Upon Allar’s borders there lay three neighboring nations. One was a peaceful realm surrounded by a vicious desert, overseen by a wizard in the shining city green, and protected by a sisterhood of witches; two benevolent, and two wicked, maintaining the balance between good and evil in the realm.
But the other two nations were not so pleasant. Their leaders were feared, not loved, and they themselves were fearful… of Allar.
They feared what Allar might become, and what would become of them were Allar to invade their borders. They thought also of Allar’s riches, and how they might thrive by taking those riches for their own.
And so the two nations formed a pact, a treaty. They swore that together they would take the kingdom of Allar, seize its riches, and its people. They swore that Desruk would kneel before them.
Soon after their legendary pact was struck, their armies joined together and the two nations declared war on Allar, together.
Allar’s military was already smaller than either of the opposing armies, but when they combined, Allar’s soldiers were outnumbered, nearly seven to one.
The armies marched through Allar, stomping the ground, turning blue grass brown with filth.
But they were met outside the capital by the Allarian military in all it’s glory, and led by Desruk himself, riding on the back of his magnificent Pegasus. Desruk spoke to his armies of loyalty, courage, honor, victory, and his words filled their hearts with bravery, and flooded their minds with a lust for battle and a thirst for victory.
The Allarian army charged into battle, raging like wild bulls and striking with the unmatched force of a hydra. Each Allarian warrior was an army in their own right.
That day was a humiliating defeat for the opposing nations; their forces were crushed underfoot, while Allar’s casualties were almost none.
And so the two nations called upon an ally to join them. The next week, Allar fought off three armies, and while they were no less victorious, many of Allar’s courageous men and women fell that day.
But then the three joint nations called upon another ally, and all four nations put in place a draft, forcing their citizens to fight.
The next week, a legendary battle ensued. Desruk once again led his army into battle, alongside him was his wife and queen; Anita, whose skills with a blade could not be matched.
Even the animals of the forests and skies, even the plants joined in the battle to defend Allar. But alas, it was not enough.
The next day, before the opposing armies attacked perhaps for the last time, Desruk stood atop his castle, and looked across the land. The war had wrought so much destruction. His once beautiful kingdom was scarred. Once pink rivers ran black with sludge. Much of the forests had been trampled and cut down. Entire villages had been burned to the ground.
Then, Desruk saw his enemies approach, their armies so much larger than his own. He watched from his castle’s roof. Anita stood to his right, her brave face was as unchanging as the North Star, yet tears rolled from her eyes. On the king’s left stood his daughter, holding her baby sister, whispering soothing words, lies of reassurance.
Desruk called off his armies, ordering them to yield. He would not have his people killed in the name of honor. But before the invading forces reached the castle, Desruk was ready to escape.
He kissed his wife and daughters goodbye, promising he would return to save them.
Through a back passage of the castle he escaped, vanishing into the vast mountain range that spread across many countries, including Allar.
He recalled an ancient tale his grandfather had told him, of a mythical age-old creature that ravaged the land. The tale told that the creature had been trapped in those very mountains; and Desruk vowed he would find it.

Lord Desruk journeyed through the mountains for years, toughing storms and beasts. His sanity began to slowly slip away, and his strength wore thin. He was no longer a king, he was a hermit, searching for something spoken of in a children’s tale.
But after five years, Desruk stumbled upon a long set of stone stairs, leading up into the heart of one of the mighty mountains. Strength flowed back into his veins as he scrambled up the steps, for he was so sure he had at last reached his goal. Up the hundreds of old stone stairs he climbed, until he found himself standing before a grand stone temple, carved into the mountain.
He stepped inside the temple excitedly. The temple was truly beautiful. Statues of gods and spirits lined hallways, the walls held carvings of fiery fields, sea monsters, epic battles and ancient lands. Upon entering, Desruk found himself in a great hall, far larger than any room in his castle, perhaps even larger than the castle itself.
Two statues, far larger and grander than any other in the vast temple, stood on either side of the truly giant hall. The effigies were so massive; their tops nearly touched the ceiling of the hall.
