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 Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 1:42 pm
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 4:03 pm
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Username: Ai Leen
Name: Ai Shiteru
You can call me: Ai
Age: looks 21ish
Gender: Female
Race: Android
Job: Artisan - Tailor/Sculptor, Militia
Specialized in: Physical and magical melee combat
Personality: Competitive, cocky, yet otherwise an easy-going girl who cares for those in her community.
Bio:
Ai Shiteru's life began as a doll.
Her "mother" was a girl named Eileen Patterson, who had just lost her parents to the war. Her "father" was Dr. Shun Akimoto, a notable neural-interface researcher and practicing martial artist, who adopted Eileen and cared for her in the wake of that tragedy. Eileen was always a shy, introverted sort of girl, and the death of both her parents had come as a large blow to that, drawing her further inwards, until she was little more than a doll herself.
Not good with kids, especially young girls like Eileen, Dr. Akimoto had no idea how to draw her out except to begin teaching her martial arts...but she didn't take to it. At least not until he began showing her his collection of old martial arts movies. When he started showing movies starring Jackie Chan and Stephen Chow she cracked her first laugh, and began getting into the lessons he began teaching.
During several times of their life together, Dr. Akimoto noticed that Eileen was having trouble wrapping her head around a concept. Always thinking, he realized he might be able to teach her if he made the teaching fun. Fighting games came to mind...and as a neural-interface engineer, he got to work. Eileen became interested when he kept asking her questions about what she liked about this or that character, then rushed back to his lab. Finally, he asked her what she would like in a fighter, if she could design her own.
She described a small woman named "Sentaku" or "Chosen", who had short blond hair with a braided ponytail just like Eileen's, wore a gi with a scarf, and had "iron rings just like that one guy in Kung Fu Hustle". He smiled, remembering the endearing effeminate middle aged tailor, but at Sentaku's size, realized that the rings wouldn't work the way she wanted to. Making sure metal cylinders were okay with her ("Okay, but make them really red!"), he created the doll and the data-crown that was her interface with it.
There was a problem in hardcoding the name into the doll when it was first produced. During this period of time, Eileen learned that Sentaku was more than a combat toy...she was a being to care for and share experiences with. The doll moved and spoke, powered by the thoughts and emotions Eileen relayed through the crown. She could sit at a tea table and make conversation with Eileen, and when the fighting game damaged Sentaku, Eileen worried for her little loved one.
She renamed the doll "Ai Shiteru" with the revelation that what Dr. Akimoto had created for her was more than just a fighter. She was a friend, and a daughter...and the Japanese words for "I love you" tumbled from her lips when she made the tearful realization. Once the hardcode error was remedied, the name became official.
Several years past. Years in which Dr. Akimoto seriously began to resent the Imperium of Man, the power which he'd worked for. Industrialization for the sake of industrialization had never sat well with him, especially at the cost of the health of the population. And one person had begun to react to the poor health conditions that made the problem personal: Eileen. His adopted daughter was a healthy, even athletic girl during the best of times, but she'd never gotten over the death of her parents entirely, and hadn't kept up with her exercises. Only one thing truly kept her happy: playing with Ai Shiteru.
He never understood precisely what happened. Perhaps her immune system had been deficient. Perhaps she had been poisoned by the chemicals they'd been pumping into the drinking water. Whatever it was...Eileen became sick.
Trips to the hospital became more and more frequent. Each time, the prognosis was no better than the last. And with the increased stays at the hospital, Eileen had less and less time to spend with Ai.
Finally, Eileen's body could take no more. Dr. Akimoto brought Ai Shiteru and the neural crown to her then, and stayed by her side, watching as she made her tearful farewell to the beloved companion. To his surprise, he was next. He'd always struggled to find a way to reach out to her...so much so that he'd never really realized that he'd done so until this moment. They embraced, carefully on his part, and she kissed his cheek then weakly reached up to stroke away the tear sliding down his cheek. She reached out then for his hand, while she and Ai Shiteru grasped each other's as well. Then she sighed...and was gone.
