Power Awakens

Naming Day, a time for celebration, fun festivities, Storytellers, Magicians and Fireworks, occasionally a true Majee would provide some display or other, although this was now quite rare. Only those sixteen year olds who would be going through their Naming Day ceremony, had anything but fun on their minds. Bowltown centre was packed with merrymakers, market stalls, acrobats, and the good people of Bowltown and its surrounding sub-districts. As this was one of the Largest Towns in Bruk there was a great deal of entertainment drafted in from around the Northern Bruk region.

This year was an unusual year as there were four hundred Nominees to be presented at the Naming Day table this mid-summer day and almost five hundred had gone through the process last mid-winters day, each one had to be read by a Latent and ushered to the appropriate Guild, Craft, or Kingdom Stall, all current and potential job types where represented in Bowltown, ready to snap up their new recruits and set them on the path to fulfilling careers in the service of the Kingdom of Bruk.

Sometimes for the smaller towns and villages, the youths would have to travel to another location either to see a Latent or see a representative of a particular Guild or Craft, only towns as big as Bowltown or Cities had Kingdom Stalls for each craft and guild.

As Bowltown was fortunate enough to have two Latents, the towns Archduke had planned to split the four hundred into two lots of two hundred with the Latents spending just a few minutes per Nominee for those that where easy and simple to allocate, the less simple allocations would go into a second waiting area to be reviewed again later in the afternoon, so the Latent could spend more time with each Nominee. This process allowed for ninety five percent of the Nominees to be placed easily in the right guild or craft. The few more difficult cases usually resulted from a nominee actually showing equal talent for more than one profession, in these rare cases the nominee had the ability to choose which path they wished to take. It was prestigious for the parent to have a child with more than one dominant profession.

The talent of Latency Recognition had been around as far back as the historical documents and Storytellers could determine, even to times before the Apocalypse. Latents are all Sorcerers or Majees of some form, although even the lowest level practitioner of Majee, a Praktise level Majee could be a Latent. All Majees have the ability to discern Latent Talent, but the more powerful the Majee; the greater was the accuracy for the Latency Prediction. In simple terms the Latency Prediction of each and every human could determine what profession, job or role would fit that specific individual. The Nominees would then be allocated to a specific Guild, Craft, or Kingdom role. Sometimes it was not easy to determine the best role for a Nominee, fortunately this was very rare, perhaps one in ten thousand. Bowltown, for some strange reason that the best minds in Bruk couldn’t determine, always seemed to have way above average of these difficult case, at least eight occurrences in the last ten years, this was unheard of anywhere else on Cromus.

Naming Day was a time for celebration except for those whose lives would change forever passing into the realm of adulthood and responsibility. It was not unusual for a Nominee to be apprenticed to a Guild or Craft for five years, sometimes this meant moving away from their hometown or village and occasionally from their city.

With trepidation the boys Jaac, Tem, Mort and Ainy, took their place in the Westden Nominee Pen. Clustered together, the usual laughter and joviality was gone. Even the arrival of the girls from Westden didn’t cause the usual flirtation, but of course it didn’t go unnoticed either. The Westden Nominee Pen housed twenty-five Nominees, fifteen boys and ten girls, with everyone knowing each other relatively well, there was little in terms of conversation or greetings. All the boys and the girls were subdued; they each knew that this day would change their lives.

None of the Westden Nominees had been to see a Latent before this day, as some of the rich and Highborn often did, this was the first time they would know what their future role in society would be. The rich and Highborn would often test their sons and daughters beforehand to provide them with initial training in their chosen role before they were reviewed by the Latent. This gave them a better chance at progressing through the chosen role. Of course you didn’t have to take up the role allocated by the Latent, but this was quite rare, as what Guild or Craft Master would employ someone not suitable for their role. Occasionally it did happen, but once again it tended to be exclusively the rich or Highborn who went against the Latent.

The current Bruk Royal Family the Westbourne’s tended to go with the decision of the Royal Latent Majee. This was probably why they were so successful in governing the Bruk Kingdom, naturally, the other Nobility followed suit, well usually.

All thoughts fled from Jaac’s mind as his name was called, Ainy and Tem had already been through the Naming, and for some reason not known to Jaac they had not been sent to one of the stalls, instead they had been sent to another similar pen. Jaac, with butterflies in his belly, couldn’t understand this, but he put it from his mind, as he was sure he would find out soon enough.

Jaac stepped to the Latents table. The Latent placed his had on the top of Jaac’s head, it felt warm and a little clammy. Jaac felt the warm and tingly sensation that he was warned of by his Da. After a couple of seconds the Latent pulled his hand away and frowned at Jaac. He put his hand back on, and frowned again. Leaning over to the other Latent, he had a quick discussion, which Jaac couldn’t quite catch.

Still frowning the Latent spoke to Jaac and pointed. “Over to the waiting pen, don’t be concerned, we have a large number of nominees today and we cannot always determine what is best for them on the first reading. We will review you again later this afternoon.”

Jaac ambled over to the waiting pen totally confused; he had not been expecting that. As he entered the pen he was greeted by Tem and Ainy, both looking puzzled. “You too” said Ainy.

“Yep” replied Jaac, “though I don’t understand it, do you?”

“Nope” responded Ainy and Tem together. Without another word all three sat down on the available chairs. No one spoke, as they all looked towards the two Latents sitting at the Choosing Tables. The afternoon wore on and only two more Nominees were allocated to the waiting pen. One was Mort, and the other was the Archduke’s own daughter Duchess Taegan.

When the Archduke’s daughter had first joined them all four boys had stood up and were totally dumbfounded by her incredible beauty, she looked resplendent in the ankle length emerald green dress, studded with tiny diamond like jewels that seem to catch the rays of the sun from any angle, sashed tight at the waist revealing a tiny fragile figure, but billowing out from the hips. The dress was beautiful, but Taegan herself transcended that beauty. The boys had never been this close to nobility before and didn’t quite know what to do. Fortunately for them, as they stood there dumbfounded and unable to speak, the girl swished past them, managing to totally ignore them as she went to sit down on one of the ten available chairs, obviously she was unhappy and lost in her own thoughts. The boys decided to not disturb her or indeed talk at all, as they were all equally lost in thought.