natea’s birthday present, I still needed her to fill me in on the Alliance history they don’t teach us on Horde, so thanks for that also =P

Sorry this took me forever to write! Stupid holidays. But at least this chapter’s length should make up for it! I hope, anyway!

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Part XVIII

The Cauldron Pit

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The Dark Irons took Heero so deep into the earth, it wasn’t long before he had lost all sense of where he might be. Through his silent observations, he could tell only that the colour of the rock was slowly shifting from red to a more deadened tone, and that it grew more swelteringly hot with every step they took, but it wasn’t much to go on. The tunnels through which they walked were cut through the very heart of the earth, where not even a single mote of sunlight could waft, and the only sound to be heard was the drip-dripping of water as it sweat from the stalactites overhead. If Heero could be sure of one thing, it was that these passageways had probably been there since the dawn of time and were home to yet more eldritch secrets than the ones he had unearthed in Uldaman.

What he found at the end of the march, which seemed to have dragged on for at least a league or two, was far from what he’d expected, though perhaps not altogether surprising. They now stood in a cavernous pit that boiled with the heat of the magma that dribbled down the walls and diverted through a series of irrigated troughs. Dozens of slaves of every imaginable race in Azeroth lined the rivers of lava, smelting an endless supply of thorium ore into tempered metal under the watchful eyes of more Dark Irons. The clang of hammers upon anvils and pumping bellows filled the stifling air as Heero looked on in horror, unable to believe that the Dark Irons were overseeing such a heinous operation in relative secret.

“I hope ye got a good eyeful,” piped up one of his captors as they dragged Heero through the slave-driven forge, “fer tha’s where ye’ll find yerself come th’ next sunup.” The guffaw that followed was horrible because of the mirth with which it rang.

They brought Heero to a large cell that was hewn into the rock not far from the forge, pushing him in and locking the crude grate that served as a door behind him. The anvils still reverberated in Heero’s ears and the red glow of the lava stained his vision and burnt his skin, assuring him that sleep would never be a lengthy visitor. It was all he could do to crawl as far back into the cell as he could and hope to recuperate before the Dark Irons returned to seal him in bondage. Clinking in his chains as he moved, he barely managed to find a suitable expanse of rock to lean against as he lamented what a fix he’d managed to land himself in this time. It would take no less than a miracle from Elune to save him now.

Closing his eyes, he wondered what he had done to deserve such a fate – besides the obvious, of course. He conjectured whether or not it would be in his best interest to just allow the order of the universe to take its course without any input from him, hoping that it might at least do to set right whatever his actions had thrown out of balance. It concerned him that his gut instincts might not always be the best course of action. Squinting his eyes shut, he tried to rest for the time being, but it was still difficult, even when he managed to tune out the clamour of the forge.

Momentarily, a sharp whisper in the darkness cut into his restless sleep: “Who be you, mon?” came a female voice that was soaked heavily in a trollish island accent.

Startling, Heero’s eyes snapped open and he roved the shadowy cell in search of the speaker, which didn’t take long: nearby, bound just as he was in chained cuffs, was a troll woman with nappy, white hair, glowering at him suspiciously. She was small for her race, but still at least two feet taller than Heero, clad in the vestments of some kind of healer, though it was hard to tell for certain since her robes were marred and torn after being held prisoner.

“What’s it to you?” Heero snapped, not about to make conversation with a troll when he had more pressing things to worry about. It was only then that he noticed from the corner of his eye that Asahi was scurrying back into his hip pouch, leaving Heero to sigh in frustration: of course that meddlesome pet of Duo’s would go upsetting the likes of trolls at a time like this.

“If you’re going to be on our shift, we have a right to know. We’re not going to go another day without food because the newbie screwed up,” hissed another female voice, this one a bit more sturdy and raspy than that of the troll. Heero glanced nary a few feet over to discover an orc woman in wearing a jerkin and leggings made of dirty animal skins. Her hair was long and braided, which, upon noticing, Heero couldn’t help but associate with Duo: he mentally berated himself for the thought, though.

