It's possible the figure-8 is used for both "d" and "s". In some scripts final-s and d are almost indistinguishable, so I suppose it's not impossible that someone might use the same shape for both. It's not the kind of thing that's common, but many things about the VMS are not common.
It's very very common for scribes to use two forms for "d" and they use them interchangeably (the looped and non-looped forms), so the "d" shape in oladaba8 (the fourth letter) might still be a "d" if 8 is used as both "s" and "d".
It's very very common for scribes to use two forms for "d" and they use them interchangeably (the looped and non-looped forms), so the "d" shape in oladaba8 (the fourth letter) might still be a "d" if 8 is used as both "s" and "d".