In the initial conception, Alyne/Dawn Sword had been meant to be the high priestess of Vashna, but eventually I decided that the story would be more interesting if the kai maiden of sacrifice and the high priest were two different people.

I think everything there was to know about her had been revealed already, and with the death of the high priest, her arc was pretty much completed. Unless something happened to Sun Snake, Dawn Sword would just have tried her best to follow his ideals and learn how to be a Kai the best she could.

As for potential developments before you managed to get her to open up, there had been a lot of possibilities; at the beginning, she might well have been willing to stab you all, if the situation had presented itself. Her original group with the helghasts had been meant to infiltrate the Monastery to steal the Dagger of Vashna, but I think you all had been informed about that? Regardless, she started as an uncertain villain and zealot, so any mishandling of interactions with her could have gone bad very easily. But you all managed to walk that line almost perfectly, which was one of the most impressive things you did.

Swift Fox doesn't know the story of Red Dawn, and I imagine Dusk Rat might also be curious to hear that, but I'll let them decide if they want you to tell them, Sun Snake. :)

Regarding the Five Flowers, they could only be used if five people were able to trust each other to the point their soul could be considered one, at the same time as they were in physical contact (holding a hand that was wielding a dagger being the typical way), which would cause them to be considered a single person by the dagger, while having enough hands to wield all five.

The ultimate power, if all five of the dagger were to be used together in this manner, was to bring back the dead - and I don't mean one of the soul-trapping loopholes Valador used or undead raising like dark magic, but full-on resurrection like the D&D spell, completely repairing the damaged body and then returning its original soul to it as it had been at the time of dead. As long as you had a body to work from, this would have allowed anybody to be brought back to life.

Which means that, had you taken the fifth from Valador and figured the way it worked early enough in the game, and had still had Lone Wolf body with you, that would have allowed you to bring Lone Wolf back to life. I didn't really expect that to happen and wasn't surprised when you didn't manage to do it, but I did want to have the possibility be there in the game, just to see if you managed to surpass my expectations.

Nope, she didn't know Red Dawn's story, although she was interested to find out.  She'd come to see Red Dawn as almost exactly the way she had once been, as the Ghost of Anskaven.  Although it disturbed her that Red Dawn seemed to revel in it, whereas the younger Swift had struggled against it to the point where it almost destroyed her and left her afraid and lashing out at everyone.

But considering she was planning ways to effectively disarm Shining Peacock as much as possible, removing Red Dawn from his control was a priority for her.  Also that well-hidden more compassionate side of her was starting to reassert itself by this time as her mind healed, and she was hoping to find some way to heal Red Dawn's mind.  Give her the second chance that Banedon and Lone Wolf gave to her.  Actually fighting and killing Red Dawn would have been an extreme last resort option for her (especially as she probably wouldn't have won that fight on her own!)
That was one other reason she was interested in the Five Flowers.  She was curious to see if they had the power to heal whatever was wrong with Red Dawn.

I did wonder if they had the power to bring back the dead actually.  I think if Swift had discovered that on her own, she'd have seen it as a huge missed opportunity (something she would have regretted for a long time I expect).  To her, Lone Wolf was the one who really gave her a chance to atone for everything she believed she was responsible for as the Ghost of Anskaven, so she'd have given anything to bring him back.  It was a debt she felt she'd left unpaid, so her loyalty had effectively switched over to trying to salvage the Kai Order, his life's work.  Though she worried that she might have had to resort to desperate measures to do that!

I think if Sun Fox didn't know about that resurrection ability, Swift wouldn't have told her, as she might have taken it as badly as Swift herself did.  Ultimate missed opportunity and all.
It might have seemed a little dishonest to her, but she'd have hoped to protect Sun Fox from that realisation.

