Chapter 124: Experimentation
/The third floor has a new beast.
In the last week, two dozen climbers have vanished near the ruined Wayfarer’s hall. But it’s not just the lack of guides. There’s something down there. We know, because people lived.
They say it’s a monster wrapped in green. A thing that commands the flora as naturally as breathing. A chosen champion of the forest, waging war against any who’d take more than they deserve. It plays by all the rules, it’s incredibly fair, and you must never, ever talk to it.
They say that when you utter a word while it listens, you’re lost. They say that if you hear it return a sentence, you’re dead. It twists the truth, it lies and tricks, it enchants and draws in. Do not dance with it. Do not play with it. Do not interact with it.
When the one wrapped in moss shows up, stay silent. Hold your breath, close your eyes, and hope it passes by. Always remember the rules. Always show respect. But never speak to it./
-Recent note added to booklets on climbing the third floor, author anonymous, information verified.
- - -
PoV: Sylves - Titania
I am alone again.
It’s a strange thought. But when the world ended, that’s precisely what I was. And now that it’s all said and done, it’s that way again, isn’t it? Two months. And I’m alone again.
A thin smile spreads on my lips. I was by myself in a forest back then, and I am by myself in a forest again now. “Shhhh,” I whisper, delicately running my fingers through the fur of a minotaur next to me. “You can rest. You’re safe now,” I say.
The low groan next to me quiets, returning back to snoring. There are three of them, the minotaurs, all asleep. I look at their sleeping forms, and nod slowly. They were useful. Really, they were. But everyone deserves their breath of freedom.
Gently, I move the minotaur’s head from my lap and place it on the forest floor. It rests softly on the leaves, almost welcoming. Perhaps even at home. That, too, is an effect of [Hospitality]. Forests are my home, after all, so in some ways, I can grant safety here.
I breathe and rise into the air. The wind picks me up softly and with a whisper. Yes, I’m all alone. Or I will be in a moment, at least, as the breeze wraps around me and carries me away, deeper into the jungle.
There’s a hum in the air. An energy. That of truth, as my lies come undone. Snow is out there, and I have to find my friend. But I cannot find my friend if I don’t advance to the fourth floor, unless I learn the layout of the jungle… I could seek them out here. I know I could. I’m a fairy, and fairies are at home in the woods.
Especially one as old and magnificent as this one.
But I won’t. I won’t seek out Snow, or Opal, or anyone else. Because I love them. And it’s been very, very long since I’ve played a proper trick. So, this place that feels like home, that feels welcoming to me at my very core, I embrace it. I drift into the forest, past trees, past vines. I hum my [Song], an enchanted lullaby, and all the vines that rear up to eat me fall asleep.
One of them stands out to me. “My, aren’t you precious?” I ask quietly. My voice comes out a whisper, slightly off, too-melodic. Gently, I wrap the vine around my arm, its thorns brushing harmlessly against my skin. It has a dragon-looking head, seeming more like a snake than a plant, but when I hum to it, all it does is lay there, curled up against me.
Smiling into the darkness between trees, I draw my Mantle tighter. It’s a wonderful thing, a leaf-green cape, made from shifting moss. It changes colours with the light, or my will, and it rests comfortably on my shoulders, malleable and beautiful. I could transform it into a storm of autumn leaves, or perhaps into the smell of summer rain, but I don’t. For now, green will serve me just fine.
And then, I hum my song, and delve into the forest. Into the place that already knows it is my home.
[The Earthmother welcomes you.]
I smile, knowing that there is a place for me in this quiet forest. And so, I go deeper. This place, after all, is precious. And if I prove worthy of it, perhaps it will unveil its secrets to me?
If that means playing a [Violent Trick] or two, well… if it’s against those who’d destroy nature, I don’t mind that much at all. I’ll lie and trick and butcher them as much as the forest likes.
- - -
PoV: Opal Kingston - Gem
[Priest, lv. 80]
[Soothsayer, lv. 80]
Snow stands next to me. In front of us, there are two enemies. They’re strong. Incredibly strong. Imprints of climbers more powerful than us, stored by the Tower and placed back here so we could prove our metal.
My lips split into a grin, and I see Snow doing the same thing next to me. To our little antimage, this must be a gift box. Every single skill the priest had, delivered in a nice package with a bow on top. By now, I think that someone’s beginning skills tend to stick around and become an important part of whatever build they go for, so having their blueprints, even when the real deal is more advanced, will let Snow prepare.
