"Well then, a little less dramatic than it should be, seeing as you are all, well slaves. It's not like you're going to be free anytime soon." He said contemplatively, dropping his dramatically raised arms. "But some of you will be able to get some freedom's, far most, is the ability to have a name. Hence the ceremonies name if you think about it.", Lasq said, his voice lowered by a few octaves.
He stared at the group of slaves for a bit. His gaze washing over the crowd, trying to judge the current attitudes. The force from his furnace energy sweeping over the senses of slaves making them shiver. 41 refused to shiver holding himself up by sheer force of will, these were the small rebellions he had learned to treasure since he got to this sun forsaken place. He refused to cower; he simply chose to be meek.
Lasq turned his head backward, "Verill, Soffiss" he shouted backward. One of the two men dressed in a different patterned gambeson at the left moved forward, standing slightly backwards besides him. Lasq moved his hand, placing it on his shoulder of the new man. "This soldier right here is from a promoted family, the pride of his community and if you people perform well, you just might be able to give your kids this opportunity.", he said his voice booming but flat, "But let me introduce him more formally, he is Wolf-Verillarius Soffiss Kartolgim, a squad leader in one of our Imperial cavalry."
The man's shoulder straightened, his chest puffed-up slightly as glint in his eyes sparkled. Lasq continued, "So today, we decided that man right here is going to lead the first half of the test within this ceremony, so listen to him and listen well." After saying those words, he moved off in the direction of karcheym. But there wasn't enough time to follow his figure because Soffiss was quick to speak, his voice wasn't as boisterous as Lasq or as deep as Karcheym, but it carried a tone of authority demanding attention.
"Listen up, in the next twenty minutes I demand an arrangement by numbers. My personal squad will come and collect your information, and we demand accuracy. And if I don't get it, there will be repercussions." He paused in his statement. He walked off to the left right in front of the other soldier dressed just like him, standing in front of the other fifteen soldiers.
"Next, you will find your way to the front of this bridge, there my dear friend, Wolf-Verillarius Tatt Karshethi and his squad will take-over the first task" The tall light-golden tanned skinned man dressed in the diamond patterned gambeson nodded in acknowledgement. "But know this, I will be watching, and if one of you worthless brats steps-out of line, I will be watching and I will deal with you."
41 watched the entire show, trying to analyze what the situation was and what it was calling for. When he saw Verill Soffiss stepping forward, he started to get a sinking feeling, the moment he heard him call them worthless he knew this was going to be a long day. The dread within the pit of his belly finally felt justified, he felt like this person must come from the family of an Overseer, those bastards that see them as less than.
He stood in one of the queues they had formed according to their numbers, fifteen different lines of hundred people watched over by the slasher. He looked in front of him, besides the queue standing between the lines facing his queue in particular was soldier holding one of those light tablets made of copper and dhorium, using one of those small metal curving knives to scribe something on it, while talking to number 39.
It had been about thirty minutes since they got into these rows, and he had been growing more anxious by the minute. He had heard of this ceremony but none of its sequences. This had led him to having some misconceptions, because whatever was going on, had nothing to do with whatever he thought would be going on. "Damn it, I should have asked for more information damn it. My failure might just have made me miss the only opportunity to have something for myself, flickering and dying before it has even been conceived." He thought, berating himself on his own missteps. "But what is it that there doing, what is his scribbling. Why does 39 look like he just got a massive dose of constipation and what's that stone pendant they keep handing out, better yet wherein the hell is he getting them from."
While 41 was still caught in his thoughts, his mind running a mile a minute. A very rough voice broke him out of his imagination, ".... and former tribe?", the voice finished leaving him quite a miss for what he had been asked. That when he saw him, the soldier in the gambeson armor stood beside him, his form towering over him, his almost lifeless eyes watching him. No type of emotions glinting with in his eyes, a bored expression staring him dead in the face.
"Aahhh, could you please repeat. I didn't, aahh quite hear that." he said. Admittedly he was off balance, while he couldn't go as far as to say that he was scared. The feeling this man gave off made him uncomfortable, scratching at the feeling of powerlessness that he buried deep down in his brutal memories. "How dare you? Do you think this a joke?" the slasher, standing right next to him moved forward as she began to raise that nine tailed wipe within her hands. He tilled his head backwards waiting for "the punishment" to land on him. But the soldier just raised his arm slightly, his palm facing the slasher, forcing her not to stop dead in her trucks.
