Dark Jack

From Downfall ReRisen

“Hey, I said I’d considered doing it,” Kay chuckled, throwing her left hand in the air in mock exasperation at Enn’s reaction to the prospect of her taking apart his helmet, “but it’s still on your noggin and in one piece, isn’t it?”
But then her smile diminished some, her expression growing more serious and intense as she looked at him, pushing her cart along as she went. “That said, I don’t mess with stuff that belongs to someone else unless it’s salvage. Not without permission. I’m really curious about your helmet because I figure I may be able to adapt some of the technology from it in this,” she pointed to her artificial eye, “or my drones, but I’m not going to touch it if you don’t want me to. I do know what I’m doing, though; I’m pretty confident that anything I take apart I can also put back together.”

When Enn mentioned his uncertainty as to whether her “thing” could penetrate his armor, Kay actually let go of the handlebar of her cart – pushing the small vehicle along with her abdomen instead – and went to the holster under her left breast and got out her gun. Even more apparent out of its holster than while in it, it was an unnecessarily big and clunky weapon for a sidearm, with a disproportionally large bolt that seemed more fitting for large-caliber rifles than handguns, along with a peppering of holes everywhere that appeared to be sockets for missing parts. Even the muzzle on it looked weird, if one examined it properly, as it made up of layered segments that did not appear to serve any real function.
Holding the pistol over her open left hand with her right one, Kay started repeatedly pressing a small button on the side of the gun, causing it to emit a subtle buzzing noise for a second before it started ejecting bullets from the bottom of the – also disproportionally large – magazine sitting in front of the grip, one at the time. What was really weird, however, was the fact that none of the bullets looked alike; two were identical small-caliber rounds, a third was a slightly bigger and longer round, a fourth was clearly an actual rifle-round and a fifth even looked suspiciously like a shotgun shell.
“Not with the first to shots it couldn’t,” she told him once the gun responded with a click rather than a buzz and a bullet at the press of the button, seeing as the two small-caliber rounds came out last, “and by the time it’d loaded the third... heh, I guess I’m just happy I didn’t have to use it.”
She fed the three handgun rounds back into the magazine, earning another buzz as the gun drove them into position within to be ready to fire, but pocketed the rifle-round and shotgun-shell, figuring that it was better to know in advance that she was about to fire those if the necessity arose. Back into the holster it went, then, smiling somewhat awkwardly to herself that she had just demonstrated the “fool’s project”, as the others called it, that was her firearm.
“I call it the ‘scavenger-gun’,” she told him, scratching her neck embarrasedly. “It can take most kinds of ammunition so that I can replenish my supply from any I find, but it’s kinda unreliable and slow... I have a stock for it, too, in there.” She kicked her cart lightly, eliciting a dull thud. “So yeah... ‘sometimes’ it can pen your armor. It’s stupid, but it’s the only gun I have.”

“Protocols?” she repeated a bit later when Enn inquired to such things in Eighfour. “I don’t know... normally there’s ‘don’t mention the nuke’, but we already know that we’ll throw that one out the window. Eh...” She rubbed the back of her head as she thought. “I think most of it’s related to mundane everyday life rather than life-changing impending disaster-situations, so I doubt they’ll be relevant.
As for chain of command, you’ll want to talk to Gramps,” she said confidently. “He’s basically our de facto leader; everyone listens to him even though he’s not officially in charge. None of the others will dare to make any big decisions without his consent. He’s also the one responsible for the nuke, so that’s a bonus. And no, I’m not related to him – not closely, anyway – he’s just been given the name ‘Gramps’ because he’s kinda old and everyone likes him.”
“As for where to begin, o Harbinger of Doom,” she grinned, “I’d recommend ‘let’s chat over a cup of tea’. People tends to be a bit less aggressive when their hands are full of hot beverage instead of guns.”

