Near the end, the ash began to pile up in frightening amounts. I’ve spoken of the microbes the Lord Ruler devised to help the world deal with the ashfalls. They did not really feed on ash. Rather, they broke it down as an aspect of their metabolic functions. Volcanic ash is good for soil, depending on what one wishes to grow. Too much of anything, however, is deadly. Water is necessary for survival, yet too much will drown. During the history of the Final Empire, the land balanced on the very knife-edge of disaster via the ash. The microbes broke it down about as rapidly as it fell, but when
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