Starting up the ink machine

Posted on Sun Jun 12th, 2022 @ 1:26am by Crewman Recruit Samantha O'Donnaghue Meran & Lieutenant Commander Gabriel Sharpe & Ensign M'Ralla
Edited on on Sun Jun 12th, 2022 @ 1:29am

4,670 words; about a 23 minute read

Mission: [USS Ottawa]Bendy and the Dark Star Trek
Location: Deck 14
Timeline: MD001 2230

Samantha walked on to the deck from the turbo lift, right behind Gabriel. "Commander, we should find the ritual room first, that way we know where to bring the items once we find time. Who did you bring for this team, we may need all eyes to find these objects." She looked intently at Gabriel. She could understand he would be kind of repulsed of this mission. He had seen his share of paranormal stuff.

"I have M'Ralla and Tovin on stand-by for now it's just you and me." He replied as stepped in front and quickly looked around the area. Ink ran down the walls as far as he could see and more Cardboard cutouts lining the corridors.

"So what's meant to happen in this little game of yours that seems to have taken over my ship?" He asked turning to Samantha.

Samantha looked to a cardboard cutout. "Originally the game was set out an adventure puzzle horror game. The antagonist called Henry returns after thirty years to the studio he used to work at in the 1920's 1930's. But since the take over of the ship, things are different after all. I suspect this game is totally altered to fit the ship as well as the crew. So my guesses is that a paranormal entity or energy is at work here. So far what I am seeing everything is going as in the game, but with differences. And if it is paranormal, that would mean the warp core is both online and offline. It just motivates us to play the game I guess. Follow the instructions to release of the ship." She crossed her arms. "I'll be straight with you, Commander, we can't think like Lieutenant Stevens. We have to do as the game, or in this case the Paranormal event, dictates. If we fail, we may have to start all over. You and me, as well as some of the senior staff and crew have been in the Paranormal universe, and we got a glimpse of what it is like there. We seen Umbra, and this entity may be only holding just a fraction of her powers, we still can't underestimate it." She balled her fist. "Captain Williams, Commander Reagan, Lieutenant Stevens..." And softly she whispered, "Eoin," She looked back up to Gabe. "They have no idea."

“Yeah, lucky buggers.” Gabe added, “Was hoping we’d left all that rubbish back in the paranormal universe, but guess not, yet more mind games and random rubbish to deal with.
Okay, so we follow the plot… if ya can call it that… So i take it ya know what we’re lookin’ for.”

Sam nodded. “I played the game several times, the first chapter is easy peasy. However, since everything seems to be on the ship, not everything will be the same, sir.”

=/\= Sharpe to M’Ralla and Tovin, Cadet O'Donnaghue Meran and I are heading fore from Turboshaft 4, I need ya ta head Aft. We’re looking for some sort of Pillars, I’ll let the Cadet explain what ya ya lookin’ for. =/\=


=/\= This is Tovin. Aye sir will move aft. we are looking for pillars? =/\=His Vulcan eyebrow
raised confused. Then looked a M'Ralla.

M’Ralla glanced back at Tovin and raised her own eyebrow, “And just where are we supposed to look? This entire deck is… changed.” She shook her head slightly and began to head aft, stopping at the first door. “Shall we?”

=/\= This is Cadet O’Donnaghue, we’re looking for a room with six large pillars, three on each side and at the end of the room is a large switch, possibly with a sign on top that says ‘main power’. I suspect it may be in a cargo room. You can’t pull the switch unless we find the six items. When you find such a room, please contact us immediately. =/\=


=/\= Ok Cadet thank you. We will try and locate the room and contact if we do so. Tovin out =/\= “Ok so room with six pillars. This is illogical but fascinating at the same time.” Moving to the door with M’Ralla, “Ladies first.” Also jestering with his hand.

M’Ralla nodded in agreement, “It is rather fascinating.” She pressed the controls to open the door and peeked inside. It was too dark to see anything and with everything happening she wasn’t about to enter the room. “Not only do I not see any pillars,” She said as she looked at Tovin, “I can’t even see past the doorway.” M’Ralla took a steadying breath and then called for lights in the room.

Enters behind M’Ralla. Pulling out his tricorder scanning the room. “Tricorder isn't reading anything but a empty room.”