A year past, before Akimoto could bear to look at Ai Shiteru. The doll was a painful reminder of his failure to Eileen. He hadn't noticed in time what their world was doing to her. He hadn't reacted fast enough to save her. He hadn't protested loudly enough about how badly things were getting. He'd failed her parents - his best friends. But as these feelings faded, as all emotional aches do, he realized the most important feeling he'd had: he missed Eileen. He'd made her so much a part of his life that it revolved around her. And that gaping hole that replaced her drove the scientist to create once more.
He went back to Ai Shiteru, and more importantly, to her neural crown's database backup. They weren't all of Eileen...just the thoughts and emotions that she'd supplied the doll to bring her to life. But they more than any other parent who'd lost a child had. And Ai Shiteru was Eileen's daughter: a child of her mind and her heart. All three of them had held hands together in that last moment. He would be damned if he let a child of hers grow up in the Imperium of Man.
Emptying his accounts, he purchased the parts he'd need, saving only enough to make good their escape. Good, strong parts. Not military hardware, but quality material. He built Ai a new, full-sized body...a new, sophisticated "brain". He gave her all the martial technique he'd always wanted to pass on to Eileen, and married it all with the backup information. He even gave her red iron rings like Eileen had always wanted. However...there was something missing. When he brought her online, she was still just an automaton. She was her programming and nothing more.
He found it in research he'd abandoned years ago. Work the Imperium had initially been interested in but tossed away: magic stones used by the Holy Kingdoms. Digging through the research, he hit upon something he'd missed: information that had nothing to do with what the Imperium of Man wanted. Information that was exactly what he needed. The stones could generate emotional energy. The Brighthand system was born.
Ai came online, with full sentience, only three months later. Akimoto had worn himself haggard working on her during this time, but he'd succeeded. Ai Shiteru, their daughter, was born. However, his activity had become suspicious to the Imperium of Man. There was little time for jubilation.
With Imperium officials on their tails, they made their way towards Ashien, the one place Dr. Akimoto felt Ai could live in safety and security. And as they ran, he told her stories of her mother. One after another, the tales tumbled from his lips, just as tears fell from his eyes. He skid to a stop, and told her to keep going. He knew they couldn't survive if they stayed together: he'd fall apart if she was hurt. She obeyed, not knowing what he was planning.
Gunshots sang out in the distance, and Ai looked back, appalled. She was upon the gates of Ashien, and its guards had heard the shots as well. She rushed back, the guards with her...to find Dr. Akimoto dying. Surrounded by the broken bodies of those that had pursued them both. As she wept and pulled his head into her lap, he smiled up at her. He had one more story to tell. A small one, but one he knew he'd wanted to save for last. "You were named Ai Shiteru. Those were the words your mother uttered when she realized who you were. Remember that always. She loved you." He reached out, and grasped her hand, looked into her eyes, and said, "...aishiteru, Ai."
And then he, too, departed from this world.
What you look like: Despite Eileen's original concept of "Sentaku" Ai no longer dresses in a gi. Her blond hair hasn't changed however, still is cut short, a bit spiky, with a ropy, braided ponytail that goes all the way down to her ankles, ending in a brush-like tip. She favors loose, practical clothing, usually stylish designs she'd crafted herself, creativity she attributes to her mother, whom Dr. Akimoto had told her occasionally liked to sew. She has an athletic-looking figure for her smallish frame, with what to the casual observer would remark as good muscle tone, while noting the nail-polish red iron rings adorning her wrists, and the matching red metal weights encasing her shins.
She looks very lifelike, an attribute made possible by the materials he used in the creation of her skin, and the careful layout of the mechanisms that move her body. Her skin is in fact made from a product used in Imperium of Man hospitals to treat burn victims. The material is light in hue, reacts to excess sun with the release of a protective chemical that mimics melanin, and even flexes and wrinkles the way human skin does. The overall sheen is slightly wrong, but overall, it's very good. Likewise well-created are her eyes, which are a green in color. While a bit too vivid, their effect is more "startling" than "unnatural", overall looking very natural. Akimoto could have gone for the standard glass marble eye design, but again reached out to the medical field, procuring replacement cornea and a durable material that mimics the look of the white conjunctiva.
