Admittedly, Gerhart had no idea what Origin Matter was but the way Zarius talked about it made it seem like it would be quite the issue to deal with. He didn't mind helping out an old friend either. The thing certainly sounded like it had the potential to be dangerous and well, not to toot his own horn, but he probably was one of the best fighters and friends Zarius had. Or at the very least he was the one most willing to always drop what he was doing and come help.

He landed in the Devil's Ridge near where he was set to meet the tiefling, Halcyon finding a perch on a little stone outcropping. The bird cleans its feathers as Gerhart jogs over to his friend with a big and wide grin.

"Good to see you again, care to fill me in on exactly what we are hunting? Is it going to be easier or harder than hunting the snipe? Cause I think it's still out there somewhere and Shaa is going to lose it when I finally do find it." He gives a small laugh before settling back to listen to Zarius.

From the explanation, it did seem like it was going to be a lot more difficult than the snipe. Gerhart didn't have too much experience fighting magical beings or elementals at this point, so he couldn't rely on his experience or past tactics. How exactly do you even capture something if it just phases right through things?

Zarius doesn't remember a lot of details of everything that went down in the Arid Mesa. He remembers Scern and Ziev at least but...how they escaped the Sol Stone, how he got home, a lot of that is still fuzzy in his mind. However, the consequences of their actions that day were already being felt across the continent in admittedly strange ways. 

The capital had released a statement about the news that Scern had managed to get to his supporters, denying everything the adventurers had experienced and learned. Control of the flow of information became tighter than it had ever been before in the major cities while rumors spread like wildfire across the countryside. Opportunistic cultists and liars leveraged the panic and uncertainty caused by the news, and coupled with some of the other strange happenings, it was getting harder for the Crown to keep their hold despite their drastic actions. 

There was suddenly so much more work to do with much dire consequences should any missteps be made. It also didn't help that they had all pissed off a being powerful enough to be considered a deity for thousands of years and NOW that jerk was out for revenge against those who spoiled his ruse. 

It was laughable, if that same powerful being wasn't able to send balls of energy out into the world to wreak havoc. So now instead of working on making steps forward with his own plans, the tiefling was stuck responding to this threat. 

Thankfully he didn't have to do it alone. Gerhart was reliable as ever and was quick to respond to the request to meet him out in the Devil's Ridge. Seeing him ride in on a giant hawk was both surprising and not. This was hardly the same little country boy fighter he had met all those months ago. 

The tiefling nods in greeting. "Likewise. Well unlike the snipe which may or may not be real, this threat certainly is."

He gestures across the jagged landscape that normally already looked like a warzone but there were clearly areas that looked like a black hole had sucked up the stone, leaving perfectly spherical indentations across the obsidian cliffsides. 

"We can track this thing down soon. I asked for some additional assistance given the nature of these entities. They should be arriving any moment now."

As competent as Gerhart is, Zarius felt the need to at least reach out to one more capable adventurer to assist with this situation. With any luck, they would actually be helpful.

---

SPOILER: Click to show

Quest Name: The Cost of Our Sins
Participants: Two or more
Location: Anywhere
Post Requirements: 8 post per person, 250 words per post
Reward: +1 Mystical Archive Ticket, +1 (Light or Dark) Catalyst
Description: It seems whatever happened in the Arid Mesa between Scern and those heroes has indeed angered Ziev, for his very own minions have begun to turn on Charon. Origin Matter, strange cosmic like creatures, have begun to change their form, transforming from a small docile orb into a spiky, volatile mass of rage. While rare these things are extremely dangerous, able to take on some of Charon's strongest warriors. One has recently been reported in the wild, and while it has yet to harm anyone, it is lashing out and destroying the wilderness in its path. We need a competent team to go in, combat the creature and capture it if able. Scholars in Sol City would like to study them in an attempt to understand the cause of their shift.
Special Requirements: At least one member of the group (PC only, no NPC's) must be knocked unconscious during this fight.)

As Zarius and Gerhart spoke, a shouting suddenly came from farther down the mountainside. Looking over, a knight in a full suit of heavy metal plate armor was making their way along the path toward the pair, one arm waving in the air in an enthusiastic greeting.

The armor was unfamiliar to the Tiefling. It was large and bulky looking and appeared to be made up of many smaller plates that interlocked together rather than a single large one in any one place. The helmet had a small horn attached to either side and there was a tabard made of black fur around the waist with two tentacles that could only have belonged to a displacer beast hanging in front with a cloak of the same fur being whisked around by the wind behind them. The armor was new, but the voice was easily recognizable.

