The Foundation of the Tower of Count Despar

Gods be cursed I hate them all.  They did this to me, all of this I cast at their feet in rage against them and all they represent.  Curse the lot of them for this Despair.  How can anyone call this Justice or even remotely fair.  This I will never forgive, much less forget.

To be forthright this isn’t the beginning of my story.  It is either the end, or a tragic midway turning point that has left me in rage and anger beyond compare.  Where to begin, how about before I was this fine specimen of a man.





I wasn’t badly built for my age and size, to be honest I was a pretty decent fellow, before I was chosen and honored with what I would become.  Iwas scrawny really and the pretty little thing wrapping her overly strong arm around my head almost making me spill the drink I was bring my date that day.  Damn she had some nerve.





I didn’t even know her at that point but let’s face it, she had a way about her that I just couldn’t hold a grudge.  Even though she cost me one hot mama of a girlfriend that day.  If you can believe it she had the gall to say I was going to be her bitch.  Half an hour after getting man handled by the gorgeous bombshell I was wearing mine and my date’s drinks.  I was dumped and dumped on all because of her, can’t say I let it bother me for too long; or rather she didn’t let me get the chance to be bothered by it.  My eyelashes were soaked to their tips with those drinks when she came by laughing at me.  Holding her sides just laughing carefree as could be, at me.  She had caused me no ed of trouble I was trying to figure out how to get my date back and there she was just giving me that damn look.





Always a look that broke my train of thought, just leaving me practically begging for her to own my ass.  And that was the first time I ever laid my eyes on her charming ball breaking look of ownership over me.  And she wouldn’t be the only one.

For a time we just lived day to day building friendship and love, but one day things changed I found myself fighting to defend strangers, protecting people I had never met before.  It just happened, out the fucking blue I found myself workign as some sort of freelance bodyguard to anyone and everyone within eyesight and hearing.  LIke I said it just happened a lot.  Turns out my heroics caught the attention of Harioza, Goddess for those not keeping score on the mortal plain.  I started to develop and change physically after that she cause a great enough change.  Mostly it was her power seeping into every part of my body, the power given by a Goddess to represent her in the mortal world.  





And my lady was right there with me after awhile becoming God touched and being granted holy power.





Over time we became known as the Holy Knights of Hazoria, Justice always our guiding light.  I won’t deny it was a highlight time in life, wandering on the Goddess’s business.  Huh, decades passed, and marriage came and the lady and I  well you know.





Ha, ha, ha, Gods she was beautiful day or night, battle or bed, she was a queen among women, my queen, my lady love.  Turns out though all of that was to com to a tragic end, I mean, there I was; blessed by the Goddess a landmass of a man my wife and love equally blessed serving faithfully…

and then… then I woke up one day to find my world in chaos…  I had no idea where I was or for that matter where my wife was.  All I could hear were the thundering words of the voice of my Goddess cursing me and charging me with betrayal.  Echoing in my now blinded eyes the words ultimate betrayal.  Something was different, how, why?  I didn’t know any of those answers only that my Goddess had abandoned me.

I had been cast out, sent into the Demon Realm, a strife filled region constantly in flux.  I knew I had only one goal, to return to my lady, to reach out across the Realms and take hold of my wife once again.  I was not going to accept banishment to the realm of Godless bastards quietly.

But what was I to do, how was I to find my way back to the land of the living?  There I was cast out for crimes I did not commit or for that matter have any knowledge of by my Goddess who was wont to act on impulse for her Justice.  

On the one hand I was free of my Goddess, on the other I was smack dab in the middle of her enemies, those whom I had bested in battle countless times as the Champion of Hazoria.  Could a punishment be any more harsh than this?  

I spent little time moving about the Demon Realm in peace.  Very little in the grand scheme of this life or the next acquainting myself with my new home, for better or much bloody worse.  During this time I picked up a few bad habits, not the least of which was the use of the word sty in place of a number of other more fitting cuss words.  A silly trivial thing really but all the same it was still a life altering choice.

Burn it! I found myself in a blitzkrieg of bullshit and demon limbs time and time again as I explored the whore shit fuck pit of a Realm I found myself in… Now you know why I started using the word sty so much. All this sty was a nightmare and a half for a normal man to contend with and I was pecks deep in it day and night… and I’m not even sure if there is a day and night here half the stying time. Also to the point I was blind during this time but I was not entirely without some form of sight.

