1. Lore
LORE: THABO MERCER — OVERSEER OF BLACK OREOUS
Thabo Mercer’s path into the supernatural began long before the military learned his name. He was born in South Africa, where a border conflict left him stranded and wounded in the wilderness. A small convoy of Voodoo witch‑doctors found him and took him in. They were not mystics for show — they were custodians of ancestral rites, capable of speaking with the dead and navigating the thin places between worlds. Mercer traveled with them for months. He witnessed rituals that opened windows into the underworld, learned how spirits whisper through fractures, and saw firsthand that death is not an ending but a territory with its own laws, inhabitants, and predators. This early exposure shaped his understanding of supernatural phenomena more deeply than any later training ever could.
After immigrating to America, Mercer enlisted in the military and served through the final years of World War II. His unusual background made him valuable during the post‑war alien event investigations, where the U.S. scrambled to understand phenomena that defied physics. This led him into the research division at Area 51, where his multifaceted knowledge — anthropology, occult tradition, battlefield experience, and underworld exposure — made him indispensable.
But the government wasn’t focused solely on extraterrestrial anomalies. They were preparing for something else entirely: unearthly incursions, breaches from realms outside Earth’s natural order.
Mercer’s expertise became critical during the unexplained massacre in Missouri, where an entire town went silent overnight. Every platoon sent inside vanished without a single shot fired. Mercer recognized the signs immediately — the same hollow disturbances he had seen in South Africa where only last fleeting movements of their last action remained but else was gone. This incident convinced the government that they needed a dedicated occult‑military sector.
He became the cornerstone of a classified initiative originally called Code Black — a containment doctrine for supernatural threats. Under his leadership, the program expanded, reorganized, and evolved into a full military‑occult sector.
Mercer renamed it Black Oreous, symbolizing a shield forged in darkness, built to confront forces humanity was never meant to face.
Today, Black Oreous commands multiple specialist occult squads. And Sheol Squad is the sharpest blade Mercer as ever forged — operatives trained to confront necrotic anomalies, veil ruptures, and soul‑hollowing phenomena.
Mercer remains the overseer of Black Oreous, the only commander who understands both the military and the supernatural well enough to keep the world from collapsing into the dark.
LORE #2: BLACK OREOUS — THE INSTALLATION
Black Oreous is not a base — it is a wound sealed with black steel.
Hidden beneath a decommissioned military testing range, the installation was built after the Missouri massacre, when the U.S. government realized conventional forces could not confront what was coming. The facility was designed under Thabo Mercer’s supervision, combining military engineering with occult containment principles learned from his travels and Area 51 research.
The upper levels resemble a standard black‑budget military complex: reinforced corridors, sealed armories, and command centers with no external network access. But the deeper one travels, the more the architecture shifts. The lower floors were constructed around natural veil fractures, places where reality thins and underworld pressure bleeds through. Mercer insisted that these fractures remain untouched — not repaired, not closed — but observed, studied, and used as early‑warning systems.
Black Oreous is divided into three primary sectors:
The Surface Sector A false front. Barracks, vehicle bays, and administrative offices designed to mimic a forgotten Cold War bunker. Anyone who sees it from the outside believes it’s abandoned.
The Core Sector The operational heart of Black Oreous. Here Mercer oversees occult research, breach analysis, and squad coordination. Ritual chambers sit beside tactical briefing rooms. Containment vaults hold artifacts recovered from veil ruptures. Every wall is lined with sigils etched into the black steel — protective markings Mercer learned from the Voodoo convoys in South Africa.
The Deep Sector Restricted to Mercer and selected operatives. This level houses the Veil Observation Chamber; a circular room built around a stable fracture in reality. The chamber’s floor is carved with symbols from multiple traditions — African ancestral rites, Hawaiian underworld markings, and classified sigils from Area 51 archives. The fracture pulses like a slow heartbeat, reacting to disturbances across the world. When anomalies rise, the chamber darkens, and the air grows cold. Mercer calls it “the world’s pulse,” a living indicator of forces humanity was never meant to witness.
Black Oreous is more than an installation — it is a shield forged in darkness. Every squad trained within its black walls learns secret power of occult warfare
And Sheol Squad is the ghost warriors Mercer forged to meet the supernatural.
