Calypso Deep

In the crushing black of the Hellenic Trench, where pressure alone would pulp bone and fold iron, the Bureau of Gen has built the impossible. Four thousand meters beneath the Mediterranean's surface, deeper than Hell's submarines dare venture and far beyond the reach of Heaven's prayers, Calypso Deep endures as one of the Bureau's hearts; more akin to a Doomsday vault than a place humans should ever dwell.

Its construction consumed over a century, yet the site itself drew the Bureau's covetous gaze many decades prior. For here, in the serpentine deposits of the abyssal plain, lay something precious beyond measure: Primordial earth. Stone that escaped God's creative breath. Crust of the earth untouched by the spark of life that animated Adam's form.

The Bureau's foundations inherited many preserved secrets lost to both Church and Synagogue alike. One of these is the true art of the golem as practiced in the shadows of Prague. Yet the clays brought to the surface by the river Vltava had long since been depleted, their virtue exhausted. Calypso Deep was the only known deposit that was plausibly accessible.

The serpentine that lies at the bed of the abyss bears high traces of nickel and chromium, lending it a turquoise hue. Ground to the finest powder and mixed with distilled water, this clay can be imbued with intention through gematria, the sacred mathematics of Creation turned to the Bureau's faithless purpose. While the modern corpse-golems serve adequately on land, puppeted flesh and porous bone cannot withstand the pressures of the deep. Only true golems can labour in such crushing dark.

It was not until the advent of Orichalcum, that divine metal the Church had perfected, that mining the deposit became viable. Through theft, black market acquisition, and careful diversion of Church mining expeditions, the Bureau acquired the tools necessary to harvest the precious clay. The first Hellenic Golem was crafted with singular purpose: to descend into the abyss and bring forth more of its own substance. By the end of the third decade of extraction, the hundredth Hellenic Golem stood complete. Its design bore little resemblance to the first, refined through experience and necessity into something more purposeful, more eldritch in shape. All were dedicated to the continuous extraction of primordial stone.

The Bureau recognized Calypso Deep not merely as a source of clay, but as a site of profound strategic value. With the Hellenic Golems already perfected for inhuman depths, a submarine facility became not merely possible but inevitable. For the first time since Babel's ambitious towers, humanity commanded a tireless, immortal workforce that neither tired nor questioned nor required faith to sustain it.

The foundations and primary pillars rise from Pozzolana Concrete reinforced with Indian Iron. There are but a handful of windows, for the structure sits deeper than natural light has ever penetrated. Few within Calypso Deep have ever felt true sunlight upon their skin. Alchemical processes sustain the recycling of air and water in their eternal hermetic cycle. Shipments are supplemented by mycelic farms, tended by golem hands and fed on the rendered waste of the living, to keep the population sustained in their existence of steel corridors and gaslight.

Calypso Deep is the sole source of Primordial Earth known of within the lands of the great powers. It houses all the Bureau’s golemic research and manufacturing. It is this reason it was designed for endurance, for starvation hollows even the most impenetrable defences. Logistically, the facility can maintain full operations for six years severed from all supply lines. After this point, should supply lines remain severed, the golems are programmed to enact the Eternal Defence Doctrine and the upkeep of life-supporting facilities would no longer be required.

Beyond secrecy and inaccessibility, Calypso Deep maintains two additional defences. The first is the forest of clay fingers that now carpets the serpentine quarry, protecting the precious mines should any curious party learn of its location. The second is an eight-kilometre radius of Shevirat haKeilim, vast sea mines through Kabbalistic engineering. At such depths, the detonation causes formation of exotic ice within the water itself, turning enemy submarines into nothing more than resonating bells that viscerally disintegrate their occupants from within.

Calypso Deep serves as the current seat of Chokhmah, Sphere of Wisdom. Here resides the stele that houses the consciousness of Abulafia, his word translated by trained interpreters that listen to his echoes within the noise of silence with the aid of special helmets.