(Thrash’s POV)

Four bog bodies, tick.

I wonder what Nathan’s going to do with these?

*Scratch scratch*

Ah mud, not nice, to the river.

On all fours, I run through the swamp dodging the many hiding lizard things with massive jaws and no legs, jumping over the quicksand and over supposedly dead branches.

This swamp is dangerous.

Within the hour I’m running across a dirt track and into a forest where a nice cool river is.

Ahhhh cold bath…

Mud really makes my fur itchy, and it smells nasty too.

Eugh, right what does Nathan need next?

Knifefish battery cells x100 – in the lake over the hills

Nathan’s a strange fellow, saying fish have batteries in them…Maybe they do?

There’s a lake over the hills, ah I get some fresh air finally.

My nose really doesn’t like the swamp, especially after getting stuck in rotting quicksand for half a day.

Running through the forest and into the large patch of hills spotted with large uneven rocks, I smell blood.

*Sniff*

This rock smells of blood? Hmm it tastes of rock though.

*rumble*

Oh no, the rock’s alive.

It unfurls and stands up

NAME: Rock Giant [lvl15]

A shepherd of the hills.

Oops…are they on the list? Nope, ok run!

Running away from it, I hear the sound of whistling in the air and I roll to the side, feeling the crashing of rock in the ground.

Blood smelling rocks are rock giants. I know that now.

Sprinting away, I don’t hear it come after me, and I stay far from the rest of the rock giants. Are they sleeping? Or do they just wait until someone comes close?

While I think, I bump into a straw dummy, collapsing to the floor next to it.

“Oof”…where’d that come from?

…

..

.

*Poke*

“Ow you little cu-”

*Poke harder*

“Oy stop it, that hurts”

*Poke*

“Seriously, I’ll scream for help”

The straw is speaking I’m sure of it…

“What are you?” *poke*

“I’m Strawder a ranger for my people and stop poking me that hurts” He sits up, straw face looking my way, I think.

*Poke*

“You’re made of straw?” Magic?

*Poke back*

“Yes and before you poke me again, I can feel pain and see it’s annoying” *poke* “isn’t it” *poke* “really annoying and painful” *poke”

“It’s ticklish” his pokes with his straw hand are really bristly and ticklish.

“Agh” He stands up “let’s see how you like my punches”

*Poof*

…It didn’t even do any damage…

“You’re really made of straw” I stand up, his little straw head barely reaching my chest.

“Strawdammit of course I am, I’m a Strawnian or as the rest of the world like to call us a Straw person but don’t treat me as less than an equal” He sounds rather angry, but…I look down at him…

“You’re a person, why would you be less equal?”

“All of you beasts think you’re better than us simply because you have fle……did you just call me a person?”

“Of course you kind of look like one too” I pat him on his small head

“Well you are certainly a strange beast”

I pat him on the head once more since he seems to like it. “You’re made of straw though”

“STRAWDAMMIT I told you I’m a Strawnian, of course I’m made of straw”

“But how-”

“Magic of course, we don’t need such callous things such as organs or the like”

“Cool” This is actually really cool!

“…stop staring at me, it’s strange. Just attack me or something, that’s what these bleeding rock giants do to me anyways”

“Sorry, it’s just i’m new to magic so this is really cool”

“Such a strange beast. What are you doing running in to me anyways?”

“I licked a rock giant and woke it up”

“That is why you foolish flesh beasts are just bound to die, who licks a rock giant?” Yes I did wrong, but I didn’t know it was a living thing.

“Could you tell me where the lake is?” I’m sure Strawder knows and it means I won’t have to stay around the rock giants for too long.

“Ah the lake…I was headed there myself, come foolish fleshy beast, follow Strawder and I will lead you safely to this lake” he poofs his straw hands together and gestures for me to follow.

“Ok” this Strawder is a strange fellow too. There’s a lot of strange fellows in this world.

Walking with Strawder, he begins a long monologue on his adventures in the hills and encounters with the rock giants.

While he does that, I sneak a peek at Nathan’s list…living straw is on it x50…I’ll ask Strawder about that later.

“-And so after bashing me into the ground for three days and three nights, it finally gave up and went back to sleep and here I am victor and alive” He’s got a strange sense in what victory means… “Ah and here’s the lake”

Over the last hill, I spot a large lake in the near distance and I swear there’s someone by the edge of the lake.

