I arrived at the Bickering Bishops a few minutes before the ninth bell, and the bartender (who appeared to be expecting me) led me to a private room. The "mystery man" from Saturday was sitting there, and introduced himself as Eddard Rowse, a member of the King’s Governmental staff.
The "aptitude test" was interesting. There were five candidates: Brent Ashleigh, a trained warrior; Gwen Rydda, a ranger; Jordan Lean, an initiate of Don; Padrick Sommers, a bard; and myself. We were closeted into a private room near the back of the tavern, with Rowse leading us through the different phases.
The first phase was a simple quiz/discussion on the political and social history of Dyfed. Rowse would ask questions about some aspect of recent history, and the person asked would explain the situation to the best of their knowledge. He would often ask others to elaborate on the facts or give their opinions about the decisions made. Those who were listening carefully soon found out that Padrick was a bit biased against dwarves, although he made every attempt to disguise his feelings with humour and "logic".
The second phase was a series of clear thinking and problem solving exercises. Rowse would pose a "problem", which the group had to work together to "solve". The big surprise here was that Brent "Mr. Muscles" was very resourceful, whereas Jordan "Mr. Wisdom" was not.
Lunch was served in the room (very nice!), and thereafter were individual interviews. The topics discussed ranged from observations made about the other candidates in the first two sessions, to a bit about my childhood, to more problem-solving exercises (although these ones were different - it was like picking the least-worst solution from two or three bad possibilities in a totally untenable situation). At the end of the interview, I was asked to come back at the ninth bell tomorrow.
| Eddard Rowse |
| Dyfed Government Staff |
| Human male | LG |
| Rog 9, Aristo 3 | HP 66 |
| Str 11 | Dex 17 | Con 12 |
| Int 16 | Wis 15 | Cha 14 |
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