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Memento Mori · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
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  Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. For Henry, the abbots of
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  Speaker 1: a Cistercian monastery in the check town of Sedleik, it
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  Speaker 1: all started with the crucifixion. In seventy eight, King Odoaker
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  Speaker 1: the second of Bohemia had sent Henry to Golgatha, just
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  Speaker 1: outside of Jerusalem's walls, where Jesus of Nazareth had been crucified.
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  Speaker 1: Henry traveled there with one mission to bring a piece
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  Speaker 1: of the Holy Land back with him to the monastery.
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  Speaker 1: Once he arrived in Galgatha, he gathered up some of
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  Speaker 1: the earth at his feet and returned to Sedleik, where
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  Speaker 1: he scattered the holy ground over the abbey cemetery. The
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  Speaker 1: story of Henry's journey and his act within the cemetery
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  Speaker 1: spread throughout the town and much of Europe. To have
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  Speaker 1: the earth Jesus had walked on so close by made
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  Speaker 1: the sud Look Cemetery one of the most popular burial
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  Speaker 1: sites around, and many folks got their wish. As the
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  Speaker 1: Black Death spread throughout Europe in the fourteenth century, and
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  Speaker 1: then wars of the fifteenth century sent scores of soldiers
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  Speaker 1: to their graves. The abbey cemetery eventually reached capacity. More
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  Speaker 1: space was required to handle all the bodies coming in,
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  Speaker 1: so a new Gothic church was erected right in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of the cemetery. This church would have two levels.
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  Speaker 1: Its upper level, complete with vaulted ceilings, would act as
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  Speaker 1: a common chapel. Its basement level, however, had a more
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  Speaker 1: macab use as an ossuary. An ossuary is not unusual.
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  Speaker 1: It was a room or a vessel for some kind
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  Speaker 1: of skeletal remains to be stored in. Typically, they were
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  Speaker 1: built when space was limited within the cemetery itself. Cultures
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  Speaker 1: all over the world have been known to utilize them.
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  Speaker 1: Zoroastrians of ancient Persia, for example, utilized a deep well
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  Speaker 1: as their ossuary in Sedlick. Though such a place was
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  Speaker 1: built beneath the cemetery Church of All Saints. When construction began,
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  Speaker 1: the mass graves below the surface were exhumed and their
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  Speaker 1: contents were replaced within the new ossuary. Such a daunting
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  Speaker 1: job was taken up by a half blind monk in
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  Speaker 1: fifteen eleven, who started stacking the bones in the corners
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  Speaker 1: of the chapel. By the time he was finished, he
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  Speaker 1: had created six tall piles, everything from skulls to phalanges.
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  Speaker 1: Today only four remain. According to the legend, When he
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  Speaker 1: completed the last pile, the monk's site was restored. The
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  Speaker 1: bones remained that way for centuries, simple stacks that had
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  Speaker 1: gone relatively undisturbed. The land and the chapel were eventually
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  Speaker 1: purchased by the Schwarzenburg's, a wealthy check and German noble
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  Speaker 1: family towards the end of the seventeen hundreds, who retained
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  Speaker 1: ownership well into the nineteenth century. In eighteen seventy, the
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  Speaker 1: family hired a check woodcarver named Francis Rint to make
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  Speaker 1: something of all those bones collecting dust in the ossuary.
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  Speaker 1: Spruce up the place a bit, they told him. He
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  Speaker 1: started by cleaning all the bones up, using chlorinated lime
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  Speaker 1: to bleach them to a stark white, and then he
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  Speaker 1: got to work. He placed cherubs the top towers of
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  Speaker 1: skulls that were carefully arranged along tall pyramid frames. He
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  Speaker 1: also recreated the Schwarzenburg family crest using femurs. Tibia's and
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  Speaker 1: shoulder blades, among other bones. Rint even signed his work.
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  Speaker 1: His name and the year of completion were fashioned out
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  Speaker 1: of hand and arm bones along one of the walls.
