A very long time ago, long enough that mankind had yet to start numbering their days, the Lord of Hell filled the first spawning pit with all the hatred, malice, and refuse he could scrounge from the fledgling mortals. Then, one by one he cast the broken souls of the damned into this twisted abyss of contempt to forge for him the first leaders of his infernal legions.

What crawled forth has been the bane of all that is good ever since. Devils of immense size, potent magic, and wicked disposition. They were quickly promoted by his lordship into the first Archfiends, the lesser among them appointed as duke’s and generals. These vile entities took to their jobs quickly, and soon every circle of Hell was stewarded by a unique brand of cruelty.

But our story isn’t about any of them. Our story is about Thoz, or properly, Thozronnath. Later titled “The pitiful”. He was truly a member of this first generation of greatest devils, though only just. By the time he had crawled out of the spawning pits and heaved himself onto the burning grounds of hell, his primordial form was already in shambles. His fingers were broken, his lungs screaming in the sulfuric air, the small claws on his feet had bent backwards, and he was pretty sure one of the other devils had ripped his tail off in passing.

When he finally prostrated himself before The Lord of Hell, he almost went unnoticed. Almost.

“Oh, I didn’t see you there.” Came a voice like silken honey. Thoz was stricken with awe and reverence for the being he could only comprehend as an absolute power. His eyes, welling with tears, slowly rose from their position to avoid disrespect. Thoz’s dreams were then immediately crushed.

His king’s face was dripping with disgust and impatience. There was no sign of care, no inkling of pity. Thozronnath was barely even alive as far as The Lord was concerned, much the same way a human might view an ant.

As this depressing realization sunk in to the poor fiend, his king spoke to him once more.

“I’m afraid all the positions I was planning on giving out have already been filled. I’m sure you’ll find some way to make yourself useful.”

And then, without so much as a second glance or a goodbye, Thoz’s creator strode away and left him heaving in the dust.

In the following few minutes, Thozronnath’s body would begin mending itself from the raw energy it was constantly being supplied by Hell. When he finally sat up, he found himself looking out over the near empty spawning pit he had just crawled out from. He truthfully was the last devil out of there. The only souls left were so utterly fragmented they couldn’t form a strong enough ego to move the bodies they had been given, and that's even assuming the bodies they had formed out of the weakest bits of leftover frustration were even capable of movement in the first place.

In the following days Thoz would learn two very important facts. First, no one else in Hell cared that he was there, or even if he was alive. They were willing to beat him, cut him, set him ablaze, freeze him solid, electrocute him, drown him, and torture him in ways that can only be described as magical malfeasance.

And secondly, “Make yourself useful” means do whatever anyone else tells you to. In this case, spend the next four hundred years breaking rocks and gluing them back together.