Six hundred and forty registered factions came into the imperial complex for round one, which the schedule disposes of in four days. Blackforge entered as the four hundred eleventh, with a provisional national rank of two hundred three written beside a single name.
Two hundred three is a small number in Orison plus a very large one in a hall built for six hundred and forty. Luna has said she watched four assessment officials read the entry sheet without one of them looking up.
Round one does not open with a dungeon at all, which is the part nobody outside the complex understands. It opens with a separation, called individual assessment in the published rules plus called the rooms by everybody standing in the queue.
Each competitor is walked alone to a numbered door, with no second beside them plus no relay line running. The doors are assigned by entrant number, so Blackforge took rooms nine, eleven, nineteen, plus thirty-one.