The Prophecy

Duchy of Pelgaid, secluded pond

By the time the sky above had turned to a much lighter shade of gray than during the night, casting a cold light over their little little enclosed area, Gerald found himself feeling both stiff from lying on the cold ground as he slept, hungry, thirsty, inexplicably slightly nauseous and with a bad headache. He coughed dryly as he awoke, rolling from his side onto his back as he took a moment to brace himself against the soreness that permeated his body and would likely stick with him for most of the day. What a night... and what a day it was going to be. At least his energy – his own energy, not that which he had taken from Anaxim – felt about as replenished as the Withering would allow it to get. He was at full strength.
Taking a moment to feel the cool air on his face and the pale light on his eyelids before opening them, he just lay there for a while, breathing quietly and marveling at how quiet the morning was there. The most audible thing around was a slow, deep breathing that could logically only belong to Renold, who had presumably returned sometime during the night, which struck him as such a calm and peaceful sound that it seemed perhaps even more serene than silence might have.

Sighing to himself, feeling no desire to hasten his hurtle into danger in pursuit of survival, Gerald nevertheless only had to direct his senses to the truth hidden beneath the illusion wrapped around his arm to feel the void there reminding him that the hour of its victory, when it would swallow him up completely, was coming ever closer.
Julia, he thought, bringing a hand up to rub his face, I won’t let myself lose. I couldn’t save you, but at least I’ll beat the Withering. I’m so close now... on the brink of defeat and victory both. I will live. Definitely.
He opened his eyes, meeting the surprisingly blinding glare of the pale sky before turning his head to escape it... and was met by the sight of what appeared to be most of the carcass of some kind of cattle. Lying on the ground between himself and Renold, about a dozen feet away, lay a cow whose head appeared to have ripped off by someone with immense power and sharp claws or teeth. Its fur was lightly matted with blood even as there was very little on the ground, so he had to presume that Renold had killed the animal elsewhere and then brought it here.

The dragon was still sleeping, rolled up similarly to how a common domestic cat might, but even in his sleep the ancient creature was an awesome sight to behold. Further away, sitting on a rock by some shrubbery by the shore of the pond, Crone appeared to be up already and to be examining and sorting various nondescript items into pouches.
He sat up. The day of reckoning with the Swallower of Worlds had arrived... the day he would prove that not even deities were invincible.

The Prophecy

Do you want to post again, Ashgan, or should I just have the scene skip to the next morning?

Also, any update on a post for the Angora-Domhnall-Jaelnec-Olan scene?

The Prophecy

Duchy of Pelgaid, secluded pond

Gerald closed his eyes, feeling vaguely aware of the old, familiar sense of numbness he felt overtaking him when he heard Jillian’s response, not due to what she said as much as how she said it. If she wanted to keep the spell from him then that was fine, he would not blame her in the least – magi safeguarding their most powerful spells jealously was far from a new concept, after all – though if she used it around him enough times he was bound to eventually recognize the incantation, but... She’s not satisfied. I hurt her, somehow. We’re back to where we began.
The numbness was a defense mechanism he had developed long ago, as even as a child he had been known to unwittingly insult others or just generally seem like a really boring guy. He had gotten better at understanding what not to say in time – and developed a sense of empathy, too, which was a helpful ability his child-self had not possessed – and had gotten to the point where he did not go around degrading others with his words, at least, though he had never been able to truly fit in as a “normal” person. Even back then, in a time when the Withering was still but a fantasy recorded in prophecy, he knew he had not been one to smile or laugh. Others would regale him with wild stories of impossible things and pure fiction, or demonstrate spells and artifacts that were flashy but served little purpose, and they had never found the appreciation they were looking for... so much so that they eventually just stopped trying. Disappointing people was unpleasant, though, unless he numbed himself to the feeling. “Friends” was never a thing Gerald had placed much value in, even in his most innocent years; though it was now by choice, it was far from a new thing for him to be alone.
His wife had been the only one that seemed to disregard his apparent lack of interest in anything that was not of practical use to him, to ignore his indifference and just keep trying. To this day he still had no idea why she had done so – though he had been much less ravaged back then than he was now he had still been far from an attractive man – but he was grateful nonetheless. In time he found that she could make him smile; that with her, he could laugh. She had been his window into a “normal” life, the one person he did not need to numb himself to, one that accepted him for who he was.
And then she had died, and taken the laugh she had gifted him with her to the grave.

Pulling up the hood of his robe to cast his face in shadow once again, becoming little more than a huddled black form in the firelight, the warlock quietly sighed to himself. What did Jillian want from him, anyway? He had already agreed to teach her necromancy, they were already bound to perform their quests together and he had humored her suggestion for them to get to know and trust one another. What more did she hope to gain? There was nothing left he could give her – not that she knew of, anyway – so why did she want to impress him? Why all the touching, rubbing, leaning and generally seductive behavior? What was her agenda?
She had to want something, and it bothered him that he could not figure out what it was.