“Ol’ Coot HELLO” Strawder shouts and waves from a small distance, the rather wrinkly fellow with no hair anywhere retorting with a less than pleasant gesture with one hand while the other holds a rather massive fishing rod.

“Strawder who is he?” It seems like Strawder has friends.

“Oh he’s just some old coot who spends all his time at the lake trying to catch some big fish or something”

“IT’S THE EEL LORD, STRAW FOR BRAINS”

“YOU ARE CORRECT, I HAVE STRAW WHERE HUMANS SHOULD HAVE THEIR BRAINS BUT WHY ARE YOU STATING THAT FACT”

“IT WAS AN INSULT, MORON”

“MORON? MY NAME IS STRAWDER”

“you two are good friends aren’t you” It reminds me of the little lizards…Zzard and Zzand if I remember correctly.

“Yes we are”

“I HATE HIM”

“He only says that but really”

“NO REALLY I HATE YOU. EVERY TIME I GO FISHIN’ YOU’RE OVER HERE ANNOYING ME, SHOO BUGGER OFF AND GO ANNOY ANOTHER ROCK GIANT”

“I’VE ALREADY BEEN ON AN ADVENTURE TODAY AND LOOK, I HAVE FOUND A PERSON”

Ol’ Coot stops his shouting from a distance and gives me a look. Hmm I’ve seen that face before…but where?

Walking over to him, I can hear his sigh. It must be tiring with that rod. I should help him.

“Ol’ Coot, hello I am Thrash”

“Great, now shoo I’ve got a Lord to catch” He turns back to his rod, holding it tightly with both hands.

“Do you need help? That rod looks heavy”

Oh he doesn’t look too happy about me saying that…what did I say wrong?

“You know what” He pulls on the rod, line whipping back onto the land bringing a MASSIVE eel with it, crashing straight on top of Strawder

“Mrhgrmgrmg” Strawder says something but he’s got an eel wriggling on top of him, can’t hear what he’s saying.

“Yeah yeah just hush now, adults are talking”

“gmhrmgm three years old mgmhrmh” Strawder’s that young? I didn’t notice. I’ve got much to learn about straw people.

“You, Thrash, have a go trying to catch something” He hands me the rod. Well now that I look at Ol’ Coot he’s got some serious muscles.

…

..

.

*Grunt*

This is one heavy rod, he shouldn’t be lifting so much with an old back like that.

“Well what are you waiting for, get the line in the water”

“…How do I fish?” I’ve never done anything like it before.

“Bring the line back and throw it in the water, wait until it bites then pull it back out” He crosses his arm “Younglings these days not knowing how to even fish, wouldn’t be surprised if you couldn’t wipe your a-”

*Whoosplash*

Now to wait I guess…

Is Ol’ Coot going to help Strawder? I mean he can feel pain so being underneath a living eel the size of a table doesn’t look fun.

*Smack*

“GRAB THE ROD!” He screams at me as I whip my head back to the rod, jumping for it as it drags itself towards the water.

“PULL” I pull…well try to. Whatever’s bitten it is strong.

“PULL YOU MUTT”

“It’s very difficult” I huff out as I slowly get dragged with it.

Suddenly I get pulled back with the rod.

“Holy mother of Aiag, boy I think you’ve got the big catch, let’s pull it out together” He holds the rod behind me already sweating with effort.

“I can help too” I spot Strawder wriggling from underneath the Eel. He won’t be able to help much.

“PULL BOY PULL” PULLLL

…

(Joat’s POV)

Ah the cool air of the hills with a refreshing morning sun just over the horizon, it’d be perfect

“JOAT WATCH OUT” If there wasn’t a rock giant trying to squish us…

Jumping out of the way, I miss getting flattened by the rock giant I accidentally pissed off when I tried resting on it. How was I supposed to know that it wasn’t just a rock?

At least my new flail is proving to be pretty good against it.

Apparently live training meant fighting in on the spot made groups against this rock giant, which is so close to physical immunity to the point where we’ve spent the past hour attacking it and it STILL hasn’t gone down.

It doesn’t help that we barely get any actually damaging attacks on it.

“SWITCH”

“What’s it’s status?” I casually ask Sino as I dust myself off, shuffling to the sidelines of the battle and letting the the 6 fresh people take on the giant.

