147 Tear Open
Foster dropped down onto his bed, placing his bag right next to him. As he pulled his legs onto the mattress, he pushed his shoes off to get comfortable, and then carefully grabbed Aster out of his hair to place the spirit down next to him, letting him continue sleeping on the pillow. On his way back to the inn, he had been thinking more and more about what kind of book he had been given. That old man didn't seem like he would have anything actually useful, but then again, the book itself looked pretty expensive. And it wasn't like Foster didn't know those kinds of people back on earth either.
Actually, in one of the camps that he stayed at for a few months growing up, there was one man who always carried around some weirdly expensive stuff, saying that he was homeless 'by choice', not because he actually struggled too much with money. Foster never understood that sort of thing, but at the very least, he knew that it was a thing. He pushed open his bag and pulled out the surprisingly ornate, leatherbound book. Its cover seemed to portray some kind of eye, but it was the only thing he could see on there, the rest was completely blank.
And so, since there was nothing else left now, he flipped the book open to the first page. But to his surprise, there wasn't any text on it. Well, there was, just not in a language that he could read. Or recognized, at that. The letters of the text were set up in some kind of grid on the page, each of the letters having a sort of square shape to them, overall. There were even a few letters that were literally just squares with small openings in the middle of one of the four sides, or ones that had some lines or dots in the middle.
However, for some reason, Foster couldn't lift his eyes from the page. He kept staring at these unknown letters, even though he had no idea what they said. He stared down and down at them, proceeding line by line, as if he had some kind of obsessive fascination with them all of a sudden, his eyes starting to dry out because he didn't want to blink, since it meant he would miss even a single second of looking at these letters.
But before he knew it, he was pulled from his trance-like state, as the book was slammed shut by a second party. Startled, Foster raised his head, seeing Lynol and Octer staring down at him, "What the hell, man? Are you alright? We've been yelling at you for a while now. Luckily you left your door unlocked, otherwise we never would've figured out you're in here..." Octer pointed out with a worried, and slightly annoyed, expression.
"What are you talking about? I think I'd have noticed that," Foster sighed, not particularly happy with this weird joke. However, seeing the expressions of his friends, he suddenly felt a bit weird. Not like he had much time to think about that, since Foster was soon distracted by a message window appearing in front of his eyes.
---
---
"...Hah?" He let out confused, staring at the message. He looked past it at his friends, scratching his head as he made the message flip around, consciously allowing those two to see it, "Erm... you guys know what this is all about?"
Octer read through the message, slightly moving his lips as he read to himself, while Lynol stayed silent. Roughly at the same time, they stared through the slightly translucent window and glared at Foster, "What is that book? Where did you get it?" Lynol asked concerned, while Foster was simply confused, "Some homeless dude gave me after I helped him out earlier. You know what this thing is?"
"A 'homeless dude' gave it to you? Is that a joke?" Octer asked perplexed, while Lynol explained, "Foster, that book is a magic item. And a pretty high-tier one as well, it's been even acknowledged by the system... Just who was that man?"
Foster shrugged nervously, "How the hell am I supposed to know? He was being bullied by some kids, so I helped him out. He said he was gonna do me a favor in return and sold that book to me for two bronze pieces."
Lynol and Octer looked at each other nervously, "Two bronze pieces..? It's not cursed, is it?" Octer asked nervously, as Foster's brows rose up, "Cursed? Hold on, hold on, hold on... cursed?"
"That... I don't know. Here, give me the book for a second." Lynol said with a frown, as Foster gave the book to him. The swordsman quickly tried to flip it open, but simply failed to do so. He was clearly using quite a bit of force, practically trying to pry the book open. With how strong Lynol was, he would be able to pull a door off its hinges like that, but the book was staying closed, not even bending at all? That just seemed impossible.
After Lynol tried, Octer did as well, trying his luck at opening the book as well, but the outcome was exactly the same. And once it returned to Foster, even he wasn't able to do anything about it anymore. With an annoyed, or rather, angry groan, he pulled on the book's covers with all the force in his body, "What the fuck is this? If that old dude tried to curse me, then I at least wanna be able to figure out what the hell this is about!" Foster exclaimed, trying to bury his fingernails inbetween the pages to maybe push them away from each other while he pulled the book open. However, instead of doing what he wanted, something else happened. Foster was getting so annoyed and angry that he didn't even realize he was in the middle of tearing one of his fingernails off. He kept applying more and more pressure, until his hand simply slipped away. The sudden release flung the book across the room, covered in some blood while one of Foster's fingernails was stuck to it. And only then, looking down at his finger, did he realize the pain that came with literally pulling your fingernail off so violently.