If something had happened to Moon Shadow...
Depends on what happened to her actually.  She might have suspected assassination by someone who wanted her out of the way (which, to her mind was quite a long list!)  Though, lucky for Sun Snake, being away on the mission at the time would have given him an alibi there ;)  hehe.
Nearer the end, her main suspect would have been Shining Peacock (though with the added doubt that he wouldn't have bothered, given that he had his blackmail card to play to take her down if needed), so she might also have suspected one of Starfire's crowd, perhaps Starfire himself, or Golden Sparrow.  Her priority then would have been to dig around and find evidence to clear or implicate someone.  It's possible she might have gone rogue for a while there, disregarding orders and making the finding of Moon Shadow's killer her main priority.
Although, it's more likely her feelings for Silver Raven would have acted as a check there, knowing that he was probably closer to Moon Shadow than she was (for backstory reasons.  She knew Silver Raven's history, although would never have told anyone unless he'd personally okayed it.  And in fact she would probably have physically attacked anyone who tried to psychically pull the information out of her mind, if she'd been aware of the attempt).
She would have asked him about what they should do, and basically followed his intentions, effectively completely switching her loyalties over to him.  (Though if he'd told her to stand down and do nothing, she might have been itching to investigate anyway.  But in the end she trusted him enough to follow his lead if it came to that).

If Silver Raven hadn't been around...  Well, chances are Swift wouldn't still be in the game by then anyway.  That was her 'Bad Ending'.
Unless the others could have talked her down (unlikely given that this was "Team Antisocial") she would most likely have just completely snapped then and gone rogue, intending to kill the ones she thought were responsible for Silver Raven's death.  Since Valador was her prime suspect at that point, she'd have gone back to Toran and tried to find some opportunity to assassinate him.
Might have been fun, for a little while, hehe ;)
If she'd somehow succeeded in that attempt and avoided being killed or arrested for it, I'm not sure what she'd have done next.  Maybe targeted the Vakeros who was helping him, if she could have found any clues to his whereabouts...
That could have been an interesting path to play (in much the same way that a horrific train wreck might be interesting!  hehe).
This message was last edited by the player at 10:29, Sat 16 Jan 2021.

Sorry for the delay in asnwering - had a bit of extra writing to do this weekend. :)

Red Dawn's story, as Sun Snake can confirm, was a bit of a tragedy.

Essentially, she had great Kai potential since she was a little kid, but due to suffering through a giak raid on her small village, her powers started to manifest in an uncontrollable manner, hurting everybody around her whenever she felt any strong emotions at all, while her healing and other defensive powers turned on her, causing her self-harm instead of helping her recover, exacerbating a situation where she'd already been an ostracized loner to the point she had become a danger to both herself and others.

Shining Peacock and Moon Shadow stumbled onto this situation, and Peacock, despite Moon Shadow's disagreement, tried to cure Red Dawn by removing the memories of what had caused her such deep trauma, but this backfired spectacularly, by making the outburst random and unpredictable in addition to being impossible to control, while also deeply damaging Red Dawn's psyche. Moon Shadow decided that enough was enough, and that Red Down should be brought to Blue Snake and White Mantis to be healed, but Peacock wanted to fix his mistake himself, and so Moon Shadow struck to subdue him.

However, rather than fighting, Peacock let himself fully open from the attack, suffering permanent damage in order to channel Moon Shadow's power through his own mind, and with this doubled power, he modified Red Dawn's mind once more, this time rewriting it fully as well as giving her an artificial personality engineered to let her control her powers properly. He succeeded, although it resulted in Red Dawn being unable to develop proper social relationships and instead having a very aggressive and dominant way of imposing herself, something which was unpleasant, but also the only way she could be able to retain mastery over her constantly out of control powers.

So, ultimately Red Dawn had very little ability to grow and change, but she was at least able to still live, and it was agreed that she would not be executed for something she had so little control over.

It was also why Moon Shadow was so afraid of Peacock, because he'd intentionally, permanently crippled himself - and in fact, if Moon Shadow and Red Dawn hadn't healed him afterwards, he would have died - just in order to fix the mistake he had made and save somebody else in the way he wanted to (Peacock was sure that Blue Snake would have executed Red Dawn if they brought her to him). Moon Shadow was scared not because he was stronger than her (he wasn't; Moon Shadow is the most powerful Kai in the Monastery despite having less Disciplines than Starfire), but because of the amount of suffering he was willing to undergo to achieve a goal he really believed him. She worried that, if she were ever to provoke Peacock into a true conflict of any nature, taking him down would require her to go to such extent she'd turn herself into a monster, just because of the lengths she knew he'd go rather than admit defeat or let go of something he truly, deeply wanted.

Any opinions on that? :D
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:52, Mon 18 Jan 2021.

