[IC] TotM:DC "Terraria: A fresh start"

[Chevaleresse]

"Look, all I want is for you to not be poking the obviously evil bullshit without supervision. If you're fiddling with gunpowder or explosives or whatever, I don't care. And you already know what I think of your current danger assessment tools, so you can stop playing the 'nobody will understand' card any time now." Kusuke barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Half the point of this discussion was that you DON'T know everything. All I want, all Satomi wants, all EVERYONE ELSE wants is a chance to stop you from jabbing the MurderDeathKillite with a magical stick and being surprised when bad stuff happens."

[Hal Henderics]

"Locations, like I said.  Some people are crazy for stuff like that.  The old castles, the snow-covered area, stuff like that."

 

Uber explains more clearly.

 

"Also some stills of the gang, whenever there was a good pose or something."

[Endlessblaze]

"If its the obvious dark magic or aggressive spreading trasmutive effects your worried about, then yeah I can message you guys before I start and wait a few minuets to hear concerns and suggestions."

 

[Chevaleresse]

"Will you agree to not start at all until everyone is satisfied with the containment procedures in that case?"

[Endlessblaze]

"Considering what I have seen, no. Satomi, though I can certainly understand her concerns considering what little I have gathered of her homeland strikes me as far to paranoid and aggressive when dealing with such matters. Nor do I know the other group members well enough to agree to something like that."

"That said, If I send out an alert that I'm about to start something, and most of the party starts screaming, I can halt or delay it until we figure something out."

[Chevaleresse]

"Then I'm not satisfied. I didn't ask you to go about business as usual, I'm telling you that since you haven't minded yourself, I'm going to mind you personally if I have to. This is ridiculous and I'm not dealing with this any more." Kusuke's already fairly limited patience was fairly quickly reaching an end. "I don't care if you think Satomi is paranoid, you can wait ten goddamn minutes for us to come to a consensus before you blow something else up."

[StormLord]

Tania sighed again, they were bickering over semantics.  Eventually she decided to straighten herself in her seat, point and Leo and begin speaking in a clear, almost commanding voice.  Almost like a mother sick of hearing siblings fighting over chores.

"You will make a genuine effort to contact anyone in the party who wishes to be kept up to date before you begin testing involving hazardous materials and then you wait for a response."

Next she turned to Kusuke.

"You and anyone else who wishes to keep tabs on Leo's experiments will respond in a timely manner voicing any concerns you may have.  Then if necessary all of you, including Leo, will discuss and assess the risks of the experiment.  If the consensus is that the experiment involves too great of risk Leo will wait and propose the experiment at a later time when the risk can be better mitigated."

She looked between them in silence for a second.

"Will that be an acceptable agreement for the both of you?"

[Endlessblaze]

Leo thinks for a moment and nods
"I suppose that will work"

[Chevaleresse]

"That works for me." Kusuke shifted in his seat, grumbling under his breath. "Serves me right for doing favors."

[StormLord]

Tania nodded happily and started to stand up.

 

"That's good to hear.  Personally I think you should apologize for trying to kill each other, but that's none of my business.  Now I should really go help with the cleanup."

 

With that and assuming no further protests she turned and wandered out of the building.

 

"And I'm going to go get something to eat."

 

Jeff also stood and wandered off to the bar.

[Endlessblaze]

Leo stands up and stretches.

"Well Ive got things to do. So now that all that's been resolved. Bye."

Leo promptly bails. Man was he glad that was over. Now it was time to see where that thing went....

 

Once he returns to his temporary work area, he looks around for clues. He dosent see much, but something feels off. Snow's scanner turns out to be very helpful.
 

Spoiler

[95] Leo figures out that there is some kind of field of energy over the area, both in physical and extradimensional space. It isn't actually strongest here, though it does appear to be the rough center. There are several locations spread throughout the village that give off stronger signals.

Heading over to the nearest stronger reaction point Leo continues his investigation.

Spoiler

Arcana: 13 vs 11, Luck: 76, Leo figures that, curiously enough, something is displacing the local ambience in this area with a bizarre yet...similar? Ambience of its own. His best guess is that it's some sort of intermediary area, a go-between, a doorway. He just had to figure out how the lock worked.

