[2nd February 2009]

[Underneath Custume Barracks, Athlone]

I sneezed from all the dust in the place. Not surprising really considering dusting of the stuff in the place, nor was it exactly a good sign of the state of play for the place as our little group meander downward with our guide from the barracks. All guided by torchlight right now because the lighting at the entranceway to the place were busted a few years ago and nobody bothered replacing them for budget reasons. Bright side maybe; the place actually existed in this reality earth and technically it was ideal for purposes. On paper maybe...and the imaginations of some people sitting in nice offices in Dublin right now. Feckers.

"Bless ya mate,now truly this is the workplace always wanted...a cold dusty hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere"

Honestly did he not have anything other than trenchcoats to wear and snark to give?

Still he wasn't wrong as the place was dump that hadn't be maintained in about a decade, or seen sight nor sound of anyone in the past years since; other than maybe someone in the barracks above having a smoke judging from the odd cigarette butt thrown around a little back. Even at that the official reports indicated the place hadn't even been manned since the eighties...and even then only half heartedly since the seventies. Likely someone figuring what was the point and cost versus military size of Ireland and world ending nuclear missile spam Armageddon. So I snorted in vague agreement with Constantine and help with my irritated sinuses. I could be a sarcastic bastard as well after all.

"Yeah John, ain't it great! Why it's a step up from your last one at least!"

Our guide from the barracks, a bored seeming fella named McDermott from the Army, injected into our whining session "Well can't do feck all for the dust but give me a minute and let's see if these breakers are workin' and get us a bit ah'light"

Seems nobody had brief the rest of the party on the place, or that nobody but me read the bloody reports before coming here as a voice enquired into the nature of the underground bunker we were currently entering. Bit cultured sounding, even with that Dub accent from the city, and my brain translated it as the Imam fellow whose name I hadn't heard yet. Well I'd heard it and forgotten it like several of the others and I'm pretty sure his, and the others, would come to me later. After someone actually got around to actually allowing me access to certain personal reports; Bloody looking at me like I'm a gods-damned kid! I'd show'em! I'd show'em all!

Still since no one else really answered, beyond a few grunts of either confusion or disinterest I decided to step into the breach so to speak as our guide work at a torchlight...circuit-breaker or whatever it was...that looked out of some 60's spy or maybe sci-fi movie. It was like stepping into a dusty old time capsule and weren't even into the place proper yet. S.H.I.E.LD – where a couple of good cleaners, and probably an electrician or two as well, were needed before field agents!

"Supposed to have been the government's cold war bunker back in the sixties and seventies, bombs drop and they were all supposed to evacuate here and run the country supposedly. Centre of the island and all that, so equal distance or something...it's not really clear in the reports if it was more than that. Were supposed to get expanded back in the seventies till someone said it was a wee bit pointless to feed three hundred politicians and co, under here just got...left I think. Think it's here their chucking us, supposed to have comm.-lines out and all that and easy enough keep us hidden if they just say their renovating or knockin' the place..."

"Annndd...there we go..." the voice of Captain McDermott interjected with a loud bang followed by a series of noisy clicks causing a few of us to startle in surprise at it and then the flicking lights that started to almost hum in faint light, then darkness, the repeating again for a few moments before flickering to life fully as power was drawn from somewhere "...well would you look at that! All in workin' order would you believe? Anyway your right about most of that, been abandoned for ages mind you but all the hard-lines are still in place and workin'...in theory anyway. Place even got a full old fashioned-y radio-tv studio and all that would you believe?"

I blinked at sudden light as Constantine seemed to look around and questioning "Yeah? Can we make our own shows for the telly cans we? Call it Demon Busters TV rite?"

Captain McDermott shrugged back as he seemed to be checking something on the ancient equipment "Don't recommend it, but the line is still out to the old RTE station at Moyhan, and the plan is to reactivate it as a comm.-station for here they're saying, so make of that what you will"

'Aaaannnndddd...,it looks just as bad I thought it would' I mused to myself as we walked into the, now mostly lit, cold and dusty hole in the ground.

