August Intruder- Chapter 46- Damned (Patreon)

Melmarc looked behind him and there was no portal.

That was his first touch of panic.

All portals remained. They were stationary, waiting until whatever quest completion requirements were met. From the little he knew, Delver teams always had a way to keep the track of the portal. Sometimes they would leave someone behind to protect the portal, other times they would tag it somehow before embarking on the quest.

His current situation of having no portal was not unheard of, it was just worrying. There were often portals like this, on earth, they were stationery, but they opened up to different parts on the otherside.

Delvers would be separated and part of the mission would be finding themselves. There were usually processes for this. Some teams, depending on what the quest was, would converge before moving on. Sometimes they would simply head for their target.

The exit portal will be waiting at the point of completion.

Melmarc pulled up his quests once more.

[Portal Quest: Ruins of Caldath.]

You have walked upon the ruins of Caldath, ancient city of debauchery and hate. Its inhabitants have sold their soul to Caldath and have lost it eternally. Only their servants, too unimportant to be granted such misfortune, remain. Conclude the ruination of Caldath and free these innocent servants from their unfair damnation.

[Portal Objective: Find the orb of Caldath.]

[August Intruder detected.]

[Personal Quest: Ruins of Caldath.]

You have walked upon the ruins of Caldath, ancient city of debauchery and hate. Its inhabitants have sold their soul to Caldath and have lost it eternally. Only their servants, too unimportant to be granted such misfortune, remain. Conclude the ruination of Caldath and free all from their eternal damnation.

[Quest objective: Defeat Demi-god Caldath.]

[Reward: +5% Mastery.]

Staring at the [August Intruder] quest, it was hard not to want to accomplish it. If he set aside the terror of the unknown, which was what would happen if he didn’t complete it, the reward alone was enough motivation.

5% mastery isn’t something people just stumble on.

The question was if the percentage was added to a random skill or splittable or if it was given to all his skills. There was a part of him that had a very strong feeling that it was most likely the second option. Portals, after all, were not known for their benefits.

Then there was the—

August Intruder effect detected

Effect: +3% Mastery to all skills.

…

Bless Your Kindness (Mastery 8.67%)

Knowledge Is Power (Mastery 9.99%)

…

August Intruder active quest effect detected

Effect: +2% Mastery to all skills on active quest.

Bless Your Kindness (Mastery 10.67%)

Conclusion of skill Knowledge Is Power grants +1.5 increase to all stats for eight minutes and a potential status buff based on number of life forms detected.

Knowledge Is Power (Mastery 11.99%)

The Gifted releases a burst of mana that comes back to them as information.

…

Knowledge Is Power (Mastery 11.99%)

While skill is in effect you can neither inflict damage nor be damaged.

Conclusion of skill will end inability to deal damage or be damaged.

Conclusion of skill grants conditional mastery of all information received for ten minutes.

All threats, allies, and neutrals detected are highlighted for eleven minutes.

Gifted has partial control of extremities while skill is in effect.

Melmarc read the notifications once more.

He ignored the touch of breeze against his skin and the soft ground beneath his feet.

So these are what they do after 10%.

They got better but he couldn’t really say they got amazing. The lasting 3% mastery that came from being an [August Intruder] hadn’t succeeded in pushing him past the 10% mark but the effect on active quest had done that.

There was a part of him that had hoped the effect would push him to a skill upgrade, and not just the upgrade of the skill itself but the option of opting for another skill instead of picking one.

But even though it hadn’t given him the second option, it had given him the first. Now he knew what his skills would be capable of.

It’s like Beta testing.

Did it mean that as long as he was close to the next 10% mastery of his skill that he would be able to see what the skill would be capable of in the next upgrade as long as he entered a portal? Also, would he get a personal quest everytime he entered a portal?

Veebee had said he would be assigned something like a personal assistant eventually. The question was why? Would they be in charge of giving him quests?

If the answer was yes, then was he sure he wanted Veebee?

He read his personal quest once more. If Veebee’s definition of easy was a fight against a demi-god, he wasn’t sure he wanted such a person—creature?—hovering over his shoulders and selecting his quests.

But it did save me from Avram.

Melmarc scratched his head. It was a tough decision to make. Choosing Veebee out of gratitude or refusing Veebee for the sake of his own safety.

