Vitale Demato de' Cordoba

[Vitale Demato de Cordoba[Inact]

Settle down, it’ll all be clear

Full name: Vitale Demato de' Cordoba
Nickname: Vi, Tali, Cordoba
Alias: Le Vasseur de Boussouelle(French Cover), Vitaliy Iosif Yegorovich(Russian Cover), Lord William Alexander Richardson(English Cover)
Gender: Male
Age/Birthday: 31/February 1st, 1676
Celebrity Claim: Tom Riley

If you get lost you can always be found

Time Period: Golden Age of Piracy
Appearance: Vitale is of Italian/Spaniard decent, and has darker skin for a caucasian, though moreaso in recent months while sailing to the new world. His life throughout Europe was mostly spent in the role of an Assassin Spy, and as such, his body reflects his lifestyle. He has negligible muscle tone, and short, dark hair from pure growth without sun bleaching. He has perfectly green eyes, and has recently given up on shaving daily. As far as his clothing style goes, this is also in keeping with his surroundings, in luie of his Spy history. Vitale is an advocate of disappearing, and as such, he follows the old Roman adage, "When in Rome..."

Vitale has owned royalish robes, fine court attire, presentable diplomatic clothing and everything else one can need in his situations. Recently, Vi has been burning his skin under the Atlantic sun to fit himself with his coming surroundings, and has been toning up his strength to aid in his new position, as well as condition himself for the life of a war theater Assassin. As his orders state, his days of negotiating are over, and his days of stalking are here, so he is working himself hard to regain his former strength on his voyage to the new world.
Height: 5'10"
Distinguishing Features: No scars or blemishes yet...

Just know you’re not alone

Personality:

[/i] his job, just, what he was tasked to do next. What he wants now is a simpler life, with more richness coming out of each day. Vitale has often wished for the life of the cover story that he portrayed. To be on the "Inside looking out."[/ul]
Fears:

• To lose himself to the Creed, and spend all his years utterly alone due to his work.
• To have his work undone, to have wasted his life, should the Templars win.
• Court Jesters...

Goals:

• To stop moving every three months, and settle down to a very long term residence, far from Royal cities.
• To find and recover the Totem, and take down as many Templars as possible in the meantime.
• To advance history on the correct path to true freedom.(Yes, he's a believer like that.)

Likes:

• Things going to plan.
• Teams working together.
• Various weapons to choose from, you can never have enough options.
• Learning new tricks, and discovering old ones from Codices.

Dislikes:

• Finding himself at a loss for direction.
• Self Righteous People
• Horseback Riding. Once he had to ride for weeks with no rest, and has hated it ever since. He prefers carriages now.
• Guard Dogs
• Likes and Dislikes sections in RP bio requirements...

Strengths:

• Shadowing Targets
• Hard Work (Despite not doing much of it later in life, as a young man, he did much of the general labor around the Bureau. Also, he wasn't as quick a learner back then either...)
• Research. Believe it or not, this is a skill that gets better as you use it. Vi got better, looots better.
• Cooking. This is one of those things that comes as a byproduct of sneaking around and waiting for people to leave. Vi would often sit by large cookeries and wait for his moment to slip in the back door. While he waited, he often watched/overheard cooks as they made some of the finest cuisines in the world.

Weaknesses:

• Vitale does not do "Apologies." Not well at least.
• Vitale is a sociopath. Surprisingly, Vitale knows whats right and wrong, He just doesn't feel it. His bleeding heart stopped hemorrhaging when his entire family died. This could have been under secrets, but I list it as a weakness because how many times has having a conscience been a better thing in your life?
• Money. Vitale never dealt with finances, and so, he hasn't learned to control the urge to spend. When he needed something, he asked for it from his financiers. Most of the time, it was for the mission, but, sometimes it was for personal. We'll see how this plays out in the next few months.
• The Mission. Oh he'll complete it, and bury everything in his path to make that happen. Don't assign him a task, if you aren't prepared to deal with the consequences. The next time you want to ask how this is not a good thing, ask yourself whether you would have stopped and buried the Assassins that died beside you, or saved that girl who was about to die, or whether Augustus was the right King to back. Vitale has goals to be met, and damn whatever, and whoever gets in the way.

