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No point in you having a drink of this shit. Wouldn’t do sweet fuck all. Pick someone.

R-Rick! Doug! Can… Can I give it to both? Can they share it?

Skidmark and Scrub, Infestation 11.6

Scrub is a former recruit of the Merchants, who eventually settled with Faultline's Crew.

Personality[]

He fell prey to the strength and protection that the Merchants offered. May have issues with communication.[13]

Relationships[]

Seems to care more for people's actions than their intent, choosing to offer his Cauldron vial to Doug, who tried to pull him out of the melee, over Rick, who did not even try.[14]

Appearance[]

As a result of his trigger Scrub has white hair that has traces of white smoke coming out of it. This smoke also billows from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, along with a glow emanating from the mouth.[15][16]

Abilities and Powers[]

Scrub's power constantly generates beachball-sized[17] spheres of energy[18] in his immediate vicinity that manifest as flashes or bursts of white light.[3][19] According to Tattletale, Scrub's shard finds a parallel Earth with roughly corresponding architecture, swaps more permanent elements of this architecture in as needed,[20] and shunts any remaining matter caught in these blasts out to that parallel Earth.[21] Thus, his spherical explosions appear to delete matter but typically leave the ground and buildings intact[22] because they are effectively portal cuts that also swap select elements in to avoid tearing up his own footing.[21] This behavior explains why his power is far less likely to accidentally destroy a critical support that collapses a building onto his head.[23]

Scrub's spheres of energy are All-or-Nothing; their shunting/swapping of matter cannot be blocked by any non-perfect defense.[11][10] This allows his explosions to ignore the defenses of Alexandria,[24] Crawler,[2] and the Endbringers.[25] He presumably can pop the Siberian (i.e., the highest level of invulnerability[26]) like Flechette[27] and Damsel of Distress[28][29] can.

Scrub can push his power into overdrive to generate explosions more frequently.[30][2]

Vulnerabilities[]

Scrub's power is heavily interdimensional,[10] resulting in his power being always on[8] because of increased shard involvement.[31] As his power is also relatively unbounded,[32] he has limited control over his power as the placement of his explosions is somewhat random.[18][7][33] To avoid any friendly fire, he must keep his distance from his allies.[34][35] Scrub cannot really control where his blasts hit with any degree of accuracy as he only has some ability to dictate their general direction and frequency (i.e., spam a general area).[18][6] When fighting against Shamrock, he was unable to hit her despite being in close proximity and pushing his power into overdrive.[30]

His power has relatively short range.[9] On one occasion, an explosion occurred within 10 feet of him.[36] Scrub's range is presumably no more than around 20 feet as Shamrock dismissed him as a threat at this distance.[30]

Although Tattletale speculates he would be assigned a high Blaster rating,[9] in reality the PRT stayed out of his range and just trapped him in a hole to neutralize his threat.[37][38] Indeed, his power never blasts the ground out from under his feet; Scrub's shard presumably sets this limit to avoid hurting him.[23]

If an explosion contacts an All-or-Nothing effect, they presumably will nullify each other as demonstrated by similar scenarios.[39][40][41]

History[]

Post-Leviathan[]

Attended a party at the dilapidated mall and triggered in the midst of one of the gladiatorial combat orchestrated by Skidmark[16][15]. The amount of capes around him when Scrub triggers contributed to him manifesting a mild trump aspect to his power, able to negate many power-based defenses.[10] He did not have control of his abilities after triggering and this was not helped by being suddenly attacked by Shamrock as part of Faultline's assault on the Merchants.

He survived the Slaughterhouse Nine's decimation of the Merchants and was able to temporarily disable Crawler[42], but he still had not gained control of his abilities.[43]

Post-Slaughterhouse Nine[]

After this, Scrub fell in with Ballistic's crew, indirectly serving Coil. With the falling out between Ballistic's employer and the Undersiders, and the subsequent release of the Travelers fifth member things turned out badly, Scrub was captured by the PRT. Eventually during the Echidna Crisis Tattletale convinced him to work with Labyrinth and together they created a portal[44], with which Travelers went back toEarth Aleph and then linked Earth Bet with Earth Gimel, providing first accessible interdimensional portal between worlds.