But how sure am I that whoever I choose will be nicer than Veebee?

With a tired sigh and a wave of his hand, Melmarc dismissed all the notifications in front of him. It was time for him to focus on the task before him.

And find Naymond.

The Sage had been a Delver at some point in his life so it was only a given that Melmarc find him.

All he knew about portals were theories, word of mouth, and conspiracies given to him by Delano.

Melmarc pulled his phone out of his pocket and was glad to find it functioning. He wasn’t really surprised by that. Television channels had contracts with Delving companies that allowed them send in filming crews of Gifted. It was usually just a camera man or two.

And the complete footage collected was never released to the public, only snippets designed to pass across whatever message they wanted to send.

Melmarc went to his dial pad and stopped. At the top corner of the screen his network smiled at him with zero bars.

“I guess that’s that,” Melmarc muttered to himself.

Would’ve been more surprised if it was that easy, he thought as he slipped his phone into his pocket and started walking.

The first thing he noticed besides the meadows and the ruins far ahead of him was the red sun. It held his attention because while it was red and bright the world around him had the soft touch of a beautiful meadow on a gentle afternoon with the touch of a yellow sun’s glow.

It was too contrasting.

It was also not what Melmarc was here for.

With a steady breath, and a hope that the options for his alternative skills instead of an upgrade of his current skills would be more interesting, he started on his path into the meadow.

…

With no exact destination and no time limit, Melmarc had no sense of urgency. He walked down the medow making his way towards the crumbled buildings.

As much as he hated to admit it, he had a strong feeling that if he wasn’t running into enemies, he wasn’t getting anywhere. And he could see far enough to know that there were no enemies where he was.

Which meant the enemies were within the ruins.

The quest is called the ruins of Caldath, after all. Not the meadows of Caldath.

Five minutes of walking didn’t bring him anywhere closer to the ruins. Melmarc could feel the distance reducing but it was like walking down a hilly road, you knew you were covering ground, but the thought of walking uphill once more just made the journey seem longer than it was.

Another thing he noticed was that while he walked down a clear meadow, it wasn’t necessarily as plateaued as it seemed. To the side, somewhere in the distance, there were trees thick enough to create shades and canopies that made it look like a mini forest to be embarked upon.

It was a possible path to take but Melmarc just couldn’t bring himself to take it. Another portion of the meadow looked like a relaxing park with a small pond. From where he was, Melmarc couldn’t tell if the pond was clean, but he also wasn’t interested.

The sooner he found the orb of Caldath, the sooner he could go home. It was a stupid thought but the sooner he could run into enemies, the sooner he could start believing he was on the right path.

The problem, however, was what he would do when he found the enemies?

He was a Faker. His skills were designed to allow him a chance at being stronger for every person he ran into.

The quest had said something about the servants of the ruined city having been spared the problem of having their souls offered to the demi-god, but something told him that they weren’t going to be on friendly terms.

The quest did ask that he free them from damnation. So there was that.

What exactly did the quest mean by damnation?

Was it the damnation on a physical level? Like the damnation of living in a ruined city? Was he going to find himself running into skinny and starved inhabitants, lying helpless in empty rooms within a ruined building or the other?

Was the damnation more on the side of something metaphysical; biblical? Was he going to run into grotesque shaped humans with spindly legs and inverted eyes? Corrupted simply because their souls were somehow damned and had poisoned their bodies?

Who said they were going to be humans?

Melmarc shivered at the thought. For all he knew, this could be a world of fairies or some kind of terrifying lycanthrope thingies.

At least it’s not a world of angels…

Melmarc frowned at himself. That thought was uncalled for. There was nothing that suggested the inhabitants he would run into were not angels.

And why was he suddenly thinking about angels as the bad guys? Everything he’d learned in church said that they were the good guys. He was supposed to be happy at the idea that angels were possible candidates for what he would run into.

Maybe because dad fought an angel?

If Delvers were fighting angels inside a portal wasn’t it safe to say that angels weren’t the good guys? There was also the possibility that Delvers weren’t necessarily the good guys.

For example, his quest was already fishy. He was transported to a world that knew nothing about him and was asked to steal the world’s orb. Yes, the quest details claimed that he would be saving lives, but what if that was a lie?

All his life he’d been told that the interface was a person’s reflection of themselves and how they viewed the world. But wasn’t that a loophole when you considered Portals?