Talents:

• Swordplay
• Court Dancing
• Quick Learner

Habits/Quirks:

• Chews on his mustache(When he grows it out).
• Smokes Cigars.
• Sleeps on his stomach with both hands under his pillow.
• Also, sleeps with a pistola under his pillow.
• Also, light sleeper...

Occupation: Master at Arms(I know the future, )
Alliance: Assassin

Cause I’m gonna make this place your home.

History:

The fall of the Crusader States by 1291 brought more than just shame back to Europe. It brought the Assassins and their Creed. The next few centuries would see the highest expansion rate of both Templar and Assassin influence in recorded history, even though these records were never exposed. For those who knew, the world was constantly fighting a hidden war fueled by hidden influences that were all derived out of a rivalry stretching back for over three millennium, possibly more. For the Demato family of Cordoba, it had stretched back over a mere three decades. Vitale was too young to have truly known his father, Amato. The patriarch of the Demato house was brought before the Spanish Inquisition in one of that institution's last major bouts of purging. Vitale was the tender age of three when his father was labeled a heretic, tortured, and eventually killed. Vitale would later learn that the Templars had been behind the injustice from the original accusation to orchestrating the sham of a trial. For, of course, Amato had been an Assassin. Through his late father, the Assassin heritage was deep in Vitale's veins, and it would only grow as he aged and eventually came under the tutelage of the Brotherhood himself.

As the only son, Vitale would have inherited his father's property upon his death. However, as a condemned Heretic, the Demato lands were confiscated and the family was left penniless, homeless, and shunned by the community as the kin of a heretic. The local laws and customs of the region were enough to do all this, but the additional threat of the Templars was never too far off. To escape what had become of their lives, Vitale's mother decided to take the family and start over in Venice where Amato's brother lived, and thus Vitale was raised by his uncle Paulo.

By age nine, it was only Vitale and Paulo. A quick outbreak of Yellow Fever struck the city which claimed the life of Vitale's mother, his aunt (Paulo's wife), and both his sisters. By twelve, Vitale began to press his uncle for permission to join the Brotherhood as his father had before him. There was nothing left for him in Spain and now nearly the entire family had died in exile. The Brotherhood he hardly knew was all he had left, and that young boy was all the Assassins had left from one of their most prominent members in southern Spain.

Paulo relented and eventually so did the Venetian Guild. The young boy was taken on and put to work as fit his age and inexperience. Children have the ability to go everywhere and yet also to remain invisible to nearly everyone, and so Vitale began his career eavesdropping on conversations, watching secret meetings, and spying on various locations. He would observe and report so that the real assassins could follow up and accomplish their missions. Before long he had graduated to picking pockets, handling the pigeons which kept the entire network in communication, and placing stupid little feathers around the city for more experienced assassins to collect. What these jobs lacked in glamour they made up for in importance. Vitale literally worked his way up from the very bottom support of the Order.

Vitale was first trained in the basics by the Master Assassin Lodovica di Mannoni alongside three other pupils. Mannoni was quoted saying that in his first two years, Cordoba learned like an ill-tempered donkey, and often forgot the point of his lesson altogether. This caused Mannoni to further work Cordoba physically to reinforce the concepts with actual pain. However, as Vitale matured he showed greater progress, often progressing above and beyond that of his equally aged peers. After three years of apprenticing to his master, Vitale became an official recruit and served under a new mentor, Girolamo Venier. To history, Venier was more notable later as an ambassador for the Venetians to France. At the time of his teaching Vitale, however, he served as a spy for the Brotherhood and taught Vitale the same.