Post-Echidna[]

Started opening inter-dimensional portals with Labyrinth as part of a duo[45]. His time with Faultline's crew seems to have become a long-term enterprise.[18]

Gold Morning[]

Collected by Khepri from Faultline's Crew along with Labyrinth for the final attack against Scion, as a duo replacing Doormaker after his power has run out, to create portals and collect capes.[46]

Chapter Appearances[]

Worm Chapter Appearances
Infestation
1. Infestation 11.1 Absent
2. Infestation 11.2 Absent
3. Infestation 11.3 Absent
4. Infestation 11.4 Absent
5. Infestation 11.5 Absent
6. Infestation 11.6 Debut
7. Infestation 11.7 Appears
8. Infestation 11.8 Absent
a. Interlude 11a Absent
b. Interlude 11b Absent
c. Interlude 11c Absent
d. Interlude 11d Absent
e. Interlude 11e Absent
f. Interlude 11f Absent
g. Interlude 11g Absent
h. Interlude 11h Absent
Plague
1. Plague 12.1 Absent
2. Plague 12.2 Appears
3. Plague 12.3 Absent
4. Plague 12.4 Absent
5. Plague 12.5 Absent
6. Plague 12.6 Absent
7. Plague 12.7 Absent
8. Plague 12.8 Absent
x. Interlude 12 Appears
y. Interlude 12.5 Absent
Colony
1. Colony 15.1 Absent
x. Interlude 15.x Absent
2. Colony 15.2 Absent
3. Colony 15.3 Absent
y. Interlude 15.y Absent
4. Colony 15.4 Mentioned
5. Colony 15.5 Absent
6. Colony 15.6 Absent
7. Colony 15.7 Absent
z. Interlude 15.z Absent
8. Colony 15.8 Absent
9. Colony 15.9 Absent
10. Colony 15.10 Absent
i. Interlude 15 Absent
Queen
1. Queen 18.1 Absent
2. Queen 18.2 Absent
x. Interlude 18.x Absent
3. Queen 18.3 Absent
4. Queen 18.4 Absent
y. Interlude 18.y Absent
5. Queen 18.5 Mentioned
6. Queen 18.6 Absent
z. Interlude 18.z Absent
7. Queen 18.7 Absent
8. Queen 18.8 Appears
f. Interlude 18.f Absent
i. Interlude 18 Appears
Scourge
1. Scourge 19.1 Absent
2. Scourge 19.2 Absent
3. Scourge 19.3 Appears
x. Interlude 19.x Absent
4. Scourge 19.4 Appears
5. Scourge 19.5 Absent
6. Scourge 19.6 Absent
7. Scourge 19.7 Appears
y. Interlude 19.y Absent
z. Interlude 19.z Absent
Imago
1. Imago 21.1 Mentioned
2. Imago 21.2 Absent
3. Imago 21.3 Absent
4. Imago 21.4 Absent
5. Imago 21.5 Absent
6. Imago 21.6 Absent
7. Imago 21.7 Absent
x. Interlude 21.x Absent
y. Interlude 21.y Absent
Cockroaches
1. Cockroaches 28.1 Appears
2. Cockroaches 28.2 Absent
3. Cockroaches 28.3 Absent
4. Cockroaches 28.4 Mentioned
5. Cockroaches 28.5 Absent
6. Cockroaches 28.6 Absent
x. Interlude 28 Absent
Speck
1. Speck 30.1 Absent
2. Speck 30.2 Absent
3. Speck 30.3 Absent
4. Speck 30.4 Absent
5. Speck 30.5 Appears
6. Speck 30.6 Appears
7. Speck 30.7 Absent

References[]

  1. “E-Eraser?” he answered, making it a question.

    “Like the puny pink nipple on the end of a pencil? Fuck that,” Skidmark snarled. - Excerpt from Infestation 11.6
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Crawler was one of the two group members who had yet to rejoin the group. He was engaged with a young man with a glow that suffused his hair and emanated from his eyes and mouth. White flashes appeared with little accuracy and devastating effect, carving spherical chunks out of the brute. This only encouraged the monster, and Crawler eagerly paced closer, his wounds closing together with a startling rapidity. So few things could hurt Crawler these days that Jack rarely got to see the regeneration in full effect. Crawler’s healing powers appeared to play out in fast-forward when compared to even the regenerators who could heal wounds in seconds. Hundreds of pounds of flesh were replaced in one or two heartbeats.