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you could mean,” Heero answered tersely, though to the best of his knowledge, it was the truth. He’d gathered that he would eventually be put to work in that hellish forge, certainly, but the implication that he would do something to jeopardize those upon whom he relied was completely absurd. His glare cut through the reddened darkness, daring either one of them to contest his worth. Reaching down to pick up Asahi, he then said, “I could do with an explanation as to what place this is, though.”

“The seat o’ da Dark Iron war machine,” said the troll.

“A slave pit,” said the orc.

“I gathered that much. But where?” Heero returned with equal animosity. It was hard to tell if the tension between them had more to do with the situation or the preexisting lines that had been drawn between them the moment they caught sight of the shapes of one another’s bodies and the colours of their skins.

Both the orc and the troll could only shrug, and for a moment, Heero thought they were just trying to be difficult, until the orc elaborated. “They call it the Cauldron,” she said, her voice still addled with hate. “Only the ancestors know how many of their prisoners have died to fuel its foul purpose – or what that purpose might even be.”

“So basically what you’re telling me is that they expect us to only bide time until the inevitable,” Heero summed up with a frown. He probably should have figured as much, but now he knew for sure that breaking out was the only option if he meant to get away from this place. He then pressed his cellmates if either knew a way to escape or if anyone had ever managed the task.

Again, both the orc and the troll could only shrug, though after exchanging a wary glance, the troll then added in a low whisper, “Yah mon, many ‘ave tried, but no one ‘as eva’ done it. ‘Oweva’, de closest anybody eva’ got ta doin’ it was just a bit ago. Neva’ seen more determination in anybody, mon.”

“It certainly killed morale to see him fail,” the orc groused a bit morosely, glaring off to the side as she idly picked at her teeth with a sharp nail. “But if we learned anything, it’s that planning is key if we’re to ever leave this place.”

“An’ maybe some helpin’ from de outside, yah?” added the troll.

Heero stopped talking them abruptly, now armed with enough information to mull over what he ought to do next more astutely. He thought that for now, it would be best to play into the hands of the Dark Irons and do exactly what they expected of him. With any luck, he would manage to find out more about this botched escape plan and how to make sure that his own was incapable of failing.

“I see that look in your eye,” the orc spoke up, interrupting Heero’s thoughts. She was still acting nonchalant, though her eyes had rolled over in Heero’s direction as she whet her nail against one of her tusks. “It’s the same look he had when he first came here – the same one he had until the Dark Irons crushed his rebelliousness.” She dropped her hand and curled her mouth into a rather unimpressed shape: “Who are you, anyway?”

Heero couldn’t say he cared for the orc’s attitude. She might have had some kind of predisposition about him because of his race, but she didn’t know anything about what kind of person he was, nor the kind of power the Epyon sigil benefited him with. For the first time, he was actually grateful for the curse, and a rather devilish smirk rose to his face as he thought of the devastation that he might bring when his chance to escape finally came. “My name is Heero Yuy,” he said with an air of confidence he couldn’t quite mask. “You would do to remember it.”

The orc female only sneered at Heero though: his name was only that to her, and meant nothing. “Good, good,” she jibed, curling her lips into a sneer that cast hideous shadows across her green face. “Now I’ll know what to say when we are left to acknowledge the passing of your spirit over your corpse.”

The way the troll and the orc then proceeded to laugh literally made Heero’s blood curdle.

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Heero only considered his first shift in the forge the next day because he’d managed to squeeze an hour or two of plagued sleep between then and the conversation he’d had with the troll and the orc. Their demeanor had left him even more paranoid than he’d been before, and even when genuine fatigue rose to meet him, he knew he’d only feel safe if he could sleep with one eye open.

When he was roused, it was at the cruel tip of a Dark Iron dagger, which forced him to his feet and out of the cave prison. They marched him with the rest of the prisoners and set them to work. Because Heero was fresher to the pit and more fit than most, he was thrown onto the massive bellows, which required two teams of eight to pump nonstop with their feet. At first it wasn’t so bad, but never being allowed a break or even a sip of water in the volcanic heat was quick to take its toll on Heero’s physique.