“We probably should...” he tiredly agreed to her suggestion for them to get some sleep, having enough experience with sullen moods to not even consider trying to resume conversation and risk escalating their disagreement further, especially when there was really nothing he could do to better the situation.
It was better like this, anyway. It was easier to be alone. Less painful.

The Prophecy

Heh, it happens to all of us occasionally (well... maybe not Shien). I'd honestly forgotten about it myself until I started doing some research on magma and iron to determine whether magma would be hot enough to melt it (what I discovered: sometimes) and just happened to spot the melting point of carbon-based steel while reminding myself of that of iron (the only element I remember the boiling point of by heart is gold, simply because it's 1337 degrees Kelvin (approximately), which is funny).
Besides, Jillian's father was a silversmith/goldsmith, was he not? If so he probably didn't work with iron or steel a lot...

The Prophecy

Duchy of Pelgaid, secluded pond

Inferno Mountain might be active, but supposedly it had not erupted even once since the Fire Clan first settled there centuries ago, with the magi of the clan reputedly having achieved such mastery over the flame that they could even tame and control that behemoth of a volcano. Under the prerequisite that they really could reliably prevent it from destroying their little community, given what a defensible location it was and the advantages it would lend them if they were attacked – giving them a bountiful store of incredible heat to draw on and use for their magic – Gerald would have to disagree with Jillian on the insanity of the Fire Clan. He would concur that their fascination with fire was unhealthy and dangerous, just as any kind of fanaticism was, but their choice of using Inferno Mountain seemed sensible.
Before he could explain his view on the subject to Jillian she brought up another topic, however, that was interesting enough for him to put aside his thoughts on the sanity of the flame-crazed clansmen for the time being. Orphid’s flame? A magical construct so hot as to be able to melt iron? The prospect of being able to study a spell like that was even sufficiently alluring to him that he decided against pointing out that it would not be “even” steel, since it would actually melt before pure iron would. She was certainly correct that he had not heard of the spell before, nor had he found any other references to anything related to “Orphid”.
Nor would he have been able to record the spell she was casting even if he had tried, he realized once she started invoking it, instinctively bracing himself and preparing to leap to the nearest cover he could get to, preferably as close to the pond as possible. Reckless! If any of the instructors at the academy back in Zerul City had witnessed her casting a spell like that – himself included – they would doubtlessly have taken her aside and thoroughly scolded her for endangering herself like that, not to mention everyone else. It was not what he was casting that made the breath catch in his throat, though it did surprise him to realize that the patterns she was tracing were clearly arcane, but how little effort she seemed to put into it and how halfheartedly she supplied the spell with its verbal component. No one but an absolute master of arcane magic should ever be that confident in one’s ability to not fail the spell and potentially have it blow up in one’s face... Especially one that required as much magical energy as he sensed was flowing into it. That much unbound energy being unleashed by an unraveling spell could probably have killed someone.

Having summoned “Orphid’s flame”, Jillian then went on to tell him more about it, among other things that this was actually the first part of the composite spell he had witnessed back in the Anaxim Forest and that the name “Orphid” apparently referred to the discoverer of the spell. Most unusual of all and what made the warlock frown in confusion, however, was the fact that it was apparently forbidden. Gerald had never heard of an arcane spell being branded as forbidden unless it overlapped with necromancy or summoning magic, even though there were others even more destructive than Orphid’s flame and others capable of bending or controlling the minds of others. One would be responsible for what one did with the spells, yes, but the spells themselves were not forbidden; only magic marked for extermination was considered forbidden. He would love to know why...
She then proceeded to try to use Orphid’s flame to do something to a small piece of stone, and Gerald had to bite his tongue to stop himself from chastising her for her foolishness. Not only was the entire endeavor a massive waste of her strength – strength he had stolen from Anaxim to give her and which she would need tomorrow – but it was obvious from the start that there was no way she would be able to do much to the stone, no matter how long she continued doing it; the flame simply needed to be magnitudes hotter to compensate for the rapid dissipation of heat to their environment.