I will say it was more along the lines of feeling my surroundings and sensing the world around me more than actually seeing in any manner known to man. For all intents and purposes I was a blind man in the land of my enemies, all but stumbling around into their midst. But I was not without my oh strength to rely on. Although I was cursed and banished by my Goddess I for some lucky happenstance maintained all of my Hazorian powers. You know honestly I think she overreacted and forgot all about them.

Blood was my new color, I was wearing it everywhere. I mean have you seen the rivers in the Demon Realm, they’re not exactly family friendly, let alone drop you guard, your clothes and bathe at your leisure hot springs resorts. Of course I couldn’t see them anyway being BLIND!

Yet I made due for many days…? Or maybe years, I’m not exactly good a keeping time. The Old Lady was always on about how bad I was at being punctual. And once I started thinking about that my ire was peeked and my rage built. A rage of pent up Hazorian force that I vented time and again as I fought my way through one demon assassin or butcher, or foot soldiering pawn after the next. Days of blood would be a great depiction of how I spent my first few years in the Demon Realm. During which time I had a great abundance of rage to share with the demons who came to kill the Champion of Hazoria, her Holy Knight.

I grew tired, and hungry… I wasn’t certain when I ate last, in fact it had been quite some time since food had crossed my mind, with being blind and pissed off at the sty situation and the sty of a pile of problems I had all around me day and night; a little thing like feeding myself slipped my mind. Demonic food sounded about as appealing as that sty smelled… Un!





Sniff, sniff…

Sniff, sniff…

Sniff… is that bacon I smell…?

Sniff, sniff

I could taste the little sty dweller halfway across the Demon Realm. I smell bacon, and believe you me in the Demon Realm, most of the sty in doesn’t smell all that good let alone like bacon. I followed my nose for a long time, days, nights, weeks, it was all a blur of time could have been a year I traveled following that delicious smell of pork glazed in honeysuckle melons and bacon wrapped pig knuckles. Well to be honest the hooves or feet would taste like hoof, nobody eats pig hoof, knuckles maybe, but not hoof. Although this sucker smelled big enough that it’s hooves would make nice shoes.

I found him and he was colossal, the biggest damn pig I ever… ate, I could see himblind remember? He was massive, and I don’t mean hill giant big, I mean some kind of godly creature big. And Bacon!

Refreshed in more ways than one, I found my eyesight less dark more blurry. I think I was getting better. Unless you count my overpowering urge to run with the boars, wild or otherwise from that day forth. It became a thing! Yeah I started traveling with wild boars as often as I could herd them.

Those were fun times, very little of this sty world was fun, and the herd; now that was a fun. I had a prized bull boar which I outfited at one point with the armor off a Demon it had gored saving my life. For a long time I traveled with the herd and it grew and grew to the point that I was a thousand head away from the nearest threat at any given time.





The not side wild boar herd, was a train of rampaging boars I had gathered over the years since that first meal of bacon and pork cutlets I had enjoyed in the Demon Realm. The came to me for some strange reason, these demon boars always. I enjoyed their odd company as well. But the Regents of Hell sent more after me, after all they could not ignore Hazoria’s champion roaming their lands unchallenged and alive. They sent more and more to hunt my herd down. We finally settled down to a spot right in the middle of their most violent and turbulent area. The herd circled constantly around the fields so I let them stay and settle down.

They always gave the center of their new home a wide birth. It seemed like they wanted me to have that area for myself. For awhile the demon’s numbers seemed to dwindle and a quiet peacefulness spread over my time. I set about building a small homestead of sorts for myself. Boars being my primary livelihood I used numerous skins to shape a tent. It was all very tribal like the blood dyed paintings on the sides the boars always keeping a distance, and the eire way the tent flapped tended to open and close like a mouth trying to consume me.

It was a nice change to be in one place after wandering for such a long time, and I needed a shave, I was starting to look like one of those rare Furs, one of the sty ugly furry ones at that. My hair looked like dridder legs. My lady would scold me for such an unkempt look and habits. A thing I had been trying to ignore while running with boars. The truth of the matter was that I had been suffer a great despair at my loss and my current situation so the short respite of my herd of boars was intoxicating in its own way.

