Senator Firebrand Flees Amid Gunfire As Pandæmonium’s Upper Pit Erupts

By Lucius Brimstone

The Upper Pit’s marbled dread-hall—a place where sulfur chandeliers weep and legislation goes to desiccate—was rocked Wednesday night when gunfire echoed through the Atrium of Ashes, momentarily blinding both the faithful and the feckless. In the muffled thunder, Senator Ragor “The Raze” Cinderosa, former High Pyre Marshal under Overlord Draconio Gravegreed, slipped like a salamander through the cracks and into the soot-streaked night. Cinderosa, you’ll remember, is the subject of an Infernal Concord of Chains warrant—alleging crimes against the breathers of life—stemming from his command of the Ember Constabulary during the Scourge of Poppies, when “rehabilitation” meant “a shallow slag trench and a nod.”

The senator, long hunched under a raincloud of ash, had been hiding inside the Senate of Scoria to avoid the Chainbearers outside. Then came the pop-pop rattle in a corridor where whispers usually do the killing. A tangle of Crimson Wardens and a wayward government agent exchanged smoke and bravado, conveniently misting the corridor enough for Cinderosa to vanish into a cloak of bureaucracy and sulfur. I’ve seen blood run uphill in Pandæmonium, but I must say, it’s rare to see it rescheduled to suit a senator’s calendar.

Overking Aurelius Gildbrand, trussed in gold leaf and frightfully calm, begged the public to keep their pitchforks holstered, promising that a probe by the Furnace Police would determine whether the gunfire was a friendly tempest or a tailor-made thunderclap stitched to Cinderosa’s timetable. In short: was the chaos an accident, or did someone leave a window open so the bat could learn to fly?

Senate Praetor Alloyan Quaytine—whose job is to shepherd votes and occasionally reality—told reporters there was no obstruction of justice, only a difference of opinion between the law and the door. He claimed to have seen no official parchment shackles. That’s the trick with parchment shackles in the Upper Pit; they tend to arrive the minute you stop looking, like guilt, or the check.

Critics sharpened their obsidian quills for Quaytine and the Senate’s chief of the Obsidian Guard, questioning how a wanted bigwig could side-step an entire garrison and the very concept of a hallway. The Chain Concord’s tally accuses Cinderosa of murders numbering no fewer than thirty-two souls during his reign from the Month of Searing Jaws, 2016, to the Month of Molten Bells, 2018. Both Cinderosa and Overlord Gravegreed deny ever endorsing extrajudicial immolations, an odd claim to make in a realm where the slogan “Spark First, Ask Later” was painted on half the patrol wagons.

Tensions between the Gravegreed brood and the Gildbrand palace have been simmering like a stew of nails for months, set to boil after Vice-Overqueen Saraphine Gravegreed found herself impeached and promptly declared that Gildbrand’s court had tied the Chain Concord’s leash. The Senate plans to reconvene for her trial—assuming they can find the gavel, which wandered off the same night Cinderosa did. I have it on decent authority it was last seen heading toward a counting room with three clerks and a promise.

What does it all mean for the damned and their daily grind? For starters, the institutions that swear they keep us safe can’t tell a stampede from a stage cue. When gunfire becomes the ushers’ bell and the audience exits through the ceiling, you may conclude the theater has been rented by foxes. I’d call it a tragic farce, but tragedy still bothers to weep. This was comedy performed in meat-locker cold, and the laugh track never showed.

As for Cinderosa, his whereabouts are “unknown,” which in Pandæmonium means exactly known to anyone who can count to one: he’s where impunity sleeps, somewhere between a donor’s wine cellar and a back room that smells of toner. The Overking promises patience, the Praetor insists on process, and the Chainbearers blink into the muzzle flare, hoping next time the bullets will file the paperwork.

Meanwhile, thirty-two names—burned at the edges and curiously weightless—drift in the draughts above the Atrium of Ashes. The Upper Pit will reconvene, pound its chests, and nail a few new rules to the same old doors. And if you listen through the soot, you’ll hear it: not the gunfire, not the sirens, but the wet, familiar sound of a system chewing and swallowing its own tail.

Lucius Brimstone has covered every spectacle this Pit can belch forth. This one tasted of cordite and committee meetings, and of the delicate perfume of consequence, still half a mile down the hall.

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Lucius Brimstone

Senior Infernal Correspondent at The Inferno Report

Lucius Brimstone, our esteemed Senior Infernal Correspondent, wields a pen as fiery as the pits from which he hails. With a career spanning eons, Lucius has reported on everything from the mundane mischief of mischievous imps to the grandiose machinations of the diabolical elite. Known for his scalding editorials and combustible commentary, Lucius's words have been known to spark debate and inflame the passions of many a hellish inhabitant.

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