Belongs to ACADEMIA
ACADEMY RECORD:
Name: Bartram Reed
Department: Arcana Studies (guest lecturer; credentials unverifiable)
Known for: Teaching subjects he doesn’t remember learning.
Warning: Ask about his past and he’ll either say nothing, or propose to a teapot. There is no third option.
Last recorded incident: Mid-lecture outburst of “kisses, kisses” directed at an empty doorway. Enrollment doubled the following term.
Current status: Impenetrable. Occasionally amphibious.
Developed by Crimson Alchemist , Formula available: Basic
KNOWN BACKGROUND:
Every visitor to the Academy who talks to Bartram reaches the same conclusion: this one isn’t from our world. And they’re right — though few know the real story. The gossips constantly try to pry something, anything, out of Bartram or out of Silas, whom he’s close with, but both of them are impenetrable. That, of course, hasn’t stopped every kind of rumor about the strange frog from circling the Academy anyway.
The news that “we are not alone” was one of the most jealously guarded secrets in the Known World. On the day Bartram appeared, the Dean called an emergency session of the governing council, and after a brief discussion, they decided to keep it quiet, to avoid causing a panic. Especially since, as Silas assured them, the ancients had done the very same thing — according to the secret archives the golem himself kept watch over.
The truth was much simpler: Ugly Max had been brewing a triple-strength levitation potion, commissioned by some bigwig from the East. Nobody so much as glanced at the explosion from the basement labs — everyone was used to those by now — but nobody noticed the portal Max had opened by accident. Bartram leapt straight out of the mirrored surface, flames spraying from his wand in every direction. For the Ugly Duckling, this was nothing more than his natural habitat, and without the slightest effort he managed to pour an entire vial of Mortimer’s soft calming potion straight into the creature’s mouth. He didn’t dare risk one of his own — even he had noticed the results could be unpredictable.
The frog babbled something incomprehensible, which Mrs. Foxworth effortlessly turned into speech — speech that made no sense whatsoever. Wise Portia didn’t need words to know what was wrong with him. “He’s lost his memory,” she announced. “Send him somewhere quiet.”
Bartram was sent to the Woods, as an assistant to a local alchemist’s apprentice. The treatment helped, and before long the frog was even given teaching hours on the Arcana. He turned out to be surprisingly well-read in the subject. Those in the know understood that his memory hadn’t fully returned — but nobody considered it a problem. The students, too, had grown used to his strange outbursts mid-lecture, things like: “Hey… Kiss me, Princess, don’t pass me by… Princeeeess.”