The chaos of the square was severed by a voice that didn't just carry—it commanded. "Enough!"
Sebastian stepped forward, his ink-black robes sweeping over the cracked earth. The villagers and the elves froze, the primitive heat of their hatred cooled by the sheer, freezing gravity of his presence. "You bicker like rats over a dry well," he said, his eyes scanning the mob. "I am Sebastian, a Dark Priest. A true agent of the Gods you have forgotten, the ones who actually hold the reins of this world."
The man with the pitchfork stammered, "A priest? Of what church? You look more like—"
"I look like the truth you are afraid to face," Sebastian interrupted. He held out his hands, the air shimmering with a faint, greenish hue. "Sit. Meditate. If you want to know why the sky is iron and the earth is dust, stop talking and listen to the name: Vinushka."
Wary and trembling, both humans and elves found their knees hitting the dirt. The authority in Sebastian's voice felt like a physical weight, an undeniable pressure from a higher plane. As they closed their eyes and whispered the name, the village square faded.
Suddenly, they were no longer in White Orchard. They stood in a primordial forest where the trees were taller than towers and the air hummed with raw, terrifying vitality. Before them loomed a presence—neither human nor animal, but the very essence of the Old God Vinushka.
The voice that spoke was not a sound, but the roar of a thousand falling trees. "You break the skin of the world," the deity thundered, its gaze piercing the souls of the mortals. "You poison the veins of the earth and expect it to offer its bounty? Nature provides nothing to those who only know how to take."
The vision shattered.
The villagers collapsed, gasping for air as if they had been underwater. The humans were paralyzed, their faces pale with a new, existential terror. Their "Eternal Fire" was a candle compared to the sun they had just witnessed; they were horrified to learn that their suffering wasn't a curse from "pointy ears," but a direct consequence of their own greed and desecration.
The elves, while shaken by the sheer power of the Old God, were the first to recover their wits. One of them looked at the shivering peasants and let out a sharp, bitter sneer.
"We told you, human," the elf spat, his voice trembling but triumphant. "Your gods are silent because they are fake. Now you've heard the voice of a real one—and he blames you."
Sebastian watched them, his expression unreadable. He had given them the truth; now he had to see if they were strong enough to walk the "Right Track" it demanded.
The defiance of the mob had evaporated, replaced by a frantic, shivering desperation. The man who had brandished a pitchfork now knelt in the dust, his knuckles white. "Priest... Sebastian," he stammered, the name Vinushka still ringing in his marrow like a funeral bell. "How do we appease Him? How do we regain the trust of a God who sees our very breath as a blight?"
Sebastian looked down at them, his expression as cold and clinical as a surgeon's. "You do not regain trust with gold or empty prayers to a silent flame," he said, his voice cutting through the whimpers of the crowd. "You regain it through understanding the mechanics of the world He built. Bring me two glass jars, two rats, two candles, and a single potted plant. Now."
The villagers scrambled, terrified of being slow to obey a man who carried a literal deity in his pocket. Within minutes, the items were placed upon a weathered stone table in the center of the square.
The humans huddled close, their breath hitching. The elves stood slightly back, their arms crossed, watching with narrow, vindictive eyes.
Sebastian moved with practiced grace. Into the first jar, he placed a lit candle and one of the frantic, scratching rats before sealing the lid tight. In the second jar, he did the same, but carefully tucked the small potted plant into the corner beside the rodent.
"Watch," Sebastian commanded.
The silence in the square was absolute. In the first jar, the candle flickered and died within a minute; moments later, the rat began to gasp, its tiny chest heaving before it slumped over, still. A collective gasp went up from the peasants.
But in the second jar, the candle remained a steady, golden point of light. The rat inside continued to sniff the air, seemingly unbothered.
"The air is the blood of the world," Sebastian declared, his finger tracing the glass of the second jar. "The fire of your industry and the breath of your lungs consume it. The flora—the trees, the grass, the green things you trample and burn—are the only things that breathe life back into it. They hold the moisture. They pull the rain from the sky."
He turned his gaze toward the surrounding hills, scarred by years of aggressive logging for war machines and Nilfgaardian fortifications.
"You cut more than you need. You skin the earth bare for profit and spite. You have choked the lungs of Vinushka, and now He has stopped breathing for you. The heat rises because there is no canopy to cool the soil. The rain disappears because there is no green to call it down."
The revelation hit the peasants like a physical blow. Several men literally facepalmed, the sheer, brutal simplicity of their error dawning on them. They had spent weeks praying for a miracle while they spent years sharpening the axes that caused the drought.
The elves didn't hide their reaction. A chorus of sharp, mocking sneers erupted from their group. The woman who had been shoved earlier stepped forward, her eyes bright with a cruel vindication.
"Our ancestors sang to the trees for a reason, you blind apes," she spat at the humans. "You called it 'backwards' and 'primitive.' Now look at you—begging a jar for a breath of air because you were too greedy to leave the forest standing."
Sebastian let the silence hang, the weight of the "Right Track" finally settling over White Orchard. He had shown them the science of the divine.