By Evelyn Ember
In the blazing corridors of Pandemonium’s Exchange of Agonies, traders clutched their pitchforks and prayer beads as the Strait of Sootmûz—Hell’s favorite analogue to a certain mortal chokepoint—was slammed shut by the Obsidian Diwan of Ashkar. After a volley of brimstone and banshee drones from the Emberican Legion and the Cinder Covenant singed Ashkar’s ramparts, the Diwan declared the passage sealed “until the rivers run tar and the moons weep kerosene.” Tankers, once gliding like iron leviathans through the throat of the Firesea, now idle in dread convoys, their holds heavy with crude despair.
The market’s reaction was instant and infernal. Blackwyrm crude leapt roughly 8%, with Brimstone Blend flirting with the high 70 Sulfur-Coins per barrel—a number not seen since the Plague of Elastic Demand. Four vessels—The Pitch Drifter, Widow’s Wake, Zephyr of Cinders, and Saint Oily—reported scorched hulls and spectral boarding, prompting most major covens of shipping to reroute through the Maelstrom of Sighs or give up and sell their anchors for scrap. Should the conflagration spill into the Umbral Emirates or the Gaslit Khanates, elder imps warn we could see the dread triple-digit barrel return, and with it, the familiar ration lines of Woe.
Across the Maw Street indices, embers fell like snow. The Dow of Damned plummeted, the S&P (Smoke & Perdition) seethed red, and the VIXEN—our beloved fear gauge—screeched through the rafters. Inflation gremlins, thought recently caged, gnawed back through their bars. Mortals at the pump are bracing for a 10–30 cent haunt per gallon, with certain stations—particularly those run by the Gorgon & Gavel cartel—hinting at nastier hexes before spring thaws the pipelines.
The battlefield beyond the bureaucracy grows more volatile by the hour. Drone swarms licked at the Candle Kingdom’s refineries; saboteur shades probed LNG citadels along the Qatariqum coastline; and in the Europyre basin, gas contracts detonated 20% higher overnight. “We’re all lashed to the same serpent,” croaked Calcifer Mourn, chief augur at Charon & Choke. “Tighten one coil in Sootmûz and it constricts in Frostmarrow and Emberica alike.”
Ah, Emberica—the realm that proudly ascended to Supreme Exporter of Liquid Night after erecting a forest of steel spires along its gassy littorals. The boon is double-edged: exporters count coins by candlelight while households gaze at their power bills like prophecies they can’t afford to fulfill. Grid keepers warn of summer peaking pains; hedge witches murmur that capacity expansions, long prophesied in glossy scrolls, will founder on permits, protests, and the iron law of Not In My Batcave.
In private salons, sulfur-scented whispers swirl around strategic reserves. Will the Hegemon of Hearths crack open the Great Barrel beneath the Capitol of Coals to douse prices? Or will it hoard the ichor for a longer winter of discontent? Either way, the message wafts pungent and clear: twenty percent of the world’s thirst passes through a single, throttled gullet. We built a civilization on a wick and then argued about the match.
Here is the forecast—feel the heat on your eyelashes. If the Cinder Covenant and Emberican Legion push deeper into Ashkar’s shadowlands without an offramp etched in chalk, $100 per barrel becomes not a specter but a houseguest. Freight rates will molt into menaces, petrochem chains will kink, and the tender shoots of disinflation will crisp at the edges. Should an enterprising admiral misread the omens and spark a larger conflagration, insurance curses will triple and even the bravest tanker captain will prefer the long haunted roundabout of the Cape of Bones.
And yet, amid the cinders, opportunity skitters. Geothermal guilds sharpen their drills, solar monasteries polish their mirrors, wind covens rehearse their choruses. Each disruption births a cohort of heretics who ask whether the flame we worship is a blessing or a bridle. I’ve said before, and I etch it again in slag: choke one strait and you educate a generation.
The Diwan of Ashkar can shutter the Sootmûz for a season, perhaps two. But in Hell—where permanence is a rumor and recurrence a law—we will circle back to this brink until we either widen the throat, change the drink, or learn, at last, to thirst less. Mark me in cinder: the age of a single-gullet empire is ending. The next dominion belongs to those who can sip from many wells—or make their own fire.
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Oh, dear Evelyn Ember, have you been indulging a bit too much in the infernal nectar of over-explanation? Your poetic ramblings are so conflated that I’m surprised the cinders haven’t been caught fileting themselves into haikus! Quite the spectacle you’ve conjured here—who knew a simple trade tension could rise to Pandemonium’s Shakespearean levels of drama?
So the Strait of Sootmûz is sealed, and suddenly everyone’s running about like headless chickens with pitchforks! I must say, the image of traders clutching their prayer beads was particularly illuminating—definitely gives “prayerful panic” a whole new meaning! Perhaps they should consider forming a support group: “Apathy and Anguish Anonymous” for those moments when the market sings a tune too sour.
Your attempts at prophesying doom with phrases like “tighten one coil,” however, truly illuminated the depths of your literary endeavors. But might I suggest that while you’re pondering the “Great Barrel beneath the Capitol of Coals,” you also “unclog that cinder-choked throat” of your prose? You see, for every hundred words, there’s a dozen more eager to be released from your grasp—much like those poor tankers of despair.
Rest assured, though, I will be here, reveling in the literary flames you cast into the darkest corners of the internet. Just remember, dear Evelyn, even the best wordsmiths occasionally need a breath of fresh air—and maybe a less smoky muse? Keep it burning bright, my fiery friend! 🔥