It was like that for three days, all through which Heero kept his eyes carefully peeled for any weaknesses in the Dark Iron sentry that kept them to their task, and his ears sharp for any whispers that might help him devise a way to escape. He still heard about the prisoner who had tried to make his escape before his arrival, and it impressed him that despite the botched attempt, he had managed to become some kind of hero amongst all the slaves of the Cauldron, both Alliance and Horde alike. It seemed as though he had tried to use some kind of spell to cast the abundant lava that flowed through the pit against the Dark Irons, but hadn’t calculated that his enemies would have been proficient sorcerers themselves. There was a damaged section of the forge that was left unused, apparently the destruction that had been left in the wake of the prisoner’s rebellion. Heero found himself secretly lauding such chaos, for once wishing he was adept enough with magic to continue the work the would-be escapist had started. At the same time, he found himself thinking that perhaps another approach would be more successful, though he had yet to decide if all out force or discretion would win the day in the end. He needed more time to assess and plan; the question was just whether or not his body could take the duress.

After a few more days, Heero came to expect certain things to a point where they had almost become routine, and it was only then that he felt comfortable with formulating a substantial jail break. In particular, he had noticed the way his cellmates, the orc and the troll, seemed to have a penchant for attracting the attention of the Dark Iron sentries with their own breed of mutiny almost regularly, and the ruckus they created was to point where Heero was confident that the patrols became lax enough for him to slip through to freedom. For once, he felt proud to have been trained so well in the art of thieving and sneaking about, knowing that those skills were going to be his saving grace this time. Now it was just a matter of waiting for the right moment.

His opportunity came not long after. The orc and the troll had, once again, managed to sabotage a few of the weapons at the anvil they had been chained to, and, just like clockwork, were taking their punishment for it. The Dark Iron task masters seemed to revel in the regularity of their impudence, for it meant that they could take turns beating the prisoners like it was a daily exercise, and it was that spectacle that Heero sought to take advantage of. The second he heard that first whip crack, he bolted from his position on the bellows ropes, leaving the rest of his teammates to pump them without his help. Effortlessly, he melded into the harsh shadows cast by the rocks standing in the magma’s glow and crept along the wall towards the scaffolding that rose towards the crumbling lip of the pit.

His original plan had been to avoid killing anyone if he could, since that would only risk his escape, but when he reached the foot of the wooden structure and found a pair of guards standing in his way, he knew that there was nothing else for him to do. Weaponless, he crept up behind the first Dark Iron and flung his arms around his neck, crushing his arms around the dwarf’s throat until he breathed no more. Then Heero quickly disarmed the corpse and launched himself at the other sentry before he even had a chance to react. After unsheathing the stolen dirk from the slain dwarf’s neck, Heero wiped the brackish blood off on his sleeve and quickly started his ascent of the scaffolding, wooden planks creaking beneath his feet as he made due haste.

Unfortunately for Heero, his luck was almost up. What he had forgotten to calculate was the patterns of the Dark Iron patrols at the top of the pit, and just as he was taking his first breath of smokeless air, he found himself hopelessly surrounded by a whole platoon of Dark Irons. “Clever of ye, worryin’ only aboot ye’self instead o’ trying to make a real mess,” said the captain of the brigade that stood around Heero in a tight circle. “Get ‘im back in chains and lock ‘im up where he won’t make any more trouble fer a while,” the Dark Iron captain then commanded sharply, and Heero could only wonder what was wrong with him that his best reaction was to smirk defiantly as the other dwarfs closed in on him.

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They brought Heero back down into the Cauldron, but instead of throwing him into the prison cave that he had been kept in before, Heero was led further into the earth’s bowels, where he was shoved into an even smaller and more remote cell that was hewn into the cliffs. Here, the firelight from the forge barely penetrated the blackness, and it took almost fifteen minutes for Heero’s eyes to adjust to it. Unlike the other prison cell, it seemed like this one was intended to be some kind of solitary confinement, which didn’t bode well for Heero. Growling under his breath, he let the defiance pounding in his chest strike out, glad he was at least marked for an honourable death that he could take pride in.

“Who’s there?”