"Motherfucking piece of-" Foster yelled out, squeezing his finger tightly in his other hand as if it was going to do something. Neither of the other two realized what had just happened, and only realized something was wrong when they saw blood dripping down onto the bedsheets.
"...What the hell is wrong with you? Why didn't you stop earlier?" Lynol asked, "I'll get some bandages, Octer stay with-"
"No, it's fine, I've got some in my bag. The front pocket." Foster interrupted him, and Octer quickly pulled some small gauze rolls and thin cloth out of it. Since they seemed pretty confused, Foster shrugged and explained, "I always have some with me. You know, in case I get stabbed on the streets. Now hurry and help me out here. Lynol, can you grab the cup over there?"
Just as he was asked to, Lynol grabbed the cup standing on the table and brought it over, before Foster looked at the nature spirit who had woken up upon realizing that its contractor had hurt itself, "Aster, can you make some water?"
Without a moment's hesitation, Aster created some water with the 'Splash' spell to clean up the exposed flesh that used to be hidden underneath Foster's fingernail, before they placed a piece of cloth right over it, covering everything up, and applying pressure, with a gauze. Lynol sighed as he watched Octer wrap the bandage around his friend's finger, "Let's ask Kyla to heal that for you later. Your fingernail won't regrow right away, but at the very least the wound will close up and you won't get an infection or anything," Lynol explained, as he picked up the book from where it landed, bringing it back over to Foster.
"Meh, that's fine. Not the first time I lost a whole fingernail. This one time after a night out, I was really damn high, and some guys I pissed off tied me up and pulled off all of my nails. Finger and toe."
Octer stopped for a moment, looking away from Foster's finger to his face, "What the fuck, man?"
"It's not my fault. I mean, it kinda was, but they were psychos. You know how it is."
"Actually, I don't." Octer replied bluntly, before letting out a deep sigh, "Either way, get rid of your bracelet for a second, seems like some of your blood got under it."
"Man... fuck, that's annoying." Foster groaned loudly, moving some of his mana into the snake to have it move away for a minute or so. The small metal bracelet wriggled off of his arm and onto his other hand, trying to wrap itself around his other wrist, when it suddenly stopped. Its head turned toward the book, before it leapt off of Foster's arm and right onto the cover of the book.
Foster, Lynol and Octer were confused. Stunned, they looked at the snake bracelet, watching as it slithered around the eye on the cover before pressing its snout against the center of the eye. Slowly, its mouth opened up as it kept pressing down onto the cover, until each of its tiny teeth touched the leather. And then, in a single snap, the snake took a bite out of the book's cover.
Actually, in one of the camps that he stayed at for a few months growing up, there was one man who always carried around some weirdly expensive stuff, saying that he was homeless 'by choice', not because he actually struggled too much with money. Foster never understood that sort of thing, but at the very least, he knew that it was a thing. He pushed open his bag and pulled out the surprisingly ornate, leatherbound book. Its cover seemed to portray some kind of eye, but it was the only thing he could see on there, the rest was completely blank.
And so, since there was nothing else left now, he flipped the book open to the first page. But to his surprise, there wasn't any text on it. Well, there was, just not in a language that he could read. Or recognized, at that. The letters of the text were set up in some kind of grid on the page, each of the letters having a sort of square shape to them, overall. There were even a few letters that were literally just squares with small openings in the middle of one of the four sides, or ones that had some lines or dots in the middle.
However, for some reason, Foster couldn't lift his eyes from the page. He kept staring at these unknown letters, even though he had no idea what they said. He stared down and down at them, proceeding line by line, as if he had some kind of obsessive fascination with them all of a sudden, his eyes starting to dry out because he didn't want to blink, since it meant he would miss even a single second of looking at these letters.
But before he knew it, he was pulled from his trance-like state, as the book was slammed shut by a second party. Startled, Foster raised his head, seeing Lynol and Octer staring down at him, "What the hell, man? Are you alright? We've been yelling at you for a while now. Luckily you left your door unlocked, otherwise we never would've figured out you're in here..." Octer pointed out with a worried, and slightly annoyed, expression.
"What are you talking about? I think I'd have noticed that," Foster sighed, not particularly happy with this weird joke. However, seeing the expressions of his friends, he suddenly felt a bit weird. Not like he had much time to think about that, since Foster was soon distracted by a message window appearing in front of his eyes.
---
---
"...Hah?" He let out confused, staring at the message. He looked past it at his friends, scratching his head as he made the message flip around, consciously allowing those two to see it, "Erm... you guys know what this is all about?"