The darkness had hidden much of the grime, dust and sheer ugliness of the interior as we descended into the bunker from the sixties, and all the furniture and equipment covered in years of neglect that we passed along the way till we came to 'central control room' filled with old timey...computers?...stuff?...and actual cold war movie looking telephones arranged in various spots with grime covered nameplates above them. HQ-Alt/Curragh. Leinster House. Limerick Co/Co-Bunker. UK/Alt-Whitehall. Br/Cork. Br/Ballina. Br/Westport. BA-HQ/NI/Belfast. BA-HQ/NI/Alternate and a further range of other 'important areas' across the island or in the UK like with Whitehall. Even one to the barracks above I saw as Captain McDermott cranked it up after wiping off the dust and grime...and actually getting an answer on the other end. Fair dues; good to know stuff might actually work down here.

In all honesty it was going to take months at least to get this place clean let alone fully operational I expected as out group quietly discussed the matter while alternating between sneezing and poking at various things that belonged in a museum not an active anything in this day and age. I suppose after the whole series of events with the Prince of Wales, and the continuing chaos that was consuming the British Establishment in the last fortnight judging from the sudden rash of food poisons, leaks of personal details that ruined careers and a few 'accidents' to reduce numbers. On the bright side we'd earned browning points from MI6 evidently and closer cooperation and yadda, yadda, yadda...I wouldn't trust those Brit feckers as far as I could throw them and neither did the government after the revelations.

The Prince right now, for his own safety (which said a bloody lot about the situation over there!) wad started an official tour of Ireland for a few days. All in the name of Anglo-Irish relations and peace and love...and his Mother the Queen confining her other younger son under the guise of a 'training to join the army' something or other. Seems the old biddy didn't like the evidence her sons were absolute idiots messing around with Demons and Satanists, nor the fact it was the Irish National Necromancer rather than her own loyal subjects (John been honest didn't count) who'd cleaned up the mess and stopped sonny eating people while possessed. Nor the fact his trip was basically a chance to tattoo magical wards against...a repeat of said episode and other control methods...by myself and the various others grab-bagged together between G2 and MI6. Plus it likely gave cover to the whole purge, election, revelations chaos that'd kicked off in the UK. Fun times there. Fun times indeed.

'Though in many ways this suits doesn't it? Large scale warding as part of a team? Learning and practical skill development?' I thought to myself picking up a dusty phone with my gloves and blinking in surprise there was still a tone. Old tech huh could last a while huh?

Considering the plan was for this to be the nucleus of this S.H.I.E.L.D the fact we'd have to start warding, blessing and placing various other enchantments on this place here as it was restored this was a rather ideal time to gather knowledge of here, and re-practice skills. It was one thing to have then in my head in theory but another to be sure of them in practice; better now to screw up than in a battle after all. Best not to screw up at all of course but...well...magic was an art as much as a science at times.

So a series of layered magical and faith based barriers on this place and the barracks above were an ideal starting point for all that. And we were pretty close to a Ley-line according to Brendan Finn; though personally my medium turn goal was building a series of Sanctums to enable point-to-point teleportation. In Faerun lack of resources had made establishing such things were limited; resource intensive, skill intensive and lacking in quality manufacture. At least two of those things weren't an issue in a modern earth first world economy and I was quite willing to invest some time into it and save my actual spells for emergencies.

Considering the mandate of the organisation, and the annoying amount of interest several of my bosses were expressing in the concept. Of course the fact I agreed with them that it was a good idea to create as such didn't made it any less annoying I found. So first things first I'd explained was having a HQ to start at. So Cold War Bunker time I guess. I glanced around the place.

I wonder if I could magically approximate the Holo-globe?

Hmmm...well that's side project number one it seems!

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