    One eruption of light hit Crawler in the dead center of his chest. It made him pause, no doubt removing one of his hearts and some of his spinal cord. The boy with the glowing hair pushed his power into overdrive, calling forth a series of flashes that exploded in close succession. - Excerpt from Interlude 12
  3. 3.0 3.1 I saw a flash of white from within the ring and it dawned on me what had just happened.

    Another flash sparked in the ring, then a second. Both were in close proximity to a boy no older than I was. White smoke poured from his eyes, nose, ears and mouth, with smaller traces flowing from his scalp, stirring his hair. - Excerpt from Infestation 11.6
  4. He'd be a nuker going by the old PRT classifications. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit
  5. In this case we're talking blaster-shaker, a 'nuker' that uses a blast (projectile) with an area element. The rocket-launcher, fireball, grenade type of blaster. The trigger involved mingled environmental and physical threat. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit
  6. 6.0 6.1 Consistency - Is the power accurate? Does it always do what you want it to when it's used? Scrub was a powerful shaker/blaster but couldn't really control where the blasts hit with any degree of accuracy. At most he spammed a general area. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit
  7. 7.0 7.1 Power: Erasure Asura - Scrub maintains a shaker effect in his immediate vicinity. At either the start or end of a round, he rolls a 1d8. A blast occurs based on the die result, using the table below, with a ‘1’ being in front of him, a ‘3’ to his right, a ‘5’ behind him, and a ‘7’ to his left. On a successful hit, Scrub inflicts a critical shock. Ignores defensive powers and armor. - Playtest Capes
  8. 8.0 8.1 Lexicon: Oh, wait, breaker makes sense for Scrub, too. I'd thought of that before, but I'd never connected the two lines of thought.

    Wildbow: I had scrub down as a shaker, not a breaker. He's always on, so to speak - Conversation with Wildbow on IRC, archived on Spacebattles
  9. 9.0 9.1 9.2 “Uncontrolled matter-annihilation bursts in his immediate vicinity,” I said. “Ex-member of the Merchants, a local gang of dealers and users.”

    “Blaster-eight, easy, if not a straight ten, despite his relatively short range,” Tattletale supplied, “But I’m not sure he does what Skitter thinks he does, and that’s why I want to talk to him.” - Excerpt from Queen 18.5
  10. 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Scrub dips into trump with the heavy interdimensional slam and ability to ignore/negate most brute defenses. He'd take a chunk out of Alexandria, for example.

    But it's only a dip. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit
  11. 11.0 11.1 Siberian, Damsel, Scrub, Flechette, and Grey Boy are Worm capes at the 'if anything can penetrate that defense, these guys penetrate that defense' level of attack. Eidolon and Glaistig Uaine have such attacks in their toolkits.
    [...]
    Alexandria is basically a superman expy with top tier (beaten only by people in the first paragraph) durability and a super brain that's picked up martial arts. - Wildbow on Reddit
  12. Rogues are, by definition, not heroes or villains. A rogue is someone who doesn't identify with the cops and robbers game, encompassing those who utilize their abilities for business, personal, societal or neutral reasons, and those who strive not to use their abilities at all. To a reasonably strict extent, there is no 'in the field' for rogues.

    I say reasonably strict because there's mercenaries like Faultline's crew, but there's pretty much a 'you fuck one goat' attitude toward mercenaries who deign to work with villains... they just get the 'villain' label slapped on them and that's that, mostly. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  13. “Scrub,” Tattletale said.

    Scrub didn’t respond.

    “So you don’t talk,” she said, “That makes this harder.” - Excerpt from Scourge 19.3
  14. “You didn’t help me when I got pulled into the ring,” the boy with the powers told Rick, “Doug at least tried. He gets my prize.” - Excerpt from Infestation 11.6
  15. 15.0 15.1 Scrub – Triggered in the midst of one of a grand melee/free for all fighting match provoked by the Merchants. White haired, with a glow emanating from each of his cavities, he generates explosions in his immediate surroundings, annihilating matter they come in contact with. - Cast
  16. 16.0 16.1 Infestation 11.6
  17. “You’re gonna need a name, kid, if you’re going to join the Merchant’s upper circle.”