"Number, age, unit and former tribe?", the soldier uttered in a monotone voice. But that's all 41 needed, he quickly put the pieces together ascertaining what had been asked of him before. "I am number 41 of shack 227, an estimated sixteen years of age and am base in the upper section of the refining complex, the maliestone unit. Ohh and I am from the Siyunaki tribe." 41 stated in a low voice, but ensure he at least sounded firm.
The soldier peered down at him, then a high pitch scratching sound, quite irritating to 41's ears began, and when he looked up, he saw it. The small curving knife held between the soldier's fingers as he scratched unintelligible lines on a dull-silvery surface encase in a tabled frame of a reddish-brown metal, and beside the surface were small shapes with symbols within them, they were made of the same material as the surface seemingly melted onto the borders of the surface. 41 remembered the name of those symbols incased in shapes, runes. That gave him a shock, he had never seen a relic of that size, he could even begin to imagine the cost of it.
"Did you say, "I am" or "I was", and I do not have that name in the data base. Hmph, how about the name of your former chief, tell.", the man said causally in his rough voice as if he hadn't just said something that nearly gave 41 a heart attack. He didn't understand himself today, he was normally more careful than this, why was he slipping up today of all days. "WAS, I meant was.", he nearly shouted, not sounding as firm as he was before. "And my chief, they used to call him Amataba." he answered in a rush.
"Hmmph, the tribe of the barbarian genius, makes sense." he said in his monotone voice, then he turned to 41 fully, his eyes locked onto his." Answer this question within the next minute; Two types of coins of add up to a silver, and one is not bronzes. How is this possible and what are the two coins?"
The sudden change throw 41 off balance. The outward pressure of the soldier had intensified as he stared directly into his eyes. And the questions time limited exerted an intangible pressure on him as well. It took a few seconds and two breathes to bring his mind back to the state of equilibrium. This allowed him to fully register the question and its absolutely sinister nature.
Certain words once added change the enter meaning of the question leading to many false positives or outright failure. First it was deal with the worth of the coins. Refining business was normally done in clear view of everyone, and intentional or not, it did expose you to the values of coins. With in the Sun Order empire, there were four types of currency that he was aware of: golden, silver, bronze and brass coins. But most importantly, in this situation, only a bronze coin can easily add up to a sliver at five apieces. Once you take it out there is only one other coin is in existence of legal currency that is less than a silver, a brass, that is ten a piece for every silver. But that's only if you understood the 'type' part of the question.
Because there is no coin that can add up as two coins that can equate to a silver, that can stamp you before you even in the meat of the question. But even after understanding it, a different challenge is posed. Taking out the bronze coin as the two types that leave you without a second type, that would force most to dive for an illegal currency, the diluted brass coin named the half brass that the lower class accepts as substitute for a brass, two apiece for a legal brass.
But that was one of the tricks. Phrasing it that way, he did make the ones of less language literacy or less reasoning capacity, go off track. Because it wasn't telling you to not use the coin, but rather that it's not the only choice required. The phrase, 'how is that possible' solidifies the misconceptions that one obtains within the reasoning of the question giving you a way out by simply saying 'it's not possible'. By the time 41 was done thinking throw it, he was glad it had caught the scheme and was fairly sure he was correct.
But secondly, he noticed that whatever this naming ceremony was, it was definitely not easy. And whoever, the bastard was that had set this whole thing up, was not an easy person. "It's definitely possible sir; the two types of coins are bronzes and brasses." he said after some time trying to remain as calm as possible. The soldier stepped back, bring his eyesight back to his relic, scribbling something before asking for the time and receiving an answer from the slasher that shocked 41. He had spent fifty-six seconds to answer the question, in the nick of time, he had almost failed the time limit.
The screaking sound once again had 41observing the soldier as he scribbled into the relic, and at the end of it he saw that he scribbled some numbers, which he really didn't see due to the distance between them and the angle the soldier was holding the relic at. After, the soldier tapped the rune at the top of the frame, the runes around the frames all fade into black and an eerie atmospheric feeling engulfing the region, the entire dull-silvery surface fuzzed for a bit until it turned brand new without any of the scratches it had before. Then just as the fuzz of the dull surface vanished, a hexagon pendant fazed thought, made of something completely black and dull.
The soldier took it off the surface as the eerie surface dissipated and the runes all fazed from black back to their dull-silvery appearance. He then held it out towards 41, and once he grabbed it, the soldier's bored expression was once again directed at him. " Go to the bridge, and. don't. make. me. repeat. myself." He said, then he started to walk away leaving 41 simply as an afterthought. 41 looked at the pendant, seeing the pendant appear as one piece, like it was formed naturally, and dead center was the number forty-one part and parasol of the pendant.