Where Mannoni taught the children in a more or less "safe" environment, Venier took fifteen year old Vitale directly into the field. With few exceptions, the young recruit was his mentor's shadow and followed him into every situation and on a few occasions actually proved quite useful. At the time, Venice and the Ottoman Turks were fighting a brutal war, a war which was not going well for the Serene Republic. The Brotherhood had thrown in with Venice to stop the expansion of the Turks and naturally the Venetian guild was at the forefront of that endeavor. Assistance to other guilds around was practically non-existent as the Italians were fully occupied with the one threat. Fortunately for Vitale, the tough times meant there was never a dull moment in his training and he experienced more intrigue and action than most fully robed assassins would see in the same amount of time. He eagerly followed Venier and helped further Venice's position. During this time he learned and applied, researched and adjusted for all encounters, and at the end of his time under Master Venier, Vitale was considered a promising and skilled young assassin.

After his training was over, Vitale received his own posting in Poland.  The Poles were also at war with the Ottomans, a cause in common with the Assassins who were still fighting against their growing influence. Vitale had been planted within the Russian Empire's embassy to the Polish, in the best known attempt of the Assassins to reclaim some form of order after the growing trouble in the wake of Jan III Sobieski's death. King Sobieski had been a welcome change in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, helping to stabilize the country after a series of setbacks, most notably the Deluge and the Khmelnytsky Uprising. Aside from his popularity with his people, as well as his fair national politics, the man was also a friend of the Assassins and played a pivotal role in the Battle of Vienna in 1683. His death was tragic to both his people as well as the Assassins, and so Vitale's new position was of great importance. There were several bids for the Polish crown at this time, most notably François Louis, Prince of Conti who had already bribed his way to power through the Abbé de Polignac in 1697. Vitale had just had to deal with this Prince of Conti earlier in the year to put a stop to his rise, as he was confirmed to be in league with the Templars, if not a Templar himself. Most notably, Vitale had met with Swiss and persuaded them not to back François's claims militarily.  This was Vitale's first personal victory as an Assassin. The Templars, however, were adamant that Louis rise, and after Polignac had the Cardinal proclaim him King of Poland, Vitale found himself acting very fast, before François could arrive to his purchased throne.

Vitale suggested that the Assassins should back François' rival, Augustus the Second, who had been trying to obtain the same throne to no avail. Vitale met with Augustus and brokered a deal in private to help him to the throne in exchange for the continued strength of his northern kingdom in the Ottoman War. Augustus accepted these fair terms, even going so far as to convert to Catholicism as instructed. Vitale then went to meet with the Russian Tzar Peter the Great, who was actually in Europe already, despite not sharing his travel plans with the world. Vi had actually hoped to meet with the Tzar's co-ruler, Ivan V, as he was an easier man to move about, but sadly, the man had died the year before, thus Vitale had to go before his strong willed King, and negotiate a deal that was by no means popular. The Tzar was every bit of his legend, and though startled by Vitale's impromptu request, had already greatly considered allying with Poland against the Ottomans, in lieu of his earlier failure to acquire access to the black sea. Vitale had planned this from his departure, as he knew Peter's greater ambition was to create a great navy for Russia. He agreed to back Augustus so long as Poland ceded Kiev to Russia, and an outside financier for the Polish crown could be garnered. Vitale left then for Halberstadt to meet with the next stage of his plan, Issachar Berend Lehmann, a thirty six year old Jewish banker who three years earlier had started his own mint and general business agency for the Elector of Brandenburg in Dresden. Vitale had known the banker by name and reputation as a young man with a keen mind, and most importantly, Pro-Assassin. Vitale brokered the deal personally, and then returned to Augustus mere days after his carrier pigeon. Vitale killed six horses to make his continental trips in the course of only ten weeks.  He became more stressed as he went, as more news from France rolled in that all the Templar's plans were falling into motion, and their support there was nearly unanimous. But Vitale was fast and accurate, and had chosen well his negotiations. Aside from the horses he had rode to their deaths, three officials, and numerous custodians who tried to stop the deals he'd set in motion were also dispatched, some from Vitale's Order, and one from his own blade just hours before he rode from Germany.

