Cocytus, the Frozen Lake

In the poem it is the ninth circle, and it is not four circles but one lake with four belts: Caina, the traitors of kin, held in the ice to the neck; Antenora, the traitors of country; Tolomea, the traitors of guests, lying face up; Giudecca, the traitors of benefactors, sunk and mute like straws in glass. In the game it is the second half of the last chapter, and that chapter is not built yet.

Nothing is made down here any more: no fire, no counter, no material. You spend what you carried in, and from here on only what you decided on the nine floors above counts for anything. It is the closing of the whole game’s economy, and it has to be built knowing that.

In Tolomea tears freeze at once, and the visor of crystal forms on the living too: from there to the end you see steadily worse. It is the only place in the game where the difficulty rises for a reason the story gives rather than because of an enemy.