Ex2

Exposure, Session 2: I told Him to Use Coasters

Thursday

Inhabitants of the Tashiro Kaplan Artist Lofts begin to act strangely. Daniel and Nadine notice that they become briefly dizzy when they look at themselves in reflections, and Isha notices one of the At-the-Ready Plumbing people leaving the basement.

Investigating, she sees brand-new locks on the door to maintenance. Not one to be obstructed, she picks the locks and finds strange patterns laid out on the floor in some reddish-orange granular substance. She brushes out one of the symbols and leaves the rest.

At the same time, noise breaks out in the building. Daniel is the first to notice, as his neighbor Rudolph Crab begins tossing furniture and knocking things off walls. When Daniel investigates, Crab attacks him awkwardly until Daniel subdues him. On the second floor, Noreen assaults her partner Roslyn, who runs into Isha's arms until the police come to take Noreen away. Later, Erik on the third floor watches people until the police show up, again, to remove him.

Noreen and Erik resist being removed, to the point of striking police officers. Crab, too dazed to do much, goes quietly.

Friday

Brad spots the Artist Lofts in a mirror, and notices that it looks nearly cocooned in webbing, with spiders crawling all over it.

Nadine calls At-the-Ready Plumbing to ask how they get such a good parking spot every day.

Saturday

Brad meets with Professor Alton Celedon, and gets a translation of the symbols that Isha saw (and photographed, and shared with the others). The three symbols are Sanskrit and mean "wakefulness," "reporting," and "obedience." The last is the one Isha disturbed. Brad also purchases an old, silver-backed mirror that he is assured has spiritual significance.

Nadine purchases a ritual meant to fend off spirits and defeat possession. Though there are strange, unexplained phenomena, it doesn't seem to work, until she mixes her blood thoroughly with the salt used for the ritual. It eases her constant sense of being watched.

Daniel hires a private investigator, Garry Patry, to take photos of the insides of the suspicious vans.

Sunday

Plaster and drywall start to grow over windows and doors to a noticeable extent.

Daniel gets his first photos from the PI, seeing computers and strange tapestries inside the vans. He shows the video surveillance to Brad.

Nadine tries to use the ritual she performed yesterday to enclose the strange symbols, but Brad obstructs her. Instead, she obliterates the Sanskrit writing. Then, she uses a blowtorch to get into everyone's storage units to make sure there are no other weird things going on. Nope. Just weird art.

People start to act more normally, and the strange apartment "growth" appears to stop.

The blue van leaves early, only a few hours into its normal staying time, and Daniel follows. He eventually catches up with them, and the two people in the van give him $500 to leave them alone.

Denouement

Rudolph Crab, Erik Yukota, and Noreen Chabella are all convicted of assault and spend time in prison. Several other residents of the Artist Lofts choose to move away, causing the largest rush of new inhabitants off the wait list since the building opened as artist housing.

Daniel finds an apartment in Capitol Hill and moves. Isha moves into Daniel's apartment.