I’m a maker of fine graves // Open Log

[thatsreallygreat]

Who: Caduceus Clay thatsreallygreat and YOU
When: post event
Where: ADI, Bonnie's, Dogtown, random park
Summary: Open prompts; happy to match style
Notes: visual reference for Caduceus's human disguise when he's off ADI property; (source)
Warnings: instrument that makes a sound like a person screaming; general references to death/decay



Bonnie's

Helping Bonnie with projects around the house is one way to get a little extra earnings, and Caduceus is happy to do it. He's tall, so at some point Bonnie sent him around to change lightbulbs all around the house - including in rooms where people are staying. He'll knock first, of course, and hold up a lightbulb with a bemused smile.

"Come to add a little light to your life." He thinks he's hilarious, thank you. "It'll only take a minute, or I can come back when you go out."

Sometimes he can be found down in the communal kitchen, cooking relatively large meals for anyone who might want to grab something to eat. Everything he cooks is vegetarian, though if someone requests a meat dish, he might be willing to make it. He'll just need someone else around to do the tasting. When he can, Caduceus does both breakfast and dinner. And if anyone wants to keep him company while he cooks - or better yet, help him - he'd welcome that.

And when the house is quiet, Caduceus might be found in his room, all seven feet of him crammed into a bed that does not fit him. He doesn't complain... though he does tend to leave the door open, even when he's sleeping, to avoid feeling too closed in.

ADI

Medical
"I don't want to die--"

"Mr. Smith, you aren't going to die, but we do need to treat that injury." The nurse standing by the bedside is clearly trying not to sound too exasperated. Caduceus, for his part, stays placidly behind her. And towers over her. The man in the bed doesn't sound placated.

"I heard what he is. People say things he touches die."

"Well, that isn't exactly accurate," Caduceus chimes in, calm despite the roundabout accusation that he might be killing patients. "I am a healer."

The patient doesn't seem willing to budge, though, and looks at the pink firbolg like he might be Death itself. The nurse gives Caduceus an apologetic look, but he bows out, thinking it better that he not aggravate a somewhat hysterical patient. Instead, he finds another occupied bed and approaches, hoping that the somewhat loud conversation wouldn't put anyone else off.

"Hi, I'm Caduceus. What are you here for today?"

Counseling
He shares a room with some of the other counselors, though they are never in there at the same time, and Caduceus has added a few personal touches as he can. Plants, in particular. They brighten up the space. He also find a comfortable rug that matches absolutely nothing else in the room. He likes it and so far the other counselors that use this room haven't removed it.

He gets water heating for tea, tickled by the electric kettle and willing to admit its convenience. He sets out his own box of loose-leaf tea along with whatever ADI has on hand.

Caduceus looks up when he realizes someone is in the doorway.

"Hey, need someone to talk to?"

The Bone Flute

After checking through the bag that arrived with him, Caduceus is delighted to find his bone flute. He almost blows into it right there in Bonnie's, then thinks better of it. Instead, he heads outside and finds a relatively quiet park. There don't seem to be a lot of people around and he picks a spot under a tree.

He runs his long fingers over the flute, smiling at the memory of finding it. Keone had been strange, but he liked her. He liked the harp she'd made for Yasha, too, and in that moment he misses Yasha. It'd be nice to sit with her and play their weird instruments. He'll just have to do so in memory of her, and hope that she is will and safe wherever she is.

The trouble is, the flute... doesn't exactly make the sort of music that most people might recognize as music. He blows the first note, and it sounds like a person shrieking. Caduceus pauses and nods a bit as he gets comfortable holding the flute again. Actually playing it means the duration of the notes is shorter - and sometimes longer - and it creates the most eerie cacophony.

And if someone rushes into the park, worried that someone is dying, well... it wouldn't be the first time.

Dogtown

Caduceus is taking advantage of some decent weather.

He heads toward Dogtown at a leisurely pace and picks a trail that feels right. He carries his staff with him, though for the most part he's only been using it as a walking stick and... well... a whacking stick. The last time he tried to call on his spiritual guardians, they had swarmed him and he isn't eager to try that again just yet.

Now and then he closes his eyes as he walks, just sort of taking in everything without seeing it. Caduceus stops when he sees a boulder that strikes him as appealing. He stands for a long moment, considering it. It feels like the right place to stop. He leans his staff against the rock and runs his hands over it before climbing onto it. He arranges himself somewhere comfortable and takes his straw hat off, leaving it in his lap. Back straight, eyes closed again, Caduceus tries opening himself up, searching for the Wildmother.

