He sinks up to his knees in hot and powdery ash, breathing air thick with choking smoke and glowing embers.

It's hard to breathe and even harder to see.

So much for ‘not drop you somewhere that just kills you’. Well, no, he isn’t dead yet. Priority one, breathing. Lisandro tries to cast air bubble, get a pocket of nicer air for himself.

A useful spell--for the next few minutes, Lisandro will breath without difficulty.

Seeing still proves difficult; it's like being in a blizzard. 

Well, he doesn’t have a spell prepared for that, but there’s still ways to figure out where this is. Is there a ground beneath him. Does he feel lighter or heavier than usual? How hot or cold is this ash storm? All important questions when on the wrong end of a teleportation type spell.

He feels the same weight that he has. The ash storm feels quite warm--the air temperature is above a hundred degrees, and the ash on the ground is warmer than that. If he stood here with his hands in his pockets all day long, that would plausibly kill even him, but a wizard of his power is in no pressing danger just from this environment. 

Even if he uses a protection spell, it’d only last an hour or so. Save it for when he starts feeling the pressure. For now, let’s see if there’s a way out of this storm. 

overland flight, extended with a metamagic rod

Can’t see and there’s probably winds about, terrible conditions for flight. He cruises upwards at low speeds, hoping the dust gets thinner.

There's a powerful updraft, which he could use to ascend quicker at the cost of control--something to keep in mind for later, perhaps.

The air cools rapidly as he ascends, and the dust does thin.

From a few hundred feet in the air, he can see that he was standing in the middle of a vast wasteland , stretching in all directions--undoubtedly the aftermath of some recent and terrible forest fire. Here and there, near or in the distance, some charred and limbless tree-trunks stand taller than he flies.

Wastelands in all directions, not good. Good to see a forest though, they usually come with breathable air and life compatible enough to eat. Anything look alive here?

As he ascends and rotates in the air he notices a flying creature at around his altitude--shaped like a manta ray, lazily swimming in the air. The top of it is covered in lush greenlife and stone buildings. The ray is far away, but obviously immense. 

“Most interesting!”

He gets closer and now it’s time for his favorite divination spell: commune with birds

Time to see what the local birds think about that ray creature and the buildings it’s carrying. 

The local birds regard the ray creature as Home. The buildings are inhabited, although not by birds. (In the main, anyway--there are some lucky birdies with rafters to nest in, protected from the elements.) Instead, they're inhabited by humans--who the birds regard as terrifyingly large, fast, and strong.

There aren't any birds in range without strong opinions about the ray, but they take its existence for granted as a background fact of life.

First conclusion here, the ray creature must stay around this area. It’s a constant in the lives of the birds, not something just passing through. It’s always edifying to get their perspective on things.

Flying up to this ray creature, let’s see if it’s as hospitable to him as it is to the birds. 

The ray creature proves as placid as it believes itself to be invincible; it doesn't seem to take notice of him at all.

Nearer to the ray, he can see that the slow beating of its vast wings--more than three hundred meters from tip to tip--seems to quell the airborne ash in its vicinity (rather than, say, to stir it up). Now that he's nearer, he can tell that in addition to the woods growing on its back, and the bustling town with its stone keep and tall towers, there are also plowed fields. The fields are worked by humans, or by winged humanoids, in roughly equal proportion, but there are no kept animals--people pull the plows themselves, or carry other heavy loads, and everyone he sees moves as if hasted.

Hard to get livestock all the way up here, presumably. Wonder how the non-winged humans did. At some point he needs to say hello, but first…

The haste effect! A most interesting and useful one, even if it’s only being used for peasants working the fields. Let’s see if that’s a spell, some other magical ability, or something entirely different. detect magic

For the moment no one's noticed him, but that's liable to change if he gets within 60 feet of anyone--unless he turns himself invisible or something to that general effect.

He’ll get within 60 feet, be noticed, and start paying attention to whatever they say to him after a bit of staring at a hopefully interesting looking haste effect. 

Detect magic isn't picking up anything from this woman in the field on the outskirts of town.

She says something to him in a language that he doesn't know.

Meh. Okay then. Time to get by without language for a bit and then prepare tongues tomorrow morning. 

“Hello. I am speaking to you in a language you don’t know. You’re speaking to me in a language I don’t know. The content of my words don’t matter, the only information conveyed is the lack of ability to convey information. Make sense?”

She can rephrase that and repeat it back to him in her own language.

Good, that’s established. Does the haste-ish effect make her speak quickly also?

Oddly enough, it doesn't at all. 

She gestures for him to come-follow-me, takes hold of her skirts, and then practically teleports away from him, moving fast as a pegasus at full-tilt.

Lisandro will, in a display of restraint, only use one of his miniature dimension door teleport jumps to catch up when he falls too far behind. 

When she notices that he can't keep up, she slows dramatically.

Language barrier or no, it's plain to see she's bewildered.

Oh no. He’s going to have to do so many impressive wizard things to make up for being slower than everyone. Even still, it won’t fully even it out. He hides the little butterfly pin he sometimes wears to show Desnan sympathies.

Theres still plenty of duration on overland flight. He keeps following, hovering instead of walking.

Now she's looking at him like just in flying there he's breaking her heart.

She leads him to the center of town. As Lisandro flies along, he attracts eyes and questions, which his guide answers in the local language. 

Many of those eyes, looking up at the wingless flying man, shine with delight and curiosity--until they hear the guide's answers. Then they look at him with pity.

Near the center of town, incongruent with the tall townhouses and stone temple-or-castle-or-something, there's a thatched hut in an advanced state of decay. From how they array themselves outside it, everyone's expecting Lisandro to go inside.