Thrice Great

The Grand Council

The Grand Room, TOAL Tower, Alternate Louisville, Kentucky, November 2005 AD

A large room at the top of TOAL Tower, just underneath the dome. The room is a multipurpose room that can expand to fit millions of people, but mostly, the room is used for meetings of the Grand Council, the democratic governing body of TOAL.

Norman taps his cane against the floor, bored out of his mind.

He has no idea why whenever the Grand Council met, they insist on him being there. All the Council members are boring adults discussing and doing boring adult things. He's just a thirteen year old kid. Sure, some kids his age might think all this politics stuff is interesting, but he doesn't.

Norman does know why the Grand Council always made him come to their meetings, though. He's the Norman. The seer. He just thinks making him come to all the meetings is stupid.

He may offer some insight into the future, but not everything he sees is important.

But still, the Council keeps him around. Just in case.

Norman listens to the murmurs of the Council members, picking out individual voices out of the crowd. It seems as though the entire Council has arrived. The meeting should be starting any minute now.

As if on cue, the doors that opened into the Grand Room boom open, echoing around the domed room. A set of footsteps also echo, footsteps that Norman recognizes as those of the Grand Warlock's, Eugene Olmengike.

"Let the meeting commence!" Olmengike shouts, his voice booming with authority.

Olmengike's footsteps grow louder as he walks more into the center of the room. "Norman! Have you seen anything?"

Most of the time, Norman would give a simple yes or no answer. Sometimes he sees things that could affect TOAL. Sometimes he sees nothing of importance. Today, though, he has a new answer.

"I don't know, sir, I haven't exactly seen anything recently. I'm blind, sir."

The Council members are silent. Despite not having sight, Norman knows they're glaring at him.

Olmengike is the only one who finds his joke funny. "Quite the talented comedian, aren't you, mister Norman? Perhaps you could get a side job as a comedian when you get a bit older. I could see you excelling in that field."

Norman can't tell if Olmengike is being serious or not. Then again, can anyone tell if he's serious?

"In all seriousness, I haven't seen anything of note, sir," Norman replies, cheeks heating up.

Olmengike doesn't reply. Instead, he walks away from Norman's bench and into the center of the room. "Does anyone have anything important and urgent to share before we begin?"

"I do, sir." The voice of the head of TOAL's Program for Orphaned and Mortal-Born Children, Augustus Hambleton, speaks up. "Two days ago, some of my agents were able to capture one of the children of Fear and Hatred in Patras."

"Only one of them?" Olmengike asks. "How were you able to catch even one? You know Fear and Hatred now keep a strong force field around their apartment, how were you able to break it?"

"We weren't able to break it," Hambleton replies. "The twins broke it themselves. They had decided to run away. We knew they were powerful, but not that powerful. From there, we just watched them until they ran into conflict with some of their parents' underlings, then we captured the male twin. The female twin flew away and her whereabouts are unknown."

"Where is the male twin now?"

"He's a couple of floors down, with a therapist. According to her reports, though, he's not doing too well. He's been screaming for his sister almost non-stop and saying things along the lines of 'if you don't find my sister right now, I'll hit you'. The therapist recommends we find his sister and get her in the program with him. However, I disagree with her."