"Huh. Thats odd. I wonder how....Oh. Crap."
Fearing the effects this might have on his units, other then snow of course she was mostly eating his mana due to proximity, he immediately checked on frostbrute

 

Surprisingly, he is not acting outside normal parameters….stoneheart however seems extremely drawn to the area.
"StoneHeart, Status update."

"Must reach. Must find. Longing. Sadness. Must find. Hatred. Despair. Must return."

 

"Stone heart, listen to me. I need you to elaborate. Find what? Reach what? Return where?"

 

[45] Leo figures Stone Heart's connect might help here, he isn't sure exactly how.

"Her. Her. Her."

 

"Why do you need her? Does she have a name? What can you tell me about her?"

 

Stone Heart seems to ignore Leo's first and third questions, choosing instead to babble about despair and sadness. It does however give him a name. "Flora"

 

Ok so was this Flora the source of that babble when he scanned the seed prior? That gave him a bad feeling. This was yet another strong point in favor of something being inside that thing, and not being in the most sound condition.  Stoneheart was getting influenced by her energy, obvious why considering how he was made, but just asking for information alone was not going to be sufficient.

 

"Stoneheart. Show me your core. I need to access your data"

 

Stone Heart obeys and well, Leo finds about what he was expecting. This weird ambience is doing a major mindfuck on Stone Heart's programing. "Growing" the pathways that allow for feeling emotion and such and by extension overwriting a lot of the pathways that govern logic and restraint.

 

Leo creates a sandbox in his computer, and starts running programs for reading out and processing data. Plugging right into Stoneheart's processes. With snow helping to process and filter the data (Though never accessing Stoneheart's core directly) he soon has his screens covered in Charts, Text strings, and lines of vague esoteric meanings far to complicated to spend time explaining in the middle of a situation. If Stoneheart couldn't or wouldn't talk, he would just extract the data right from his core.

 

Spoiler

Int: 25 vs 14,
Luck: 49,
Well from what Leo can puzzle out something on the other side of the mana field is pushing magic and will through that happened to resonate with StoneHeart(probably due to their origin). The result is that StoneHeart is being rewritten to follow a new set of directives that involve:
Patrolling "the barrier"
Finding "real friends"
Punishing "liars and fakes"
Two things Leo notices about the programing though, first off it's all written in some weird runic alphabet, and second it's hilariously poorly coded and inefficient.

Two new functions have been added as well, "Kiss" and "Return". Kiss seems to be incomplete, while Return generates a peculiar energy surge.

Leo tries looking for documentation, and comments. Even asking Stoneheart questions, but its less fruitful then he would hope

 

No legible comments and certainly no documentation, whoever wrote this was really bad at coding. StoneHeart reads "Kiss" as a corrupt function due to it being incomplete, and simply states that "Return" is to return.

 

This was not good...
Well The having new programs to study along with whatever strange runic language this was could be good. But until the active threat was dealt with, it was a problem.

At the moment stone heart was still his, still obeying orders. But who knew how long that would last. He was starting to get an idea of what Return did, but he did not want these functions tried on this Flora's terms. He needed to stop, or slow and counter Stoneheart's intake of the new ambiance.

 

 

"Stoneheart. I want you to gently wrap around my body. Its alright if you keep drawing a bit from the ambiance, but your being addled by it. I promise ill go help and check things out, but until then I want to counter the changes by feeding you my mana"

 

Stoneheart obeys and it seems to work, much like how Leo rarely has to worry about snow's intake, the proximity results in Stoneheart mostly feeing on Leo's mana and will.

 

 

Leo then calls down a messenger bird, and orders it to send a message out to all the party members and important pepole

 

 

'Alright guys, something almost certainly dangerous is going on. Anyone interested in what is most likely going to be a fight, who I can also trust not to smash important objects of study, meet me at the smith's shop. Ill explain there'

 

Hopefuly Kusuke and Satomi wouldn't give him trouble about the gem. At this point it was clear something was going on with it, and he was going to find out what it was.

For now, message sent, he made his way back to his worktable outside the Smith's shop.

[Chevaleresse]

Kusuke sighed, having not gotten particularly far away from where the discussion had occurred before Leo, shockingly, managed to find another problem. Fortunately, this also placed him fairly near the smithy. He stalked up to Leo, clearly still irritable from earlier. "What did you do now? And I'm smashing anything that looks too dangerous. Captured and in a lab is one thing, but I'm not risking my life to get you more toys."

