Crypt of Osorin, part 2

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Log Info

  • Title: Crypt of Osorin Part 2 (run as p3)
  • Emitter: Culix
  • Characters: Aimarra, Glasha, Smuldur, Paenitia
  • Place: The Crypt of Osorin
  • Time: Monday, March 15, 2021, 3:02 PM
  • Summary: Aimarra, Glasha and Smuldur have successfully opened the doors to the Crypt of Osorin. They are joined by Sister Paenitia and her peacock-hippogryph, Ramirez. Further into the Crypt, Glasha identifies a magic trap of some sort, and the walls are lined with skeletons. There is a lever, which sets Smuldur positively vibrating with anticipation to pull. Alas, it is not to be, as the party pulls back so Glasha can summon an Air Elemental to attach a rope to the lever. Partway through this attempt, the trap is activated and the skeletons animate. Battle Ensues! Aimarra and Paenitia discover that pointy things don't work well at all, while slashing and bashing does. The Crimson Knight advances into the fray as her Ivory Steed bleeds closer to her colourations, and Smuldur rages and sets fires. Yet their foe still stands, tbc.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  Appearing, in Order  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Aimarra      5'1"     128 Lb     Half-Elf          Female    Brown hair and eyes, breastplate, leathers, pointed ears.
Glasha       5'8"     100 Lb     Half-Orc          Female    Green-skinned, young lady with bleached hair.
Smuldur      3'4"     45 Lb      Goblin            Male      A gently used (cut, scraped, burnt, exploded) gobber.
Paenitia     3'0"     34 Lb      Halfling          Female    A Lucht knight, dark skinned in bold feathery finery.
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  As the GM  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Culix        3'2"     36 Lb      Goblin            Female    Beady-eyed goblin female in leathers and hood.
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=

After a concerning- but ultimately successful encounter with the crypts stony guardians, Aimarra has managed to get the door open- and by extension- disabled the animated statues while Glasha and Smuldur held them off. The doors have ground open at a snails pace, and the guardians are still poised ready to strike- although they are, once more, statues. The room ahead is fairly expansive, granite flagstones tiling the floor once more, and great hewn stone blocks making up the walls. The ceiling is supported by masonry vaulting, which has withstood the test of time well, only cracked or crumbling in one or two places and stable.

Alcoves are carved into the sides of the room, and recessed into each alcove are skeletons. Wearing ceremonial armor, laid to rest with their hands folded over their chest and weapons- swords and javelins- arrayed to flank their tombs, they are likely some of those servants purported to have been buried along with the Sorcerer to whom this tomb belongs.

Aimarra slows down immediately on seeing the skeletons, and her bow goes, still strung, over her shoulder in favor of the longsword, which she draws warily. Her steps slow, and quiet, her eyes flicking back and forth. "I don't like the look of that."

Glasha flexes her hands, tossing her axe back and forth between them. "Okay, white knuckle moments aren't exactly my preferred method. Smuldur, please don't approach or touch anything we don't need to kill, anymore, kay?" She walks forward and pauses, turning toward him again to say, "We'll tell you when we need to kill something." She then turns and approaches the doors carefully, ready to bolt if anything comes alive.

Smuldur is already peeking past the doors at the room beyond. Because there's supposed to be important stuff! That doesn't mean that he ignores his friends and allies, though. Torchie is retrieved from the floor and the biggun rusty sword is slid back into Smuldur's pouch/bottoms' waistband. Again without cutting anything important. Probably.

"Always ready for killing. Burning. Burning and killing." He side-eyes the statue guardians suspiciously as she skitters past; they both seem resistant to burning AND killing, which is really, really annoying.

There is an odd galloping sound. The gait is correct, but two of the hoof-beats are replaced with a scrabbling-scratching noise. The source soon reveals itself, then announces itself. 'Ruaaaah!' It's Ramirez, Paenitia's white peacock-gypsy horse.

Riding her steed, the Lucht Knight is crouched low against his neck, lance in had. "None approach outside. I come when I hear the fighting. You are all right my friends?" She looks around, from Smuldur to Glasha to Aimarra, her face obscured by her strange mask.

