Three days. Three? He lifted his head with a mixed expression. Worry, relief, shock, frustration. A frantic nod of his head and a word of thanks was all he offered before rising on command. Showing a great level of obedience as he allowed himself to be escorted to whatever hole would be his makeshift study for what was left of the coming week. Three days, even given his years he was no master, thus was his reason for traveling here in the first place. But, to forgo sleep in order to prove himself was a small sacrifice... Orsa could only hope that it was enough.<br/><br/>As predicted, the room laid out for him was made of stone, stuffy, but cool compared to the upstairs heat. However it meant that the bodies presented to him had to be stripped quickly, and even then there was a stench that lingered. His demands weren't modest, assistants and... insects, of all things. Nails, leather or string, steel dowels though it seemed he was comfortable enough settling for cheap iron. The rest he had brought with him, impossibly black stones that seemed to devour the light around them. Of all the things he asked for, Mendoza seemed to be eager to reciprocate and offer a helping hand the most, something that at the time Orsa suspected little of. He had work to do, and a lot of it.<br/><br/>He asked for no breaks, nor sunlight. Orsa only slept when he passed out at his table surrounded by macabre tools, for so few hours. The king would see what Campona's vitamancers were once so well known for. Craftsmen at heart, learning how to work stone, wood, metal, and for those like himself, bone. To recreate the body in man's image was child's play, something he had done as practice and perhaps it was a project completed more swiftly if he had now. The first night he had pulled the bones from their soak, the flesh disposed of after a long day of butchery. The beetles he requested picked feasted on the remaining tissue til he felt satisfied. A horrid sight, covered in hues of red and rust with a scarf up to his eyelids and thick gloves. Perhaps it was a good thing Orsa never stopped to find a mirror, looking like a madman out of a cruel children's folktale.<br/><br/>His second day was spent piecing broken skeletons together as he saw fit. Every knuckle, every joint, testing their flexibility and spending double the time to make sure it wouldn't fall apart come his due date. It was a considerably cleaner task than the day before, which earned him many unsavory looks to say the least. Even the occasional queasy sway from his assistants, making his own tendency to have his meals over a mess of bone and iron seem even more ridiculous. "Time isn't something to be wasted." Was his response whenever he felt someone's eyes question him.<br/><br/>Somewhere along the hours of day three he asked for his work to be taken to the cells, somewhere that could be cleared out and house what was described as "A beast without flesh, it'll take yours if you're not careful."<br/><br/>That evening, a silent scream had ripped through the lower halls, like a hiss of violent wind. Thrashing and pacing behind bars like a hungry dog, a once-human cadaver roaming on all fours, countless ribs closed like a cage over a jagged, black stone. It's chest looked like it breathed from it's false heart, creating a cold breeze that permeated throughout the dungeon. The damned thing was crudely armored in whatever Orsa would take, having replaced it's jaw as well with a cast iron set of spikes. Monstrous, it was. Absolutely monstrous. The necromancer sat on his knees a great distance from it's makeshift cage in awe, hands clasped under his chin as if he were praying. Though really, he had just spent the better half of his new free time watching the thing. Eyes wide and glistening.<br/><br/>Three days. A completed project as far as his new peers were concerned, however mangled and barbaric it may seem. Perhaps the bones could've been more pristine, dressed in tailored plate. Perhaps he could have salvaged the corpses of hounds or oxen, taken tooth and horn to create something especially dangerous. He was quick to have the king be summoned despite the hour, though he did not move from his spot nor did he pull his eyes from the beast. Instead, when Mendoza would arrive he simply gestured towards it's prison so that he may see for himself if such work was worth his time. "Chained and ready to enforce your will, your majesty... Or, be terminated, if that is what you wish." Orsa finally stood, arms crossed with a row of fingers tapping along his upper lip in thought. He was a different sight from before, straight hair pulled behind shoulders and clad in a robe much unlike the Campona armor he arrived in. And instead of pleading, he looked positively manic. Orsa tore a glove from his arm and tossed it into the cage, which the beast set upon with a frightening speed. Blind, deaf and dumb, seeking whatever hit the ground in it's vicinity as wind howled through it's hollow chest. When it finally went back to it's pacing, half the glove was caught in it's metal jowls, pierced by faux teeth.<br/><br/>"I spent many hours trying to find the proper life for it. A good soul, if you will. Luck has it that I found something to stuff in it's corpse that caused it to do more than just flounder around helplessly. If you would have me now, offer me up your slaughtered cows. No vitamancer worth his salt complained that horns were too extravagant. A bull's head, full of the teeth of a brass dog, that will  bring fear to your enemies." Orsa had been sweating a fair bit from his work and intense focus, looking positively ragged despite the swelling excitement within him now.