The last goal of Vitale's was to secure a secret alliance with Field Marshal Heino Heinrich Graf von Flemming of the Saxon Army, which he did en route to his destination, and at the end of three universally buried Austrian assassinations that Flemming demanded at the last minute, he did fully commit to the dangerous Brotherhood affair. Flemming, with the aid of four others, helped to lead the Saxon Army after speaking with Lehmann, and lead troops in Flanders later after accusations arose. Codex records show that when Flemming asked Cordoba how he should answer the later charges of treasonous support to an unrecognized kingship that would no doubt be brought against him, that Vitale advised Flemming to let him worry over such things. Later, during a change in the Assassin's prioritizations, Vitale curtly advised him to retire for... health reasons... That did eventually play out, but not until 1698.

However, Vitale's quick work by counsel, bribery and blade resulted in success in stopping François from achieving the throne, and in 1697, with the help of the Russian Empire, as well as Austria, the Assassin Order made sure that it was Augustus who claimed the throne. Partially due to luck, partially due to misinformation, the Templars didn't send François for over two months, which was enough for Vi to help Augustus arrive at his throne, at the head of a Saxon army. Shortly thereafter Poland led a major upset with the Ottomans in 1698 and forced a treaty which was signed the following year, thereby ending a longstanding goal of the Assassins in Venice, and ending Vitale's posting in Poland allowing him to attend to other matters after a long year of fruitful planning. Of note, without continued Assassin guidance, Augustus the Second, an ally of opportunity at best for Vitale, lost his crown, only to retake it once more before settling into a throne of stagnancy without retaining unearned hereditary rights to the kingdom. He also failed to issue a proposed five-pronged reform statue that might have continued Sobieski's progressive legacy, but Augustus only implemented one of the five statutes, before joining the Tzar in a conquest against Augustus' own cousin, the young Swedish King Charles the Seventh. Cordoba was quoted to say that this was "Unsurprising."

Also of note, is that after Vitale's work in the Polish Kingdom, the Venetians did break the enemy lines, as a result of the Ottomans not being able to focus their forces against the Republic of Venice on the Morea Peninsula. This was a short lived victory however, as soon after, in 1715, the Ottomans reclaimed the area, after the northern incursions had been settled. The 1699 victory would go on to be the only Venetian victory over the Ottomans. Despite this, Vitale was not recalled to the area, as other, more pressing issues had been unveiled. The early years of Cordoba's life in the new Eighteenth Century were instead aimed at François' recently uncovered sect of Templar agents. He requested the assignment to follow up on them and the right to flush them out. The Brotherhood granted his request, and Vitale moved east to France, under the name of Le Vasseur de Boussouelle, as a double agent. Vitale, now Boussouelle, met with François who had returned to France without apparent complaint. Cordoba shadowed François, and wriggled his way into François' circle of friends, albeit, loosely. However, he did become close enough to François to call himself trusted, and thus began his investigation into the Templar who had funded the bribes set forth by the French King in '97. This proved to be fruitless, as François was not only loyal to this secrecy, but also adept at unhinging Vitale's attempts to discover them. Cordoba chose a new route, one that had served him well.

Blackmail.

This began Vitale's ever present spying into the personal affairs of only François. Upon bloodier investigation, Cordoba uncovered the scandal that would change his life forever. François Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, had an ongoing affair with the married Louise Françoise de Bourbon, the Duchess of Bourbon. The two birthed a daughter, Marie Anne, in 1697. Vitale now knew why the foolish François had returned home without a fight after his failure years earlier. Vitale approached François with knowledge of Marie Anne's true heritage and demanded answers as to his real financiers, after personally seeing to the guarantee that Bourbon's husband would succeed her father to become the next Prince of Condé. François needed no further incentive, and told what he knew about the Templar's plans in the area. It wasn't much, but it gave Vitale a start. Vitale afterwards did let some news that might have gone unmentioned slip to Duc de Bourbon (The Duchess' husband) and there were some consequences as a result. Vi didn't even loose one night of sleep.

