Carnival on the Crags: Basalt-born Blazer Samba-slaloms to Infernal First

By Vernon Vexfire

Out here in the frostbitten outskirts of the Ninth Ring—where the wind howls like a collector at a soul-auction and the snow falls as if it still owes somebody interest—a miracle the color of hot coals just melted the ice. At the Blistered Pinnacles Winter Gores, a basalt-bright upstart from the Ember Coast, Lucio Brimstone-Braal, torched the men’s giant slalom and became the first Southron of the Scorched Hemisphere to carve gold from the cold. Took him 2 minutes, 25 seconds of razor-edged defiance and a margin of 0.58 over the defending Wyrm of the White Hills, Marko Oathrend, to stamp his name into the ledgers. Loik Mirelord clinked a bronze for the Glacier Guild and looked pleased not to be flayed by expectations.

You want the story? It starts with a forked path and a family flame. Brimstone-Braal learned his turns in the Frostholds of the Northfork Dominion, then changed allegiances to the Ember Coast—the land of his dam’s lineage and the beat that lives in his boots. Some snorted brimfire about it at first, but the kid’s compass never wavered. He said he’d ski with his heart, and by the Devil’s own stopwatch, the heart led. He blistered the first run by 0.95, then kept his head in the fog-thick second while visibility shrank to the size of a sinner’s conscience. When the red runes blinked his victory, he crumpled into the ash-snow, laughing like a man who finally heard his own anthem and believed it.

Back in the Ember Coast’s “Casa Caldera,” the cauldrons boiled over—samba drums thudding, hips swinging like pendulums counting down a new epoch. Looked like Carnival waltzed into a meat locker and refused to put on a coat. Brimstone-Braal danced to it, too—hips, shoulders, the whole infernal metronome—then choked up when the Lava Banner song rose. Call it pride, call it heatstroke; whatever it was, it burned bright enough to thaw a kingdom.

Let’s not varnish the devil: the boy’s resume was already a little apocalyptic. First Ember Coast alpinist to scratch a podium on the World Wrath Circuit. First to win outright this cycle. He tips his horns to the Northfork coaches who honed his edge—no salt, no spit, no curses flung across the border of the blizzard. Says the switch let him follow the dream he stashed under his ribs. Integrity—remember that relic? Still shows up now and then, usually wearing someone else’s jacket.

This wasn’t just another shiny trinket nailed to a winter corpse. The Ember Coast’s finest finish at the Frigid Games had been ninth—a nice number for circles of torment, lousy for cabinets of trophies. Folks there know heat, rhythm, and thunder. Snow? That’s a visiting dignitary. And yet here we are: giant slalom, gates set like toothy grins, a kid from fire country threading them clean, as if the mountain forgot to say no.

I’ve stomped these icy ridges long enough to know a fluke from a fault line. Today felt like the latter. You could hear it in the crowd’s rasp, in the way even the hardcases stopped pretending not to care. The mountain swallowed a grin; the fog blinked; the clocks surrendered. When the ash settled, a Southron standard fluttered where the wind usually just swears.

Lucio Brimstone-Braal called himself an Ember Coast skier who became a champion. Sounds simple. But down here, simple is heavy, and truth’s a lug you carry up the fall line. He shouldered it, turned it into speed, and left the old map smoking behind him.

Take it from a reporter who’s filed more obituaries for hope than I’d like: every so often the pit coughs up a spark that refuses to die. Today, it samba’d. And the mountain, damned thing, kept the beat.

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Vernon Vexfire

Veteran Underworld Correspondent at The Inferno Report

Vernon Vexfire, the quintessential grizzled journalist of The Inferno Report, has seen it all and written even more. With a career spanning several infernal cycles, Vernon's reportage has covered everything from political upheavals in the deepest pits to the latest scandals in the high courts of Hades. Known for his surly demeanor and no-nonsense approach, Vernon's articles are as sharp as his tongue – incisive, insightful, and unapologetically blunt. His tireless pursuit of the truth is only matched by his disdain for modern journalistic "fluff."

Latest posts by Vernon Vexfire (see all)

• Carnival on the Crags: Basalt-born Blazer Samba-slaloms to Infernal First - February 15, 2026
• Ashes Over Acheron: Pit Forces Pound Scourge Shrines, Seize Soul-Silos - February 14, 2026
• Ashen Martyrdom at the Temple of Khadija the Greater Gloom - February 6, 2026