"Hey, Mister Zarius! I'm here! It's Wolfe!" The knight called out until they were close enough to actually talk at a more normal volume to the waiting pair. Blue Raspberry finally noticed that Zarius was with someone else already, but they didn't recognize him at all. Was this another friend of theirs?

"Hi, nice to meet you! I'm Wolfe." Blue offered a handshake to the man with their gauntleted hand. One the back of the slightly oversized looking gauntlet was a plate that looked like it was made of stone rather than the metal that the rest of the armor was made from. Wolfe's grip was powerful, but held back enough not to harm their ally.

"So, what's the matter?" Wolfe asked, turning their attention back to Zarius.

SPOILER: Click to show

"Oh are those not normal?" He looked over the holes punched through solid earth with a little laugh. That would at least make this thing a lot easier to track. "Hey bud, just hit the skies and scout for us. I'll whistle if I need you to save me again." Gerhart grins towards the kestrel who takes off into the air once again.

Gerhart's gaze falls back down to the clanking tin can running towards them. More heavy hitters huh? Admittedly, he was expecting some sort of wizard or scholar type to come out here. He and Zarius could fight out of most things, maybe this guy was some sort of secret ringer who was like a master magic knight. At the very least, this guy seemed pretty kitted out from what Gerhart could tell.

"Gerhart Stanislav." He met the handshake with enthusiasm, though he lacked any serious strength. "Seems there's some sort of weird creature thing causing a lot of problems around the Ash Lands. I think the prefence is for us to catch it, but uh, if it's doing that," He motions to the holes in the landscape. "I am not exactly keen on trying to grapple it."

He put his hands on his hips looking between the two. Hopefully they had ideas, at least good ideas. Wait....maybe this thing had to be destroyed from the inside. Gerhart looks up a moment as if to share this idea before thinking it over again. No, that sounds stupid, they can't guarantee anything survives getting sucked in there. He didn't want a repeat of the Sol Stone situation.

Zarius chuckles. "Yes, those are not exactly normal."

He looks at Wolfe as he joins them on the cliffside. "Good to see you again, Mister Wolfe. I appreciate you offering your assistance."

The tiefling looks the man up and down. The armor was new as was the cloak. He wonders if Astrid created the armor for him, the kid had always seemed keen on being a blacksmith and the two were close friends. At the very least, he looked prepared for trouble which would no doubt occur as they hunt these weird space orbs down. 

“They seem to be pretty elusive, but also can swallow matter whole.” He gestures to the holes. “We will have to be careful and try to get the jump on it and keep it from escaping if we can. But if not, we should at least prevent it from causing more damage or getting closer to Darkveil. That place is enough of a mess without these things flying around.”

He nods at Gerhart's assessment. "I agree, grappling it will not likely be possible, which puts myself at a significant disadvantage. I will be counting on you both."

Zarius didn't have much magic of his own at his disposal and recently he's been having a harder time controlling the magic he has gained from some mysterious force. He still had a few tricks up his sleeves and could at least support the two others who may have more options at their disposal. Regardless, it would be a dangerous and risky encounter. 

"First thing is first, we need to track this thing down. I vote we follow the destruction. Gerhart has a bird in the sky already. I can turn invisible and scout ahead on foot." 

"No problem!" Blue replied to Zarius. They were glad to come help. Fighting stuff was always fun and this one sounded like it would be a really good fight if he needed this much help with it. How could they refuse?

"Gerhart?" That name definitely rang a bell. Where had they heard that name before? The gears suddenly clicked into place as Blue Raspberry remembered their conversation with Cirice just before fighting and feasting on a bunch of big bugs. How could they forget?

"Oh! Gerhart! So you're the one Cirice said was very important to her! It's great to finally meet you! Do you know Astrid? Cirice said you mentioned Astrid last time we met. Astrid's the one that made this armor specially for me! Isn't it great?" Blue questioned Gerhart excitedly, showing off their new suit of armor. They were always excited to show people their new armor, but now they were even more excited because they were meeting a friend of two of their friends that they'd never met before. And showing them their new armor.

It could swallow matter whole and grappling it would be a problem? From the talk about this thing, it sounded as if they were fighting a giant ooze. Blue had already fought one of those before and it hadn't been too hard. But then they mentioned it could fly? Was it a giant flying ooze? That could be a bit tougher, but still not that bad. They just needed to stop it from going around and taking big bites out of the ground.