Funny how Sun Snake seemed to develop the same sort of ideas for dealing with issues - the idea of being happy to destroy himself in order to take someone or something down. Politically that's what Sun Snake threatened to do to Shining Peacock, though I'm not sure if it was that threat or more likely just politically having Sun snake remove himself, that made Shining Peacock agree to playing the longer game.

I seem to recall that being one of the ideas for dealing with people like Shining Peacock who might try to link in to Sun Snake's mind. In the Maakengorge there was the connection to Vashna that could burn someone's mind, which Sun Snake could have tried to use to pull someone in to if needed, or later the idea of trying to defeat the 'two loremasters would basically be able to attack/defend to a standstill' by creating a feedback loop of both minds attacking Sun Snake's and then using his reciprocity defense and mindfort to have the whole mental connection just be a mess of pain.  Not the best defense to walk away from, especially if you don't have Curing to keep you conscious, but anyway..


Speaking of the Maakengorge encounter, Sun Snake had wondered if that could possibly help Red Dawn. Have her connect to that link. Not sure if something remote could have ever been set up, or if she'd have had to stay aroudn the area. But have her be able to channel her nagative emotions and energies directly at Vashna's spirit, while feeling the connection to all the rest of the life that was fighting Vashna and his followers. Perhaps that balance of a darkness always there but contained, and being fought, could have given her a structure to work with - and an outlet - to have worked on her mind. Assuming Shining Peacock would have ever allowed her mind to change from how he left it. I am assuming not.

Hmm, curious...

And I did get the impression Sun Snake had a bit of a self destructive side too.  Something Swift could perhaps relate to, since she really wasn't afraid to die (given that she'd once hoped to as a release from her early life!)
It's kind of why Shining Peacock could never hope to really intimidate her, even though she knew he was dangerous, she'd never back down.  Threatening Moon Shadow and Silver Raven was the only way to make her hold back, as she wouldn't have wanted any harm to befall them, which I imagine he knew full well.

Almost forgot to ask...  Did Valador actually know about Swift's past?
That little hint he dropped back at the Maakengorge did make me wonder.

Valador didn't originally know Swift Fox's past. However, he was the man who had hired Swift Fox's father for the theft; I'm sure you'll remember that he rose to prominence due to his help in the capture and then his strong position against Banedon in the following trial. Basically, he had intentionally hired Swift's father to fail in the heist, giving him false information and then making sure the security was in the right place to ensure he was caught.

While Valador didn't knew about Swift Fox's past originally, he was investigating it after his most recent talk with her made him realize that there might have been something there; he had suspicions now that she had some fault he could use, but nothing really certain and definite yet. It was likely he might have discovered the whole truth if he spoke with the right person and used that against Swift in the final confrontation, but it was also possible he might have not; I would have rolled for it when you next spoke to see if he'd managed to stumble on the right bit of information or not.

By the end though, Swift was pretty much done with hiding.  So I doubt threatening to reveal her past would have had much effect on her by then.
(Certainly wouldn't have stopped her wanting to take him down and hand his beaten-senseless butt over to Banedon on a silver platter!)

I'm guessing Banedon already suspected Valador might have had a hand in that?

OH, almost forgot, Swift would have been happy to reunite with her falcon friend, assuming he hadn't gotten too attached to Banedon in her absence :)

Banedon actually had no idea at all that Valador was behind the attempted theft of the Guildstaff, nor did anybody else; revealing that would have greatly weakened Valador position, so he did his best to ensure nobody knew. You would likely not have learned it either, even if he learned about Swift's past, since he'd have tried to leverage the information without explaining how he was involved in the whole thing.

Although I hoped you might find it amusing that, in his quest for power, Valador ended up being behind Swift's meeting with Banedon and Lone Wolf and her resulting salvation - in a sense, his villainous efforts created one of the heroes fated to destroy him. :)

Speaking of Valador, how much evidence did we have really against him to make a move on him and actually take him down? Did the bargain with Rain Feather undermine that in any way if so?


Also, how advanced were his powers, both in terms of magic and Kai Disciplines for that confrontation if it turned violent?

Valador had every single Kai-Alchemy spell, as well as a few others exclusive to him, a number of Right-handed spells as well, the ability to combine multiple spells for enhanced effects, and Nexus - he hadn't really focused on any of the other Magnakai Disciplines. He had some access to the base Kai Disciplines, but it was erratic, as he didn't really understand their workings. And of course, he had the Guildstaff which he could use for combat teleportation to an extent you'd probably have been surprised by, since he spent a lot of time studying its workings and perfecting his mastery over it.