    The boy blinked, looking around, as if he didn’t quite understand. Was he in shock?

    “Come on, now. Let’s hurry it up.”

    There was a spark of the boy’s power, and the flash removed a beachball-sized section of rubble beneath Skidmark’s ‘stage’. The boy stared at it. - Excerpt from Infestation 11.6
  18. 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 Scrub – Gained his powers while under the Merchants when a violent gladiatorial event forced his trigger event. Has the ability to create spheres of energy that annihilate matter… sometimes. He has limited control over this power; while he can dictate general direction and frequency, its placement is somewhat random. Once a Merchant, he assisted Faultline’s Crew in creating a portal, and has remained with the group, presumably with the idea of creating more portals. - Cast (in depth)
  19. He flinched as someone whirled on him and raised their weapon, and a burst of white light appeared two feet to the other person’s left. A miss. The person swayed toward where the flash had been, as if it had pulled at him. The glowing boy stuck one arm out, towards his target, and another flash of white appeared a yard behind his target.

    The man charged, and the boy tried a third time. The blast intersected the man, and when it faded, the man’s upper arm, forearm, elbow, and the right side of his torso and hip were gone. Blood gushed from the area where his flesh had been carved away by the light, and his dismembered hand dropped to his feet.

    The boy screamed in some combination of horror, pain and rage, and flashes of the whiteness erupted randomly around him. Some caught people who were lying prone on the ground, others hit standing combatants, while most simply hit thin air. - Excerpt from Infestation 11.6
  20. “Doesn’t matter,” she said. She rested the cylinder with the vaguely pointed bottom down on the ground, tapped her finger on the top – what had been the road’s surface. “Look.”

    I peered closer.

    It was so subtle I almost missed it. The texture of the road’s surface was interrupted, shifting minutely to a different texture and fractionally different shade. The area formed a neat circle.
    [...]
    “I don’t get it,” Tecton said. “The blast changed it?”

    “The blast transplanted it,” Tattletale said, grinning.

    “How the hell do you even notice something like that?” Wanton asked, touching the surface. - Excerpt from Scourge 19.3
  21. 21.0 21.1 She explained, “Looking at this, I’m thinking it’s because the same passengers that give us our powers are connecting us to some other parallel Earth. Maybe even individual collections of Earths for each of us, so that there’s no ugly interactions when two powers meet. Scrub here shunts matter into an Earth where there’s architecture roughly corresponding to our own, but he won’t tear up his own footing because he’s shunting in the more permanent elements as his power shunts stuff out.
    [...]
    “Doesn’t that mean that they’d be causing destruction in some hapless world?” Wanton asked.

    “Good question.” Tattletale grinned. “Yes. Probably. Could be that every time Sundancer’s power protects herself, she’s setting the approximate location of her other Earth on fire. Nothing’s saying that other Earth is populated, but it could be.” - Excerpt from Scourge 19.3
  22. I could see the remaining five as the audience moved back to give them space. A family of three, it seemed, a woman with a gaping wound in her stomach, her hand crimson where it pressed against the injury, and the boy who’d had his trigger event. I didn’t see Bryce or his new ‘family’ in the mist of the people retreating from the scene.

    A flash of light marked another uncontrolled use of the new cape’s power. It struck close to the ground, removing the leg of someone who lay unconscious or dead on the ground, but it left the ground perfectly intact. Why? When it consumed clothing and flesh but not the building itself? - Excerpt from Infestation 11.6
  23. 23.0 23.1 “There’s other limitations or advantages that come with the powers. [...] And Scrub here, with his uncontrolled power, never blasts the ground out from under his feet, and he’s far less likely to collapse a building onto his own head by accidentally destroying a critical support. Why?”

    Nobody volunteered an answer. Tattletale smiled. - Excerpt from Scourge 19.3
  24. This would be an accurate guess, though the bit in brackets is a little off.

    The likes of Scrub, Damsel, Foil, or March would be able to damage Alexandria. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit
  25. “Scrub,” I said.