And for me?
I get to prove that I’m better than them. That I can reach higher. My mantle flutters in response to the situation. It’s a purplish black, royal and gilded, settling around my shoulders and billowing behind me like a knight’s cape. It makes me look every bit the hero I want people to see me as.
My fingers squeeze around the handle of my blade. I wait for Snow to speak. The two memories stand frozen in front of us, as if not yet properly released by the tower.
“Hey Opal?” my friend’s voice comes, perfectly calm as they stretch out their remaining hand toward the targets.
“Yeah?” I ask, knowing the next line already.
“Let’s break them.”
Without replying, I [Blink]. The distance between me and the imprints disappears. Space warps, as I reappear mid-swing. Little trick I learned, starting up a motion and carrying it to fruition when I reappear.
Sadly, they react in time. The soothsayer, a sumeen, brings up a long strip of cloth, and my sword slides against it. I cut off a long strip from its side, but the remainder of it tries to wrap around my neck and strangle me.
Another blink carries me behind them, a thrust coming out, only for their mantle to wrap around my blade, trapping it in layer and layers of dense fabric. Instantly, the metal disappears from my hands, unsummoned, as I teleport backwards. “Whoowee,” I whistle. “Tough crowd.”
“Dodge left,” Snow advises me calmly, and I instantly throw myself to the side.
A searing beam of light passes through where my head had just been, and I am left on the floor, blinking in surprise. Then, a laugh bubbles out of my chest. “Warn me earlier, you bastard!” My [Bound Armament] reappears, and I [Blink] again. Another strike against fabric, another delicate dance backwards to dodge.
The priest tries to grab me from behind, but he’s slow. I can feel Snow’s skill wrapped around him, squeezing his stats down. He’s a mage, and I’m fast for my level, so I quickly disappear from his grasp, only to find a bit of fabric yanking my feet out from under me.
I [Blink] before my head crashes into the ground, reemerging almost fully horizontally. Distantly, I think that I should probably learn how to spin myself while blinking. What a fun experiment that would be!
Again, I get a faceful of cloth - or I would, but the threads fray and break apart. The brittle fabric doesn’t hold me, and my slash easily pierces through, finding flesh. I carve a gouge into the soothsayer’s shoulder, only for the damned priest to instantly mend it shut in a flash of light.
Snow, however, grins. “Make them show me more, Opal. I need all their skills. Everything they have.”
A shiver runs up my spine, but I laugh anyway. “Say it like less of a creep, damn it!”
In response, all I get is a tilt of the head. “I have no idea what you mean.”
Rolling my eyes, I ignore the antics, and simply move again, slashing the empty air. I know it won’t hit, and it doesn’t need to. The priest steps forward at me, his hands glowing with a bright mark, though that light is already flickering as waves of Snow’s mana crash against it. Still, I don’t let him reach me.
The soothsayer reaches out silently, trying to draw their companion back, but it doesn’t matter. All at once, the [Echoes] of my half-dozen swings carve through reality.
[Echo 16 > 17]
I smile brightly as blood spills from wounds onto the facsimile of grass. It’s only a memory, and a fake battlefield. There’s nothing to swing from, no fun to be had, no cover and nothing to throw… but I love it.
The way my sword whirls around me, cutting cloth and flesh. The searing heat as I barely dip out of the way of yet another ray of light. Streaks of cloth that seek me out wherever I am, always one step ahead, forcing me to blink into another budding nest of them, like a noose drawing tighter.
The priest draws a knife, cloaking it in gold. He flickers forward in a motion that is unnatural. I see his legs break and snap back into place a second later as the knife breaks my skin, digging into my insides, and I grit my teeth.
[Diamond in the Rough 9 > 10]
With the breakthrough of the skill into the thirst Threshold, I can feel my skin toughening up, tightening around the dagger and holding it in place. The priest tries to wrench it out with a pull, but a quick slash draws a line of blood from his forehead, even as he stumbles back.
I sneer, teleporting back to Snow’s side, and instantly, the dagger leaves my body with a wretched pull. It sounds like being drawn from a sheath.
Mana floods my wound, and my skin knits itself together. “Huh,” Snow notes. “You’re… different.”