Unsurprisingly Jillian’s efforts did little besides blackening the stone and scorching the surrounding area, and returned to him happy, proud, exhausted and seemingly expecting his approval of this colossal waste of their most important resources of energy and health.
Don’t say what you’re thinking, he cautioned himself unnecessarily, amber eyes shifting from the still-smoking scorch on the ground to Jillian’s face. Don’t get angry, don’t belittle her, don’t tell her what an idiot she is... Say something positive. No? Come on, anything will do! You’ve been silent for too long, Gerald! It doesn’t have to be positive, it just has to sound positive! Say something!
A good ten seconds of silence passed before Gerald cleared his throat to speak. “I’d like to record that sometime,” he told her nervously. “For my spell book, that is. It seems potentially useful.”

The Prophecy

Duchy of Pelgaid, secluded pond

“Speak of nicer things,” she said, and immediately turned the subject to fire. Gerald was too drained at this point to even react to being touched, as she just had, but not enough to be beyond a cynical smirk at the irony of this turn of subject. What was he supposed to respond to that? That he personally had always preferred to stick to the shadows himself, unhealthy as he had realized attention could be? That he appreciated fire for its practical applications only, and counted numerous fire-based spells among his most frequently memorized repertoire mostly due to the destructive capacity of fire, both in terms of annihilating physical obstacles and demoralizing any who witnessed its invocation? It was the same cold rationalization that lead him to use lighting-based magic despite his negative predisposition towards the element simply because it had been the one Dennis had been naturally attuned to, and water- and ice-based spells even though they served as a painful reminder that his brother had affinity for the element of water. He was not fascinated with fire, and looking at it he saw nothing more than a tool.
Or was he supposed to point out the irony in Jillian expressing her fascination with the exact element the sovereign deity of which they were going to confront and fight in the morning, who was likely going to use that very same fire to reduce both of them to ash and cinders?
It was difficult for him to be anything but cynical and sarcastic, particularly on such a mundane and ill-chosen subject, but he could not bring himself to mock or dismiss her when she was clearly trying to make him feel better. Not that such efforts were necessary; he fed on his misery and let it fuel his resolve. He would walk the darkest shadows of the planes and endure and inflict any horror necessary, as long as it brought him closer to his destination.
Still... he supposed that he appreciated the sentiment, if nothing else.

“Fire...” he muttered, wracking his brain for something to say that did not sound too depressing. “Fire is the origin of the first law of magic. Did you know that? ‘Power demands sacrifice’; a flame cannot burn without fuel, and the flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long. So many mages throughout the ages have been inspired by it, and much of the magical theory we know today was learned through observing flame.”
He paused, thinking even more. “You have heard of the Fire Clan, right? Based in Jevog Denûm, in Inferno Mountain. They build their entire lives around fire to the point of living on an active volcano. Supposedly they meditate while staring into the molten magma at the mountain’s core; stone so hot that it catches fire and burns even hotter than any man-made flame. I would like to see that someday; burning stone.”

The Prophecy

Duchy of Pelgaid, secluded pond

Part of Gerald wanted to tell Jillian “you had better be sorry,” wanted to keep spewing venom in her face, to sneer, scowl and generally do everything in his power to ensure that she pulled back and kept her distance from him. This woman... he had only known her for a day, and already he was telling her things like this? Feeling things? She was dangerous, an uncontrollable element that could all too easily interfere with his plans and get in the way of achieving his goals; he had to get rid of her.
Yet at the same time, part of him – the shriveled, starving part that still derived nourishment from social interactions and urged him to be empathetic – wanted to keep her around, draw her closer, get to know her better... and felt that he had been unfair to her. And yes, logically he had been; though he had told her a little about the abomination that was Dennis Remdal, he knew that he had not told her nearly enough for her to understand the depth of his hatred for the man, or his vicious objection to being called by that name. That part of him wanted to explain, but how could he ever do that? There were so many things, and many of them would probably not even convey the full impact they had had on him even if he described them.
But in the end, he still felt like he had to try.

