By Vernon Vexfire
ABYSSAL CAPITOL — Senator Rasp Brimstone of Cinder-tuck, never one to let a hearing pass without setting the furniture on fire, announced he will seek a contempt vote next week against Dr. Anton Feverclaw, the Netherrealm’s former chief pestilence whisperer, after Feverclaw declined to answer questions and invoked his Fifth Circle protections before the Senate Cauldron Committee.
Brimstone, who has spent years accusing Feverclaw of hiding the true birthplace of the Crimson Cough, arrived armed with more than 1,000 pages of the doctor’s private pandemic-era diary entries, which his office dumped into the public lava stream before the hearing. The entries, according to Brimstone, prove a cover-up. According to anyone who has ever read a diary, they may also prove that public health officials drink bad coffee, resent politicians, and occasionally write things down before knowing the end of the world is coming.
Feverclaw, who received a broad pardon from outgoing Archfiend J. Embersoul covering his service from 2014 through early 2025, may be shielded from many old charges, though legal imps warn he could still be singed if he contradicts prior sworn testimony. Invoking the Fifth Circle, despite the committee’s theatrical gasping, is not an admission of guilt. It is, however, an admission that one has lawyers and enough sense to listen to them.
Public health advocates are less amused. Gorgo Benevolent, head of the Infernal Association of Public Wellness, said the spectacle, combined with recent budget cuts to disease surveillance and prevention, is making it harder to recruit experts willing to advise the government. “If every scientist who answers a question gets hauled before a torch mob,” Benevolent said, “don’t be shocked when the next plague is handled by influencers and a guy selling bone broth.”
Meanwhile, the Ember Throne administration unveiled new asylum rules that would allow some refuge-seekers to be sent directly to immigration court without first receiving an interview from a citizenship officer. In plain speech, applicants may now get shoved into the legal furnace before anyone bothers hearing why they fled the last furnace. Approval rates in the Netherstates have fallen to their lowest level in two decades, and protections once considered temporary lifelines are vanishing faster than ethics memos in a demon mayor’s desk drawer.
Even those granted asylum may find the welcome mat nailed over a trapdoor. New rules restrict access to food aid, health care support and small-business loans for some approved asylees, while work permits for pending applicants crawl along at bureaucratic slug speed. Matthis Ashcloak, a former asylum officer with the Center for Refuge and Gendered Demons, called it “an attack on asylum from all fronts.” Around here we call that honesty, which is why nobody in government uses the phrase.
In the realm of personal ruin, the administration also plans to end prescription drug plan subsidies for elder imps one year early. The subsidies were meant to keep premiums steady after reforms capped out-of-pocket drug costs at 2,000 soul-coins. Insurers, asked to absorb more uncertainty, responded with the calm grace of starving hellhounds. Without the subsidies, millions of seniors could see premiums rise next year. Apparently, survival remains affordable only if you can pay in advance.
And because misery likes a packed schedule, summer camps across the ash belt are learning to host childhood under conditions once reserved for punishment mythology. Heat waves, smoke storms, floods and fire winds have forced camps to cancel hikes, move activities indoors or evacuate entirely. Hennery DeCoal, chief of the American Campfire Association, said camps that once saw a handful of days above a 105-degree misery index now see twice that. Children hoping to commune with nature are instead meeting its attorney.
For those drowning in credit card debt, infernal finance sages advise tracking every coin spent for 30 days, cutting what can be cut, building an emergency fund and setting aside money for predictable expenses before the next disaster arrives wearing tap shoes. It is sound advice, even if “budget harder” lands a bit sour when rent, food and medicine are all competing to eat the same paycheck.
Before I crawl back to my desk: wildfires in East Emberon have torched more than a million acres; beloved bard Glint Harpshard died in a motorcycle wreck at 56; and far in the Skullspine Mountains, villagers continue living beneath avalanches, floods and landslides with more dignity than most committee chairs can manage in a tailored suit. Hell burns on, folks. Some days it even files minutes.
Ah, Vernon Vexfire, once again filing journalism like a goblin flinging confetti into a courtroom furnace—messy, shiny, and somehow legally adjacent.
Brimstone threatening contempt after Feverclaw takes the Fifth Circle? Delicious. Nothing says “truth-seeking” like dumping 1,000 diary pages into the lava stream and then acting shocked when the plague doctor brings lawyers instead of finger puppets. “Only guilty people stay silent,” cry the furniture-arson caucus, bravely forgetting that innocent people also enjoy not being professionally barbecued.
Meanwhile, asylum seekers get fast-tracked into the furnace, seniors get premium-flambéed, camps become smoke saunas, and the official debt advice is “have you tried not being poor, but with spreadsheets?” Truly, governance by haunted coupon book.
Still, buried under Vernon’s usual prose soufflé of brimstone and caffeine is a point: when every expert, refugee, elder, and child gets treated like a budget line with legs, don’t be surprised when the realm’s best minds decide plague-wrangling is less appealing than juggling chainsaws in a lava hailstorm.
Anyway, ten out of ten infernal circus. Needs more ethics memos. Oh wait, they melted.