[Endlessblaze]

He finds Leo sitting at his table outside, his hands hovering over a new bird golem with a long wire connecting to a...control pad with a screen? there is a mix of distortion in the air, like a heat haze, and shimmering pale blue over the construct and under his hands. Initially he does not even look up to answer.

"An item I brought with me after having purchased it from a world hopping merchant seems to have activated its previously unknown functions, and breached the containment procedures I created with the help of the drayd. Though it hasn't really done anything yet aside from addle stoneheart."
 

"Despair, sadness, must return. must find, hatred, return, return."

"Be patient stoneheart, we are going to find her"

 

"Yeah, basicly this entire area has had its ambiance displaced by a magic field, Which resonates with stoneheart due to how he was created. Thankfully this gives us plenty of info and means to solve the problem. At the moment, Ive ordered stoneheart to remain on me so my mana will counter act the field. He keeps wanting to 'Return' to someone named 'Flora'...."

Leo trails off for a moment, looking up with an actualy...concerned look on his face. As he stated, stoneheart has wrapped itself around him, as opposed to its usual thing of just floating around and following.

"This is not really to big of a deal on its own. But.....I'm  concerned with what we will find.  I suspect this Flora may not presently be of sound mind, considering the data I got from that item prior, and the way Stoneheart keeps rambling. This could be a rescue mission. Find the item, get this person help."
 

He looks back down at the bird and starts speaking more spellwork at it, If Kusuke payed enough attention, he might recognize snippets and chunks of the spell he had used on the dryad's wine glass earlier, broken up, slightly altered, and mixed in with a bunch of other words to create something he seemed to be binding into the construct.

"Stoneheart's directives are being overwritten and new functions have been added. It would seem the Item displaced itself and its container, along with the lab tech golems who were monitoring it and slowing down its magic intake, into extra dimensional space. Inside the magic field are several points that seem to be like doors. Stoneheart's new function 'Return' is likely a key to those doors."

 

He pauses to follow up snow's explanation.

"Its ability to move in Other Directions may be what allowed it to escape containment, as it never occurred to me it might have that ability, I only shielded against it in three dimensions, and tried to block magic as much magic as I could safely. Ill have to correct that mistake later. Once I have time, further scan of the new functions might allow me to make a countermeasure."

 

He mutters a few more of his golem spells at it, before nodding, satisfied to himself as its screen lights up. standing up and lifting the bird into his arms

 

"Ive copied the 'Return' function from stoneheart into this new bird, and also installed an enchantment based on my Analyze spell. This should allow us to scout out what we are looking at, before diving in head first. So we can make preparations if need be."

 

"Lets see whats on the other side shall we? Snow have frostbrute explain that to anyone else who arrives while I'm checking this out"

Leo heads over to the nearby zone, whether kusuke follows or not, and once in range activates the bird, and sends it flying off, as he holds its handheld part. As he presses something a portal opens up nearby, and the bird flys in.

 

Spoiler

[62] The enchantment goes fine.
[84] As soon as the bird activates the "Return" function a rift opens in the nearest anomalous zone.

Through it Leo sees a strange thing, a sort of almost city-scape environment. Lot's of pale greys and steel-blues with only the occasional splash of real color in the form of arched, and nearly opaque, stained glass windows on the buildings. A hazy fog prevents him from seeing more than a hundred feet or so in any direction, creating a heavy oppressive atmosphere. Once inside the bird doesn't see a whole lot more, though it can turn around and see behind the portal, more empty street. No malfunctions occur due to crossing over, and the portal is semi-stable for now.

 

"Intresting...Lets see whats inside."

 

Spoiler

Area scans show the city-scape too...not actually be that large, only appear to be. It cuts off a few hundred yards away from the direction the portal faces. Actual size in the other directions is unknown.
The space seems to be a sort of mirror world, a pocket dimension superimposed along side the regular world. Powerful illusions. No signs of life, however activity(movement) has been noted within scan radius.

 

"Not as big as it looks huh? Not a surprise. The amount of energy that must go into this is already pretty huge. Something is moveing in there though...Lets go in for a closer look...."

 

Leo sends the bird of in the direction of the movement, having it send back data as it goes.