Not that day anyway, he did however over the next few weeks, as he hunted his new target, a full Templar Commander, the man behind François' bribe financing, Charles Gerard, the second Earl of Macclesfield. The Assassins were familiar with this man, though they had not known his power, hidden as it was by his peers. Gerard had been a Lieutenant Colonel in Lord Gerard's Horse and then later a full colonel. Following his military career, he entered politics, being elected Knight of the Shire for Lancashire not once, but twice. The Assassins had previously exposed him for his involvement in the Rye House Plot, without knowing how he'd escaped his public sentence. Vitale later uncovered that although in 1685, as he had indeed been successfully sentenced to death, with Templar aid he received a pardon by Charles the Second, the King of England. Thus, Gerard had become a Templar for life. At the time that Vitale had taken his contract, in the spring of 1701, Gerard was selected to be the first commissioner for the investiture of the Elector of Hanover. It was a commission he would not oversee for long.

Charles Gerard had discovered an artifact of First Civilization origin in the unlikely Polish treasury, and had already had his agents recover it upon a jubilant realization that the Assassins Guild had no idea of its existence, despite being involved so closely with the goings on of its territories and wars. After Vitale's posting was relieved by a fellow Assassin, the Templars had sent agents after the treasure, and successfully claimed it, and had taken it back to Gerard in England. As you might expect, Cordoba had personally vetted interests in this case by now. He shadowed Gerard for the Summer, and into the Fall of his first year, as was his custom, looking for a way to get into the man's inner circle. This was a slow method that avoided messy covers and getting burned, and Vitale had found two or three options that were promising.  He was worming each one slowly hoping one would produce fruit, when a problem cropped up. An old contact from the Russian Empire, with whom Vitale had only met a dozen times. Yevgeni Bauer had been an irritation to Vitale during his few short trips to the Russian Empire, and was now in England in 1701, meeting with a known Templar Master. Vitale's opportunity to infiltrate the Order was obliterated, and he assumed the worst about Bauer, sending word via carrier pigeon that he had found a great Templar threat to international commerce, a fundamental concern in Europe at the time, and immediate justification for the forfeiture of one's life. Not entirely true, but one has to play the political game, even inside their own Brotherhood, from time to time. Expedience could be virtuous after all. But there was a strong chance that an agent so tightly veiled in secret would be spared, and watched rather than killed. Intelligence on the Templar's plans were always a priority, and Vitale knew nothing about this Gerard which he interpreted to mean that neither did his Masters back in France, and by proxy, they would want him to keep these men alive and let them hold onto this artifact, just for the chance to shed light on a greater conspiracy and see who exactly was involved.

Vitale was not a foolish man, nor prone to snap judgments. But the plans he'd learned in his grinding year shook him deeply.  This artifact was somehow tied to others which could make it more powerful, and it preformed a magic that he could not easily describe. After he sent his letter of reason, not request but reason, Vitale returned to the Templars to find that Bauer had been dispatched with the artifact that very morning, and that Gerard was on the verge of devastating Assassin interests. He overheard the Templar tell one of his agents that later that same evening when they would be in meeting, that he would reveal the locations of several Assassin strongholds, and that they would have French support for an offensive if he could gather enough support from English nobles. Vitale did not wait for permission, instead, he waited until Gerard was  alone, and in the afternoon of the fifth of November, 1701, Vitale Demato de' Cordoba unknowingly dispatched the forth highest ranking Templar in all of Europe. Retribution was unyielding, and in the wake of Gerard's assassination, the entire Guild in Lancaster was annihilated. Fortunately, for Cordoba, James Stanley, the Tenth Earl of Derby had alerted Vitale's Mentors of this action, and a counter attack was underway in less than fourteen days. For Cordoba, however, his cover in England was blown and he was forced to depart.