Other: Ai Shiteru is constructed externally of materials as human-seeming as possible. However, her most vital locations, her brain and her chest, are lined with titanium. Dr. Akimoto wanted Ai to have as much of a chance to survive as possible. Within her skull and chest lie the computer and data storage areas, respectively.
Ai has every need a human does: to breathe, to eat, to drink, etc. Her respiration system is designed to keep her internal temperature at stable operational levels, while maintaining the likeness of human breathing. Sensors hidden within her nostrils allow her to detect the scent of an item, while another set hidden within her mouth allows her to detect the flavor of an item. She's not particularly bad or good at determining either: her sensors and computer were not designed to precisely identify components.
Food is necessary to power Ai. It was Dr. Akimoto's opinion that plugs and electrical power supplies would not always be around for her, especially in areas that lie between the two great powers. So her stomach is a reactor that processes food and drink into the energy necessary to power her motor functions.
Her higher processes are sustained partially by the reactor energy, and partially by the Brighthand system that her father developed. Neither by itself is enough to sustain them for very long, it's the combination of both that make it possible. One magic stone resides in the center of her chest, while there are two slots available, one in each hand, accessed by a small slit in her skin disguised as the line separating her thumb muscle from the rest of her palm. Slotting magic stones into these slots allows Ai to unleash emotional energy stores to either heal the biosynthetic portions of her body or to unleash in a number of close range magic-like abilities, usually related to electricity.
Her bones are mostly accurate, and are composed of a calcium-based material that mimics the durability and adaptability of human bone. An examination of her bone structure would reveal that Dr. Akimoto probably started out by ordering a full medical replica of a human skeleton, and built around it, but reinforced the bone with additional material around the shins, forearms, and a few internal "hardpoints" where he needed to mount hardware.
Ai Shiteru's strength is comparable to a human who had trained in the methods she'd been programmed, this is done using durable biopolymer strands that mimic the feel of musculature. Credit for the design of these cannot be attributed to Dr. Akimoto, they were most likely purchased from companies specializing in products of this nature. considering the origins of the rest of Ai's body, it's not too much of a leap to conclude that the artificial muscle had medical applications. This system of her body is however the least impressive: it does its job, but has no ability to gain or lose strength. This is an annoyance to Ai, especially with her competitive nature, however the upside to this is that she doesn't develop scar tissue.
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 4:09 pm
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Username: Saintscythe Kiriiae
Name: Kiriiae Saintscythe (formal)
You can call me: Kir, Kiri
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Job: Armor-smith, Weapon-smith
Specialized in: Disciplinary Magic
Personality: Very quiet, reserved and defensive if provoked. A typical soldier-like attitude.
Bio:
Kiriiae was born into a world confined from outside influence, so she grew up knowing only what she was taught from her superiors. A generally happy childhood, she was oldest among 3 siblings and enjoyed being their care-taker and older sister more than the leisure permitted.
Different from the average child born to her religious society, she was born gifted with a magic that the church instinctively sought to extinguish, known to them as a "blood rage" magic that few with the gift could ever control, and due to that, sought to destroy any child born with it within the first year of birth.
Her saving grace and constant supervisor, Samuel Saintscythe, knight commander, but to her known as "Papa", vows to the church to train his little girl in the ways of the holy light, to control her power, lest he be the one to end her with his own blade, should she fail, is given permission to do so under strict supervision of the clergy and the constant eyes of scrutiny.
Her mother, high priestess, and father, knight commander keep a watchfully loving and constantly worrying eye as their gift from the Creator grows to become a refined young warrior. Kiriiae becomes skilled in the art of swordsmanship, and through training with her father and the clergy is taught to channel her magic in a means that helped her society by extinguishing the flames of the "wicked" when needed, and brought profit to the order of things with her skillful "hobby" in crafting swords.
Being under that type of scrutiny her whole life, Kiriiae is a highly disciplined woman. From as long as she can remember, her world was always about controlling the "evil" within and using it to help her world and the Creator's children, rather than what she was "destined" to be, had the church not spared her life. Despite being taught that her kind would be wicked by nature, she seldom believes that she could ever have it in her to match the descriptions scolded upon her, so she pays little mind to the omnipresent exposure of the blind-sighted society she is surrounded by and does her best just to live day to day as a child without the gift would. As a loving daughter and sister. As a respected member of the church, and as a woman soldier many of the like could only dream to be within the caliber of.