He feels... something. It isn't her, but there's almost like an echo of her. An aspect. And a familiar one, at that.

He breathes in deep and exhales slowly. He can hear and smell the life all around him, but there's far more than that. There always is. Beneath fallen leaves there is decay and growth. He can smell the damp earth, made rich by death and able to sustain the living. Agents of change move and grow: insects, fungi, scavengers. In a moment, he is as aware of the inevitability of it all, the natural process that will continue whether or not anyone wants it to. No matter how much interference there is, death will always happen. It is grounding in a way that the understanding of that cycle always has been. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Clay to clay.

As his mind wanders, he thinks of the strange roots he's seen. Meditating like this, he becomes vaguely aware of them again. And he is vaguely aware that he has manipulated them in the past by casting Path to the Grave. He'd seen the dark tendrils wrap around the kelpie moments before Tak killed it.

Caduceus feels a faint, warm breeze and it brings a serene smile to his face. He tips his head into it, comforted by it, just as he is comforted by the cool of the rock beneath him. Life and death. One can not exist without the other. And he is content in knowing this.

Anyone approaching the rock along the path will certainly notice the awkward-looking human with pink hair sitting on it, apparently meditating. They might also notice the ring of mushrooms that have sprouted up around it in a spiral.

Wildcard

[Please feel free to toss a scene my way if you have something you want to play out! I'm also happy to write more specific starts, so let me know if you'd like one. You can PM me here or find me at givemedragons; also happy to exchange discord information. I will likely update this with event prompts as needed when that goes up.

When he is not on ADI property, Caduceus looks like a very tall, lanky human with pink hair and pierced ears.

Oh, also happy to match style! If you prefer brackets, go for it.]

Comments

[guildmastermind]

"Some. It feels weaker than it used to, back in the other world. I'm, ah, not exactly a one-man firework show to begin with, though. Most of my magic is focused on helping others do their best, in a fight."

Support caster. You know the concept, right, Caduceus? Shiroe moves to sit down on his bed, beside his bag, pulling his boots off.

"Not that I've gotten into any fights since arriving."

[thatsreallygreat]

He nods, and he finds himself wondering if, for him at least, it's a strain in his connection to Melora. He doesn't know, though. He's sure she's here. She's everywhere.

"I'm a cleric," he says absently. "I spend as much time patching people up as anything else."

He has some effective offensive magic, but he still prefers to be at a distance.

[guildmastermind]

"I've worked alongside clerics before. It's always nice to have one in my party when we're going into danger."

Shiroe's smile blooms at the thought--though he realizes that being a cleric probably is a different sort of experience than playing a cleric. Still, if it means there's a potential maybe healer here...that's going to be useful.

[thatsreallygreat]

"Yeah, I guess that would be handy."

Caduceus had just sort of stumbled into the Nein - or, more accurately, they stumbled into him - and they'd ostensibly already had a cleric in Jester. He'd been happy to go along, though, and he does not regret the choice, even after everything.

He carefully sits up more and shifts so he can rest his back against the wall, facing Shiroe more.

"How come you're here and not ADI?"

[guildmastermind]

"While their rules don't seem unfair, there's definitely an element of control to them that I'm not comfortable with. I'm happy to work with ADI--if I can help them, it seems only right to do so. But I'm not letting them set a curfew on me, or limit me in other ways."

It might be the beginnings of the Web's influence on him; he would much rather control than be controlled.

[thatsreallygreat]

Caduceus nods his understanding.

"I like going out at night, sometimes," he says. "I didn't think it all the way through though. Forgot I'd be in disguise all the time out here."

It'd taken him a little while to get used to the fact that he is absolutely disguised the moment he steps off ADI property. He doesn't mind, even if he'd rather be casting the spell himself. But it's not always easy to remember that people are not seeing a firbolg when they look at him.

[guildmastermind]

"Most people here probably wouldn't know what to make of you, otherwise." Shiroe isn't, entirely, either, but Caduceus seems mostly harmless. A very pleasant cowman--not much different from the wolf fangs or felinoids in the world of Elder Tale, not really.

If Shiroe could get used to Nyanta inhabiting his catman avatar, he could deal with Caduceus.

[thatsreallygreat]

"No, I don't think they would." He's quite unique in that regard. And even if he was unique in Exandria, firbolgs weren't unheard of. And he'd been traveling with a half orc and a tiefling, so he hardly stood out beyond his height.

"But it's given me some reason to consider moving to ADI. I don't think I will, but." He shrugs one shoulder. He likes the freedom he has here, and he likes Bonnie. It's a compromise he'd rather not make, but if he has to, so be it.