How did portals interpret themselves?

Some people theorized that the quests that Delvers got when they entered a portal was also something they were capable of. Just the way their body interpreted itself through mana, their bodies interpreted the mana within the portal to grant them a quest on what they needed to do to survive.

The going theory was that everything was based on the human evolution with mana to decipher what was necessary—to interpret themselves and the world around them.

“What if it’s all a lie?” Melmarc asked himself as the ruins finally pulled in close enough.

In the last hour he had already learned too much about portals to be able to believe the very foundation of what he knew the interface to be.

For one, he’d never heard of anything like Veebee before. The only other form of life anyone knew about outside of whatever was met on the other side of the portal were the mana creatures often summoned to help complete portal quests.

What about players?

From what he knew, Players weren’t common knowledge. Which meant one of two things, either his dad had known about players because he had been informed since their family was a casualty of players or his dad knew because his dad knew.

If the latter was the case, then his dad wasn’t just some government Delver. It meant he would be important, important enough to talk about information Naymond considered very necessary to be kept a secret as if it was nothing.

He and Ark had questioned it a lot as children but even now they didn’t know what specifically their parents were as Gifted. They knew nothing of their class or their rank.

The best response they’d ever gotten to the question was that the both of them were definitely above B-rank and the government never sent them to portals they couldn’t handle. Melmarc and Ark had learned that they would never be getting more than that.

The second thing Melmarc knew now was that the interfaces could not simply be the body’s way of interpreting itself. Even if that was true, it was impossible to believe the human body also interpreted and deciphered the quests of the portals.

Melmarc had practically seen Veebee doll out his personal quest. What he didn’t know is if the creature had been looking for what quest to give him from a list of already available quests or if the thing had been creating a quest for him.

All the unknowns were driving him nuts. Worse, he doubted anyone would have the answer.

Can I even trust anything anyone’s teaching?

At this rate nobody in the real world would know what exactly was happening when it came to the portals. And those who knew were definitely keeping a lot of secrets.

It was even the first time he was hearing anything about an August Intruder. Melmarc paused.

Uncle Dorthna might know.

Their uncle was practically their parent when it came to all things Gifted. Most of the questionis their parents didn’t answer or simply wouldn’t answer, Dorthna gave them snippets of answers to.

He’d also been very much aware of world buffs and debuffs even though Melmarc had had no idea that such things existed.

That answered that. When he got out of the portal, he would need to have a long talk with uncle Dorthna.

…if you get out of the portal.

Melmarc slowed the pace of his already slow stroll as he approached the first ruin. It was a house made of bricks. There was a floor above but no roofing. The sunlight streamed into it from above and there was a massive hole in its side where there had once been a wall.

Melmarc stepped cautiously into the building, keeping his eyes about him. He took his second step, completely into the premises. The ground was covered in grass and debris. Broken bricks and entire slabs filled the place. He saw no algae or moss. Nothing that suggested dirty and unkempt.

Just overgrown grass and rubbles.

He stopped venturing forward. Fear held him by the ankle and he just stood there, right at the entrance through the hole in the side of the building. The bricks were old and brown, unpainted. He didn’t place his hand on anything for fear of creating a problem he didn’t know existed.

It’s just a rundown building, he told himself. I’m sure it’s alright.

Unfortunately, it took more than just words for a person to successfully lie to himself. It couldn’t just be a rundown building. And there was no way he could be sure everything was alright.

This is the reason there’s a Delver training before you’re allowed to enter portals.

People who already made a living entering portals would come to teach people like him what to expect in a portal.

All Melmarc knew about portals was second hand information. Information gotten from people who had likely gotten their information the same way he was getting his—from people who got their information from secondary sources.

This was why Delvers were trained before becoming Delvers. Here he was, standing at the edge of the building already terrified of the building itself, not even what could potentially be inside the building.

You can do this, Mel, he pepped himself. Slow and steady. You can figure it out.

He couldn’t.

Melmarc had an option but was terrified of using it. He could use [Knowledge is Power] to scout the building from where he was. But then what?

What would he do if there was a problem, if there were enemies inside? If there were enenmies [Knowledge is Power] would most definitely alert them of his very presence, and he didn’t know how to fight.

What was he going to do; knock them out with a shoulder throw? Punch their brains out? That was if they had brains.

