The Lost Son

— lucky blue smith

Midnight Mercenaries Prompt #1

Dicenne's Perspective

The Lightbloom immediately resisted their intrusion, Dicenne felt it the moment he crossed beyond the safety of Runestone Shan’dor, where the iridescent shimmer of its barrier faded behind him. He pulled a handkerchief up over his nose and mouth, securing it in place as spores drifted thick through the air, breathing that in seemed like a terrible idea. Beneath his boots, the ground did not feel like ground at all, but something softer. Something that shifted faintly, as if disturbed by his weight. It didn’t take long for the creatures of the Lightbloom to find them, and he did not hesitate.

Steel rang softly as he drew his sword, shield already raised as something moved ahead, a twitch of limbs, a creak of bark. The first of the florafaun lunged from the overgrowth, all jagged vines and snapping tendrils. Dicenne met it head-on. The impact jolted through his arm as his shield slammed into it, knocking it back just long enough for his blade to carve cleanly through its core. 

Another came from the side, and he didn’t even look. His shield snapped out behind him, catching it mid-lunge with a *crack* before pivoting through the motion and driving his sword up and under in a brutal thrust that split it apart. A third tried to wrap his leg, he stamped down hard enough to pulp the vine beneath his boot.

“Help!”

The voice was weak, buried somewhere beneath the ruin of what had once been a home. Dicenne turned immediately, scanned, then moved. The structure had been split open from below, bamboo erupting through its foundation and tearing it apart. One side had collapsed entirely, leaving beams and stone piled in a jagged heap. Beneath it, there was movement.

He was already there, sheathing his sword for a moment to grip a fallen support beam. Muscles strained and shoulders tightened as he braced his stance, and then he pulled. The wood groaned in protest before splintering free, wrenched aside with a force that sent debris scattering. Another beam followed, then stone, then a section of wall that should not have moved at all, and yet it did, dragged aside under sheer strength. Something snapped somewhere in the structure with a sharp crack that suggested he absolutely should not have done that, but it was too late now.

A hand reached out from the wreckage.

“I’ve got you.” He carefully cleared enough space first despite the urgency pressing in from all sides. When he finally reached in, his grip was firm but gentle, easing the wounded elf free from the debris that had pinned them. They cried out, but they were alive. 

Something screeched behind him. He didn’t turn, just shifted, bracing the survivor against his chest with one arm as his other hand snapped out, grabbing his sword off instinct. The creature that lunged met the flat of his blade first, deflected, then immediately the edge on the return as he cut it down without ever fully turning his attention away from the person he was pulling free. He sheathed the sword again in one smooth motion before he lifted the survivor into his arms. “Stay with me.”

The path back was not easy. More creatures moved in the ruins: florafaun, Ruutani, things that had possibly once been people. That was alarming. But Dicenne did not slow. He shifted the survivor’s weight with ease, keeping them secure against him as his shield came up again. The next creature that lunged was met with brutal force, his shield smashing into it hard enough to send it reeling, and ending it with the sharpened edge.

Another tried to flank him. He pivoted, drove his shoulder into it like a battering ram, and sent it sprawling before stomping its head into the dirt hard enough that it didn’t get back up. Something else leapt from above, and he drove up into it with his shield, catching it midair and smashing it aside hard enough to send it hurtling into a wall, caving in part of the already-ruined structure.

Again, and again, he did not waste any motion. He carved a path through the Lightbloom while carrying the living, until at last the shimmer of the barrier came into view once more. To safety, or what should have been. He crossed back through Runestone Shan’dor and slowed, lowering the wounded carefully as others moved to take them. There was relief in that moment, as fleeting as it was. Then he turned back, because there were more to help.

He lost count of how many trips he made. Back and forth, in and out of the Lightbloom. Sometimes with the assistance of other crew members, sometimes on his own. Each time, more survivors, more second chances.

He carried those who could not walk. He cut others free from vines that tried to claim them, once ripping a root clean out of the ground when it refused to let go. He tore open collapsed homes with his bare hands when there was no other way, once bracing a full doorframe on his back to hold it long enough for two civilians to crawl out beneath him before he let it crash behind them.

His body became a tool of purpose, strength and endurance pushed without hesitation, because there was no room for anything else.

Until…

He stepped back through the barrier again, another wounded woman in his arms and stopped. For the first time since entering the Lightbloom, Dicenne just stared.

Fire. Everywhere.

Tents burned in ragged patches across the camp, canvas collapsing in on itself as flames devoured them. Figures ran, some living, some very much not, engulfed in fire, their movements erratic and violent as they crashed into anything in their path. Others stood frozen in jagged sculptures of ice, caught mid-lunge, frost clinging to them in thick layers like aggressive lawn decorations. Smoke choked the air, mixing with that same sickening sweetness until it turned the whole scene into something surreal.

His expression did not soften, but it didn’t sharpen either. It simply settled into a very clear: What the actual fuck.

Somewhere to his left, something exploded. Not metaphorically, actually exploded. He blinked slowly, the woman in his arms stirred weakly. He moved again, already stepping toward the nearest unburned stretch of ground where a shaken survivor stood, wide-eyed and unsure.