As the group approach the room containing the skeletons, nothing seems to happen. It is still pitch black inside, so their visibility is limited to darkvision and the extent of Smuldur's torch for those without that particular ability- either way, around sixty feet. Aimarra finally draws near enough to spy the outline of a set of double doors at the far side of the room. Once more, hewn from stone. But these don't look to have any sort of complex mechanism controlling them like the entryway. A simple lever sits to the side of them, plain to see.

Well, _that's_ different. Aimarra looks back up the hall at the scrabbling, scratching noise, and she'd be more alarmed if she didn't recognize it. She backs up a few paces and peered back. "So far, but there are a whole bunch of skeletons down here. They aren't moving - yet." The last word carries a peculiar emphasis that says that she wouldn't be surprised if they commenced to do so.

Glasha speaks, saying, "I don't detect magic just now." She tentatively walks forward. "Be wary, there could be an effect to raise them when we trigger some kind of trap or magical sensor."

Smuldur looks at the skeletal guards/servants/warriors. Then he looks to the lever. Back to the skeletons. Back to the lever.He doesn't detect any magic, either. Not that he ever would or could, aside from, say, catching a fireball to the nose.

He considers their situation, bringing his keen wits, tactical genius, and expansive experience to bear.

"Burn bone-guards. THEN pull lever."

The Red Knight nods, nudging Ramirez so he will creep a little further into the room. "I have fought these before. The blunt weapons are best. Enough blows, they will still go down."

Paenitia leans around her peacock's neck to look down the hallway, "Shall I draw them out? You are ready with the distance weapons and spells?"

GAME: Smuldur rolls perception: (6)+9: 15
GAME: Aimarra rolls perception: (8)+11: 19
GAME: Paenitia rolls perception: (2)+4: 6
GAME: Paenitia rolls 1d20+5: (4)+5: 9 (Ramirez Perception)
GAME: Glasha rolls Knowledge/Arcana: (16)+14: 30

"Be careful toward the center of the room," Glasha says. "Abjuration. Might be something interfering with my detection magic."

And still the skeletons slumber, if they are going to wake up- it seems as though simply being near the entrance and speaking to one another isn't enough to stir them from their eternal rest.

"Bow won't do a lick of good against that." Aimarra nods back at Glasha, absorbing the warning. "That lever might open that door, or it might drop us into a nest of snakes, the way this sorcerer thinks. Might be that magic you're picking up on is what triggers the skeletons. That way they'll surround us if we trip it." She peers harder down the room into the gloom.

"I can pull the lever remotely," Glasha says, "if we want to get somewhere safer. Benefits of magic."

"Ramirez, pull wings in tight, you put the feathers in their faces." Paenitia says, adjusting her shield, her lance still ready but held low. The peacock-horse's tail-train fills the passage behind him, at least he's keeping that against the ground.

"I do not see magic, or have much to fight it. Ramirez and I can stick to the wall. We go to the right, smash what stands, move up. This plan, you are okay with?"

The little Lucht looks behind, at Glasha, "Or that plan. It sounds the smarter one."

"I'm really glad you're here," Glasha says to the newcomer, "but I'm sticking with my safety-by-distance vote. Even if it doesn't work, I'd like to try that before we enter the room, if nobody has any objections."

"I've got none," Aimarra says crisply.

Ramirez makes a snort, which could mean anything. Paenitia says cheerfully, "No objections. Show us the magic!"

The Lever is on the wall, next to the door at the far side of the room. The room is sixty feet long, and twenty feet wide, with the width increaseing at the alcoves.

"Hey, guys, can we pull back into this room back here, just in case the hallway is some kind of trap?" Glasha asks. "I can reach the lever from where I'm standing, but if it's a trap, I'd be locked out and you guys might be put in danger. Not willing to risk your lives for my own safety."

Smuldur eyes the lever more. "What if doors close again?!" After all that work to open them, it would be frustrating if that happened. "Hurry! Burn, or pull! I can do both!"

