Okay so. I know that I'm late by,⌚👀, a few months, but I still wanted to do that lacenet grindle reaction hypothesis, because man it would make so much sense (and we need to put him through the wrorrors... Horny can't be the only one angsting through everything.)
⚠️⚠️⚠️ warning: extreme yearning engaged, going purely off a lacenet pov.
So, Grindle, he is sitting patiently in his little hoard, waiting for the world to end. He's out in lalaland, planning - or, rather, scheming - for whenever he departs to a different land, full of new treasures and belongings for him to snitch for himself. When he does leave, though, he doesn't want to leave his old hoard behind. It's not so much sentimental value as value value. Thankfully, that pointy bug that helped him out earlier was kind enough to buy some of his junk at his exorbitant fees, lining his pockets just a wee bit more with clickety-clackities. How helpfully gullible she was! Maybe he should try to talk her into carrying his baggage for him into the next place he'd go. An amusing idea, given how much she'd bragged and brandished her importance. Hornet, renowned hunter, reduced to Grindle own courier beetle! Maybe he'd keep her around for a little bit longer, then, open a slight exception and allow the two of them to guard over his hoard together and
Grindle suddenly blinks. That's a weird thought to have. Sharing? Snitchbugs don't share, they take. Why would, why would Grindle ever think of something like that? He might try to understand why. He has nothing better to do, anyhow. And the closer he comes to an answer, the more frightening truths come unraveling before his pale eyes.
And then, just when he's about to make a very, very important realization,
At that moment, as soon as the cave stops threatening to give, Grindle can only muster one though.
Pharloom never truly recovers from the horrors of the black threads. It's more like, a handful of smaller bugs manage to make a feast of its corpse.
As per, eurgh, Hornet's suggestion, Grindle makes his way to Songclave, a hill of lost pilgrims where a dorky little caretaker bug with a cloak over his hat takes him in with the type of kindness that makes snitchbugs suspicious. They chat for a bit, though Grindle tunes out the boring parts, and gleans that the bug in red had been running about, trying to find a solution to their ultimate cataclysm. Something about it being her own mess to fix or whatever? He tries asking if they would know where this bug may have gone, and he mentions the Deep Docks being where she last had been headed to, odd white flower in hand. Grindle leaves without a word, hearing the bug ask him to say hi if he'd see her again.
Horrifyingly, Grindle realizes halfway down that he forgot to pilfer even a single trinket for himself! But he can't seem to bring himself to bother too much. The world's not ending anymore, after all. He'll have all the time later on for snitching.
Grindle eventually reaches these hulking metallic walls surrounded by lava (or was it magma?), another sitty-del jail they had built for caging themselves. He sneaks in around, finding a few valuables off of corpses freed viciously from the haunting, and eventually runs into a pair of bugs clad in metal, one massive, one but a hint bigger than him.
They seem surprised to see another living bug so soon, and ask what his business is. Grindle would otherwise rave about his snitching code of conduct, but felt a smidge of reprehension, instead just saying he was looking for a ...friend? Yes, let's go with that.
The two of them recognized Hornet (because of course they did) and told him a frightening story of her being lowered under the lava (magma. whatever) in a gigantic bell and rescuing a silken bug from its dark, dark depths, vanquishing the citadel's former god in the process.
A silken bug? Silk, as in, those ancient creepy whisperers?! The shorter one seemed to guess so. The larger one adds that she apparently was a weaver bug herself, Hornet.
Oh. Well that's extremely awkward.
Though not more awkward then what follows. The two of them start exchanging ideas at each other that there might've been a bit more between them right in front of Grindle, suggesting thoughts like "care" "understanding" "making each other feel whole", and a lot more in that vein.
Grindle wasn't "understanding" most of it, but he didn't quite like what he did. They mention the Blasted Steps being where they headed to next, and Grindle blasts off with renounced conviction.
He leaves behind countless unpilfered corpses found in his path, but he doesn't look back. The world isn't ending anymore. They'll still be there when he and Hornet come back.
The path to blasted steps is a familiar one - it's where his den resides, after all. Still, as he looks around, scurrying from platform to platform in search for them, he runs into several places he'd never seen before: an odd balloon, a larval judge nest, a pit of bells that he could swear weren't there before.
Eventually though, he comes across the passage to the wasteland that bites the tail of Pharloom. A single tall bug gazes upon the horizon, her posture firm and upright like it had not moved a tick in a long time.
However, he can nary take a step down before she yells into a battle stance and startles the rosaries out of him. Only just barely he manages to save his shell from getting a ring bashed through it.
This bug, Chacra-welding-things or whatever, was another good friend of Hornet's. A friend good enough that she had been told everything about the events that transpired with her. And through a bit of pleading and grovelling (something he is quite good at) he convinces her into relaying him the deets.
So Grindle learns everything. About Great Mother Silk, about the shamans, about snares and void and hearts. But mostly about "Lace", as she was called.
A bug woven of pure godly silk, that had been tasked with antagonizing Hornet ever since her arrival in Pharloom, eventually receiving her sympathy and being rescued from the Abyss below. The story sounds as fishy to the thief as the warrior, but they both seem to understand some unsaid motivations. They both knew preemptively of this white fencer.
And though he may or may not know this from experience, he recognizes that "bug" was one of the citadel's little security guards, responsible for putting hundreds of his snitching comrades to the pin.
Actually, screw those other snitches, she slayed thousands of innocent bugs in cold blood! Did so without even a shred of mercy! Grindle may be a thief and a desecrator, but he at least has a modicum of respect for life! He guesses.
Having enough of this absurdity, Grindle immediately interrogates the tall bug on Hornet's whereabouts, demanding an answer.
She scoffs and engages a threatening position, but begrudgingly tells him that she cannot give him that information herself because
because she's made her way out of Pharloom long beforehand, the other girl in her arms. not even the tall bug's tracking skills could detect their location now. She looks down with a regret that isn't his and says she is truly sorry.
That's when it all comes crumbling down again.
Seems like the world ended after all.
YOUR WRITING IS PHENOMENAL AS ALWAYS AND ONCE AGAIN IM DOWN ON MY KNEES HEAD IN HANDS AAGEUQUQ
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