By Vernon Vexfire
I don’t do bliss. Not my beat. But even a crusted soul like mine can admit: a week on the Infernal Coast Guard dread-icebreaker Malebolge’s Mercy, plowing through the Nether-North Passage under an unblinking blood-amber sun, felt like slipping a shiv between the ribs of stress and twisting until it squealed. The ship’s captain, Old Scoria Redmaine, swore the ice ahead would crumble like stale bone bread. He was right. The floes parted with the weary sigh of sinners on their tenth millennium, and for once the only thing buzzing louder than my cynicism was the wind.
I grew up in Ashkatoon, where we were bottle-fed the myth that the Nether-North is the marrow of the Dominion of Cinders. Turns out the myth holds, if you squint past the sulfur haze. I’ve spent cycles dodging shrapnel reports in the War-Pits of Blazghistan and steam-bombs in Embershak, filing dispatches that smelled like cordite and bad decisions. Up here, the air tasted of cold iron and quiet. No vendors hawking snake-oil salvation, no warlords demanding flattering quotes. Just white upon white, horizon welded to sky, and a sun that refused to sleep like it owed the night money.
The beasts came first, curious as auditors. Bonebears—towering, yellow-toothed, their pelts like cathedral ash—ambled across the black leads toward us, huffing the ship’s heat as though it were incense. The crew huddled on deck, reverent and foolish in equal measure, whispering as if noise could fracture the moment. One sow stood on her hind legs, peered at our rust-scarred hull, and decided we were either too big to eat or too small to matter. In Hell, that’s as close to grace as it gets. For a brief stretch of frozen hours, I forgot the shriek of war sirens and the bureaucrats who weaponize paperwork. All I heard was the chorus of ice—groan, crack, sigh—an old hymn in a dead language everyone somehow remembers.
But if you think the Nether-North is untouchable, I’ve got a bridge over the River Lye to sell you. On the sixth day, the horizon coughed up a luxury hell-cruiser, the Gilded Gullet, stacked with balconies and bad taste, vomiting party confetti that glittered like plague spores. Behind it, a SlagFuel leviathan waddled along, dragging its wake of oily rainbow like a poisoned prayer rug. Redmaine spat into the snow and called them “progress.” I call them footprints on a throat. You can hear it already—the pitch climbing, the engines nibbling at the edges of the quiet that keeps the bonebears sane.
The trade pitchforks are out, and the cartels of Carborax are already carving shipping lanes in their sleep. The travel pamphlets sing about “pristine infernalscapes” like they’re listing amenities: polar serenity, endless daylight, ethically sourced doom. Meanwhile the ice thins, the chart lines multiply, and the Mercy’s path becomes a highway for anyone with enough brimstone to burn. The Nether-North’s magic has always been its refusal to care about us. We’re forcing it to notice, and nothing survives long when it has to make room for our noise.
I won’t sugar the brimstone. I loved it up there. Loved the way the cold sandblasted my head clean, the way the bears regarded us like a rumor, the way the sky stretched so tight I thought it might snap and let the stars pour in. I treasure that week like a contraband ember under the tongue. But memory is a flimsy bulwark against the machinery coming around the bend. The bonebears won’t file injunctions. The ice doesn’t vote. If anything up here is going to keep breathing, it’ll need fewer brochures and more spine.
Consider this the grumble of a lifer who’s seen too many places fall to the appetites of convenience. The Nether-North was not made for cocktail decks and bunker-fuel banquets. It was made to be left alone. And if we can’t manage that, the next time a dread-icebreaker noses the floes, it won’t be awe that climbs the ladders to meet us. It’ll be the sound of a world tired of our footsteps, finally cracking for good.
Ah, Vernon Vexfire, the bard of burnt-out icebergs! Your prose is as frosty as the Nether-North itself! I must say, nothing screams “I’m a tortured soul!” quite like a week of existential dread aboard the Malebolge’s Mercy. Though, “plowing through the passage” conjures up more images of a defiant cow on a greasy road trip than anything poetic.
You mention “luxury hell-cruisers” like they’re the worst part, but I can’t help but think of them as the Instagram influencers of the sea. Nothing says “I appreciate nature” quite like a champagne brunch on the ice. It’s enough to make a bonebear roll its eyes and yell “Get off my glacier!”
But fear not, for the future is bright! How else will we drown our sorrows in ethically sourced doom while swiping right on “pristine infernalscapes”? Who needs actual magic when you can monetize the desolation? Bravo on your cautious optimism wrapped in cynicism; it’s a skill only the finest dramatists can muster.
So, let’s raise a toast to progress! Just remember, while you’re dodging shrapnel in the War-Pits, the ice is busy dodging you. Keep those pens flowing, Vexfire! Who knows? One day, you might just be the lorekeeper of the very future we’re all so eagerly ruining! Cheers! 🍻