When Tol-u-ol finished secondary schola and received his diploma, he didn’t really have a lot of future plans in mind. His father was now a Goblinopolis cop, but Tol didn’t regard that to be a viable career option for himself as yet. He couldn’t bear the thought of more formal education, however, so universitas was right out. One morning he just shrugged, walked into the recruiting office of the Tragacanth Inland Guard, and signed on the dotted line.
Tol wasn’t an outstanding soldier, but he was a good one. He followed orders without comment, never missed a drill, and proved himself up to any physical challenge. After basic training and specialist school he was assigned to Fort Ullglava in the Fealo river valley, about midway between Goblinopolis and Tillimil in the Southern Reaches. Ullglava was primarily a logistics and training facility, where various vehicles were tested and stored and soldiers trained for a variety of jobs.
Tol started out as a logistics specialist, dealing primarily in engines and associated equipment. However, his skill at taking down opponents in hand-to-hand drill soon drew the attention of his chain of command and before long he was reassigned as a combat instructor. He had risen to the rank of Battle Sergeant by the end of his four-year hitch. His captain pleaded with him to reenlist, promising promotion and possibly even officer candidate school, but Tol was done with military life.
Back in the civilian sector, he took a hard look at himself and his talents and concluded about the only thing he was really suited for was, in fact, edict enforcement, so he followed his father into the Goblinopolis EE Academy. He graduated second in his class. The only thing that kept him from the valedictorian slot was his inherent dislike for paperwork.
As a top graduate, Tol had his pick of assignments. He surprised everyone by choosing foot patrol in Sebacea, his old neighborhood. That was widely regarded as about the worst possible place to get stuck. It was a poorly-funded precinct with one of the highest violent crime rates in the city. To Tol, though, it was home. He already knew those streets and alleys intimately, as well as most of the people. He never even considered any other posting.
The standard procedure for rookie EE officers in Goblinopolis was to tag along with a veteran partner for a year to get familiar with their daily routines. It had been a long while since anyone had been assigned on a full-time basis to foot patrol in Sebacea, however. Other precincts employed that slot as a rotation for their low-performing or disciplinary problem officers. As a result, there was no one for Tol to shadow officially, although he did accompany the occasional punishee on ‘bad boy’ duty during that first year.
Sebacea was a nightmare assignment for most cops. The citizenry were suspicious of authority figures, who in their experience were universally corrupt and looking out only for themselves. Extortion, racketeering, and intimidation were rampant. An honest cop was not something they’d really encountered before; once it became apparent that was what they’d gotten in Tol their attitudes started to shift, albeit it slowly in the beginning. The criminal infrastructure was deeply entrenched and not at all intimidated by this new cop. At first, that is.
Despite his prowess at brawling, Tol always tried reason and discourse before he proceeded to bust some heads. It didn’t take too long before the local criminals began to track his location and give him a wide berth. Tol wasn’t that easy to avoid, though. He had a knack for surveillance and shadowing in the urban environment of Sebacea that he’d honed as a child. Whereas Aspet had largely avoided interacting with the local hoodlums by heading straight home after schola, Tol ran regularly with them and learned how to keep the upper hand. He was popular among even the roughest of them for his simple honesty and straightforward mannerisms. Tol never betrayed a trust, but nor did he suffer bullies. He was predictable, tolerant, and utterly immovable where fairness was concerned.
The shopkeepers of Sebacea, especially, came to venerate Tol. They were constantly offering him tokens of friendship, not so much in an attempt to curry favor or preferential treatment but more out of sheer goodwill born of genuine affection. He did his best to decline their proffered gifts diplomatically, but every now and then he relented and accepted something, usually a free meal or some variety of herb. Mind-altering substances were tolerated everywhere in Tragacanthan society, so long as no injury or destruction of property came about as a result of their use.
Tol’s walking beat covered around ten square kilometers in the commercial heart of Sebacea. He was actually assigned a larger area of responsibility, but responding to calls outside his core patrol path necessitated the use of an EE pram; the reliability of these was questionable, at best. Within his primary beat, however, he preferred his own two legs. Tol was a big guy, even for a goblin, but he could move with unexpected alacrity for all his size. In extreme urgency he might commandeer one of the neighbor kids’ pedal-cycles, but these situations were quite rare. On those occasions he returned the borrowed cycle promptly and often performed maintenance first or even upgraded the vehicle when he could afford it.
Did Tol’s singular presence convert Sebacea from a den of iniquity to a wholesome garden spot overnight? Not really. But it did dramatically lower the felony crime rate and give honest citizens, especially business owners, some sense that the city was looking out for their interests. By the time Tol had been on the beat for five years, most Sebaceans would have endorsed him for any public office he’d felt to inclined to seek, right up to cabinet minister or even sovereign. Little did they suspect to what extent leadership ran in the family.