He took an involuntary step back before he even noticed what he was doing.

Sure as hell wish you’d taken [Fist of Thunder] when you had the chance, aren’t you?

Melmarc frowned at his thoughts. Now he was picking on himself for his own cowardice. But there was also something his own mind was failing to understand.

Even if I don’t have an attack skill, I can still run.

It was a stupid thing to be proud of but everyone took their courage where they could find them, and he was going to take his from anywhere in this situation.

[You have activated Knowledge Is Power.]

As his mana burst out of him, Melmarc noticed two things. The first was that he had more than enough mana to spare. Before finding his way into the portal, he’d practically been on his last leg, mana fatigue staring him in the eye like an annoying sibling.

He watched the white static of his mana reach forward and deeper into the building and realized that the sensation of being heavier and grounded was not as strong as he remembered. He still felt grounded, but it was not as much.

Movement wasn’t impossible. He was more than certain that if he wanted to move he could move.

Wait—

The effect of the skill was already coming back to him, already returning as information. It slammed into Melmarc at the same time that he realized that the skill had never told him that he couldn’t move while it was in effect.

It had only ever said that he could nether be damaged nor inflict damage. So while it was in effect, there was a higher chance that it wasn’t about not being able to move but him not being able to cause actual damage to a person no matter what he did.

Melmarc absorbed the information.

[Skill Knowledge Is Power is concluded.]

[All stats are increased by +1.5.]

[Life forms detected: 32.]

[You have received 1 Potential buff.]

[Soul Damnation (Mastery 0.00%)

The damned damns their own soul into further damnation through the damnation of their soul by offering their soul to Caldath.

…

[Buff mastery is scaled based on mastery of skill Bless Your Kindness. Mastery of buff will begin reduction after eight minutes.]

[Would you like to select a Buff?]

[Yes/No.]

[Remaining time: 00:02:00.]

…

Thirty-two life forms detected and only one potential buff. Melmarc took a step back. Did it mean that all of them had the exact same skill?

And what was with the skill description? The word ‘damn’ was appearing way too many times. And why did whatever he was detecting only have the ability to damn itself?

The questions were too many until Melmarc really paid attention to what he was seeing.

He looked down as he asked himself one very important question.

If there were only thirty-two life forms, why were they countless indicators around him.

Melmarc looked down and for every green grass, there was an indicator with no names above them.

They were all red.

He took a terrified step back only to be drawn to attention by the sudden sound of grating. It was like someone was scraping a rusty iron along a brick wall.

He gulped and took another quiet step back. On his third step, outside the ruined buiding and under the sunlight, the grating grew in number, drawing closer.

He could run, but run where? Even the grass was his enemy. How exactly did you fight the grass?

So rather than run, he hid behind the outside wall, hugged it. He found a hole in it and watched through it, keeping his eyes on what was causing the grating sound.

Despite the indicators, he knew that the detected life forms were on one side of the building so he didn’t have to worry about being attacked from the back. Unless they had some form of super speed that didn’t interpret into being a skill.

It did not take him long to see the cause of the grating sound. When he did, he covered his mouth with his hand, suffocated the terrified gasp that came out of him.

He had been partially right.

A hand came out of a corner and grabbed one of the crumbling brick walls within the building. It was a deep white that reminded Melmarc of bone, but it looked more like armor than bone, ridged were fingers had joints with the ends of the fingers finishing ito a fine tip like a claw.

The creature came into view and he stared at the name above its red indicator.

[Damned(C)].

Its head was a skull with spikes protruding from around it. Twelve in all, if Melmarc could trust the information his skill had given him. The rest of its body looked mummified. Dead flesh, putrid and covered in gangrene hung tight to the creature.

Melmarc could see the insects crawling about the thing. Despite all this, it moved with a very strained rigidy, like its limbs were branches that failed to allow it freedom and agility.

Melmarc’s legs trembled slightly.

There was no way he was going to get into a fight with that thing. It was seven feet tall and looked like it could kill him with one swing of its arm. And if the blow didn’t kill him then some kind of infection would.

Another one came from a different corner of the building. It was identical save one chipped horn on its head. And there were thirty more of them hiding in the building.

Melmarc wanted to run. He wanted to go as far as his legs could carry him. But he forced himself to stay and observe them. If Naymond wasn’t already dealing with whatever these things were wherever he was, Melmarc would have to deal with them eventually.

