The Gate and the Antehell

Behind the gate, the ones who lived «sanza infamia e sanza lodo» (Inf. III 36), chasing a banner that nobody carries. They do not part for you because they do not care about you. Of the crossing itself the poem says nothing: Dante faints on one bank and wakes on the other. The game shows it, and says so.

The valley is not a road but a loop with two branches and a way back, and the two branches serve each other: one holds a weapon, the other holds the ammunition for it. This is where the game becomes a game, because this is where the first real weapon arrives, and the first thing that comes at you.

Before anything there is to see, there are the voices: «Quivi sospiri, pianti e alti guai / risonavan per l’aere sanza stelle» (Inf. III 22-23). In the poem they come before everything else, and here too: the first step in the notebook tells you to go where the voices are thickest, so it is followed by ear rather than by guessing.