At the end of our exposure therapy session, Mia shook with mental exhaustion but she kept her hand under the small flame. It literally didn’t burn her. Nor did it do any damage to her at all.

I peered outside at the waning light and did some quick estimates. We would reach the island very early the next morning.

When I touched her shoulder and squeezed, she dropped her hand and let out a deep breath. She stared at me, blearily.

“Let’s get some sleep.”

She appeared to contemplate my suggestion a little too long then nodded and left to take a shower. She soon returned and fell onto our shared bed and near immediately passed out.

Of course, now that I saw her sleeping in the only bed on this boat I was reminded of waking up this morning. When I tried to move she bit me like a weak possessive kitten upset over not getting enough attention. But the issue was that her bite was hard, not enough to draw blood, but certainly eye-opening.

Whatever her second half, it had strong instincts. Was she really a half-fire sprite? Or was it some other kind of fire-type monster? One with a bipedal form but was still instinctively a monster.

As an educated elf, I knew it should be a very huge turn-off. And, frankly, while I was laying there I’d tried to get myself to care about it as a normal elven man would.

It just didn’t happen.

Mia was my bonded. I, as proven over the last several days, continuously trusted her. Possibly more than I trusted myself. So what if she was part-monster, with very sharp teeth and, to be honest, an oddly cute side while drowsy?

She was my bonded. And, as we continued to travel together, the more comfortable I became with that fact. But I wasn’t quite ready to tell her about it yet. I still had my own issues about bonds in general I was dealing with. But a partner I could trust, even when I made them upset was novel. Near relaxing. As if I could finally breathe.

Suddenly feeling tired myself, I took a shower, set an alarm to alert me when we reached land, crawled into bed beside her, and fell asleep to the sound of waves and the rocking of the boat.

***

Mia, had once again suction-cupped herself to me, but this time, I didn’t bother trying to escape and just shook her until she woke up.

“We’ve landed, we have to go.”

She nodded, got up, then stretched. The nice part about living in a realistic virtual world is that some of the little things were unnecessary. I’d practically forgotten the regular morning rituals of reality. The fact that I haven’t had to use the toilet in years, aside from one truly horrible death penalty I still refuse to talk about, is amazing in and of itself.

From my spot in the hold, I peered into the cloudy early morning sky. Excitement and dread in equal measures ran through me. This was it. The next step towards my freedom. My hands shook. I clasped them behind my back.

“So, where will this key to opening your collar be again?”

“The most likely location would be the prison warden’s office. I can’t imagine something that powerful would be placed anywhere else.”

She nodded. “Then we’ll rush there and rush back. No extra exploring.”

I nodded. “Well, If we do that, then the first thing we’ll need is to find a map of the area.” I headed up to the deck and cautiously peered around. The island had palms and other trees native to coastal regions. But, what amazed me most of all was the massive gray stone castle. Well, technically it was now an abandoned prison, but at one point it had been a castle.

Yeah, we definitely needed to find a map. I could see us taking days to explore that whole place otherwise.

Before we left the boat, I made sure that it wouldn’t go anywhere and would stay protected. The last thing we needed was a tainted boat when we were trying to escape the barrier.

Mia took point and we cautiously left the deserted dock area and started walking down a once tiled street that was now mostly covered in a thick layer of sand and dirt. I watched the plants for any sign of tainted creatures coming to attack, but the island was eerily lifeless.

“Shit!” Mia said as she fell and landed on her hands and knees.

With her high dex, she shouldn’t be tripping over anything, unless it was a trap of some kind that we both missed.

I examined the ground for a hidden tripwire but I only noticed a doll. Was that there before?

I didn’t touch it, but while Mia quickly stood back up I crouched down and peered at it closely. It had pale porcelain skin, one large painted eye as the other was missing, and black straight hair. It was a little dirty but nowhere near as bad as it should be for being out in the elements. I reached out to pick it up but a hand grabbed my wrist.

“I observed it. It’s just a doll, let’s go.”

“Right. It’s just a doll.” Things on this island were designed to remove one's sanity. I wasn’t exactly sure how the amulets were helping keep our sanity stable but I had to trust my own eyes and skills.

So we left it alone and continued down the path. It took us a half-hour to reach the entrance to the castle-like prison. There was a bridge that had once been a drawbridge over a defensive ditch.

We crossed it only to wind up in a barbican with the portcullis on the castle side closed. There was also another wooden gate, right up against the bars blocking our view. If it wasn’t like this, we could have tried getting Mia to teleport us in. Well, if the gate didn’t have anti-teleportation magic on it.

Mia touched the bars and shook them. They were very stable. “How are we going to get in?”

I sighed. “You’re fortunate to be traveling with an educated bard... In ancient times, our elven castle architects would often design in hidden entrances for various different things. One type would be in walls like this.”

“That seems a bit, not safe for a defensive structure.”

“Maybe, but if you have a minimal amount of people guarding your castle, you’re going to want a way to go in and out so you can attack a gate crasher from behind. Granted a well-placed arrow slit would work just as well, but often.” I walked up to the thick brick wall and started tapping. Eventually, I reached a slightly hollow sound to a section and started searching for the hidden mechanism. There. I pushed the little leaver with my finger and the stone door, which had perfectly blended itself into the wall, slid open. “Often you’ll find them building in contingencies like this. Sometimes these doors were even forgotten about centuries later since they’re rarely used.”

I stepped through the hidden entrance and had to push aside a broom, and some shelves filled with cleaning tools to get into gatehouse proper. A door to my right looked promising so I opened it. It did not have a way to crank the portcullis up but it did have a desk and various old papers on it. Above the desk was a map of the whole castle.

Well, that was a little too convenient.