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ZM6 - Through the Quicksand Caves  

Realm:Outlands
Start Area: Chamber of Oracles
Type:Mission
Related Areas:Chamber of Oracles
Related Mobs:Centurio V-III
Princeps V-XI
Triarius V-VIII
Mission:6
Min Level:65
Max Level:75
Rating
*****
(Average from 18 ratings)
This Quest requires Zilart
This Mission is Not Skippable
Previous Mission: ZM5 - Headstone Pilgrimage
Next Mission: ZM7 - The Chamber of Oracles
Last Updated: Mon Sep 27 09:51:03 2010

Contents [hide]

Summary

You must hurry to Zepwell Island's ancient temple.

Walkthrough

After collecting all the fragments in the previous mission, head to Western Altepa Desert. Go to C-11 to enter a hidden cave, then keep going and enter Quicksand Caves at D-12.

Once inside Quicksand Caves, head to I-9 where you must stand on a circular pad to open a door. You must have either a galka, three tarutaru or two of any other race combination stand on the pad for the door to open. After going through the door, head northwest and then go through another circular pad door at H-7. Head west until you come to a pit; fall down the pit.

After falling down, follow the path until it splits. Take the left (western) path and follow it north to the Chamber of Oracles.

In the Chamber of Oracles, you will enter a BCNM fight with three antican NMs. They are:

  1. Centurio V-III (PLD)
  2. Princeps V-XI (RNG)
  3. Triarius V-VIII (BLM)

Winning the fight marks the end of this mission. You will be ejected from the battlefield into a different part of the Chamber of Oracles. This marks the start of the next mission.

Battle Notes

Some notes about this BCNM fight:

  • Many parties choose to sleep the paladin NM first because it resists sleep. The other two NMs can be easily slept.
  • All three mobs can be slept with Elemental Seal + Sleepga II.
  • The black mage NM can be silenced.
  • Paladin tanks are recommended for this fight.


To read the transcripts for this quest, see the Through the Quicksand Caves Spoilers page.


Mission Series

This mission is part of the Rise of the Zilart mission series. The complete mission series includes:

Final Fantasy XI
Wikibase™

This page last modified 2009-01-19 18:56:34.
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Level requirement.
# Oct 07 2005 at 1:16 AM Rating: Decent
**
667 posts
List shows level 65 required for this mission, I did it at 61.
from what I read
# Sep 08 2005 at 12:50 AM Rating: Decent
you should do it more like PLD af3. Kill the easiestto but hardest hitting first basically. I havn't done this yet so I'm going to try binding the pld and keeping it silence and bound as look as possible.

As a pld myself bound and silence is as good as slept.

I better not try this one til I reach 65.
WOOT
# Sep 02 2005 at 10:05 PM Rating: Decent
***
2,393 posts
Just beat this for some people that needed it. I had it done already but I helped them with ZM4+.

70RDM/BLM
70DRK/THF
70NIN/WAR
74THF/NIN (me)

We won the BC in 17mins, RDM had died but he had RRII on so he got back up. Him and the DRK traded off sleeping the mobs and rested after we killed the BLM. RNG gave some trouble because at that point HP/MP was low. Had no meds of any kind.
Dont follow the guide
# Aug 26 2005 at 5:37 PM Rating: Default
This BCNM is VERY hard if you fight the PLD first, we went in twice and did PLD BLM RNG and all got raped, we went in again and did BLM PLD RNG and we came out with 1 death due to EES at the end. very easy if you have a BLM and a PLD with you and fight the order BLM PLD RNG. RNG needs to go last or you'll be left without a tank the whole battle and BLM needs to go first, his spells are very painfull.
Wtfpwned
# Aug 11 2005 at 4:21 AM Rating: Decent
Completed this just a few minutes ago with quite an odd party setup.

BLM/WHM 68
RDM/NIN 75
WHM/BLM 68
WHM/BLM 69
THF/NIN 70
THF/NIN ??


Tough fight with this setup, but nevertheless, interesting.

I opened with Elemental Seal + Sleepga which stuck on all three Antican. THF's set up SATA on the RDM/NIN on Triarius. Tri Manafonted at about 75% HP, but it was wasted due to a well placed Silence. Had to resleep Centurio a few times, proving to be tough with PLD being so highly resistant to Sleep, but eventually got him to nap long enough to finish off Triarius.