Paenitia makes a clicking noise and rocks in her saddle. Ramirez turns his head, to give her a stare with a large, red eye, or perhaps look beyond. With a careful clop-scratch, clop-scratch he reverses. "Try the spikes?"

Aimarra looks down at Smuldur, and nods. "You've got a point, but let's make sure we don't get separated. Come on." She, too, begins to withdraw towards the double doors where the others are.

There are a handful of coppers, a rusty dagger, some broken glass. Nothing particularly interesting in the backpack- at least, that hasn't rotted away to nothing by now.

Smuldur mutters and walks (not skitters!) back towards the others. The lever gets several glances ove rhis shoulder.

The doors seem to be about a foot thick, cast of solid granite, and slide in/out of the wall. Anything that could move them would be very hard to stop with anything short of adamantine or some kind of magical object.

GAME: Glasha casts Summon Monster II. Caster Level: 5 DC: 18

Glasha begins to speak a language that warps one's mind to even hear. Her mouth speaks unpronounceable syllables while her hand and arm contorts in uncomfortable-looking ways. To cast the spell takes several seconds, and once it's done, the air coagulates before her, angry eyes forming in a stormy cloud that refuses to touch the ground.

Glasha holds up the slipknot. "Take this," she says, calmly. The elemental grumpily snatches the rope. "Go to that lever," Glasha continues. The elemental flies, pulling loop after loop of hemp rope off Glasha's arm as it flies forward.

As the elemental reaches the center of the room- even skirting the aura Glasha detected, something changes. It sounds like... a bell is ringing? A faint, tinkling sound, like a small hand bell. The sort used by the wealthy to conjure servants to hand. But it rings out in the stale crypt air clearly.

And after a moment, the sound of the ringing is joined by another. A scraping, dry, rustling sound. The sound of bony fingers wrapping around rusted hilts and hafts.

"It's an Alarm spell," Glasha says as she hears the bell. "Kill every undead in that room!" she calls out to her elemental. "Get ready," she says, shifting to hold her greataxe with both hands.

The skeletons all lumber out of their alcoves as one, jerky motions as the dust of ages settles from their yellowed bones. Skeletal fingers reach for the weapons arrayed around them, each skeleton laying its hands on a javelin and a curved blade. Deep within the shadows of their empty skulls, a ghostly blue light begins to glow casting its earie glow through their vacant eye sockets.

GAME: Glasha rolls 6: (11)+6: 17

As the skeletons begin to move, the elemental, filled with all manner of hate for these groundlings, swings at one. It misses horribly, possibly just afraid to touch something that's also touching the ground, but who can tell.

GAME: Smuldur RAGES!, gaining +2 to melee attack/damage/Will saves and 6 temporary HP
GAME: Smuldur rolls melee+2+1: (2)+6+2+1: 11

"Rrraaaaahhh!" Hey, someone said they'd let him know, and then someone said to kill them all, so... Smuldur and Torchie skitter down the hall and around the corner to swing at the one in the corner. And they hit... the corner. Just not the bone-guard.

GAME: Paenitia rolls weapon8: (13)+5: 18
GAME: Paenitia rolls 1d20+4: (14)+4: 18 (Ramirez Bite)
GAME: Paenitia rolls damage8: aliased to 1d6+1: (3)+1: 4 (Ramirez Bite Damage)
GAME: Paenitia rolls 1d6+3: (4)+3: 7
<OOC> Paenitia says, "bite appears to be all three, dealing piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning"
<OOC> Culix says, "Your lance glances off, but Ramirez kills it."

"The conflict! She begins. Ramirez! Attack!" Paenitia cries out gleefully, and her peacock-andalusian hippogryph charges down the hallway. It's a very low and wriggly sort of run, and she's lying as flat as she can, but they make it.

A quick right turn, and there's a skeleton to engage. Paenitia stabs! Her lance slides in, straight for the heart, then deflects off the ribs. A deadly attack, but useless against an organless foe.

