Other than the bare minimum of working out and practicing his mana exercises, Max spent all his time for the next three days holed up in the library, searching for information on all that he’d seen in Tom’s memory. It was frustratingly difficult to find anything about the appropriate era at all. In fact he likely wouldn't have had any luck if he hadn't already been given full access to the entire library at the Summoner Academy.

After running into dozens of dead ends and finding seemingly no mention of any Summoner who had ever been named Ancilla, much less an extremely talented one at that, Max remembered the glint in the man's eyes. On a hunch, he picked up a book that he had actually flipped through weeks before on notable villains—Reviled Challengers that had gone down in history as the worst of the worst. Ancilla’s expression had actually helped Max remember something odd he'd seen before in that tome.

What if the reason Ancilla wasn’t mentioned in history, was because that was not how he’d been known? What if history had given him a different name? Max had already gone down this route with notable heroic Challengers…but what if Ancilla had not died that way?

Sure enough, he found the entry in the book been thinking of. Where there had once been a name, it had been scratched away. But there were just enough impressions and hints of ink left for Max to imagine it had once spelled out "Ancilla." The entry was for Scorn the Ruiner.

Max blinked. He’d read about Scorn the Ruiner before, but there had never been any mention of the extremely dangerous, murderous man being a Summoner. In fact, now that he was going through library books again, cross-referencing other books on villains he'd read, none of the texts in the library actually mentioned Scorn the Ruiner's Path at all. One heavily implied that he was a necromancer or a dark mage of some kind. How strange, thought Max.

It took him another half a day of study, getting into some extremely old texts, dusty texts to be absolutely sure. He hadn’t been entirely convinced that Scorn the Ruiner and Ancilla, the incredibly talented Summoner, were the same person until, once again, more by luck, he happened across a drawing of the man. Max's breath caught. The drawing was of the man that Max had seen in his dream. It was definitely him, Max thought. He shook his head. So, I contracted with the remnant spirit that used to be with Scorn the Ruiner. Wow.

Max dove back into the history books, trying to find as much information on Scorn the Ruiner as he could, but he could locate was precious little. In fact, other than the general list of crimes the man had committed—such as arson, murder, attempted genocide–an entire page of evil deed—there wasn't much specific information on him.

I wonder why the fact he was a Summoner was scrubbed from all the records. Then he remembered what Ancilla had said during the dream, that he'd contracted multiple remnant spirits and seemed extremely confident in his power, perhaps even a bit arrogant. There was also the shadowy organization or people that the ancient headmaster had been afraid of. She never mentioned any names and despite Ancilla's confidence, even he had seemed wary of the unnamed group as well.

There was a strange pattern in the books that Max was reading. The majority of notable villains in the history of the universe had specific information recorded about them. But several were just like Scorn the Ruiner–almost everything about, especially their Path and powers was just…missing.

Max ultimately decided not to take down written notes. The white and the black dagger from his dream kept running through his head. He committed everything that he was learning to memory, which was luckily easier to do after contracting with Tom.

Finally, when Max was done with the library, blinking owlishly into the afternoon light as he left, he truly knew he had stumbled upon the edges of a dangerous secret.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

The spirits had warned him. At least he wasn’t surprised.

Max wasn't sure exactly what to do with the information he’d collected yet, but he felt like he had a solid lead on learning more about some of the mysteries surrounding the Summoner path and even the Quartet system in general. There was no way that someone as notable and reviled as Scorn the Ruiner should coincidentally have had their history scrubbed clean. It’d be like…if someone was trying to research Hitler on earth and could only find passages amounting to, “This was a bad person.”

There was another mystery around all of this, too. As Max understood it, for Tom the remnant spirit to have been in this Quartet should mean that Ancilla, Scorn the Ruiner, must have died here at some point too.

This seemed to be supported by the strange message that Max had gotten at the end of the dream, presumably from Tom. Tom was obviously not only divulging secrets but trying to tell him a story. At least that was Max's feeling about the matter.

In this first memory he'd been shown of Tom's old contractor, the Quartet, and about to begin his journey. As Max walked a concrete path in the academy back to his dorms, he muttered, "This almost feels like I'm watching the origin story for Darth Vader all over again, or something. It’s like I just met Anakin."

"What was that?" asked a second-year Summoner Academy student in surprise. Her eyes darted up. She saw who she was talking to and eeped.

Max quickly put his hands out and reassured her, "Nothing, nothing. I was just talking to myself, sorry."

But the woman said, "No, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," and walked away so quickly it could almost have been called a run.

Max remembered his friends telling him about his growing reputation in the quartet, and he realized that he truly had been living in a bubble lately. Other than his group combat class and going to the cafeteria, he almost never saw or spoke to other students at all. Since he had even more on his plate now, with researching the mysterious Ancilla on top of everything else he was doing, it probably wasn't smart to take even more on. But the desire to see other students and actually be a part of the academy a bit more suddenly grew, and Max quickened his step back to his dorm.

The moment he was inside, past the security golem, he detached his tablet from his wrist and began scrolling through the various classes that had been available at the beginning of the semester. Lavinia appeared at his elbow.

"Are you thinking about attending a class or two now?" she asked.

"Yup," said Max.

"Did you discover anything at the library?"

"Yup," responded Max.

"Are you going to tell me?"

"You could have read the book over my shoulder if you wanted to. And more importantly, I'm afraid to say it out loud."

Okay, then don't say it out loud, said Lavinia in his mind.

Max sighed and put down the tablet. “Okay, fine. I actually do need to tell you. It’d be nice if you’d read with me, though." In his mind space, he said, I discovered that the weird dream I had that wasn't a dream—that man named Ancilla—it turned out he was actually Scorn the Ruiner.

Lavinia gasped, and suddenly Saliron’s voice echoed through the shared mind space. That is a name I have not heard in a very long time! the dark spirit drawled. Oh yes, Scorn the Ruiner created many, many lovely bones, but also destroyed many. What a shame.

Max frowned. You knew Scorn the Ruiner? The man had definitely lived long before Max had been Chasa de Milo.

Oh no, not at all. But I knew of him. I was contracted to another at that time, after all.

Could you tell me what you know about him? asked Max.

Silurin's voice turned sly. Perhaps if you were to bribe me with some more delicious bones, I might be tempted to let a few things slip.

Max grunted and stood up. "Why the heck everything in my life a side quest all the time? You know what? It can wait. Whatever, never mind." Max stalked to his exercise room to practice some sword forms.

In his mind, Saliron spoke more quietly than before, saying, I am not that picky. Perhaps just a few more bones, just a nibble? Just a nibble-nibble?

"Fine. I'll give you some more bones later," Max responded out loud in exasperation.

Saliron crowed, I am victorious! When it comes to bones, I do not accept no for an answer! The spirit chuckled, Oh yes, one must become a master of negotiation in addition to raw power in order to secure the maximum number of bones.

Max muttered, "Is this Babadook-looking weirdo delusional?"

Saliron's echoing, creepy laughter in his head was filled with such confidence Max began to even question himself.