The next morning had us geared up and gathered for the journey to hit two dungeons. This time we would be travelling in the opposite direction of Haroldstadir and south along the coast. We would be gone, if everything went well, for two weeks. That made me wonder how the weeks worked in the tower, or if they even followed a calendar.
Carmilla was still wearing the black dress. She had cleaned up after her ordeal and time on the road. A fresh application of eyeliner and eyeshadow. She looked cute in a goth China doll way.
Dark was right there beside her, with matching eyeliner, his samurai chest armor clashing with his brown linen pants and European spear. I can admit I was jealous of the armor. Japanese art and aesthetics was something I admired in the world before.
Ryan still held his barbarian look, and now I knew he had the neanderthal mentality to match it.
Halloway was solid in his reliable fashion. His leathers in place, sword and shield stowed but easily accessible.
Mave was pissed. She may have looked mellow to the casual observer, however she held a look that everyone who has a wife knows. A cold snap more brittle than any arctic cold front. She hadn’t been in the cabin the last few nights, and I was not sure where she had been sleeping. If she had been sleeping. She was a friend, and what Dark was doing was fucked up. I couldn’t help, but I could render some support.
I walked over to where she was leaning against the cabin. The others did little hops and jiggles to make sure their rucksacks and gear was stowed and comfortable for the upcoming hike. Pest was in my shadow, his own gear good to go. I leaned against the wall next to her and butted a shoulder into hers.
She looked over at me and scrunched her face, which I had learned was an odd cultural way that Puerto Rican’s used in place of asking what. I shrugged and gave her a smirk. She rolled her eyes and looked away from me. She didn’t pull her shoulder away from mine.
Just a little bit of comradery, and a show that I was on her side. Surprisingly, Halloway did the same thing on her other side. I knew he was a good guy, but drama was anathema to him.
“Dark you about done molesting Carmilla?” I asked as Dark had his hands all over Carmilla in the guise of adjusting her pack. He pulled them away as if burnt and glared at me.
“I wasn…” Dark was cut off by Ryan.
“Let’s get going, we are burning daylight.” He said loud enough to not quite be considered a yell.
“Cliché much…” I grumbled under my breath and glanced at Mave and Halloway.
Mave had her ice queen mask in place, but some melting at the edges of her mouth made me think she was hiding a bit of amusement behind it. Halloway just pushed away from the wall and followed Ryan. Mave and I joined him, and the emo kids brought up the rear, already talking about some crap I was tuning out.
We left through the southern gate and followed the road south. I was bored, staring into space, as nobody was in the mood to chat with me, or listen to my normal string of nonsense. Without warning I slammed into Halloway as he stopped walking, with enough force to stagger me such that I stumbled and fell. It wasn’t a pretty fall. I had always prided myself on being able to keep on my feet in most situations. That just meant that when I did fall, it was usually quite dramatic.
I was face down in the dirt road with my limbs splayed out.
“Why are you always in this sort of situation when I arrive.” A particular voice asked me. But I knew by his tone that it was no question, and he knew exactly why. The prat.
“I just wanted to make dust angles.” I said and demonstrated by moving my arms and legs back and forth along the ground.
“Mortals. So odd,” he said condescendingly. “It looks like I have three more things from you.”
I grunted, still not getting up. I heard paper rustling.
“You want to pause at inspect?”
“Yep,” I said to the ground.
“Oh, me above.” He said in exasperation, and with a snap of his fingers, I was standing before him. “Now we can have a real conversation.”
Loki nodded at me with a brilliant smile. This time he appeared as a country club douche. Khaki short pants with a colorful rope belt. His belt buckle was electronic, and LOKI scrolled across it. He wore a light blue short sleeved polo shirt with the collar popped up. A yellow ascot at his throat. The little embroidered animal common on polo shirts was his trademark eight-legged horse. To finish up the ensemble he had a pink sweater draped over his shoulders, the sleeves tied lightly together.
“Pause at inspect?” He asked me again.
“Yea, it’s really hard to hunt for anomalies on things when a creature is trying to eat me, or I am falling off a cliff.”
“Hrmmm,” he considered for a moment. “I suppose in my magnanimousness I could grant you something to improve your limited talents. The nine realms cannot halt each time you wish to peek at something. It is not at your beck and call. Therefore, I shall increase your limited mental capabilities. Your perception will accelerate. Meaning each second shall stretch out too many more, giving you time to sound out the letters before your untimely demise. Your body won’t share the same benefits. Only your perception of time will increase.”