Ramirez is more successful. One snap of his powerful beak and the skeleton's head is crushed, and it crumbles. This is followed by a triumphant squawk.

Paenitia laughs, "Ole! The lance, she does not work. Hit with blunt force my friends!"

GAME: Aimarra rolls weapon1: (2)+8: 10

The call to use blunt force is heard, and Aimarra swears colorfully. "But I don't _have_ blunt weapons," she mutters, the all-too-clear memory of the last time her weapons failed her running through her mind and singing just under her skin. She'll carry the marks of that for the rest of her life. She snaps out an arrow at one nearby, only to have it sail harmlessly to skitter down the wall.

Glasha quietly steps back around the corner out of sight, leaving her Air elemental to keep attacking nearest things.

GAME: Culix rolls 2: (12)+2: 14
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (3)+2: 5
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (11)+2: 13
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (8)+2: 10
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (17)+2: 19
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (17)+2: 19
<OOC> Culix says, "Two of the javelins hit."
GAME: Culix rolls 1d6+2: (1)+2: 3
GAME: Culix rolls 1d6+2: (4)+2: 6
<OOC> Culix says, "The one in melee range with the elemental will swing its scimitar"
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (18)+2: 20 (THREAT)
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (9)+2: 11 (not confirmed)
GAME: Culix rolls 1d6+2: (6)+2: 8
<OOC> Culix says, "Elemental is down."
<OOC> Culix says, "The three remaining not in melee throw their javelins at Paenitia, Ramirez and Smuldur."
<OOC> Culix says, "One each."
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (2)+2: 4
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (1)+2: 3 (EPIC FAIL)
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (8)+2: 10
<OOC> Culix says, "One scimitar attack each vs Paenitia and Smuldur."
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (10)+2: 12
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (14)+2: 16

The skeletons drag themselves out of their alcoves, shuffling at first- but as the light in their empty sockets grows in intensity, and their jaws chatter, their movements begin to pick up in speed and their motions become less lurching and random. Most of them lift javelins and throw the slender spears towards the arrayed adventurers. The poor air elemental takes the brunt of it, being the deepest into the room, and a barrage of the weapons converge upon it. The elemental is struck through from very direction. It's trials are not over, though, as the nearest skeleton swings its wickedly curved sword for the outsider, and it vanishes in a puff of smoke as it's struck- leaving the javelins to clatter to the ground.

The rest of the skeletons turn their attention on the living now that their outsider foe is dispatched- more javelins are launched, but none find their mark. Nor does the swinging of a scimitar against smuldur, biting only into armor, not flesh.

GAME: Smuldur rolls melee+2+1: (17)+6+2+1: 26
GAME: Smuldur rolls 1d3+strength+2+1 fire: (2)+2+2+1 fire: 7

Shin bone connected to the... nope, not anymore! Smuldur smacks it with his trusty torch, maybe singing the bone... but mostly knocking tibias and fibias free from patellas! What's left drops and falls apart as it hits the ground. "Ha! Who's next?!" He turns to run up to the next lucky volunteer!

GAME: Paenitia rolls 1d20+4: (17)+4: 21 (Ramirez Beak)
GAME: Paenitia rolls 1d20+4: (2)+4: 6 (Ramirez Claw)
GAME: Paenitia rolls 1d20+4: (3)+4: 7 (Ramirez Claw)
GAME: Paenitia rolls weapon7: (13)+5: 18
GAME: Paenitia rolls 1d6+3: (5)+3: 8 (Ramirez Beak Damage)
GAME: Paenitia rolls damage7: aliased to 1d6+1: (6)+1: 7

A javelin flies at Ramirez! The throw is inept. The decrepit ligaments and reanimated muscles not up to the task. Ramirez flicks his head, catches the shaft in flight, then snaps it with his beak, issuing a loud 'RuaaaaAHH!' of challenge that echoes in the dusty halls. He steps forward.

He snaps! His head snaking out, beak crushing the skeleton's rib cage like it was a shaft of dried wood. He rears, to slash with his claws, but the foe is already defeated and collapsing in a pile of clattering bones.

