Prime (Book 1 of the Godling Trilogy)

8- To Die or Not to Die

I think you've probably picked up on this by now; I'm a pretty trusting person. It doesn't take much for me to consider someone my friend. Probably because not many people in my life go beyond saying 'Hey,' in the hallways, so my standards are pretty low. If anyone even starts to open up to me, or knows me by my first name then they become important to me. Needless to say it took less than a day for me to feel like part of the family with the rest of the godlings. Cloe, Ava, and Sara had all made me feel welcome and Bash and Tristian made me feel comfortable and important.

As I chased Sebastian down the hall way I called after him, "Monster hunting? Are you crazy, I nearly got killed by snake people yesterday1 I am not about to do it again!"

"C'mon, it'll be fun!" he said as I caught up with him, "It'll probably just be a few Harpies or Keres. No big deal. I won't make you face Drakons just yet."

"Dragons?"

"Drakons, with a 'K' but they are basically the same thing," he explained as we entered the hallway pressing the button for level five.

When the door opened we found the training room empty, probably because it was early and the others were getting breakfast or still asleep.

Bash promptly led me over to the weapons rack where he picked up a pole staff, axe, knife and longsword.

"We'll start with these," the brought them over to the weapons rack next to the big mat.

Then he handed me the knife, as I examined the blade I recognized it as a muskrat clip style blade.

When I looked up Bash was holding a silver longsword with a black leather hilt, though the base materials were the same as the other weapons I could tell it was his personal from the engraved markings on the hilt. I couldn't tell what they were but they were certainly not prototypical.

"Why don't we just use guns?" I asked, it seemed kind of illogical to be using pre-modern weapons.

Bash chuckled, "Well, the things about monsters is they don't die easy. A small hole through their chest isn't gonna do much but piss them off. With arrows we can make them explosive or poisonous and with swords we can simply chop off heads which usually works. Guns kill mortals and godlings, not monsters. So we try to keep away from them."

"I see," I replied, then twisted the blade around in my hand, "Why silver?"

"Boy, you sure do ask a lot of questions," sighed Bash, shaking his head exasperatedly.

"Is that a problem?" I asked.

He just grinned and shook his head a little more, "We use silver because it cuts through monsters easiest. You know the legend that the only thing that can kill werewolves is silver?"

I nodded.

"Well, it's rooted in truth," he continued, "All monsters, including werewolves, can be killed by silver."

"Werewolves? You have got to be kidding me," I sputtered.

"Wish I was, they are terrible. Always traveling in packs," he replied, "Anyways. We demi-gods use silver, the demi-titans prefer bronze because that's the easiest material to kill demi-gods with, and anything that it a sacred ritual uses gold."

"Okay, I think I can understand that," I said, nodding as is moving my head would somehow solidify his words in my brain. Then I quirked my head to the side, "Why do you sometimes call us godlings and other times demi-gods?"

"Okay, this is your last question for the day, we generally use the term 'godlings' casually and on its own. It's like slang for demi-god, which is most politically correct but we usually only use it when comparing to demi-titans because of consistency and we're not going to be saying 'Titanling' any time soon, doesn't have the same ring to it as demi-titan," he finished, "Now get on the mat."