Moved on to Centurio. Same basic idea; set up another dual SATA with the RDM/NIN, and worked our way from there. Silenced Centurio, and continuously re-slept Princeps. Invincible at about 75% HP, then we kept pounding. A few close calls due to the huge amounts of hate on the RNG from Sleep, but after we took down Centurio, we thought we were in the clear. . .

Princeps shot that dream down really fast. A nice Eagle Eye Shot knocked out our RDM tank, leaving us with 2 THF/NIN to bounce the hate. Shadows were eaten, and one THF fell before he was able to get Perfect Dodge up. RDM got raised and began to tank while weakened. The second THF goes down, and then Princeps moved on to one of the WHM, who goes down as well. RDM pulls hate long enough for me to land the final Fire III on this guy for the win.


All in all, tough fight, but the most fun, exhilarating battle I've had yet.

Clear Time was 20m 10s, also including a Connection Loss of about 3 minutes when first entering the Burning Circle.
Bastok 8-1
# Aug 02 2005 at 12:39 AM Rating: Decent
This seems like Bastok mission 8-1...
So easy
# Aug 01 2005 at 8:09 AM Rating: Decent
Setup was

whm/??? 70
whm/??? 65
rdm/blm 71
thf/nin 70 <me>
war/nin 71
nin/war 70

Weird setup? Not to me I would do prob any mission with these guys. Fight went like this. I sleep myself to 100tp with opo opo necklace.
Rdm sleepagas everything. We kill blm first rdm keeps sh#$ asleep BLM goes down fast and easy. Next in line RNG he gave us trouble but in all in all was easy only thing he did was ees our tank and killed him. WHM reraised him in no time nin started healing me and warrior killed rng. Next RDM keeps pld asleep til nin unsicken then beat his a$$. So easy. I used sleep bolts for ranged and missed rarely. Help keep it from getting those few extra swings or spells in. Used one echo drop entire fight. Thanks to isenhart rdm 71 for the help he was a fast replace for a rdm who missed getting one of there key items please check getting your key items just cus it says you got it dont mean you got it check and make sure every time no matter what.
Horrible Guide
# Jun 26 2005 at 3:50 AM Rating: Decent
The only thing accurate about this guide is where to go once you're inside QSC. If you have an "average" group consisting of players you just found and may or may not be the recommended level you should especially do the fight this way...on a side note, the second we entered the arena our NIN d/c'ed never to come back.

Our PT setup was the following...

75PLD (But only had 60 gear cause she was doing BCNM60 and helped us...very nice of her)
65RNG (Me)
66RDM
63MNK
63SAM
75BLM (Also just helping on the mission)

I read a lot of stuff about the mission and thought we were very prepared for it, had echo drops, had plans what to do in certain situations. We agreed to follow Allakhazam's guide and kill PLD > BLM > RNG.

The PLD obviously has a huge amount of HP and defense, it is a very long fight. The longer a fight goes on, the more time there is for $(*% to hit the fan =P. Eventually the BLM and RNG woke up, and BLM was resisting Sleep and Silence >.<

Things went wrong and people started to die starting with the BLM, then RDM, then tank and the rest of us. After we got out the friends of the PLD who joined us started asking what went wrong, we explained the PLD took too long to kill, random problems happened.

This is when we found out that this guide sucked. The people there were pretty cocky and were saying the best thing to do was BLM > RNG > PLD. So we tried this...ES Sleepga II, start fighting the BLM...quickly dies, no problem. Were fighting the RNG now, its dieing quick again, but it started to use its abilities, eventually does massive DMG to our PLD and kills him, the ant PLD resists sleep more than any of the mobs, and if it does sleep will wake up quickly. Having an awake PLD and RNG NM when you don't have a tank is deadly. We all ran to retreat and no one made it, I made it there with 900 HP and 2 shadows up...shadows got knocked down and started taking damage and couldn't run away from the fight.

I think this is a huge problem SE should fix, if you're standing there wanting to escape and were in the situation I was in you should be able to. But if you're getting hit it will keep telling you Event Skipped. So I died and the PT out there gave R1 to everyone except their PLD who got R3...kinda messed up if you ask me, they could have at least given R3 to the 75BLM helping our group.