“Well it’s still standing, but it’s right leg is working slightly worse since Allie got her spear in the cracks”

“EVERYONE AIM FOR IT’S RIGHT LEG” Right now to watch boringly.

In all honesty the rock giant isn’t that bad to fight even if it’s quite fast and hits hard enough to take out the Npc’s with a single blow…nevermind, it’s really hard to deal with.

The currently worst thing about this trip, apart from these immortal blimming giants is the members of my party: Hino, Sino and Allie…which isn’t too bad since they’re alright people. But the other 7 are the problem: all human, monster-hating people…and of course none of them are attacking the right leg like I said

Seriously people, we’ve been fighting together for an hour now at least trust me a little!

Anyway their names are…I have no idea because they will barely even look at me, well you know what I’m going to get this sorted now!

“Alright guys, let’s go take out it’s right leg, old school style”

“Why does that not inspire confidence in me?” random human who won’t really talk to me stop being a worry wort and more like these three.

“Yes, I’m excited!”

“Should’ve done this hours ago”

“Can we just kill it already?”

Standing up, I have them all bunch up next to me “Alright on three. One. Two. Three!”

Charging into the side of the battle, I lunge onto the giants leg and with the help of the other 3, we pull it’s leg out from under it

*CRASH*

“Now mace wielders for it’s head!” and thank god they listen this time…by all of them going for the head. You’ve got a bloody sword, what use is that going to be!?

With only one human flying out screaming as he gets a rocky palm to the body, the rest take out the rock giant.

Well that was a long battle for literally no purpose.

“Right you lot, if you want to die, please feel free to do so, but if you want to live and not get broken like…that guy, you listen to me”

“Why would we listen to you? You’re just a monster who started all this in the first place!” A short fiery woman with red-hair growls at me, pointing her equally small hammer at me.

“Because I’ve got way more combat experience than you, I’ve led parties before, I’m generally quite smart and good at being leader and I literally just made the end of this hour long smackdown finish and that injury was NOT my fault before you get all blamey”

“Plus he’s really good in bed” Allie chuckles. Aiag dammit, it didn’t happen!

“Allie, you really aren’t helping in any way”

“You slept with a monster?” a tall bald, dark-skinned teenager with a two-handed axe looks at Allie with disgust

“No I actually slept with a human, who then told everyone in hopes that it would get me killed” I butt in before this becomes another piss up in a brewery

“…so what happened?” A weedy looking guy with freckles and mushroom shaped ginger hair pokes out from behind the black teenager.

“Well I’m here so what do you think happened?”

…

..

.

“Anyways, from now on we’re working together to take out this entire hill worth of giants within 1 hour” Because I don’t want to waste valuable skill learning time!!

“There’s 8 of them, that isn’t possible” a fat blonde whines at me

“You know what, just close your mouth and open your mind for 1 giant and I’ll show you we can do it alrighty?” Well I sounded a bit harsh there but these people aren’t being nice to me so it’s ok to be perfectly candid with them.

“Well Joat, I’m excited to see what madness you come up with this time” Allie’s raring to go it seems. Also not everything I do is madness, most is planned you know.

Any dissenters? Nope cool. And there’s a healer helping the muscular idiot. I guess it’s useful they brought a few along and they definitely seem to be hard at work keeping all these idiots alive.

“Right, everyone who has a mace over to my right” Hino, Mushroom ginger, Redhair and Me

“Shields to my left” bigblondy and average joe.

“Everyone else…you’re currently useless” And here comes the whining “JUST be quite for a second. Sino you’re going to tell us how much damage we’ve done to it, the rest of you drop your weapons, you’re not going to need them”

“The way we’re going to do this, is shields up first, take the first few blows. Weaponless people jump the left leg from the back and pull it away. Maces go for the head” It’s pretty similar to when me and the Zz’s had to deal with night wolves.

…

..

.

“Anyone can come up with that plan, isn’t that too simple?”

“They’re big, stupid creatures, why do we need to be complex about something super simple to take care of? The only big thing is once they’re down we need to keep it down and that’s where the manpower of holding each arm down comes in. 4 to each arm. Blondy, baldy, Sino and emo-looking guy you’re left hand side and other 4 you’re right”

“At least learn our names” bigblondy whines

“Well then give them to me” It’s not like I can inspe-

…

..