“Take her,” Dicenne said, voice low but firm as he transferred the woman into their arms. His gaze flicked once toward the chaos nearby. “Get to another camp. One that isn’t on fire.” A burning corpse sprinted past behind him at that exact moment, shrieking, “…Preferably immediately.” There was no time to wait for a response, he was already turning back and diving in.

A frozen plant-creature stood directly in his path, locked in place by thick encasements of Kai’s ice work. Dicenne grabbed the thing by the shoulder and drove it down, smashing it against the ground with enough force to shatter the frost and the creature in the same motion. Ice cracked, bark splintered, and the thing broke apart beneath him into a pile of frozen debris. 

A scream cut through the chaos, and he pivoted instantly. Kaisina. A burning, thrashing plant-thing had her, brambles digging into her arms and flames catching her sleeves. Dicenne closed the distance in a heartbeat. His shield came up first, not defensively, but violently, slamming into the creature’s face with a crack that staggered it backward hard enough that something inside it audibly snapped. The grip on Kai loosened just enough.

That was all he needed. The edge of his shield flashed with a single, vicious arc and the thing’s head tumbled free, the body collapsing where it stood with flames still clinging to it as it hit the ground. Dicenne stepped in immediately, his cloak already in motion as he patted out any lingering flames on her sleeves.

“You good?” He waited a beat, just long enough to confirm she wasn’t actively on fire anymore. When she nodded, he pushed her towards the healer’s tent and was already moving again.

The camp had become a battlefield, but Dicenne was doing his best to turn it into something more controlled. He hunted the burning dead, one by one. Each time, the approach was the same, there was no time to waste. A shield strike to stagger, a blade to finish. Sometimes he used the sharp edge of the shield itself, slicing heads, limbs, or vines cleanly in one swift movement. Bodies fell and flames followed. Each one he took the time to smother so the fire couldn’t spread any further than it already had.

One lunged and he sidestepped, grabbed it by the arm and used it to slam into another. The two tangled together long enough for him to cut through both in a single, savage follow-through. Another tried to grab him from behind, he drove his elbow back into it hard enough to cave in its chest before turning and finishing it with a vicious strike.

A figure broke free from the chaos, fully engulfed in flame, and sprinting wildly toward the edge of camp. Right toward another cluster of tents that had not yet caught. Dicenne didn’t chase, but instead he picked up a discarded axe from nearby, and in one smooth motion, he turned, and threw. The weapon spun end over end and buried itself in the back of the creature’s head with a heavy impact. It dropped instantly, skidding across the dirt in a trail of sparks before going still.

“Nope,” he muttered under his breath, already turning away, “we are not spreading that.” He was already moving toward the next.

Around him, the others fought in their own ways. Rynga was a force of nature, somehow still working to mend the wounded while driving back anything that got too close. Her voice carried through the chaos in a string of unrelenting curses in her native tongue that honestly might have been doing damage on their own for anyone who understood. Naralinthe stood firm at the edge of the medical space, shield raised, and blade moving with precision as she held the line. At least they weren’t adding to the chaos.

Through the smoke and fire, Dicenne caught sight of Nahilvi dragging herself free from the wreckage of a collapsed green tent. She looked disheveled, but at least alive and not terribly injured from what he could see. More fire immediately caught on the tent behind her the moment she exited, because of course it did. Murphy’s Law. 

Not far from her, Sheizara and Garren sprinted past in the opposite direction, both looking like drowned rats as they hauled burning supplies into the river with the kind of urgency that suggested they were very aware of how bad this had gotten, and possibly that they had something to do with it. Garren nearly slipped on a patch of ice…again. Dicenne sighed. A hot mess. He briefly wondered what Talon’s reaction was going to be, they would all be witnessing that soon enough. The members of the camp were all just doing their best, but there was definitely a lesson to be learned here about what not to do. Some of them were still just novices in their craft, but at least many of those in the mender’s tent knew how to fight and were all actively trying to stop the camp from being infested and/or burnt to the ground. They would get through this. His gaze flicked towards his own tent which was still standing, and most notably not on fire. A small win, and he planned on keeping it that way.

By the time the last of the burning plant-creatures fell, the camp was still smoldering, but no longer overrun. Dicenne stood at the center of it, chest rising and falling steadily, cloak damp and streaked with ash, water, and probably blood. The fires were being handled. The wounded, at least those who could still be saved, were being tended. Somewhere, something else caught fire. He slowly turned his head to look at it, sighed, then looked back at the rest of the camp.

At the damage. At the people. At the remnants of what had just happened. And for a second time, that same look crossed his face: What the actual fuck.

Strange sounds caught her ear from beyond the river. Whatever horror had happened in Suncrown Village had clearly happened fast enough to take everyone by surprise. Sheizara was glad there was a river and some distance in between the magically overgrown Lightbloom and their camp, and that they were upwind more often than not. The sticky-sweet scent of sap, decomposition and decaying plant matter that occasionally blew into camp was enough to make her stomach turn.

She wasn't nearly as cute when she was sick. Choosing to stay in Camp instead of venturing into that horror show had been the best idea.