“I’m a gem, baby,” I say smugly, instantly diving forward again, as soon as my skin is back in one piece.
A needle of cloth wrapped tightly on itself unravels in front of my face. The fraying threads splash harmlessly against my forehead, rather than stabbing right through my eye. My heart speeds up. I blink. More cloth wraps around me, and I blink again. I swing my blade, carving through the cloth as Snow casts an enchantment on it.
I can feel blood rushing through my veins. The way my mind rumbles through ideas, roaring with the desire to try them. I grin.
No better time to experiment than now.
[Blink] compresses and folds in on itself, as I force it to stay in place. It’s a disgusting misuse of the spell, but I know it’ll forgive me.
[Blink 19 > 20]
It ticks upwards as I create the horrid pocket of space, wrenching my mind against it. There’s a piece of cloth that splashes harmlessly against my abs, slowed down by Snow. The priest approaches me with a glowing hand, and yet I remain there, wrangling the skill.
I fold it and stretch it, and channel the mana through the runes on my blade. The [Bound Armament] reinforces the spell, pushing my will against it. A thousand fraying threads try to escape me, but with all the finesse of a raging bull, I grab them, and hold them tight.
Then, all at once, I force the twisting mass of mana forward, stabbing at the clothmancer at the same time.
My stab shouldn’t have hit. I was too far away. Logically, I could not have gotten close enough.
And yet, the tip of my sword buried all the way through and out the back of his chest, elongated by a purple, writhing mass of stretched steel. It screams, and as the internal mana field of the soothsayer crashes into it, the abominable construction explodes, tearing chunks out of his flesh.
[New Skill acquired!]
[Spatial Rend 0 > 1]
I laugh, loudly, as the priest casts more healing. More mana pours into the wound, and I look at it heal, as with every cast…
That light grows fainter and fainter. Their magic comes apart, turning into worthless toys as Snow breaks it. So I gotta make sure to have my fun while it lasts.
Bringing my blade to my shoulder, I prepare for another thrust, then lunge forwards.
Chapter 125: Fourth Floor
PoV: Snow Okiyama - Ion
“So that’s how it works,” I hum calmly.
Pieces of magic swirl inside my head. They gather in the archive that I’m building, and my mantle hums as the spells keep coming apart. I don’t break them fully - not yet, at least. All I do is… pull off parts. A loop here, a rune there, a sequence of glyphs at the edge of the mana.
And bit by bit, I take larger pieces. Every time the priest heals, I cast again. Every time the clothmancer waves a hand, I cast again. My mana bleeds out of me as I [Select] and [Observe] their skills. But the broken bits of magic fuel me again.
They’re so strong. Far, far stronger than Opal or I. We shouldn’t be beating them, and yet, Opal still lives. Their skin glistens as if faceted, and my magic swirls through the air in grey-blue cracks.
Streamers of mana seek out activations of spells, and slow them. Make them crumble. And piece by painstaking piece, I reassemble them, feeding them to my vessel.
Until it clicks.
“Yeah, that makes sense,” I say quietly.
[Deconstruction 19 > 20]
[Biological Restoration 17 > 18]
[Nullmage 19 > 20]
The healing finally shatters. It was targeting a small cut - a gash Opal left on the priest’s shoulder. It should have healed. He should have raised his arm and blocked the incoming swing.
But he can’t. The muscles don’t knit back together. Flesh refuses to mend, and a blink later, Opal’s sword slams home. Steel bites into bone, and the arm breaks. Blood splashes across Opal, and they almost look surprised, then look at me with something between a smile and a sigh.
A moment later, cloth wraps around them and spikes them face first into the ground. I sigh as I dedicate more mana to healing that. The clothmancer, of course, promptly tries to approach me, a brutal tempest of wire-thin fabric slicing towards me, clashing into a barrier of solidified mana.
It’s not enough. Opal reaches them within a moment, and again, their blade meets flesh. It slices the sumeen’s stomach open, a grizzly wound. The priest casts a heal, and I let it pass through. There’s still more for me to learn, after all.
“Opal?” I ask and they turn to me. “Catch.” A good chunk of my mana compresses into an enchanted knife, dense and engraved.