LORE #3: SHEOL SQUAD
Sheol Squad was never meant to be a conventional strike team. Thabo Mercer built it from individuals already marked by the unnatural — not just survivors of breaches, but people who had lived in taboo spaces, spoken with the dead, and performed rituals most cultures refuse to acknowledge. These were the ones who understood that power does not only come from the living world. It bleeds through dimensions and underworld territories where hell is only one of many realms.
Mercer handpicked operatives who carried trauma like a second skin, but also those who had touched forbidden knowledge. Some had been raised by witch‑doctor traditions, others had endured veil ruptures that left them half‑changed, and a few had willingly stepped into places where spirits gather to bargain. These were not soldiers — they were thresholds.
Their training inside Black Oreous refined them into specialists of occult warfare. Each operative mastered a different discipline, forming a unit capable of fighting enemies that defy physics, biology, and sanity.
Blood‑Ronin of Blood Magic
Some members learned the ancient doctrine of blood as a magical source — a living conduit of enchantment, strength, and spiritual amplification. Their weapons are etched with sigils that awaken when fed with a drop of their own blood, granting bursts of vigor, heightened senses, or the ability to cut through necrotic matter.
They follow the Asian witch‑doctor tradition of soulbinding, where a blade becomes an extension of the wielder’s spirit. These operatives carry soulbound weapons and ritual sidearms, each humming with latent power.
Magick-Knights— The Abyssal Watchers
Others were shaped by the ocean’s fractures — places where the veil thins beneath crushing pressure. These operatives developed the Sea Helm, design by engineers. The helm’s eyes are four times larger than human eyes, allowing the wearer to see not only the depths but also the cosmic horrors drifting beyond reality.
Black Oreous modified these helms with modern occult engineering, granting them the ability to fire a concentrated abyssal beam — a destructive lance of energy capable of tearing through heavy barricade material and annihilating demonic entities. One blast can carve half a stone wall clean open.
Mystic Trooper — The Root‑Druids of the Underworld
The last discipline comes from the oldest tradition of all: the druids who live beneath the earth, in the tangled root‑beds where every forest begins.
These mystics descend from a forgotten age when the world was young and spirits walked openly. As darkness spread across the modern world, they adapted — merging their ancient druidic rites with the spiritual‑occult traditions of every culture Mercer encountered.
They are assault‑weapon experts, combining modern firepower with primal magic. Their signature tools are Utifgar grenades — small clay spheres filled with powdered root‑dust harvested from the underground beds. When thrown, Utifgar bursts into a cloud that blinds any supernatural creature, stripping away spectral sight, hollow perception, and demonic awareness.
In the field, Mysticks are terrifying: fast, precise, and able to weaponize the very soil beneath their feet.
Unified Doctrine — The Blade Mercer Forged
Despite their differences, Sheol Squad moves as a single organism. Blood‑users anchor the frontline. Soulbinders cut corruption at its source. Abyssal watchers scan the unseen and strike with devastating force. Mysticks control terrain, blind supernatural foes, and channel ancient root‑magic.
Mercer calls them “the blade I forged for moments exactly like this.” A weapon sharpened against supernatural and the demonic forces that like shadow can invade at any time.
LORE #4: THE MISSOURI MASSACRE — INCIDENT FILE
Black Oreous / Code Black Archive — Level Omega Clearance
Incident Designation:
Event 09‑M / “The Hollowing of Mesheltown”
“Mesheltown is the official cover name — the real town was removed from all maps.”
Date of Occurrence:
14 October, 1953
Primary Investigator:
Thabo Mercer
SUMMARY OF EVENT
At 03:12 local time, all communication from Mesheltown ceased. No distress calls. No alarms. No civilian reports. Just silence — the same kind Mercer had witnessed in South Africa years earlier.
The first response platoon entered the town at 04:01. They never reported back.
A second platoon followed at 04:37. Same result.
By sunrise, the government declared a full blackout and deployed Code Black personnel. Mercer arrived at 09:15 and immediately recognized the signs: Simpolysisome residue across the streets, on windows, even drifting in the air like faint dust. Something supernatural had passed through the town.
CONDITIONS INSIDE THE TOWN
Mesheltown was frozen in a state of impossible stillness.
Cars sat in the streets with engines still warm.
Meals were left half‑eaten on tables.
Radios hummed static.
Every clock had stopped at 03:12.
But the most disturbing detail was the absence of bodies. Not a single corpse was found. Not a single living person either.
