With tools in hand, I thought about what I was going to do next. I had one slip of paper, so there was a limit to what I could write down. In my heart of hearts, I wanted to just start writing English words on the page until both sides were completely filled, but that would be a mistake. To begin with, I didn’t know when I would get another chance to write down my thoughts, and it would probably freak my parents out if their baby started writing notes in a language that no one on the planet spoke.
After thinking about it for a minute, I grasped the fountain pen in my fist and brought it down toward the paper. With broad, clumsy strokes, I wrote two lines at the top of the paper.
ᚬᚭᛢᚯᛛᚧᚯ ᚣᛔ (skydda henne)
ᚬᚩᛩᚸ (behaga)
If my memory was to be believed, these were the runes that had appeared in my vision when the unknown voice had spoken to me on that first day. I still had no idea what it meant. By that point, I had picked up enough Common that I would probably understand what the voice had said if I were to hear it again. Unfortunately, I could not remember the words at all. I had always been much better at remembering things I had seen than things I had heard. If I didn’t write down someone’s name immediately after hearing it, I would completely forget it. [Observe] was a real blessing for me, then. Once I had gleaned someone’s name with [Observe], I wouldn't forget it easily.
Leaning back to really appreciate my work, I saw that most of the slip of parchment was still empty. It would have been a waste to leave it there, I thought. I tapped the pen to my head as I considered what else I should write. An idea came to me, and I started scribbling once more.
Once I was done, the structural formula for amoxicillin had been scrawled across the rest of the page. It had a complicated structure, so there was no space left on the slip of paper by the time I had finished scribbling. Amoxicillin was an antibiotic within the penicillin family. It was used to fight infections, and I had prescribed amoxicillin a thousand times throughout my career.
Penicillin revolutionized medicine on Earth when it was invented. If I could figure out how to synthesize it in Ferrum, it would do the same here.
The benefit of transcribing amoxicillin in this form was that, to the average Ferrum denizen who knew nothing of organic chemistry, the structural formula looked like a child’s random scribbling.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Realizing that there was still a back to the slip of parchment, I flipped it over. I figured that I should write another structural formula. It was possible that I could forget these formulae in the coming years, so it would be good to write them down when my memories of Earth were still fresh.
My hand started scribbling before I fully realized what I was writing. When my hand stopped moving, I looked down and realized what I had drawn. Upon the paper, I had drawn the structural formula for sarin gas.
A stark realization washed over me as I looked down at the structural formula. For all the sins committed and damage done by the original Thale Feldrast, I was capable of much worse. I thought of the dozens of deadly poisons and chemical weapons that laid in wait within the darkest corners of my mind. Poisons that could kill without leaving a trace, drugs that could transform the most devout monk into a slavish addict with one hit, and chemical weapons that could kill thousands of men within minutes all existed within my mind. The worst part of it all was that, if my memory of transmutation magic was accurate, all these terrible weapons could be synthesized with an arcane symbol and a few magic words.
Blinking the images of potential futures away, I refocused my young eyes on the slip of parchment in front of me. The structural compound for sarin was offensively simple, so there was plenty of space left on the paper for me to draw another compound.
I held my pen back, however. The reality of the terrible tools I could create with a few chemicals and a few magic words had put me in a contemplative mood. I placed the cap back on the fountain pen and hoisted my infant body into a seated position.
Two lines of text and two hexagonal drawings had been written upon the parchment. I crossed my arms in front of me, closed my eyes, and wondered how my parents would react if I were to show them this piece of paper. By showing this, I would be skirting the line between precocious genius and demon-possessed baby in their minds.
The lines of text were explainable as mimicry. My caretakers would assume that I had seen the words and written them down without knowing what they meant. In fact, that was exactly what I had done. This course of action would also be the quickest way for me to learn what those words meant. An adult would surely read the text out loud if they saw it.
Developmentally speaking, however, a child wouldn’t start doodling until they were at least a year old. I would be about six months early. To a developmental specialist, this behavior would be strange to say the least.
With those thoughts in mind, I decided to hide the parchment for the time being. I would just have to come back and decipher the words on the page once I had learned the alphabet.
I carefully slid the piece of paper behind the cover of the most boring-looking book I could find on the bottom shelf. Once I had finally managed to return the book to its shelf, I sat back and stared at the capped pen I held in my hand like a highly valued treasure.