The staircase beneath Ashfall’s third floor was narrower than the rest of the dungeon, with steps worn smooth from decades of rust that bothered me immediately.
If this had been some newly excavated storage room or forgotten tunnel, I could have blamed it on the world expanding beyond whatever scraps of lore I’d written. But these stairs were old. People had been walking down here for years, possibly longer than Ashfall had even existed.
"How long have the holding cells been here?" I asked as Lyra took one of the blue-flamed lanterns from the wall.
"I don’t know, Mistress. They were already here when I arrived at Ashfall."
"And when was that?"
"Eleven years ago."
’Wonderful. I’m discovering ancient architecture underneath a dungeon I supposedly created.’
The air grew colder as we descended, and the familiar smell of moss and wet stone gradually disappeared beneath something metallic.
Blood.
Thankfully, not fresh.
The staircase opened into a narrow corridor lined with eight iron-barred cells. Most were empty, but a middle-aged human man lay beneath a thin blanket in the first occupied cell. His cheeks were hollow, and although his eyes opened when we approached, he didn’t bother sitting up.
A woman in the next cell reacted very differently. She scrambled backward until her spine struck the wall, staring at my horns and tail with naked fear.
Neither looked like adventurers.
"Who are they?" I asked.
"Prisoners taken during raids."
"What kind of raids?"
"Supply raids, mostly."
I looked at Lyra, and she seemed to understand what I was actually asking.
"Ashfall has attacked nearby human settlements before, Mistress."
Of course it had.
Another uncomfortable reminder that being destined for extermination didn’t automatically make everyone living here innocent.
"What happened to the other prisoners?"
"Some were traded. Others died."
Her answer was delivered without cruelty, but she didn’t attempt to make it sound nice either.
I looked toward the frightened woman again. Twenty-three demons were already relying on a dying mushroom farm upstairs, so I couldn’t exactly pretend food was infinite because I’d suddenly developed morals.
"Make sure these two are fed."
Lyra blinked. "Mistress?"
"Half portions if necessary. We have enough problems without people starving to death because somebody forgot they were locked underneath the dungeon."
She hesitated before lowering her head. "As you command."
We continued deeper into the corridor until I noticed the final cell.
Unlike the others, thick black bands reinforced its iron bars. Crimson runes had been carved across the metal, while four obsidian pillars surrounded the cell with symbols I recognized immediately.
Anti-holy wards.
Chains crossed the doorway in an overlapping pattern, each secured by a separate lock.
I stared at the ridiculous amount of security.
"Why the hell does that look like we’re imprisoning a god?"
"That is the woman Mistress Velessa ordered us not to harm."
"Not to harm, but apparently absolutely not to let escape."
"Yes, Mistress."
I approached the bars.
At first, I thought the cell was empty. Then something shifted in the darkness.
A woman sat against the back wall with one knee raised and her head resting against the stone. Long blonde hair fell around her face in tangled sheets, while the white robes covering her body had been torn and stained with dirt and dried blood.
Iron restraints encircled her wrists and ankles.
She was thin from captivity, but even half-starved and chained beneath an F-rank dungeon, there was something about her that made the cell feel too small.
Her head slowly lifted and bright blue eyes found mine.
There wasn’t a trace of fear in them.
"So," she said, her voice rough, "the whore finally found herself a crown."
I stared at her while Lyra stiffened beside me.
"Mistress, I—"
"It’s fine." I stepped closer to the bars. "Although technically, I don’t have a crown."
The prisoner’s expression flickered. Apparently that wasn’t the response she’d expected.
"Did I offend you, demon?"
"A little. Mostly because I’ve had a very confusing morning and you’re being kind of a bitch."
That earned me a genuine reaction. Her eyebrows rose slightly before her gaze traveled over my horns and tail.
"A Lesser Succubus," she muttered. "An especially unimpressive one."
I glanced at Lyra. "Is everybody in this dungeon aware of how weak I am?"
Lyra suddenly became fascinated with the floor.
The prisoner gave a quiet, humorless laugh, and something about the sound made me look at her more carefully.
Blonde hair, blue eyes and she was a human.
Holy restraints shouldn’t have been necessary for an ordinary prisoner, and Velessa had specifically ordered everyone to keep her alive.
A ridiculous possibility entered my mind.
’No fucking way.’
"What is your name?"
Her amusement disappeared. "Why?"
"Humor me."
"You demons drag me beneath the earth, chain me to a wall, and now you want conversation?"
"I told you. Confusing morning."
She stared at me for several seconds before finally leaning her head against the stone again.
"Seraphina."
My stomach dropped. I already knew the answer to my next question.
"Seraphina what?"