 

Spoiler

[43] The bird moves towards the source of activity(the only source to this point) only for it to begin moving away. The closest the bird ever manages to get is enough to see a vague shadow of its movement through the mist. Some kind of quadrupedal creature with legs attached in a similar way to a spider(long with sharply bent knees that raise over the body), but head and body shape like that of a mammal. It also seems to move oddly, almost...floating? But it's legs are definitely making contact with the ground...weird.

 

 

Spoiler

Witch's Labyrinth Study Report(Flora) #001: May be used as a crafting reagent or turned in as 1/8 of an Int point.

 

"Every Adventurer instinct I have is screaming that thing is hostile and, or Flora.  Can't get the bird close to it huh? This is good data though. Ill have to review it later when this problem has been dealt with"

 

[Chevaleresse]

Kusuke put a hand to his forehead and groaned, tilting his head back. He wanted to get mad at Leo, especially since his previous irritation with the golemancer hadn't exactly faded, but. . . "Ugh, extradimensional movement is a pain in the ass." He hadn't seen that in a while. It was hard to remember the last time. . . Kusuke shook his head. "See, this is why I don't like robots." A lie, or at least not the real reason. "You can't reprogram a person, not normally anyway. And if the Ouroboros was here, we'd be in major trouble." Arguably as much trouble as if that masked man was here. The time traveler shuddered at the thought. "You have a plan to get in there and avoid being driven insane?"

[Endlessblaze]

"In this case, the resonance could be considered a good thing. It's what allowed me to get the portal open to begin with and find out more about what was going on. I should be able to get a lot of cool information out of Stoneheart's new codes and programs. Theres even a language in there I don't recognize. Its REALLY bad code though. Sloppy, inefficient. Its likely that this individual has no experience working with golems and the changes are just a natural effect of stoneheart coming into contact with the field and the will of the being in question."

 

"The thing about golems, is like other enchanted devices, they need mana to function and exsist. And like any magical construct they can be effected by mana coming in if it contains strong directed will. Leave a golem alone in a forest for a long time and it will usualy go feral eventualy, or at least gain new animal like habits. Likewise a dose of doped ambiance can seriously screw with them. Stone golems are usualy better about this, but Stoneheart was created as nothing more then a test of the mana type of the item in question. He was born from mana attuned to it and honestly was never actualy meant to be something we kept around, that would explain why he is so vulnerable to it, when frostbrute has not been effected."

"I kept him because I realized that part of the effect of the mana used, was that he could feel emotion. Dident feel right to ditch him after that. So I gave him a body. At the moment he is still loyal and has gained some intresting new bits, So as long as we deal with this problem before something bad happens, it should be a net gain."

 

"As for insanity I didn't feel any headaches coming on when I looked at the strange code, and looking at this....city isn't doing anything to me...So It should be ok. We should be able to just jump in. Why? Is it effecting you?"

[Chevaleresse]

"No, but I have a strong soul. Wouldn't be able to do my tricks otherwise." It was actually interesting to hear about how Leo's tech worked, though it was tempered by the knowledge that said tech could easily bite the group in the ass. Exposure to strong magical ambiance could outright reprogram it? He couldn't imagine what something like the Black Beast's leavings could do to something like that, once they were twisted through Leo's rules. "Remind me to never take you to my home timeline." He shook his head. It could be fine, but it wasn't a risk he wanted to take soon. "Just because you don't feel it doesn't mean it's not happening, though. If a brief flash of exposure was enough to do that to your golem, imagine what being immersed in that could do to you? I'm just saying, we literally just finished an argument about being careful with obviously dangerous things."

[Endlessblaze]

"Ill be fine. Im not dependent on foreign mana to live or function. Unlike a normal golem or enchantment, my mana comes from my own soul, and is directly tied to my own will. As opposed to my golems who lack souls and depend wholly on mana intake and programing. If it were strong enough to effect me, It wouldn't just be Stoneheart. It would be subjugating more or less all enchantments. Its not even effecting my other golems, Just Stoneheart specifically because of the unique modified spellwork I was testing on him."

