Game: Great minds think alike

It seems like Ophelia is inside a dark room, and the only door letting light inside is being shut slowly. Within a second, the alley has become dark - almost pitch black. Within the darkness, two eyes appear... large, hateful eyes, surrounded by red flames.

"You are brave not to run while you can," a subtle, almost unhearable voice whispers. An even subtler echo flows through the alley.
"You are brave..."
"brave..."
"while you can..."
"can..."

"Drop your weapon... it will not help you against me..."
"... against me..."

"Do not fear... you will continue to exist... all I want is your blood..."
"Do not fear..."
"fear..."
"blood...."

[OOC: You'll find out quick ]

"Accepted," the man replies. He takes a close look at every member of the group currently around, as if to remember every little detail about them.

The others in the group get only half of the dialogue - the last they hear is Ohalian saying:

"Come on, if you wan to interrogate him for your mission."

"Asking questions is interrogation. You said you wanted to ask him questions, didn't you?"

"You said you wanted to get information out of him. How else are you going to get it? Pull it out of his head?"

"Uh huh. Well, if you want to get the information you need, you're going to have to tell me how to get it, and if you don't, and it looks like you're trying to hurt anyone in the group, I destroy you. Understand?"

"The Masked Gnoll, Ian, Ophelia, Blackthornes, the guide we hired, and myself."

"Umm... variable."

The owl flies up from Ophelia's shoulder into the darkness above her. Ophelia can hear the flapping of wings as she casts her spell; as the magic is released from her hands, Hoot is already many feet above her. The spell changes nothing.

The eyes, on the other hand, have come closer - they are no more than a foot away from her, and Ophelia feels a dark presence. Shivers run over her skin, and everything within her calls out for her to run, run, run...

[OOC: What about the group in the bar? Is everyone going to the market or to their homes now?]

Within her mind, Ophelia can feel Hoot's emotions. The owl is confused, almost in panic, trying to follow Ophelia's call but incapable of finding the way back to her.

As fast as Ophelia runs, the eyes stay just as close as they were, always only a foot away... or are they even coming closer, very, very slowly?

The alley should have ended by now, Ophelia should be back on the street where she came from - but she isn't. She's still within the darkness of the alley.

The man in leather looks at Ohalian, somewhat startled. "I have not yet collected enough data to say which beings are hurt by the procedure and which not, but a part of his essence will be dissolved during analyzation. Is that acceptable?"

There is something that irritated Ohalian all the time about this man... and just now, he realizes what it is. It's not that he appears emotionless... rather, there's no change of emotion. It seems like the way he speaks and acts is an unalterable behaviour, the ONLY way for him to speak and to act. And summed up, that's pretty much the same as being emotionless.

[OOC: To get the story going, I assume the group stays talking on their way as they leave the tavern, okay?]

Ophelia slashes through empty air with her scimitar, not affecting the eyes the least bit. The second slash doesn't hit anything again... but it does result in a change.

The eyes grow angry now, and for a glimpse of a second, Ophelia could see the alley again, the buildings appearing as if they were alive, coming closer, closing down on her, like horrible monsters from a nightmare.

She can hear the scream of an owl nearby just as she sees the alley, but it's gone the very moment everything becomes dark again.

"BLOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!"

The voice screams in rage, echoing a billion times like the roaring of a dragon.

"I offered you life", the voice booms, "but now you will die!"

As Ophelias body changes, her vision transforming into that of an owl, she has a short moment of clarity - just at that one point, that peculiar point which she never realized consciously until now, where she is just as much owl as humanoid. And in that short moment, she can see the eyes as what they truly are... an ethereal creation, just a step away from becoming material. In that short moment, Ophelia sees the alley as she knew it, but filled with fog, and within that fog there are figures, victims and their murderers, dead bodies rotting and predators feeding on the dead. And in the center of them all, there are those eyes, strange misty lines leading from each figure to the eyes, the eyes that are staring at Ophelia.

The vision is gone, and Ophelia has become an owl, flying upwards - and crashing into stone only seconds later. There is a wall above her, and she has the strange feeling the buildings of the alley have bent and closed above her.

[OOC: @Ophelia: You have mail...]

The man in leather, strictly following Ohalian, explains calmly: "I won't physically touch him. If 'touch' is meant in a metaphorical manner as a symbol for change, then the rule is impossible to fulfill, for any perception has an impact on the object that is perceived. As for what happens to him afterwards, the most probable result will be that due to the lack of essential parts of his being, he will die and dissolve."

Ophelia can hear Hoot's call and the owl's flapping, but the animal doesn't seem to be able to come to her. The owl calls out in panic, again and again, but Ophelia can't locate where Hoot is.

Flying through the darkness, Ophelia hears the voice coming from those horrid eyes.

"I am the essence of fear and hatred, I am the spirit of the horrors of the past, I am a living Sigil spirit, and as you created me by fear and hate, by death and violence, I recreate you under my command! Take that girl, bring to me the essence of darkness that has touched her, the essence of ancient power that is not even her own!"

The words echo through the darkness over and over again, and what was just a short vision as she transformed into an owl, seems to become real now: Within the darkness, figures appear out of the nothingness, horrible creatures of pain and death. Only three yards before her, Ophelia can see two zombies of bulky humanoid shape, and a third creature that looks like a twisted ape. The fangs drip with poison, the creature's hair is dirty and reminds of barbwire; the eyes tell of demonic insanity.

Ophelia focusses on breathing in the alien energy, and transforming it into something positive. She feels how something is activated within her, something she didn't know of until now.... a hidden power. All of a sudden, her environment becomes bright light, and the only thing she can recognize is a whirlwind of dark energy drawn in by her breathing.

A scream - the voice that came from those eyes - fills the alley, but as she consumes the creature's very essence, the scream fades... as does the light. She is within the alley again, without any monsters, without any eyes, and Hoot flies through the air only a few yards away.

Yet... something makes Ophelia nervous. Something is not right. But Ophelia can't tell what it is. It feels like... there is something within her that is not she, and she knows that this feeling doesn't mean the eyes-creature that she consumed.

"Subroutine," is the man's short answer to Ohalian's question.

"My tasks are classified data, please identify as a higher security level object to access that data. As for the larger program, I only know of the interfaces that I need to connect to when a task is finished, or when further information is needed."

All of a sudden, the man stops, staring at Ohalian. An almost unnoticeable light shimmers in his eyes. "Information request: Identify routine name, creator, machine location and J-Sys network interface number."

As weird as the words sound, they ring a bell in Ohalian's mind: J-Sys is a large corporation from his own world, a pioneer in technological advancement.