*Have you not received communication from the Entity?* asked Aldrasyl.
*What, personally?* Garath asked, confused.
*The Entity communicates with messages from time to time. They appear in the written word within the mind’s eye.* Aldrasyl explained.
Garath screwed up his face in confusion, and then it occurred to him. *The prompts?* the Necrologist asked. He guessed that was as good of an explanation as any. *Okay,* Garath conceded. *What about the other monste…* he stopped himself just short of using the term. *The other things that came with The Culling. The undead and Wyverns? Did they make a bargain too?*
*No. Wyverns came also from Thylsandra with the Dragons and Sandrani, but the undead were created by the Entity,* the Dragon explained. *Wyverns are not an intelligent species. They are distant cousins of the Dragons and have lived harmoniously with my kind for eons. They pick meat from the bones of our kills and alert us to danger from the waters. They are useful pets but lack the intelligence to strike a bargain of their own.*
Garath processed Aldrasyl's explanation slowly, the answer to his question made him feel like he was in a fucking Lost episode - instead of the closure he was seeking, Aldrasyl's reply only left him with more questions. The Dragon, it seemed, was in no hurry to leave the serene glad anytime soon though, and simply waited while Garath struggled to understand.
*Sandrani?* he finally said.
*The Sandrani, as a whole, have not arrived on Earth yet. Several warbands were dispatched during the Event to decimate branches of the formal military and governing bodies of your kind all over the planet, though. I do not believe they met a large resistance, the Sandrani hunt Dragons for sport. They are powerful creatures. The undead, I am told, were chosen to cull your species specifically based on their resistance to the small projectiles humans use to make war.*
Garath's face screwed up in confusion, and then it clicked. Small projectiles, bullets. He supposed a bullet to the skeletons of The Culling would have very little effect. The tiny pieces of metal would not puncture vital organs or even cause the undead any pain. He wondered if a bullet would even inflict 'damage’ to the creatures at all or if it would just pass through them, bones and all. He'd had the complete lack of military presence or general leadership in the back of his mind throughout The Culling but just figured everyone on Earth was doing exactly what he had been, trying to survive - members of the military included. He had assumed that the military and/or government hadn't posted a thread on the Community panel simply due to panic or a lack of communication from leadership. Apparently, in addition to losing the organization provided through now-useless technology, the military had even bigger problems - a species that hunted creatures like the house-sized reptile in front of him for sport. They never had a chance. He was glad that The Band ended up voting against his idea to book it to the nearby Navy base, though.
Garath had about a thousand more questions for the Dragon, but settled on just asking one. He was ready to go back, to explore the world beyond The Culling. He was eager to see what would happen next. *You're not going to try to kill me again when we get back, are you?*
*Not on this day, human.*
*Alright. Then, I guess I'll see you on the flip side,* Garath said, then turned from the white Dragon and walked through the short grass to the water. He put one foot in the cool water then turned back to face the white Dragon one more time. Then, with a shit-eating grin said aloud, "See you soon, Al!"
Chapter 23
The End of the Beginning
Frigid air filled Garath's punctured lung with a stabbing pain as his consciousness re-entered the broken, feline body still clamped between three of Aldrasyl's four-foot-long fangs. He was covered from pointed ears to little toe-beans in Dragon saliva that had served to keep the cobalt blood painting his white fur viscus, just waiting for Aldrasyl to return and release the death hold. Garath had always had an excellent sense of smell, a trait that served him poorly as he was assaulted by the rank combination of literal Dragon breath, the coppery tang of fresh blood, and some fecal matter that had escaped his body during his death - soon followed by the addition of cat vomit. His Health bar was curiously... unmoving, neither increasing from his Regeneration stat nor decreasing from the physical trauma of being a kitten/Dragon-fang sandwich. Unable to move, Garath decided to take his mind off the pain (and smell) by going over the prompts that had been minimized during his fatal fight with the great white Dragon.
You have died.
‘Did that happen?’ Garath thought with an internal chuckle. He also wondered about the functionality of a prompt like that - if you earned it, could you even read it? Did that suggest there actually was an afterlife? Maybe even an afterlife that only became a possibility when Earth underwent the other changes? If so, did this new afterlife replace whatever happened after death before The Culling? Ultimately, these were questions he just couldn't answer. Instead of making himself even more dizzy trying to wade through that particular theological puzzle, he moved on and found that he was able to adjust his prompts to display chronologically after a little mental finagling.
You have ingested the blood of the Ice Drake, Aldrasyl. No human has ever consumed the powerful liquid that courses through the veins of a Dragon, many of the effects will have to be discovered over time but the following changes have become immediately apparent:
You have gained the passive ability Rebirth. If slain in battle, you will
