Survivors in a World of Black Ichor (Patreon)

It was discovered upon the capture of Wilhelm that his blood contained a panacea for all the ills that plagued mankind. Upon this revelation, Wilhelm was approached with an offer to aid the world through the donation of his blood. As the scripture engraved at the foot of the old Novo Ordo statue recounted, the faithful events led to the dawn of a new world free of disease and even death itself. The blood of the first murderer would spread rapidly throughout the world, from the Floating City of Atlantropa to the shining cities of the Great American nation, to the lands of the Heavenly Steppes, and beyond. For a brief moment, it would appear as if all of mankind would step into a new age of prosperity and the infinite possibilities of everlasting life.

However, mankind would not inherit this promised Novo Ordo; it would only be a stepping stone for what was to come next: the altergeist. No one knows why it happened, why they became something new; it appeared to be in the blink of an eye. The blood became like black tar, mutating the earth, seas, skies, and everything in between. Those who hadn't partaken of the ichor were quickly outnumbered and hunted down for processing, for they remained uncured and unwell to the inhabitants of the new world. They were potential blights upon the reborn earth, an earth that would keep growing and building upon itself.

Sims awoke, a burning sensation all over his nude body. He had washed up somewhere familiar yet alien. He was deep within the forgotten remains of Atlantropa, long since built over by the new megastructures of the Altergeist. Next to him was a body, a man dressed in a postman's uniform. Having no other alternative, he pillaged the man. Donning the attire, Sims wandered around, collecting and storing anything he could find.

Vex, she was there during the manifestation of the Altergeist. The corporation she worked for had been skeptical of this so-called panacea; their skepticism proved well-founded, as they nearly completely avoided the transformation of their corporate personnel and Cradle citizens. Together with the remainder of the unaltered population of Atlantropa, they would attempt to find shelter within the city's Gulch, as it became apparent that the surface was nearly completely overrun by the Altergeist and the strange biomechanical growths that reached higher and higher into the skies with each passing day.

The wicked banner of the Mortali Knights flew once more, but not as a symbol of destruction, but as a beacon of safety from the horrors above ground. It was hard to explain why, but the Knights saw the altergeist as abominations that needed to be destroyed. The safety of the arriving refugees was secondary, as through their logic, each one they managed to save from the altergeist was one less enemy to battle and one more soldier for their war efforts. Or so Paul would say, yet now, nearly half a century removed from the Great Cleansing of the Gulch by the altergeist, Paul remains alone alongside Vex as the last guardians of what little is left of mankind. He has lost all his Knights; he has paid greatly, but yet he refuses, out of stubbornness or spite, to give up.

Killroy, once the lowly minister of accounting and crunching numbers, had become the Arch Minister through succession. All his fellow Atlantropian ministers had succumbed to the Altergeist, but he survived. He could not die; he refused to, having promised his wife Angela he would return. As lines broke at the heart of Atlantropa with the fall of the Interior Ministry's fortress citadel of Arteria Empyrean, he fled, abandoning his position, his men, and allies to survive. He had to make it back home and flee to the only place that could offer them a way out: the Double U Corporation's Refraction Chamber deep within the Gulch—a place known only to him and his close friend, the head of Double U Corp. He would make it there with his wife, only to find the refraction machine in shambles. He dedicated his time to fixing it, during which time he expanded his family and came into contact with Paul and Vex, working closely with them to fix the machine—their way out of a world overflowing with the ichor of the first murderer.