Inferno

Inferno (Italian for "an underground place that isn't exactly prime real estate"), is the first of three parts of a hilarious divine comedy written by God and Buddha. The main character, Dante, gets drunk off his ass and goes to hell, which is called Inferno for no apparent reason.

Dante and his drinking buddy, Virgil, descend into the Underworld.

Inferno.

Customs Office

Before entering Hell, everybody has to pass through customs to make sure they aren't bringing anything contraband into the Inferno. Upon the metal detector is inscribed the phrase "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate." Failing to heed this sage advice (the phrase means "Abandon sharp, pointy objects, all ye who enter here"), Dante gets his nail clippers confiscated, and Virgil loses a rather expensive pocket knife. This will cause them unimaginable grief later on.

As they pass the customs office, they notice the souls of people who forgot their passports and now wander aimlessly for all eternity, eating food from the vending machines.

Finally, Dante and Virgil get to board the plane into Hell. When Dante accidentally calls the pilot a stewardess, Virgil has to bribe him so he won't kick Dante off the plane. Dante gets airsick, and passes out until the plane lands.

When they get off, Virgil buys a road map and starts navigating for Dante, who can't read a map worth shit. Virgil explains that Hell is divided into nine concentric circles, each one with a circumference of exactly 3 times the diameter. Dante, who hates geometry, politely nods and waits for Virgil to get on with it. Getting on with it, Virgil launches into a description of:

The Nine Circles of Hell

Each circle of Hell sucks worse than the one before it.

• The First Circle is where all the nice people who weren't Christian go. They committed the horrific sin of not obeying Jerry Falwell in life, and in Hell are punished by not being allowed to share Heaven with His Jerryness. Dante thinks this may not be so bad, but Virgil, who used to live in the First Circle, says it really isn't any fun because all anybody wants to talk about here is how virtuous they were even without Christ. Plus, annoying poets like Homer get all the attention, and they only speak in Greek. All in all, it could be a lot worse, but the First Circle is nowhere near as entertaining as...

• The Second Circle is a place of perpetual bad weather, where the lustful, the masturbators, and the porn-downloaders are punished by being struck by lightning. All the goddamn time. Dante and Virgil decide not to hang around, because every Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan user that ever lived is here.

• The Third Circle is the final punishment for people who eat too much food (See Michael Moore. It is guarded by the Cerberus monster from Final Fantasy VIII, which has unbelievably bad dog breath, seeing as it has three heads. All the damned souls are forced to mud wrestle for all eternity. Dante has some fun here for a while, before moving on to...

• The Fourth Circle, the place where greedy corporate pigs people have to give away all their money to liberals. They are watched over by Pluto.

• The Fifth Circle is where lazy people eternally kyak the river Sticks; they get dunked in the cold, algae-filled water again and again and again. After getting his underwear soaked, Dante grumpily climbs out of the raft he and Virgil were riding down the whitewater rapids. It is then he realizes that he forgot to claim his checked baggage from the airport after disembarking, so he has no change of clothes.

All of the inner circles are contained within the City of Dis. The city is actually nothing but ghettos and 'hoods, and Dante and Virgil are mugged four times before they even get in the damn city.

• The Sixth Circle keeps all the people who said naughty things in slow-cookers, forever stewing until they are nice and tender.

• The Seventh Circle is the circle where the mean, ugly brutes who beat you up in school are punished. There are also two bonus levels, accessible only by being suicidal, homosexual, or blasphemous. It is here that Dante realizes he wishes he had his nail clippers, and that Virgil needs a shave.

• The Eighth Circle is where the real party is. Anybody who committed sins - and liked it - goes in one of the ditches here.

• Ditch 1: Sweet-talkers get whipped by the plural of Dominatrix.
• Ditch 2: Sycophants and brown-nosers get their noses really brown, if you know what I mean.

Dante and Virgil play "Simon Says" with the damned

• Ditch 3: People who were really bad at playing "Simon Says" have to play the game eternally here, except the only thing Simon ever says is "Stick your head in a hole and light your feet on fire." Dante proves to be very good at playing this game.
• Ditch 4: This ditch is especially for Harry Potter fans, who get their heads put on backwards. Not too bad, really. A bit silly, but it could be worse.
• Ditch 5: Corrupt politicians (all of them) are here, never allowed out of the hot tub. This gets pretty gross, as I'm sure you can imagine, especially sitting next to Stalin or Churchill.
• Ditch 6: Hypocrites, a famous Greek philosopher, friend of Idiocrates, gets his own ditch. Virgil explains that this is because the name "Hypocrites" is such an idiotic pun that no one wants to share a ditch with him.
• Ditch 7: Thieves and hackers get bitten by snakes. Serves the assholes right.
• Ditch 8: At this point, Dante is bored with these damn ditches. Let's get on to the next fucking circle, already!

• The Ninth Circle is what you've been waiting for. The Big One. Il Puzzo Grande. Are you ready?

Traitors. Traitors to their kin, to Uncyclopedia, their countries, and/or to Jeebus get their asses kicked here.

Bit of a letdown, huh? Dante felt this was anticlimactic, and demanded his money back. Lucifer spat out his Judas-flavored gum and told Dante: "You got in here for free, remember?" Dante threw a hissy fit, and he and Virgil finally got a piggy-back ride from Satan out of Hell. They wind up on the other side of the Earth, having gone through the center (suck it, Jules Verne!).

And They Lived Happily Ever After

Not! Dante and Virgil went on to more adventures, written in Italian. The crappy sequel is Purgatorio, followed by Paradiso, where Dante gets laid by Beatrice. By reading Inferno, the reader is compelled by law to read both sequels. Tough luck.