.

Your monster identification skill is not high enough level yet

At basic level 8? Time to level up that skill then!

Alright time to learn their names

“Layla”

“Joe”

“Johnny”

“Gerard”

“Kayla”

“Rod”

“Mark”

Great, not going to remember a single one after that rapid firing of names but hopefully the system will remember it for me.

“Alright, we ready?”

…

“Left arm secure!”

“Right arm secure!”

“Are you ready for a little bashing guys?” I whirl up my Flail.

*Thunk*

“How long did that take Sino?”

“…5 minutes”

Well that told the humans right. Wait I am human, technically not at this moment though. Anyways, 5 minutes is seriously impressive, I mean when the last one took an hour…wow we really were doing something wrong…

“So 7 more is another 20 minutes then”

“Joat what kind of maths is that?” Sino cocks his head towards me.

“Well we’re going to get better, maybe 2 to 3 minutes per one should do”

“And how do you propose that oh wise monster” Redhead…inspecting, Kayla got it, is being rather arsey about it.

“Focus on it’s neck area, separate the head, focus our attack on one small zone rather than bashing randomly at it’s head” Slightly different from when we dealt with the wolves…but that was for another purpose.

Right, round two!

…

“23 MINUTES TO TAKE OUT 7 STONE GIANTS, MAGGOTS I AM IMPRESSED”

“OF COURSE SIR YOU TRAINED US SIR” All the recruits bellow back to the imposing daren at once.

“HAH, DON’T BE SO MODEST, YOU’RE MILDLY IMPRESSIVE FOR MAGGOTS”

“THANK YOU SIR” He’s actually complimenting us, rather rare.

“SEEMS LIKE MORE TRAINING IN LARGE GROUPS IS USELESS. SPLIT INTO GROUPS OF 4 AND CONTINUE FIGHTING”

Well…I grab Allie, Sino and Hino immediately. I mean I don’t want to be working with Npc’s who are rather annoying.

“Ok we have to finish this before half a day” I tell them all

“You got someplace to be?”

“Nope, just missing out on valuable skill time”

“Well maybe we’ll get more skills working with Npc’s?” No Allie that isn’t a bad, no good idea

“No harm in trying right Joat?” Dammit Hino stop fueling the fire that is my passion.

“Fine, we’ll take some Npc’s and try to gain some skills” Kind of convinced me with the possibility, especially if I can actually teach Npc’s skills and stats and even turn them into followers…ooh let’s try this!

Running over to the humans as they make their own little cliques, I stroll straight into the middle.

“Right, at least one non-human per group, mostly to get you guys used to non-humans and who wants to be in my group” Well technically they do have exposure to non-humans but for some reason this lot are humans only.

…

..

.

Well at least one person looks willing to be in my group of unwilling teammates: One tiny Kayla, the muscled idiot and the guy who looks like an average joe.

“Let’s get to fighting team!” Optimisim is key, the key to all skill gaining!!

…

*whoosh whoosh*

Ah I love this

Joe [lvl11], human male

Hp:

110/110

Attack:

13-13

Stats:

Intelligence, Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Wisdom, Vitality

Defence:

23

Skills:

Dodge,???

Relationship:

-12

I definitely need to practice this skill a lot more

EVOLVED SKILL: Identification, beginner [lv2] (4%) (Active)

Identifies basic notes about Npc’s and monsters

Cost: None, Duration: sustained, Cooldown: None

Apparently monster identification evolved once it got to level 9 due to me using it for a purpose it wasn’t previously known to be used for and it basically counts as level 12 monster identification.

And now I get a whole new bunch of skill levels to train and gain all that delicious xp.

Right, so anywho Npc’s gain skills and stats just like us and I can see the ones that I’ve seen them learn. I believe they learn them with a little bit more difficulty but I’ve only been watching for about 3 hours. It’s scary how much detail identification has or really what it will have when I’m higher level. Will it basically become another character sheet for the npc’s?

So at this point I can assume they are the same as us, or well we’re the same as them which means a lot of them have literal years more experience than us.

Though I did notice that they are lacking in a few what I guess would be called character based skills like identification…and well that’s it so far.