She often wonders if the church is just messing with her head. She knows she is not being told the whole story of the origins of magics, but she does her best to soak in all the information taught in her disciplinary classes should she have to put it to use. A double-edged blade, she is taught both healing and destructive spells. The clergy sees that she is exceptionally proficient in the art of war, and so shuns her in prolonged use of the darker magics and confine her to constant disciplines. Wash this, craft that, heal this, fix that, clean this, scrub that... thinking that by enriching her life with the positive aspects of life, she will never find the need to resort to her other half.
Until the war breaks loose...
All society went into a panic when the people started rioting against the church. The higher class societies closed themselves off, but caused only in adding fuel to the flames with their demands until the church stepped in and set everyone into place. Set everyone into place by means completely opposite that of which young Kiriiae grew up into.
Countless enemy lives were taken by her own hand, her blades masked in their blood. The sure and striking sound of steel against steel, for the first time in her life, was like a dance with death itself. The magic within her seethed with unquenched fury as she swung her swords in percise fury. She was after all, the daughter of a knight commander. This was her chance to defend her people, and prove herself worthy of her own place after living her whole life in her father's shadow.
Kiriiae knew warfare, she knew magic, but she had never been trained in how to emotionally take on the slaughter of thousands of innocent people just to put the rule of the iron fist down and set society into place. The emotional scars of such a cruel fate left her wondering why she was among the survivors, if she was truly so vile of nature. Her siblings were dead. Her father assassinated by the enemy's cowardly nature of quenching life while in his sleep, completely defenseless. Her mother, the trauma shocking her down to her very soul goes mad with hysteria and looses her memory after being comatose for 3 weeks following the massacre.
Kiriiae steps up to aid her ailing mother, but the church shuns her and instead of reassuring her that this was just the fate of man and that she did her part in the defense of her people, blame her "kind" for the death of the countless innocents. They take her mother into protective care of the clergy. They exile Kiriiae from their beloved society, branding her the enemy's mistress, despite her faithful service to the church her whole life. Awe-struck by this awakening, she realizes that she is no longer safe among their pitiful hearts, and soon finds out that she should depart as soon as possible or be put to death as she should have been the year she was born. She vows to one day return and save her dear mother, let the Creator be her judge.
Kiriiae departs her confined world and steps into utter madness, kill or be killed. The Holy Kingdom was her home, despite the fact that the church practically handed her over to the Empire as collateral for the damage she caused to them. She thought for sure that this time, perhaps they were right. Perhaps this had all been her fault, after all.
17-year-old Kiriiae settles down in the Empire for a few years, being a handy weapon-smith, and her kind being in high demand considering the current crisis at hand, makes herself a decent living. After being noticed by a lieutenant at a bar one night, slaughtering as if by command in self-defense from lecherous men, she joins the Empire's army and continues a numbing life of warfare and tactical training. A dog of the military. After all, her power was what the Empire considered "distinguished". It sounded better than "wicked" or "evil"... so what point was there in trying to deny herself the fate deemed necessary her kind? She was born to kill. She should have been spared life itself, but her merciful Creator had something in mind. She was no coward to go and end her life, after all, and she had vowed to come back to her poor mother and release her from the Kingdom's clutches.
As the fight for survival continues, and the stench of anarchy's foul breath bears on her neck, Kiriiae grows in rank, knowledge, and befalls a fate she didn't think her kind capable of. Love. A young soldier in her unit, a mind-set much like her own befriends her crestfallen soul and they begin a secret journey of their own until death rears its head in his direction in the form of a bullet and stops the young soldier dead in his tracks. And then it dawns on her, that the clergy was right all along. She is the curse. Her gift was the curse. And it had brought death to all of those around her like a magnet to a sheet of metal.
