Basil is a really interesting place, it doesn’t seem much bigger than Paprika, but the differences are immediately obvious, the gray rocky terrain is immediately different from paprika’s grassy terrain, and trees are much more scarce, it’s also slightly colder. The buildings are made out of stone and their windows are very pronounced, and most of the roofs are green for some reason.

You can also hear some bards playing their music, it’s very pleasant to hear.

Me, Felix, and Aurora are impressed by the place, Timotei looks quite satisfied with our reactions, Antonia and her dad look relaxed now that they have finally reached civilization and Bianca is completely uninterested in the town.

“Welcome to basil, friends.” Timotei is smiling “I’ll guide everyone to my house so we can rest, then you’re free to explore basil, I’ll also take Octavius to get proper treatment.” He starts walking and we follow him.

Despite the cold and being so late in the day, there’s a surprising amount of people in the streets, I also notice some stores are open, the more important one is a blacksmith.

I’ll definitely start working on something soon.

After some walking, we finally arrive at a large house, it’s not the largest building we’ve seen so far, but I think it’s in the top 10.

“This is my uselessly large house” Timotei opens the door “There’s enough rooms to house all of us a few times over, so just pick whatever room you like.”

He then raises his voice, “I’m home!” shortly after that, a man comes from upstairs and then hugs Timotei. “Welcome!” after that they separate, and he notices us “And these people are?”

“Haha” Timotei laughs nervously “It’s a long story but they helped me, and because of some circumstances we have no money for the time being.”

The man gives Timotei a questioning stare “We have time.”

“Of course, I’ll tell you everything that happened, but first we need to give my friend Octavius some medical attention” Timotei points towards me “His arm is broken.”

The man sighs “Everyone enter first” we enter the house.

“Welcome, I’m Luca, you can make yourselves comfortable.” Luca is taller than I am, but shorter than Timotei, he uses glasses and doesn’t have any facial hair.

I look around, there’s some furniture but the house is mostly empty, Antonia looks slightly apologetic, Aurora is just sitting in a couch carelessly, Felix is also on the couch, but he looks slightly nervous, Bianca just looks bored out of her mind, Timotei and Anton are leading the cattle to somewhere, I suppose some kind of barn? Maria is looking at me but follows them obediently.

 And then Luca looks at me “First things first, let’s check your arm.” He takes me to another room.

* * *

Luca’s checking up my arm and taking some notes.

After that he starts drawing some symbols on my broken arm.

“What the hell happened to your arm?” Luca looks very perturbed, hey don’t scare me like that!

“It broke.”

“That’s obvious! But it also looks partially healed, I’ve never seen anything like this!”

…

That bitch!

“Is that bad?”

“I’ll need to keep checking you, but I’ll need you to tell me what happened.”

“… Bianca used a spell to partially heal me and shortly after that I formed my first pattern.”

Luca thinks for a moment and then says, “Is that one of the women in the group?”

I nod

“Can you call her here?”

I stand up and exit the room, everyone is sitting in the living room couch, making small talk.

Bianca is the closest to me, she looks at me and makes a smug smile…

You already knew this would happen, didn’t you?

*Bang! *

I shoot a <Steam cannon> right at her face, everyone jumps a little, but she didn’t even flinch.

“How rude!” Even if she’s saying this, Bianca still has her smug smile.

“Come here.” I’m not going to argue with her, I’m not in the mood, if she wants to come she’ll come anyway, and if she doesn’t I won’t be able to convince her anyway.

“Oh my~, someone put his big boy pants.” I feel she’s mocking me, but she does stand up and comes to the room anyway.

“So what do you want from me?” she sits on a chair, and I notice she’s not wearing any underwear. “I’ll kill you if you just waste my time on boring bullshit.”

Luca takes out a small statue “I’d like if you could show me the spell you used on his arm.” He’s using a respectful tone; it seems he’s noticed Bianca has 4 patterns.

“Hmm, fine.” Bianca makes a small hand movement “<Pain pain go away>.”

The statue glows a little “hmm, I see…”

Luca sighs “Your condition is much complicated than it seems at first.”

“What do you mean?” AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

“Your arm healed wrong; a complete recovery will be very difficult.” Luca has a solemn look.

“Hey wait a second!” Bianca looks actually mad! “I didn’t heal him that much! I can barely even heal!”

“It’s not because of your spell, it’s because he formed a pattern.” Luca explains “When you form a pattern your body strengthens at a fundamental level, but because this happened while Octavius arm was injured, his broken bones also strengthened, and became uneven.”

“W-what does this mean?” I’m scared now! I didn’t understand what he was saying but it can’t be good!

“It means that your forearm bones cannot reunite anymore, they’re too large for your arm now.” His face is dead serious.

“Is his arm… just fucked forever?”

“I didn’t say that, but this is something way beyond my level.” It isn’t permanent?

“There is one way…” Luca has a pensive look “I know an alchemist, they should be able to heal your arm without too many side effects, it’s not going to be

“Just say how much is it.” Bianca doesn’t seem to have much patience.

“Should be 50 golds.” Luca starts writing something “Here’s where they live.”

How am I supposed to make so much money!?