Tanya and Avery
The chairs were filled as Tanya took the stage. She waited patiently for everyone to be quiet. Telepaths were sitting in groups according to level, and a panel of judges sat in the middle of the back of the stage.
"Thank you everyone for coming," Tanya said. "I am Master Tanya and welcome to our Ga'Revali meet. As you probably know, we have meets regularily in our own circle, but every now and then we feel the need to show off to others. We shall attempt to make this as visual as possible, as most of you are not telepaths, however at the end of each round I shall reiterate what occured. We shall now begin by pitting our beginners against each other."
This was the cue for the beginners to get up and take their positions on the stage. trhey were each given a slip of paper.
"At the beginner level we teach the basics, such as mind reading. On the pieces of paper in their possesion is someone's name. None of them holds their own name. The idea of this game is to read the forethoughts of each others minds to determine who is holding your name. Once they have found the one with their name, they trade papers with that person and sit on the benchs. Once the benchs are full, the round is over. Round one, begin."
None of them moved at first, then, slowly, the beginners began to walk around the stage. The first trade was made and the boy moved to the bench. It wasn't long before the bench was full and Tanya announced the round was over. For the second round, one bench was taken away and the same thing happened. It was epetivitve, but soon the last bench was taken away and they replaced it with three chairs. When those chairs were filled, two were taken away, thus leaving one winner.
Tanya called the novices next. They made two lines across the stage, each line facing the other - they had to be in pairs and there was only so much room. A bucket was placed between each pair. One of the novices was Avery.
"At the novice level we excercise things such as simple suggestion implanting and creating blocks. Both of these shall be exercised today. As you can see, we have a bucket between each pair. On my command each one shall attempt to convince their partner to put the bucket on their head. Naturally, they also have to block their partner from getting through to them."
"If a bucket ends up on your head, then you are out. Round one... Begin."
Soon half of the novices were out. The remaining ones, including Avery, of course, were put in pairs again, and round two began. It kept going in this fashion. If there was a time where there was an odd number of beginners, there was one group of three, and two buckets were put between them. Thus it continued until there were only two novices left. And then one. Avery, of course.
Tanya found herself wondering if it had been fair. After all, Avery was a potential Master. But she said nothing. This kind of thing was common enough, and obvously a telepath can't meet up to their full potential without the proper training.
The novices were followed by the intermediate, then the advanced and finally the experts.
"The awards shall, of course, be presented at the dinner tonight," Tanya said at the conclusion. "My thanks to you all for coming."