Athanasia is known to history as the most talented scholar in the field of energy.

  She is said to have pioneered the use of Life and Soul energy, taking in a few students and publishing research. One of her students was a man named Vitus, a Quasi-life energetic. They first met when Athanasia was travelling the continent to research various kinds of creature, and he was allowed to travel with and study under her for years.

  Decades later, Vitus founded his own lineage with the assistance of the Emperor, which he called the Lifebringer family. He was a great man who would not rest until everyone was healthy.

  However, a number of prominent scholars refused to take him seriously, viewing his work as a waste of time and effort. In harshly worded writings, they expressed their disappointment that he would attempt to develop areas of research his teacher had supposedly already mastered. Despite the hostility from other prominent figures, the most notable being the royal artificer Daedalus, the bond between the two remained strong, some suspecting they had secretly married. Both denied this publicly, and Athanasia even founded her own lineage. She called it Thanasia, and it was located a two hour walk from her former pupil's granted estate.

  Eventually, both passed away and their successors took control. For four hundred years, the noble families worked in tandem, developing the disciplines of healing. The goal of the Lifebringers was to repair broken bodies, while the Thanasians focused on one day achieving revival.

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  One day, a new head inherited control of Athanasia's lineage. It only took a number of months for a member of the family to make known that he intended to create a method to alter the souls of people, and was reported to have experimented on living humans. This was highly controversial, with some claiming it to be immoral while others praising the potential benefits. It was put to the Emperor to decide, and it was forbidden.

  In order to monitor the situation, it was decreed that the head of the Lifebringers, the most powerful healer on the continent, would host an inspection every fifteen years of the Thanasian people and land. This went well for nearly a century, with nothing being officially uncovered, but it did not remain so.

  An inspector, purely by coincidence, stumbled upon a small hut in a part of the local forest. It contained a hidden trapdoor which led to a small dungeon. It was empty, but it still made him suspicious. He decided not to report it to the Emperor, but the Lifebringer family's important members were informed. In the next inspection, it was planned to investigate it deeply and then reveal what they found.

  Word of this made its way to the family through an informant in Vitus' lineage, persuaded by promises of future rewards. Together, they hatched a plan to permanently conceal their actions, which had progressed from testing on willing participants to captured people. Most of these people were criminals, but not all, and so this being revealed might have resulted in their downfall.

  The informant would convince the inspector to bring his daughter, and they would ambush him. They believed that he would be willing to sacrifice himself to protect her, as she was seen by many as the reincarnation of Vitus.