- A collective of six artisans find a trunk containing six colorful glass containers. Each chooses one, and soon, one by one, their art becomes more disturbing until the artist vanishes.
- The setting is a vacant, dusty shop-space in a line of shops. We hear disembodied voices within, one asking how long, and another urging patience, to "remember the days of plenty; they were good days... there will be good days again." The voices break up in sinister laughter.
A small group of arts-and-crafts folk set up shop in the empty shop-space, renting it from proprietor Harry Bell (Dabs Greer). Itinerant metalworker Sam Richards (Frank Converse) asks directions to it, hoping to join the group. A local shopkeeper (Oliver Clark) directs him to it, noting that the place has an unsavory past, and that some think it's haunted. Nonplussed, Sam finds his way there, where the smiling face of Ellen Parrish (Joan Blackman) catches his eye. He joins the five artists already in residence; together they try to clear additional workspace in the back, where they uncover a mysterious chest containing six jars. Each jar seems to contain different colored rocks or liquids. Each artist finds themselves mysteriously drawn to a jar, keeping them at their workspaces as sources of inspiration. But the inspiration turns out to be dark, and the resulting artwork soon reflects the malign influences of the personalities inhabiting the jars. Jake and Anna Freeman (Tim McIntire, Tyne Daly) are a herbalist and a potter, respectively; Paul Cepeda (Scott Marlowe) is a wood sculptor. Holly McCory (Brooke Bundy) turns out a new line of jewelry, and invites her companions to see it. The pieces are disturbingly ugly, and although the others recognize this, they are supportive. Each of them is cultivating his or her own darkness, and expressing it in their work, which grows increasingly morbid. As if obsessed, each carries his or her jar with them everywhere they go.
Soon after, Holly no longer seems to be there, and Sam demands to know where she is. "She finished her work," is the only response from the others, who seem more in tune with the influence of their jars than Sam is. But Holly seems to have been subsumed or absorbed by her jar; we see her disembodied face floating within it, laughing. Sam grows attached to Ellen, whose paintings grow more and more unpleasant to behold. Sam is bothered by the growing malignancy in her work, and tries to persuade her to leave with him. "I have to finish my work," she insists. Sam's own masterpiece is in welded metal: a tortured figure whose contorted arms claw the air above its headless torso. Although he recognizes its negative affinity, he reluctantly admits of it, "Best thing I've done." Soon the Freemans too have vanished, leaving behind deformed, repellent pottery and a trailing, creeping vine whose fronds drape everywhere. One afternoon, while the three remaining artists are upstairs, the neighboring shopkeeper's little dog comes wandering in. The trailing vines of the creeper pursue it off-camera, and we hear the poor dog's yelps as it's caught.
The shop looks neglected; the three remaining renters have not kept it up. Paul the woodsculptor, having abandoned the attractive, craftsmanly pieces he'd formerly made, now concentrates on ugly little figurines, primitive and brimming with mana. "What are they?" asks Sam. "Gods," Paul intones. "Aztec? Inca?" Sam inquires. "Older, more powerful." Soon, he too is gone, leaving behind his figurines, and only Ellen and Sam remain.
Absorbed in his work, Sam does not notice when Ellen finishes, and steps back to admire her work. At some point, he shuts off his welding torch, and notices the silence. He goes to Ellen's work station, and is shocked by the hideousness of her masterpiece. But Ellen is nowhere to be found. Panicked, Sam searches the entire flat, and by chance catches a heartstopping glimpse of himself in a mirror: his visage a twisted, molten mass of metal - the evident finish of his headless metal torso. Revulsed, he finally catches on, and addresses the empty stillness of the shop: "You haven't gone - you're still here, aren't you?" The voices emerge, laughing, the faces of his companions visible within the jars. "You won't get me!" Sam hurls his own jar, shattering it. He tries to leave, but is tripped and entangled in the creeping vine, which seeks to strangle him. In the struggle, the shop catches fire, rapidly spreading to the artwork. The mocking laughter of the voices turns to terrible screams as Sam escapes onto the sidewalk, overcome by the smoke, slumping over a vehicle outside, clutching his ears to drown out the supernatural screams of his companions. Marks, the neighboring shopkeeper, runs up to assist. "You were lucky to get out," he remarks to Sam, who replies in a curiously altered voice, "Yeah - lucky." Sam turns to face Marks, his head a twisted, misshapen mass of molten metal. Marks staggers back in horror, and screams.
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