M’Ralla glanced around the room and frowned. Splotches of ink spattered the walls and the floor. “It may be empty, but something definitely happened in here!”

Continues to take readings with the tricorder, "the tricorder can't make heads or tails of what happened." He looked up, "nor can I." Taking a few steps still using the tricorder, getting closer to the ink splots. "This is most peculiar."

M’Ralla stepped closer to Tovin to look over his shoulder, sort of more like around his biceps, to get a look at the tricorder, “What would that be? The splotches or your readings?”

Looked confused at the readings, "both. It's says it's basically just black ink circa the mid 1920's and what ever is or was behind this ink no longer has a material state." Looks at her, "recommend not getting any on your skin or uniform."

“How is that possible,” M’Ralla asked stepping back from the ink, “How can what it’s on not… exist?” She tugged a little at the back of Tovin’s uniform, “Come on. The Pillars aren’t in here obviously. Cadet O’Donnaghue mentioned the cargoholds, Let’s check there.” M’Ralla was eager to leave the room and get back to the relative safety of the corridor. “So, good thing to know, stay away from the ink!”

"Agreed, let's head to cargo bay 4. It is the closest one, if the deck hasn't changed too much." Turning around and heading for the door.


She nodded slightly and waited for Tovin to take the lead. “Do you see this?” She exclaimed in surprise as she turned towards the corridor. In the short time they had been inside the room, the corridor had changed. Posters seemed to have appeared on the walls and the ink splotches seemed to extend throughout the corridor. “What the..”

Tovin standing in the corridor, tricorder scanning. "The deck has completely changed, things are definitely not where they should be. I can not locate the chargo bays. However I found what looks like a large room, 30 meters that way." Points down the corridor.

M’Ralla looked down the hall in the direction Tovin was pointing. “Thirty meters, seems like we go that way then.” She started down the corridor, weaving around the ink splotches on the floor and making sure she stayed away from the ones on the walls.

>

“Okay so six Pillars and six items.” Gabe said, doing his best not to roll his eyes, “How are we meant ta know what these items look like?”

Ink was starting to slosh around his boots as he walked towards what had once been a little used storage room.

Sam looked to Gabe. “Sir, I played the game, I know what the six items are. And they have a more common look than you think. It’s a book, a bendy doll, an ink quill, a record, a wrench and a gear. It’s really not that hard. They are probably scattered around the deck.” She sighed. “Let’s hope we don’t have to pull the wrench from a dead body this time. A dead cartoon body. I played the game several times, and each time I had to reach into an inky chest from a Boris clone to pull the wrench.”

M’Ralla walked carefully down the corridor. Every once in a while she found she had to jump over the splotches. Each time she did she considered what would happen if she accidentally landed in one. As she and Tovin neared the 30 meter mark she paused. “What do the scans say?”

>
Gabe stepped inside the old storage room, his eyes coming across a Doll almost highlighted in the corner of the room. The sounds of the sloshing ink was now starting to grate on his nerves but he continued towards the small shaft of light. He felt a slight tingle as his hand closed around the small doll.

“Take it this is one of the items we need.” He said, taking the doll and passing it to Sam.

Sam caught the black doll, the figure did resemble the bendy doll. She nodded, “This is it. The Bendy doll. Do we go look for the other items? Or you want to check on the progress of the engineers?” She asked as she looked at the Bendy doll. Maybe we could already place the item in it’s right place if they found something.”

“We press on, they know what their doin’ and frankly i wanna get this little game over with ASAP, Had enough of this paranormal Mumbo Jumbo ta last me a lifetime.” He said, “When they find somethin’ they’ll us know.

Sam nodded, “Understood, sir.” She started to think where they could find the other items possibly. She then had an idea. “Commander, we could go to main engineering. The core room. Because if the warp core represents the ink machine, then there is most likely an item there. If I remember correctly the gear was in the ink machine room. Which in our case is the core room.”

“Good thinkin; Lets head there now, get an update from the others once we get there, unless they contact us first.” Gabe replied, taking the lead as they walked back in to the corridor, “So What happens after the machine starts?”

As they were walking Sam explained, “When the machine is turned on, the ink demon is born. And the ritual must be completed. And it’s basically the end of the chapter. According to the game lore Henry had no choice but to turn on the machine. And we apparently are being pushed into the same corner here. We have no choice. We have to turn on the machine and play the game.”

