The illness finally passed after more than two months. Once it was gone, the constant sense of exhaustion and occasional bout of pain did not subside. It didn’t kill me, but it certainly didn’t make me any stronger. At times, the only thing preventing me from taking drastic action was the knowledge that Thale Feldrast survived to adulthood.

By the point that I had come down with the illness, I hadn’t done anything that the original wouldn’t have done. If the illness was truly lethal, then the original Thale Feldrast would have died before the game started.

I was soon able to stand and walk around on my own, though the process was very tiring. If I were to walk from one side of Feldrast Manor to the other, I would be out of breath by the time I reached my destination.

Between bouts of illness and thousands of other events I had to deal with, I had learned to read Common just before my second birthday.

[Observe Lvl. 5 → Lvl. 7]

Most of my early childhood passed like that. I spent several years voraciously poring through the books in the library, practicing basic transmutation magic, and sitting through boring lessons on etiquette with my mother and diplomacy with my father. Though I resisted mightily, the lessons sank in, and I soon found myself always eating with the right fork and bowing when dictated by custom. Something about the child’s brain I inhabited caused the noble education to really stick.

Soon after my fifth birthday, I was forced to go to school with other wealthy children in the town. I was able to alleviate my boredom somewhat by advancing through the curriculum as fast as possible. Within a year, I had convinced the teachers and my parents to advance me up to the 5th year of education, which meant I was halfway done with that pointless Medieval curriculum they were determined to put me through.

Through all of this, the memory of the two lines and structural formulae written on a scrap of paper faded. It was only when, soon after my sixth birthday, my family was just about to leave on a trip outside of town that I remembered to check that book once more.

Spring, 621 CA

It was the morning of a big day, and the other residents of Feldrast Manor were frantic with preparation. Armond was looking over the legal documents to make sure everything was in order, Melissa and my two sisters were loading the carriages, Walter was looking after the horses, and my mother was busy watching the fourth and final Feldrast child. He was too young to go on the trip, so he and my mother would stay behind.

Everyone was busy, so there was no one to stop me from wandering around the manor. I immediately walked over to the library in my small formal attire and specially made cane that I had to lean against when I stood for too long. The clothes they had jammed me in made me look like a miniature version of my father.

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Once I had arrived at the library, I immediately looked for the book in which I had hidden the drawings I had made more than a year before. Now that I could read the book, I knew that its title was History of Foreign Influence in Yomotsu.

The book could be pertinent at some point, I thought. I suspected that my journey would eventually take me to Yomotsu, though it was on the other side of the world. The trip to Yomotsu from the Northern Realms was incredibly dangerous, and it would take several months to make it there even if everything went well.

I slipped the piece of parchment out of the book’s cover. Those two lines of text were still written at the top of the page. Slowly, letter by letter, I translated the runes into their approximate English equivalents and wrote the letters down with the fountain pen I produced from my pocket. I had maintained a death grip on the pen for long enough that my parents just let me keep it. Sorry, Walter. Once I was done transcribing, I moved my head back from where I had placed the parchment on the ground and read the sounds out loud.

ᚬᚭᛢᚯᛛᚧᚯ ᚣᛔ (skydda henne)

ᚬᚩᛩᚸ (behaga)

“Protect her, please,” I said out loud in Common. My own voice surprised me. Though the voice had the pitch of a young child, it carried the tone and cadence of an adult.

I briefly considered the implications of the words as I hid the scrap paper back in its original hiding place. The voice spoke to me the first time I had seen Miriam. My first guess would be that “her” meant Miriam in this context, but I couldn’t be sure. I had already met five people who “her” could potentially refer to.

Soon after, I returned to the entrance foyer with a book under my arm. It was called the Tale of Lothar the God of Judgment. The book had many colorful pictures and little information.

There was no one in the foyer when I arrived, so I just sat on the ground and waited. I looked around the large red room and noticed that someone had installed a large mirror since the last time I had been there.

In the mirror, I saw a rather severe looking child. Cold, intelligent red eyes looked back at me. Perhaps it was because I knew an adult’s mind resided behind those eyes, but I got the sense that the toddler was inspecting me, collecting information and looking for anything he could use to his advantage. No matter how much I tried to conceal it, my true nature could be seen in my eyes.

[Observe, Lvl. 6]

Name: Thale Feldrast

Class: Noble

Level: 3

HP: 4 (2+2d6-6)

MP: 94 (14+2d10+8+60)

Fortitude: 3

Strength: 2

Agility: 3

Intelligence: 18

Willpower: 15

Charisma: 10

Talents: [Hellfire], [Observe]

There it was: my second biggest problem. I had been aware of my unnaturally high MP, [Intelligence], and [Willpower] for about a year by that point. On my tenth birthday in about four years, a mage was going to show up and use [Observe] on me unless I did something to stop it. My Talents would be revealed, but so would my [Intelligence] and [Willpower]. These stats were incredibly high for a fully grown adult, let alone a ten-year-old.

I shook my head to free myself of those thoughts as Melissa and Walter arrived in the foyer. I had more than five years to solve the problem. Everyone who lived in Feldrast Manor had arrived in the foyer within a few minutes.

“Okay, everyone,” Armond said as he entered the foyer. “Everything’s ready. We’re off to Etron.”