Eightfold Book

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Item

Image
Description	Decorated with a spider's web and textured so that you can almost believe cobwebs are actually clinging to it, this thin book is a work of art in itself. From the introduction, it's apparent there are some spider-themed stories within, but it'd probably look really nice on a book shelf as well.
Type	Offhand
Use	See notes
Effects	+4 Etheric Power

Notes

When using this item you get the message:

You flip open the strangely-textured book to a random page and begin to read:

And then one of:

It sneaks into your home, silent and unnoticed. A single sting is all it takes, leaving you unable to move, your legs rictus below you.

It leaves you for its young… letting you go about your life as they feed… waiting as you grow hollow.

Until one day there's nothing left but for its young to emerge and continue the cycle.

I'd never really wondered what went into burgers. Some meat, some soy, whatever, right?

So every few days I'd grab a burger from a food cart on the way to class. You can even eat it at your desk.

And here I am, at my desk, biting into this nice juicy burger, when I hit a bit of gristle. I try not to make a scene, spit it into some tissue, and there's something white, sure, but a bunch of tiny spiders crawling out of it.

Then I started coughing and the girl in front of me turns around and screams. With every cough, wet little spiders are pulling themselves out of my mouth and dropping down onto my shirt.

They put me under to pump my stomach, but I heard one of the doctor's passed out seeing all the spiders they pulled out. There were thousands, all trying to crawl out while they pumped.

Everyone loves NovOS and everyone loves Kumachikun. See, I love him so much, I've got him plugged into the back of my neck! Ha ha! Pretty great right?

And he's got eight legs, so I can share him with all my friends. But, with how he's networked, we can be friends with anyone in the world as long as they plug in.

So you wanna be friends right? Don't worry! It won't hurt, just a little cut right there.
(no change of message with mascot adapter equipped)

The itching never really stops. No matter how often she scratches, the only reward was scabs that itched even more as they healed.

She'd tried creams and ointments and sprays, pills from the autodoc and even foreign herbs. But the itching kept getting worse, the back of her neck peeling away layer by bloody layer under her nails.

Until one day, she pulled out something different among the bloody skin: a tiny black thread, thin and bent like an insect's leg. Pulling it out, the itching finally stopped, replaced by a tingling spreading out from the back of her neck.

The bloody spiders crawled over her in the middle of her lecture, leaving trails of footprints over her clothes as she cried, not in pain or fear, but in relief.

Every day on the way to work it was the same, beggers and vagrants holding out their hands for cred chips or a quick transfer or a bite to eat.

Every day he got angrier, lashing out at the ones who dared to block his way. A quick kick and they'd be scamper off before security got there.

Every day he wondered about the one that didn't move after he got kicked, just lying down amid the cobwebs beneath downtown.

But one day, he was surprised to see that same begger blocking the same path, the same tattered hat pulled low over his face and the same filthy trenchcoat blocking the cold.

The same kick lashed out and the beggar crumbled, folding in half like he was nothing more than a sheet, clinging to his attacker's leather shoe.

The spiders rushed over the shoe, skittering up his leg, biting every bit of flesh along the way. His screams echoed beneath Downtown, but all security found was a dead man covered in cobwebs with a tattered hat, filthy trenchcoat, and fine leather shoes.

She had something she needed to know. Would he ever love her? Her friends couldn't know and asking him was too embarassing while he was already dating Jennifer, leaving only the spirit in the mirror.

Just before midnight, she went to the bathroom, loading his picture on her comm and leaving it facing the mirror while she closed her eyes. Nudging the spider away from the mirror, she thought it would be a simple task, to keep her eyes closed until the comm turns off, waiting in the darkness for the answers she needs.

When the comm dimmed, she heard a distant door open and close. When it finally turned off, she heard him whispering her name, asking why she had her eyes closed. Was he so ugly that she couldn't bear to look at him? But she knew to ignore the voices, keeping her eyes tightly shut.

The voice grew more angry, shouting and demanding. Banging and creaking echoed until light returned with the sound of her phone's alarm. She opened her eyes to see the mirror cracked as though it had suffered countless blows. A few strands of silk were all the held it together, the spider hanging in the middle of the mirror like a gatekeeper.

She never saw Jennifer in class again. Some people thought Jennifer ran away, but she knew what the spider was protecting her from and what lurked behind his sunny smile.

The families screamed as the winds scorched their farms, carrying embers and raging flames.

In the hills, as they ran, they saw a shadow in the flames: a great spider of plastic and steel.

The spider chased them, through the hills and the swamps, past great rivers and between mountains.

Nothing they could do could scare the spider. Nothing they could do could dissuade it. Nothing they could do could save them from it.

Years later, a letter was delivered to the ashes of their homestead, informing the recipient that they had been charged in error and apologizing for any inconvenience collections may have caused.

The gang had him get a spider tattoo to celebrate his first kill. He put it on his back, knowing not to show it off normally.

But after his second kill, nobody noticed the tattoo on his back. Or the one next to it for his third. After he killed that family, his girlfriend noticed them spreading, covering his back and even peeking over his shoulders.

Everyone thought he just loved to count his kills, calling him the King of Spiders after the tattoos. And the gang gave him more missions to satisfy his imagined bloodlust, but he couldn't explain where the tattoos were coming from.

So it continued, until every inch of his skin was covered with crawling legs and pinpoint eyes. That day, he decided to kill his boss and run away, never kill again, finding a new life.

But when he killed his boss, the last tattoo appeared. They all shuffled, crawling across his skin, unable to find a place. The tattoos cracked and peeled off, drifting to the ground like a pile of leaves.

They never found the King of Spiders, but they found his boss's body and a scrap of inked skin that looked like a spider leg fluttering near the air duct.