But in terms of stats I don’t see Brutality in any of them except for Rod. Rod has the most stats with 7, the rest have the staple 6: Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom and Vitality.

*whooshwhooshwhoosh”

So basically unless they did something special in their childhood like whatever Rod did then they’d end up as normal characters with 4 slots free.

Child soldiers without stats would be very good here, not that that is a good thing or should ever be used.

But that also means if they aren’t given special training from a young age they won’t be very different. However these are just one batch of people, there’s a lot of different starting points I’m guessing, so if I was to make an army I’d have to pick people from different backgrounds for different roles.

Talk about having a role from birth/

“MONSTER ARE YOU GOING TO ATTACK IT OR WHAT” Kayla screams at me from behind Joe

And flail to the leg aaaand giant is down.

*whoosh whoosh*

Giant hunting is a lot slower with less people, but still fast: Kayla goes about weakening it and I do the final bash while the others do some multi-layered blocking, which is two people behind one shield trying not to go flying every time the giant slaps them.

It’s going pretty decently actually, with the healer only having to patch up Joe twice and Kayla once. I am perfect and don’t need to be patched up due to my godly regenerative powers...and the fact that I had no agro at all helped.

Oh yeah that’s definitely a player ability so if anything we’ve got that over any normal Npc.

*Whooshwhooshwhoosh*

And one smashed right leg coming up.

Taking out both legs has been the plan, then moving to the arms and finally the head. About 30 minutes a giant with little problems once we sorted out the multi layer blocking and agro switch.

*Whoosh whoosh*

As for making them my followers…well that’s not happening for a while…since when my inspection leveled to level 2 (I inspected all the other Npc’s here) it showed me my current reputation with them

…

..

.

-13…oh wait no it’s now -12…well it’s not that far gone a hope then.

Apparently it went up because I’m helping lead them…without a party since I can’t party up with them. Another great thing we players have over Npc’s.

“Joat can you take out it’s arms please, I’m getting tired” Joe is rather polite, and even uses my name. I guess although he has a -12 reputation it there’s something else that I can’t see affecting it.

Knowledge is power and I should really train this skill quickly! Especially if I accidentally go to battle against npc’s…hopefully not though.

Agh time for a lunch break soon, man I have to socialize with them…well actually I doubt they will due to the fact that they don’t like me that much...or at least the system shows that.

And that’s the left arm gone. It’s actually rather boring not having any agro, even though I’m doing so much damage, Kayla, Rod and Joe switch who’s got the hammer and when they get agro they get shield duties.

I’m just walking around whirling a Flail and slowly bashing the rock giant to pieces. I might try to solo these giants if I thought I could dodge them.

“ALRIGHT MAGGOTS, TIME TO DO THINGS ALONE, SINCE YOU WON’T ALWAYS HAVE OTHERS TO FIGHT WITH” Well that’s the planned lunch time horrors gone I guess, yay?

Also how are we supposed to fight alone against these massive things? They’re pretty annoying to kill especially for those poor souls without maces.

Lucky I’ve got a flail and a scimitar for most cases, wahaha.

Well let’s get to trying to figure out how to fight a rock giant by myself

…

..

.

And learn a skill since I haven’t learnt one today…erm ooh a defensive skill would be nice.

I could try learn something like parry, or full on block it.

NAME: Rock Giant [lvl15]

Hp: 650/650 Attack: 43-60 Defense: 44 (full body), Speed: 0.6

Stats: Strength, Vitality

Weaknesses: Vulnerable to Blunt damage

Resistances: Resistance to physical damage (non-blunt)

A shepherd of the hills and a durable being, not easily killed although removal of it’s head does the job.

Uhhh let’s remove the full on block it from the list. Also mosters have stats past level 10 it’s rather cool yet terrifying.

So a strange sort of parry then, erm how about one with my flail and another with my scimitar?

Whirling up my flail, I pound it into a large unmoving rock which smells faintly of blood, waking up one pissed off rock giant, which takes the full 42 points of damage.

Alright whirling up flail once more and dodge

-52

Well dodging with a flail isn’t easy, or not possible really. I need to work on that.

Alright this is make it or break it, whirling up flail, giant’s coming for a slap and I whip my flail into the side of the hand redirecting it away from me and causing a small stumble

Ok, that worked. Let’s do it again.

