Centuries ago, a long forgotten Alchemist attempted to create a philosopher's stone. Utilizing a pit that had been discovered to house the depths of the abyss, as the lake of tar like goop bubbled and churned. The Alchemist had hoped to take advantage of the Pit's properties after discovering the black sludge could drain the souls from victims who fall into it. And proceeded to throw in more sacrifices. People and animals like fell into the pit, their souls drained from their mortal bodies. But to the Alchemist's dismay, the souls couldn't be taken. They had been consumed by the pit. For decades, the Alchemist continued to throw in more victims, finding anything, big and small that he could find in hopes to overflow the pit's insatiable appetite. But he never succeeded, having not a clue how to retrieve the souls that the pit has amassed for itself. The souls he needed to create the Philosopher's stone.

Centuries later, the souls congealed, melding and forming, as they suddenly give life to the sludge itself. fully saturated with the mass of souls, the sludge lifts and crawls it's way out of the pit with slimy tendrils, before condensing and forming into a hybrid quadrupedal and bipedal creature. humanoid yet animalistic. The creature lacks any knowledge or memories of the beings that had formed it's life. It was it's own.

Seeing a City in the distance, the creature makes it's way out to curiously discover this world it had walked into. And will discover many new things. Like snacks.

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Had an idea to make a shape shifting creature, and was inspired roughly by Full Metal Alchemist, which bases it's philosopher's stone off of the actual mythology of the philosopher's stone. as a seemingly limitless source of power, though is also capable of transmutating matter freely with no loss of energy. capable of freely turning mass, into energy, and back again.

In essence, Lazarus is capable of just that, so the Alchemist had, in essence, succeeded in creating the philosopher's stone, though not in a form he had intended. as Lazarus has a stockpile of energy that he can freely turn into mass to enlarge himself, shape shift or shrink himself at will. and able to gain additional mass/energy through eating. be it biologically edible snack foods, or 'snacks' that wouldn't be so tasty for you and me. Like rubber tires. soap bars. sand. He likes sand. Sand is great.

He is also capable of melding onto someone's form, and fusing with them, either as like a body suit, or even outright merging with their physical body akin to Venom. able to use all of his abilities while merged with them, and if he were so inclined, could let the host he's merged with be in control. though they may tend to be overwhelmed by their merged body's shape shiftingness.