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But life is persistent, especially on those worlds where the mutable laws of magic take precedence over the immutable laws of science. As humans died, other forms of life discovered the Ashen Desert and found it desirable. At the same time, certain living things that had somehow managed to survive the destruction that had fallen upon their land adapted and mutated to survive in the new environment. Monstrous, single-celled amoeboid creatures flowed under the dust and ashes, feeding on the residue of the fire and leaving traces of matter and moisture for other, tiny organisms to thrive upon. Giant, multicelled clusters, colony animals, fed on silicates and carboniferous materials, returning the favor by depositing as waste other sorts of minerals that smaller life forms found beneficial.
After these lower creatures prepared the way, monstrous things grew up in the domain that the amoeboids and colony growths had dominated. Various types of slugs, all of them small at first, found that they had no enemies beneath the layers and layers of dust and ash, and they thrived on the growth that had sprung up there. These slugs got much larger, but the biggest of them was still no larger than an average man. Then they burrowed even farther down and found the springs and bubbling wells that still flowed deep, deep under the dust. By feeding in such places, engorging themselves with water, the slugs became more and more gigantic, and they made still other life possible.
Because of their size, and as was their nature, the slugs moved with the aid of trails of mucous, which they secreted from all around the exterior of their bodies. This slime, once exuded, hardened quickly. The less massive slugs left small tu
Plants are hardy, and some survived the destruction to grow anew. Seeds sent roots deep beneath the surface, seeking the moisture that still lay there, and thrust stems and tendrils up through ash and dust, seeking sunlight. Where tens or hundreds of feet of the stuff covered it, the vegetation failed. But in a few places, only a relatively thin layer of dust lay between the plants and the light above. Still, most of the growths that made the journey upward successfully didn't survive. The searing heat and the tearing wind that buffeted the plants with fine, abrasive particles saw to that. Many sorts of vegetation that managed to survive the elements fell prey to insects and hardy mammals still dwelling on the surface, who fed on their leaves, seeds, and stems. As all forms of life will do, the plants adapted. In their changing, they grew defenses of many sorts. Eventually, over the centuries, a dozen species with a dozen varieties each managed to survive, if not always flourish, in the sealike desert of ash and powdered dirt.
Insects burrowed beneath the stuff; some few of them lived in a symbiotic relationship with plants, and others survived by eating the vegetation. A few birds, too, dwelled among the plants or adapted to making their homes in burrows below the dusty surface. Some fed on vegetation, others on insects. And not all insects ate vegetation; some sought other insects, avians, or even small mammals to feed upon. A complex ecosystem developed. Cacti of new sorts grew. Wirelike trees stretched up, showing only their branch tips unless a storm shifted the terrain and exposed more. Flat vegetation relied on photosynthesis or else trapped protein-rich creatures to survive, and scores of other sorts of flora awaited the infrequent rain to germinate and then grow in a frenzy while the moisture was available.
Rats, mice, and other rodents moved into the waste. Some took to the mazes underneath, while others found conditions on or near the dusty surface favorable. Shrews and moles burrowed there. Badgers came to dwell in the subterranean portion; foxes and wild dogs roamed the hot, black and gray desert above, and with them were snakes and lizards who likewise hunted their own prey.
A few hundred years after the Invisible Firestorm, the Ashen Desert was known throughout the continent as a place of death and desolation, a location whose deadly nature was sung of in eastern Oerik, related in the Baklunish poems chanted in Jakif, and told in legends elsewhere throughout the Flanaess. If there were men alive to contradict this reputation, none of them stepped forward. The few explorers and travelers who related their own experiences simply said that the Ashen Desert was a void, a place where nothing but the toughest and craggiest of plants could survive. Considering the few areas where animal life could have been seen, and the camouflage and protective coloration that was prevalent among the fauna – green that was either so dark as to appear black or so faint as to be gray to the eye, dun-colored skin and hide, black feathers, sooty fur, dusky hair – no casual observer could in truth state otherwise. But of course life did exist in many forms in this strange desert, and if it did not exactly thrive, it was fierce and tenacious enough to make up for the difficulties it had to overcome daily in order to continue.
Certain tight-lipped or otherwise uncommunicative sources did know of the true nature of the Ashen Desert. Among them were the nomads who roamed the northern boundary of the place; horsemen and camel-borne men of the Barren Plains and the savage folk of the Grandsuel Peaks that walled the steppes from the dust and ash beyond occasionally ventured into the fringes of the place. Explorers from the Seakings' Lands managed to cross the Inferno Peaks to seek wealth in the eastern portions of the Ashen Desert, as did certain expeditions sent by the head of the free state known as the Yeomanry.
Possibly, folk from the other borders of this waste likewise penetrated at least a little way into the Ashen Desert; the legendary peoples of such fabled states as Changol, Jahind, and Mulwar to the south, and the folk of Sa'han, Behow, and Chomur to the west, were the sort who would dare such activity. That the waste was a dead and deadly place, however, most would agree. Even those who had entered the Ashen Desert would not disagree that the expanse of powder and ash was hostile, had no possibility of supporting human life, and could never be explored at length beyond its edges.
Sages and savants of the arcane, if they were asked, would relate that the very place had supported life, at least for a time, when the very worst of conditions prevailed. These same scholars would also inform the interested listener that the centuries had certainly moderated the severity of the initial conditions. These ones knew that some life forms had adapted to survive in the Ashen Desert. But would they themselves venture into the heart of this sooty wasteland? Not likely! Could they suggest ways and means of survival to any – foolish or deranged – who sought to do so? Well, yes, they could suggest, but they offered no guarantees.
As a matter of fact, there were now at least three parties who were intent on venturing into the Ashen Desert – individuals ready and willing to risk its perils, intending to overcome them and seek out the lost metropolis that had been the center of the destroyed empire of the Suel people.