BookSpiders

Book Spiders and Paper Slugs

The Great Library of Motometro is so ancient and expansive it has become host to more than Slender librarians and the occasional visitor wandering its aisles. It also maintains a highly specialised array of insects that have evolved to live among the shelves. The most prominent among them being the Book Spider, and its preferred prey, the Paper slug.

The Book Spider

Liber arachnae The Book Spider begins its life as a tiny, crab-like arachnid; an awkwardly vertical, carapaced critter balancing on stout legs. It's during this time they are most fragile, and at risk of being crushed by the weight of shuffled books, or swept up by the feathery threat of a librarian's duster. As they develop, their exoskeleton grows to resemble a hardcover tome, including feelers that fold to give the appearance of clustered pages. An ambush predator, it waits patiently for an unsuspecting passerby to disturb the paper-like antennae. Then, in a flash, it snaps open, grabbing prey with thorned legs and gobbling it down with a fanged snout.

Despite occasionally frightening visitors and novice librarians, the spiders are generally encouraged, for they keep down the numbers of the significantly more destructive Paper Slugs. As their name suggests, these slugs feast on a book's contents - the older the book, the better - and by controlling their numbers, the spiders help to protect these irreplaceable tomes and scrolls. Furthermore, when a Book Spider dies, it leaves behind a hardened, tome-like shell, that with a little work, can be repurposed as a secret compartment, or as a replacement cover for a damaged book. Even the Arch-Librarian has no records of how many books in the shelves started their lives as spiders. Or, for that matter, still are...

Paper Slugs

Charta gusana Small and inconspicuous, these slugs are the real villains of the Library. Their bodies are mostly soft and slimy, and they secrete an acidic enzyme that breaks down paper, later to be absorbed into their needle-like proboscis. As paper is low in nutrients, a slug must devour roughly one page per week, dependent on the size of leaf and oils and residues accrued from years of handling. This can wreak havoc on a defenseless paperback. Slugs may also harm those browsing the shelves. The acid doubles as self-defense, working equally well to burn unwary digits. It's not uncommon to hear pained cries emanating from the aisles, followed by muffled cussing, as a needle snoot finds a fleshy finger. Many of Motometro's residents sport a few scars or swollen finger tips. Thankfully slug numbers are kept in check by the spiders; little hard-bound champions of knowledge and fingers alike.

Caution: Books may bite or burn fingers. Handle with care. Or better yet, with gloves. Thank you, Library Staff.

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