"I can can be a bird in the sky too. Unless you want me to track on foot, but I can't turn invisible."

Gerhart doesn't mean to be so visibly flustured when Blue mentions Cirice. "D-did she say that? I su-suppose she's pretty important to me to." He lets out an awkward and rough cough to change the conversation.

"Astrid made it huh? She always seemed pretty crafty, I can imagine how well that armor must hold up if she made it." He gives it a little tap if allowed to give it a 'test.' Not that he knew anything about blacksmithing, but it did look solid.

"I think we can stay on foot, but if you can also fly, then between you and Halcyon, the two of you can help us make a quick escape if need be." Gerhart smiles widely as he turns to start walking and following the destruction.

He looks up to the sky a moment before back to the others, "Seems like there's more of these markings south east.....So how violent are these things? Should we expect it to fight back or do you think we can reason with it? Or maybe just kind of....shoo it away?"

The more the others shared about this thing, the more confused Gerhart was about what they had to do. Looking at the casual holes punched through stone, it seemed like this wasn't the kind of thing you actually wanted to face head on. He really should take his studying better if he's going to continue to fight tougher and tougher monsters, then it would help if he actually knew things about them. If only his reading comprehension was better.

Zarius' grin only gets wider as Gerhart flushes from embarrassment at Wolfe's comments about a certain young moon elf. While the young fighter pivoted the conversation away from his personal relationship, the tiefling refrained from teasing him as tempting as it was. This wasn't exactly the right time or place for that. 

"It is good to have people you care about and who care about you. Miss Cirice is a nice girl." That was all he would say on the matter.

It was pretty impressive that Astrid, the little orphaned kid Cantio had actually ended up adopting, was able to put something together so soon after being given a chance at success. The kid grabbed her opportunity, and ran with it.

"Two in the sky and two on the ground sounds like a good plan to me. Gerhart, take this." He hands the young fighter a vial from one of his belt pouches. The liquid within the glass vial swirls with purple and black streaks.^[1]

"It will help make you silent as you move for a brief time," he explains before handing him another item, a strange round ball on the end of a string.^[2] "That will let us communicate with one another if we are separated."

"From what I understand, these things are usually docile. So this behavior is not normal. I do not think they have the intellect to speak or be reasoned with."

He can see that Gerhart's expression was changing to one of confusion and uncertainty. A fair response, these things were extremely rare and even Charon's best scholars didn't know a lot about them. That was why they were asking adventurers to try and capture them for further study.

That, of course, meant they were going into this potentially deadly fight fairly blind. Not a position the tiefling preferred to be in but there was little they could do about it. They would just have to be careful, use their best judgement, watch one another's backs, and get really really really lucky. 

"We will scout it out first, no one interact with it directly if we can help it. After we have observed it for a bit we can come up with a better plan of attack. If that doesn't work, just don't die. There is no shame in running away to fight another day."

With that said, he then turns invisible and stalks ahead to scout the area for trouble.^[3,4]

---

[1] Potion of Shadows
[2] Shrunken Head
[3] Invisibility
[4] Silent Steps

"It holds up great! It's the best armor in the world!" Blue claimed confidently puffing their chest out to let Gerhart clank his fist on the front of it proudly. To them, it was the perfect suit of armor and no other suit could match it. It was specially designed for the ooze to be able to utilize their slimy skillset to the utmost. Despite looking weaker because of all the seems from being made of lots of small plates, it was just as solid if not more than their old armor with all of the plates practically glued into place all over the ooze's body. It took a lot of planning to get the suit's design perfect, with Blue as her test dummy the whole time. They'd even gotten some magical enchantments in the armor here and there.

After listening to Gerhart and Zarius's plans, Blue didn't have any objections they could think of. It all sounded A-okay to them. They'd also get to show one of the best features of their new armor!

With a salute to them both, they began to shift their form. The plates of their armor moved around adjusting the the increasing size of their torso, the ones on their arms and legs disappearing as they were swallowed up by blue feathers. The arms widened and elongated into huge wings and the legs transformed into taloned bird's legs. Their helmet, tabard, and cloak were slurped into their form and vanished.

The armored knight was replaced with a huge, blue, armored bird that resembled an eagle. The cuirass had changed to fit the cerulean eagle, widening the spaces between the plates that somehow remained stuck to the bird's form as if they were glued in place.

Zarius was already gone, invisible and stalking away, so Blue just looked at Gerhart.

