| Life was moving along across the land, this day much as any other. Yet as the sun was climbing in the sky with promises of a stifling summer day animals across the land suddenly became skittish.
With much cursing and laughing over the entire issue, the humans of the land were soon to discover what had caused such troubles. A faint tremor through the ground cut the puzzlement short. The shaking knocking down thatch and dust, the occasional ladder. Halting their work to look around bewildered there was suddenly a great belch of dust and soot to the west. The billowing cloud of white ash grew quickly along the horizon, rising into the heavens until it blotted out the sun. Mingling with the clouds the blanket covered the sky even as the ground continued to quake and grumble.
Yet as quickly as it had began, the plume of ash fell to the earth as a still hot rain, sizzling against the flesh of those outdoors, and causing plants to smolder. By mid afternoon there was nearly no sign of the strange event, save the damage to crops, men, and wilds. |
