Coralina Samander Elsbeth Cooney, The Great Sponge of the Undercity (842-???)

Little is known about Coraline Samander Elsbeth Cooney’s early life except that she was identified in a Holy Roman Empire birth registry and was born at the exact same moment as the death of Emperor Theophilos (see the January 20 Conspiracy). Some early myths suggest that Cooney was the product of a parasitic reincarnation, a form of supernatural dysfunction originally described in 5th-century religious texts such Aphebius’ Ludician Inmortuae and anti-Pope Sigeberht’ Primae Deceptiones Viventium; these texts have since been rejected by modern theologians and metaphysics scholars as pseudoscience (see the Physics of Reincarnation).

The first substantial records of Cooney’s life appear in 863 when she was admitted to the Charlamagne Academy of Philosophy for formal training, albeit in secret due to the cultural mores of the time. Modern scholars agree that Cooney had demonstrated a savant-level ability to acquire and synthesize the knowledge of her era, writing her first book, Philosophia Prandii, at age 15; this early work fundamentally altered the dining patterns within the empire while later work, including the aptly-named Unacceptable Methods of Mushroom Cohabitation, dramatically improved imperial agriculture. For these efforts, she was eventually nicknamed “spongiae” or “the sponge.”

In addition to these feats, early records also suggest that her admittance was partly practical. When the Holy Roman Empire was founded in 800 C.E., explorers had already uncovered nearly 66,000 miles (71,777.69 Roman miles) of tunnels beneath Europe, with some leading so deep into the ground that no man had successfully navigated them and returned. In the 63 years prior to Cooney’s admittance to the academy, Charlamagne and his successors had unsuccessfully attempted to correct this failing only to finally discover in 858 that the deepest tunnels could not be accessed by men (see Limits of Male Biology). In 859, this critical failing boiled over into military crisis when a force of 2,000 armed soldiers emerged from the tunnel system and eradicated the small cities of Gaugumecca and Olfberg; these facts were suppressed by the empire under pain of death. Cooney’s reputation, thus, made her a prime candidate for an expeditionary and diplomatic force to open communication with what then-emperor Charles II, the Bald, formally labeled “the Undercity,” though no such city had yet been identified.

In 865, Cooney witnessed another force of armed soldiers emerge from a previously unknown tunnel beneath Aachen and attempt to invade the Palace of Charlamagne and the Charlamagne Academy of Philosophy; they were successfully repelled, but the public nature of the event made further secrecy impossible. Among these secrets was the identity of the attackers: a race of humanoids with pronounced brows (inappropriately named “tunnel demons”), which we now know to be the surviving civilization of Homo sapiens neanderthalensis (see the Neanderthal Undermigration). From these events, Cooney was able to identify and decipher the invader’s language and confirm an early imperial account of their armor as an indicator of cultural sophistication.

Following these events, Charles II, the Bald, placed Cooney in charge of the first expeditionary force, which was made up of ten educated and trained women and fifteen trained women soldiers from the northern reaches of the empire (possibly Scandinavians). They were tasked with entering the tunnels beneath Aachen and making contact with the inhabitants of the Undercity. In 867, imperials records indicate that Cooney led the expedition into the tunnels and emerged three months later sans expeditioners and bearing what some scholars agree was a treaty demanding no further expeditions into the Earth in exchange for an immediate cessation of hostilities. Shortly after, Cooney disappeared into the tunnels and was never heard from again.

To date, scholars have been unable to confirm the legitimacy of the letter (either in its translation or its existence) or exactly what happened to Cooney or her expeditionary force. Conspiracy theorists suggest that modern Neanderthals developed a veritable utopia beneath the Earth (see Corbit Mullwer’s Thermal Empire Theory) while others have argued that Neanderthal culture is more egalitarian by nature and, thus, was a more appealing option than life in the Holy Roman Empire. It is more likely, however, that we may never know what actually happened.