...hm. Read that subject line. I'm so sorry, guys. Thankfully the effect of the salt happening very quickly means the magnifying glass won't be wasted, yup.
"Salt probably shouldn't hurt paper" is a perfectly natural thing to think--after all, why should it? Table salt isn't particularly corrosive, nor is it particularly reactive either.
But this is a land where many "should"s, "would"s and "could"s don't follow the laws that one might be used to. So even with that light sprinkle, something starts to unravel.
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the page itself begins to unravel, fibers of paper seeming to unwind as they morph into black threads that begin to dissolve into dust at their tips, dark like ashes. Spreading out from the salt crystals as their epicenters, the erosion also spreads rapidly towards the rest of the page, leaving once-tightly woven matter now unbound and crumbling before Phil and Marcus's eyes. The destruction continues until there's nothing left of the paper but a pile of black dust and the movement of dozens of tiny little insects as they come crawling out from under, like a colony leaving its nest.
It's not marching letter ants, it's marching ants.]
Content Warning: Lots of Bugs
...hm. Read that subject line. I'm so sorry, guys. Thankfully the effect of the salt happening very quickly means the magnifying glass won't be wasted, yup.
"Salt probably shouldn't hurt paper" is a perfectly natural thing to think--after all, why should it? Table salt isn't particularly corrosive, nor is it particularly reactive either.
But this is a land where many "should"s, "would"s and "could"s don't follow the laws that one might be used to. So even with that light sprinkle, something starts to unravel.
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the page itself begins to unravel, fibers of paper seeming to unwind as they morph into black threads that begin to dissolve into dust at their tips, dark like ashes. Spreading out from the salt crystals as their epicenters, the erosion also spreads rapidly towards the rest of the page, leaving once-tightly woven matter now unbound and crumbling before Phil and Marcus's eyes. The destruction continues until there's nothing left of the paper but a pile of black dust and the movement of dozens of tiny little insects as they come crawling out from under, like a colony leaving its nest.
It's not marching letter ants, it's marching ants.]