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Rose had followed silently behind, quietly disappointed her plan had not worked. "Claws and a gun," she added to the head-count before heading forward. When the tunnel collapsed/filled with hivelings, she immediately turned to Anolani. "Miss Anolani, I suggest you spread their venom in the passageway; it may at least slow them down." As more of a shock troop herself, Rose had nothing she could do without extra aid. She padded silently behind the rest as they continued at a faster pace towards the Queen.

Rose suddenly had an idea - as they moved, she let her claws drag along the walls, hoping to pick up any residual earth magic that was being used and store it to... well, if nothing else, collapse a chunk of tunnel and buy a few second later on.

They fought their way down, one person using his magic to tunnel as the others helped Anolani hold back the waves of desperate hivelings; the venom was too powerful of preventative measure to give, but it wasn't enough alone; Rose managed the majority of the hivelings that simply pushed through it.

"Your turn," one would grunt as he expended his mana, and another of the equally desperate mages would take his place.

It took minutes, maybe even hours, but it felt like months. They eventually emerged into the Queen's chamber.

From above.

Managing to not quite fall in, they now had perhaps moments to plan before they engaged. The Queen was on the center of the floor, in all its hideous glory, a great sac of egg-releasing flesh twenty feet high with a head, more or less. Around it were mounds of eggs and a slowly ascending barrier of earthcraft being produced as they entered. Always at the top of the barrier - soon to be a dome, by the looks of things - were lines of the combat-oriented hivelings. Waiting for them were 10-foot-tall Hiveling-

"Royal Guards. Those are gonna be tough to get around. First time the Cabal sent a Thaumatank at one, it got flipped over in one hit - it probably would've rolled four or five times if not for its stabilizers. Which were blown out from the unanticipated load, I might add."

Morgan pulled out a couple choice knives, which in Victor's eyes resembled fluorescent light bulbs. "Not the time for a history lesson, Jace. Plan of attack time."

"Capture, not kill," Morgan worriedly reminded him. "Like taking a country's leader hostage, but the people are guaranteed not to invite you to kill the leader and ask if they care. Killing the queen ruins the whole thing."

"Oh right, capture," Victor said, not sounding the slightest bit apologetic or even really affected. "In that case, I agree with Rose. Anolani, you're with me. I'm counting on you to keep them from killing me outright. Away!"

He put a hand on Anolani's shoulder and they slid sideways into the wall, sinking into the shadows and feeling the strange tingling that always accompanied Shadowstepping. It was sort of like feeling your body disperse into its constituent mana, move without feeling any feeling of inertia, and then reassembling again all in an instant. It was very hard to describe to someone that had never done it.

He and Anolani appeared right next to the Queen, from the shadows underneath her disgusting carapace. Victor immediately leaped into action, launching the two of them from the shadows fast enough to go up above the Queen, float motionless at the apex for a half second, and then fall a short distance to her back.

Victor swung his hands up and a dozen and a half shadow spikes shot up from the ground, poised to puncture the Queen's egg sac in an instant. Two additional spikes emerged seconds later, one aimed at the center of her abdomen and the other hanging from the ceiling above her head.

Victor stood on her back, tense as he could be, ready to strike should the Royal Guards decide to attack him instead of standing down. Hopefully he would have some support from up above.

Johnstone floated. He was good at that, and after taking the brunt of the tunneling this far he felt like he wasn't good at much else, but there was always the second wind people were on about all the time. Johnstone had experienced such a thing before, but it was always difficult to reach it, and it always meant being in a bad situation. This certainly qualified as a bad situation; where was the rush?

Instead of acting, Johnstone waited, letting the two make their jump. At this point his priority wasn't necessarily victory. Coming out unsuccessful might mean death for some of the lower-downs, unless Johnstone spoke for them. Which he would, obviously. It was a thing he'd done before. But to have that happen, they needed to get out first. Johnstone watched the tunnel behind them and the queen below and tried to decide how to best get everyone out in the event it became an irrecoverable situation. The two in the dome would need to be broken free; THE BULL might work for that if Rose failed. Why she would he couldn't be sure, but she might. Maybe she'd get killed. Things like that happened. Then they'd need a lift out, which Victor could provide, assuming he was conscious. Actually he could probably slip out of the dome without help, so long as there was sufficient shadow on the outside. Might the bugs be smart enough to light lots of fires? If so Johnstone would put them out, that was a simple enough task.

The two were poised, now. Could the bugs actually be negotiated with? Johnstone was suddenly very unsure. Had anyone mentioned that? Was that in the briefing? "Is this... actually going to work?" he asked of the remainder of the crew. "Are the bugs smart enough to recognize a hostage or are we just sealing our fate? I mean, I know we came here to capture, but that's just... got me worried."

"Toothpick?" Victor croaked back, his voice slightly throttled by his heart, which was pumping in his throat. He hadn't really thought about what it would be like to actually put himself right in the middle of the enemy troops, instead of dodging away from it like he usually did. Luckily it seemed that they were okay for now.

Still, better not to let their guards down. They weren't out of danger until they were back in their Sphere, as far as Victor was concerned. "What does toothpick mean?" Still, it wasn't too hard to figure out the main meaning; they were here to kidnap her, after all.

"I...think I might be able to get all of us out of here. Including the toothpick." It would be hard, but Victor thought he just might be able to pull it off. He wanted to prove himself.

Anolani understood what Jace had tried not to give away. She pulled out a very familiar looking pair of toothpicks and stated, "No Victor. Toothpicks." These had been a few of the teleporting tools given to the group at the beginning of the mission. They would take them back to the cargo bay quite easily. "Stay alert," she said as she moved closer to the Queen.

With a slight bit of earth bending, she was able to get to head level with the queen. To keep the Queen from panicking too much, she put away a majority of her water (though she didn't cap the bottle). Anolani carefully took a toothpick and stuck it in the chinks between the vestigial chitin plates near its head. She then broke it and watched as the Queen disappeared. "See you in a minute," she said. She then broke her own toothpick and waited for the pull to take her to the area where the Queen was.