Belongs to ACADEMIA
ACADEMY RECORD:
Name: Countess Gulugula
Former Name: Mila Gulugula
Department: Independent Research
Known for: The systematic interpretation of rumors and unexplained connections.
Notable Work: How to Interpret Rumors
Current Project: A General Theory and Practice of the Connections Between Everything
Methodology: Highly structured.
Source Reliability: Questionable.
Current Status: Making connections. Everywhere.
Warning: Do not provide the Countess with unverified information unless you are prepared to discover what it is connected to.
Developed by Crimson Alchemist , Formula available: Basic
KNOWN BACKGROUND:
Count Gulugula was an incurable drunkard and gambler. For his only daughter, Mila, this was simply normal – she had never known anything else. For each new stepmother, however, it was a genuine nightmare. Many young turkeys were attracted by the Count’s title and estate, but few lasted more than a month. Some managed to endure the drunken arguments and the lack of attention, but all flew away as soon as they discovered the enormous size of Gulugula’s debts. For Mila, this too was simply the way things were.
Most of her stepmothers tried to befriend her. They taught her various things about life, and some even taught her to read and write. The household staff consisted of a butler-wine steward and a cook who doubled as everything else, while the library was painfully small. Anything valuable had either been sold or lost at cards. Mila had read all of it. Or, more accurately, she had looked at all the pictures. Quite a few of the books were in languages she couldn’t understand.
Her normal life ended when a boar burst into the library, grabbed her by the feathers and stuffed her into a filthy sack.
“What’s happening?” Mila managed to ask.
“My master won you at cards,” the boar replied. “Along with the estate and everything in it.”
The laughter that followed echoed in Mila’s head for months.
Her journey in the hold of a ship from the Kingdom’s Armada, bound for the Eastern Isles, turned out to be surprisingly bearable. The crew had been recruited by whatever means necessary, but they were kind to Mila despite her lowly position as a servant. Every evening, they gathered on deck to sing songs and exchange stories and gossip. It was during this particular voyage that Captain Tidewell became lost while following his own maps. Mila remembered the stories. Then she began adding to them. She had a natural talent for weaving fragments from all over the Known World into convincing narratives. She was also an excellent storyteller – the good side of the gambler’s blood in her veins. Gradually, she became the center of attention.
The voyage lasted for months, but eventually the ships returned to the Kingdom’s docks. The crew scattered to their respective homes. Mila was met by her father’s old wine steward. The news that the Count had departed for the afterlife did not surprise her, nor did it particularly upset her. Expected. What was news was that not everything had been squandered. The old turkey had refused to gamble away his wine steward and a small shop in the town that had grown around the Academy.
Mila was now Countess Gulugula. No longer the filthy girl scrubbing decks after dirty sailors. This did not move her. What did fascinate her was the fact that she would be living in the Academy. Mila could interpret this in only one way: it had been ordained by the long hand of fate. She already knew everything about everyone. Surely, this was where she belonged.
The old wine steward asked to be released from his service, and the Countess granted his request without hesitation.
For the community of the Academy, a noble title was little more than a surname. Poverty was nothing remarkable either, and certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Any resident could be fed and clothed without possessing a single coin. The real currency was knowledge. This seemed like excellent news to the Countess. After all, she knew things about people that nobody else seemed to know. Surely, she had finally found the place where her talents would be appreciated. But somehow, she still couldn’t attract much attention – not as she had on the ship. The people of the Academy were polite and attentive, and that was about it. Her first book, a modest handbook entitled How to Interpret Rumors, was accepted and duly catalogued in the Central Library. And that was the end of it.
Gulugula became rather gloomy for a while. Then she realized that one could hardly impress anyone in a place where dozens of books were published every day with a mere handbook about gossip. She needed something truly grand.
Unfortunately, although the Countess now found herself at the very heart of an immense world of information, it was not the kind of information she understood or valued. Dry academic treatises. Alchemical textbooks. Herbal manuals. All of them reminded her of the books in her father’s library written in foreign languages.
Then Henrietta appeared. It was like manna from heaven. Henrietta’s husband was a wealthy merchant who travelled throughout the Known World, and every return brought a fresh supply of stories from distant places. Some were facts. Some were fragments. Some were probably misunderstandings. Gulugula didn’t mind. The little machinery in the Countess’s head sprang happily into motion. She began connecting things. Here was a detail from the Eastern Isles. There was a rumor from the Western Lands. A merchant had mentioned something strange in the Kingdom. Henrietta remembered something her husband had said. Suddenly, it all seemed to fit.
At last, Gulugula felt she was on the verge of understanding the world. It was only a matter of time before the Known World would be presented with her greatest work: A General Theory and Practice of the Connections Between Everything.