The PLD had to join his BCNM group who was ready again so we didn't get to go in again. But I am convinced BLM > PLD > RNG would have had a much higher chance of survival no matter what you're group consists of. BLM is easy to kill which makes sense to get it out of the way first. PLD does not stay asleep, also RNG is very dangerous and will more than likely kill a member of your PT. RNG is also fairly easy to sleep and keep asleep. So take down the PLD, which will take a little more time, but shouldn't be a problem. When you fight the RNG if the tank does die, sleep the RNG and raise the tank and wait for weakness to wear off and finish the bastid off.

Keep in mind if you do have a well organized group with higher level people all of what I'm saying does not necesarily apply to you. Infact if you are 70+ pt killing PLD should be much easier to you and would make sense to kill first, but the guide should remind people of the time it takes to kill the PLD if you're group does not consist of a "recommended" setup.

Note: Waiting for 2 in game friends who I did ZM5 with to finish Ifrit's Cauldron fragment, then they're forming their own group to do ZM6 that I'm joining. I'll post how that goes after its over. One of them is 73 BST, other 70 BLM. Should be interesting. Good luck to all!

Edit: Just completed the fight very succesfully. The setup this time was the following.

70NIN
65RNG (Me)
73BRD
70BLM
72WHM
74BST

This was overkill and a perfect setup. At no time was anyone's HP yellow, between Sleepga and Lullaby they were never awake for more than the casting time. We tried out the order I stated before, BLM > PLD > RNG. Everything went flawlessly. Were so pleased with the awesomeness of our group were gonna see if we can do ZM8 =D.

Edited, Sun Jun 26 07:57:22 2005
RE: Horrible Guide
# Jul 14 2005 at 9:08 PM Rating: Decent
Reading this Post I am convinced that I am the PLD that helped you that night since it all sounds very familiar to me.

I think what you posted here was very helpful to anyone going in on this mission after what we encountered. I know my friends were a bit "cocky" but they were just getting irratated that I kept dying and that they were forced to wait on continuing our BCNM60 run, and the run we had just done before you guys showed up ended failed due to the WHM DCing (if I remember correctly).

I remember the WHM being away or something during the raising so I think that is why there was no R3s given, and they were very hell bent on getting me R3s because I don't really xp on PLD at all and I am not that far into lvl on it. And I really did not even need to agree to help let alone insist that the whm give R3's to all. The other members of our group thought they were being nice and giving raises to hurry things along while the WHM was away.

I know I did not owe any explaination but I just saw this and I sort of felt like all that time I spent trying to help you guys in that situation and the many deaths and such I had and it just sounded a bit like you were bashing my friends, and I will not stand for that because they are good people. I was the one who decided to help at thier expense and well I never asked for anything from you guys because I didn't mind helping, and they didn't ask for anything from you guys either.

I was actually ready to go in on a 3rd fight with you guys (because at that point I was determined to win and I thought you guys were cool players) but they were getting tired and in fact we never even finished our BC runs because someone had to get to sleep.

Anyways not even sure you will see this at all but had to make that clear.

~*Jae Mithra on Fairy Server*~
=^-^= Yes, I am a girl but for some reason everyone calls me a guy. ;_;

Edited, Fri Jul 15 15:02:10 2005
RE: Horrible Guide
# Dec 15 2005 at 2:17 PM Rating: Decent
Viseziox wrote:
Quote:

Our PT setup was the following...

75PLD (But only had 60 gear cause she was doing BCNM60 and helped us...very nice of her)
65RNG (Me)
66RDM
63MNK
63SAM
75BLM (Also just helping on the mission)


panchanneko wrote:

Quote:
I remember the WHM being away or something during the raising so I think that is why there was no R3s given, and they were very hell bent on getting me R3s because I don't really xp on PLD at all and I am not that far into lvl on it. And I really did not even need to agree to help let alone insist that the whm give R3's to all. The other members of our group thought they were being nice and giving raises to hurry things along while the WHM was away.


Edited, Thu Dec 15 13:21:42 2005
Thank you so much!
# Jun 09 2005 at 5:41 PM Rating: Decent
*
111 posts
I hereby want to thank the following people for helping me get ZM6

Khmerboi
Taho
Shatow
Pitbull
Judd

THANK YOU AGAIN!