“Sweet,” I said as I brushed the dirt off myself. He frowned at me and took a step back to avoid the dust.
Loki snapped his fingers.
[Congratulations! Developer Inspect has increased to Level 2!]
[Congratulations! Developer Inspect has increased to Level 3!]
[Developer Inspect*]
Unlock Conditions – Granted to you by the grace of Loki.
*Only available to select individuals and cannot be leveled through normal means.
[lvl 1] – See stats on something you focus on, stats vary depending on object.
[lvl 3] – When focusing on an object your meager capacities will be expanded. Sensation and thought will be the only things accelerated.
“Super sweet!” I said.
Loki tossed the little paper aside and it evaporated into the air.
“This one is very interesting and something I had not considered. Dyslexic and illiterate people. This afterlife has a strict no children restriction on admittance. Child sacrifices went out of favor a loooooooong time ago,” he said with a dramatic gesture as he stretched out the word. “I had not considered these other types of people. I guess there is only one solution.”
“And that is…?” I asked as he went silent and stared at the paper.
“You will have to wait for the next update to find out,” he said with a smirk and tossed that paper to the side as well.
As I rolled my eyes, I noticed his pleasant demeanor melt away as he scanned the last paper. He was sneering in disgust.
“Boring. Skill. Names. Generic. Lame?” Loki said with heavy emphasis on each word. “Listen little alpha tester. I am a solitary, through truly amazing, individual. To make an entire afterlife for you ungrateful churls is a difficult task. Every aspect of this tower is my own creation. And I strive to bring it in line with my personal level of excellence. Sometimes one needs to use placeholders! This is alpha! So let me fix this problem, just for you!”
He advanced on me and pulled open my rune-code. I tried to spy on him, but he was working with a speed and determined attitude. He was muttering lowly as he furiously shifted through the rune-code.
“What… what you doing there, friend?” I asked him gently. He shot me a severe glare for a moment before jumping back into his work. I let out a nervous noise and resisted the urge to fidget away from him. Since I was already probably going to regret his alterations to my rune-code, I did do something else brash. I Inspected him.
[Name: Loki Laufeyson]
[Mind your own business.]
I held in a snort of amusement, of course he would block any info he would possess. I left the box open and inspected my new ‘pause’ mechanic. I couldn’t move as advertised. I could still feel the sensations of my feet in contact with the ground and a bit of dirt tickling my face. I couldn’t move my eyes to examine my surroundings. When I had inspected him, he was mid mutter and now a pulse of sound was constantly ringing out like a glitched out video game.
Other than the disconcerting constant tone, it was a pleasant bit of peace away from everything. It definitely gave me time to think. I wondered if I could sleep like this. Probably not that lucky.
I closed the inspect window and the world smoothly resumed. I expected it to be similar to when Loki unpaused the world and I fell like a puppet whose strings were cut. As I thought more about that and looked at my frozen companions, I turned a suspicious look at Loki. He didn’t notice while in his mad coding fever.
“Nobody else falls down when you unpaused the world.” I stated to him.
“Nope,” he answered simply, reminiscent of Pest’s short, pointed replies.
“Why is that?”
“Maybe it is you reestablishing connection to your avatar,” he said before a fleeting smile crossed his face. “Maybe the gods find it amusing.”
“You are part of the gods.” I said with derision.
“The best amongst them,” he announced as he closed the rune-code rift and stood tall. “Speaking of amusement, I do so hope you enjoy the changes to your skill names. Do report your feedback on the changes. I would love to hear all about your opinion. Who knows, maybe I will make it optional for others.”
I was about to ask him what that meant when he snapped his fingers and the world around me resumed. As if slapped by a giant I crashed into the ground with significant force, my head bounced off the ground and that was the last thing I remembered.
[You have been smote by a god!]
[You have taken Critical Smite Damage!]
[You are knocked unconscious.]
***
I came awake sometime later with a rough camp built around me. The sky was black and full of stars and a small fire burnt by my side. I was laying on my sleeping gear and Pest was a hot spot on my stomach.
“The fuck happened.” I asked groggily and tried to sit up.