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  Speaker 1: He also lined skulls and crossbones along the vaulted ceiling
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  Speaker 1: and archways, having them converge in the center of the chapel. There,
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  Speaker 1: several feet above the floor, he hung the most startling
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  Speaker 1: piece in the entire building, and eight foot chandelier, and yes,
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  Speaker 1: it too was made entirely of bone. Rint he used
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  Speaker 1: just about every bone in the human body to create
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  Speaker 1: that chandelier. Visitors today can see candles glow atop skulls
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  Speaker 1: resting at the ends of arms fringed with dangling bones,
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  Speaker 1: presumably from actual arms. It is an ornate and disturbingly
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  Speaker 1: beautiful peace and has helped the set like assuary become
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  Speaker 1: one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. And
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  Speaker 1: even though it might be frightening or difficult to look at,
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  Speaker 1: it is not meant to scare visitors. The chandelier, the
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  Speaker 1: bones of thirty thousand plague victims, and the chapel that
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  Speaker 1: houses them all are a reminder memento mori, or remember
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  Speaker 1: that you must die live life to the fullest, because
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  Speaker 1: we're only here for a short time. Before long, we'll
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  Speaker 1: all return to the earth once more, and our bones
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  Speaker 1: will turn to dust or maybe a desk lamp, whichever
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  Speaker 1: comes first. Not everything we set eyes on is what
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  Speaker 1: it appears to be, whether it's the latest optical illusion
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  Speaker 1: to go viral on the Internet or one of those
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  Speaker 1: new deep fake videos that puts false words in the
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  Speaker 1: mouths of real politicians. Our eyes can't always be trusted,
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  Speaker 1: which is counterintuitive. I know we've all been raised on
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  Speaker 1: sayings like seeing is believing, But just because we believe
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  Speaker 1: something doesn't make it true. Look no further than children
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  Speaker 1: who believe they can fly, or the baseball player who
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  Speaker 1: steps up to the plate completely convinced he'll hit a
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  Speaker 1: home run. This concept played out in a very unique
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  Speaker 1: way a little over twenty years ago in the American Midwest.
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  Speaker 1: In late March of the Associated Press ran an article
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  Speaker 1: in dozens of major newspapers around the country warning the
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  Speaker 1: public to be on the lookout for a very specific
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  Speaker 1: bank robber. They had already struck banks in Illinois, Indiana,
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  Speaker 1: and Tennessee, and folks were afraid that their town and
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  Speaker 1: would be the thieves next target. They were not, however,
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  Speaker 1: worried about guns or violence, because that's not how the
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  Speaker 1: thieves worked. Instead, they fooled the eye. Each robbery was
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  Speaker 1: really a simple, unassuming series of events. One of the
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  Speaker 1: thieves would enter a bank and asked to open an account.
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  Speaker 1: They would produce some forms of identification fake, of course,
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  Speaker 1: and then the account would be all set up and
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  Speaker 1: ready to go. Then the thief would pull a check
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  Speaker 1: out of their jacket or pocket and asked to deposit it.
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  Speaker 1: They would apologize for how wet it felt, but they
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  Speaker 1: had been clumsy and dropped it on the wet pavement
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  Speaker 1: outside just a few moments before. Naturally, the bank clerk
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  Speaker 1: would smile and then happily oblige. When the transaction was over,
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  Speaker 1: the customer would simply leave. A week later, though, that
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  Speaker 1: same person would return, fill out a withdrawal slip and
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  Speaker 1: asked to empty the account. Each time that happened, the
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  Speaker 1: teller would check the bank's computer system and see that
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  Speaker 1: the original check had never bounced or been refused, so
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  Speaker 1: they would pull out cash in the same value you
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  Speaker 1: and handed over. And these weren't small transactions either, like
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  Speaker 1: fifty dollars or a hundred, No, these were each in
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  Speaker 1: the thousands, and the moment the customer left the bank
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  Speaker 1: with that cash in hand, the bank robbery was complete
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  Speaker 1: and the teller had no idea it had happened. And
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  Speaker 1: banks weren't the only targets either. A few times the
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  Speaker 1: thieves went to grocery stores that cash checks for their
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  Speaker 1: customers and handed over similarly wet checks in exchange for
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  Speaker 1: stacks of cold, hard cash. They had been doing it
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  Speaker 1: all through seven and by March of the police and
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  Speaker 1: a few check clearinghouse companies were getting worried, and rightly so.
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  Speaker 1: Nearly twenty of these checks had been cashed throughout the Midwest,
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  Speaker 1: to the tune of close to seventy thousand dollars. Then,
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  Speaker 1: after reading through dozens of newspaper articles on the case,
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  Speaker 1: I can't seem to determine if they ever caught the thieves,
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  Speaker 1: but they certainly figured out how the robberies were happening.
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  Speaker 1: It turns out those checks weren't wet because the thieves
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  Speaker 1: had been repeatedly clumsy. No, they were wet because they've
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  Speaker 1: been doused with the chema goal that turned them into
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  Speaker 1: a ticking time bomb. Not the kind that explodes, but
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  Speaker 1: the kind that dissolves. Each time, the bank teller would
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  Speaker 1: take one of those checks and put it in the drawer.
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  Speaker 1: The chemical would get to work away from watchful eyes. Slowly,
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  Speaker 1: over the course of about ten hours, each of them
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  Speaker 1: would blacken, curl up, and then finally disintegrate into a
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  Speaker 1: tiny pile of black ash. The checks never bounced because
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  Speaker 1: they couldn't. They had disappeared. And I'll be honest, I
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  Speaker 1: could never blame the police if they never managed to
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  Speaker 1: catch the thieves, because the odds were certainly stacked against them.
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  Speaker 1: After all, they work in a profession that requires them
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  Speaker 1: to solve crimes by putting the pieces together. But how
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  Speaker 1: can you do that when there are no pieces left.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com and until next time, stay curious, Yeah,