---Section 2---

A slight scratching woke me up with a start, and with a mind filled with haze, I tried to sit up only to find that I was too weak to. Then it hit me, where in the world was I?

Memories of what happened flooded my mind and I tried to curl up defensively. Those bastards tricked me into joining them before kidnapping me in my sleep. I was foolish to even get tricked in the first place, let alone being kidnapped. I looked down and saw that I was on a makeshift cot made of animal hide lifted off the ground with wooden supports. I began to fully take in my surroundings when the haze in my eyes cleared up. I was in a simplistic wooden room that only contained a few furnishings. A small fireplace by my head provided enough light to barely see. A luxurious lounge chair on top of a fine fur rug was the first thing I noticed, followed by a small table beside it.

It was but a second later that I noticed all the… other furnishings. Bones, teeth, feathers, and hides decorated the walls and ceiling, creating a gloomy dark atmosphere. I noticed the scratching start up again and I tried to follow the source but didn’t see a thing. But what I did find was another small wooden dining table covered in many herbs and bowls as well as other things I couldn’t recognize. The last thing I remember was being forcefully tied to a sacrificial table, so then how did I get here? The scratching briefly stopped before starting up again, this time I located the source. I don’t know how I missed it but a man was sitting in the lounge chair. Had he been there the whole time? No, that’s impossible, I looked it over four times. I shook my confusion off and watched as the seemingly older gentleman scribbled something into a small leather-bound book.

Had I been saved by a medicine man? Their usually known for their eccentric nature, and this cabin and the medicine at my feet certainly fit the bill. I felt relief that I was still alive and intact and in a seemingly safe place. I let my guard down a bit, if this man wanted to kill me, he could have done it many times over by now. I was about to enter meditation to ease my stress and hopefully regain my magic but a painting above the fireplace caught my eyes. It depicted a gaunt man with sunken distant eyes holding an overflowing bag of gold out in an outstretched hand as if offering it. It was an immaculate painting, one of the best I’ve ever seen. Possessing mesmerizing strokes and a sharp yet dull color. I could feel my headache ease as my eyes followed the spiraling lines.

As I watched the golden glimmer of the coins, I could swear I could see them shift slightly. But that was not all, out of my peripheral vision I could swear the painting's lips started to curl. Feeling something was incredibly wrong I tried to rip my eyes away but no matter what my mind commanded my eyes were locked onto the overflowing bag. The coins began to overflow and fall out and I was now sure that the painting was smiling wickedly. I was locked in place for what felt like forever, I could feel the eyes of the painting drilling into me as I stared unblinking at the gold. This continued on for an unbearable amount of time before I felt the painting's eyes divert off of me.

Instantly whatever hold that was on me broke and I could look away, the last thing I saw of that cursed painting was a single rune on the bottom corner. Though I couldn’t read it I instinctively knew what it meant… greed. My head dropped back to the pillow and I tried to calm my franticly beating heart, I’m getting the feeling this wasn’t just a simple medicine man. I weakly glanced over at the lounge chair and found that said man had put down his journal and was now looking at me with an odd glint in his eye. With him facing me I could get a better view of his features. A weathered leatherlike face full of crisscrossing scars and burns as well as a few small indents. His square jaw and high cheekbones gave him an oppressive feeling and combined with his eyes, one a dull grey and one a deep brown the feeling increases greatly.

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It seems like the girl has finally woke up, it only took her, what, like two or three weeks. She sure took her sweet time. She watched my face closely before falling back to her pillow and passing out. It’ll probably be a while before she gets her strength back. It is shocking that she was able to resist the painting of greed for so long, so maybe her recovery may not be as strenuous as I first thought. I turned back to my journal that I was sketching theoretical rune systems in. With the girl awake that means her core magic finally turned the tides against the corruption caused by the sentry. With that turn, the rest of it is downhill from there.

It took another day for the girl to regain consciousness and one more for her to be able to sit up on her own. She has yet to speak but that can be attributed to the giant gash over her throat, it will probably be a few more days to regain the ability to talk. I mostly spent my time reinforcing my already formidable fortifications and spending time with the snake and crow. It took me a day to figure out that the snake had downed enough alcohol to kill a man before promptly passing out behind a shelf in the cellar. I thought she just went home but nope, I found her around twelve hours later trying to free herself.