He closed his eyes, and the glow in the emerald of Omni died out completely. “I was nine when my mother met Dennis Remdal. She was just a poor single mother and commoner, abandoned as she was by my birthfather, and struggled to make us a comfortable life. Then she was hired as the live-in maid of the Remdal estate, and some time after that she married the Baron Remdal himself, and suddenly I went from just ‘Gerald’ to ‘Gerald Remdal, stepson of His Lordship’. Out of nowhere I was living a life of luxury and I was permitted a proper education, as well as entry into the Academy. All because of the Remdal name.”
He sighed. “And everyone knew that. Have you ever seen Dennis Remdal? The toll of magic and an unhealthy lifestyle has made him obese, and even in his prime I doubt that he was any kind of handsome... but he is rich and one of the most powerful men in Zerul. The people considered my mother little better than a common whore for marrying him – perhaps they still do – and I was little better; the whoreson leeching off the baron.”
He opened his eyes and stared intensely into the campfire. “My mother was never a prostitute, but that’s beside the point. Back then I admired Dennis, though, and was in awe at the new life he gave us, but I very quickly learned to hate the Remdal name. Everything I did and achieved – my knowledge, my magic, my position as instructor at the Academy, even my wife – were all ultimately accredited to the Remdal name. It was never ‘Gerald’ that accomplished anything, it was ‘Remdal’ or ‘the baron’s stepson’. It was my work, my effort, but the Remdal name reaped the benefits of it all.
And as you know, the second I brought shame to the Remdal name, Dennis made sure to get rid of me. Had me exiled. And then I started truly learning just who Dennis Remdal is...” He shook his head woefully. “Remdal, the remarried widower whose first wife died under suspicious circumstances soon after they discovered that she was barren. Remdal, who was rumored to buy the support of other nobles not only with money but with the bodies of his slaves, and who made sure to destroy the business and reputation of any who stood against him. Remdal, whose enemies had a habit of mysteriously dying.”
Gerald’s hands clenched into fists so tightly that he started trembling. “Remdal, who said... treated... who...” By now he was speaking through clenched teeth, his face a grimace of utmost abhorrence and rage. “...told me to replace my wife, like she was just a thing. Said it was for the best that she died so I could find someone better! With a blasted title! A better name!”

He finally looked straight at Jillian, his mien softening uncharacteristically. “I’m sorry to have shocked you, but words alone cannot express how much I hate the Remdal name and being the son of that demonspawn. Please... Jillian... never call me that again. It... hurts me more than you know.”

The Prophecy

The Duchy of Zerul, by a road in southwest

Whatever other flaws Angora might have, Jaelnec mused to himself, at least she seemed determined to be honest with them to an almost uncomfortable extent... much more than Jaelnec would have expected of her, at least, given the things she readily confessed to having done and – for most part – seemed completely unapologetic about. The murders she had committed in order to get the “Black Sword” seemed to be the only crime she displayed any kind of remorse for, despite them being the only crime she was less than entirely responsible for given that the entity that had lived in it was clearly able to manipulate those near it and that the people originally in possession of the sword had also been affected. Truthfully, Jaelnec was liable to forgive those murders on the same grounds that they had judged her as not being responsible the murders she had committed while possessed...
What made the squire clench his jaw and feel a growing sense of worry for this woman before him was not her deeds while under the influence of the entity of the sword, but her past before then. How was cutting people’s throats in their sleep any worse than what an assassin normally did, after all, unless she had specifically practiced the trade through painless poison? In fact the only thing she admitted to have done that was not both unethical and illegal was prostitution, which, while not a particularly admired profession, was both legal and an honest way to make a living... although with the other things she had done it would not surprise him if she had robbed her customers and blackmailed them if she could.
And after having demonstrated her apparent complete lack of conscience she turned around and tried to explicitly paint a picture of herself as just a naive girl trying to obtain greatness, although an entirely different kind of greatness than the one Jaelnec wanted for himself. Did she, after naming herself a killer-for-hire and common thug in the service of organized crime, expect them to believe that she had not known what she was doing? She had killed people for money, for Laon’s sake, and not even because she needed the money, but out of an eternal desire for more.

