Age of Defiance

While the humans toiled beneath the yoke of the Primevals a titan known as Kesh looked upon them from his desert palace high in the blighted steppes of present day Bashiraz. Kesh, impressed by the spirit of a salt miner named Bashir, began to dream of a world free from the tyranny of the gods and the wanton destruction of their Primevals. In an act of unparalleled audacity Kesh swept into the squalid hovels the miners were contained in at night, slew the demihuman overseers, and disappeared into the high desert with a force of almost three hundred hardened, embittered miners of the Sul desert tribe.

Kesh and his human disciples evaded capture in the desert for the following eight years, learning to mask their presence with mundane camouflage and Aetheric misdirection while Kesh taught the strongest among them the ancient elemental combat forms developed by the titans of sand and flame. Bashir quickly rose to prominence among his people, his resolution and wisdom sheltering and guiding his fugitive people.

Mimicking the boldness of their savior Bashir and his corps of fanatics descended like a sandstorm upon the eastern mines and encampments of the Primeval Hostas. In a series of lightning engagements Bashir freed nearly five thousands more slaves held in bondage by the demihumans. Unfortunately this influx of freedmen made their encampment impossible to hide, drawing down the fury of Hostas and his army of demihumans upon the Sul.

Crystal spears rained down upon the slaves and arrows pierced their bodies, yet even so the embattled slaves swarmed over the ranks of demihumans, pulling themselves over mounds of corpses to reach the now surrounded and terrified demihuman overseers. High in the sky above Kesh battled with Hostas, providing the first recorded conflict between a Primordial and Primeval. Hostas ripped and tore at Kesh with claws of pure darkness, rending great streams of Aether from his form. These fragments of Aether fell to earth as shooting stars, still known today in the high desert of Bashiraz as the Tears of Kesh. Knowing himself to be outmatched and fearful that his charges would be slaughtered by the terrible power of Hostas, Kesh called upon his nature as a titan and his connection to the Aetherium, clasping the terrible creature to his heart as he summoned a prison of impermeable crystal to encase himself and Hostas. As the battle above grew to a fever pitch the motions of the two giants began to slow and then stop completely as a cocoon of cloudy crystal encased their limbs, spreading into a lozenge nearly fifty feet high that still floats serenely above the heart of Sul'Kesh, the capital of Bashiraz.

In the shadow of Kesh's sacrifice the heart fled the demihuman army as the freed slaves fell upon them savagely, exacting vengeance for centuries of abuse. For the first time in recorded history the humans had rebelled and, moreover, triumphed over their demihuman masters. This battle marked a turning point in the history of the world as humankind rose up against their oppressors and, with the aid of Primordials inspired by the sacrifice of Kesh, began to take the fight to the gods themselves.