“Oh excellent a Demon.” Gabe said with a humourless chuckle, “Just what we need to get the day going. Was hoping we were done with those things.”

“I understand you had some dealings with the dark lady herself, Umbra,” Sam said. “I only saw her on the bridge, that time we went in to the Paranomal universe.” She thought for a moment. “Well, if this is some kind of paranormal entity that’s doing this, he probably won’t live long. There is no energy for them to feed on here.”

“Some would be an understatement, She managed to last a fair while with no energy ta feed one, so if we did manage to drag another one of those blighters here, we need to find out, and quickly. Last thing we need is another one running around.”

Tovin frowned, “about the same blotches everywhere. This way.” he turned and entered a room. A gear hung from the ceiling about 12 feet above their heads held there by a blob of ink. “I believe that could be important,” he told M’Ralla.

M’Ralla looked up and frowned, “You are probably correct, Tovin. Can you reach it? I am a little.. ahhh...vertically challenged.” She stressed her point with a gesture to emphasize her shorter stature. At only 5’2” lots of things were usually just out of her reach. “Okay, so...we found a gear, but no pillars. Now where do we look?”

Sam turned around and stopped in her tracks. The light was really low for the always bright looking core room. But in front of the dark looking warp core perfectly lined up were the 6 pillars and at the end of the room a panel with a switch on it. On the panel it said ‘main power’ and a display which said off line. On the pillows were pictures of the items they needed to collect. Sam turned to Gabriel. “Well, commander, I don’t think the gear is here, also I didn’t expect this to be here. The power switch and the ink machine in the original game were always in different rooms. But at least it saves us the trouble of finding it then. Perhaps we should go look for the other items?”

They were then interrupted by the com. “This is Lieutenant Tinyo to Commander Sharp. I would like to report an ink body. From the images on the posters I have deduced this is the body of the cartoon known as Boris the Wolf. I spotted it in operations office 2 hallway E."

“Well looks like we may have to pull stuff outta a corpse afterall.” he said, tapping his Commbadge, “Thanks for the update Lieutenant, does Mr Boris have a sizable hole in him?” he asked.

Wann looked over to the corpse. “Well, yes, sir, it looks like something was forcibly removed, I am guessing his ink black heart.” It was quiet for a moment. He then continued saying, “Sir, I believe there is something inside the chest.”

“Okay, I’ll head that way soon, Cadet O'Donnaghue Meran has found the ritual room so now we’re just looking for 5 items.” He said, turning the Bendy doll over in his hands, “I have reason to suspect Boris may have one of the others.”

“Understood, sir. I will leave the room to you and continue the search for my objective. I will report back as soon as we have found the valve for the ink flow. Tinyo out.”

Gabe turned to Sam and gave her a nod, “Ya wanna contact Tovin and M’Ralla, let them in on the good news?”

Sam looked with a devious look at Gabe. “What? That they need to play operations on an inky cartoon figure?”

Gabe gave Sam an equally devious look, “I was more thinking that we found the ritual room, but sure we could go with that.” He said with a smile, He was starting to like this girl.

Sam then said, “Commander, I am just a senior cadet, I don’t think they will take my orders, so you will have to do it. But since we found the room, it’s only natural we have to find the items. We have one here, you can place it on the pillar corresponding with that image.” She pointed at the picture of the doll.

“Fair enough, thought it was your idea to head back this way and your the one that has experience of this situation, don’t sell yaself short Cadet, right now we’re following your lead.” He replied as he looked at the Pillar Sam had pointed out. He carefully placed the doll on the stone pillar and quickly stepped back as the area around the pillar lit up.

Sam nodded, “But only because I know all this stuff.” She smiled. “Either way, we still need the items, and the more people that help, the faster we can get to them and get this over with.” She looked around to something familiar to the game. And then she saw the chest on the other side of the room. She walked to it and opened it. She then froze. There was no gear in it, but a book. She took out the book and held it up and turned it around. “The gear is not here, it’s Joey’s book.” She then walked to the pillar and placed the book on it. “That leaves the gear, the ink quill, the wrench and the record.”

“Gear, Quill, Wrench and Record, got it. Well while we’re down here may as well check out my workshop, was hoping to avoid that, spent a long time gettin’ it the way i like it, hate ta think what this little game has done ta it.” Gabe said, making for the doors as he tapped his Commbadge.