[Solidification 17 > 18]
It darts forward and lands in their hand elegantly. A moment later, they embed it into the clothmancer. Even though these copies are meant to be silent and expressionless, I still see the shiver run through them. “Must feel horrid,” I theorize. “All that foreign mana coursing through you, messing with your magic…”
And then I walk forward. I’m not fast, not nearly as fast as them. But I have more mana. Despite the level difference, I have more mana. My mantle swirls, and their attempts break against it, weakened multiple times over by my layers of defense. [Suppression], [Deconstruction], barriers of [Solidification], my mana leeching into and polluting their insides…
Powerful skills turn powerless as I kneel above the sumeen. Then I manifest a nail from my mana, and stab it through their hand. Then another nail, a third and fourth. I grow barbs, making sure they’re securely in the ground, leaving the sumeen with nowhere to go. “I’ll be right back,” I tell them.
Then I sit next to the priest, Opal’s sword pinning him to the ground. He burns with golden light, conjuring flames, and I smile. “There we are. That’s a new skill.”
Like the others it shatters and I hum.
“Show me again.”
- - -
An hour later, Opal and I finish the trial.
[Challenge completed. Ascend.]
[You have killed a lv. 80 Soothsayer]
[Level Up! 55 > 57]
As per the usual, my points go into mana, bringing it to an impressive 285. I breathe in, then out, clicking on my headphones even as the ascension well takes me. I learnt a lot from that little fight, and I mentally thank the tower for it.
Seems it doesn’t like descenders going after totally helpless little newbies like me. A small smirk plays on my lips. It’s imperfect, but, well, I do now have a full understanding of all the skills the priest had when he was level 80. The way he healed, the way he conjured flames, the way he used to track us, the way he conjured barriers.
All of it, housed within my Archive. Filed away and neatly understood, all its weak points marked like a drawing on a pinwall with a bunch of sticky notes. Points of failure, little efficiencies - how I can use a tiny pinprick of mana to make his entire skill crumble all at once.
[Memorization 3 > 5]
The same goes for the soothsayer of course. By the end of the fight, I could stop them from using their cloth entirely. Which is by no means a guarantee that I’ll be able to do so when we fight them for real, but it’s most certainly an advantage.
In fact… I feel a flicker of divination around me. Now that I know what to look for to spot the skill, it’s almost obvious. This is more solid, though. Stronger, far, far stronger.
So I simply pour half my vessel into shattering it entirely.
My mana plummets so much that I actually feel my breath hitch. But the flood of power crashes into the divination, and rather than crack and make it fall apart, it’s utterly annihilated. I smirk.
Then, Opal gently addresses me. “Hey, Snow. Look around.”
Something in their voice makes me listen, and I properly take in the fourth floor, the light of the ascension fading away and letting me take it all in. I smell the stale, musty air, drenched in the faint odour of rot. I look at the purple, trampled grass all around us, covered in faint, chilly fog. The trees with limbs like skeletal fingers.
And the tombstones.
The entire floor is a graveyard. I breathe in another breath stinking of mold and fetid flesh.
Then the ground cracks open and fingers of rotting flesh rise up.
Chapter 126: Undead
/The fourth floor is the Graveyard.
That’s its job, metaphorically and physically. Dead climbers end up there. Corpses have a way of ending up there, and some think the tower keeps record of every single climber who’s ever died in it.
I say that’s crud. But there is some truth to it.
If you die on the fourth floor, it spawns a gravestone with your name, and brings your rotting corpse back out to haunt the living. This means that in addition to the normal undead, who’ve long forgotten who they used to be, we get people who know how to cast some magic, or with physical skills.
It’s the graveyard, because the fifth floor is the end of where most people can go. It’s where reckless idiots go to die, and when they do, their bodies get thrown down here. They get consumed by the rot that plagues this place, and they rise again.
So, climbers. If you’re on the fourth, find a city fast. Ascension wells always drop you near cities, because water goes bad fast, and food is scarce here. Find some walls. Sell the corpse-prizes. Grow until you earn your authority.
And then climb higher./
-Windwrought, level 85 Galebringer, entry in the Climber’s Compendium.
- - -
[Congratulations!]
[You have made it to the fourth floor! For your performance in the ascendancy well, you have acquired 2 minor requests.]
[Ascension Quest: Proof of Will. Cross the fourth threshold.]
There is a city not too far into the distance. That is the one upside to this floor.
The downside is that it’s crawling with undead.
