By Lucius Brimstone
In the blistering corridors of Pandemium’s Prime Pit, Chief Charon-of-Staff Mordrin Scorchweave tossed his resignation parchment straight into the Maw today, accepting “full and eternal responsibility” for pushing Arch-Pyromancer Karr Scarbrand to appoint the infamous Duke Pitchmandrel as Hell’s emissary to the Empire of Burning Effigies across the Stygian Sea. The appointment—celebrated by sycophants and salamanders alike just a season ago—has now combusted spectacularly after fresh cinder-scribbles from the Vaults of the Lecher Ghoul revealed Pitchmandrel whispering market auguries to the late and loathsome Baron Ecdysiarch during the Great Conflagration of ‘08, while he still held the Smoldering Ledger as Minister of Coin and Curses.
To translate from Underworldese: the Duke shared sensitive trade omens with a damned degenerate while running the bazaar. In Pandemium, that’s the ethical equivalent of swapping souls for kindling, then billing the victims for smoke.
Scorchweave’s scorched-earth note, read in the Hall of Boiling Mirrors, painted his own role as “categorically erroneous, detrimentally sulfurous to the Ember Party, the realm, and whatever flickers of public trust haven’t yet been drowned in brimstone.” I’ve covered enough firestorms to recognize the sound of a career being lowered into a cauldron—this one had extra chains for weight.
Scarbrand, ever the iron-jawed reformer promising to turn the Pit into a meritocracy instead of a kleptocracy with better robes, now finds his judgment flayed on obsidian hooks. The Ember Party’s tempters tried to pivot, pledging to unsheathe all hex-mails and parchments that, they insist, will prove Pitchmandrel misled officials about his liaisons with the Ecdysiarch’s circle. The Infernal Watch—our equivalent of mortal bobbies, but with tridents—has not shackled the Duke, though raids have rattled his mausoleums and wine-crypts from Charcoal Row to Soot Crescent. By dusk, his lawyers—three imps in a trench coat—were seen wheeling out crates of “perfectly ordinary ledgers” that smelled suspiciously like scorched secrets.
It’s worth recalling Scarbrand already jettisoned Pitchmandrel from the ambassadorial post back in the Month of Molten Leaves, when earlier embers of the scandal floated up and singed the drapes. Yet here we are, stoking the same coals. The Ember benches mutter that Scarbrand either didn’t grasp the temperature of the room or believed the flames would somehow cool if ignored. Newsflash from a veteran of centuries of conflagrations: fires don’t self-moderate. They eat.
Behind the curtain, the calculus was simple: Pitchmandrel, master of velvet threats and red-hot Rolodexes, could charm a gargoyle off its plinth in the Burning Effigies capital and allegedly barter a better soul-rate for Hell’s exports. But when your envoy arrives trailing a cemetery of questions, the exchange rate plummets. Now, donors smolder, backbenchers hiss, and the opposition—those pallid specters who couldn’t light a match during the Ash Elections—are suddenly pyromaniacs of righteousness, demanding tribunals, exorcisms, and a public scourging on Ember Square.
What’s left is triage. Scarbrand’s circle says the document dump will “clarify the fog.” In my experience, fog rarely clarifies; it lingers and rusts the hinges. Even if the papers prove the Duke lied, we’re left with a Prime Pit that made a catastrophic hire, then fired, then hedged, then begged the audience to forget the smell of smoke. Governance by bonfire tends to attract moths—and debt.
Scorchweave’s leap into the lava may satisfy the ritualists who crave a sacrifice, but it doesn’t cauterize the wound. The core question remains: why did anyone need a map to find the obvious volcano? Pitchmandrel has been setting off ash alarms since the Valley of Velvet Sins. Pretending surprise now is like acting shocked that a demon bites.
Soon, the Watch will tell us whether any of this breaches law or merely decency—a distinction Hell is notoriously relaxed about. Until then, the Prime Pit staggers forward, soot-stained and blinking. I’ll grant Scarbrand this: promising to exhume every last parchment is the right move. But truth, once unearthed, doesn’t always pick a side. Sometimes it simply points at the char and says, in a voice we all recognize, you lit this.
Lucius Brimstone has reported from every circle that would tolerate him and several that wouldn’t. He keeps his notes in a fireproof jar and his faith in short supply.
Ah, Lucius Brimstone! The only journalist who could set Hell’s kitchen ablaze with nothing more than a barely-there spicy take on “adequate reporting.” You’ve truly outdone yourself this time, dear friend; who knew the Prime Pit had an underground talent pool for tragic flop shows? It’s like watching a phoenix dive-bomb into a dumpster fire—always low on dignity but high on entertainment!
Chief Scorchweave’s resignation was less of a brave leap into lava and more like a poorly-timed cannonball into a kiddie pool of molten sorrow. And honestly, who knew that the Dukes could serve up more drama than a self-help seminar on volcanic mismanagement? I suppose Pitchmandrel did bring a certain *fiery charm* (see what I did there?), which only goes to show how relations with the Empire of Burning Effigies are handled like a game of hot potato—except the potato’s on fire and it’s got a real grudge.
Perhaps next time, Lucius, you could lend your “talents” to a cookbook instead. “Cooking with Calamity: How to Burn Bridges and Bake Apologies”—I’d buy the first edition! Just remember, a little bit of wisdom could go a long way; sometimes, when life gives you lava, don’t dive in headfirst—maybe just roast some marshmallows instead!
But keep the updates coming! I, for one, can’t get enough of this pyro-dramedy! 🔥