=/\= Sharpe to M’Ralla, We have two items and have found the ritual room, main engineering.how’s it going over there? =/\=

=/\= M’Ralla to Sharpe, Well glad you found the pillars. We seem to have found a gear hanging from the ceiling. Trying to find a way to get to it now.=/\= She glanced at Tovin wondering if he had anything to add.

Tovin shook his head and was walking around scanning trying to come up with a plan.

Sam walked into the chief engineer’s office for the first time. She heard from the engineers that he had turned it into a workshop. SHe looked around. It looked a lot like a workshop. And then she saw the old desk tugged in the corner. “Henry’s old desk.” She walked to it and found the ink quill. She picked it up. And then saw the folder on the desk. “So authentic.” She picked up the folder. “This was Henry’s first design of the character we now know as Bendy.” She showed the much cuter and friendlier design of the character.

“Well that is less annoying then the one he went with at least. Though have to admit not a big fan of the chair.” Gabe replied as he stepped slowly and carefully into the room. As he got to the center, mere feet away from Henry’s desk he stomped his foot down on what should have been the panel to release a Phaser rifle hidden in the deck. He rolled his eyes as Ink splashed over his boots.

“Of course not.” He said quietly.
“I’m sure when we end the game it will all disappear. “Sam put the file back on the desk. “According to the lore Joey himself rejected the design, but I never got the idea that Joey did anything with it.”

“Well this Joey sounds like a bundle of chuckles… So Quill sorted… and we’re down to two. Time to head to Lieutenant Tinyo, something tells me we’ll find another item within Boris.”

Sam shook her head, “It’s still three right? The gear, the wrench and the record.” Hmm, she thought for a moment. She then walked out of the workshop. “Are there any small rooms nearby?”

“Yes, three, I was assuming one of the items was with Boris but that may not be the case. As for small rooms between here and operations office 2 hallway E, a few, we can check ‘em on the way.” He said leaving his workshop, “Time to see what’s inside these things.”

Sam nodded as they left main engineering. She found a door not far from the core room. She pressed the button and the doors swished open. The room was pretty small. There was just a small workbench and a chair in it. On the bench was a radio. This she recognized from the game. Almost automatically she reached over to the radio and turned one of the tuners. A happy joyful tune started to play. She then noticed the record underneath the bench. She leaned over and picked it up. “This is why I asked if there were some small rooms around.” She held up the item.

“Okay, this is stating to set off warnings in my mind… getting far too easy.” he said quietly, the current situation starting to wear on him more and more.

Sam nodded. “But in the original game, the first chapter is the easiest chapter. There are no enemies, but that’s it. The game leaves you no choice, you have to turn on the machine. So it also makes it easy on you to do that.”

“Yeah maybe, Been dealin’ with this paranormal stuff fa far too long, gimme a good ol’ fashioned transporter rebuild any day.”

Sam smiled. “You don’t like a little puzzling now and then, sir?”


“I’ve just spent months researching what little we know about the paranormal and trying to come up with a way to trap a Demon from square one with nothing really ta work with while having it targeting myself and Alyssa. Had enough puzzlin’ for now and most definitely had enough of Demons.“

Sam shrugged. “I’ve read your reports on the whole Umbra situation. I don’t know if it is comparable to this one. Umbra possessed the Colonel and haunted you and the lieutenant. Not many of the crew were affected. Umbra didn’t have much power in this universe. SO my guess is that the paranormal entity we are dealing with has even less power than Umbra. Also it seems to only affect the computer and ship system. I haven’t heard any reports of crewmembers being affected. Also we have yet to see the entity. My feeling tells me it could be coming in the form of Bendy.”

“She had power enough, as does this new one. The power to, for lack of a better term, possess, the Holoemitters puts evidence to that theory.” He said as he stopped, stroking his beard. He bent down, careful not to get any more ink of his uniform then he needed to and picked up what he first saw as a metal circle, now it was free of the ink he saw it was a can.

“Briar Label Bacon soup.” He said,”Not one of the Ritual items but an interesting idea.”

Sam as she picked up the can. “It’s a collectible in the game, it was also supposed to restore the health of the player instantly when taken after an attack.”

Wann has started to inspect the panel with the valve on it as he tapped his badge, "Commander Sharpe, This is Lieutenant Tinyo here, we have found the valve, we await your orders to turn it."


