[https://www.tanyarochester.com/uploads/5/4/5/5/54553809/grace3_orig.png]

He wanted me to cast fire for the first time?

I shuddered.

Lore was right, though. I needed to use all the elements. It was part of my job as an arcane assassin.

I grimaced.

My heart pounded loudly in my ears, but I still brought my swords together and made a motion similar to striking flint and steel. I didn’t actually touch them together as that would make a horrible noise. And unwanted noise went against the whole, staying silent part of being an assassin.

A few points of my mana drained from me and entered my weapons creating a thin, near-invisible flame on the surface. I seriously wanted to throw them away at that point, but I forced myself to relax. This was just like holding a candle. Just like a candle. It couldn’t hurt me.

“Good. I know that was hard but I’m proud of you,” Lore said. And I bit my lip and blinked. Damn. Stupid bards and knowing the right words to say.

“Now I want you to attack the woodpile.”

I glared at him. He raised a brow at me. “Or are you going to walk around with your swords like that?”

Fuck you. I take everything back.

“Come on, stab it. Just a little. You know you want to.”

Bards.

I took a few steps away from one of the woodpiles, closed my eyes, leaned forward, and blindly used my blade tips to tap the pile.

I didn’t feel any heat. Did I miss? I opened one eye and jumped back in terror from the massive fire I had created.

My back hit something softer and less steady than the stone wall.

Lore wrapped his arms around me and hugged my head to his chest. My whole body shook. Breathing became a chore.

“It’s okay. You did well. It belongs to you and it can’t hurt you. ”

“Why the fuck is it so... fucking huge?”

He sighed. “Your other half, whatever it is, is an entity deeply connected to fire. We already know that flames can’t hurt you very much, that you can control them, and now we know that any magical fire you create will be much larger than what any normal player could possibly create.” His warm hand rubbed my back. Slowly my breathing steadied.

“You’re right.”

“Come on, let’s keep going.”

Even though I could have used a break I still nodded. It would get me away from that bonfire I created.

***

We kept traveling, going so arduously slowly that I had half a mind to pick a fight with something as long as it wasn’t one of those weird, ‘kill it with fire,’ monsters. But mostly we came across empty hallways and rooms that had nothing in them. Disturbing.

Eventually, we fought a few more weird eldritch creatures that were fairly low level and easy to kill thanks to our stealth and backstab tactics. At least, until we reached this one hallway.

There were several open doors but what caused us to pause were the two human.. er elven... figures that stood in the center of the hallway. They weren’t talking or communicating in any way. They just stood, swaying, almost as if they were seaweed at the bottom of the ocean. And on top of their head were crowns of driftwood.

I wanted to get closer to them in order to study their oddness, but yeah... Those were tainted people. I didn’t know if they were players or NPCs.

Shit, I hoped they were only NPCs. The prison became tainted a long fucking time ago. If there were still players trapped here... Never mind. I didn’t even want to think about that.

I swallowed. Lore grabbed my arm and squeezed as if giving support. He saw them too. He pressed his lips to my ear and whispered, “They’re tainted. They’re also too high-level for us. Let’s teleport past them.”

I looked around for a spot to teleport to. While the hallway was long it wasn’t that long. I could probably teleport while invisible too.

I eyed a spot that was just behind the wall on the other side. Deciding on that location, I grabbed Lore, turned myself invisible, and teleported us across the hallway. Then I quickly shoved us behind the wall and waited.

My heart pounded in my head. All my concentration was focused on listening past that to hear footsteps of the tainted individuals. There were none. They hadn’t noticed us!

I glanced at Lore, who shrugged. He cautiously turned a corner and paused at a door. His hands shook as he opened it.

Wait, was this it? Were we here?

Fuck, I hoped so.

We stepped inside the room then shut and locked the door behind us.

I had the urge to search the room for the device but I then realized that we were technically in this prison still and could encounter danger at any point. We first had to check every inch of this place for enemies.

Fortunately, the room was fairly bare. Its floor looked similar to a type of concrete that had many small potholes carved into it — likely from centuries of wear and tear. It also had a weird bed-like stone table attached to one wall.

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The bed was mostly flat, except, there was a large area where a huge slice had been carved out of it. If a human laid down there, that hole would be around where the neck of a person would go.

There seemed to be some clamping devices connected to that area as well. They were likely put there to clamp a prisoner down.

All in all, it looked more like a torture bed than a place where one went to get their prisoner collar removed.

Next to the bed, there was a half pillar made of stone that had a very heavy-looking metal lid. There were a few pegs on the wall where tools had once been but they’d long been removed. I didn’t see anything else in the room and that worried the shit out of me.

Where was the removal device? Where the fuck was it?

We had to keep searching. It had to be here somewhere.

Lore started running his hands over the walls searching for hidden compartments while I checked out the bed. I even touched the weird-looking clamps and realized, after playing with them, how they were supposed to hold the prisoner down. But why would they need to hold a prisoner down in order to remove their collar?

Was it to avoid an accident that caused scarring? Which meant that whatever was used to remove the collar wasn’t something so precise as a magic tool like the ones we used during the Red Roof Inn Event.

