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Outside an Apartment Building

You stand on the edge of a hillside park, before a tall white
building. The westering sun gives the rippled walls and ornate
masonry a golden hue, as it descends behind the trees and into the
Sea.

Raised in the 1920s, the building is tall and slender. It towers
over the neighbouring apartment buildings and homes. A placid
silver face overlooks the curled iron bars of the entrance.

Opposite a black volkswagen is parked perpendicular to the climbing
bank of lavender, and locked to a nearby street sign is a silver
bicycle marked 'Diana', after the goddess of the hunt.

- exits

You could drive Ella, ride Diana, enter the building, or walk off.

- drive Ella

Ella has a tiny pink octopus in the window. This scares you off.


- ride Diana

Diana is all locked up with a blue-ringed octopus lock, it's tentacles
embracing both her wheels and frame.

-

A silver VW Eurovan drives past and parks nearby. This is San Francisco.

- up

As if by magic the heavy iron gate and doorway open, letting you pass
into the ornate and mirrored lobby. Ignoring Spencer, the elevator,
you climb many flights up to the apartment.

Daniel's Apartment
 
A painted wooden door opens onto narrow hallway. To the left runs a
galley kitchen, wherein you notice a teapot with tell-tale stains of
yerba mate. Through a curved archway lined with playmobil figures is a
cup-ringed wooden table and four chairs. A book is help open by a
stand, and a small laptop is closed beside it. There's a gardenia in
the window trying hard to flower. Outside you can see the fire escape,
where two faded and furry octopi are held in a strange embrace,
watching out over the park and street below. The road climbs to reach
eye level beyond. Through another doorway lies the sitting room, with
two mismatched sofas and a giant monitor, though you cannot spot a
television.

You notice another octopus peeping out of a laboratory cupboard, but
you are too afraid to investigate further. Somewhere within are
textures, silhouettes and a mountain of burning man pictures.

The bathroom is small and has a pleasant tiling upon the
floor. Finally there is the bedroom, its two chairs laden with clothes
and its shelves groaning with volumes, read to the left and unread to
the right.

- examine bookshelves

One bookshelf is laden with the works of Professor J.R.R.Tolkien. You notice
in particular two nice old hardback copies of the Silmarillion, Unfinished
Tales, and an almost complete set of The History of Middle-earth, in addition
to numerous obscure and rather tatty looking secondary works.

On another, handy imaginary 'recent' bookshelf you notice the
following volumes, each with a few rambling post-it notes attached:



"More soon!" reads a final post-it.

- examine pinboard

The pinboard doesn't really exist, but if it did it might have a set
of movie stubs pinned to it, each one scrawled in tiny hand-writing:


-

The giant monitor flickers into life. You are strangely drawn towards it.

- examine monitor

You perceive illuminated on the face of the monitor is an entrancing map.