Her blue eyes narrowed.
"Vael."
For several seconds, I forgot about Lyra, the prison, and everything else around me.
I remembered a cathedral burning beneath a blackened sky. Golden statues collapsed as corrupted holy fire consumed the capital, while an army of templars knelt before a woman hovering above them on six shattered wings.
Seraphina Vael. The Fallen Saintess.
One of the Seven Calamities of the Demon Frontier.
Her name eventually became synonymous with blasphemy and enough dead priests to make an entire religion constrict priests to the order. Roland finally killed her in Chapter four hundred and seventy-one after one of the longest fights I’d written.
’Why the fuck is she here?’
She wasn’t supposed to enter the story until years after Roland’s journey began. Her first canonical appearance took place in the Holy Kingdom, hundreds of miles north of the Demon Frontier.
Ashfall had absolutely nothing to do with her backstory. At least, nothing I’d written.
"How old are you?" I asked.
Her face hardened. "Go fuck yourself."
"That’s fair."
I focused on her, wondering whether the System that showed my own information could tell me anything useful about her. Before I could finish the thought, a faint golden light passed across Seraphina’s body and a crimson panel unfolded in front of me.
[AUTHOR’S INSIGHT ACTIVATED]
[SERAPHINA VAEL]
Race: Human
Age: 24
Class: Holy Acolyte
Level: 17
Condition: Mana Channels Severed
Current Potential: F
True Potential: SSS
Dormant Bloodline: Fallen Seraph — 1%
Canonical Identity: Fallen Saintess
Canonical Threat: Calamity
Canonical Fate: Slain by Hero Roland
Investment Compatibility: 99%
I read the information twice.
Seraphina currently couldn’t stand without the chains helping support her weight, yet the System was telling me she possessed SSS potential.
I already knew she became powerful. What I hadn’t known was why.
Fallen Seraph.
That bloodline had never existed in my manuscript.
I’d described her transformation as a corruption of divine power, thrown in some ominous lore about shattered faith, and called it a day.
Apparently, the actual world had taken one look at my explanation, decided it was lazy bullshit, and filled in the gaps itself.
’That’s extremely concerning.’
"What are you looking at?" Seraphina asked.
"Nothing."
"Liar."
"You’re very confrontational for someone chained to a wall."
"And you’re very talkative for a corpse waiting to keel over."
I actually liked that one.
I dismissed the window and turned toward Lyra. "Who brought her here?"
"The traders. Mistress Velessa purchased several prisoners from a caravan traveling the western routes approximately two months ago. Seraphina was among them."
Seraphina’s jaw tightened.
"Was she already injured?" I asked.
"Yes. Her mana channels had been destroyed before she arrived."
Seraphina’s hands curled into fists at the explanation. Both Lyra and I noticed, but neither of us commented on it.
"Who did that to you?"
Her eyes snapped toward mine.
"Why do you care?"
That was a surprisingly difficult question to answer.
Yesterday, Seraphina was a character. A future boss fight with a tragic backstory I’d deliberately kept vague because mystery made her more interesting.
Now she was twenty feet away from me, chained to a wall after someone had deliberately crippled her years before any of the events I’d written.
"I don’t know yet," I admitted.
Seraphina stared at me as though that answer bothered her considerably more than a lie would have.
Before she could respond, another window appeared.
[INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY DETECTED]
Target: Seraphina Vael
Investment Grade: SSS
Recommended Investment: Restore Mana Channels
Required Resource: Greater Restoration Elixir
Estimated Value: 1,500 Gold
Potential Return: ???
I stared at the price.
Ashfall’s entire treasury contained thirteen silver and forty-two copper.
’Great. I’m only missing approximately all of it.’
For several seconds, I considered whether the System had developed a sense of humor specifically to torment me.
Then I remembered something.
A hidden chamber beneath Ashfall containing something considerably better.
The Moonwell.
I’d created it as an ancient magical spring left behind by the civilization that originally occupied these caverns. Its waters could repair damaged mana pathways, cleanse magical corruption, and accelerate natural healing.
More importantly, unlike the mysterious prison or the mushroom farm I’d apparently forgotten to invent, the Moonwell was something I actually knew about.
And I knew exactly where it was. I looked through the bars at Seraphina.
She immediately narrowed her eyes.
"Why are you smiling, demon?"
I hadn’t realized I was.
One of the seven most dangerous women in my entire novel was sitting underneath my dungeon years before she was supposed to appear.
Her future power was dormant, her mana channels were destroyed, and the System had just offered me an SSS-grade opportunity to change everything that was supposed to happen to her.
For once since waking up in this ridiculous world, I actually knew something nobody else did.