Our PT setup was NIN/SAM/DRK/BLM/WHM/RDM
Aside from our NIN who got an unlucky hit from EES we did fine... btw dont fight Antica on darksday. They really resist sleep a lot then.
bassackwards
# May 23 2005 at 12:13 AM Rating: Decent
**
268 posts
the directions are just backwards, go in the "hidden" tunnel @c-11, then go to the entrance to quicksand caves @d-12. sitting at my other computer looking at the position now.

like dakren said, would be nice to have this fixed so people don't get all confused ^^;

^^/
-Aki
Correction
# May 22 2005 at 10:55 PM Rating: Decent
**
274 posts
Please, correct this, I had an alliance out searching D-12 for a zone line for a good 10 minutes. The secret cave is at D-11 on the southwest corner of the map. ^_^
-Dakren
btw
# May 17 2005 at 7:40 AM Rating: Decent
By the way: the directions that Allakazham give are either unclear or wrong. After you zone into the quicksand caves. Go thru the first door you see and hug the left wall. Go thru the next door you see on the left and fall down that hole. When you come to a fork in the path take the left fork. This will take you to the chamber of oracles.
Success!
# May 17 2005 at 7:37 AM Rating: Decent
We took this on yesterday with the following setup: whm, nin x2, blm x3. Blms slept the mobs and nuked them down one by one, taking the pld 1st, the blm 2nd and the rng 3rd. There was a early death which I raised immediately due to an unexpected awakening of the blm ant when I silenced it. Whether this was just poor luck or if silence wakes these NM's I leave to your guesses. Later another of blms kicked when the rng ant used EES. That was a quick blm death if ive ever seen one. Yeow. This fight took a little longer than your standard party since it relied on heavy magic damage. I wouldn't recommend using this set-up unless you have a bit of gil to burn on yags, pamamas, hiethers and hipots. Between this fight and the ZM8 fight we did an hour later we went thru some decent cash for meds. Aldoron and Stinkywinky were our nin tanks and did a SPECTACULAR job. Exodusio, (sp?) Spectros and the anonymous blm whose name I cannot remember (Sorry) did a great job blowing those ants up.
levels 62-64 are ok also
# May 01 2005 at 12:56 PM Rating: Decent
**
735 posts
We beat these 3 ants last night with most of our group between the levels of 62-64. i think only myself, lv. 70 blm/whm and maybe another mage was over level 65. The fight was'nt easy but it was fun. Once the pld. was beat we all rested back up while I and the rdm kept the other 2 ants slept. Killed the blm ant 2nd, he was a pushover. The rng ant killed myself with 10% of his health left. I cast blizzard 3 just as he used his hate reset move, the whm died also. It took us 20 min. or so to win. Just remember to keep at the pld ant, if you can beat him the other 2 are easy. Also if you have a pld have him use invincible if the rng. ant uses eagle eye. Also, even though they are "impossible to guage" when you check them, I would guess that to me, a lv. 70, that they would be about vt.
____________________________
Who do I have to talk to so I can have a ugly baby picture in my avatar ?
SpinShark wrote:
Yes, what you've heard is true. FFXI's endgame is just a giant E-peen swinging contest, with the majority of time spent standing around, and watching Moon-faced nerds "compare" video game "accomplishments" with each other via flame-wars on forums/in-game.
^^^^^^^^^^^^ So True.
Kill The Rng Last
# Mar 04 2005 at 3:44 PM Rating: Decent
Just a suggestion, kill the rng last, his two hour will most likly 1 shot kill any party member. He did to our lvl 74 Mnk ><. That way if someone does die to his 2 hour your not trying to finish off the other one or two nm's without a 6th party member. Other than that, it's like any other bcnm battle, pretty much a pushover. ^^
My fight
# Jan 30 2005 at 1:01 PM Rating: Good
*
119 posts
Ok we did this with a very strange setup.

