Five days had passed since my awakening, and the routine of the slave pens had become disgustingly familiar. The guards made their rounds at predictable intervals.
Slices of moldy bread were tossed through the bars twice a day. And every few hours, another pen would fall silent as its occupants succumbed to injury, disease, or despair.
During one of these grim body-collections, I noticed something the guards had overlooked in their haste—a fragment of thighbone, yellowed and cracked, that had rolled beneath my pen from yesterday's corpse dump.
My clawed fingers closed around the bone, testing its weight and density. Brittle, but not entirely useless. In my former life as Marcus Thornfield, I had wielded the Godslayer, a spear forged from meteorite steel and blessed by an ancient dragon.
Now I held a piece of rotting skeleton, yet the familiar hunger for weapons scoured my chest.
"Planning to gnaw on that, brat?" The orc in the next pen had been watching my inspection with dim interest.
I ignored his taunts, turning the bone fragment over in my hand. The surface was rough and pitted, but one end had a sharp enough shard. With a little work…
I began to rub the blunt end against the stone floor of the pen, slowly sharpening it. The soft scraping sound was barely audible under the growls and gasps of the other slaves.
"You're wasting your time," the orc said again.
"There's no way out of here except in a sack or as a corpse."
If only he knew. In my past memories, I saw flashes of my younger self—not the legendary Marcus, but a farm boy sharpening his first wooden staff with a stone. Every master started as a novice. Every legend begins with a first step.
The grinding motion awakened something deep in my muscles. Despite my frail goblin body, my hands remembered old patterns. How to hold a weapon. How to balance a load. How to feel the perfect balance point.
When the next guard passed, I hid my work beneath my frail body, pretending to be asleep. His lazy eyes didn't even scan the pen properly. Amateurs. In a past life, guards like this would have died within the first week of a campaign.
With each passing hour, the bone fragment slowly took on a more familiar shape. Not a grand spear, no carvings or gleaming metal, but something that could stab and cut.
The tip had become sharp enough to scratch skin, and its length—though only as long as my arm—gave it valuable reach.
This wasn't even a shadow of the Godslayer, I mused as I examined my crude handiwork. But the hands that had created this had once split the sky with a sacred spear.
The memory hit me without warning—standing atop Mount Woe, facing the avatar of the War God Malachar himself. The Godslayer gleamed with divine power as I drove it through the titan's chest, light bursting from the wound like a thousand suns.
I blinked, returning to the reality of the filthy cage.
But the feeling was still there—the calm confidence of a master who knew his tools perfectly.
The bone was still unbalanced, too heavy on one end. I began to chip at the handle, adjusting the weight with small, precise movements. Each stroke brought the balance closer to perfection.
"What are you doing there?" A different voice—a young elf girl in a cage across the hall. Her eyes, though dim with despair, still held a gleam of intelligence.
I stared at her for a moment, considering whether she was to be trusted. Then I made a decision.
"Survival," I answered simply.
She squinted, studying the subtle movements of my hands. "That… that's no ordinary staff."
Smart. I nodded slightly. "No."
"Who are you, really?"
The question hung in the air like a knife. Who am I? Marcus Thornfield was dead. The Spearmaster was a legend. But I…
"Someone who will get out of here," I said finally.
Night—if night could be called that in this sunless place—brought the opportunity for more intensive work. The guards were reduced to two sluggish men, more interested in their dice than the cage.
I began a series of exercises designed to build strength in my weakened body. Push-ups against the cage floor. Squats in confined spaces.
Movements that slowly awakened dormant muscle fibers.
Most importantly, I practiced with my new weapons. Thrusts. Parries. Ripostes. Basic movements I had mastered thousands of years ago, now adapted for a shorter reach and reduced power.
The bones moved through the air with a soft whisper, barely making a sound. The balance was still imperfect, but good enough to start with.
This is it, I thought, feeling the bones settle into familiar grips. The first step back into power.
Another fragment of memory flashed—standing in my first gladiatorial arena, facing a seasoned champion with nothing more than a wooden spear and determination. I had won that day by pure skill, using reach and speed to offset superior strength.
History would repeat itself. But this time, I wasn't starting with a clueless mind. This time, I had a lifetime of knowledge and experience locked away in a reincarnated soul.
My first weapon may have been made of rotten bone, but the hands that wielded it had once felled a god.
Let them come, I thought, a cold smile spreading across my goblin face. I was ready to begin again.