“Espérate. Slow down.” Mave said with an admonishing slap to my shoulder.
“Owwww!” I said in a drawn-out fashion. I was feeling a bit woozy. “Whoa… what did you guys dose me with?”
“Nothing, I just used the Word you gave me.” Mave said.
“Well…” I said as I lay back watching the sky of fake stars spin in the air. “That Word is some good shit…”
I felt Pest jostle on my stomach, so I draped my hand across him. It almost reminded me of my daughter when she was little.
“What the fuck happened back there?” Ryan grumbled from the other side of the fire. I winced at his surly tone.
“Your mom,” I said with a cackle. I heard a rustle, maybe of him storming to his feet.
“Let’s just calm down.” Halloway said in that sickly sweet way of his, and all I wanted to do was just that. Calm, relax, the soothing sounds of the fire crackling merrily away.
[Congratulations! You have unlocked the Identify Charm/Cock Block skill!]
[Cock Block]
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Unlock Conditions – You have been influenced with charm enough times to start to recognize the sensation.
[lvl 1] – You may get a notification when charm or high charisma is being used on you or others in your vicinity.
“Cock Block!” I cackled delightfully. “I just unlocked the Cock Block skill.”
“What?” Mave asked me in confusion.
“I just unlocked a skill called Cock Block!” I announced and then regretted the exuberance at which I did it. The stars spun a little faster. I gripped my head. “Do I have a concussion?”
“No, you just fell.” Mave said. “We were walking and then you smooshed into the ground and went rolling.”
“Oh, it said Loki smote me,” I said. “Is that even the right word? Shouldn’t it be smitten…?”
“Loki smote you?” Halloway introjected before I started babbling.
“Yea, he was all pissy. He fucked with my skill names and then smittend me,” I said with a frown. “No that doesn’t sound right…”
“Why would Loki do that?”
“’Cause I told him his names suck.” I explained as I reached up at the sky and pretended, I was squishing stars with my fingers. “The fucker.”
Mave and Halloway shared a look.
“And why would you be talking to Loki…?” Halloway pressed me.
“Because I am his Alph…Ac…Acolyte or apostate or something… I dunno religiony terms.” I said, recovering admirably. My eyes opened wide as it dawned on me that I almost revealed a secret probably best kept. Close call. “It’s fine, he’s kinda a douche anyway.”
“Wha…” Halloway began but Mave cut him off.
“Let’s not blaspheme anymore tonight, thank you.” She said in a serious tone. “You need your sleep.”
The party quietly bedded down and I kept squishing stars with my fingers until I fell asleep.
***
I woke up grumbling as the blue screen of death flashed bright in my face and read its message of glorious survival to me. The others were stirring at the same time. I sat up and cursed to myself.
“Why so pissy?” Halloway asked me.
“Fucking blue box piece of shit. Every god damn morning it’s there with its obnoxious ass color shining me in the face,” I said quite vehemently. “I don’t know how the hell you all can sleep through it back at camp.”
“Heh, noob doesn’t know.” Dark giggled. I glared at him, since when do emo kids giggle.
“Why do you leave it turned on?” Halloway asked me as he loudly yawned. His yawns were something spectacular. It was like the sound of an airplane landing. Deep and ear piercing at the same time.
“What do you mean, turned on?” I asked with suspicion.
“System Configuration.” He said with an emphasis.
“System Configuration?” I invoked.
System Configuration
--------------------
Color: Blue
Alarm: On
Alarm Time: Pre-Dawn
Morning Announcement: Full
“You are shitting me? Right?” I asked with a groan.
“Couldn’t shit you if I tried,” Halloway said with a grin.
I fell back into my sleeping roll. Pest climbing back to his spot and curling up on me.
“Oh no you don’t Mr. Musty Man,” Mave said and snatched Pest off of me. She gave me a kick, “You either.”
“You…” I was about to say something very untoward but caught a recently rare smile on her face and let it go. I still rolled over onto my side and cuddled into my pad.
“Let’s go. Idiot lost us a half-day of travel pissing off the gods.” Ryan bitched.
“Wha…?” I said, eyes wide in a sudden panic. I sat up quickly.
“I did what?” I asked.
“You said you were an acolyte of Loki or something and insulted him and he smote you.” Halloway said and I tried to calm myself. “You were pretty out of it. Speaking nonsense.”
