In the great meadows where the sun never fully sets, there exists a temple older than memory itself. Within its moss-covered walls, an order of healers once tended to all of Cordragia's wounded—soldier and civilian alike, regardless of allegiance. Zunartha was born into this order, her first breath taken in the same room where her mother drew her last. The midwife wept at the tragedy. The elder priests saw it differently: this child had entered the world balanced on the knife's edge between life and death. She was marked.
The duality of existence defined her from that very first moment. She could feel the pulse of every living thing within miles—the flutter of moth wings against glass, the slow and patient breath of ancient trees that had witnessed the rise and fall of kingdoms, the frantic heartbeats of prey being hunted through moonlit underbrush. By the age of five, she could sense when someone was about to die. The knowledge settled into her bones like cold water. It never left.
This gift was also her curse. She felt every death as keenly as if it were her own—the gasp, the struggle, the final surrender. When the village two valleys over was struck by plague, she screamed for three days straight. The priests bound her hands to keep her from clawing at her own skin. They whispered prayers they didn't quite believe.
She learned to control it. Barely.
By her twentieth year, Zunartha had become the order's most accomplished healer. She could knit bone with a touch. She could draw poison from blood as easily as drawing water from a well. Travelers came from across Cordragia seeking her aid, and she turned none away. But those who sought her healing soon learned that Zunartha's mercy came with a price.
To be healed by the Hand of the Gods, one must first be purified.
Zunartha believed—believes still—that sickness is merely a symptom. The true disease lies deeper: in indulgence, in excess, in the soft corruption of comfortable living. The body rebels against the spirit when the spirit has grown weak. Pain is a teacher. Discomfort is a guide. To heal the flesh without first healing the soul is to plant a garden in poisoned soil.
Her methods began with denial. Those who came to her temple were stripped of their possessions, their fine clothes replaced with rough spun cloth that itched against the skin. They slept on stone floors. They ate once a day—thin broth, stale bread, water that tasted of minerals. They were forbidden to speak except in prayer. They were forbidden to complain. Complaining was itself a symptom of the sickness.
This was merely the preparation.
The true healing came through the Lifetick Ritual.
Her clergy would gather in the dim light of the inner sanctum, their faces hidden behind masks of woven grass. The patient would be bound to a table of white marble—not to restrain them, Zunartha insisted, but to help them resist their own weakness. Then the cutting began. Not of flesh, though sometimes that too became necessary. The clergy cut away everything deemed toxic to the patient's continued existence: habits, relationships, memories. They spoke incantations that severed the patient's attachment to foods they craved, to loves they cherished, to dreams they had nurtured since childhood.
The patient would scream. They always screamed.
But the screaming was part of the healing. It meant the toxins were leaving.
Only after the cutting was complete—only after the patient lay hollow and trembling on the marble slab, emptied of everything that had once defined them—would Zunartha herself appear. She would place her hands upon their chest, and life would flow. Pure life, uncorrupted by desire or attachment. The patient would rise renewed, their wounds closed, their diseases cured, their souls scraped clean.
Many who underwent the ritual emerged grateful. They spoke of clarity they had never known, of purpose that had eluded them their entire lives. They became Zunartha's most devoted followers, seeking to share the gift of purification with others.
Some emerged... different. Empty-eyed and compliant, they wandered the temple grounds performing whatever tasks they were assigned, never questioning, never wanting. Zunartha called these the Truly Healed. Others called them the Hollowed.
A few did not emerge at all.
When the war for the Crimson Chest began, Zunartha saw opportunity where others saw only conflict. Here was a sickness that afflicted all of Cordragia—greed, violence, the endless cycle of desire and destruction. The world itself needed the Lifetick Ritual. The world needed to be cut clean before it could be restored.
She leads the Life faction not from compassion, though she would never admit this. She leads from certainty. She believes that whoever controls the Crimson Chest—with its dragon's blood mixed with molten gold—can extend the ritual to every living soul simultaneously. One great cutting. One great healing. Every toxic attachment severed in a single divine moment.