Ribbings pushed against behemoth slopes. Supertunnel M-B1. The passageway more than earned its designation as George found out. He felt small, an equal to his footsteps against the might of the tunnel.

They spent around two hours in the tunnel- Lestra had said it would be the quick part of their journey- and over the course of that time, they walked past what could practically be an army of guards. Each one stood at an entrance, a kind of maw that led to a different passage. Some appeared staunch and ordered, embroidered in brickwork, and well maintained. Others were crude, as if a hammer had simply been taken to the wall and the hole left as it was. They all appeared dark. A single flaming sconce opposite to the guard at each entrance gave travelers one last beacon before descending into the black corridor.

“I think this is it.” Lestra stopped at a thin fissure in the wall. “Corridor 5-6, am I correct?”

“You brought torches, right?” Donald asked.

Lestra reached into her bag and took out a dormant torch. She tossed it to Donald, who bobbled it in his hands before dropping it.

“Thanks,” Donald said sarcastically as he picked up the torch. He proceeded to dip its head in the flame sconce, lighting it. “Guess I’ll be carrying it.”

The walls were cramped and jagged. George quickly understood why Lestra referred to the Supertunnel as the short leg of the journey. Their shuffling in the tight space on uneven ground was far more taxing than the long strides they could take in the tunnel.

Over a particularly jagged section of ground, George grabbed on to the wall to keep himself from tripping, but instead of a hard, supportive surface, his hand brushed against sticky threads. He jumped back- as far as he could in the four feet of space the corridor allotted him- and flailed his arm to try to rid it of the netting. Webs of Silky string spread over more than just the portion of the wall he touched. They plastered many large spots on the wall, some stretching as far down as the floor. Great, spiders- the last thing George wanted to worry about.

George had to get used to a coat of errant string as they went deeper and the white threads became denser, covering the walls entirely. It should have been impossible for him to walk into anything. The other two were in front of him- they should have cleared the way. But as he took another step, hunched down, yet another invisible string rammed into his forehead.

Webs coalesced into sacks, and the torchlight fell on wriggling shadows of foot long worms within them. At least they weren’t spiders.

Large bulbs with golden ridges oozed a viscous liquid from holes poked in their shells. A fruity, half-rotten stench permeated the narrow channels, threatening to suffocate them. Finally, a chamber opened before them, but they weren’t alone. Colossal wings pulsed, their purple rust stretching halfway across the chamber from a body burrowed beneath a mound of silk.

“It’s not going to let us pass,” Lestra said. “We’ll have to take care of it.”

George waited for either Lestra or Donald to go forward, and put an end to it, but they both stepped back and behind him. His breath stopped as he realized what he had done to himself. In buying the sword, he became the infantry man, the one who goes in headfirst, who battles face to face with the enemy and steps on the cockroach in the kitchen. But that wasn’t him. It never had been. A combination of fear and pity for the lowly bug meant it was always someone else who had to crush it.

Under the watch of his two comrades, he pulled out his sword, and held it in front of him as far as it would reach. It shook in his hand. Just a few more steps and he would drive it through the unaware moth.

“Watch out!” Lestra snapped. Because of her words, George stopped, and caught only

A flurry of air and string rather than a smack from the wings as the giant insect spun upward and around. Between the velour wings hung a grotesque body: a black segmented tube shielded by forelimbs that were sharpened into scissors. The viscous liquid of one of the pods dripped like blood from a proboscis. Thin and faint to the eye, the tendril extended from its mouth between the more immediately threatening sets of pincers which chittered over one another.

As it hovered back and forth in front of him, George stood in place and anchored himself. He treated it as he would treat a bee, a giant, monstrous bee.

One dive too close was enough to snap him out of the turtle strategy. Even if it wasn’t aggressive, the sheer size of the insect was enough that it could inflict serious injury on him by accident. With his entire weight, he lunged his sword at the body. The strike bounced off without leaving a dent. In return, the insect swung down and launched a punch. George fell back and narrowly managed to avoid the scissor, but the dodge left him on the ground, momentarily stunned.

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George stared up, hypnotized by the four yellow circles on the insect’s wings and waited for it send another strike- a killing blow. It flew slower than he expected. He had ample time to observe his opponent as he shuffled backward. The body was covered in hard plates. No wonder his blade didn’t do any damage. The plates shifted up and down as it moved in a manner that indicated some degree of separation between them, but the way they covered each other left no room for exposure- no way to pierce the guard.

If he had one advantage it was that its scissors were short- short enough that they had a hard time reaching him. It would have to glide down if it wanted to deliver that second blow, but it remained at the same altitude, even as it started to pass over him. He had another chance. Yet how would he beat it if he couldn’t stab it? The wings, George thought. They would be the softest part of the insect, and if he could slash them a bit, it would fall helplessly to the ground.