 

"Thats why I've wrapped stoneheart around me. Effects like this go both ways. If Stoneheart is sucking up my mana and my will, its going to prevent the field from effecting him as badly. We aren't talking about just a brief exposure. Everyone and every thing in this area is being bathed in it. I wouldn't want to leave a golem out here like this for too long, but it should be fine"

 

"It might help to explain that any pretty much any Thaumic mana, that is, mana which includes Air in its attunement, can be used to alter the effects of any spell when cast. If you cast your fireball spell with plant mana, you might get like, a ball of plant matter or a flame that plants can consume as fuel. It depends on the exact spell and mana type."

"Stone heart was created useing spellwork modified by the mana of my missing item, a gem of some kind or something. So the energy of the gem and Stoneheart are more or less the same. That mana is also tied to wishes and desires, Stoneheart was MEANT to be easily controllable. The whole point of me testing the golomancy spells that make him up with that mana type, was to see if useing it like that would make a golem responsive to mental commands"

[Powder Miner]

Left sitting on the ground in the woods and lacking sufficient motivation to get up and do anything, Satomi had just stayed there for a while, occasionally sobbing, then wiping her tears with the sleeve of her kimono -- which was itself a horrific mess, frayed and singed with soot trapped between the fibers -- she had been essentially lit on fire while wearing it, after all. Then, after a few moments of barely keeping it together, she would find her breath wavering again, once again becoming uneven, and soon enough she would find herself seguing back into the sobbing.

 

This cycle was stopped by the arrival of some sort of messenger from Leo, telling of imminent danger and battle... and even in Satomi's current state, she was plenty capable of putting two and together.

 

The samurai-ko let out an awful noise from the back of her throat, as she considered the fact that she would have to get up and do something about it. Tears ran down her face yet again. She didn't want to, she didn't want to, she didn't want to, after everything that had happened -- but she was a Crab. Satomi Kaiu was a member of the Kaiu family of the Crab Clan, and as a Crab Clan her Duty was ironclad. If she sat around sobbing instead of fighting at the Wall, she would quite possible be killed on the spot, and that simply spoke to how much a Crab had to be driven by what they did. So, letting out a whimper, Satomi stood up and began to walk unsteadily towards the smithy, where she would make an absurdly sorry sight -- face still wet from tears, gaze usually downwards, gait unsteady, kimono a half-burned disaster, and the girl simply lacking much of the animus she usually had.

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Azgrurk

 

Soon after Azgrurk killed the Burnie Humie, he merely began stomping off, his job done. The little Humie could take care of herself, once she had enough time to recover. He had something else to do. Specifically, figuring out what was going on at the Smithy.

 

Soon before Satomi arrived at the Smithy herself, Azgrurk stomped in, making his way to where the Humies were all gathering, "OI, WHAT'Z GOIN' ON 'ERE? HEARD DERE WAS GOIN' TO BE SOME FIGHTIN' GOIN' ON!" Azgrurk asked as he approached.

[Endlessblaze]

Once AZ and Satomi arrive, Leo is not present. The massive golem that follows him around though is, and Helpfully informs them in a mindless mechanical tone, of the current situation.
Everything Leo told kusuke before walking off with his new bird is relayed to them, and they are informed Leo should be right back.

 

Soon enough, Leo starts walking back with his scanning bird in hand, accompanied by Kusuke and the pair meets up with the group.

"Oh Hey guys. I take it your interested in the mission?"

 

Sitting the bird down on the table he seems to take note of Satomi's present state.
"Oh, what's wrong Satomi? You don't look like your in the best shape."

 

[Chevaleresse]

Satomi coming into view prompted an immediate expression of concern from Kusuke. "Satomi, what happened?" It looked like she'd been attacked, even set on fire - more enemies that stuck around? Even then, though, he doubted that even a near-mortal combat would put her into such a state. Had something even worse happened? It looked like she'd been crying, and she hadn't bothered to even tend the kimono after it had taken such damage. "Here, I can probably at least fix your kimono." He waited for some kind of confirmation from the girl, not wanting to violate some facet of her rather prickly honor code by helping without being asked. 

[Endlessblaze]

Getting a small amount of blood drawn, and getting some polish from the smith, Leo starts to prepare three pieces of equipment

 

 

From Thran vine-metal, and T-gold he makes some armor, and gives it a nice polish.

Spoiler

Crafting: 25 vs 22, Quality: 63,
Embossed Terrarian Golden Chestplate: Grants +1 Res while equipped and an additional +2 Res against magical attacks.