66 PLD/WAR
70 RDM/BLM
62 RDM/BLM
61 THF/NIN
66 WHM/BLM
67 BLM/WHM

We fought in the order PLD > RNG > BLM. The THF and I were the only melee and we didn't figure out a skillchain before going in. The organization on this was obviously not very good. I thought we were goners. It was a long hard fight, but we finished it...in *cough* 21 minutes >_>. The PLD took the longest to kill. It had a bunch of HP! After getting it down to about 1/4 of it's HP it startted spamming Sand Trap. For those of you who remember exp'ing off ants in quicksand caves, Sand Trap is an AoE hate reset. It petrifies you for 2 rl seconds then resets all your hate...of course then rushing the mages. It's ok if they doi it once of twice...but he did it like 6 times from having 1/4 life left to dead. I had to use all my ja' then Cover, then my 2 hour...it was horrid. At that point I thought we were all screwed...that was only 1 our of 3 of the ants. So PLD went down and everybody healed. BLM kept sleepga up very well and 70 RDM backed him up with sleep 2. We were all 75% full MP and decided we were going to run out of time at that rate...so let's keep going. We went for the RNG. The RNG hits fast and hard...it's ranged accuracy is damn good too. It would shoot me then hit me then shoot me then hit me. It was very hard to cure myself b/c it kept interrupting me. I still managed to keep hate well. (only time I would ever lose hate, was when they would use "Sand Trap".) The rangers special attack hit me for like 700. But my WHM was able to keep me alive with np (I have 1230 HP so it wasn't too bad). The ranger took less time to kill than the PLD...we got him down. Now we only had the BLM left. We all started healing and it started casting Burst on me.....great. Luckily my BLM unhealed and stunned it, RDM sleep 2 ed it, other RDM silenced it. They saved my *** quick. I only had like 700 HP left at the time...I would have been toast. We healed again to about 3/4 full and went for it. (at this point we were mostly freaked out b/c we thought we were going to run out of time.) The BLM ant was too weak. We slaughtered him...no doubt the easiest one to kill. (I forgot to mention I expected to get the AoE silence alot...we maybe got it 5 times combining all the ants, and got Sand Trap atleast 10). Finished it in 21 and some odd minutes...and got yet another excellent cutscene (yay!). So...there is hope in this BCNM without a conventional party setup...just be smart and expect to take a looooong time in the BCNM :)

Edited, Sun Jan 30 13:02:56 2005
Easier than I'd expected
# Jan 27 2005 at 2:56 AM Rating: Good
****
6,947 posts
Wow, this one was so easy I couldn't stop laughing.


My static party took them on tonight, before going on to the ZM8 battle (also a pushover).


NIN/WAR
WAR/NIN
MNK/WAR
BRD/WHM
RDM/BLM
WHM/BLM

All level 70.


We slept them, and took on the PLD antican first.

He used Invincible, but he went down without any trouble.

We took on the RNG next. He never had the chance to use his 2hr.

We killed the BLM last.

The fight took about 4 minutes.

A competent party at level 70 will have no problem with this at all.
____________________________
  • Tenmiles
  • Monk
  • (Lakshmi)

  • ______________
    Retired
    Video Of Fight
    # Jan 22 2005 at 7:56 PM Rating: Good
    http://theblackroses-ls.com

    Here is a video of the fight =P check it out.
    look in the video section ^^

    btw all video are in Divx format might need to update your video player to view this
    LS expereience
    # Jan 17 2005 at 11:54 AM Rating: Decent
    **
    772 posts
    Our LS got together a group for sky access (one person already had sky).

    7? Nin/War
    71 Pld/War
    68 Pld/War
    71 Blm/Whm
    71 Blm/Whm
    70 Whm/Sum
    60 Whm/Sum
    71 Whm/Blm
    5? Whm/Blm
    65 Rdm/Blm (me)
    70 Rdm/??
    7? Rdm/??
    65 Rdm/Blm
    70 Drk/Thf
    7? Drg/War
    68 Sam/??

    We went 3/3 with a little rearranging. Usually, I remember all the parties that go, but with our rearranging, I only remember mine:

    71 Pld/War
    7? Nin/War
    65 Rdm/Blm (me)
    7? Rdm/??
    71 Blm/Whm
    ?? Whm/Blm


    The order we did it was Blm>Rng>Pld. Rdms shared sleeping duties. I enfeebled the sleeping Ants while the other Rdm enfeebled the awake Ant. Blm died quickly. Silened him so he didn't get any magic off. Rng died pretty quick too. He did ESS off, but didn't one-shot kill anyone. Pld took a little while to kill. Also, slightly annoying cuz as soon as he was unsilened he spamed Cure spells.

