The Equality of Endings

Dust. It was the dust, Tenever had decided. A very simple phenomenon that somehow accurately described everything that was FUBAR about this current situation. Normally any arcane practitioner of just about any ability had at least one warded layer to protect against mundane filth.

But normality had left this situation long ago. And now, each time the Paladin guns fired their staggered volleys, the shockwaves threw up waves of the ash-grey dust to cake and coat the survivors. Every so often one of their number would shake themselves off, muttering and sending sheets of the stuff in tiny little avalaches to the floor, but few. Few people had the strength or willpower to spare.

They lay, as they had done, as still as they could in the fallen ruins of the once-treeborne Academy buildings. Scattered around, some partially covered, some bare, were the bodies of those who had died to the fall, or enemy sniper fire.

Tenever flinched as the howitzers fired again and cursed the devil-spawned dust one more time.