Mikhail

Walking in the thick ash was almost like walking on freshly fallen snow. There was a light crunching beneath my feet as I strode down... well, where the path had been. At this point, telling where road ended was impossible - you could tell where the vegetation began, because some of the ash was higher up from the ground, weighing the plants down. But the actual trail? Hah. I knew I was on it only because I weighed enough, and ignored the ash well enough, that I could still feel the impact of my feet on the stone road beneath the ashen blanket. Outside of the city's barrier, the ash was piled high.

Little moved out here at this point. I was lucky, in that right now the winds seemed to have died down enough that I wasn't having to walk through actively falling ash. I didn't know how long that respite would last, but for now it let me walk less impeded. I knew Kivach hadn't been too far away from Radasanth, a few hours travel at most. But that was in far better conditions than I was dealing with now. Even if I sank through the ash and didn't have to worry about breathing in the stuff, the weight and the cling of the stuff was slowing me down. I growled under my breath as I shook my head, whipping black hair back and forth -

And froze. For just a moment, in the distance, I thought I had seen... I narrowed my eyes and peered. Yes. Almost impossible to see from the ground, but there in the distance was the top of small roofs, poking up through the ash and over a hill. Kivach. It had taken me nearly twice as long as I had thought it would, but it was close. I picked up my pace, ash swirling around me as I pushed onwards, bulldozing my way across the ash-choked hillock. I crested the small hill and paused, tilting my head to one side. There was an odd sound in the air, a 'fwoosh' that repeated every so often. It was unlike nearly anything I'd ever heard, but, if I had to liken it to anything, it was like the sound of a bellows being pumped into a forge. But I was too far from Kivach to possibly be able to hear if their blacksmith was working, especially with the way that the ash seemed to deaden the air around me. Right, no, I wasn't going crazy or anything, I refused to think that. I shook the sound off, pushing it out of my head, and pressed on.

I paused on top of the hill, frowning, For a moment, there, in this still, ash-dead world, I thought I had heard someone calling out? I held, immobile, my head tilted to one side so I could listen, but the sound did not come again, and I shook it off and continued on, down the hill towards the village of Kivach.

John

Ash clung to John as shadows seemed to dance in the darkness of the greyed air. The world hung silent around him as his footsteps traveled onwards, pressing towards the farmstead. He would find his journey largely unimpeded - at one point, the falling ash was swept away by a wind, clearing the air around him for a time as he walked. And yet...

The hairs on the back of his neck would prickle, the feeling of being watched by unseen eyes dancing across him every so often. But when he would stop to check his surroundings, the only thing that stirred around him was the ash that flowed in his wake, moved by the passage of the large man. Though sometimes it felt as if the same shadows were still in the trees, staying just beyond his gaze, trailing him through the ash. Despite the occasional feeling of being watched, the faint sound like a branch popping in a fire, or the hint of shadows flowing just out of sight, nothing came forward, approached the blacksmith.

He was left alone until he reached his farm, a short distance from the small village of Kivach. Thanks to the lack of ash falling, in the distance on a hill, he could see a pair of glowing green eyes focused on the collection of buildings, and approaching it.


Charles

Engines were not meant to deal with choking ash, and the genius of Alerar had been all that kept the wondrous balloon afloat in conditions it had never been designed to handle. The clunking of the motors as they struggled in the ash was a sign of mounting problems as the air intake valves began to struggle. Descending was a mixed bag - the engines struggled more with the ash clogging them up, but at the same time, had to work less to keep aloft. And - if the worst happened, when the worst happened, the impromptu stop wouldn't be as terrible.

Beneath the gas-masked entity, the figure that he had been guiding the airship towards crested a hill and paused, staring towards the village for a moment. The figure's head tilted to one side, discernible as Charles closed in. But then he pressed on, heading down towards the buildings near the base of the hill.

McKinley

One of the figures paused atop a hill as McKinley called out, their head moving slightly in the ash. With the wind that had cleared away some of the falling ash it was easier to see, but now that wind had died, and ash was beginning to fall once more as she followed after the figure. Her cries had been swallowed up by the choking ash around her. But she was close, as she hurried after him - and above, she could make out the shape of something large and bizarre descending through the sky, a black blot in the clouds that stood out even against the ash clouds.