<i> "A king so controversial need not worry about whatever rumors my work might provoke."</i><br/><br/>Kneeling, too dignified to beg but too desperate to demand, was the half-armored wisp of a single man. Long black hair streaked with white, wearing the colors of a dead patriarchy. The court's denizens wouldn't have to ask to see that he was the unfortunate practitioner of a forbidden craft, that he no longer had no title to his name. Orsa Battistiano of the lordless lands, pitiful if not for the destruction beyond those castle walls that brought in the orphans of war.<br/><br/>Campona, a land once rife with noble scholars, crumbled like the rest of the mainland. His lineage included a rich history of vitamancers, soldiers, and he too grew up bringing life to stone and clay and carrying those creations into the battlefield. Of course since the days his father held the sword, what were fierce civil wars devolved into petty feuds between lords over unprotected territory. Buildings fell and resources ran thin, till his livelihood stood abandoned in favor of migration or surrender. From lack of stone and heavy passion, he slipped down the deep pit that was necromancy. Bodies piled in greater numbers and required no pick to mining. What started as a practical solution however damned turned into a fascination. He stripped bones and strung together cadavers and watched with a childish wonder as life was given back to the lost. Leather cord and nails formed the joints of his monstrosities, and after putting many a failed experiment out of it's misery he turned to the books. Tales of liches, unholy vitamancers who chose undeath. Wild fantasies of powerful scholars who gave up life so that they might see more of it's secrets. Stories that entranced an aging soldier, not merely content with continuing his bloodline in hopes that some child prodigy takes after his work. After all, the stone brutes crafted by his father and the art of vitamancy as the field understood it had reached a dead end. There was nothing more to discover from the mud under their boots, and little way to continue in the face of diminishing interest.<br/><br/>Not a single lord would have him, their names deemed too saintly for such ill study. They grappled for respect and power through image as they'd refused to change since the turn of the era and the death of kings. Fools, the lot of them. Orsa sat there on his knee and lifted his head, the clink of plates ushered an echo throughout his ruler's court. "I wish for nothing more than place to continue my work. I will take the waste that spoils your land and turn them into beasts to do your bidding."<br/><br/>He had no interest in the side of nobility that rejected progress in favor of reclaiming what was once taken by sword and fire. The only king that would see victory in these dire times would be one who pushed forward, and he was sure to describe such a world so sweetly. "If you would see it in your future to rule in this new era that has befallen Bocacielo as well, I'd quickly find myself loyal to a man of progress. A young lord with smart eyes is what I see, I wish to serve you long enough to see you steal power from those with fewer years than yourself."<br/><br/>With that his stare seemed to pierce through a veil of hair. He knew the stories, they were only shouted louder as he approached Segovia. The throne of a man more treacherous than he, blood on his hands and portraits of his heritage torn from the walls. Orsa tired of kneeling for any noble with an ounce of command to their name, he sought the same treachery he himself was accused of. The usurper Mendoza, heir no more. It was a great comfort to know that there sat a king who was unafraid to step over bodies, but Orsa deeply desired to be given the privilege of plucking corpses from that path to power.