#lolsketch

When Beau, Nott, and Caleb, all children of the Empire with its rigid, pragmatically-focused concept of what animal forms Mean about personal worth and morality, first meet Caduceus, a lot of things about him are jarring. The whole situation is jarring. They are traveling with two strangers, having lost three of their number to kidnapping slavers, and one to death or worse, without even a body left to mourn. Caduceus's calming presence is a balm, but much of his behavior is strange.

Case and point: with no preamble, as they all get ready to leave the graveyard he lives in, he turns into a great, fluffy bovine. "By the way," he said, "I plan on carrying my own supplies like this, since it's a bit easier. I'm not very strong as a firbolg, but yaks are sturdy. I can take more weight than this, too, so if you've got any heavy supplies you won't need too quickly, go ahead and load them on. Plenty of space left over."

"Wait, can you just do that?" Nott gapes. "Like, I know stuff only has to be on one form, but can you actually just carry a bunch of stuff and not even worry about it on the other form? That WORKS???"

"Well, your bag does not go away even when you shift, yeah?" Caleb says. "It's, eh, as long as you do not over-encumber one form, it is fine. Even so, ah...Caduceus, are you certain? That is very--You do not need to take on our..."

"It's fine," Caduceus says happily, "I'm made for carrying."

He is indeed, although it never stops being a bit humorous, watching Caduceus stand in only his armor and the single bag he uses for more common items, only to occasionally realize he has left something he needs on his other form. Turning into a yak in the same way one would search their other pair of pants for their house key is amusing in its own sense, but it is also very convenient to have someone who is so capable of acting as the party's beast of burden.

---

Sometime after dealing with Avantika, a conversation occurs, one night. It's after Fjord has finally let them all see his animal form, for the first time, after escaping the flooding temple. They are all huddled together, glad to be on dry land again after so long, gathered about a campfire. Caduceus, comfortably in animal form, speaks up, as Fjord admits that he does not want to know what it "means" to be an otter.

"It's not as restrictive as you might think," he says. "The Wildmother gives us these forms as a gift, a way to guide us, not something to force us into any one role."

Caleb twitches a bit, at that. He's heard Caduceus mention this a few times, now, and it's a very odd philosophy, but one that makes sense for a follower of the Wildmother, he supposes.

"For example, I actually didn't like my animal form at all the first time i shifted," Caduceus says, and Beau spittakes hard enough to nearly break her distance record on spitting. "No, really," he says with a laugh. "I was furious. I've never been much into physical activity, you know, so getting some big beast of burden felt like I was being punished. I thought I was expected to go into manual labor now, and I fought with my parents about it at one point."

"...Yeah?" Fjord says, voice soft and complicated.

"But then, I realized: Burdens don't have to be physical." Caduceus smiles, and shakes his head, nearly dislodging Molly where he's tangled himself up in thick pink-and-gray fur. "Being a yak like this doesn't mean I have to be a physical worker, it means I'm meant to carry things. But I get to choose what it is I'm carrying. And I like helping people carry things that weigh them down, so to speak. So like I said: it's a guide, it's not meant to restrict you, only advise you towards what you're meant to do."

Fjord looks....thoughtful, for a long time after that.

---

The next day, Caleb is also thinking about it, when Caduceus catches him in his thoughts.

"You look like you're feeling pretty heavy, Mr. Caleb," he says, giving him a gently prying look.

Caleb allows himself a wry smile. "Eh, thinking about what you said last night, I suppose," he admits.

"Good thoughts, I hope?"

Not really, in truth. Caleb has to think hard about the answer.

"It is a...a nice sentiment, I think, but not always true," Caleb says. "I do not know that the shape of one's soul indicates, ah, purpose so much as...inescapable truths. In your case, I think you are right, of course, but for others..."

For himself, at least, he knows it mustn't be quite right. He knows his own truth. Remembers his mentor, a man so alike Caleb himself that their souls are the same species, telling him what being a cat meant, and being so excited for that at the time.

"Oh?" Caduceus asks. "And what wouldn't it be true of?"

"Well, cats, for one thing," Caleb says. "Cats are made to kill rats, after all. Nothing more." It had been so exciting, then, to be told his sole purpose was to hunt and destroy traitors, but now it felt like shackles--comforting ones, at least; he deserved to be a creature built to torture and kill others.

Caleb Widogast is very wary about shadow magic. As someone whose mind has already broken once through perfectly mundane means, he does not want to risk letting magic finish the job. So when Mollymauk goes for an effective but stronger-than-usual shadow trick during a fight, Caleb decides he needs to talk to him. He is, after all, only two years old. Probably no one has talked to him about this, or if they have, not insistently enough.

It's not as productive as he would like. Mollymauk takes it in the usual flirty way he does, not really taking it seriously. And. It's. Caleb is not worried. He isn't. He barely knows these people. He just...does not want to travel with a person whose mind has been destroyed by overchanneling shadow, and somehow, this group has two people with an affinity for shadow magic. He has tried talking to Jester about it before, but her way of casting is so unusual, he doesn't know where to start, but Mollymauk--he's so new at everything, nevermind magic, and to in turn be most drawn to what Caleb personally considers the most dangerous magic there is....

"All I am saying," Caleb insists, "Is that--look, if I overchannel fire magic, I know immediately the moment I am putting my body through too much, because I will burn my own fingers, you understand? So I know what risks I am taking if I push it further. But with shadow magic, it is--it is subtle. You start to lose yourself in the illusions you are casting, until--"

"It's very sweet of you to care," Molly says, and Caleb doesn't, he just doesn't want to deal with the consequences of someone else making a bad decision here, "But my mind's already full of holes, so one or two more won't matter much. And as for Jester, if she's not already driven herself mad, she's likely got everything under control, don't you think?"