Luckily the stumble gave me time to whirl up again and his hand is such a large target it’s easy to hit it and redirect it enough to at most sidestep out the way as it stumbles giving me precious time to get my flail going again.

This parrying business is pretty good with a flail, well in this scenario at least.

Though every 5 I do have to take a break from it and just dodge, because jesus is it tiring.

Eventually the giant has no hands left and it begins with stomping…which does it even less good as my flail chips away at it quite frankly.

*Ding*

Congratulations! Through parrying attacks multiple times you have learnt the Combat Skill parry

COMBAT SKILL: Parry, beginner [lvl1] (0%)

Parrying is the ability to deflect one’s attack with your own

When successfully parrying:

Redirects attack mitigating or cancelling damage

May cause opponent to stumble

Cost: 20 stamina, Duration: Instantaneous, Cooldown: 2.4 seconds

Xp increases by 5%

Huh so that’s why I can only use it 5 times since it uses up all my stamina and then I had to wait for it to regen…

Also the cooldown is rather arbitrary

…

..

.

*Whoosh whoosh*

Ah it takes just over 2 seconds to get the spin going…so that’s why. The cooldown is the weapon’s attack speed and the fact that it costs stamina whenever you parry is also something rather special: Firstly it means that in combat someone can cause you to lose all your stamina when defending which is pretty nasty and secondly what if you didn’t have stamina…or would you have to have stamina as a stat prerequisite to learn this?

“Rod, learn to parry the giants” test subject number one.

He stops musing, odd for the oafishly large and slow teenager but hey who’s to judge appearences, and looks at me with squinting eyes.

And off to parry he goes. Now to wait

…

..

.

And he’s got the parry skill…without stamina...or can I just not see stamina because it’s also a ‘pool’?

Well for now I believe you can learn the skill but without stamina I’m guessing it may have a different effect…like if I used rage it’d definitely have a different effect.

Alright, now for the hard one.

This time after waking up the giant with a flailing alarm clock, I use the flail to get rid of one of its hands and now time to try deflect the punch with my scimitar.

-23

Erm, well lying flat on my back surely isn’t what deflecting supposed to do.

Back up and this time dodge to the side and use my weapons as a shield to slide the attack off.

-14

It worked? I’m not flat on my back but I definitely got some damage there.

Trying it again a few times, it sort of works, with me getting a small bit of damage from just the sheer power of the attack. Though I’ve got to stop now or I will die, which I do not like.

Crushing the giant with quite a lot more flail parry attacks (level up a skill why not), I heal up and try this deflect business once more.

This is going to be a looong day

…

(Thrash’s POV)

“PULL BOY”

“I’M PULLING, IT’S NOT MOVING” Whatever’s bitten it is seriously strong.

“WE ONLY NEED TO GET IT ANOTHER 13 METRES”

“I’M HELPING”

“NO YOU’RE NOT” Both of us shout at Strawder as he pulls at the end not helping with his lack of strength.

“WE NEED SOME MORE FOOD AND WATER STRAW HEAD”

“IT’S STRAWDER AND I WON’T DO IT UNLESS YOU ASK ME NICELY AND SAY MY NAME”

“STRAWDER PLEASE GET ME SOME WATER AND SOME OIL SO THAT I MAY DOUSE YOU IN IT AND BURN YOU TO PIECES AIAG DAMMIT WHY WON’T YOU BUDGE”

“MAYBE IT’S STUCK ON A ROCK”

“NO THRASH I CAN FEEL IT PULLING, IT’S DEFINITELY NOT STUCK, WATER”

“WATER”

“WATEEEER”

“ALRIGHT ALRIGHT I’M COMING”

“WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING TOO?” I’m curious he has no reason to

“BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE IS SO I’M SUPPOSED TO AS WELL!”

“JUST BRING THE WATER, YEGHLGHLGHL”

“OOH ME NEXGHLGHLGHL”

“BOY WE WILL BE HAVING THIS FISH FOR DINNER AT MIDNIGHT, MIDNIGHT I TELL YOU!”

“IT JUST WENT PAST MIDNIGHT OL’ COOT” Strawder points at the moon, ooh it’s pretty tonigh-NO I DO NOT HAVE TIME TO THINK OF SUCH TRIVIAL THINGS, PULLLLLL

“JUST PULL AIAG DAMN YOU!”