Allright, here's the thing.

The Arts are always hostile to me. As in, whenever I see them, they act like I ignored them. Even if I fast travel and they're literally five feet away. I can stop their combat to initiate their dialogue... except if I have a companion with me.

They'll just kill them anyway.

And then act like I ignored the Arts. Even if the Arts are literally on the other side of the cell and there was no way in hell I could talk to the Arts in the impossibly short timespan needed.

And this has been consistent through MULTIPLE playthroughs. Hell, I thought it was normal for them to be hostile to me until I heard people were talking to them on the forums.

I'm not sure what's going on, but maybe set up the trigger better, and maybe have them only start to do their thing when the player is within so many units of their encounter spot That way, if this just has been a consistent run of bad luck of me not knowing when they first spawned, I won't insta-fail it when they respawn.