It mattered little in the end, as Vitale was now in a cloak and dagger chase with Yevgeni Bauer from England to Denmark, from there to Sweden, from Sweden to Meklenburg, down through the heart of the Holy Roman Empire, along the border of France where he lost Bauer in Savoy when they reached the Mediterranean Sea. Vitale had always been a week to a month behind the elusive Bauer and his prize, but he continued to hunt the man relentlessly, funded by his temporary Assassin Master and financier, Master Cloudesley Shovell. Shovell had no patience for the Templar plots within his own borders, and was glad to hear of Vitale's non-hesitant dispatching of Gerard. He formally took command of Vitale in January of 1702, though informally in September of 1701. Master Shovell was famously quoted in the Codex of the Spanish Succession for chiding Assassin Master Savoie(*a) saying, "I should have elected Cordoba, then we might have had results!" To which Savoie replied, "Is it custom to brandy a sword for a signet?"  Whether this was a reference to the city of Cordoba where an up and coming, but often overlooked Assassin's Guild was located, or the assassin Vitale, who was often referred too in that time period simply as "Cordoba", has been a subject of debate for Codex Scholars thereafter, as the Cordoba Guild had warned that Savoie was not interpreting the Spanish messages correctly, leading to many investigations taking so long, that the events to be stopped played out to the very last minute. But as this quote was from January of 1703, just months after and in reference to the Battle of Vigo Bay, many scholars argue that the two were talking of the actual assassin.  Cordoba (city) is on the far side of Spain, and Vitale played a large role in that particular battle (Vigo Bay), which we will delve into shorty.  From a historical view of the Codices,  the solid bet is that this quote was in reference to Vitale, as he was also one of Master Shovell's favorite spies until Vitale was reassigned to the French Master Boudoirs in 1704, when Master Shovell was promoted to Rear Admiral and his focus shifted to global Brotherhood concerns in the Mediterranean.  Also, Sovoie's rebuttal links strongly to Vitale's nickname at the time, Kingmaker, in lieu of his actions in Poland.  (a* Most Assassin Codexes refer to Savoie by his French title, due to so many Codices being written by French Assassins. His common title in Europe at that time was Prince Eugene of Savoy.)

Vitale received a tip off on Bauer from a carrier pigeon while he searched the naval records in Savoy, which he was instructed to disregard, as there were ranking assassins who believed that Bauer had stayed in country and was in hiding.  Vitale argued that Bauer had explicit instructions to immediately secure transit of the artifact for the New World.  Those in power believed that had this been the case, that Bauer would have departed from England or Hanover and not traveled down the coast.  Vitale counter-argued that the Templar leadership in England were highly paranoid due to the close eyes of the Assassins present particularly in the port of Bristol, and that after his year spent shadowing Gerard, in Vitale's professional opinion, that the Templar Order would not risk a ship setting sail from a port they could not control.  Savoy's Masters countered that it was Cordoba who was being paranoid, that the recent problems with the Spanish and French would be too great a risk for an artifact to simply travel through, and that the Templars must simply have a place to hide the artifact in Savoy, which is why the trail went cold there.  Vitale was unsure of the validity of his claims, offering nothing more than his hunch that the man was where the Spanish Brotherhood intelligence reports vaguely said he was, in Spain.  In light of no hard evidence, the decision was made to continue the search for Bauer in Savoy, where Vitale continued to search until June of 1702 with zero leads, where he appealed to his Master to open the search into Spain to ascertain whether or not Bauer had traveled to the New World already.  Vitale arrived in Spain after his request was approved, and began his search July eighth.

Vitale met with Spanish spies who reported far more unrest brewing, and who demanded to know why the lead investigation agent of the artifact took so long to arrive after their numerous tips.  Vitale apologized on behalf of his Guild, and together the two groups worked to comb the Iberian Peninsula and her many ports for Bauer.  At the time, Vitale had been allotted two younger assassins to aid him in Savoy, as the amount of documentation to go through had been staggering, and they proved very useful in Spain as this was not a language Vitale knew well enough to read, despite his talents in other tongues and being of Spanish descent .  In early September of 1702, Vitale found the trail again infiltrating Fort Randa where Yevgeni Bauer was hiding in the Governor's guest home.  The Assassins then found themselves giving chase to Bauer for two days, until he was cornered and caught.  While detaining Bauer, Vitale extracted that the Artifact had been kept safe and hidden in the Galician Mountains throughout the summer months, waiting on the Spanish Treasure Fleet to arrive, unload and prepare to re-traverse the Atlantic, where it would be hidden aboard for transit.  More importantly, Vitale learned that the sister artifacts required to promote the strength of the first had also been kept there, although these had already been at sea for months, each leaving with at least five weeks between the departure of the other.  Most importantly, Cordoba learned that the final artifact, called the 'Totem' was the primary piece of the three, and the source of power.  The other two were magnifiers of the Totem, but without the Totem, the other two were useless.  Yevgeni retold this information for a course of one week, under severe duress, until both Vitale, and the Spanish spies were utterly convinced that he was telling them all he knew.  In the meantime, Vitale had sent his brothers into Redondela to search out the Totem.  When the week ended, and they did not return, the rest followed down, leaving Bauer in a dark un-named room, bound and gagged, and left for dead with naught but a vial of poison to relieve his thirst.