What happens if you can’t run?

As they slowly gathered, two leading to four leading to more, he continued to watch, quiet. His breathing slow.

They looked like they were looking for something. They turned about in the room, fleshy eye balls in a skeletal eyesocket glitching around like a poorly greased machine joint.

They moved through the room, their steps slow and jerky.

That was a good thing.

Slow movemet, Melmarc noted. As long as he didn’t allow them surround him, running would always be an option.

Another thing he noticed was that while each one had a fingered hand, with a claw-like design, their second arm varied. It was just like any arm, a little too long and a little too skinny. The difference existed were there was meant to be a hand.

Each one had a different item on one arm. One had a sword as its second hand, another had just a shield.

But most of them had hoes or shovel heads or sickles or matchetes.

Farming implements.

It was like they’d somehow fused with these weapons.

One of the creatures bumped into the wall and staggered. It turned against the wall and walked into it violently. The entire building shook from the impact and Melmarc winced.

Powerful, he noted.

One blow would definitely kill him. There would be no time for an infection to take place.

The one that hit the building staggered again, and some of the bugs and critters crawling over it shook and fell off.

Melmarc watched the slow rise of red indicators over the grass.

He felt bile rise to his throat as he answered the question of why the grass had multiple red indicators. The second question was why the red indicators weren’t moving.

Afraid, he looked down at the grass beneath his feet where there was a red indicator and slowly raised his leg. He couldn’t see anything. It remained there, unmoving.

Maybe the critters burrowed into the ground. Just the way he could see indicators through the walls but couldn’t actually see the walls, maybe that was what was happening to him right now. Maybe the bugs were far down into the ground.

Which means they can crawl out at anytime.

Old fear hits Melmarc like a battering ram. People feared animals in different ways. How you feared a lion was not the same way you feared a snake. It was not the same way you feared a scorpion.

Old fear was the fear of knowing you could die at the hands of your opponent and no amount of fighting would give you a fighting chance.

How did he fight bugs he couldn’t attack until they attacked him? How did he fight things he didn’t know anything about?

He took a step away from the wall as the creatures continued their search. He could run. None of the monsters were fast enough. He just had to turn and run.

But run where? To another building? Into the trees?

To that giant castle at the back of the ruins that stretched all the way up to the red sun?

His feet carried him back and away from the building, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn his back on it. He couldn’t bring himself to turn his back on the monsters, no matter how slow they were.

Melmarc was more than certain he would find the orb there. It was also very likely that he would find Caldath there as well.

And a lot of these things too.

Melmarc took another step away, increasing the distance between him and the building and heard a crunch.

He froze, terrified to look at his feet.

But terror wasn’t done with him.

The countless monsters inside the building turned, eyes focused in his direction. They staggered forward, motions jerky. They clashed into each other, struggling to get in the general direction of where he was.

Melmarc watched their indicators clash as he tried to rush back. There was another crunching sound. This one was more on the squishy side of things. Melmarc prayed it wasn’t what he thought it was.

One of the red indicators beneath his feet vanished. Then another three scurried around, drawing closer.

Melmarc’s jaw dropped.

The indicators were gathering to his feet, rushing after him. He hopped back and away. Fear was playing his spine like a guitar and his legs were refusing to obey him properly. He raised his head, looked at the multitude of red indicators that were not hidden in the grass.

They continued to bash against each other as Melmarc continued to stagger back. What was the point in the stat boosts if his legs weren’t going to obey him?

He slams his fist into his leg.

“Move damnit,” he mutters, staring at the first creature to escape the buildings.

Their eyes met and the creature moved forward. Its steps were still jerky, it’s body bobbing awkwardly with every step as if it was too tall and there was a heavy wind trying to push it over.

It was still slow, but it was considerably faster than when it had been in the building.

Melmarc slammed another fist against his thigh. His leg was beginning to feel as if it had fallen asleep. “For the love of—”

He looked down and panic consumed him hole. The number of red indicators gathered to his feet was countless. Worse, his boot was completely covered in the things that had fallen off the creature.

He pulled at the single leg, dragging himself away with his other leg. His leg obeyed but it was like a tug of war. Every step sent pin-pricks running up his leg.

