Darren approached Maida's hut with a small clay pot held carefully in his hands. Inside was the fruit of his secret labour: the thick, yellowish-brown paste he had painstakingly extracted. He found her grinding herbs, her movements methodical and ancient.
"Maida, I have created something," he said, placing the pot on her worktable. "A new remedy. For wounds that fester."
She paused, wiping her hands on her apron as she peered into the pot. Her nose wrinkled in distaste. "This is spoiled food, Kael. It is rotten. You want to put this on an open wound?" Her skepticism was a palpable force, a wall of tradition and common sense.
"The rot is what does the work," Darren explained, trying to simplify a concept that had taken his own world centuries to understand. "It fights the badness that makes wounds go sour."
"Nonsense," she scoffed, turning back to her work. "Cleanliness heals. Not filth."
Darren knew words wouldn't convince her. He needed proof. A few days later, opportunity provided. While helping to repair a broken fence panel at the orphanage, a sharp splinter drove deep into his palm. It was a minor injury, but he deliberately neglected it. As he knew it would, the area around the splinter became red, swollen, and painfully tender within a day.
He presented his hand to Maida. "The wound is festering," he stated simply.
She clicked her tongue. "I told you to be more careful. Come, I will make a poultice of sun-flecked moss to draw out the bad humours."
"No," Darren said, holding up his pot of penicillin. "Let me use this. If I am wrong, then tomorrow you can use your moss. But if I am right, the swelling will be gone."
Maida stared from his determined face to his inflamed hand, then to the foul-looking paste. Her curiosity warred with her revulsion. "Fine," she snapped. "Do your foolish experiment. It is your own hand you risk."
In front of her, Darren cleaned the wound with boiled water and then, using a clean leaf, applied a small amount of the penicillin paste directly to the inflamed area, covering it with a cloth bandage. The next morning, he returned and unwrapped the bandage. The change was dramatic. The angry redness had faded to a pale pink, and the swelling had vanished. The wound, which should have been worse, was clearly and rapidly healing.
Maida stared, speechless. She took his hand, turning it over, her rough fingers gently probing the area. It was not a coincidence. It was a result. A few days later, while chopping tough roots, her knife slipped, leaving a shallow but clean slice across her thumb. Before she could reach for her own remedies, she paused. With a grimace, she took Darren's pot and applied a tiny amount of the mold paste to her own cut. The next day, the wound was closed, clean, and free of the familiar sting of inflammation. She was shocked. It worked.
"This… mold juice of yours," she said to Darren later, the words tasting strange in her mouth. "It has power."
"It has many uses," Darren said carefully. "It can stop sickness before it starts."
She began to implement it, cautiously at first. For a child with an infected scrape, a farmer with a cut from a scythe, a woman with a burn that refused to heal—a dab of the strange paste was applied. And a quiet miracle began to spread through the village. The persistent, low-grade infections that plagued a society without antibiotics began to recede. People recovered faster. There was a subtle but definite improvement in the general health of the villagers, an undercurrent of vitality that, for Maida, was an unprecedented phenomenon.
Darren's next target was more personal. He brewed a special tonic for the orphanage's ailing matron. It was a complex mixture: a base of nutrient-rich bone broth, infused with herbs the AI had identified as having restorative properties, and a carefully measured dose of his penicillin to fight the chronic, underlying infection that was likely ravaging her weakened system.
He brought the jar to Sister Marta. "Maida suggested this," he lied, knowing the herbalist's endorsement was the only way she would agree. "She said it might help the Matron regain some strength."
Sister Marta, trusting and hopeful, began giving the elderly woman a spoonful of the tonic each day. The effect was not immediate, but within a week, it was undeniable. The matron, who had been a phantom confined to her room for months, began to sit up in bed. The rattling in her chest lessened. Then, one morning, she walked, albeit unsteadily, into the dining room and sat at the head of the table for breakfast. She was still a pale shadow of her former self, but she was present, her eyes clearer than they had been in years. She was better.
The day for the next expedition arrived. This time, the lead hunter greeted Darren with a nod instead of a grunt. He had earned a sliver of respect. As they ventured out, Darren's senses were on high alert, his mind a sponge for information. He noted animal tracks, memorized the locations of fresh water springs, and cataloged dozens of new plants with his AI.
The tranquility was shattered by a furious squeal from the undergrowth. A wild boar, its hide the colour of dark, dried blood, burst into the path. It was a beast of muscle and rage, tusks yellow and sharp. Before the hunters could fully react, it charged, catching one of the men in the thigh with a sweep of its head. The man screamed and went down, a dark torrent of blood instantly soaking his leather trousers. The other hunters dispatched the crimson boar with brutal efficiency, but the damage was done.
They carried the injured man back to the village, a grim procession moving as fast as they could. In her hut, Maida swiftly cut away the blood-soaked leather, revealing a deep, ragged gash. She began to wash away the blood with water.
"Wait!" Darren said, his voice sharp with authority. "Maida, use the mold paste. A lot of it, deep in the wound!" Then he turned to the other hunters. "Bring me every spare strip of cloth you have! We have to stop the bleeding!"
As Maida, her face set with grim focus, began packing the wound with the priceless penicillin, Darren took the strips of cloth. "Wrap it around his leg, above the wound," he commanded, his small voice cutting through the panic. "Tighter! As tight as you can pull it!" He was fashioning a crude tourniquet, applying direct, powerful pressure to the femoral artery. The torrent of blood slowed to a trickle, and then, blessedly, stopped.
The next day, while the hunter rested in a feverish but stable condition, Darren was in Maida's hut, helping her prepare more remedies. His eyes fell on a strange object in a dusty corner—a lumpy, dark grey mass. Curious, he picked it up. It was dense but yielded to the pressure of his fingers. It was squishy, yet firm. It reminded him of the vulcanized rubber and dense plastics of his old world.
"Maida, what is this?" he asked, holding it up.
She glanced over, dismissing it with a wave of her hand. "That? It's nothing. A useless byproduct. When you boil down the Grey Cap mushroom with river clay and ash, that is the gunk you are left with. It's no good for eating or for medicine. We throw it out."
Useless. The word echoed in Darren's mind. One person's trash was another's technology. "Can I have some?" he asked. "I want to see if I can do something with it."
"Take it all," she said, glad to be rid of the clutter.
Back in his lab, Darren set to work. The AI analyzed the substance's properties based on his descriptions. It was a primitive polymer. He began to experiment. He heated a small piece over the fire and found it became pliable, almost like putty. He stretched it, and it resisted, snapping back, though slowly. He tried mixing in different substances—more ash, a little oil—and found he could change its texture, making it firmer or more elastic. He realized, with a jolt of excitement that overshadowed even his penicillin discovery, what he was holding. It was a substitute. A substitute for rubber and plastic.
His first thought was of the hunter with the slingshot. An idea took root. He found a sturdy, Y-shaped branch and carefully carved it smooth. Then he took his new mushroom byproduct, warmed it until it was soft, and painstakingly rolled and stretched it into two long, elastic bands. He cut thin strips of leather for a pouch and attached the bands.
The result was amateurish at best. The bands were uneven, the attachments clumsy. But when he held it up, fitting a small stone into the pouch and pulling back, he felt the unmistakable, springy tension. The substance held its elastic nature. It worked. He let the stone fly, and it shot across the clearing, thudding into a tree with surprising force. He held the crude slingshot in his hand, a smile spreading across his face. It was more than a toy. It was a prototype. And it was just the beginning.