Octer read through the message, slightly moving his lips as he read to himself, while Lynol stayed silent. Roughly at the same time, they stared through the slightly translucent window and glared at Foster, "What is that book? Where did you get it?" Lynol asked concerned, while Foster was simply confused, "Some homeless dude gave me after I helped him out earlier. You know what this thing is?"
"A 'homeless dude' gave it to you? Is that a joke?" Octer asked perplexed, while Lynol explained, "Foster, that book is a magic item. And a pretty high-tier one as well, it's been even acknowledged by the system... Just who was that man?"
Foster shrugged nervously, "How the hell am I supposed to know? He was being bullied by some kids, so I helped him out. He said he was gonna do me a favor in return and sold that book to me for two bronze pieces."
Lynol and Octer looked at each other nervously, "Two bronze pieces..? It's not cursed, is it?" Octer asked nervously, as Foster's brows rose up, "Cursed? Hold on, hold on, hold on... cursed?"
"That... I don't know. Here, give me the book for a second." Lynol said with a frown, as Foster gave the book to him. The swordsman quickly tried to flip it open, but simply failed to do so. He was clearly using quite a bit of force, practically trying to pry the book open. With how strong Lynol was, he would be able to pull a door off its hinges like that, but the book was staying closed, not even bending at all? That just seemed impossible.
After Lynol tried, Octer did as well, trying his luck at opening the book as well, but the outcome was exactly the same. And once it returned to Foster, even he wasn't able to do anything about it anymore. With an annoyed, or rather, angry groan, he pulled on the book's covers with all the force in his body, "What the fuck is this? If that old dude tried to curse me, then I at least wanna be able to figure out what the hell this is about!" Foster exclaimed, trying to bury his fingernails inbetween the pages to maybe push them away from each other while he pulled the book open. However, instead of doing what he wanted, something else happened. Foster was getting so annoyed and angry that he didn't even realize he was in the middle of tearing one of his fingernails off. He kept applying more and more pressure, until his hand simply slipped away. The sudden release flung the book across the room, covered in some blood while one of Foster's fingernails was stuck to it. And only then, looking down at his finger, did he realize the pain that came with literally pulling your fingernail off so violently.
"Motherfucking piece of-" Foster yelled out, squeezing his finger tightly in his other hand as if it was going to do something. Neither of the other two realized what had just happened, and only realized something was wrong when they saw blood dripping down onto the bedsheets.
"...What the hell is wrong with you? Why didn't you stop earlier?" Lynol asked, "I'll get some bandages, Octer stay with-"
"No, it's fine, I've got some in my bag. The front pocket." Foster interrupted him, and Octer quickly pulled some small gauze rolls and thin cloth out of it. Since they seemed pretty confused, Foster shrugged and explained, "I always have some with me. You know, in case I get stabbed on the streets. Now hurry and help me out here. Lynol, can you grab the cup over there?"
Just as he was asked to, Lynol grabbed the cup standing on the table and brought it over, before Foster looked at the nature spirit who had woken up upon realizing that its contractor had hurt itself, "Aster, can you make some water?"
Without a moment's hesitation, Aster created some water with the 'Splash' spell to clean up the exposed flesh that used to be hidden underneath Foster's fingernail, before they placed a piece of cloth right over it, covering everything up, and applying pressure, with a gauze. Lynol sighed as he watched Octer wrap the bandage around his friend's finger, "Let's ask Kyla to heal that for you later. Your fingernail won't regrow right away, but at the very least the wound will close up and you won't get an infection or anything," Lynol explained, as he picked up the book from where it landed, bringing it back over to Foster.
"Meh, that's fine. Not the first time I lost a whole fingernail. This one time after a night out, I was really damn high, and some guys I pissed off tied me up and pulled off all of my nails. Finger and toe."
Octer stopped for a moment, looking away from Foster's finger to his face, "What the fuck, man?"
"It's not my fault. I mean, it kinda was, but they were psychos. You know how it is."
"Actually, I don't." Octer replied bluntly, before letting out a deep sigh, "Either way, get rid of your bracelet for a second, seems like some of your blood got under it."
"Man... fuck, that's annoying." Foster groaned loudly, moving some of his mana into the snake to have it move away for a minute or so. The small metal bracelet wriggled off of his arm and onto his other hand, trying to wrap itself around his other wrist, when it suddenly stopped. Its head turned toward the book, before it leapt off of Foster's arm and right onto the cover of the book.
Foster, Lynol and Octer were confused. Stunned, they looked at the snake bracelet, watching as it slithered around the eye on the cover before pressing its snout against the center of the eye. Slowly, its mouth opened up as it kept pressing down onto the cover, until each of its tiny teeth touched the leather. And then, in a single snap, the snake took a bite out of the book's cover.
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