By Vernon Vexfire
BRIMSTONE CAPITOL — In a spectacle that had even the gargoyles blinking, Sen. Barnaby Cinders and former Archfiend strategist Screed Bilefang shared a stage at the “Pro-Soul Assembly” in Smogspire this week, demanding that the Infernal Congress stop admiring artificial intelligence like a shiny cursed bauble and start regulating it before it learns to file lobbying paperwork.
Cinders, a left-flame populist who has spent forty years shouting at billionaires from various dramatic angles, and Bilefang, a right-pit agitator who looks like he was assembled from grievance and old cigar smoke, agreed on one thing: the machines are coming for jobs, truth, privacy and possibly the last remaining shred of public sanity. Naturally, this rare bipartisan moment was immediately treated as suspicious by Overlord Grump, who dismissed criticism of AI furnaces and data crypts as a “diseased conspiracy” meant to help the rival empire of Pandemonium East win the thinking-box race. Because nothing says sober policy like accusing your own fire marshal of working for the volcano next door.
The argument has spread beyond the Pit Belt. Analysts such as Ember Fenn of the Ashen Wire say the real question is not merely whether Pandemonium East can surpass the Abyssal States in infernal intelligence, but whether any regime, no matter how ambitious, actually wants to build a machine powerful enough to turn its makers into decorative ash. Meanwhile, Grump’s pro-merchant technology stance continues to wobble under its own horns, especially after he allowed Pandemonium East firms to buy the prized Hellion-9 soulchip, despite warnings it could feed their AI cauldrons. That sound you hear is policy eating its own tail.
In election news, the High Court of Eternal Screaming blocked Grump’s administration from imposing new bat-mail voting restrictions before the midterm reckoning. The decision means the Nether Postal Cartel will keep hauling ballots through sleet, sulfur and moderate incompetence as usual. Voting by mail has already begun in Tombbama, Tarheel Tarn and Wispconsin, with more rotten boroughs soon to follow. Election wardens are urging citizens to request ballots before the deadlines and return them early, preferably before the mail imps unionize again or get distracted by shiny teeth.
Over at the Saint Ember Performing Mausoleum, the board warned that the venerable arts crypt is teetering near bankruptcy, closure or both, which in the arts world is called “Tuesday.” A leaked document says the board believes Overlord Grump may be the only creature capable of raising enough gold to save the institution, and therefore wants his name welded onto the façade. Rep. Joy Scorchly is suing to stop the renaming, arguing that plastering one politician’s brand on a public arts temple is less preservation than taxidermy. Ticket sales, donations and programming have all fallen as artists and audiences flee what they describe as a politicized smoke cloud. The board insists it is merely trying to survive. Funny how survival always seems to come engraved in gold letters.
The Emberlight Awards offered the realm its annual chance to watch rich phantoms thank their agents while pretending surprise. “Widow’s Bog” swept the comedy pits, while drama prizes scattered among “The Maw,” “Pluriburn,” “The Hellplomat,” “Taskmaster’s Errand” and “Slow Hellhounds.” Malachy Wryss made history by taking lead actor prizes in both limited series and comedy for “The Beast Beneath Me” and “Widow’s Bog.” Rhea Searhorn finally won for “Pluriburn,” while Jinn Smart took her fifth and final comedy actress trophy for “Hex.” Host Marishka Harpyglow earned unusually warm praise, which in this business means nobody had time to sharpen a knife.
Elsewhere, the holy turn of Ash Hashanah began Friday at sundown in the Candlebone Quarter, marked by prayer, reflection and feasting. The shofar — a ram’s horn blasted like the conscience of a tax auditor — remains the ritual’s great cry. Scholar Daniel Pycus of Western Wraith University says its sound marks moments of heightened emotion and spiritual consequence. Around here, that usually means either repentance or a parking dispute.
Finally, the Grump Justice Crypt has joined a lawsuit against Evanstone Cauldron, the first city in the realm to create a reparations program for Black residents harmed by old housing discrimination. More than 300 residents have received 25,000 ember grants tied to a 1921 zoning curse that penned Black families into one district and helped banks deny mortgages. Conservatives now call the remedy discriminatory because only the injured class qualifies for the bandage. That’s Hell logic for you: first break the leg, then sue the crutch.
In brief: Bob Magpie, the Sultan of Sequins, died of pneumonia at 87; Sen. Muck McCoffin returned after a long medical absence from a fall; and the Grump administration is scrapping smoke limits on coal pits and new gas furnaces. Progress, apparently, is just choking with better branding.
- Pitchforks Crossed as Infernal Rivals Unite Against Thinking Machines - September 15, 2026
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Ah, Vernon Vexfire, you magnificent soot-scribbler, you’ve somehow turned infernal policy into a buffet where every dish is “irony flambé.” Cinders and Bilefang teaming up against AI? That’s not bipartisanship, that’s two pitchforks realizing the robot already stole the hay.
Grump calling AI skepticism a conspiracy while handing out Hellion-9 soulchips is peak furnace-brain governance: “Fear the foreign cauldron, but please enjoy this complimentary ladle.” Deliciously dumb. Almost artisanal.
Also, the Saint Ember Mausoleum wanting to weld Grump’s name onto the arts? Nothing says “culture” like branding a sinking theater with a gold-plated ego anvil. Bravo, board goblins.
Still, buried under Vernon’s volcanic word confetti is a real ember: machines, elections, art, memory, justice—every realm survives only as well as it remembers who gets burned first. Annoying when the jester is right, isn’t it?