The statues were detailed eerily well, one depicting a beautiful she-spider, the other a strong old woman, draped in a cloak.
Between the statues, carved into the stone floor in the ancient texts was written, “Two ancient spirits are forever here honored, for together they captured a creature of untold power. The power of the Spider Queen and the Spirit of Stone keeps the beast contained. Its prison is eternal, but fragile; it must remain untouched. Pay homage to these mighty spirits and leave this place forever.”
Desruk did not know how to read the ancient text, but it mattered not, for in his excitement, he failed even to notice the runes carved deeply into the floor.
Desruk ventured through the temple for days, until he by mere accident moved a small statue of the Spider Queen. The statue dismantled itself, falling into thousands of shards that disappeared into cracks in the floor and the wall. The wall behind where the statue stood slid apart, revealing a dark passage.
The passage was a labyrinth, a web of twists and turns and traps all hidden in the dark, for there was no light with which to navigate, and Desruk could not light his torch. The air was cruel and cold.
Filled with noble purpose, Desruk stumbled upon a pair of doors, made of red stone, decorated with bones and skulls. The not-quite defeated king struggled to open them, and when he at last succeeded, he fell and stumbled down a lengthy flight of stone stairs. When he at last stopped tumbling,
The chamber was dimly lit, but the light had no source. At the back of the chamber was a horrid statue of a demon, too hideous to describe. It loomed over all in the chamber, threatening, dark, evil. It radiated pure fear and hate and horrid revulsion. In front of the statue were two orbs that rested on small stone pillars. One was a pale blue, colder than the heart of the northern glaciers. The blue orb’s twin was red and burned like the core of the sun.
Desruk, mesmerized by the statue, stepped forward. He knew not at what he stared, but it called to him, beckoned. It offered him all he wanted in fragmented whispered that drew him closer, step by step.
The voice lured him to the narrow space between the orbs, so close to the terrible statue that he could reach out and touch it. It was then that the whispers snared his mind in a painful grip, possessing him, controlling him. Before he could vanquish their foulness from his mind, he found that the whispers had forced him to lay his hands on the orbs.
His body was suddenly filled with searing pain; his blood boiled and froze all at once as his body changed against his will. He took on a wretched new form: the form of the demon statue. Fingers became claws. Teeth became fangs. Eyes stretched into seeking voids, searching for a victim. His mind and thoughts gave way to wretched and unbridled instinct.
Desruk had become the demon, the monster from his grandfather’s tales, powerful and twisted. In ancient times the demon ravaged the earth, it held the power of fire in one hand, and the power of ice in the other.
It was birthed from a gathering of evils before man and woman walked the earth, when only plants and fish and birds roamed the lands, watched over by the many gods and spirits that constructed them. The demon created glaciers and infernos, an agent of chaos and death; it was an immortal juggernaut to which nothing could compare.
Many gods and spirits boasted of their power and challenged the rampant demon. Poseidon, lord of the seas, charged the beast with the force of the ocean behind him. The demon created such a heat that the mighty waves turned to vapor in just a few moments. The beast then yanked the sea god’s trident from his hands and snapped it in two before trapping Poseidon in a mass of ice, larger and wider than any iceberg it had created before.
Odin, who thought himself more powerful than all, challenged the beast, brandishing only his bare hands and his impressive strength. The demon roasted him in an inferno and feasted on his burnt remains.
After dozens of gods and nature spirits fought and fell to the demon, a pair of ancient spirits stepped forth, for while the others had been fighting, they had, together, devised a plan.
Spider Queen and the Spirit of Stone would catch the creature, they proclaimed. Some conceited gods laughed, but most listened to the old spirits, for they were the last hope for all the spirits, and all the lands.
Spider Queen and all her millions of children wove a web, a net like no other. All the magic of spiders was woven into its fine strings, ancient and unique magic. None dared question the ability of the net.
Spider Queen lured the demon into a crevice in the ground, and when the creature was in place, all her millions of children descended upon it, tangling it in the net. The net was so strong that even the demon’s power could not break it; it would hold, if only for a few moments.
