Log- Guiding Light (Closed)

[whisperedone]

Who: Garner (whisperedone) and Caduceus (thatsreallygreat)
When: Just after this thread
Where: ADI medical wing
Summary: Garner goes in search of medical aide, preferably the familiar kind
Warnings: Likely discussion of self-inflicted wounds, will update as needed!

Adrenaline is the buzz in his veins that creates a tempo for his steps as he returns to ADI. He’s bloody and worn out but he’d need safety before he could clean up. He was taught to hunt alone, but a month of no activity and a month back home hunting with others, he’s lost some touch. Combined with the knowledge his opponent had been stronger than him, there’s no doubt his abilities had kept him as whole as he was, even if he’s sure he’s fed…something by using them. It was the price to pay.

He’s wrapped his arm in the cured black leather strip it’s usually covered in, though he’s not sure it’s done anything to staunch the blood of the various cuts and scratches there, the occasional ‘plip‘ he hears suggests maybe not. His shirt is tacky where she’d gotten through to his upper arm and shoulder, but there’s little he can do until he gets to where he’s going.

It’s as he’s making his way to the medical wing, glaive blade at his back as well as left arm and shoulder all bloody, that it occurs to him Caduceus had said he works here…that would be nice. His voice had been soothing.

Garner pauses as he pushes the door he finds open, voice low as ever, but now tired. “Hello?”

Comments

[thatsreallygreat]

Caduceus is still trying to keep his head above the demand, but right now it feels like he finally has some room to breathe--Ah. He sighs and sets down his cup of tea a bit forlornly. The cleric wipes that look off his face before he appears from around a partition and sees someone familiar. He cocks his head.

"Garner, right?"

He's not the best at remember names, but he's pretty sure he's got that one right. It only takes a quick look to notice the blood and how worn out the man looks... and the glaive doesn't go unnoticed.

"What happened?" The figbolg frowns and sweeps closer, immediately trying to get a better look.

[whisperedone]

Ah. And here he was, excellent. He smiles at hearing the firbolg and can feel the tension easing in him as the adrenaline begins to fade.

“I sought out Katie Dunn. I and one of her forms fought, I believe I dispatched it, but she was a strong adversary.” As he talks, he sets to unwrapping the leather strip. He’ll need to clean that later.

A clean cut and a torn gash share the expanse of his inner-left arm. Under the blood smeared and spread there, a labyrinth of scars of various sizes raise the skin, most as cleanly cut as one of the ones he shows.

“If I could have some help cleaning and covering the wounds, I can continue to tend them in the coming days…but I fear some may need stitching.”

[thatsreallygreat]

"Oh. Huh."

He processes all that about as well as he can, but the fact of the matter is that the context of the injury doesn't matter right now unless there's something special he needs to know about it. And it looks like some typical - egregious - lacerations.

"Yeah, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you're gonna need stitches." Caduceus considers casting something - he could heal these, or at least get them on their way - but maybe he shouldn't on ADI property. They don't like that. Or they don't like the reason he's able.

"Come on, let's get you under some better light and clean you up first. You can sit on one of the empty beds," he says with a gesture. "I'm gonna grab a suture kit."

[whisperedone]

Garner nods at the prognosis. He couldn’t see the damage done by his blade her claws, but certainly the latter had felt..wide. The one on his shoulder probably wasn’t great either since he’d had to dig into that one to use more power.

“Alright.” He starts to feel for one of the beds, but pulls his hand away before he can touch. It wasn’t kind to get blood on likely clean sheets. He uses the clean end of his glaive instead to find bed legs near the electric hum of a light while Caduceus fetches the kit, then begins to strip out of his layers.

The glaive, leather armor, and torn shirt are placed against a wall to allow the last of his injuries to be seen: claw marks raking up his upper left arm and shoulder, the last of which still oozes for being dig deeper than the initial injury.

“There is another on my shoulder I had to make deeper, it will also likely need your expertise. Thank you for this.”

[thatsreallygreat]

Caduceus pauses as Garner finds his way by touch. Hm. Right. He shakes his head and finishes what he's doing, then returns to the young man who is currently stripping down. Caduceus sets what he needs aside and helps with the last bit to make sure Garner isn't pulling at injuries too much.