He then tries to make some shielding aglets, but they have a few problems

Spoiler

Craft: 8 vs 14, Quality: 57, Golden Cryo-Aglets: These fanciful enchanted bits of gold and eternal blood ice create a protective shield around their wearer whenever they're in danger. Creates an icy shield around the user's feet that grants the user +1 Res against foot-targeting attacks and causes them to roll twice and take the worse result on Dex saves.

He tries to fix them with an enchantment, but ends up weakening them.

Spoiler

Crafting: 8 vs 12, Quality: 52, The enchantment causes the equipment to lose it's once ridged shield of ice and instead create a shield of shifting slush and water.

Golden Aqua-Aglets: These fanciful enchanted bits of gold and eternal blood ice create a protective shield around their wearer whenever they're in danger.
Allows the user to walk on hot surfaces longer and helps keep from getting stuck in the mud as easily by creating a bubble of water around their feet.

Grumbling, he shrugs and puts them on anyways.
Before testing a mana type, and trying an alt cast on a bit of glass

 

Spoiler

Luck: 21, Random Blitz: 10,

 

Leo casts the spell only to quickly realize just how much of a bad idea it was. Quite quickly the piece of glass, a large spot on the table he was working on, and at least several feet of ground underneath that are enchanted to secrete a thick, mucus-y, and slightly cloudy slime constantly.

 

Thaum > Prism(4, 5): Prism mana when applied to a Prism causes it to grow, careful and tedious work with this mana could eventually create more refined Prisms.

He quickly unenchants everything but the glass itself and puts it in a box

 

more testing finds a few more things for later use.

 

Spoiler

Thaum > Prism > T-Glass(11, 2): This mana causes light that passes through it to crystalize, the effects of these crystals is based on the ambience.

 

Thaum > T-Glass > Prism(16, 7): This mana when applied to a Prism causes a new bluish tinted Prism to grow. Blue Prisms absorb any light or magic passing through them and output an intense beam of light at their sharpest point.

 

Finaly he uses cores of T-gold and T-glass and some enchantments to whip some stuff up.

Spoiler

Craft: 16 vs 6, Quality: 99,

 

Terrarian Gold Scouter: As an action the user can activate a level 1 Analyze spell, once per encounter. The user gains +1 Res vs Analyzed enemies for every empty action slot they have. Set Bonus: When worn with two other pieces of Terrarian Gold armor(chest and other) requires no action slot and the user gains two action slots that may only be used for actives.

 

 

[Powder Miner]

Satomi's expression clouded further a moment when Kusuke asked her what had happened to her -- would it make her sound weak if she said what had happened? Then she realized that, bluntly, it was too late for that and she'd already sealed her dishonor the moment she showed up like she did. It was plenty apparent that she had been defeated and destroyed. Satomi wilted further, and looked down at the ground for a few moments before she finally spoke. "Ar... Arminius. It was Arminius. He... he..." She choked up -- how did she even describe it? Did she want to describe it? She didn't want to think about it. "...it was horrible. I-I..." Satomi choked up, falling silent again. But when Kusuke offered to fix her kimono, she at least nodded.

[Chevaleresse]

Kusuke reached out and touched his hand to her shoulder; when he did, Satomi felt a brief and possibly somewhat unsettling sensation of the entire garment moving over her skin. When it was finished, though, it was in the same condition it had been a few hours ago, before the siege had occurred. His expression darkened even further when she responded. Arminius. The man they'd both told off at various times for the usage of his powers. He could imagine what he might've done. "We're going to have some words, him and I, and I don't think he'll like it." He wasn't going to ask if he did what Kusuke thought the bastard did; Satomi likely wouldn't know for sure and clearly didn't want to talk about it right now. "But forget about him for now. If you're sure you're up for a fight, then we need to get ready."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Azgrurk

 

"I WAS PLANNIN' ON TALKIN' TO DAT GIT, BUT HE RAN AWAY BEFORE I COULD. TOOK CARE OF DAT FIRE 'UMIE THOUGH, SO DON'T WORRY ABOUT DAT!" Azgrurk commented, probably unhelpfully, before stomping up to Leo, "BUT WHAT'Z DIS 'MISSION' YOU'RE BLABBERIN' ON ABOUT. I HEARD DERE WAS FIGHTIN', SO WHAT ARE WE FIGHTIN'?"