“Oh, I can’t even remember last night, just walking on the road and then this morning.” I said, but it was a partial lie, I did have some recollection of the short talk last night.
“Well, whatever it was, you look fine now.” He said and started rolling up his sleeping mat and packing gear. Looking around, everyone was. “Let’s go.”
“Fine…” I said sourly.
I didn’t take us long to break down camp, and other than a hangover headache I seemed alright. Hungover. Damn Loki and his stupid games. Could heal over any wound at nighttime but kept hangovers. On the sly I chugged one of my vials, and slowly felt relief as we walked. My miracle snake oil tonic was amazing.
***
The day of travel didn’t turn out to be exciting. The grasslands turning into clear cut forest and finally into treed forest.
I was surprised by the lack of things to fight. No random encounters or wild animal attacks. So far, I had only really found two encounters with creatures, not counting the dungeons or the weirdness that happened on my float down the river. I questioned Halloway about it since he seemed to be my personal Wikipedia of tower knowledge. It was funny he collected all this information but didn’t act on it very much.
“We are in a newb zone,” he told me.
“Newb zone?”
“Yep,” he confirmed.
“But Volstad seems to be the hub, everyone comes through there.” I asked in confusion.
“Volstad is just a small city, more a town, that starter zone for all the new Chosen.”
“Then what the hell are the guilds doing here? I get that the Vinlanders are lazy, but what about the rest of them?” I asked.
“Well, at Volstad, we are big fish in a small pound. Out there,” he gestured his chin towards the coast, “we would be small fish.”
“So… your all chicken shits?” I asked. Ryan must have caught that and disapproved. He growled like a neanderthal.
“I wouldn’t say that. We just like the comfort and safety of small-town living.” Halloway said neutrally.
“Right. So… that third island you told me about before, the one that gets fought over?”
“Raid goes off there, that’s where you run into CvC and large guilds.” Halloway said.
“CvC… Chosen versus Chosen?” I asked.
“Yea. I guess it’s pretty intense, but Raid is pretty sketchy on the details. The number of times they sail back versus respawn is pretty skewed to the latter. Kraken doesn’t set foot on the other islands, just skimming along the coast. I don’t have a whole lot of information, just enough that it doesn’t sound like something for me.”
I thought on what he told me for a little while as we hiked along. It was hard not to judge the stagnation that was Volstad if this was true. But I hadn’t been here for long, so maybe I didn’t know the nuances of such a choice.
“I get a perk tonight.” I said absently after a while.
“That’s good. There are some good choices. I have a few of them.” Halloway said.
“Only a few? You have been here for long enough to have a decent collection, haven’t you?” I asked.
“I’ve had some setbacks.”
“Like what?”
“An occasional fight here and there over a dungeon or a few raids from those big island CvC guilds coming to farm Volstad.” Halloway said.
“Farm?”
“They will kill any Chosen they can find to farm perk fragments.”
“Oh…” I said with a wince.
“Not such a big fish than?” I asked.
“Not when the sharks come.” Halloway said.
***
That evening we were bedded down for the night. It happened to be right around where the dungeon I had met the Red Wolves was at. I waited quietly on my sleeping mat until everyone else had gone to sleep. It was time to take care of something I had been putting off for no good reason. It was time to review my recorded rune-code flags and see if I could translate an alphabet around it.
I supposed it was the fear of failure that had put me at such a place of procrastination. I could tinker any play with stuff all day long, but when it came down to the finish part, I would always hesitate and delay. I didn’t like that part of myself. I hoped in this place of no true obligations I might learn to surpass it.
Show list.
The list was extensive, consisting of my notes and descriptions of the runes. Thirty total flags. I started to go through them and note down which rune corresponded to which letter. I had long ago noticed that the rune-code, though written in runes, was using English words and spellings. That was a very odd thing, I thought, for a Norse god to do.
I had a rune for every letter of the alphabet except J, Q and Z. I noticed that some runes were used for more than one letter, such as C with K and V with W. With this alphabet table I could experiment with creating my own words for flags and hopefully find more locations in the rune-code to exploit.
With that task complete, taking quite a bit of time going back and forth, it was pretty late and I decided to get some sleep.
With a pat to Pest who was snuggled up to me, I did just that.