Paenitia lets her lance fall from her, and draws her warhammer as her steed advances. Striking across his neck, then down, she lands a solid blow on the skull of the other lead skeleton. It is crushed, collapsing at Ramirez's talons.

The Red Knight is positively gleeful, giddy at her successes and taunts the dry bones. "How do you have fight left in you, when there is nothing of life? No heart to love, no mind to think, no stomach to feed. Oh! That passion lives on both sides of this fight."

She takes a quick scan around the room, "Aimarra, Smuldur. We advance! I have the pole arms, if you want to guard Ramirez's sides."

GAME: Aimarra rolls weapon1: (20)+8: 28 (THREAT)
GAME: Aimarra rolls weapon1: (4)+8: 12
GAME: Aimarra rolls 1d6+3: (4)+3: 7

An air elemental dies a rather nasty death, yet another warning that makes Aimarra's skin crawl, but Paenitia's offer snaps her out of her momentary funk quickly enough. "Your weapons are too small for me, but I've got the sword." With that, she snaps an arrow out at the one closest, leaving it quivering and stuck to its backbone, a rather odd sight.

<OOC> Culix says, "Paenitia, Smuldur, Aimarra, Ramirez is the order of the rolls."
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (8)+2: 10
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (16)+2: 18
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (11)+2: 13
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (8)+2: 10
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (17)+2: 19
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (18)+2: 20
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (5)+2: 7
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (19)+2: 21
<OOC> Culix says, "One hit on Aimarra, one on Ramirez. You can attempt a ride check to negate it."
<OOC> Paenitia says, "+6 to counter the ACP on the ride. Rolling Mounted Combat to negate"
GAME: Paenitia rolls ride+6: (9)+3+6: 18
GAME: Culix rolls 1d6+2: (4)+2: 6
GAME: Culix rolls 1d6+2: (6)+2: 8
GAME: Culix damaged your companion for 8 points. 11 HP remaining.

The skeletons towards the rear of the room advance, bony feet scraping against the granite as they do, in some semblance of the military tactics they perhaps employed in life, they form a wall spanning the room as they lift their second javelins each. Their arms rear back, and they loose wave of the hurled weapons- most fail to find their marks, falling short or glancing off armor. But Ramirez catches a shaft to the breast, and Aimarra to the thigh.

GAME: Smuldur rolls melee+2+1: (16)+6+2+1: 25
GAME: Smuldur rolls 1d3+strength+2+1: (2)+2+2+1: 7

"Break! Smash! Burn!" Smuldur gleefully attempts all the things. Sadly, burning doesn't seem to be really happening today, due to rotten things not burning well, and/or no dried flesh to burn. Brittle bones break brittley, though, as he smacks another one down with Torchie, The Conflogurator.

<OOC> Culix says, "Alright. So you're going to overrun the nearest one, and charge the wall."
GAME: Paenitia rolls 1d20+6: (10)+6: 16 (Ramirez CMB)
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (13)+2: 15
GAME: Paenitia rolls ride+6: (11)+3+6: 20
<OOC> Culix says, "Negated"
<OOC> Culix says, "And the nearest skeleton is knocked prone"
GAME: Paenitia rolls 1d20+4+2: (20)+4+2: 26 (THREAT)
GAME: Paenitia rolls 1d20+4+2: (11)+4+2: 17 (Not Confirmed)
GAME: Paenitia rolls weapon7+4: (13)+5+4: 22
GAME: Paenitia rolls 1d6+3: (1)+3: 4 (Ramirez Beak)
GAME: Paenitia rolls damage7: aliased to 1d6+1: (1)+1: 2

"Ramirez! Attack!" Paenitia cries, pointing her warhammer at a skeleton on the line. Her ivory steed snorts and claws the ground, then surges forward.

There is a skeleton in the way! One that stabs at the hippogryph's bleeding breast. Paenitia yanks the reins, and her mount rises enough that the blade misses. The mass of bird-horse-flesh passing by knocks the old bones to the ground.