"Let's do this!" Blue Birdberry spoke in a deeper, slightly rougher voice than usual before taking off and scouting from above.

---

Shapeshifter Plate

It was good work, Gerhart would have to compliment Astrd next time he saw her. The half-dwarf was very impressive every time he saw her or heard about something she'd done.

Watching it shift with Blue was even more amazing, but no time to gawk like a kid. 'Hey, blue one coming your way. He's with us.' The message was sent to Halcyon before the rider turned to Zarius to collect the magical items being handed over.

He takes the little ball raising an eyebrow...OK weirdest magical he's been handed so far. Well, no time to really question anything at all. Thankfully with his training, he isn't following blind. He can keep track of Zarius' scent even amongst the ash[1] and at least know he's in the right direction.

Gerhart downs the vial and starts to trail Zarius, tucking the bottle away because he is a good boy that doesn't litter. He keeps low to the ground and tries to pick up anything on this creature, quickly pausing at some of the holes punched in the rocks. They weren't exactly tracks so they couldn't pick up much about the direction it was going, but at the very least they could start to glean information.

Each instance was smooth to the touch, like it wasn't biting or destroying the rock, it just simply stopped existing. It was like millions of years of erosion smoothing over river rocks in an instant. Was this a spell or did the creature just do this?

Just...what? No. Not going there today. He always got into this spiral of trying to figure out just what the heck is going on with Wolfe. He never figured it out or got any answers. At this point, he doesn't want to know. Wolfe was Wolfe. That was good enough. 

The fellblood stalks forward silently as Wolfe takes to the air and sweeps over the landscape with Gerhart's avian mount. He keeps Gerhart in his periphery, until they get up to where the damage starts, then he starts to peel off a bit from the group to cover more ground. 

The damage is extensive, and it only worsens as they follow the trail deeper into the Devil's Ridge. The terrain itself is already hard enough to traverse without all the perfectly smooth pockets pitting the landscape. There is one point when Zarius feels the stone under his feet give away as the thin layer of stone concealing one of these perfectly circular voids breaks from his weight. 

So this thing could even remove material it couldn't see or touch from the outside. That was concerning. Its form must be incorporeal to some degree, or it has some phase ability to pass through solid objects. He really hopes Wolfe and Gerhart have some magic at their disposal, otherwise this fight may be truly unwinnable. 

From the air, something would be visible by the keen eyes of Gerhart's bird and the airborne Birdberry. A chunk of a ridge just ahead of Gerhart and Zarius suddenly disappears, like an asset in a video game suddenly glitching out. In the center of the space is a smaller glimmering sphere, swirling with starlight and its surface spiking with energy like an angry ball of lightning, though there is no static or sound. The floating orb is large enough to engulf a person, but the holes it has made in the surroundings are at least double if not triple that in size. When it is still, it does not move even a little, though as the surface of its form spikes with agitation, it suddenly zips around in sharp quick straight lines with hairpin changes in direction. The movement is erratic and unnatural, making it incredibly hard to predict which way it will go and how fast it will get there.

Though it has no familiar features like eyes, ears, or anything else that would indicate body language, it does not seem to have noticed the adventuring party. 

Yet. 

Woah, what the heck is that thing? Is that the Origin Matter that Zarius and Gerhart were talking about? It's just zipping around, making rocks disappear and looking kind of angry, which is weird that it can do that so effectively without a face or any conventional body language to speak of.

Blue heard a sound behind them as they flew and looked back to see part of the ground collapsing into a nearly perfectly circular hole in the stone. The sound of falling rocks and cracking stone echoed through the mountains. The Origin Matter also seemed to have noticed the sound as it suddenly stopped. The stars and lightning all over its body started to slowly rotate as if it was looking around, probing its surroundings for the cause of the disturbance. Luckily for Zarius, it didn't seem like it had the ability to see through his invisibility. It couldn't spot the Fellblood at all as it scanned around for what had caused the collapse.

The stars and lightning on its body froze and started to gather together into one spot, merging in front of it and making it appear like a reversed eye, a black sphere with a white pupil that was zeroed in on something. The white pupil dilated and contracted repeatedly, like the lens of a camera trying to focus properly.

Around Gerhart, several large boulders slowly glowed with a thin white aura and began to lift off of the ground before suddenly rocketing toward him from every side.

Thankfully Halcyon up above is able to locate the origin matter first and alert Gerhart to the incoming danger. Gerhart shoots forward through the gap of the rocks in front of him, pushing off pads of air built under his feet.[1] It's close, but he's just fast enough to beat out the boulders.