Overall, he would have been about as though as Vyctar - with less durability but far more mobility and firepower - if you ended up in an actual fight with him. Of course, there were several ways he could be outmaneuvered; disarming him of the Guildstaff as Peaock had suggested (if you could figure a way to do it) was one, and his connection to Rain Feather wasn't one-sided, so she might be able to turn it back on him.

You recovered some part of one of his creations' body which was marked by his magic, so if you presented that to Banedon, Valador would not have been able to deny it; that would have lost him most of the support of the inner ranks of the Brotherhood, although obviously some people would have still preferred to believe him even if he were obviously lying. It would have definitely destroyed his plan, although he would then have tried to escape and possibly cause more direct trouble if his goals were so directly denied to him.

I wasn't sure if the creature and possibly Sun Fox's testimoney was enough, good to knwo they would have been.

I did think we'd need to rob Valador of his staff, but I assumed merely to stop him running away, rather than it also being a threat in combat itself. I had hoped he only had Nexus, but feared he'd have more things like Psi-screen, etc. Glad to know that wasn't the case. Though his spell arsenal would have been bad enough.

Remember that Banedon showed how a proficient member of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star did have some forms of psychic defenses - they would not have been as good as what a Magnakai like Peacock or Moon Shadow would have (one of his big weaknesses), but still good enough that you couldn't just fry his mind and be done with it. :)

Im not sure if Foxy would have sat on the council. It would have took a push from most likely Snake, Rain and Sparrow to sit on there since its not really his style. But would have been a nice ending for him though to end up training the martial skills to the next generation of Kai.

Plus he would have been very onboard with fighting Valador for tricking him with the details of thier agreement, even if Foxy had some clever use of it too!

Incidentally, what was the deal with Lobster? Was he unsaveable I would gather?

Also was there a backstory aside from the one we desgined over Vigilance? With the power it had it seemed very over powered in certain scenarios and was literally a lifesaver sometimes
This message was last edited by the player at 14:33, Thu 21 Jan 2021.

Vigilance's power didn't come from the sword, but from Sabre Fox's connection to it - it was a symbol of his resolution to be honorable and just, an unbreakable barrier around a cherished symbol. The sword would not have had that power in somebody else's hands. He could have potentially transferred the ability to a different sword, but he would have needed to realize that first, which I don't think he would have - Sabre didn't seem to pay too much attention to the details of how his powers worked or put a particular effort into trying to get creative with them. But then again, Sabre Fox was tied with Laughing Shark as the best fighter among you players and was on par with Sun Fox among the NPCs, so he didn't really need to do that.

Lobster was just a very petty, vengeful individual who was taking advantage of the situation to try and survive while being as annoying as possible to the Kai who he had been twisted into believing disparaged him on principle. There wasn't much more to him than that; he was meant as a clear symbol of what Valador's power could do if they were to fall in the hands of the Nadziranim and used to their full extent.

One thing that Valador had done was use to tie both Rain Feather and Fall Lobster to himself as part of the resurrection spell - so, as long as they both lived, Valador couldn't be killed; they acted as anchors to his soul. Rain Feather had discovered this and was working on a solution, but I don't think she'd found a definitive one yet, although she had ideas, they just were too risky to try out and would alert Valador if she did so.

And I expected that Sabre Fox wouldn't want a seat in the council and be happier with Sparrow taking it, while he himself focused on being Rain Feather's bodyguard, but it's nice to have confirmation. :) Making him the trainer of the next generation of Kai would definitely have been something most of the NPCs would have been in agreement with.

Well, Swift was working on anti-magic stuff with Silver Raven.  Not sure if they'd have been able to help Rain Feather find a solution to Valador's 'horcrux trick' there.

I think Fall Lobster and Sun Snake just needed to hug it out :)  hehe.

Good plan, easier to stab someone in the back if they let you wrap your arms around them first!

Lobster would have definitely approved of that. The "pretend to hug to then backstab" thing, I mean. Although, obviously, he'd have been carefully on the watch for Sun Snake to do the same to him; that was sort of his whole thing, after all. :)
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:31, Fri 22 Jan 2021.