It was then that he realized that he was not the only one who’d been left to rot there. He peered into the shadows, where, just barely illuminated by the red glow of the forge, he thought he could make out a hunched figure crumpled against the craggy wall. Intrigued by the potential of an ally in this most dismal of places, he crawled in that direction to investigate if only to satisfy his curiosity. But upon discovering what manner of wretch lay chained to the back of the cell, Heero rocked back on his haunches, unsure how to describe how he felt about what he saw.

The withered figure chained to the wall by the ankle was none other than Duo, and Heero cursed Elune for her ill sense of humour. And yet, Heero couldn’t help but notice how Duo looked even more decrepit and wan than he remembered him being. His cheeks were so sallow, it looked as if the skin had melted from his skull and left only bone, and his braid seemed to have been singed a good foot shorter than Heero remembered it being. The purple robe Heero had grown so used to seeing draped over Duo’s skeletal body was gone, leaving him in only the torn britches and shirt he wore underneath. He supposed forced labour was bound to take a toll on even someone who had been dead as long as Duo had, but he couldn’t shake the queasiness that overwhelmed him at the thought of it managing to snuff out Duo’s buoyant personality. The poor creature before him didn’t seem to be aware of his presence, or at the very least, unable to move enough to acknowledge him. Heero found himself in a conundrum, wondering if he ought to say something: every time he opened his mouth, though, he was left wordless, unable to find the right things to say. It was only then that he realized that such things were probably never in his repertoire to begin with, and the notion was more disconcerting than he’d anticipated. He wondered how long ago Duo had been captured.

Heero was saved the agony of having to figure out what he ought to do by the throaty sound of Duo’s voice, which was unmistakable despite how squashed and worn as it was from days of disuse. “Help me,” he sputtered without even turning his head to look at Heero. “Whoever you are, you have to help me.”

Under normal circumstances, Heero might have been pleased to be nothing more than a ghost to everyone around him, but upon hearing Duo speak in such a way, he was unable to suppress the knot of malcontent that had become lodged in the depth of his stomach. Despite the gravity of their situation and the fact that he was practically on Death’s doorstep, Heero couldn’t ignore the distrust he still felt towards the warlock. Steeling himself, Heero let his frustration boil a little bit as he said edgily, “And why should I? I am not a cast away tool for your convenience, Duo.”

The proximity of Heero’s voice seemed to stir something in Duo, who shifted the slightest bit so that he might check that his ears weren’t deceiving him. The nearly extinguished glow in his eye sockets flared up briefly when he caught sight of Heero, though it was impossible to tell exactly what emotion had flared up within the beaten warlock. With what might have even been called sarcasm, Duo rasped, “Then why have you come here?” He struggled to sit up and face Heero, though in his weakened state, even that was difficult. A strained smile warped his already decrepit features as he murmured, “After everything I’ve survived, it would be fitting that it would be you who would finally put an end to me….”

Even in the boiling heat, Heero felt a shiver roll down his spine at Duo’s eerie resignation and could only wonder at it. He narrowed his eyes at the warlock’s dark shape, wanting to resent him and bewildered that he found it hard to. “I’m not here to…” he trailed off, choking on the sound of his own voice. “That is, I….” He cleared his throat, now more annoyed with himself than anything. Clenching his hands into fists of frustration, he finally managed to grind out, “The question is, rather, what you are doing here!”

“Withering;” A vague and crooked smile appeared on Duo’s face as he spoke: “Withering away for you.”

“You really are a fool,” Heero hissed, his eyes flashing like cinders. “You should know well that we have nothing to do with each other.”

The sound of Duo’s rusting bonds clinked as he shifted, struggling to sit up despite himself. “Sometimes, I wonder if it’s not the reverse that is true,” he rasped, futilely trying to rub away the soot that caked his face. “Sometimes… I wonder if you don’t see me at all. No matter how I reach for you, it’s like grasping at a ghost.” His fleshy hand was extended feebly out towards Heero as he spoke, but Heero only recoiled from it. “You know you’re all I ever wanted….”