The Assassins Cordoba had sent into the harbor were found within hours, hung at the neck on a yardarm, and left to be a display.  Vitale dispatched word for aid, calling in every able bodied assassin in any direction to come aid in boarding these Galleons until they were able to find the Artifact.  Time grew short, and while he waited, Vitale searched all he could in vain, until at last, he bribed his way into a young Templar's pocket, and discovered the ship that held the Artifact, the Oriflamme, a vessel commanded by Templars, and operated with extreme fervor.  Try as he and his brother assassins might, Vitale found no way in.  He was forced to wait for aid, and then with an army of Assassins at his back, Vitale planned to kill all aboard, and raze the ship to the deep of the bay, and take the Artifact.  This would be a strike at the Templar Order that they would never forget.

It would also never occur.  Late in October, on the 22nd, the Royal Navy, tipped off by both their own, as well as Assassin spies, blundered into the bay, and began bombarding everything in sight.  The Oriflamme was sank with all hands, and its precious cargo.  The French and Spanish fleets in the bay were utterly destroyed, and Vitale could do nothing but watch and weep and curse the sky, as his investigation, that had lasted since he'd first heard François' name, was brought to a baffling end.  He had tracked the Totem over three continents, through fourteen countries in all, and over three years.  You can't make this stuff up...

The winter came on too quickly after the English and Dutch departed, and the Spanish and French licked their wounds.  Vitale therefor wintered in the Harbor researching the routes taken by the trade ships that supposedly carried the two minor totems to the New World.  When summer came, Vitale was brought a small craft that contained a two hour bell (a diving bell large enough to give him air for up to two hours) where he began a daily routine of searching the wrecks for the totem.  He was accompanied by one of the original Spanish spies, and this continued until the end of the following fall.  So it came to be, that in October of 1704, almost two years to the date of the Oriflamme's sinking, Vitale's Master recalled him to France for reassignment to a new investigation under his new Master, Pierre Boudoirs the Third.  The Totem was considered lost to the bay, the thinking at the time, that if the Assassin Cordoba could not reclaim it after two years, then it was lost forever, possibly that it burned to a cinder.

Under Boudoirs, Vitale was given even more free reign than before, and voiced his extreme disgust with the Brotherhood's decision in regards to the fate of the Totem.  Boudoirs comforted Vitale with the knowledge that in all likelihood, the artifact was destroyed in the fire, and that by 1704, it mattered little.  One of the main reasons Vitale was recalled, was that King Philippe, who was a very paranoid man, had been approached by both Templar and Assassin envoys, and began to seek out any presence of them in secret.  He was obviously found out, though not to his knowledge.  For a time though, King Philippe played both Templar and Assassins against each other for his benefit early in his reign, though this is more thoroughly covered in the "Codex of the Spanish Treachery", later inserted in the collection "The Codices of the Spanish Succession."

Vitale was placed in the role of a spy working in the House of Bourbon next to Boudoirs.  Boudoirs assigned Vitale an apprentice about a month or so after he arrived, which Vitale took as a personal insult.  In all his time, Vitale had only seen two Assassins who were not Masters train an apprentice.  In both cases, the Assassins were training replacements.  Vitale felt as though his failure in Redondela had marked the end of his career in the Brotherhood.  To him, this was the end of his life, for after eighteen years service to the Creed, he had no other marketable skills, nor desired any other life.  Cordoba brushed these feelings aside however to concentrate on his tasks.  The way he saw it, if these were to be his final years, he would not spend them bitterly resenting his final appointment.  His protege's name was Phaethon Kosta, a Greek recruit who was born in Morea, and finalized his training in Venice before being deployed to the field under Vitale.  Kosta was a sharp lad, who had an eye for detail, and a quick wit that parried well with the French Court.  He surprised Cordoba by managing a fine line between not offending the pompous French officials, while neither accepting any rebuke.