Now a very interesting question. Since it was Foxy that assisted in getting Rain Feather back to life, had Foxy said no, what would have been the change in the game?

I remember at the time thinking very carefully about it, even if there was a GM assurance it was on the level. So had I said no, what would have happened in its stead?

Or was the fact that Valador came to Fox the master plan to tug at his heartstrings?

Valador would have kept pushing until he got something out of you or it ended up causing a fight with him earlier, mostly. You might remember that it took several posts of convincing (something like four pages?) before Sabre Fox was willing to accept Valador's offer, and even then, you bargained ferociously and got several concessions out of it.

It was essential for Valador to have a puppet Kai he could control as leader, as it was both a crucial element of his plan and something he'd used to bribe Summer Wasp. He didn't realize Wasp was planning to double-cross him, which made it imperative for him to get you to help him resurrect Rain Feather. If you'd kept refusing, eventually it would likely have devolved into a fight, basically kick-starting the confrontation with Valador earlier - I'd have likely let Rain Feather contribute even if she was still dead, probably via Valador attempting the spell but botching it, or something like that - and resulted in a very different final scene once you reached the Monastery.

It's likely that the meeting with Peacock would have been much more complicated, as well, if you had already defeated Valador when you when you met him. Of course, a mid-air fight with Valador while half the team was short on WP and everybody was scattered throughout the entire ship so that the teleporting enemy could isolate you at pleasure would have made that a much more difficult fight than a straight confrontation.

And yes, tugging at Sabre Fox's heartstrings was mostly the main plan on Valador's part, and as a GM, I had enough knowledge of you as a player to expect you would talk yourself into going for it if given a reasonable enough reason to do so.

Almost forgot, later in the game, Swift did have the Blessed Eye with her, which might have made Valador a bit more wary of using magic against her.
Getting his own Lightning Hand right back in his face might have made him think twice anyway, if he hadn't already figured out what it did.

By the way, will Dusk Rat's story ever be revealed?  'cos I've been wondering about it for (literally) years now!  :)
*pokes Dusk curiously*

Oh, her backstory? Yeah that's a point, I suppose it never came up, did it...well, she started off living in some little village somewhere with a family and stuff, but when she was a small child (I think she was aged around five or so) a bunch of darkspawn attacked and destroyed the place, killing almost everyone. A small handful of people escaped, including the chlid later to be known as Dusk Rat. They all fled into the nearby swamp (it's a place called "Rat Creek" on the map, if I remember rightly, because come on, how could I not give myself some affiliation with a place named something like that? :D), but some of them were already injured and stuff plus, you know, it was a swamp.

So gradually, over the course of the next few days, all the adults died off until there was just this one child left. She sort of obliviously continued bumbling throught the swamp but it was around this point that her innate psychic abilities started to show up and she found she could "talk" to the local wildlife (which included rats, because of course it did ;)). She made a few friends and they helped her find shelter in a large hollow tree (one of those cool-looking gnarly dead ones like you get in Fantasy swamps everywhere) and brought her food and stuff, and she lived there a while...I think it was a few months, at least.

Eventually, I think word got out about the ruined village and it started being investigated or whatever, with people searching for survivors/hunting down the darkspawn responsible. And so at least one Kai got involved, and one ended up in the swamp, probably using psychic powers to detect the last survivor or whatever and eventually found her in her tree.
It was Shining Peacock, of course, and she was very wary of him at first - her friends for some time now hadn't been human, and her last memories of her own kind involved a whole lot of death and stuff, so she wasn't exactly super keen on him being anywhere nearby. But he persisted and kept coming back and sitting nearby and talking to her and generally being non-threatening and stuff, and eventually she got a bit more used to him and was willing to chat. So she told him about her friends and he explained to her how it was she could've made friends like that when other people she'd known wouldn't have been able to do that. He told her she could come with him to learn how to do that kind of stuff better, and also to help protect people so they wouldn't have their homes destroyed and stuff either. She was rather happier with the swamp tree by that point than she had been among her own kind but eventually she agreed to go with him, so off they went to the Monastery for her to become a Kai :).