    “He’s working under Ballistic,” Tattletale said. “I’ll get him on board by any means. He’s one of the few people, short of Flechette, who can deal guaranteed damage to an Endbringer or Endbringer-Lite, and I have ideas about him and how I could use him.” - Excerpt from Queen 18.5
  26. Can't cite anything, but there's a line that sorta appears in the story, where you run into the perfects (perfect defense, perfect offense) and stuff gets fucky - and the rule of thumb is that 'unless your ability beats -everything-, it doesn't beat this'. For processing power Contessa's ability would be on this level (as with Flechette's Sting, Clockblocker's inviolability, Siberian's invulnerability). - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  27. Up until the moment Foil, still screaming, using her augmented sense of timing to measure the length of each scream, stepped around the monochrome field he’d cast just in front of her. She threw a handful of darts through the Siberian and Gray Boy’s head as his back was turned.

    The Siberian flickered out of existence as Gray Boy collapsed.

    Neither reappeared, healthy or otherwise. - Interlude 26b
  28. Wildbow:
    i really doubt ashley can pop sibby
    Ashley could pop Siberian
    It's why she came up as a possible thing in relation to Sleeper
    Ashley was named in a WoG a while back talking about the 'anything but' powers and stuff like Alexandria Invulnerability. - Comment by Wildbow on Discord, archived on Spacebattles
  29. Damsel of Distress produced uncontrolled blasts of gravity, space and matter alteration, roughly on par with scrub's power in terms of sheer 'whatever you're using, it's not going to stop this' penetrative power (though it would fall short of Foil's power in this sense). However, the blasts were short ranged (six to ten feet) and could easily fail to hit a target that was in range. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  30. 30.0 30.1 30.2 To her right, the red-headed woman was striding towards Scrub. He aimed a shot and missed by a fraction, and she didn’t even flinch. Another try, another miss. As she got close, he let his power go haywire, and a dozen flashes erupted in close vicinity to him. None touched her.

    She had her gun drawn, but she didn’t shoot him. Instead, she grabbed him by the collar, then wrenched him to one side so he tipped over the side of the platform and fell the twenty or so feet to the ground below. It wasn’t enough of a fall to guarantee that he was out of the fight, but she seemed confident enough to turn away and move on to the next target before he’d even finished falling. - Infestation 11.7
  31. Twei: Wildbow! What sort of factors lead to conspiciously always-on powers like Scrub and Labryinth? I mean, obviously there's mechanical dimensional shenanigans, but that doesn't really seem satisfying as an reason- plenty of mechanically complex powers don't really bother the parahuman to control, at least when they're behaving. But again, Scrub or Labryinth are my goto. not neccesarily uncontrollable, but un-turn-off-able, or at least close enough to it to cause major issues with, say, holding down a secret ID. (to a lesser extent, Crawler over a long period of time might count, and Damsel blowing up her mom or whatever like five minutes after her trigger would probably count about as much)

    Wildbow: The interdimensional and dimensional fuckery powers aren't autonomous or screwy to use because they're complex
    But because they're located in a similar space, proximally.
    Shards and powers are interdimensional and by the powers being interdimensional they're closer to the shard... so you get more shard involvement (breakers), fuckery (perspective issues) and bigger doors that are harder to open & close, if they can be closed at all. - Comment by Wildbow on Discord, archived on Spacebattles
  32. The Scrubs and Labyrinths and maybe the Periastrons (though Periastron isn't a thing nor was he a cape I really had a firm hand in designing) tap into other worlds and have unbounded powers in another fashion, often always on and not deliberately controlled, though they may well have the ability to focus and intensify an effect.

    Working with the passenger's wishes means the ongoing effects and the bounds that form around the unbounded effects as they take hold (success rates and accuracy, power, efficiency, collateral damage, etc) are more to the parahuman's wishes. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  33. Scrub would need to get lucky in the roll of the dice (or attention of his shard) sense, and it's worth noting Damsel and Scrub would likely need Superman to draw in close. If supes plays smart and uses laser vision, that's not liable to happen. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit
  34. Scrub had climbed up to one corner of the platform, and was keeping to the edge of the fight. His intent was clearly to be close enough to Faultline’s group to possibly tag them, but not so close that one of his uncontrolled blasts would catch a fellow Merchant. - Infestation 11.7
  35. She grabbed my hand and pulled me in the direction of the van she’d brought. Labyrinth’s church had expanded considerably, and Scrub was very deliberately keeping his distance, keeping the company of Gregor the Snail, Newter, Shamrock and Spitfire. They looked a little the worse for wear, with burns, scrapes and bandages. Had Tattletale pulled them away from a job? - Excerpt from Scourge 19.7
  36. “Boy,” Skidmark pointed, “Approach the stage!”