It had to be the bugs. They were somehow rendering his leg incapable of working properly. They were putting it to sleep.

Was this how the monsters hunted. They were slow, but the creatures that fell from them rendered their prey slower.

No.

Melmarc refused to go out like this. He still had his stat boost. Maybe another blast would give him enough boost for the sleeping leg to move at a normal pace.

He reached inside him for the skill and was met with a very terrible notification.

[You cannot use Knowledge Is Power at this time.]

[Cool down: 00:00:39.]

Thirty seconds more. Why did the skill need to have a cool down?

He dragged himself more, suddenly hating himself for having delayed so long ago. At this point, he wouldn’t be so stubborn.

Trauma be damned. He was beginning to realize how childish he had been not too long ago when he’d given up all his chances to pick [Rings of Saturn] simply because of who had owned it.

At this point he would pick anything. Even the damned skill.

[You cannot use Knowledge Is Power at this time.]

[Cool down: 00:00:32.]

Melmarc looked at the monsters. There was a good distance between him and them. They would need at least two minutes to get to him at their current pace. He just had to struggle and wait for the [Knowledge is Power] then he would be out of here.

As long as these damned things stick to one leg.

He would be done the moment they got to his second leg. His only saving grace was the fact that the indicators were no longer moving. The ones that had gotten to his single leg just stayed there, struggling with him for control.

He pulled and tugged. At some point he even dragged himself along the ground. It increased his pace, moved him as fast as he could. It was good enough, a walking pace. But he was looking for a jogging pace.

Melmarc counted with his mind, and when his mental clock hit thirty-eight seconds, six more to factor in panic that probably made him count too fast as if it would somehow make the seconds thick faster, he reached for the skill and it obeyed.

[You have activated Knowledge Is Power.]

The buff roared out of him. It passed through the bugs rendering his leg useless and for a moment his leg was totally useful. He took the moment to struggle out of their hold.

Relief flooded him as his leg left the ground. The bugs snapped from the ground like a broken twig but there were still more attached to his shoe and crawling up the leg of his pants.

It didn’t matter, he had his leg back, even if for a moment as his interface flashed once more.

[Skill Knowledge Is Power is in effect].

[You cannot receive or inflict damage.]

The notification spammed across his view, confirming that the bugs were doing something to his feet. Melmarc had a new fear as he struggled with his body, pulling faster away.

The moment his burst of mana passed through the other creatures on their way back, every one of them stiffened.

Their next action, even before the burst of information came to Melmarc, was uncalled for.

The farthest one in the back, already outside the building, leaped into the air. It went over all the ones in front of it. It went over eight feet high. Then it darted ten feet forward arms swinging in deathly blows. With the shovel head attached to its hand, it cut deadly slashes in the air.

It hit the ground and jumped again, shovel arm ever slashing. This time it covered two feet before it hit the ground. All the others did the same as the burst of mana went through them.

In the blink of an eye, they were already on Melmarc.

Melmarc put all that was in him and pushed, he dragged himself as the burst of mana finally returned to him.

He ignored every single piece of information it gave him that did not come with an instruction of how to outrun creatures that could clear twelve feet in less than two seconds.

With the heaviness of his body gone, Melmarc turned and ran as a new notification popped up.

Congratulations!

Base mastery is at 10%

[Knowledge is Power (Mastery 10.03%)(12.03%)].

Would you like to upgrade your skill or acquire a new skill?

[Y/N]

Please know that you can renege on this decision.

That last piece of information was good. It meant he had the chance to view the alternative skills without worry.

No, he replied as he ran. The damned behind him swishing through the air with rapid cuts and closing the distance very quickly while Melmarc could his foot with the bugs attached the it slowly growing numb again.

[Melmarc Jay Lockwood, a selection of skills you have proven efficient in to some degrees over time have been listed out for you. Would you like to view them?]

[Yes/No]

“Yes.”

Melmarc turned and made is way for the trees. He had no idea what would be hidden within them but if he could dash out from the side just a moment after entering their shade, maybe he could buy himself sometime while the damned were cutting their way through the trees.

The alternative skill pulled up in front of Melmarc and his face fell.

It brought a whole new meaning to ‘be careful what you wish for.’

Only one skill stared at him as he ran.

[Rings of Saturn]

The Gifted wraps a ring of pure raw mana around they’re body and can attack with it.