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No fictional universe is complete without its very own set of adjacent mythologies. Ingrained within mankind is a desire to seek out answers concerning the mysteries of our feeble existence. Life and death are concepts firmly planted out of reach. Throughout the eons, humanity has striven to find answers to questions pertaining to the afterlife, issues of immortality, and greater purpose. I’m afraid I can’t do much to supply humanity with these answers, but I can do the second best thing – enlighten you as to how the afterlife functions in the world of Dota 2, by telling you of the eternal spirit Necro’lic.

When a being dies in the world of Dota 2, their souls are immediately transported to a realm of the dead called the Underscape. Not much is known about the Underscape itself, but in order to arrive there, one must first pass through a harrowing, twisted passageway known only as the Narrow Maze.

The Narrow Maze serves as a kind of filtration point for dead souls. Deceased beings have to pass through the maze with walls lined with sharpened blades, as the maze itself sorts souls based on their abilities and qualities such as intelligence and physical prowess. Some souls find their way into exit points of light, in which they are granted a happy afterlife. Other souls are less fortunate, and are sorted into exit points resembling pits of darkness, in which they receive an afterlife of torment.

Souls wandering the maze are ushered forward by spirits and beings patrolling the maze, who are also tasked with updating the Book of the Dead, a dark grimoire in which records of every dead soul are being kept. The revenant of the maze is tasked with updating the book – we will be examining this particular character in a future installation of the series.

Once in a while, there are, however, a few mishaps occurring in the grand bureaucracy of death. On rare occasions, often by unknown means, some souls manage to find ways to escape from death, and reemerge in the living world. Escaping death is an incredible feat, but has been achieved in the past. The only known instance of someone escaping the Narrow Maze is when Sun Wukong successfully managed to erase his name from the Book of the Dead, along with several other names.

Nevertheless, the spirits tasked with patrolling the Underscape do not take lightly to the rules of the realm being violated. Should some cunning soul manage to escape the Underscape and its assortment of hells and heavens, the task falls on the eternal spirit Necro’lic to reclaim the dissident runaways. Necro’lic appears in his bound form, the stone gargoyle Visage, and relentlessly stalks his prey in order to bring them back to the comfort of the Underscape. A purely ethereal being when not appearing in his bound form, Necro’lic is unseen and out of harms way regardless of what damage is inflicted on his vessel.

Visage is unhindered by concepts such as fatigue, and crosses not only the borders between dimensions and realms, but also the border between life and death. Accompanied by his gargoyle familiars, Visage flaunts an undying hatred for the undead, and will stop at nothing to send rogue souls back to their rightful place in the Underscape, assigned to them by the Narrow Maze.