Belongs to WOODLANDS
ACADEMY RECORD — EXCERPT (CLASSIFIED)
Name: Shroomelia
Origin: Made, not born. Laboratory of [REDACTED]. See also: do not ask.
Occupation: Apprentice alchemist (former). Host (current, unofficial).
Known for: Greeting every member of the Academia politely, by name — including names they believed were secret.
Warning: The weekend picnic in the Woodlands did not happen. If you attended, you were not there. If she offers you a second helping, accept.
Current status: Exiled to the Woodlands with the Unnamed One. This record officially ends here. (Unofficially: she saved you a seat.)
Developed by Coral Alchemist , Formula available: Basic
KNOWN BACKGROUND:
Long before Ugly Max inherited the experimental laboratory at the Academia, another alchemist ran it. His name is in the archives, of course, and quite a few people know it. But speaking it aloud is considered taboo, so he is remembered only as the Unnamed One. From the scant public record we learn two things: the West Lands exiled him for some offense, and the Academia, upon receiving him, discovered he was embarrassingly talented.
In the Known World, intelligent hybrids of human, animal, and insect are perfectly ordinary – the accepted result of natural evolution. Even beings with plant traits, though rare, are welcomed. But mushrooms were food. That was the entire policy. Which is why the first person to see Shroomelia scamper down the Academia corridors, arms full of potions and scrolls, dropped a basket. And why the surprise doubled when she greeted them politely, by name – including, on occasion, names their owners believed were secret.
The Academia’s administrative machine groaned into motion after its customary month of warm-up  and Professor Hoo convened the council. The problem proved grave: the delightful little mushroom was not natural at all. She had been made, entirely, in the Unnamed One’s laboratory. The moral and ethical questions were numerous. May she be eaten in self-defense? If she married a mushroom, whose funeral is it? Does she count toward the dinner budget? None were answered; all were recorded. The foundations of society felt threatened. The Unnamed One was exiled again – this time to the Woodlands, together with his assistant. His defense speech, though classified, remains required reading for everyone with clearance, mostly for the insults: “petrified pumpkins,” “fossils with tenure,” “moldy between the ears,” and other florid addresses to the Academia’s leadership. No one, however, understood his central argument, which rested on what Bartram had told him: that in another world, people had admired a scientist for creating a monster. Had read books and watched moving pictures about it for hundreds of years. While here, in the Known World, the creator of the most wonderful being alive was exiled to the Woodlands and sentenced to being forgotten. Unjust, the alchemist lamented. His star witness, meanwhile, had forgotten everything mid-sentence. Bartram, of course, did not remember.
Hospitable to a fault, Shroomelia remains the favorite company for Academia citizens’ weekend outings to the Woodlands. Secretly, of course. Officially, the Woods are perilous and no one visits them – a position held firmly by everyone currently picnicking there.