“So much material,” Amelie hums quietly, and I glance at her. The girl is sitting peacefully in her wheelchair, being pushed by some plant-metal amalgamation, and her hands dance through the air, strings spreading out.
Most of the zombies are somewhat weak. That’s by comparison, of course. They still move faster than mundane humans, sprinting at us. They also come in all shapes and sizes. Zoof with matted fur, scithians with rotting gem wings, even a species that logs as “feryran”, which are made from metal.
Those are the most troublesome, because as they move, they’re loud. Their metal joints have rusted, and the plates that cover their skin often scream as they move, attracting yet more zombies towards us. They shamble and sprint, and get caught in Amelie’s strings.
Our weaver, for her part, has gotten rather scary. Her class was already close to a necromancer, with her puppets, but now that she’s on a floor like this… The smile doesn’t vanish from her face. Even though it smells terrible, she just keeps producing more threads from her fingers, ensnaring some of the zombies she deems more “interesting” and having her existing puppets drag them.
Bile eyes her wish suspicion, the minotaur seeming almost afraid of her peaceful expression through it all. Norman is panting next to me, exhausted from his overuse of [Unassuming] to mostly keep the horde off us. Occasionally, Opal [Blinks] away to slice up some of them, and even more rarely, Thatch strides out there and fights.
They’re all noisy about it. Not at all like Richard and me. The hiy’ht walks next to me quietly, her small form making little noise. Her face is creased up in disgust at the smell, but she doesn’t voice her complaints. If anything, she just shivers from the cold. I glance at my shadow for a moment, and Kuro slinks away from me, wrapping around her as a thick cloak.
Richard’s eyes widen for a moment, then she looks at me. “... Thank you?” she asks, questioningly.
“No problem,” I reply, and her lips curl into a smile, chelicerae vibrating slightly. She seems pleased, which is good.
“I am gonna throw myself into bed as soon as we get to the city,” Norman grouches, trudging across the ground. It’s soft and spongy, almost too soft, making us sink slightly and making the walk more exhausting than it needs to be. He’s got higher physical stats than me, though, so I know he’s just whining.
For my own part, while we walk, I have mana to spare. With my attunement loop back in place, it’s placated inside my vessel. There’s a constant struggle between my skill and my mana, to the point where I can feel it writhe, bubble away under the [Suppression]. But it stays calm.
With more willpower, I draw some of it out and thread it into my improved mana maze, and with even more of my mind, I begin to etch some enchantments. Imbuer is just a little bit off from giving me another essence infusion, which I sorely need. I’ve already grown a lot better at doing quick enchantments, but I want to make some healing items. For my party, of course, and also because they would sell really well.
As always, there is plenty for me to work on before we make it to the city, and so, work on it I do.
- - -
When we get within closer range of the gate, close enough that Thatch can see the guards, I ask Richard for my cloak back. Kuro quickly wraps around me, hiding my missing arm, the stump that’s slowly regrowing from my shoulder, and covering my face in a hood and cowl. It makes me look like a suspicious rogue, but at the same time, wearing things that so completely hide my silhouette is fun.
It helps that Kuro has gotten rather soft.
While Thatch handles the guards and talks to them, I focus on my mana senses. There’s a faint haze around the guards, power that passively pours off them.
I tilt my head faintly, looking closer. [Observation] kicks in properly, creating a thin field-
Someone reaches for my shoulder, and Opal catches their hand. “Sorry,” they say for me, “my friend’s not big on touch.”
The guard, a zoof, clicks her tongue. “Tell your friend to keep their skills to themselves. Staring is rude, especially on upper floors. How new are you?”
Do they not know about humans here? Maybe they’re confused about when our integration happened? “For about two months,” Thatch lies with a polite, apologetic smile. Handsome bastard. “We’re not yet used to all the rules.”
“Yeah, Green Sea isn’t exactly good for learnin’, either,” the guard sighs. “The rundown is, keep your senses to yourself. Keep your hands to yourself. Don’t ask too many questions. Pay fairly. And, for a final piece of advice: even though it’s pricey, get the compendium. Read it.”
I blink, then slowly nod. “Thanks,” I say.
With another sigh and a wave, we’re let into the city.
It’s more fortress than town, built to last. The air on this floor is full of rot, even more so than anywhere else. I can feel the density of mana in the air, tingling, burning against the mana coating my skin. It’s thicker here than on the other floors, so things degrade from that, too.