They are upon the line! With wild eyes, Ramirez snaps at the skeleton in front of him, as Paenitia backswings her hammer in an arc, down on the foe beside it. Both strike! Both blows are light, a little to the side. The skeletons are damaged but still standing.

<OOC> Aimarra says, "Do I have bowshot to the one Ramirez hit, or is his feathery bum in the way?"
<OOC> Culix says, "Ramirez counts as soft cover, so +2 to its AC"
<OOC> Aimarra says, "How about Smuldur's friend? I'd not like to hit a peacock in the rump."
<OOC> Culix says, "The one at 13 17 is prone, so gains 4 AC vs ranged attacks."
<OOC> Culix says, "You have a clear shot against all the rest."
<OOC> Aimarra says, "All right, let's take the one at 12,19."
GAME: Aimarra rolls weapon4: (20)+6: 26 (THREAT)
GAME: Aimarra rolls weapon1: (5)+8: 13 (Not Confirmed)
GAME: Aimarra rolls 1d6+3: (1)+3: 4

Aimarra's arrows are less than effective against these things, although her aim is deadly. Another arrow glances off the skullbone of the one Paenitia just hit, leaving only a score mark on bone.

<OOC> Culix says, "One 5' steps up to Ramirez, the rest move around the swarm to rush Smuldur."
<OOC> Culix says, "Although the prone one stands, which provokes."
<OOC> Culix says, "So if you would like to take your AoO's, roll them now."
GAME: Paenitia rolls 1d20+4: (3)+4: 7 (Ramirez Bite)
GAME: Paenitia rolls weapon7: (15)+5: 20
GAME: Paenitia rolls damage7: aliased to 1d6+1: (6)+1: 7
<OOC> Paenitia says, "nice. Ramirez has DEX 16, so +3, so total 4 AOOs, and 3 remaining"

Paenitia continues the swing of her warmhammer, letting it arc low and up again. As the skeleton Ramirez knocked prone tries to stand she catches it in the hips and shatters it halfway up its spine.

The Red Knight giggles, "Aimarra, you should not say that to a man, they will take it wrong. To me, it is funny!"

<OOC> Culix says, "Meanwhile, 7 scimitar attacks. 3 vs Paenitia, 2 vs Ramirez, 2 vs Smuldur."
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (4)+2: 6
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (20)+2: 22 (THREAT)
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (11)+2: 13 (Not Confirmed)
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (2)+2: 4
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (15)+2: 17
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (2)+2: 4
<OOC> Culix says, "One hit vs Ramirez, Ride to negate."
GAME: Paenitia rolls ride+6: (4)+3+6: 13
GAME: Culix rolls 1d6+2: (1)+2: 3
GAME: Culix damaged Ramirez for 3 points. 8 HP remaining.
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (20)+2: 22 (THREAT)
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (18)+2: 20 (CONFIRMED)
GAME: Culix rolls 2: (2)+2: 4
GAME: Culix rolls 1d6+2: (5)+2: 7
GAME: Culix rolls 2d6+4: (8)+4: 12
GAME: Culix damaged Paenitia for 6 points. 26 HP remaining.
GAME: Culix damaged Paenitia for 1 points of nonlethal. Pae has 1 total.

The skeletons, while clumsy and fragile, make up for in numbers what they lack in prowess and power. They swarm around Paenitia and Ramirez, and the remainders surge forth to meet Smuldur. Scimitars are readied and flash out at their targets- Ramirez suffers a gash to his side, Paenitia a smite across her breastplate that by sheer luck manages to sneak under the paldron and bite into flesh. Smuldur suffers the worst, though, as the wickedly curved blade of one of the skeletons tears a deep rent through his armor and bites into the flesh across his colar bone and shoulder, from which blood flows freely.

To be continued...

Ghoulish cp line.png

Combatty

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 |     Name      |  CHP (T) |  HP  |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 | Aimarra.......|   31     |  37  |
 | Glasha........|   28     |  28  |
 | Paenitia......|   26     |  32  |
 | (C) Ramirez...|    8     |  19  |
 | Smuldur.......|   16     |  27  |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~