In January of 1706, a French scholar and critic named Adrien Baillet was murdered via a poison.  It was brought to the attention of the Brotherhood, and until performing a close inspection of his domicile, Vitale was inclined to believe that the man had simply died of a ripe old age.  However, while inspecting the man's residence, Vitale and Kosta found signs of a struggle, and also remains of the poison vial.  Vitale allowed Kosta to take the lead position, and offered advice when asked.  After two months, he did speed the investigation along with some insight, but for the most part, allowed Kosta to learn as he went, and simply made sure that the young man stayed clear of danger.  By the late fall, Vitale had a clear idea of who his suspect was but Kosta was unconvinced.  The man Vitale had picked was pushing seventy four years old.  Kosta could scarcely believe the man could walk, much less continue to organize other men's deaths.  He saw an old frail man.  Vitale saw a warrior, and master tactician who was no Templar, but had killed an Assassin supporter.  As the man was up in age, and from what Vitale knew, very clever, not a Templar, and no threat to anyone else, he did not push Kosta to kill him.  Until November 28th that same year, when another writer, Pierre Bayle turned up murdered in Rotterdam.  A fellow Assassin followed up on Kosta's original notes and passed along the crime.  It was much the same as Adrien, poison, older victim, Assassin friendly, not a direct member of the Order.  The pieces fit, but the motive was unclear.  Vitale hadn't much cared about motive.  Who knows why some men kill, and others don't?  Not everyone's mind worked the same, and he was growing short of patience.  It had been a year now, and Vitale was sure of it, there would be a third writer by February, a man named Livania Ducan.  Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban was their killer.  Vitale opened his own private investigation, just to be sure of his theory, and sure enough, Vauban was not a Templar, not on any level.  He was a French Aristocrat who used to work with the Assassins without knowing it, and at some point, decided he didn't want anyone else to again.  He was systematically hunting down fellow artisans who were loyal to the Assassin's Creed, and killing them.

Vitale and Kosta clashed on this by '07, but in the end, he allowed Kosta the right to finish his work.  He reported to Boudoirs that Kosta was slow but methodical, and would likely be a good investigator for long term installments.  Kosta did eventually carry out the contract on Vauban on the 30th of March, just in time to save the last victim his fate.  He was promoted to Assassin days later, which was well, as only a short time later, Cordoba's plans changed.  April 7th, 1707.  Vitale received orders from his former Master, Shovell, unexpectedly assigning him to the New World.  He was to report to one Horatio Davis in Kingston, Jamaica.  Spanish spies reported intercepting Templar documentation that centrally focused on an object of great importance to the New World, that would aid in avoiding all adverse weather and simultaneously buffering any who contained it from their enemies.  Letters of intent and orders were to follow as to who was to receive the parcels, no larger than a wine bottle.  Vitale immediately handed over his investigation to his apprentice, Phaethon Kosta, and departed for the new world, setting sail from Toulon.

Mother: Laia Alba, (Vegaso) Demato (Deceased)
Father: Amato Gianetto Demato (Deceased)(Born in Treviso, but raised in Spain, and dropped the surname)
Siblings: Ana Galdarres Demato(Deceased), Alba Olano Demato(Deceased)
Significant other: Paulo Demato de' Treviso
Pets: N/A
Home: Vitale has never had one, although, he does ambitiously want one, one day.

Behind the Scenes

Name/Alias: Onas Knox
How long have you been in RP?: Five Years plus.
How did you find Cutting Corners?: Ohhh... uh. Google? I think? I remember seeing it before, but I think I searched for Assassins Creed RP in Google.

Music credit -- Phillip Phillips - Home

Read more: cuttingcorners.proboards.com/thread/7/character-app-form#ixzz37fjhAEYI