After a gut-wrenching battle in the front lines against "anarchy", Kiriiae finally snaps. Here she is taking blade and weapon indiscriminately to any gut, limb, or head close enough or stupid enough to stand in her way. Men, women, children, none were spared the searing heat of steel fed power through her magic, her peculiarly specific type of magic, the blood rage. What right did she have?
As the heat of battle finally died down, her fellow soldiers celebrated victory. Victory over what? What fight could a child put up against the might of steel and a fully armored soldier in pursuit of their young life? Was she no different than the church? Killing countless innocent babies born with her "curse"... she was just sick to her soul. Of herself, the causes she had stood for, and how silly their wars were, even if she was never told what it was truly about. It was all the same to her. Both sides cared nothing for the well-being of another. They all just wanted to be recognized as the ones in charge. That was it. Power.
In the eve of dawn after the celebration, Kiriiae walks away. From her life, from her memories, from her haunting past. She seeks to become what she had just wanted to be all along. Not a soldier. But what she would have been had she been born ungifted. Like her siblings. A normal child. She would have been dead with them all those years ago if she had not been gifted. Gifted. Why was it called a gift if all it ever did was condemn her? They wouldn't find her anyway, not with the assassins taking lives left and right, despite the Empire's elite defenses. Many soldiers turned up missing. It was an opportune moment...
And as the Creator would see it fit, she finds her way to Ashien, resuming her former hobby, but vowing to never reveal her true identity. Kiriiae's alias is born when she introduces herself that she comes from a wealthy merchant's family that is seeking to expand their craft and fine work to prospering lands. That a majority of her family is dead due to the costly, merciless wages of war. She is seen fit and skilled by the town's blacksmith and is taken into work only after proving just how fine her craftsmanship truly was. Although they see it strange that a woman would be fit for such a job, especially as petite and feminine-looking as her, they rule that bit of fact unnecessary in a society wanting to move forward into the future of prosperity.
What you look like: A young woman who looks to be about 23 years old, Kiriiae is about 5'6" tall and has has long crimson hair reaching to her lower back. But, her most intriguing factor are her sapphire-blue eyes. Those eyes, having seen so much and lived to tell the tale, dance with the ever-present hint of magic strictly tamed, just waiting to be unleashed. Despite her background as a soldier in two different armies, she looks very slender and frail, which helps her all the more to pass as a normal woman, with just a strange profession at hand. She prefers to dress as if ready for combat, despite the peaceful nature of her current dwelling.
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Saintscythe Kiriiae Vice Captain
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Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2010 12:21 pm
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Username: Lyendi Knightstar
Name: "J"
You can call me: "J"
Age: 30
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Job: Wanted man
Specialized in: Close Combat and Swordsmanship
Personality: The majority of time he spends it huddled in a corner of a bar or just away from loud talkers, it annoys him. He is quite stubborn when it comes to impossible things just to prove to others that it IS possible, though most often it really is impossible and only lands him in an embarrassing moment.
Bio: "J" lived in the Imperium of Man ever since he was born. His father was a soldier for the Imperium and died in a siege of a nearby town, but he didn't care when the news came; "J" never liked how dedicated his father was to the Imperium. His mother fell ill to water poisoning and died days after, for her however, he did attend the funeral. Afterwards he was taken in by a blacksmith who lived next door and taught him what little the aging ex-soldier knew about handling a sword. Unfortunately "J" picked up a few bad habits from the old man, such as drinking and oogling women though he was taught to never lay a finger on a woman unless allowed. At least it wasn't such a bad habit. Years later he would be on his own, taking odd jobs here and there to make a petty living.
Then came a day that would change his way of living forever. "J" sat on a barrel of honey apples, watching the loud mass of men huddled in the square. It was a sunny day, the first in the town's history, most of the crowd were dressed in elegant suits and waving their hands in the air. The center of attraction was a female, and not just any female, this lass had many interesting features, more notably a tail! For a moment he'd just gaze into the crowd and sigh, another slave market trade for gold.