The town was emptied, not killed.
Mercer described the sensation as “walking through a place that remembers its people but no longer walks with them.”
DISCOVERY OF THE HOLLOW ZONE
At the center of Mesheltown, Mercer found a circular area roughly 40 meters wide where the air shimmered like heat distortion. Inside this zone:
Sound was muted.
Shadows moved independently of their sources.
The ground felt soft, as if something beneath it was breathing.
Mercer identified it as a Hollow Zone — a place where a unkown intelligence had anchored itself temporarily. This was the first recorded Hollow Zone in American territory.
RECOVERED EVIDENCE
1. Simpolysisome Dust
Collected from doorframes and street gutters. Analysis confirmed it was identical to the residue Mercer had seen in South Africa: the mark left when something that cannot hold a soul tries to move through the living world.
2. Echo‑Voices
Recordings captured faint whispers repeating the same phrase: “We are dead.” The voices belonged to the missing townspeople.
3. The Root‑Shift
Trees around Mesheltown had grown in unnatural patterns — roots rising above ground, twisting like limbs reaching toward the Hollow Zone. This was the first sign that Mysticks would later investigate, confirming that the massacre affected not only humans but the land itself.
CONTAINMENT & AFTERMATH
Mercer ordered a full quarantine. The Hollow Zone collapsed at 18:22, leaving behind a crater of dead soil and a lingering cold that lasted for months.
The government erased Mesheltown from all records. Maps were redrawn. Families were told the town was destroyed in a chemical accident.
But inside Black Oreous, the truth became the foundation for everything that followed:
The Creation of Sheol Squad
The expansion of Code Black
The construction of Black Oreous Installation
The doctrine of Hollow Intelligence
The classification of Simpolysisome Phenomena
The Missouri Massacre remains the single most important supernatural event in American history — the moment the world learned that the hollowing is part of dimensional catastrophic supernatural forces beyond our comprehension.
LORE #5: BLOOD MAGES & THE ASIAN SOULBINDING TRADITION
Black Oreous — Occult Warfare Archive
Blood‑mages are among the most feared operatives within Sheol Squad. Their power does not come from demonic pacts or external entities — it comes from the living essence inside their own veins. Blood is not symbolic to them; it is a magical medium, a conduit of strength, enchantment, and spiritual force.
But blood‑magic alone is not what makes them dangerous. Their true foundation lies in an ancient Asian soulbinding tradition, a lineage of witch‑doctors who believed that a warrior’s spirit could be fused with a blade, creating a weapon that carried both the wielder’s will and their life‑force.
This tradition was nearly lost to time until Mercer encountered fragments of it during his early occult investigations. He recognized its potential immediately.
Blood‑mages serve as frontline anchors. They are the ones who stand firm when Supernatural and demonic forces push through the veil. Their soulbound blades can cut corruption at its source, sever tethered spirits, and disrupt entities.
They are not berserkers. They are occult tacticians, using their life‑force as a controlled weapon.
LORE #6: THE MAGICK‑KNIGHTS — THE ONES IN THE DEEPS
Black Oreous — Abyssal Warfare Archive
Magick Knights are the most enigmatic discipline within Sheol Squad — warriors shaped not by land, sky, or ritual halls, but by the deep places beneath the world, where pressure crushes bone and reality folds like wet paper.
They are not born in the deeps. They are chosen by them.
Long before Black Oreous existed, long before Mercer carried the doctrine of the veil across continents, there were stories of warriors who vanished into oceanic fractures — cracks at the bottom of trenches where the underworld bleeds into the abyss. Some returned changed. Others returned as something more.
Mercer found the first of does gifted men & women during an investigation off the Mariana fracture line. The their operative helms like does of old vintage hell divers of the ocean had large eyes lenses were enlarged, black, reflective — adapted to see not only the abyss but the cosmic horrors drifting beyond the veil, entities that move like slow storms across the unseen layers of reality.
Mercer realized immediately: these were not monsters. They were supernatural ocean divers that as adapted their equipment for the dark madness of the deep.
Mercer understood that the dimensions between worlds does not only move through death — it moves through depth.
The Magick‑Knights are the only operatives capable of perceiving deep veils pressure in the intelligence in its cosmic form, before it manifests in the living world. They are the watchers of the deep, the guardians of the fractures, and the first line of defense against entities that drift between dimensions like unknown shadow.