This too was short lived, for once my demonic foes learned of my intent to remain firmly planted in their heart they renewed their assault upon me and my own. They came en mass and fought like devils, the devils that they were. No relenting for many moons, as my herd thinned somewhat in their brandishing of arms against me. But their efforts were turned time and again from success by my faithful herd of not so wild boars.





What my herd left undevoured of our enemies became an annoyance. Unsightly piles of armor and weapons, as demonic in natural as the host which brought them to bare against me. I dared not touch them at first knowing of their potent and evil nature, as Hazoria’s former Champion. Too many times it happened. Too many times did one of my herd wander too close to a cursed weapon of demon origin and i was forced to destroy them, not for food but out of mercy to spare them and myself the end result of being demon cursed.

Day by day I evoked Hazoria’s powers and handled her enemies weapons, armor, and remains, moving what my boars would not consume. At first I merely placed them behind my tent, but as time went on this became an unsightly and still overly dangerous location to store them. And so I was forced to build by hand and stone a storehouse for these abominations of life.

Destruction and creation, go hand in hand, my Goddess had been of this mind and her brother Sirius as well, although both of them seem to have their own versions of this concept. A concept which in fact was fundamental not so much individual. I built and I fought, between destruction of the living and creation of the structural I was well occupied for a time. Shaping bricks from hard demon realm ground is not as easy as it sounds, let alone for a mere mortal man. But I endeavoured all the same to clear land and increase my homestead to a much larger area. This was mostly to avoid thinking about all that had been taken from me by my Goddess… and for that matter why I still call Hazoria that after all she had caused to happen to me.

Where the boars had chosen to remain at times looked and felt like the ruins of some ancient temple or city, but one that had been destroyed by Gods. Spires of land jutting out of the ground, broken structures tipped and falling all around. On the one hand it was a wasteland, on the other it had fertile soil and green pastures for the herd to nibble and relax if they chose to.

For myself the structures and stones of the ruins were of use and intrigue to some small extent as well. They were not easy to move, in fct many I had to ignore or chisel away on to manage relocating them. But in the end I took what I could and added on to the storehouse and tent, building a mismatched structure of boar hide, and ruin’s stone. It felt as though the building itself was a natural structure for the area, as if it needed to be built.





From the far side I had an open shelter to go in and out of without having to tread inside my tent. It served many purposes including a barn for the extra needs of my herd. And much of my construction work was done there as well. Slowly I built upward rather than just outwardly, it seemed a prudent move with my enemies always attacking. Rather than building a large string of buildings, I planned to expand upwards far more efficient considering the endless warring.

My herd provided a number of things including oil a highly valuable supply in this dark land. A supply which I had a surplus of and my homestead housed in quantity. Somewhere along the way I had decided to keep building even when reason told me to stop. I had decided that like another tower I had stumbled across during my traveling the Demon Realm I would attempt to fix the damage done by Hazria.

There was a Tower in the Demon Realm which I heard from a dying devil was a gateway to the Spirit Realm. This was a thought that encouraged my building up even more than making a better defensible structure. My eyesight was still improving, and my need to rely upon my Hazorian gifts for sight grew less and less. Yet this too reminded me of another passage way, one from the Spirit Realm to the Realm of the living where my heart longed to return. Hazoria’s servants used that passageway often enough, it is where I learn of it, more specifically that it was not just a rumor like the demon’s tower.

In my mind I could recall every part of the passageway and how it worked. I knew it was possible for a God at least, and if the rumors of that other tower I had been to were true the demon’s could do it as well. Of course they had the ability to travel to the living realm to some degree considering how often I had battled them there. I had one goal and one goal alone, return to the world of the living and reunite with my lady against all odds, or against all Gods if I must.

I had no love for Gods, or demons and constant war was driving me to push the tides of battle in my favor rather than living on the defensive. What choice did I have. I made a choice. I had no desire to live fighting every day while my lady was without me and I without her. A change than was necessary in this conflict. I went on the offensive with my Boar Bone spear, a weapon I had crafted from that first magnificent boar that lead me to this lifestyle.





I had little choice but to change the flow from this sty to something enduring. So I charged the demon’s encampment and made war upon them like they often did upon me. My herd and prized mount rampaging through their cityscape raiding them and running roughshod until not a demon remained alive.