It wasn't until glancing at the girl again did she make eye contact with his, despite fighting and kicking before, her eyes conveyed a plea for help. It was brief but it made "J" shake his head as if he had been hypnotized. Before he knew it, "J" had reached for a small keg filled with lamp oil and hurled it into the crowd, he followed it up with a lit torch and watched the crowd of men catch fire like dry brush. But he didn't care, they were despicable for branding the girl as property. During the chaos, he ran up to the stage, smacked one guard in the family jewels then picked up a chair and smashed it on the other guard's head. "J" then picked up the girl in his arms and made a break for it just as more guards were called in.
Lucky for him, the message about the riot in the square reached the main gates long after he had left. Without a home, short on gold and food running low, "J" was wondering whether what he had done was worth the trouble he got himself into. For one, the girl had not spoken to him at all, not even thanked him for rescuing her, but a small voice in his head told him to believe in himself, another voice told him he was crazy.
Catching a ride on a merchant wagon from an outpost several miles away from the Imperium of Man, the two would find themselves arriving at the city of Ashien. With luck, "J" could find a quick job, make some money to resupply and leave the city before word reached them. Unfortunately that was not the case as the next day a messenger had arrived and posted some wanted posters in the town square. "J" was now wanted, DEAD and the girl was worth 500million gold...
What you look like: Standing at 5'7'' with unkept black hair and tan skin, "J" isn't a muscle bound warrior, in fact he's just average build which he makes up for with a large sword on his back. Though the women tend to think its making up for something else. His dark brown eyes display a serious expression which tends to ward off people for fear of ending up dead, however that is not the case and is always easy going.
His attire and equipment consists of a set of old beat up steel armor handed to him by the blacksmith that took care of him in his youth. It's missing a shoulder guard but he thinks it adds coolness to it. A leather sheath holds his well kept Claymore (mainly due to almost never using it) and a leather forehead guard with a steel plate and a symbol etched into it, though when he asked the smith he would wave it off as nothing important. Clothes are just a pair of cotton slacks and shirt with old military grade boots (everything he gets is hand downs). The last item on him is a thin leather cloak wrapped around his neck.
Name: Renshia
You can call me: Ren
Age: 18
Gender: Female
Race: Dragonark
Job: N/A
Specialized in: Fire and Ice Elemental Magic
Personality: Very quiet, she does not speak though does make childish sounds to communicate. She can be very violent when angered though can also be very motherly towards young children.
Bio: Dragonarks, soldiers created from DNA samples excavated from ancient ruins by the Imperium of Man for the sole purpose of just following orders to go out into the killing field and die. The perfect soldier, brute strength, high endurance and no will of their own. Up to now they were genetically born as all males, all except for Renshia who fate decided to change things for her. Being a defective Dragonark, the scientists were about to dispose of her when one thought of using her as a breeding tool. However, Ren did not like the idea of being a plaything for these disgusting humans and ferociously fought them off everytime they tried to get her to mate with one of the males. It paid off in the end as they grew tired of struggling with her, but not before having one of her horns broken during a scuffle.
Useless to them, the Imperium decided to put her for auction, starting price at 50 thousand gold. Eager men lined up in front of the auction stage and threw up their offers, their drooling faces further disgusted Ren as she stood on the wooden floor with her arms and legs shackled. Bidding went as high as 200 million gold. A final offer which no one could beat came at 500 million from a man dressed in black with a top hat and elegantly decorated cane. Fortunately for Ren, the man would not get her as another man quickly snatched her away after setting them on fire.
She did not know why he did it or who he was, nor did she really care, but she'd go along with the man that would eventually lead her to the small town of Ashien...
Other: "J" suspects that Ren has more abilites than meets the eye, possibly becoming the mythological "Drach-Ritter".
What you look like: Ren is quite tall, standing an inch shorter than "J" and quite leggy with light cream colored skin with glowing white hair that reaches down to her rear. Her eyes are unique in that they are Hetero-chromatic, her left eye is light blue while her right eye is dark red almost blood red. She has two horns on the side just behind her pointy ears except one is broken 3/4 of the way. Her forehead has some scales as well as her cheeks. On the small area between her full breasts is an oval jewel that cycles thru red and light blue possibly the elements that she is.
Her attire is really basic, wearing only bands of cloth over her breasts, crotch area and feet. "J" has not been able to buy Ren proper clothing due to having no money.
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