Even more he is itching to cast Cure Wounds or something that would help. He takes a breath, lets it go.

"Have a seat on the edge of the bed, I'm gonna steady you as you go." Not because he doubts Garner's ability to manage, but because he is bleeding everywhere and Caduceus doesn't want him to lose his balance if his blood pressure suddenly drops. Garner doesn't need a concussion on top of all of this.

"I'm gonna clean you up as much as I can before I start stitching. It's probably going to sting a lot."

[whisperedone]

There’s no resistance to Caduceus’ help, he’s not an overly proud man, and help is exactly why he’d come here.

He sits on the edge of the bed and likely would have gone more heavily without the steady hand, but only sways very lightly as he settles. This is not the worst he’s been, but it isn’t pretty.

“Thank you for the warning. I believe I will be alright.” He doesn’t know anything about what new medicines the cleric might have learned, but what antiseptics he knew were no more painful than the cut they were cleaning.

“Were you taught new medical practices here?” It was only polite to make conversation, right?

[thatsreallygreat]

"Alright." Well, that's the best he can do in terms of warning. From there it's a matter of carefully irrigating and rinsing open wounds with a saline solution to make sure there's nothing in them after whatever Garner did.

"Yeah, I've been learning some things. Mostly how to get by without casting anything. ADI doesn't like that. Using magic, I mean."

Not anything that would require feeding his patron, as it were. He doesn't actually know if ADI has clued into that or not, but Caduceus doesn't talk about it around here for exactly that reason.

[whisperedone]

There’s a small twitch at the corner of his eye when the saline is applied, but he breathes evenly through the rest. He hadn’t been allowed to flinch when the burning solution had touched his eye years ago, that training came in handy in small ways still.

“I imagine that would be useful knowledge even without the…other considerations.” He’s quiet a beat and clouded eyes gaze down on reflex. “Do they have ways of knowing when you have used abilities or magic? A tracking system, perhaps?”

[thatsreallygreat]

"I don't know," he admits. And while he isn't good at lying, he's a little better at simply omitting things. Either way, he figures it's a good idea to just avoid using magic altogether on ADI property, even if this seems like the place for it. He can't be obvious about it out there, either.

"But they are pretty clear about how they feel about it."

Caduceus shrugs one shoulder and moves as much as he needs to so that he can be sure that he's gotten everything that needs to be cleaned. Then he can start with suturing wounds that need closing and wrapping or taping those that don't.

[whisperedone]

“Then I suppose I will have to tread carefully. It would not be useful to be cast out while I’m still learning the town.”

But he’d done what needed to be done and one of the shades was dead, surely that mattered.

“Is that why you do not live on the premises?”

[thatsreallygreat]

"I like being able to come and go when I want to," he admits. "That's the reason I don't live here. Rules are great and they're necessary, but I like the vibe at Bonnie's more."

That all is true. Caduceus is too old to abide by a curfew at this point, even if there is more comfort to be had in living on ADI property.

"I don't like that I'm disguised every time I'm not here, but I get it." He wishes he had more control over it.

[whisperedone]

That makes plenty of sense. If he hadn't grown up in a place full of rules or at least been free longer than he has been, it might chaffe more. For now, it served a purpose.

Any comment on that is lost in his furrowed brows and confusion. "You're...disguised? Why?"

[thatsreallygreat]

"Oh, I'm a firbolg. ADI doesn't want anyone who doesn't look human... looking not-human. Whenever I leave here, it's like being under a disguise spell. I'm not sure how they do it," he admits.

Caduceus looks Garner over.

"Are you okay if I try numbing some of these before I start stitching?" he asks once he's done everything he can without actually suturing.

[whisperedone]

He’d known he was a firbolg, but he hadn’t realized everyone in ADI looked human. Logically, that must be because they didn’t want the regular humans to see non-humans. He’d never thought to ask what sorts of races made up the town…

He tilts his face up towards Caduceus, his look of confused consideration morphing to a grateful smile. “Oh. Of course, whatever you think is best. I’m well practiced at not flinching, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t feel it. Numbing it would be nice, thank you. For what it may be worth, I’m sorry you’re forced to hide like that. It seems unkind to force on you.”

And even if his mental image of Caduceus was rudimentary, he was most assuredly as kind and warm a presence as his voice sounded.