08/24/2026: The Pit Fiend

The big top empties in a hurry — even the pit fiend doesn't linger for an encore. Kiki slits the canvas with her dagger and slips out through the hole rather than fight the panicked bottleneck at the entrance. Inside the burning tent, the barlgura is still eating whatever weaker infernals it can reach.

What's left of the crowd spills into the oven-heat of the Maladomini fairgrounds: a gang of horned devils, a pair of spiny devils, a smoke mephit drifting in their wake, and the enormous pit fiend — nursing a broken wrist, courtesy of Borark from an ill-advised arm-wrestling match earlier in the night.

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Gearloose emerges riding Horatio and goes straight on the attack.

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Thunk comes out holding a stolen hat. That hat turns out to be the crux of the problem.

The horned devil who used to own it — a preening creature in a ringmaster's coat, entirely too proud of himself for an infernal who is, by any metric, going bald — strides over and asks for it back. Politely, at first.

"My hat, please."

"I think I'd like to keep the hat, thanks," Thunk says. "It's a very nice hat."

The devil explains, with wounded dignity, that his hairline needs covering. Thunk is unmoved. So are Vali and Borark, who point out, at length, that no hat in the Nine Hells is generous enough to cover that hairline.

The devil does not appreciate the commentary. He produces a trident-like fork, its tines glinting in the firelight of the tent now rapidly going up around them.

His first jab at the trio misses. The second doesn't — it comes wreathed in flame. Thunk is pierced, then scorched, as the wound catches fire. His clothes go up like kindling, and he's left patting frantically at flames with no intention of going out on their own.

Vali is stung, viciously, by the devil. Ordinarily his Hellish Rebuke would lash right back — but he's been struck dumb, his voice gone along with everything else tonight, and the infernal wound is already sinking in, bleeding freely no matter how hard he tries to stanch it. He looks around for Thunk, but the bugbear is still tangled up with the ringmaster. And he is on fire.

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Gearloose, out of patience with Horatio's saintly indifference to the whole scrum, wheels around with his crossbow. One bolt catches a lemur loitering nearby; a second finds a spiny devil, who only grins wider for the trouble — the shot rattles harmlessly off its hide.

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Meanwhile, the pit fiend has decided Borark is worth a rematch, and for a moment it looks like the barbarian is outmatched. Then Borark heaves his greataxe and buries it deep in the devil's chest — a solid hit that the pit fiend shrugs off, infuriatingly, without so much as a flinch. And there, vibrating, the axe hangs.

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Staggering out of the smoking ruin of the big top, singed and bedraggled, comes Mr. Wiggles — the formerly taxidermied rat, reconstituted, revived, and now, somehow, revealed as a wererat with a perfectly serviceable halfling shape hiding under the whiskers and the black button eyes. He wraps himself around Borark's leg, eyes shining with gratitude.

Borark is charmed instantly. "I love him!"

Before the moment can go any further, the pit fiend begins casting something Borark recognizes with dread as Fireball. He throws himself over Mr. Wiggles, shielding the wererat with his own body — more protective, in that instant, of the rat than of himself. The blast scorches Borark along with Thunk, Vali, and Gearloose.

After the smoke clears, Borark and the pit fiend trade taunts. Eventually Borark tires of the standoff, disengages, and breaks for the tree line after Kiki. Over his shoulder, he leaves a parting gift: the pit fiend is welcome to keep the greataxe still buried in its chest.

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Behind him, Vali — still voiceless, still bleeding — peels off from the fight to tend the infernal wound himself. After a tense moment, he manages to stanch it. He may yet make it out of this fight.

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Kiki finally reaches the lava field where they left the truck. She yanks the Immovable Rod free and stamps on the accelerator; the truck lurches forward across the fairgrounds, throwing up ash in its wake. Reklaw and Borark throw themselves into the bed as it flies past.

Whether she'll make it in time is anyone's guess.