In any case, no one had caught sight of the Guardians so far, so there was no way to judge their current situation.
After meeting Sister Devlin that evening, Shade finally received the documents Miss Danist had sent through someone at the Bountiful Earth Inn. They concerned certain rumors and uncertain historical accounts from Saint Byron's early days.
Shade brought the documents home to examine them. After first studying the Thaumaturgy of Soul Whiplash, he arranged the handwritten and photocopied materials one by one beneath the gas lamp on his desk.
Though the materials were quite thick, there were only three documents in total.
The two handwritten ones were part of the notes left behind by a Witch principal from the previous epoch, discovered by Principal Pigman in recent years, as well as copied excerpts from a principal's memorandum. The photographed material was part of a massive stone slab whose origin Miss Danist had not specified.
All three documents indicated that the Academy's current location had indeed once been the territory of an Old God during the Fifth Epoch. But regarding the terms of the deal proposed by Miss Mana Falianna, the three documents gave entirely different answers.
The unknown Witch principal's notes claimed that the earliest founders had won the God of Night's favor with an interesting story, thereby obtaining the land;
The ancient principal's memorandum recorded that the true stake offered by the founders had come from an Ancient God of the First Epoch—a treasure even the Old Gods could not refuse;
As for the stone slab, it recorded that the founders had offered no stake at all. Instead, they had released some astonishing ancient beast, forcing the God of Night to surrender a small portion of his territory.
Of course, Shade believed that among "an interesting story,"