It hadn't taken long for the advance wave of their frontline folks to start sending walking wounded back through the safety of Runestone Shan'dor's iridescent barrier. Rynga and Naralinthe immediately moved into triage mode; Shei had learned pretty early on in her tenure on the crew to stay out of their way when that happened. Other people, like Nahilvi and her nurse training, were better suited to not be underfoot in that little corner of their camp. But, it didn't stay little for long. Suncrown had always been a decently sized village on the banks of Lake Elrendar, and there were plenty of people who needed help.

A shout for another crate of bandages rang out from the healers' makeshift space. She hopped to her feet and grabbed one before nudging Garren's thigh with the toe of her boot to grab another. More than one probably wouldn't hurt. They were halfway through their hustle before the standard-issue style of orders were overtaken by screams of terror from townspeople and crew-folk alike.

Uh oh.

Shei recognized the woman that rose aggressively from the cot. She had been one of the first to stumble into camp bleeding and covered in splotches of pollen, or spores? It was hard to tell if it was one or the other, Shei wasn't a healer and wouldn't ever be accused of having that sort of distinction. Small, luminous flowers bloomed throughout the woman's sleek black hair, and she swiped at the nearest crew member with fingers that had turned into gnarled, sharp brambles. Were her eyes flowers? That was fucked up. No thanks.

Another wounded on a nearby bedroll started twitching and shuddering and Shei shared a look with Garren. Then another started. And another. She threw her crate of bandages so it rolled end-over-end closer to where they were meant to go and immediately started backing up. In a quick, effortless motion she moved her bow from where it had been slung over her shoulder and back into her hands. Her quiver was always on her hip — it was easier to draw new arrows that way.

The first arrow she nocked and shot was normal style. It wasn't particularly effective, even though it found its target with accuracy. In short order her battle — and sometimes chaos — buddy, Garren, had started to loose his own beautifully fletched and crafted shot. They were gonna need something with more oomph, especially as more villagers started to get taken over by the reanimating bloom.

She darted back toward her own small field tent that had become home-away-from-home and grabbed her secondary quiver, the one that was full of panache and expense. As she ran by Garren, she passed him a handful of arrows with ombre red-to-orange fletching made from dragonhawk feathers and yelled, "They'll catch on fire when you loose 'em!"

And they did.

Nearby, Kaisina had lept into action herself. The cook's helper lashed out at one of the flowering dead with a rapid fire handful of ice shards that slowed it down for a fair few seconds. Long enough for one of Shei's tanglefoot arrows to land at its feet and burst into writhing roots meant to snare it. Instead, it absorbed them and made it a little stronger.

Oops.

Another shambling horror streaked by her, wreathed in flame with one of the fire arrows jammed between its shoulder blades. It moved erratically and screeched in a discordant, layered shriek before smacking into the canvas sides of one of the other crew member's tents. The fabric didn't take long to catch from the magical fire, but the body collapsed in short order and went still. Destructive, sure, but it was effective. Shei knocked another fire arrow and, right as she was about to set it loose, was jostled by another crew member rushing by. Her shot went wide, landing with a wild blaze in the dirt just beyond her mark and unfortunately close to another tent.

In extremely short order, the camp became a chaotic mess. Little fires, either from arrows or collateral damage from the engulfed plant-people spreading it as they tried to fight-and-flee at the same time, had sprung up everywhere. Kaisina and Garren both had turned their efforts to trying to keep the blazes from going entirely out of control — which resulted, somehow, in Garren's foot getting frozen to the ground and Kaisina slipping on a wide patch of ice that also tripped up Nahilvi as the camp nurse tried to sprint past and away from a reanimated that was hot on her own heels.

Shei winced as she watched the other woman's attempt to over-correct in order to keep herself from entirely falling. It didn't really work, and just led to Nahi running smack into Fiorenze's emerald green tent in a way that tore up some of the stabilizing posts and made the central prop collapse. She was able to get out of the fabric just in the nick of time as the on-fire body of the shambler that had been trying to get hold of her collapsed and writhed on top of the wrecked tent, engulfing the exterior fabric in what was rapidly becoming a bonfire.

Her head whipped around as she heard Kaisina scream in pain. A flower-zombie, wreathed in flames of its own, had grabbed her with a promise of violence. That was when the tide shifted. There wasn't really time to swoon, but she did a little bit anyway as Dicenne swooped in to be their collective — but mostly Kaisina's — hero. He had this, right?

If she was gonna save any of the camp-stuff that might have inadvertently been set on fire, now was the time. She athletically slid across the grass to get to a pile of small supply crates that had just started to catch and scooped them up, transitioning from that slide into an easy sprint to get them to the tributary of the Elrendar that was just beyond the boundary of the camp. In a mirror of her earlier throw of the box of bandages, she hurled the smoking containers as close as she could to the water when she was within range — most of them made it in. Sure, they'd be soggy, but they wouldn't be totally ash.

When she turned around and started her run back to get more things to save, she realized exactly how disastrous their camp looked — and that if Dicenne was here, it meant the rest of the crew that had entered the Lightbloom would probably be returning soon, too.

Fuck.