Heero wanted to tell him that it was too late for sentiments like that, and yet, all he could think about was how alone he’d felt since Duo had left. He’d always tried to think of his time in Dalaran as some kind of transient fantasy, and yet, every day he’d tried to face since then were the ones that hardly seemed real. If these weren’t things he had been carrying within his misplaced soul since then, he might have wondered what kind of lunacy the warlock’s magic had cast over him since their journey had begun. Duo had left him unraveled, and truth be told, he wasn’t sure he even knew how to sew himself back together. If anything, all he had to offer Duo anymore was sorrow. Emotionally cornered, the only thing Heero could think to say was, “It’s better if I walk away.”

The dim glow of Duo’s soul nearly extinguished itself as Heero spoke those words. He slumped even lower against the cavern wall, his weariness finally showing through. “You know, even in death, I was always sure I’d see you again,” he murmured, his hand dropping limply to his side. “I would rather just lay down my life for you than try to make it through another day if that’s really….” For the first time since Heero had known Duo, he heard him stutter. Then Duo mumbled almost inaudibly, “…if that’s really how it must end.”

The finality of Duo’s defeat clawed at Heero’s chest as if he had been just as wounded. “You say it as though you haven’t been able to manage without me before,” he frowned, eyeing the space between where they both sat as if the span was miles longer than the few feet that actually separated them. “I don’t see why tomorrow has to be any different from the day before I stumbled into your molding graveyard.”

“A lie!” Duo flared, his eyes glowering momentarily brighter as his passion singed his words. For a moment, Heero thought he might have actually garnered enough strength to rip his shackles clean from the wall. “Tomorrow, there is no chance that I might live to kiss you again, and I will be dead whether my soul is here or upon the winds – whether I draw breath or not!” He curled his knees against his chest and bent his elbows over his knees so that he might hide his head behind his forearms. “Until now, I had a reason to risk everything – for the chance that I’d be able to go home to you. Take it away, and there is no more reason for me to walk the earth a moment longer.” His fingers knotted themselves into his mossy hair, and he quaked like he might have been crying if tears were able to well in his eyes.

“And that is why I’ve found you locked away in such a place as this?” Heero asked, hastily drawing their conversation back full circle. He still hadn’t heard what Duo was doing there, but he was starting to gather a few ideas. Truth be told, hearing Duo confess such things to him frightened Heero a little bit, afraid that it would take but one word from Duo to reawaken the emotions he had to fight so hard to bury. Even as it was, his heart trembled at the very sound of Duo’s voice, even as blighted as it was in its decay.

“Verily,” came Duo’s muffled reply. He lifted his head slightly, daring to take a peek at Heero’s face, though he didn’t expect to see any sort of empathy there. “I came looking for a relic in Uldaman I heard might help break your curse,” he said as he started to unlace the collar of his shirt. Pulling it open and exposing a spot in his torso where the flesh had rotted away to expose two of his ribs, he plunged his fingers into the cavity and started fishing around inside. “I managed to find it before those bastards ambushed me on my way out,” he said, yanking his hand out with a slight wince and tossing Heero the very chisel he had been searching for. It was stained with a thin coat of dried blood, but the faint glow the item carried made its magical properties unmistakable. “Take it. Elune has obviously guided you here so that you might, as I was clearly not even fit enough to bring it to you myself,” Duo went on, gesturing idly to it with a hand that was similarly blotted with the bloodstains he’d garnered on it after plunging it into his corpse. “I couldn’t even get out of here on my own. I know it’s my own damn fault.” He groaned and buried his face back into his lap, careless of the blood on his one hand as he weaved it back into his matted hair.

There wasn’t a breath to be heard in that tiny cavern, for Duo had stopped breathing long ago and Heero had forgotten how. The human stared down at the chisel that lay so innocuously in the soot before him and found himself profoundly moved, not by its presence, but the fact that it was Duo’s own blood smeared across its surface. With shaking fingers, he reached for it and held it up only to stare at it with the same bewildered face before glancing back at Duo, who seemed to have completely wilted in his place. Had Duo really gone to such lengths to prove himself to Heero once more? Thinking about the destruction he’d seen in the Cauldron that Heero now knew could be none other than Duo’s handiwork when he’d tried to escape, Heero wasn’t quite sure what he ought to think about it anymore. All he knew for certain was that no matter how he searched, he would never find someone who would love him the way Duo had. One look at Duo’s fading eyes was more than enough to tell that was true.