I touched the lid of that weird-ass half pillar next to the bed. It was slightly warm to the touch? Okay, that was odd. I used all of my strength to move the lid aside by a mere two inches. The inside glowed a near blinding bluish-white. And the closer I looked the more I realized that it wasn’t light, but a liquid fire of some kind. Kind of like white-hot lava, if the lava was more fire than stone.

I gulped and took a step back from it. Fire, again. Why was it always fucking fire? And this time in liquid form. But maybe...

I observed it.

????. ????

Shit. My observation skill level was too low.

“Hey, Lore. Is... Is this something that can remove your collar?”

He turned around, leaving his finger on the spot where he was checking for hidden compartments. His eyes grew wide.

He slowly removed his hand and walked over to the half pillar. When he peered into it his whole body trembled.

He nodded then blinked a little.

“Yes. This is it. This can definitely remove my collar. But it can also permanently scar me. I think... I think there should be a tool that they use to take a small portion of it and pour it on a part of the collar. Even just having a small bit of it drop on a magic item will destroy it completely.”

He looked around the room and I could hear his depression deeply as he said. “But the tools in this room have all been removed. I would, dip my whole neck into it if it would remove this fucking thing, but this liquid fire is too hot. I think... No, I would certainly die before the liquid even touched it.”

Was it really that hot? I looked at where Lore stood. He didn’t get nearly as close to it as I had as if just being that far was painfully hot. Maybe...

“We’ll have to search this whole prison for those tools,” He continued. “It will take too long. We have no direction where we can even start looking.”

I hugged Lore from the side and peered up at him. “No. We’re not going to do something dumb like search this whole place for a tool that might not even be here. The guards evacuated this place, remember. They might have brought the tools with them, or maybe the tainted guys entered the room and took them with them. Or some other thing. The fact is, they could be here or not. But we’re here now.”

“Mia, we need a tool.”

I swallowed down my fear and hugged him tighter. I was going to do this. I was going to face my fear, once and for all and free my stupidly handsome, thoughtful, and far too trustworthy bard partner.

“Lore, I’ll be your tool.”

He jerked. His eyes grew wide and he stared down at me. “Are you sure? Will your Fire Manipulation work with this type of magical fire?”

I shrugged. “I’ll do it. We’re not leaving this room until your finally fucking free.”

His eyes glistened and he fiercely hugged me back. It was the perfect hug.

Once he released me, I walked over to the pillar but Lore grabbed my hand.

“Mia, if you’re going to try and get close enough to manipulate it, you should remove your armor and maybe wear some inexpensive casual clothing. We can’t afford for your gear to get destroyed.”

He was right so I did change, then I stepped up to the pillar again. It felt warm but it wasn’t that hot. I tapped my pinky against the white inside of the container. It hurt a little but didn’t do any actual damage to me. Slowly I dipped my pinky into the liquid fire telling myself that it wasn’t fire, just warm liquid magic that I could manipulate. I pulled out a single drop. It was actually quite beautiful. And that was when I noticed that my mana and health drained at an alarming rate so I put it back and took a few steps back from the pillar.

“Lore, can I get a heal?”

“Alright.” He spoke a few words that didn’t reach my ears then pinched my side. Soon I was back up to full.

“I think this will work. Go lie down.”

Lore nodded, removed his adventuring clothes, replacing them with no top and loose-fitting pants. Though he still wore the magic item that let us keep our sanity.

I couldn’t help but appreciate his figure for a second and then told myself off for having inappropriate thoughts at a shitty time. Fucking bards and their stupid charisma.

He lied down on the weird-ass stone bed.

I made sure he was laying down correctly then turned to leave. He grabbed my hand.

“Set up the clamps, Mia.”

Fuck, I hadn’t been planning on it. I mean he’d been stuck with that collar on forever, the last thing I wanted was to force him to stay in once spot. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. “It’s for my safety.”

I sighed and set up a clamp around his neck. There seemed to be another clamp that I used to pull the collar far away from his skin. As far as I possibly could. It even dug into his neck a bit but I was not risking his perfect skin. If he even got a single scar because of a mistake I made, I would never forgive myself.

I mean, in general, I didn’t care if someone had a scar or not but it was another thing entirely if I would be the one giving it to someone. Especially one with a charisma-based build. And especially when that person was my bard partner.

Fuck that.

I put a few more clamps into place on his head and around his upper arms. Lore looked very pale at this point. He closed his eyes tightly and held very-very still.

I placed my hand on his shoulder and squeezed it to comfort him. “This will all be over soon.”

“I know. Make it quick, please.”

Hmm. How much would I need? His collar was about half an inch tall and an eighth of an inch thick. Maybe four times as much as the drop I took out earlier?

Slowly, I dipped my index finger into the mass of liquid fire and pulled out a very large drop of it. Even though holding a drop of this drained both my mana and my health I still took my time.

Slowly, I brought it towards the collar. It came closer and closer to Lore’s masculine neck.

He swallowed.

I manipulated it further to touch the edge of the collar farthest away from that same gorgeous neck. I ran it across the cool metal.

The silver hissed and steamed and finally broke.

The remainder of the fire dropped down that hole in the bed and seemed to vanish. Then the collar cracked apart, turning into light, dust, and mana.

We’d fucking done it! We finally fucking did it! Lore was a free bard!

Before I celebrated too much, I quickly undid all the clamps, freeing Lore completely.

That was when a prompt appeared.