"Cover me!" Vella jumped into the foray, trusting Fiona to keep Lakoria busy enough so that she could hold down the overgrown snake with her chainblades. Her other teammate, Kai, was farther down her right and shooting arrows at the Fomor's weak points as quickly as he could.
Just a little more... Vella kept smashing away at the snake, flinging her blades in and out as quickly as she could while constantly dodging the wildly swinging tail. It had been more than half an hour since the battle started and they'd lost Lann when the damn snake swallowed him up, twin spears and all, a few minutes ago. Vella hoped that he was alright, but the man had taken a nasty blow to the head right before he disappeared down the Fomor's gullet.
Fiona sent another painful kick to the snake's scale-covered belly, but so far it hasn't coughed up their missing teammate.
Vella saw the snake give a tell-tale sign of another attack and yelled out as she ducked under a vicious swipe of a tail, "He's going under! Get back!"
Fiona rolled and retreated to a safe distance, making for the closest ballistae beacon. Vella jumped back when the snake plunged into the earth and disappeared from sight.
Vella saw Kai reaching one of the beacons just as the ground rumbled a few seconds later and Vella could only watch in horror as the snake reappeared behind the archer and charged at the man; she knew that Kai was too far away from his dodge grapple anchor, so there was no chance he'd survive the hit.
Lakoria's mouth opened with a terrifying roar, and Vella threw her chainblades out as far as she could, but it was no use. The giant snake descended onto Kai...
(there was a blur of indecipherable blackness that shot out from the narrow space under Lakoria, and if Vella blinked she would've missed it entirely)
...and slammed into empty ground! The snake reared back, roared, and slithered away to attack Fiona. Vella threw her chainblades out, Fiona counterattacked, and arrows began pummeling the snake once again. Vella spared a glance over her shoulder and saw Kai nearly thirty meters away and thankfully unharmed.
Narrowly dodging a swipe of Lakoria's tail, Vella briefly wondered when the hell did Kai get all the way over there?
Lakoria hissed as ballistas rained down on its back, piercing through the armored back-scales. Vella threw her chainblades out even faster, getting ready to chain it down again once it recovered, but the suddeness of Kai sprinting past her (hadn't he been almost 100 feet behind her three seconds ago?) and shooting his prey drive chain at the giant snake made her pause for a moment.
The snake writhed as Kai jumped onto its head and shot a gleaming arrow right through its skull; Lakoria wobbled precariously, eyes rolling up into its sockets, before crashing onto its side with a rasping death gurgle. Just before its final twitches, the snake spat out something covered in bloody vomit.
It was Lann.
Vella followed Fiona as she ran over and pressed her fingers against the spear-wielder's exposed neck – there was a definitely a pulse, so the man was just unconscious. Vella let out a relieved laugh. Thank the Goddess that Lann didn't end up as snake chow.
Kai slid down from the snake's head, landing nonchalantly and returning a nocked arrow to his quiver. Vella's look lingered a moment longer than normal before she turned and helped Fiona haul up their unconscious teammate.
She'd ask later.