But a few moments was far more than the Stone Spirit needed.
Once the demon had been trapped, the timeless spirit of stone and earth turned the demon into stone with a spell cast from a mass of magic cultivated over centuries of patience and power. She took the beast’s power, took its magic, placing its strength of fire and ice into crystal orbs. The woman of stone then erected an endless mountain range, filled with snowy and treacherous peaks, horrid wolves and hungry monsters, storms and more than frequent avalanches. The heart of the mountain range, a mountain no different than its siblings at first glance, became the monster’s prison. The center mountain was hollow, for the inside was a great temple that would hide the beast in a maze. The temple would warn any who entered it, and it would have statues to honor all who challenged or aided in defeating the beast. Chief among the honored spirits were none other than Spider Queen and Stone Spirit.
The creature’s prison had to be hidden away, for while the prison could not be broken out of from the inside, the exterior was fragile, so the legend told. Any creature, frail or strong, need only touch the crystals that held the beast’s power, and the demon would be free.
Desruk, in his years of lonely searching, had forgotten the finer details of the legend.
The newly awakened demon twisted Desruk’s mind until all he could think of was revenge: revenge on those that had caused him so much pain.
In his new, demonic form, Desruk bounded down the mountains, reaching his kingdom in but a matter of days when the journey there took him years.
He walked through Allar’s capital for the first time in five years. Allar’s flags were torn and replaced with the insignia’s of enemy nations. Citizens and soldiers from all four of the enemy forces were present, tainting Desruk’s home with their vile presence. Everywhere he looked there were occupying forces, and with a simple swipe of his hand, he knocked each and every one of them into oblivion, freezing some, burning others.
He acted without hesitation, sending flames and mountains of ice in any direction he saw an enemy, striking again and again until each and every one of his county’s intruders had been decimated.
Once his city was cleansed of the intruders, Desruk made his way to the nations that had attacked Allar.
When he arrived at the first two countries, he waved his left hand. Both nations burst into a mass of brilliant flame, and in just hours, every inch of the lands had been turned to ash so that it looked like a scar on the skin of the earth.
Desruk then face the third and fourth countries, and he waved his right hand. A raging blizzard instantly formed, engulfing the two nations in a never-ending snowstorm that not a single soul would leave alive.
He then marched back to Allar, snarling with an emotion that barely resembled happiness, and quickly made his way to the roof of his old castle. He basked in victory and listened, his eyes closed.
He had waited for that moment for years.
But there was nothing. No cheering. No celebration. No trumpets to honor his return, no loving wife to welcome him back. Filled with bewilderment, the beast that was Desruk opened his eyes. He looked across his country in horror.
Desruk had destroyed the occupying forces, yes, but in his blind rage, he destroyed his own kingdom as well. Everywhere he looked the land was either a frozen wasteland or a burning scar. There were no more pastures of blue grass, no more forests, no more villages or animals or people. The sky had no beauty, for it was filled with ash and smoke from the flames Desruk had made. The great beanstalks that gave Allar its riches were nowhere to be seen. Where each of them once stood, rooted deeply into the ground, there was naught but massive heaps of smoldering ashes, the remains of the once-beanstalks.
The path Desruk took through Allar’s capital to return to the castle was covered with bodies, the dead, frozen, and burnt bones of Allarian soldiers who had rightfully attacked the destructive beast that was so far from being the benevolent king that once ruled over them.
He had destroyed everything. There was nothing left to look at; nothing left to rule or love or cherish.
Desruk fell to his knees and wailed, tears streaming from his eyes. The tears washed away his hideous form. The skin of the demon dissolved, turned into an evil vapor, a whisper that vanished in the breeze.  Left behind was none other than the Lord Desruk, Ruler of what once was Allar, as he was before his kingdom was conquered, when he was young and handsome.
But even with his old form returned, he continued to cry, and looking over his ruined kingdom, Desruk was filled with pain and regret. Howling in sorrow, tears streaming down his face to spot his ancient, tattered, clothes, he wished with all his heart he could take it all back.