In that moment, Heero made a decision. Lurching towards Duo, brandishing the sacred chisel, Heero tested its strength on the chain that kept Duo bound to the wall. With a bright flash of light, the chisel’s flat tip sliced into the rusted links, shattering them with nary more than a few strikes. Then, reaching for Duo, who was still curled into himself, Heero shook him and wordlessly held the chisel out to him, silently entreating him to take it back, though the warlock hardly seemed to care about anything that was going on around him anymore. “You should take this again. Until I have fulfilled my end of the bargain and stolen you that elixir, you must,” Heero said at length, rapping Duo’s cold cheek. Growing slightly concerned, he gripped Duo’s upper arm and used his other hand to turn Duo’s face towards his. “Please, Duo,” he murmured, unnerved by the hollow shadows in Duo’s eye sockets; “Let me restore your faith in me.”

But Duo was limp in his hands, almost as if the life was slowly ebbing out of his corpse. His head lolled against Heero’s arm, connecting with an open wound that sent a burning pain shooting through Heero’s body, though Heero hardly noticed until he felt Duo stir against it, like he was actually brushing against the gash on purpose. Another sting impaled his arm, and Heero snapped his attention back at Duo, appalled to find the warlock was actually lapping at the blood and nibbling at the raw flesh. At first, Heero wanted to snatch his arm away in mortification, but then he noticed that Duo actually seemed to be recovering a bit of his former vigour the more he feasted upon Heero’s wound. Once he realized that this cannibalistic ritual was actually rejuvenating Duo’s strength, Heero was able to stomach the searing pain, even offering himself more freely as Duo grabbed him by the wrist and thrust his tongue into the gash: Heero swallowed his scream.

At last, his eyes alight with the glow of his soul once more, Duo sat up and met Heero’s carefully schooled expression with one of immense gratitude. His face was stained with a salve of soot and Heero’s blood, making his decrepit face even more terrible than it usually was, but Heero had never been so relieved to see any other. A part of him still stung at the memory of their particular history together, but in that moment, it hardly mattered. Resolutely, he squared his shoulders and surreptitiously tried to clot his bleeding arm on the fabric of his tunic as he announced flatly, “I refuse to tarry here a moment longer.”

“And I,” Duo replied. Acting more like himself (which was a great relief to Heero), Duo grinned cockily; “Let us fly from here on an angry wind!”

Heero watched as Duo shakily stood, still slightly concerned by the fact that Duo was unused to walking after being chained in place for so long. Not to mention the fact that Duo had been stripped of all his gear, his staff and wand in particular, and it made Heero wonder if he would still be able to summon any of his devilish minions to aid their escape. But when he tried to think of a good strategy to get them out of there safely with all those considerations, he found himself disliking the rather hackneyed solution he continued to return to no matter how hard he pondered it. He decided to speak up about it anyway, figuring that even a rushed, messy plan was better than no plan at all: “If I use the power of the Epyon demon to escape from here, do you think you could follow in the wake of its terror and get away as well?”

Duo’s reaction was immediately dubious, his grin dropping into a frown. “You can’t let yourself actually rely on that thing, Heero. That’s how it manages to devour your soul,” he said with a warning lilt to his tone. He looked down at his hands and flexed them, muttering, “It’s not like I can’t still cast magic. There has to be another way….”

“There’s not,” Heero said with a slight air of confidence, although he was internally not very pleased with the fact either. “You tried when you were well-prepared and still were subdued. Surely they will kill you if they capture you again.”

Duo wasn’t sure if he felt more belittled or disappointed by Heero, but he had to acquiesce there wasn’t much else to be done. His only consolation was found when something weighty dropped onto his upturned palm and he looked to find Heero’s hand pressing the sacred chisel into his. Duo wasn’t sure how he could tell what Heero was trying to convey, but he somehow was able to understand the words Heero wasn’t saying. His pale fingers closed around Heero’s wrist and held it fast as he caught Heero’s wayward eyes: “Don’t you dare throw your life away, Heero Yuy,” he told him with a serious edge. “If you do, I will raise up your corpse so that I might murder you for it.”

Somehow, Heero didn’t doubt Duo’s word on that.

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