“Good work Lieutenant, hang on there for a little longer, we’re nearing the time of the great ritual.” He added with a roll of his eyes, “But we don’t have all the items placed on their pillars.”

“Understood, sir, we will wait for your mark.” Wann replied.”

Sam was debating if they should return with their items and place them in their right place.Or go get the wrench from the Boris ' corpse. She turned to Craig.”Commander, shall we continue the hunt for the items or would you like to return to the room?”

“Lets get what we have set up, then i can can give Wann the go and we can move on to the next set of fetch quests.” Gabe replied with a chuckle.

Sam nodded. “Understood.” Sam walked back to main engineering with the items they already had to place on the pedestals.

M’Ralla looked around the room to find anything that would assist them in reaching the gear hanging above them. “Too bad we can’t just shut off the gravity in here for a moment so we can float up there and get it,” She said as she began to drag what appeared to be a storage crate to position it under the gear. She was still going to be way too short to reach it though. Maybe if she stood on Tovin’s shoulders???

“We are about 4 meters short. May I suggest we climb up and I can put you on my shoulders as I am too bulky to go on yours, and I will provide a sturdier base.” Tovin said, looking from the gear to the crate to M’Ralla.

M’Ralla nodded, glad that he had suggested it first. “Okay let’s try it.” She began to climb up on the crate and looked between Tovin and the gear, “I just hope it doesn’t drop ink on us.”

Tovin climbed up after M’Ralla following her as his feet landed. Tovin kept climbing until he was standing next to M’Ralla “Right lets get you on my shoulders this gear aint gunna get its self” he said flexing his shoulders as he prepared himself.

M’Ralla faced Tovin, placing her hands on his shoulders. “I’ll try not to wobble too much,” She said as she pulled herself up with his assistance. She grabbed his hands for support as she began to stand. She wasn’t afraid of heights per se, but this was a bit nerve wracking and both of them could get hurt if she moved too fast. She finally let go of his hands and reached up to get the gear. She swore under her breath as she stretched out further, her balance shifting with every move. She could just get her fingers onto the edge of the gear, “Almost, almost,” She said to herself as she stretched out as far as she dared, even moving onto her toes to gain a few more centimeters. She reached up and grabbed the gear and then lost her balance. Falling backwards to the deck with a loud “OOF.”


>

When all the items were placed Sam tapped her badge. “Lieutenant Tinyo, all items are placed. Can you make the ink flow?”

“Yes,” Wann said as he grabbed the valve and started to turn it. There was a little resistance, probably to make it look as if there was some wear on it. Suddenly the valve popped loose and he was able to turn all the way. But as soon as it came loose one of the pipes over head burst open and ink came flowing out and flooded the room.

Wann did his best not to curse over the com. “Well, Commander, Cadet...the ink is flowing alright. I think I will return to the observation lounge, I think you can turn on the main power now.” He shook his head trying to get the ink off him as he sloshed through the ankle deep ink to get out of the room.

“I feel like i need some epic monologue for this.” Gabe said with a chuckle, “I Dunno, let their be warp light… It’s alive!” He took hold of the cartoony power switch.

As soon as Gabe flipped the switch to the main power, the lights turned off, putting everyone in the room in total darkness for a few seconds and then the warp core flashed on as if a curtain was lifted off it. And then the lights turn on. For a second the tall dark figure was standing next to the warp core.

Sam knew exactly who was standing next to the warp core. “Everyone, get out now, it’s the ink demon. Don’t let him touch you!” She turned around as she ran out of main engineering. As she did, holographic wooden planks and inks were dropping all around them.


M’Ralla raised her eyebrows as the lights flashed around her. So this was what they had been waiting for? Whatever it was, she would heed the Cadet’s warning and vacate the area with all due haste. Her egress was hindered by the appearance of debris falling around them, causing her to stumble as she tried to avoid both the planks and the ink.

“Okay people, ya heard the lady, lets get movin’” Gabe shouted over the noise of falling wood and ink. He made his way to the main entrance quickly, but without breaking into a run, making sure he was the last one out. The entire time he kept an eye on the Ink Demon’s position.

The ink demon just watched them from where he stood and only slightly reached out his hand to them before he disappeared in the ink.

To Be Continued in Chapter 2

 

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