Caleb wants, in this moment, to tell Mollymauk about how his mentor put him through what overchanneling nearly every type of magic (lightning was too dangerous to risk, and life unavailable to them of course) felt like so that they would know immediately if they were overdoing it. How he'd had Bren read a report beforehand, then push the illusory spell as hard as he could, how nothing had felt wrong, only for him to check the paper afterward and find out that what it said no longer aligned with his memory.

He wanted to explain to Mollymauk about his time in Vergessen, about how at least a third of the patients there were people who had fallen for the sweet trap of shadow spells, who hadn't heeded the way that it slowly chipped away at you until you were someone entirely different.

But Mollymauk did not know about those things. Caleb had only told Beauregard and Nott about his past, and so he kept his mouth shut.

He would grow to regret it. Maybe it would not have mattered, but maybe things would have somehow gone differently, if he had managed to make his point more clear.

Later, things go very wrong very quickly. Three of their number are kidnapped by slavers, and desperately, the remainder attempt to save them. The fight goes incredibly wrong, and Molly goes down. But as the glaive falls toward his chest, time slows in his mind, and his animal half thrusts a survival instinct at him, and that instinct takes over. He shifts into his animal form, and casts the most complex spell he has ever thrown, of himself being stabbed, of dying, and he holds it.

Very powerful shadow magic requires the caster to believe that the illusion they are willing into existence is real, and so, quivering beneath a very powerful, all-sensory effect, he forces that belief to be true: Mollymauk Tealeaf is dead. And second by second, he tries to hold his mind against the storm that brings, but second by second, he is worn away and away and away and

at the core he holds on to: i am alive.

everything

else

goes

--And when the Iron Shepherds are gone, out of sight, no longer watching them, just as the survivors go despondently to check on his body, he vanishes. And Caleb realizes, after checking the scene, that his worst nightmare has come true. Mollymauk overchanneled shadow magic.

They search for him, desperately, even though there is no time. They cannot find him; the same instinct that told him to make this desperate ploy has told him that now is the time to retreat, to find somewhere dark and quiet and safe, where he can curl up and wait for rescue. There is no Mollymauk left in his head. He does not know who is coming to save him, only that others like him must exist, and they will know, and they will come.

Caleb doesn't know of Molly's instincts. He only knows that Mollymauk just threw everything he had into convincing all of them that he was dying, and whatever effect that may have had on his brain cannot be good. Their best hope is that he will quietly die of his wounds, rather than of exposure. It would have been kinder if he had simply died, Caleb thinks.

They move on. They meet Caduceus. They save their friends.

They return. Caleb has to explain what happens, and begs Jester, with all that he has, to please, please be careful. Fjord, too, since even though it's not his affinity, his patron has also given him access to this dangerous, cruel form of magic. Yasha leaves.

It would take a miracle to find Mollymauk. He is probably already dead, Caleb tells them. He is sorry about all of it. He should have done something, he thinks...

A few days later, though, a miracle comes anyway. Along the road one night, Caduceus feels...a sense. His patron is calling him. He follows the trail, and finds...a tiny creature, under a log. It is wounded, essentially comatose. Its blood does not flow properly from its wounds, coming out pitch black and floating up into shadows. Holding it feels like cradling air in his hands.

He brings it back to the Nein, and before he can even ask, they are gasping, and Jester runs over, and heals the creature, and it--reacts like a frightened animal.

(slightly outdated drawing but it gets the idea across lol)

he shrieks and bites and claws and tries to get away--

"Why didn't the wounds heal?!" Jester cries, and manages just barely to get him in hand. He bites her finger. She cries out to him, calls his name, but that is gone, he is nothing, he is just what he is, and what he is is frightened and alone and apart from its whole, where are the others--

"I was afraid something like that would happen," Caduceus says, frowning.

Caleb is devastated. Somehow, it seems, Mollymauk's overchannelling resulted in this: he does not remember being anything but whatever manner of beast his animal form is. One last time, he makes his case, to the rest of the party, hoping to really drive in that this is what it does to you. This time, it seems to sink in. But Jester asks, "Okay, but we can fix him, right? If we--we just need to take care of him, and he'll get better?"

Caleb...cannot bear to be completely honest, nor can he bring himself to lie. So he says: "I...have never heard of someone recovering from this."

Later, Fjord asks him on watch: "Be real with me. Is Molly gonna get better?"

Caleb grimaces, and says, "No." They do not talk for the rest of the watch.

They find out in time that things are very bad indeed. Mollymauk has to be first leashed, then eventually kept in the cage that once held Sprinkle; he keeps trying to flee from them, he bites any fingers near his face. He also will not eat or drink, no matter how they try. He does not seem to grow weaker from this, but it worries them. He seems less than real, now; tangible in that he can be touched, but there is no weight to him, no real mass, and there wasn't much of that to begin with-- whatever he is, they can only hope that he is not going to die anyway, from refusing all of this.

Caleb knows in his core that the person they all cared for (he can admit it now, after the fact, far too late) is gone. What they have is a shell. It might be kinder simply to end his suffering, but...Caleb cannot bring himself to break Jester's heart.

She keeps trying. At the very least, he stops snapping at them so much. He can be bribed, even, with small trinkets and soft fabrics to line his cage with. And when they run into Yasha again, he recognizes her, at least, calling out the only words they have heard him speak since the Shepherds: "Love" and, of course, "Empty." But there's no real growth, just...evolution, into something new, something that can never be a person again.

(For anyone else who did what Mollymauk did, that would be true. They might wander, ghostlike, until starvation and exposure finished them off and made the belief in their own death a reality. They might even fool themself so well that their cerebellum would simply stop instructing vital organs to function. A best case scenario might be something like what Mollymauk experiences, with all sapience permanently stripped away.)