***
I woke up to the others stirring and packing up camp. I stretched and smiled to myself. Finally, my biggest foe had been defeated, that obnoxious blue screen had been banished from my after-life. I had changed the System Configuration to better suit me. The screens were now a semi-transparent orange-amber color and didn’t wake me up in the pre-dawn with the daily message.
A notification light blinked in my peripheral vision, and I focused on it.
A window showed up in my vision in the pleasant color-scheme and held the normal message of congratulations and fragment reward. This time however, the Claim Perk selection wasn’t greyed out. I couldn’t wait to see my available selections and hit Y.
It was a mistake. Not one of my own doing, but a mistake none-the-less.
The list scrolled past quickly, filling my entire vision with racing text. Most of it was greyed out, unavailable to me. Due to my Alpha Tester benefit granting me the ability to see all available perks the list was quite extensive. I saw some of the locked options required other perks unlocked first, skills or stat point minimums needing to be reached. Increments of nines for the stats seemed to be quite popular.
Before the list finished a red text very reminiscent of the first error I encountered interrupted a half-complete perk description.
[FATAL ERR: Allowed memory size for buffer exhausted.]
The world around me came to a stuttering and grinding stop. I couldn’t move or close the window.
***
“Really? Again?” Loki said from outside of my eyesight. Some time had passed. It was hard to tell how much.
‘Your fault!’ I announced.
“Why do you keep breaking things?” Loki asked.
‘That’s why you pay me the big bucks.’ I told him. He scoffed.
“Let us see what trouble you have gotten yourself into it this time.” Loki said. I saw his shadow cross over me, but nothing else. I heard the static tear in space as the rune-code rift opened. “Ahh, yes. I see the error, too much for the display system to handle. Nobody should be able to see everything all at once. Your special circumstances are the only thing that could make that happen.”
My body went loose, and I was able to move. You never noticed how much you could miss the normal functions of breathing and blinking, until they stopped for an extended period of time. At the same time my vision cleared of the frozen screen and a notification came to my attention.
[Alpha Tester - Benefit] – Your benefit has been removed.
“Hey! That’s the second time you have taken away my pay for the services I have provided!” I argued.
“Yes. I will admit that tool had some unforeseen complications in your hands.” Loki said in an oddly humble moment.
“Can I get a replacement for my losses?” I asked.
“Oh, and what do you suggest?” he asked, his haughty tone back in full force.
“I don’t want to be mediocre. I don’t want to stay on this floor and stagnate with the others,” I said. “I want power, I want to do what I want without penny ante bullies, thugs and guild tyrants being able to dictate my life. My afterlife. I want true freedom. I want the chance to get to the top of this game of yours and go home. I’m going to do it, no matter how long it takes me.”
A gentle clapping sound came from behind me, and I leaned my head back enough to see Loki.
He was wearing a screen-colored blue suit jacket over a T-shirt sporting the eight-legged horse. Fitted acid washed and torn jeans. And a basketball player’s brand of gold sneakers. I was starting to think he was dressing up for me at this point.
“That is the best Little Engine that Could speech I have heard in a while.” He said in a way that was about half-mocking and half-respect. Or I chose to interpret it as half respect. The blond bastard was tricky to read sometimes.
“I will let you in on a little tidbit of history Alpha Tester Viktor.” He started before stopping and snapping his fingers. I was suddenly standing and facing him.
“Much better,” he said before going on. “Amongst the Aesir, the Norse gods as you would call them, only I am the one without priests and worshippers. I am shunned as being profane to all things good. Disloyal, unreliable, shallow, vain and hedonistic.”
I tried my best to project shock and surprise at those descriptors.
“But let me assure you, that is not true. I have just lacked a purpose to not be those things. Why would I be loyal to a family who treated me with such disdain? How can I show reliability when no one relies on me? How can I show my true depth to those who would judge me at first glance and discard me?” He said all this with an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before. Even in his ominous threats and barbs at me. This was a deep-seated and true animosity that one could only hold towards family betrayal.
“And hedonistic? Please. If that was not fundamental to the Norse people, I do not know what is. Odin the ‘All-Father’ had more bastards than any of us. You need a chart to track it all! Heimdall has nine mothers! How did the All-Father pull that off!” Loki gesticulated in the air and made crude motions with his hands. “And I am the hedonist? Please.”