The newfound strategy in mind, George stood up. He slashed at its wings. The resulting tear hardly affected its movement- more would be needed to do the trick. The insect struck at him again, but this time George was more prepared. He took advantage of its slow flying speed to duck as it swooped down and avoided being hit without having to fall.

It only struck once at a time. After each strike, the insect tried to fly a bit past him, and with each dodge, George stepped back to keep the insect in front, while trying to get an angle to put another tear through the wings. He couldn’t tell why it moved as it did, why Donald and Lestra seemed to be so much more important than the person actively trying to bring it down. Then he saw it- a small orange dot multiplied a thousand times in compound eyes. The torch. It was targeting the torch held by Donald. “Your torch!” He yelled back. “It’s coming after your torch.”

“Distract it a little longer could you!?” Donald responded.

Distract it? George felt a bit insulted that his efforts in combat had been seen as only a distraction. Though he couldn’t refute it. He hadn’t even managed to hit its wings again. George slammed his blade against the guarded body again to keep it latched on to him. It slashed down at his arm. Unlike the missed swings at its wings, his latest attack had put his arm close to the scissors. George tried to move it out of the way, but his reaction, slowed by the weight of his sword wasn’t quite quick enough. The attack left a shallow scratch across his forearm. Meanwhile, the smell of burnt toast flooded the chamber. Was it some kind of stroke-inducing venom?

Out of the corner of his eye, George saw what Donald had been preparing. Fireballs! No- they weren’t fireballs, they were flaming pieces of bread. The boy had sent a few loafs of bread into the torch until they caught fire, then floated them over past the insect. It worked. Just as it had caught George’s attention, the insect turned to pursue the glittering lights, leaving its back open to him. And on its back, the plates did not form such an impenetrable seal. Between them, lines of soft, grey flesh lay exposed.

His concern over having to take the insect’s life had become an afterthought, and his fear forcefully suppressed the moment the fight began. And now, George had his target. He charged, holding his sword in front of him with both hands. But before he could put his blade through the insect, an arrow whisked past his cheek, and struck at the thin space between its head and body.

Lestra watched with a calm stare, her bow readied in case one arrow didn’t do the trick. The insect gave its head and limbs one last spasm before falling to the ground.

Amazing! George tried to tell her with a grin. But when he looked back to her, she met his gaze with a scowl that kept him silent and away.

“Let’s get going,” she said, her voice harboring a little gruffness. Just after passing by him, she looked back at George. “Listen, if this is the kind of work you want to be in, you’re going to have to fight bigger, badder, smaller, and far more deadly. And I’m not going to be there when you do.”

George nodded, clutching the scratch on his arm. He knew he was far out of his depth. No situation was comparable to the quagmire he was stuck in, but in the past, he had always tried to drift by whatever current would take him, and now it seemed like he was carried by rip currents. The body of the insect did grant him a bit of hope. It may have been with help, but so far, he had managed to float.

After Lestra’s confrontation with George, both he and Donald held quiet the rest of the distance. A long way past the last white thread dangling from the walls, they came across another open chamber.

“This is a good place to set up camp.” Lestra broke hours of silence. “You know, I feel like we made good progress today. If we continue to push, and don’t have any more significant obstacles, we could make it by the end of the day tomorrow.”

George and Donald smiled, but still didn’t say anything.

Lestra laid out a few sticks from her bag in the center of the chamber. “It’s a bit cold in here. Mind lending me the torch for a second? I want to get a campfire going. We can put it out if the smoke gets to be too much, but it looks to me like there are plenty cracks and holes for it to seep out.”

Without moving any closer, Donald held the torch out in front of him for her to grab.

On one side of the campfire, Donald gnawed on bouquet of jerky, and George chipped at some bread. Sitting by her lonesome on the other side of the flame from the two, Lestra took out an elegant-looking bud shaped like an artichoke. It looked appetizing- ripe yellow skin, and vibrant red at the tips, but George remembered the dreadful way Donald had framed elven cuisine and thought it best to avoid the temptation. Besides, it felt rude to ask for a taste of her food when he had his own, and he didn’t want to risk another confrontation with her.

Lestra held the bud up to her lips and nibbled on it to disguise her chewing. When she put the meal down from her face, her lips were curled in a slight frown, but it wasn’t aggressive, not like the scowl from earlier. Her eyes glanced down. “I’m sorry if I haven’t been the easiest to approach. I wasn’t expecting to have two humans accompany me- or that this would even be done through the guild in the first place. I-I brought mats. Figured you might not remember to bring a surface to sleep on. We can take turns keeping watch.”