The batim saga chapter 1: moving pictures

"But do We HAVE to explore THIS dungeon?"

"For about the forty-seventh time today, YES whisper!"

A door opened revealing a boy with brown hair and eyes, wearing a blue sweatshirt, jeans and red boots being followed by a floating, ice cream like ghost with a purple lip and black, mask like marking between his eyes.

"B-b-but Aqua, you heard the rumors, multiple people died in here!" whisper cried.

"That's why we're here," aqua said, "this place ata be crawling with yokai."

The two continued Down a hallway, the walls were lined with posters for old cartoon episodes. Ink was dripping from the ceiling, the room smelled of musk, and decay, it had been abandoned for decades so that part made sense, the hallway led to a larger common room. Lights were on which meant electricity was still connected(somehow).

"Alright, I'll call drac and we'll split up," aqua said while taking out a small, coin.

"Com-on out my friend, calling Dracunyan!"

"Yokai medal do your thing!"

Aqua inserted the medal into a slot in his yokai watch.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Summoning… Shady!" the watch's voice changed in pitch an began singing while blue ruins began bursting out, "Dark and Hazy! Mischievous and Shady!"

"Dracunyan!"

The blue, vampiric nekomata appeared before them. "Yo," he said.

"Okay, men, we've got a lot of ground to cover so we split up," Aqua said, " Whisper you take the break room, drac, ink machine room, Whatever that is, and I'll take one of the maine animation rooms, alright men, move out!"

On his way to the animation room aqua found an old audio log, he turn it on and it's voice said, "At this point, I don't get what Joey's plan is for this company. The animations sure aren't being finished on time anymore. And I certainly don't see why we need this machine. It's noisy, it's messy, And Who needs that much ink anyway? Also, get this. Joey had each one of us donate something from our work station. We put them on these little pedestals in the break room. To help appease the gods. Joey says. 'Keep things going.' I think he's lost his mind, but, hey, he writes the checks. But I tell you what, if one more of these pipes burst, I'm out of here."

"Interesting," aqua said as he continued on through to the room in question. Before he made it a board from the ceiling fell in front of him. "Meh, seen worse." he walked on into the first room with six pedestals.

"Yep, this is the room," aqua said, "now to find those…" He was cut off when he noticed the cartoon cutout that had appeared behind him.

Across the building, dracunyan was searching rooms to find the ink machine. He opened a door and looked in, "any ink machines in here?" he looked up at the desk in front of him. Particularly a small device on top of it. "Is that the ink machine?"

He tapped a button and music came from the device, "these pipes that flow from the Ink Machine!" he tapped the button again, "Nyaope, just some old speaker."

"Alright guys, very funny, which one of you put the cutout here?" aqua yelled from another room.

Dracunyan disregarded the question and kept up his search. Finally he found a room labeled ink machine. He entered and noticed a giant hole in the middle of the room, chains hanging down into it, and railing blocking it off. "That is a long drop," he said. He went over to a switch and pulled it. The chains started pulling something out of the darkness until it was at the same level as the floor. "This has gotta be the ink machine."

Aqua had disregarded (what he thought was) his yokai friends' prank and had found a pushie on a shelf, a wrench in the rib cage of a hopefully fake human wolf corpse, and a prank door which was rigged to shove a cut out in someone's face. 2 of the 6 items.

He was now back in the common room looking on artist desks, "well, well, well, bottle of ink, that makes three," he said picking up a bottle of ink.

Meanwhile whisper was in the break room researching the building on his yokaI-pad. "I don't want to disappoint aqua, but did it really have to be this place, there were plenty of safer dungeons in town, like the school at night, or the sewer system, or haunted manor. But here!"

Whisper banged the back of his head on a shelf causing a book to come flying down onto his face. "Ow."

Aqua was looking for both the remaining to items and his yokai after finding a record called, "the Lighter Side of Hell," he passed by the ink stain words of "Dreams do come True!" and found the ink machine room with Dracunyan napping inside. "So this is the ink machine, now to turn it on.

After waking up dracunyan and snooping around the room for another item, which the found, they went to find whisper in the break room.

Whisper had been reading the book that womped him in the face both because he wanted a better understanding of the place, and because he was bored out of his nonutten mind. "This is definitely interesting, so this ink machine is a way to turn drawings into yokai, rendering animation dead and yo-motion to take it's place, this joey drew guy was thinking ahead of his time, he was like a more imaginative (not to mention crazier) nathaniel." as whisper read on a small note. He opened it and something fell out. Whisper examend it then said, "a yokai medal?"

"Whisper!" he heard his master call. Whisper put the note and medal away for later, grabbed the book, and started moving to the source of the call. "Yes Aqua?"

"Oh good, you found the last item," aqua said when whisper arrived, "the Illusion of Living, By Joey Drew."

"Last item?"

"Yeah, six items are required to turn on the ink machine, drac and I found five already," aqua said putting the book on the empty pedestal. He walk over to the switch, pulled it, but nothing happened. "Must be low pressure, I found an ink pump while I was looking for the items, lets go."

The trio was a hall away from the room with the pump. Half way through the hall when the corner was in sight, one of the cutouts peared over and quickly shot back leaving aqua, whisper and dracunyan all dumbfounded.

"What!?" dracunyan said.

"A yokai!" Aqua and whisper said in unison.

When the trio turned the corner, aqua shined his light around the room, but not a yokai in sight.

"Must of gotten away," aqua said disappointed, "lets get that pump going."

When the passed an old projector it turned on showing the same cartoon character the cutout depicted. They went over to the pump and turn it on, a nearby ink pipe burst causing the floor to flood. They made their way back to the room with the switch, flipped it, and made their way to the ink machine room.

"Hey why is the enytance boarded up?" dracunyan ask.

Aqua approached to investigate, when a black, inky, humanoid version of the cartoon character jumped up and grabbed for him screaming.

"Whisper!" he yelled backing away, "what is that thing?!"

Whisper typing on his yokai pad and exclaimed, "that is demonic bendy!"

Demonic Bendy: SS rank

Shady

"Born of ink and hatred and blinded by vengeance and being literally blind, he drowns anyone who enters his domain in his ink of despair while always bearing his sinister smile. He's higher ranking than any yokai we have, fighting is pointless!"

"Then run for it!" aqua said making a break for the exit the two yokai following close behind. By the time the exit was in sight they thought they were in the clear.

"Just… a little… Further!" aqua said but it was to no avail when the floor collapse from the pressure of so much ink at once. Whisper almost made it but a board from the ceiling fell on top of him.

All of them fell below the studio, into the unknown.

To be continued…