Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Why else would a man give up his dearest possession?" Virgil asked. "My masterpiece was 'The Aeneid.' I know a bit about human nature. I am also called Reason. This is not inductive, my knowing that he loves you is purely deductive."

"By venturing through the perils of the circles," Virgil said. "That much is plain. The first one isn't a problem; you stand within it. But the second is comprised of the Lustful, and it's not so pretty."

"The Lustful?" Faust asked. In his current condition, he remembered nothing of lust. "Serves them right, I suppose..."

"If I was a human, I'd probably be there," Mephisto admitted.

Virgil coughed, attempting to hide a laugh. "Ahem! Yes, it is the Lustful first, and then the Guttonous, and then the Hoarders and Wasters. From there, it becomes ever more perilous. The Wrathful reside in the fifth circle, and the sixth is The City of DIs, in which you will encounter the Heretics. Then, the Seventh Circle... is that of the Violent. You will cross Phlegethon, the River of Blood, where those who were violent against their neighbors languish. You will find the soul of your friend in the Wood of Suicides."

"That will be difficult," Virgil said. "Or, maybe not so... you'll understand when you get there, I suppose... those souls are punished very cruelly."

Mephisto nodded. "Yeah, I know... I helped engineer it. I'm sure we can find him, though, even if..." he trailed off, unsure what to say in front of Netsubo.

Faust comprehended, but didn't care all that much. "So, the Wood of Suicides..." he said quietly.

"Well... the souls in that forest are denied any kind of human resemblance. They are trees whose bark is eternally torn off and eaten by harpies, and it hurts them; they bleed, and then heal, so that it can go on for eternity. They can only speak when they bleed, and the only way to know which tree belongs to your friend is by looking at the body hanged by the neck from the branches."

Virgil pointed them towards an arched doorway. "Abandon all hope, ye that enter here," he sighed.

Mephisto gritted his teeth. "Well, come on, then."

((Uber cool interactive website about Dante's Inferno, with in-depth info about the 9 circles! It's really awesome. ))

http://web.eku.edu/flash/inferno/

"Here we are... the Lustful," Mephisto announced, as they entered what appeared to be a great plain, with an overcast, brownish sky and funnel clouds ganging up on the horizon. That wasn't the worst of it, though; they seemed to be surrounded by tornados, all tossing human souls about like bits of paper.

"Helen is here," started Mephistophiles. "Francesca, and Paolo, and Achilles, and Cleopatra. Among countless others, of course."