"Found it." He calls up to Halcyon, but easily loud enough for the others to hear. Gerhart isn't sure what senses this thing has, but he's smart enough to at least not direct his gaze towards Zarius or Blue to tip it off.

He takes off sprinting in a wide arc to the left, opposite the fellblood. Gerhart unsheathes one sword and sends out a gust of wind to see if something not exactly physical could hit it.[2] At the very least that would pull the attention to him more and let the others focus on how to take it out. 

It wasn't a strong magical attack, but it was something to get them started. If that didn't work, they would really be at a disadvantage. He knew that both he and Zarius were more physical fighters, so if this did nothing then they would truly be screwed. 

---

1. Step of the Wind
2. Wind Cutter

Damn, the thing picked out Gerhart despite the potion's effects. Well, it was worth a shot. Now they needed to hit it with whatever they had before it could blink them out of existence. 

Gerhart unleashes some sort of wind magic in the creature's direction. The creature is buffeted by the wind, it's form almost reacting in what can only be interpreted as a wince. It's a surprising reaction from something that seems nigh untouchable. 

Alright, magic works.

Great.

He had very little magic.

GREAT.

Even his fire techniques weren't magical in nature according to his sister. So that probably wouldn't work. His punches did do...something, but he didn't really control much of that and punching this thing would involve getting up close and personal and losing his invisibility. Probably not the best idea. 

So what options did he actually have? He wracks his brain for an answer. He had nothing. He literally had nothing! The best he could do was act as a decoy or...wait. 

There's a brief flash in his mind of a hazy memory. The imagery of red chains rising up into the air to restrain a being made of the cosmos. He remembers briefly trying to copy magic he had seen before. His attempts to bend time away from Ziev had failed but...what about the spell Scern had used?

It was a wild shot, but it was his best one to stop this thing from zipping about as it liked. Zarius speaks into the orb which matches the one he gave to Gerhart.^[1]

"I am going to try something stupid, keep harassing it with magic and buy me some time. I will need it to be pretty close for this to work. If it works at all."

With that said, he scales one of the nearby canyon walls just overlooking where the Origin Matter currently is and focuses on pulling up the memory and tap into the magic Scern used to bind Ziev.^[2,3] If it worked on a god, surely it would work on this thing. If he can recreate the spell in the first place that is.

---

[1] Talking Heads
[2] Spider Silk Boots
[3] Scern's God Killer - preparing

Blue Raspberry flew through the air and watched as rocks suddenly rose and converged on a single point that Gerhart managed to rise out of just in time. The Origin Matter had spotted him, but it didn't look like it was entirely focused on him.

The eye of the Origin Matter moved in every direction, as if its whole body was rotating around wildly. It stopped on Halcyon for a moment and then swiveled to the blue bird and then back to Gerhart again. It was taking in the entire battlefield, calculating and comparing the threat to it imposed by each creature it could spot in the vicinity.

After receiving slashes of wind from Gerhart that actually managed to harm it somewhat, and not knowing much about the two birds in the air, it seemed to consider Gerhart the greatest threat and the first target it should focus on. The eye rotated back to the man and followed him as he ran across the ground.

Blue wouldn't just watch and wait for it to attack Gerhart again. With lightning starting to arc all over their feathers, Blue flew in and raked their claws across the top of the Origin Matter as they swooped over it. There was practically no resistance felt at all, as if their claws just raked through the air. The sharp talons did nothing to harm the creature, but at least the lightning looked like it did harm it a bit.

The Origin Matter flinched again as it felt the lightning crackle through it. It felt a lingering static feeling clinging to it as the bird flew away, making the top of its spherical body slightly numb and prickly. The attack wasn't nearly enough damage to take it out, but painful and enough to recategorize the oversized bird as a threat.

With a flash of white moving across its surface and converging on its white pupil, more rocks and boulders across the ground glowed and began to rise slowly before suddenly firing into the air. Blue started flying erratically, trying to dodge them, but one large one hit directly into their torso and carried them higher into the air on top of it. Thankfully, the impact was absorbed by the armored plates still clinging to them, but their wings were folded around the rock helplessly. In the air, the rocks continued to glow, floating in place, one with Blue Raspberry still on top of it.

The rock that Zarius was invisibly standing on top of glowed, threatening to fire into the sky like the others.

---

Lightning Armor
Charged Particles
Torso Hit Prevention