Word of Clive’s success began to spread. The morning sun had barely crept over the horizon when the first knocks came at Lucia’s door. By the time Clive stepped outside, a crowd had gathered in the streets. There were dozens of desperate faces, many bearing the gray patches of the stone curse.

  "Please," a farmer thrust his stone-covered arm forward. "They say you healed the blacksmith's girl. That you can work miracles with colors and pigments."

  "Is it true?" A young woman cradled a baby whose tiny feet had turned to granite. "Can you help us?"

  The crowd pressed closer. Clive saw the curse's progression in various stages—fingers, hands, limbs transformed into unyielding stone. An elderly man, half his face already transformed, reached out with his remaining hand. "I have grandchildren who still need me. Please..."

  "My wife and child," a merchant choked back tears, showing his stone-encrusted chest. "They can’t survive without me. Please, you have to help us."

  Clive stepped backwards, feeling overwhelmed by the crowd. He wasn’t used to this level of attention.

  "BACK!" Garrett's voice thundered as he pushed through the crowd. "Give the man room to breathe!"

  Clive was glad to see Garrett here, finding familiarity in this uncomfortable situation.

  The blacksmith positioned himself between Clive and the desperate faces. "I know it's much to ask. But these people, they're farmers who feed us, craftsmen who build our homes, mothers raising our future. The curse spreads faster each day." He met Clive's eyes. "You're the first real hope we've seen."

  Clive studied the desperate faces in the crowd. In his old world, his art had been dismissed as worthless. Now, his brush could improve the lives of others. That realization brought him satisfaction. "I'll help. All of them."

  The crowd cheered. Garrett raised his voice to address them. "Form a line! Worst cases first. Anyone who can't wait their turn peacefully can find help elsewhere."

  The crowd shuffled into a winding queue that stretched past Lucia’s workshop and around the corner. Some supported family members who could barely walk, and others carried children. The sheer scale of it intimidated him.

  But another familiar voice from the crowd brought him relief.

  “I’ll help too.” Emma emerged from the crowd with a wooden stool, a pitcher of water, and a stack of clean rags. "I can wash their stone parts first, so you’ll have a clean surface."

  Lucia appeared in her doorway, arms full of recovery tonics. "And I'll handle the aftercare. The transformation takes a toll on their bodies."

  Clive looked at the line stretching down the street, then at his friends ready to work beside him. He pulled out his palette. There was work to do."

  [New Quest: The art that heals]

  [Objective: Cure 50 afflicted townspeople]

  [Reward: 1 Certainty Point]

  "Next," Clive called, wiping sweat from his brow. The morning sun had climbed higher, but the line seemed endless.

  A young mother stepped forward, carrying a child whose legs had turned to stone. "Please," she whispered, "he can't walk anymore."

  Clive studied the stone pattern carefully, noting how it spiraled up the boy's calves. He mixed his paints to match the child's sun-tanned skin.

  "This might feel funny," he told the wide-eyed boy. "Like butterflies landing on your legs."

  [Mix: Restoration]

  His brush moved in swift strokes. The stone surface softened, color bleeding back into dead-white granite. The boy giggled as feeling returned to his toes.

  "Thank the gods," the mother sobbed, as her son took his first steps in weeks.

  An elderly farmer came next, his right arm petrified. Then a merchant with stone creeping up his neck. One by one, Clive mixed colors and painted life back into stone.

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  Several patients pressed coins into his hands afterward.

  'Please, take this,' a grateful mother insisted. “It’s not much, but it’s all we can afford.”

  Clive shook his head, gently closing her fingers around the money. Due to his [Artistic Purist], any tip would only end up going to Certainty as heavenly tribute. He would rather the townsfolk keep their hard-earned money to themselves.

  By midday, his brush hand was cramping, but the line still stretched around the corner. Emma brought him water and lunch, while the blacksmith kept order in the crowd.

  "Rest a moment," Garrett urged, seeing Clive's fatigue. "You've helped more people today than all the healers combined."

  “I can still keep going,” Clive protested. “As long as the people need help, my brush will never stall.”

  Next was a gaunt woman, pushing what appeared to be a life-sized statue.

  "My husband," she said, voice breaking. "It happened overnight. Please..."

  Clive examined the statue carefully. The man's face was frozen in fear, arms raised as if warding off something. But the stone was uniform gray. No hint of the original skin tone remained.

