At first, it was subtle.
A fever swept through the village, leaving the young and the frail trembling in their beds.
Whispers of pestilence filled the air.
But just as despair seemed ready to swallow all...
a miracle arrived.
A wandering physician—an old man with sharp eyes and steady hands—appeared at the village gates.
He bore no banners, carried no flag, only worn boots and a weathered satchel.
Without asking for payment, he tended to the sick, mixing rare herbs and whispering prayers under his breath.
The fever broke.
Hope bloomed again.
Yet the troubles did not end.
The crops withered under an unrelenting, poisoned sun.
Locusts swarmed in numbers unseen before.
But then—
flocks of great birds, never before seen in these parts, descended from the skies.
They devoured the locusts with a ferocity born of desperation.
Fields breathed again, though scarred.
When wild beasts stormed from the forests, hunger driving them to madness,
a band of veteran hunters, armed and grim, arrived as if by divine decree.
They slew the predators, burned their corpses, and vanished once the threat was gone.
And when raiders, their eyes gleaming with violence, descended upon the village—
mercenaries, brutal and efficient, happened upon the scene.
They slaughtered the bandits, paraded their heads on spikes,
and spoke of bounties collected before riding off without a word.
Every disaster was met with salvation.
Every prayer answered.
Every hope seemingly justified.
Yet behind the miracles, an unseen thread wove them together.
The village, long forgotten by kingdoms and maps alike, had clung stubbornly to its devotion —
praying to Mercarius, the God of Trade and Fortune, through every season of drought and despair.
It was that forgotten faith, whispered over broken altars and crumbling shrines, that called the unlikely miracles to them.
The wandering physician, weary but skilled, was a man whose path had long been guided by Mercarius.
The band of hunters, grizzled and grim, had sworn their bows to the God of the Open Road — an ancient title of Mercarius.
Even the ruthless mercenaries, who seemed to appear from nowhere, bore old charms of the trade god around their necks.
Don, too — head bowed and heart worn thin — still clutched the tiny silver coin he had carried since his youth,
etched with Mercarius' forgotten sigil.
It was not power or might that saved them.
It was faith — small, stubborn, and persistent — that bought them a little more time.
Yet even faith has its limits.
Even the most fervent prayers cannot hold back the coming storm forever.
If one were to look closely...
they would see the strain in the smiles.
The tremble in the hands raised in prayer.
The unease in the air, thick and cloying.
For something watched.
Something vast and ancient, beyond the grasp of mortal minds.
Its gaze never wavered from the newborn boy.
And though the heavens fought valiantly to protect him—
they were only delaying the inevitable.