And of course she always retained some level of mistrust of humans, and an awkwardness around them, finding it much easier to communicate with other species - I can't remember to what level this was mentioned but she ended up basically befriending a bunch of rats around the Monastery and having a little colony around her that she would "talk" to regularly and stuff. She brought two of them with her on the mission, in fact - a sandy-coloured one she called "Sandfur" and a more standard brown-coloured one I never actually thought of a name for.

If Peacock had turned out to do anything to really betray her trust/turn out to be a "bad guy", she would've had it with humans at that point - he was the only one she really trusted (and the only other two NPCs she ever really felt any kind of affinity for were basically unceremoniously insta-killed, one during the main story and the other during a "prequel sidequest" she went on with Sabre Fox while everyone else was doing stuff and we were waiting for the thread timelines to catch up), so if he'd done anything to demonstrate her trust as being misplaced, she would've basically given up on the species altogether, decided to sod the rules, and gone off to live her own life elsewhere. Which would likely have ended up being what I said earlier in the thread I wanted her "epilogue" to be anyway - having a nice forest she could settle down in and make friends with the locals (non-human ones, that is :P) whilst using them to gather news and protect them from any perceived threats. She wouldn't have wanted anything more to do with the Kai and would've protested if they'd tried to tell her to come back because of "the rules" or whatever - she would've questioned what gave them the right to control her like that, etc.

So yeah, that was basically it, I believe. Rat friends! :D

So she was basically like Tarzan, but raised by rats? :)  Cool!

Once Swift's mind stabilised enough for her to regret her previous behaviour, she was hoping to kind of reconcile with her, but got the feeling she was unwelcome at best.

And late in the game she'd come to the conclusion that Shining Peacock was using both Dusk Rat and Red Dawn as weapons, and had determined to ensure that neither of them got hurt if the group ended up having to take Peacock down.  Past experience of being used as a weapon herself meant that such a thing just rubbed her the wrong way.  And she still felt like she owed Dusk a debt for helping to break Silver Raven out of the Darklands.

So, had Dusk been inclined to, she was one of the very few people who could have 'called in a favour' with Swift later in the game.  Although getting her to help Peacock out would have taken a huge amount of persuasion, hehe.  Making her betray Moon Shadow would have been impossible without significant psychic trickery.

Also, Swift herself believed animals were more honest than humans ;)

And I think now you also know why, when Dusk Rat needed to create a place where you could ambush Fall Lobster, she created a swamp-like forest... or, for Sun Snake, why Dusk Rat psychic defenses took the shape they did. :)

Something that I’d forgot. What was up with Rain Feather mother? I assume that it was her we first encountered as we started the mission after getting dropped off, and later on of course. What was her role to play? And did she actually escape?

Sha was working with Peacock from the beginning. From before the beginning, actually; she was the descendant of the Wytch of the Kirludin Islands, and had been moving from place to place, hiding, always feeling persecuted and venting the feeling by occasionally murdering people. While nobody could ever confirm her true identity or guilt, this just caused her and her daughter Masari to be watched with mistrust and be discriminated against.

Eventually, Peacock tracked her down, but he then discovered that Masari had Kai powers. So he made her a deal: he would give her a chance to exercise her power and even give her way to grow that power, if she would in exchange join the group she told him to and pass information along to him. She accepted, on provision that Peacock would also ensure to keep her daughter safe. So she did a lot of evil stuff, but in the process of doing it gave Peacock tons of information that nobody else could access, since he was the only one to have an actual mole of such caliber, and with it Peacock destroyed a lot of evil groups and cults. While nobody else would have cared, Peacock did kept score of how much evil she caused and how much of it she let him prevent, and he judged the cost was worth it.

At some point, she infiltrated the group of Cener Druids that was working for Sejanoz to recover the Deathstaff; that's when you stumbled upon her, she was on the mission to ensure they failed and Peacock got the Deathstaff and had the means to approach Sejanoz without being stopped to destroy him. Of course, she would not kill Rain Feather, so she merely pretended to fight you the few times you meet; she was never serious about actually killing any of you. After Rain died, she decided that Peacock had either failed or betrayed her - she didn't care which - and joined you with the specific goal of getting her revenge on him, personally. However, once you announced your intention of confronting Vyctar in the heart of a Darklord's fortress, she decided you were going to die, and so, after taking advantage of your asking her to be a distraction, she used the fact that you'd let her go on her own to escape, thinking that she'd find a different way to get a Peacock some day.