I just stared at him a little concerned that if I was noticed, he would smite me again. He took a moment to compose himself and smooth back his long blonde hair. He turned a wide smile onto me.
“So. I will prove them wrong. Though I finally have some worshippers and priests in this tower. They are all residents of the tower. I have yet to have a Chosen priest.” He said and gave me a meaningful look.
“Uhm… the worship thing… doesn’t really suit me…” I said tenderly. “I don’t really know how that all works… All the church and prayer and stuff…”
“Well good for you, because in Norse tradition there is no sermon, no benediction or service.” Loki said reassuringly. “A priest in my service is more like a travelling monk or emissary. Going around spreading tales about my generosity and good deeds. Mayhap the occasional sacrifice in my name.”
“And… what tales are those?” I asked. “Sacrifice?”
“Tales are easy to spin, that is for you to work out. Just make them good.” He grinned again. “I am not above a little deception.”
“Okay, so this sounds good for you, but how does this benefit me?”
“You already had anointed an Implement in my name.” He said and I was confused for a moment.
“Oh!” I exclaimed as it came to me. “You mean that nasty ass spoon of spider soup?”
“Indeed.” He gestured at the hatchet that hung on my belt. “All unanointed Implements can be activated by a priest. You have been marked as one since I took on the role as your benefactor. As always, you are my little guinea pig, for testing systems. Spread word of my glory to other chosen, anoint Implements in my name, and you may just find the power you seek.”
“Really now?” I wondered as I pulled the hatchet from my belt and looked it over.
“Just remember, how you anoint it matters. If you want to cut down a tree faster what that, do it while striking a tree and anoint it in the sap the tree spills. If you want to slay goblins better use their blood during the height of battle.” He said with a blood thirsty grin. “The possibilities are endless.”
“And how do I summon this power?” I asked, only a vague idea of how from the hectic brawl with the spider.
“Sing out the glories of me for all to hear,” Loki said and raised his hands as if worshipping the sky. I looked up and saw his grinning face beaming down from where he gestured. He was worshipping himself, the narcissist. “The stronger the foe, the more magnificent the feat, the more witnesses to my glory, the more powerful the blessing unto the Implement.”
“Okay, I’m in.” I said, as if I had another choice.
“Most excellent Priest Viktor.” He said and steepled his hands. “And you did not even let me get to the final selling point.”
“And what is that?”
“Your glorious benefactor hears when you shout out his name to the sky.” he said mysteriously.
“I don’t recall.” I confessed.
“You asked for a way to better deal with other Chosen. What effect do you think an Implement would manifest if it was anointed in the blood of a Chosen?”
***
After Loki snapped away and time resumed, we resumed our hike to the dungeon. I was energized with the thought of this alternate avenue of legitimate power. Having this power would grant me two things as I saw it. A line of real power from my benefactor, not just occasional tidbit and gift. And a way to mask my rune-code hacking. After all, priests were where Word’s legitimately came from. As well as Implements. I could mask all sorts of items under the guise of a priest.
I took a near manic energy as I announced to my companions that I now wore the mantle of a Priest of Loki.
“Loki is great! He is so nice and handsome! Praise be he!” I rattled off random complementary things. I swear that each time I did the sun shone a little brighter and the birds sang a little more happily. “This one time I almost shared a beer with him! Great guy!”
“Sure, sure…” Halloway said, mostly tuning me out. To be fair, I didn’t have very many stories to praise about the Loki I knew.
“Didn’t he smite you the day before yesterday?” Halloway asked.
“Yes, but I deserved it.” I covered like a domestic violence victim.
“And how is that?” He asked me.
“Don’t remember.” I said as I scratched my head.
“Did that hit to the head knock what little brain you had loose?” Dark muttered and Carmilla tittered.
“The only head that was hit, was the head your mom gave me last night!” I shot back at him. He scowled and looked away, not pursuing the insult. He must be finally understanding that I would never stop firing back nonsense and playground insults at barbs and jibes from him. I’m glad he was maturing. One of us had to, and it wasn’t going to be me.
“Okay, okay, what about the Loki TV show on streaming… Did you see that? It was awesome!” I said to Halloway. Thunder peeled in the sky, and we were suddenly hiking in an instant rain shower. Okay, that version of Loki was heavily frowned upon I guessed.