Chapter 13: The Prophet's Vindication
POV: Viktor
Consciousness returned to Viktor like a bucket of ice water thrown in his face, dragging him back from the gray void where pain lived as a physical entity. His head felt like someone had been using it for percussion practice, and the taste of copper filled his mouth—blood from where he'd bitten his tongue during the collapse.
The first thing he saw was Stregobor's face, hovering over him with the kind of smug satisfaction that belonged to chess masters who'd just achieved checkmate in three moves. The wizard's robes were pristine despite the carnage around them, not a single drop of blood marring the expensive fabric.
"Minor Mana Potion," Viktor mumbled, his hand fumbling for the crystal vial at his belt. The liquid burned going down, but it cleared the fog from his brain and brought his MP from zero to a pathetic 25 points.
[MANA RESTORED: 0 → 25]
[POTION EFFECT: MINOR MANA RESTORATION COMPLETE]
[MENTAL STRAIN: SEVERE - SYMPTOMS PERSISTING]
Stregobor had begun his speech while Viktor was unconscious, and the wizard's voice carried across the blood-soaked marketplace with the kind of theatrical authority that belonged to someone who'd practiced this moment for decades.
"—proven the girl's monstrosity beyond all doubt. The Witcher has chosen the lesser evil, as I knew he must. Princess Renfri's curse has been—"
The wizard stopped mid-sentence, his eyes scanning the crowd with growing confusion. Around the marketplace, Blaviken's citizens were murmuring among themselves, their faces showing bewilderment rather than the horrified understanding that Stregobor had clearly expected.
"Where is the child?" someone called from the crowd. "Where's Marilka?"
Viktor saw the exact moment when Stregobor's confident narrative began to crumble. The wizard's face went pale as he realized that a crucial piece of his carefully orchestrated drama was missing. There was no traumatized child to point an accusing finger at Geralt. No innocent victim to prove that Renfri's band had been as monstrous as prophecy claimed.
"The girl—" Stregobor started, then stopped, his gaze sweeping the marketplace as if Marilka might materialize through sheer force of will.
That's when they heard it: a child's voice, high and clear and absolutely furious, cutting through the morning air like a blade.
"LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT RIGHT NOW!"
The voice was coming from the direction of the abandoned tavern, and Viktor felt his heart sink as he realized what was happening. Marilka had heard the silence, had realized that whatever was supposed to happen in the marketplace was over, and was now trying to break down the cellar door from the inside.
"I'M HUNGRY AND I MISSED BREAKFAST AND IF YOU DON'T LET ME OUT THIS INSTANT I'M GOING TO TELL MY FATHER AND YOU'LL ALL BE SORRY!"
Viktor tried to sit up, tried to intercept the girl before she could reach the marketplace, but his body wasn't cooperating. The aftereffects of Temporal Sense had left him feeling like he'd been trampled by a very enthusiastic horse, and movement was still a negotiation rather than a command.
Marilka burst into the marketplace like a small, furious hurricane, her hair disheveled and her dress wrinkled from hours in the cellar. She took in the scene with the rapid assessment of someone who'd clearly missed something important: the blood on the cobblestones, the covered bodies, Geralt standing over Viktor with his sword still drawn.
Her gaze settled on Stregobor, and her young face twisted with the kind of rage that only children could achieve when they'd been kept from their morning routine.
"YOU!" she screamed, pointing an accusing finger at the wizard. "You're the monster! That prophet—" She gestured toward Viktor, who was still trying to convince his legs to work properly. "—he saved me! He locked me in the cellar so THEY couldn't kill me!"
Her finger swung toward the covered bodies of Renfri's band, and Viktor realized that from a ten-year-old's perspective, the situation was crystal clear: the scary men were dead, the wizard was standing over her rescuer looking smug, and someone was clearly the villain in this story.
"He told me to stay hidden no matter what I heard, and I stayed hidden, and I missed breakfast, and my stomach hurts, and you're all terrible people for making me wait so long!"
The crowd's murmur turned into a roar as Marilka's words sank in. Viktor watched the expressions around the marketplace shift from confusion to understanding to outrage, saw the moment when the citizens of Blaviken realized they'd been manipulated.
"The seer saved the girl?"
"Stregobor was going to use her?"
"Let the princess's men take a child hostage?"
Caldemeyn pushed through the crowd, his face thunderous as he processed what his daughter was saying. The alderman was a practical man who understood politics and power, and the implications of Marilka's testimony were hitting him like physical blows.
"You planned this," he said to Stregobor, his voice carrying the kind of quiet menace that belonged to fathers whose children had been threatened. "You were going to let them take my daughter."
"It was necessary," Stregobor replied, but his voice had lost its theatrical authority. "The greater good required—"
"The greater good required endangering a child?" Caldemeyn's voice rose, and Viktor could see other parents in the crowd nodding agreement. "Using my daughter as bait for your personal vendetta?"