    The ring flashed and disappeared. The boy turned, as though in a daze. He flinched as another burst of light sparked a good ten feet away. He limped toward Skidmark and stared up at the Merchant’s leader. - Excerpt from Infestation 11.6
  37. Scrub was a distance away, buried up to his waist in the road. His hair glowed with a faint red color, and a glow emanated from his eyes and the inside of his mouth. - Excerpt from Scourge 19.3
  38. “Guess.” Tattletale briskly walked in Scrub’s direction. The ex-Merchant was buried in a standing position, three-quarters of his body sunken into a hole in the ground roughly two and a half feet in diameter. He couldn’t raise his arms up out of the hole to pull or push himself up, and the narrow confines of the hole didn’t let him bend his legs.

    A flash marked an explosion nearby, hitting only air. - Excerpt from Scourge 19.3
  39. Clockblocker fired his threads from his gauntlet. They surrounded the cube-carrier, and he froze them.

    Unstoppable force against an immovable object.

    Which won?

    Siberian made contact with the thread and flickered out of existence, and the thread went limp. The cube fell with a crash. - Sting 26.5
  40. March was the first to move. A dash forward, weapon thrusting. Foil’s weapon shimmered before it met March’s. A small, localized explosion marked the conflict between the two powers, each nullifying the other. - Heavens 12.x
  41. Clockblocker hurried to Hookline’s side. A non-living weapon that would serve the same purpose-

    The effect as they made contact wasn’t the same purpose. Clockblocker winced, hand pulling away, and the chain went completely limp.

    Power conflict. - Last 20.3
  42. The boy with the glowing hair pushed his power into overdrive, calling forth a series of flashes that exploded in close succession. One caught Crawler in the face, revealing only a cross-section of his head, complete with a bisected brain, a skull six inches thick and the interior of Crawler’s mouth. Crawler collapsed.

    Siberian watched as the boy ran, then turned as if she intended to give chase. - Excerpt from Interlude 12
  43. Also, reworded from ‘blasts’. It’s a word I’m using too much, and it misleads, as you suggest. He still doesn’t have consistent control/accuracy with his power. - Comment by Wildbow on Interlude 12
  44. “Scrub! Get closer to the tower! Everyone else, get back! Labyrinth, don’t use your power any more! Hold off!”

    Heads turned. People had no doubt noticed the tower, but now something was happening.

    Scrub stepped closer, and one of his explosions ripped through the air. Another followed shortly after, intersecting one area of altered road.

    Like a gas in the air that had been ignited, the entire thing went up in a heartbeat. In an instant, it was a white void, as undefinable as Grue’s darkness, perceivable by the edges, but with zero depth or dimension. He’d shunted out the entire structure, as well as everything that had altered on the ground, but nothing had come back.

    The door had been kicked out of the frame. - Excerpt from Scourge 19.7
  45. Scourge 19.7
  46. I accessed the power of the reality warper. The girl who got more powerful as she lost touch with the world, who could fashion her own realities, then bring them into our world.

    I had her create a door, then I used her partner’s help to smash it.

    A freestanding hole in reality. The reality warper used her power to pick a world.

    [...]

    I didn’t have the portal man, but I did have this as a means of traveling sideways, like Scion could travel in this direction that wasn’t up or down, left, right, forward or back. - Excerpt from Speck 30.6

Site Navigation[]

Archer's Bridge Merchants
Leader Skidmark 
Members Mush Scrub Squealer Trainwreck Whirlygig 
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Leader Faultline
Members Gregor the SnailLabyrinthNewterScrubShamrockSpitfireMatryoshkaWhippersnap
Associates Coil Tattletale Dinah Alcott 
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