    All casters took Echo Drops, so AOE silence wasn't a big deal. No one died on any of the three runs either. Only close call was when someone got lost coming out of the BC.


    Edited, Mon Jan 17 11:55:18 2005
    Kill order
    # Jan 12 2005 at 5:59 AM Rating: Decent
    *
    199 posts
    Just to comment i'd recommend blm pld rng as the best way to fight this BCNM. The blm if he wakes up and uses a ~ga spell your PT will be hurting, he also dies really fast ES sleepga kept the other 2 slept for 75% of his life and sleep II put the pld right back to sleep. Ranger last in case someone dies from EES you can sleep the ranger and raise and regroup without having to worry about any other mob around.
    Best way to beat...
    # Jan 05 2005 at 9:25 PM Rating: Decent
    *
    178 posts
    If you have had any good practice doing BCMN's you know sleep is the main key in controlling the fight. However we found the best way to beat them in order was doing the BLM last since the PLD and RNG gave the most problems. Go for the PLD first since it has sleep resist natural ability, it obviously has the most DEF so it's hp widdles away slowly. BLM dies the quickest so do the RNG next because it's 2hr completely took out our 70 NIN in one shot.

    fun stuff
    # Jan 02 2005 at 9:04 PM Rating: Decent
    ***
    1,630 posts
    We did this mission 3 times yesterday since people werent on all at the same time..
    All I can say is it's really not bad at all.

    1st run we did with 5 people
    72thf
    73sam
    73rdm
    70smn
    65whm
    Rdm focused on sleeping and keeping the other mages healed.
    Smn opened up on the pld with levithans spinndrive or whatever its called and he held hate for a bit till me and the sam renkeid with light then I tanked for the rest of it. Then we rested a little bit after the pld and went to the blm where the sam voked and i took hate when I closed with sharkbite for light.

    Notes: Sharkbite was doing 1k+dmg with no trick partner and light was resisted barely or did full dmg. I never got hit with any melee hits so apparently blink and high evasion > than these mobs. I think i took a total of 200 dmg throughout the whole fight from the AOE.

    Keep the pld and blm silenced at all times and this is a simple fight. I'm not sure how much the rng EES wouldve done since he tried it while blink was up.
    These guys are basically just like normal anticans with a bit more HP, at least for the Pld and they dont have high evasion or defense.

    Did it again with a 73 pld and swapped the 70 smn for a 65 rdm. The pld took a bit of dmg and we were kinda low on MP when we finished but we didntn even bother resting mp after the pld. Finished in 10 mins

    Did it a 3rd time with:
    72thf
    75mnk
    73pld
    70rng
    65rdm
    69rdm
    The rdms forgot to silence the blm and he got a couple 'ga spells so we all ended up in the yellow at one time or another and with only 2 mages both subbing blm we had slight healing issues and hardly any of us played together before so we had some renkei problems(i.e. missed all but 1). But with mnk and rng and myself just going all out we finished in a little over 5 mins and the mnk almost died when he pulled too much hate and the rng EES him and hit a few other shots in. Was the closest callsof the 3 fights be we finished by far the fastest.
    Levels
    # Dec 21 2004 at 6:22 AM Rating: Excellent
    **
    883 posts
    Please don't EVER try this if the majority of your party is less than level 65. We tried this tonight with a party of 62-65(RDM, SAM, BRD, WHM, DRK, NIN) and yeah... it just wasn't working. 3 deaths! We just don't know when to give up! And we never even killed a single one of the ants.

    If you are going to go in at a low level the majority of your party, ESPECIALLY the people in charge of sleeping the mobs, almost HAVE to be higher level. Otherwise you'll just have a lot of pain and frustration on your hands.
    Levels
    # Dec 21 2004 at 6:21 AM Rating: Decent
    **
    883 posts
    Please don't EVER try this if the majority of your party is less than level 65. We tried this tonight with a party of 62-65(RDM, SAM, BRD, WHM, DRK, NIN) and yeah... it just wasn't working. 3 deaths! We just don't know when to give up! And we never even killed a single one of the ants.

    If you are going to go in at a low level the majority of your party, ESPECIALLY the people in charge of sleeping the mobs, almost HAVE to be higher level. Otherwise you'll just have a lot of pain and frustration on your hands.
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