The wizard looked around the marketplace, clearly searching for support that wasn't coming. The citizens of Blaviken were practical people who cared more about their children's safety than abstract concepts of prophecy and destiny. Stregobor's manipulation had backfired spectacularly.
"This man—" The wizard pointed at Viktor with a shaking finger. "—interfered with the natural order! He prevented the fulfillment of prophecy! He—"
"He saved a little girl," Caldemeyn interrupted. "While you were playing games with forces you couldn't control."
"I want you gone," the alderman continued, his voice carrying the weight of absolute authority. "Out of my town. Away from my people. And if I ever see you near my daughter again, prophecy or no prophecy, I'll have you hanged."
Stregobor's face went through a rapid series of expressions—shock, rage, disbelief, and finally something that might have been fear. The wizard had spent decades building his reputation in Blaviken, cultivating the kind of respect that came with being the town's protector against supernatural threats. To have it all collapse in a matter of minutes was clearly not part of his plan.
"You don't understand," he said desperately. "The chronomancer—he'll doom us all!"
Viktor's blood froze as the wizard's gaze fixed on him with the kind of intensity that suggested Stregobor knew more about his abilities than he'd previously revealed.
"Time magic!" Stregobor continued, his voice taking on the hysterical edge of someone whose carefully constructed worldview was collapsing. "Forbidden since the First Landing! He'll tear the Continent apart with his meddling!"
But the crowd wasn't listening anymore. They'd seen their children threatened, their trust betrayed, and their town turned into a battlefield for the sake of one man's obsession. Whatever Viktor might be, whatever powers he might possess, he'd saved Marilka while Stregobor had been willing to sacrifice her.
The wizard seemed to realize that his position had become untenable. With a snarl of rage and frustration, he raised his hands and spoke words that made the air itself recoil. Reality bent around him like heated glass, and then he was gone—teleported away in a flash of sickly green light that left the marketplace smelling of ozone and sulfur.
Viktor watched him disappear and felt something that might have been relief. Stregobor was gone, discredited and exiled, his prophecy revealed as the manipulation it had always been.
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: FIRST BLOOD]
[Survived first major combat encounter]
[REWARDS: +0.3 AGILITY, +0.2 STRENGTH, 100 SYSTEM POINTS]
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: UNTOUCHABLE]
[Avoided 100+ lethal attacks using precognitive abilities]
[REWARDS: +0.6 AGILITY, +0.4 STRENGTH, 200 SYSTEM POINTS]
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: DESTINY'S INTERLOPER]
[Successfully altered a major prophetic event]
[REWARDS: +0.5 MAGIC, +0.5 AGILITY, 500 SYSTEM POINTS]
[STATS UPDATED]
[STRENGTH: 1.5 → 1.9]
[STAMINA: 10.0 (NO CHANGE)]
[AGILITY: 2.2 → 3.7]
[MAGIC: 0.5 → 1.5]
[HEALTH POINTS: 15 → 19]
[MANA POINTS: 100 (NO CHANGE)]
[SYSTEM POINTS: 65 → 865]
Viktor stared at the cascade of notifications, his exhausted brain struggling to process the magnitude of what had just happened. He'd done it. Against all odds, against destiny itself, he'd actually changed the story. Renfri was alive, wounded but breathing. Stregobor was disgraced and exiled. The Butcher of Blaviken was still just Geralt of Rivia.
He looked up to find Geralt studying him with an expression that defied easy categorization. The Witcher's amber eyes held confusion, respect, and something that might have been gratitude, all mixed together in a way that suggested the man behind the mutations was having trouble processing what he'd witnessed.
Near the fountain, Renfri sat slumped against the stone, her hand pressed to the wound on her shoulder. She was pale from blood loss but alert, her green eyes fixed on Viktor with an intensity that made him uncomfortable.
"Did I..." Viktor's voice came out as a croak, barely audible over the crowd's continued murmur. "Did I actually do it?"
Geralt helped Renfri to her feet with surprising gentleness, the same hands that had dealt death moments before now offering support to someone who should have been his enemy. The princess leaned against him, not from affection but from necessity, her body still processing the shock of being alive when she'd expected to die.
"You changed something," Geralt said quietly, his words meant for Viktor alone. "Whether that's a good thing or not... we'll have to see."
Around them, the citizens of Blaviken were beginning to disperse, returning to their lives with the kind of determined normalcy that came after witnessing events too large to fully comprehend. The marketplace would be cleaned, the blood would be scrubbed away, and life would continue.
But nothing would ever be quite the same.
Viktor closed his eyes and let the system notifications wash over him, feeling the weight of achievement and the terror of consequence in equal measure. He'd rewritten destiny, changed the course of events that were supposed to be immutable.
Now he had to live with whatever came next.
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