  "I... I need to know what he looked like," Clive explained. "The color of his skin. Without that—"

  "He was fair, like me." The wife grabbed Clive's wrist. "With ruddy cheeks from working outdoors."

  But such descriptions were too vague for him. ‘Fair like her’ could mean anything. Ivory, beige, wheat. And ruddy, from sun or wind or natural flush? He'd studied a hundred variations of skin tones. Describing them in words was impossible.

  His experiments with Lucia yielded the same result every time. Without an exact match, complete petrification left nothing to restore.

  Nevertheless, seeing the woman in front of him, Clive felt that he should at least make an effort. He mixed a few colors to match the woman’s skin tone, and attempted a test patch on the statue's hand. The paint glowed briefly but faded, leaving only lifeless stone.

  [Restoration Failed: Unknown Original Configuration]

  "I'm sorry," he whispered. "The curse... it's progressed too far. I need to see at least some trace of the original flesh to restore it properly."

  The woman collapsed against the statue, sobbing.

  The days fell into a gentle rhythm.

  Each morning, Clive would set up his stool outside the forge, mixing paints as the afflicted gathered. His reputation grew, and soon he was curing all sorts of afflictions, not only those of stone. People traveled from neighboring villages, in hopes of meeting the famed miracle healer. The line never seemed to end, but neither did his determination to help.

  An elderly man hobbled forward, heavily cloaked despite the warm morning. When he drew back his hood, several onlookers stepped away instinctively. His face was a landscape of damaged tissue. His nose was partially collapsed and skin mottled with patches of discoloration and scarring.

  "I understand if you refuse," he said quietly, keeping his distance from Clive. "I've tried everything else. Herbs, prayers, even a traveling healer. But when I heard about how you saved the blacksmith’s daughter..."

  Clive studied the man's face intently, not flinching away as others had. This was different from the stone curse yet Clive wondered if the same principles would apply. Using [Artist’s Eyes], he identified the natural pigmentation of healthy skin hidden beneath his scarred face.

  [Mix: Restoration]

  Clive's brush moved. First addressing the deepest tissue damage, then working outward, each stroke restoring what had been lost. Color bloomed beneath his brush, bringing healing as the old man’s flesh remembered its original form.

  When he finished, the man touched his restored face with awe. "My grandchildren," he whispered. "They'll finally let me hold them again."

  Next was a young woman who stepped forward with hopeful eyes as she guided her son to Clive’s stool. The boy’s skin was beaded with sweat despite the cool morning air.

  "The fever's been burning him for days," she explained, stroking the child's hair. "I heard you could heal with paint... Could you help us please.”

  Clive knelt before the boy but was unsure how to proceed. He mixed his paints in the usual routine to match the boy’s skin but as his brush touched the boy's burning skin, the paint simply settled like any ordinary pigment.

  He tried again with a different mixture. Each attempt left only streaks of paint that wiped away with a cloth.

  [Restoration Failed: Target Unchanged]

  No transformation detected. Subject's natural coloration intact.

  Clive shook his head. It seemed that his magic would only work on ailments that exhibited visible symptoms.

  Lucia came over after treating another patient. “Well, if you’re magic doesn’t work, then we’ll have to treat this the good old-fashioned way.” She pressed her palm to the boy's forehead, then held a vial to his lips.

  "Willow bark and feverfew," she told the mother. "Three drops every hour until the heat breaks." She produced two more vials from her belt. "Keep him cool with damp cloths. If the fever spikes again before morning, send for me."

  The boy's breathing steadied. His mother guided him down the street, one hand supporting his shoulder, the other securing the medicine in her pocket.

  The crowd had thinned to a handful of patients when the clatter of hooves on cobblestone made everyone turn. Two guards in Thornwald colors rounded the corner, their spears catching the late afternoon light.

  "Make way," the lead guard announced.

  The remaining patients scattered to the edges of the street. A black carriage followed the guards, its wheels grinding against the stones.

  "Lord Thornwald arrives."

  The Pictomancer treats affliction as a portrait painter might approach a damaged canvas, studying what remains to divine what was. His failures reveal more than his successes: transformation of the flesh he can reverse, but corruption of the blood remains beyond his brush. I have watched him restore stone to skin a hundred times, yet when fever burns or poison spreads, he can only step aside. Perhaps all healing is like this, knowing not just what we can mend, but accepting what we cannot.

  —Lucia Thornwald, Observations of The Pictomancer, Entry XIV