They are the armored heart of Sheol Squad.
LORE #7: MYSTIC TROOPER — THE ROOT‑DUST GRENADIERS
Black Oreous — Forest‑Underworld Warfare Archive
Mystic Troopers are the most unconventional warriors in Sheol Squad — soldiers shaped not by death, abyss, or blood, but by the living underworld beneath the forests, where roots weave into ancient networks older than civilization itself.
They descend from the first forest druids, beings who lived in the underground root‑beds long before the world fractured into different dimensions. These druids were guardians of the living earth, protectors of the spirit‑roots that connect every tree, every forest, every breath of nature.
But as the world shifted into darkness — as supernatural forces not from this world began to move through the veil — the druids were forced to adapt. They merged their ancient rites with the spiritual‑occult traditions of witch‑doctors, blood‑mages, abyssal watchers, and dimensional shamans. The result was a new breed of warrior:
The Mystic Trooper.
Thabo Mercer understood that the hollow doesn’t just move through death, abyss, or blood — it also tries to strangle the living world at its roots. Mystic Troopers are his answer to that. By turning root‑dust, forest‑spirit, and underworld soil into weapons, they make it impossible for the hollow to claim the ground itself.
To Mercer, they are proof that the earth can still fight back.
2. Mission Briefings
(Thabo Mercer — Classified Field Journal)
Funny thing about Black Oreous... nobody planned for it to become this.
The generals built a military installation. The researchers built laboratories. Mercer built a shield against the things beyond the veil.
But somewhere along the way, people stopped treating this place like an assignment.
Now we've got traditions, old stories, rivalries, favorite gathering spots, and people who have spent half their lives beneath these ceilings.
New recruits still call it a base. Give them a few years and they start calling it home.
The surface world only sees a classified facility. They don't see the mechanics, merchants, cooks, researchers, and operatives who keep this place alive every day.
We've become something larger than a military project.
A society hidden beneath another society.
And sometimes I wonder if Black Oreous is merely protecting humanity from the darkness... or quietly becoming a world of its own.
MISSION -Utility Shaft 4
(Thabo Mercer — Classified Field Journal)
The disturbance didn’t begin with screams — it began with silence. The whole district went quiet overnight, now the dead stand where they fell, unmoving, held upright by a force we can’t classify.
I’ve seen this pattern before. Back when I traveled with the Voodoo convoys in South Africa, learning how the dead whisper through thin places, and later during the unexplained massacre in Missouri, when an entire town went silent overnight and every platoon sent inside simply stopped reporting. Those encounters shaped Sheol Squad — a unit built from operatives who survived breaches, learned the rites, and understood that death is a territory with its own laws. Their doctrine is the same one I carried from South Africa to Area 51: observe the veil, cut the corruption, silence the anomaly before the world ever learns it existed. They are the blades I forged for moments exactly like this.
MISSION — Divide Station
(Thabo Mercer — Classified Field Journal)
The Divide Station went silent at 03:07, its sonar collapsing into a low, steady hum that felt less like machinery and more like breathing. The lower stations floors are flooded, the lower corridors drowned in black water, and something moves down there with purpose — something that reusables human but is far more ancient.
This reminds me back when I studied abyssal fractures off the Atlantic coast, watching the sea churn without wind, and later during the early Code Black investigations, when fishermen vanished near trenches that should have been lifeless. But the oldest warning didn’t come from scientists. It came from a man who lived near the cold Atlantic, a writer who understood the deep long before we had instruments to measure it. He wrote about shapes rising from trenches, about eyes that watched from beneath the waves — not fiction, but coded testimony. He knew these identities before any researcher, before any military program, before Black Oreous was even conceived.
MISSION — Crooked Cave
(Thabo Mercer — Classified Field Journal)
The Old fairy tales resurfacing in the villages near the forests, whispers of creatures that lived long before they arrived, long before their founder of their nation, long before we had tools to handle them. The locals spoke of identities that demanded offerings, and of families who sacrificed their newborns to keep those entities at peace not out of madness, but out of survival. Folklore, they called it. But folklore is just memory wearing a mask.
I’ve seen this pattern before. Back when I traveled with the Voodoo convoys in South Africa, listening to elders describe spirits that walked between roots, and later during the Missouri investigation, when an entire town vanished without a trace and every platoon sent inside simply stopped reporting.