Which means materials need to be tougher. Much of the architecture is made from bone. Pale white structures, towering high. The walls have no gaps, fused together by what I guess is people with transmutation abilities, and there are multiple summoners or other minion-based classes on the walls, defending them against the horde of zombies.
The floor had a lot of infrastructure for those kindsa classers, in fact. There were little stable-sheds near most inns for minions to be stores, so I handed over some of the chits we had to rent one of those. After a little while, we had a room. We’d made it to the fourth floor.
I sat down on my bed, and let it run through my head again. We’d made it to the fourth floor. It wasn’t safe yet, not at all, but we were harder to track, here. Ascension Wells were scattered, after all. They’d need to find our city, then us in that city. We could lay low and bide our time…
Or grow as fast as we could. A thin smile wore itself into my face, as I looked at Opal and Thatch, my two friends. Bile was rooming with Norman, and Richard with Amelie. I take a deep breath. “We’re missing Sylphes and Inu,” I note, and both of them nod. Of course, we’re missing more than that, but they know what I mean.
“Let’s be real: is Sylves coming up?” I ask. It’s so very close to a rhetoric question.
Opal barks out a laugh and leans back in their chair, crossing their arms behind their head, and their legs over one another. “No fricken way.”
Smiling softly, Thatch gently shakes his head. “Yeah, no shot.”
“Thought so,” I nod. “She’s at home on the third. In fact, I’d wager she’s making life hell for the people down there. Maybe even messing with the pursuers.”
With a snicker, Thatch nods. “She would mess with them. Lead them around in circles. If we’re lucky, she’ll split their group.”
“Unlikely,” Opal shrugs, then grins. “But we can hope. What about Inu?”
“She’ll find us,” I say, rather sure of myself. “Knowing her, she’s with Bay, Jess, and Dar. They’ve got better tracking abilities. Especially with [Empathy].”
“Hmmmm,” Thatch hums. “You’re probably right. They’ll make their way up.”
I nod. “So, what do we need to prepare for them?”
For the first time Opal leans forward, putting both of their hands on the table. Their grin is almost feral at this point. “Power,” they say. “Sylves will buy us time. We need to prepare. Not just ourselves… but a battlefield.”
“Flamando is on this floor, too,” Thatch says, shuddering slightly. “I can tell.”
“How?” I ask.
“Epitaph,” he says. “The closer someone I’m angry at, the faster I heal and the harder I hit. I can feel a small tether to him, because of the- well, y’know.”
I nod slowly, not pushing him any further as he looks down on the table, clenching his fists. His hair falls in front of his eyes covering them, and Opal squeezes his shoulder. I think it over for a few moments, then nod. “We need Flamando to fight Ezekiel.”
“Won’t they work together?” Opal asks.
For a second, I almost laugh. Then, I touch a hand to the mark on the side of my face, where my skin is raw and burnt over my bones. “Hey, Flametouched,” I say. The Eyes know where we are, anyway, but with Flamando’s recent fuck-up, I’d wager the tower won’t let it tell him. “Will you work with Lurelia to kill me? Do you need her help? Are you so pathetic you can’t burn one person down?”
[The Flametouched rages a wildfire. It will claim your skins, your bones, your friends to ash. No one else may touch you.]
I smile gently, then read the message out to my friends. Opal bursts into laughter, and even Thatch snickers at it. “Arrogant,” Opal says, brightly. “So arrogant!”
“We’ll prepare,” I say quietly. “We’ll prepare, and then we’ll show them. Tell Bile to come here. I need him to dig.”
Opal hops up, stretching their neck. “I’ll get him,” they say, then they disappear.
Patting the dust off his pants, Thatch rises, too. “I’ll go scout with Norman. He needs more levels in [Unassuming]. I think this floor will be good for my new skill,” he says, then squeezes his fist and smiles. He’s so composed, but I can feel the anger roll off him in waves as he walks out of my room.
And then there’s me. I [Suppress] myself. I press my mana so close against my skin, stop it from leaking from my vessel, and build it. Slowly, I draw a deep breath, and turn to my archive.
[Memorization 5 > 6]
Let’s see what I can figure out about their skills. I need to be prepared, after all.
Prepared to crush them.