Dante's Circle of Hell
With great power comes great responsibility, they repeated over and over again. He was clear now, the deal. He wanted none of them, their treachery, their outright deceit, their blatant lies, their manipulations, their craven attempts to please their idiot bosses. None of it. Why would anyone surrender to their web? Why would anyone surrender their own humanity, if that was what it was called. He had rarely been human, but at least he did not lie. This litter on the forest floor. These debased excuses for sentience. These craven, ape-like forms. Descended from monkeys, he heard them say; as the giant passage, the swirl of millions of entities, the city that moved across time and space, the geospatial, other-worldly phenomen. On the outskirts of the village the gallows were being hung. He knew, exactly, what had happened to them all, those who betrayed him, those who kissed the garment's trim and then turned and betrayed him to their own masters. He knew how shallow, how dec...