In case it slipped by, that’s a lot of corpses and decay and rot and blood and cursed stying demonic weapons lying about to cause misfortune. I had time to remove them of course, but I found between the dead of my herd and the demon masses, that my storehouse was far too small, so I had to set about expanding once again. This time I used everything on hand, boar hide, demon weapons, stone, ruin, and the ground as well I’m pretty sure a whole lot of blood ended up mixing into the building as well. Kind of needed it to be honest not too much water floating around the area, and what there was I needed for drinking.

It rose higher and higher over the time it took for the demons to release their agents had been slaughtered en mass and were missing. Time that I had found to my advantage, in fact when they returned I had no need of facing them, for my tower had but one entrance and that was guarded by my herd on the outside, and a nefarious and devious trap on the inside. Those foolish enough to push open the flap of my tent and make their way inside would be beheaded almost instantly if they didn’t react fast enough to dodge the axe blade which was well positioned. And sharp enough to cleave a mountain in twain.





I can see her in my head, turning walking away from me, as though she had been waiting to long and this filled my mind, I build more traps, inside my tent and the lower level of my tower, I wanted no intruders to go further than the first floor. I made certain they would all die there. Including a rather vicious demon guardian for the first floor. It lasted a long time before he found that it was missing from the first floor. The chains which bond it, creature and all missing. Day by day I worked on the tower, incorporating the remains of my enemies and their weapons into the structure. Surpassing and surprising myself with the results. One of the cursed weapons I had the misfortune of stumbling across was an ancient tome. I’m stuck with the stying thing, it is hardly ever detached from my body, as though it has a mind of its own and will to pursue me. Even when I tried to abandon it, I found it hanging from my belt more times than I care to admit. I was stuck with the tome, it was clearly cursed, to bond with whomever took possession of it. Possession which seemed to transfer with the death of its previous owner.





Of all the strange things that had happened to me this tome was by far the strangest to date. Through it I was able to achieve some rudimentary skills with demon magics. Which It had decided of its own accord to begin intertwining into the tower as I worked on various improvements and traps. By the time I realized what was happening the guardian demon I had lost reappeared, from out of the very wall of the tower. It seemed as though the tower had swallowed it whole, only releasing it when I returned one day to let it try to kill and eat me.

More and more things began to disappear if they remained inside the towers walls, even those which I left leaning against the structure had turned up missing. The entire store house had emptied overnight once. Cursed weapons, oil, boar skins, and every other thing I had placed inside for safe keeping had vanished in a single night. The tome only laughed at my puzzlement when I spoke aloud about wishing it had disappeared rather than all my supplies.

I tried, I really did, to remove the thing from me and push it into the tower, like everything else, but it would never leave me, nor would the tower consume me either. Burdened by loneliness I looked out a window one day and found my herd was missing as well, no trace of them remained. Instead I found an elite force of Demons come from their Reagent to subjugate me or kill me whichever they could achieve. I leaped from my tower to face them, rage at the fact my herd was gone consuming me.


Rage at the world I was in, rage at the Gods, rage at myself for not being able to make a pathway back to the world of the living. I let it consume me as I stood in defiance of all who opposed me. Inside I burnt with rage and anger my eyes burnt with that self same rage, blood like light filling my eyes as I for the first time saw in countless years all around me.








I let it all out everything I could feel welling up inside of me, the demonic powers of the Tome bond to me by its curse, my accursed Hazorian powers, and this other force beating strongly inside of me, three forces of equal magnitude at war with each other and all that stood before me.

I gave them a chance to walk away, they did not take it and I let all three forces flow through me and combined into a demonstration of raw ungodly power. The Tome grinned it’s evil grin and drank in its fill of the three forces as they overwhelmed my enemies and channeled it vicariously through into the tower I built in my despair. As I turned back to look upon I was granted a vision of someplace far off, a distant land and something I had longed to see for years on end… and what was more the vision I saw was distorted by someone, something else stealing that which I sought.





I returned to my tower of despair, both energized and angered…. I had work to do, work to complete, a tower to finish and a bridge back to my lady to complete. I knew this was the only way, and with my new found abilities supplementing my already diverse skill set I could see the beginnings of the way to accomplish the very thing I desired most. A bridge from the Demon Realm to the world of the living, a bridge back to my lady from this Tower of Despair to to where I belonged… a way back to my...




Countess Despar!