Now that the aura produced by the entity was no longer as devastating to his senses and thoughts as it had previously been the young Nightwalker was not gripped with bloodthirst anymore and felt no desire to kill Angora, but after her story he had certainly built up enough rage within himself that he wanted to punch some sense into her. There was no way around it; her actions in the past had been pure evil, and the fact that she did not seem to think anything of them besides the fact that it had been against the law spoke of a depth of corruption that was borderline unforgivable. Why would she even speak to him so easily about something like that? Did she presume that he and the others were also exiles, criminals, outcasts and murderers just because Iridiel had turned out to be one, and that they would be somehow sympathetic with her livelihood? He wondered what Aemoten would have done, had he been the one receiving this confession... probably demanded a complete and immediate abandonment of her past ways, he figured, or he would have taken her to the city only to turn her over to the Ducal Guard.
What stopped Jaelnec from yelling into Angora’s face and possibly introduce that very same face to his fist was primarily the girl’s interactions with Iridiel, namely the compassion she had shown for the foreign woman. The sight of Angora putting her arm around Iridiel to comfort her kept rising to the front of Jaelnec’s mind, and part of him – perhaps the part of him that was, despite everything he had been through these past several days, still naive – insisted that this woman could not possibly be an entirely lost cause, that there had to be some good and hope in her yet that was worth nurturing, rather than simply focusing on stomping out the evil that had taken root in her.
Besides, she was – as her occasional uncomfortable shifting and checking on her clothes reminded him – naked under her cloak, and he found it extremely hard to sustain any kind of righteous fury in the face of female nudity. And eighteen years old? By the Spirits, he was even younger than him!

“Autumn, yes,” he told her when she seemed unsure about what time of year it was. “Fourth month of autumn, so it must have been more than six months.” He had sounded somewhat gruff at that point, given that he had still been undecided on what to do or say to her but was already starting to get worked up about her willingness to partake in harmful crime.

Sighing and closing his eyes, Jaelnec took a moment to collect his thoughts before feeling even remotely prepared to face the current situation he found himself in. Oddly, by the time he reopened his eyes he found Olan staring at him, not saying anything but just watching him curiously.
Then he turned his attention to Angora, a grim expression upon his face. “I’m sorry, I only just realized that we haven’t really been officially introduced yet. I am Jaelnec, squire of the Knighthood of the Will. Our leader, Aemoten, calls himself a warrior, but if I’ve understood what he’s told me about his culture right then he’s pretty much what we’d call a knight. The daywalker with us is an apprentice to my order, too.” He neglected to mention that Thaler was also a former infamous thief and menace in Zerul City, but he did not see how it was relevant anymore; she had promised that that time was over for her, and he believed her.
He swallowed, trying to sound as firm as possible without seeming downright threatening to the other. “If you’re going to be traveling with us, you’re going to have to leave your life of crime behind. We don’t do stuff like that.”
He scratched his chin, his gaze moving to her sword. “That sword is obsidite, which means that it was almost certainly made by Klorr... which means it is beyond a masterpiece and must be very valuable.” He looked at Angora again. “Even ignoring that whoever sent you for the sword could send more, there must be others looking for it. It might be worth considering whether the sword is worth the danger it puts you in – us in – or whether it would be better to get rid of it.”

Duchy of Pelgaid, secluded pond

A dangerous intensity narrowed Gerald’s eyes when the witch dared to call him “Remdal” after everything he had told her this evening, and for a second his thoughts turned to murder and went to work fetching the words for a suitably violent spell... until he calmed himself, realizing that Jillian probably just meant it as a jest and did not realize just how infuriating it was for him to be called that. It was probably a play at his own insistence on addressing her by her surname, he figured, with a sprinkle of expressing newfound familiarity with his past.
She preferred that they were open about themselves? Very well, he would oblige, even if she contradicted herself with her reluctance to just come out and ask him to address her by her given name.
“Glass,” he told her with icy rage in his voice that seemed in stark contrast to the fire in his gaze. “Never Remdal. You mean it well and I’ll let it slip this time since we’re such good friends, but next time you do that you’d better be prepared to defend yourself, because I’m going to kill you.” There was no mirth in his tone, only deadly seriousness and intensity.

He sighed. This had been an exhausting evening for him... delving into his past was not something he enjoyed, and he actually looked even smaller and more feeble than usual from sheer fatigue. “But yes... I suppose it is. Hopefully that’ll be enough to get us through what awaits.”

The Prophecy

Alive, yes. Present, aware. Sorry about not reacting on Skype, I keep forgetting about the dot.

Personally I just wonder why Jillian doesn't just ask to be called "Jillian" if being called "Veldaine" bothers her so much. Hmm... but then again, knowing Gerald as intimately as I do, while he'd be liable to grant her that wish, he'd take it as a victory over her to have made her do so and would probably not be beyond gloating.