Fresnel was introduced to adventurers as an old water mage, doing research into a mage long ago who attained some unknown power.  He first sent adventurers after that mage's (Loganus) journal and remains.                 

After spending time deciphering the journal, Fresnel began hiring adventurers to collect oddments, including a captured ghost, a unique phoenix, and the corpse of an onivero, all supposedly for research purposes (he was, after all, a water mage).  When he hired adventurers to rescue an old friend of his (a T'orite by the name of Erwin Schrodinger), his goals seemed to shift.  He and Schrodinger hired for several missions, attempting to locate another former colleague of theirs, an orcish marine named Max Planck who had once betrayed the adventuring group they were all a part of, killing one of their friends.                     

Once Planck was tracked down (in the middle of doing some major ritual) and captured, Fresnel used a device of Planck's on Schrodinger.  Schrodinger then executed Planck, after which he himself died as well.

Fresnel's next move was to hire adventurers as bodyguards as he traveled to an ancient temple to perform a ritual.  After getting through many traps and defenses, Fresnel appeared to  drop a spell and revert into an akvodrako.  He set up a number of unusual items about him on a platform and began chanting and casting for several minutes, during which the adventurers fought off a series of demons.  At the end of the ritual, Fresnel was replaced by a large glowing blue sphere, at the center of which could be seen the outline of a humanoid figure.  Fresnel appeared disoriented at first, and then left all his possessions to the adventurers, saying that there were suddenly tasks to be done that came as a price.

Soon, Fresnel in his new form began hiring adventures to do a variety of things like gathering information and capturing specimens and rescuing people, all of it tied to some great evil extradimensional goddess who apparently had her eyes on this universe in her quest to rule all realities.  Fresnel explained that part of the trade-off for his new powers was the compulsion to help fight off this threat (which wasn't in any fine print he had read).  (more to come)