Full Immersion [for what it's worth]

>Neyla: the sword is covert in mustard, use your nose to track it down

Vault into its mouth. If you can avoid its teeth then you should be swallowed whole. About four feet down, the esophagus, lung, and heart are pressed together. If you stab the side of the passage with your spear you should be able to puncture the lung. Now a sword would be better for this part but a spear should work, cut a hole in the lung that you can squeeze through and find the side that's pulsing and stab it repeatedly wiggling the spear in each hole to increase damage to the heart. From then on the heart wounds neck wounds and bruises in its lung from romping around should kill it. At which point it should be fairly simple to escape through the mouth.

> Martial Arts + that tentacle spell = the way you're about to deal with the snake.

>Cause a physical plot hole to appear by managing to slay the snake.

Seconding both of these at once.

Or just get stuck in the snake corpse.

Whatever you do the captain's gonna call for help or something.

Get near a wall, let it come right at you, and move at the last second.

Boring and predictable, maybe, but it works.

The orc keeps running, getting all the way to the end of the cavern before abruptly stopping, turning around to get a view of what the snake is doing. The giant animal keeps on toward her; she waits as long as possible to dive out of the way, bringing the snake to slam itself into the wall. She rolls and stays kneeling, panting heavily.

One of the town guards comes up; he's a little on the short side, so standing up places his head at the same level as hers. "Are you hurt?"
She manages to hastily sign: "Need one rest moment. Please."
He nods. "Okay." Turning toward the giant stunned beast he says, "Draw its attention! Don't aim shots you can't land safely."

As the snake starts to get out of its daze, it starts looking around for Neyla. Instead it finds an arrow in its body from the opposite side, and immediately starts moving toward the direction it came from.

Neyla slowly stands up, sniffing the air, looking for the peculiar scent of mustard. It isn't here. She starts walking, still catching her breath, back in the other direction.

Of course the blade wouldn't have been thrown this far back. But there wasn't any way to turn around with the snake chasing her. She winces, hearing a woman's scream echo from nearby, but keeps going.

"Orc woman." The voice from the helmet again, same one as before. "You're not too busy now, right? Harold says you can Sigsong? The helmet's enchantment is tuned to pick that up."
"Hard while holding spear."
"Well, do you have a name?"
She sighs, and then slowly spells out N-E-Y-L-A with one hand. "Neyla."
"Great. I'm Captain Tor. What's your status?"
"Tired. Looking for sword."
"Why are you looking for it now? You have a spear!"
"Good use of rest time. It is very enchanted. Covered in mustard."
"Covered in..? Well, I'll have anyone in the area be on the lookout for that, alright? It shouldn't be hard to track down. Meantime, reports say you've done better with the monster in there than a whole troop of my guards. So, for their sakes, get back in as soon as you can, alright?"
"Yes."

Neyla takes a deep breath. Still no sign of the blade. The shouting and loud hissing has gotten much closer. She exhales, opening her menu and looking at the available skills. The cooldown on the giant shadowy tentacle is almost up.

Then she turns toward the noise of the fight, and takes off at a run.

---

>Auleoris: distracts the snake with a electricity spell

>Auleoris: ask what is happening with the snake and the orc, and where are they in the moment

The winged woman takes note of the passage starting to widen, a brighter light nearby. "Cap, I think we're getting close. What's going on now?"
"Well, the orc finally gave us a name. Neyla. She said she dropped her sword, it's 'very enchanted' and 'covered in mustard'."
"It's what?"
"Her words, not mine. A troop of archers got in and started distracting it, but they can't do much. Its hide is just too thick."

They make it to the tunnel's exit, the elf opening up a door. There are distant echoes of very loud hissing and various shouted orders. The pair look around, and Auleoris immediately notices something that is a very bright yellow. She goes and shifts around some debris before picking it up.
"That would be the sword he spoke of?" says Anansi.
"Guess so." She starts moving deeper into the cavern, turning the sword over. "You know, if you ignore that it's covered in mustard, this thing is kind of awesome. It's also way lighter than it looks somehow."

There is a loud noise, some rock being hit by something huge. "We should hurry."
"Uh--right!"

They pick up the pace, running toward the source of the sound. Auleoris almost instinctively pulls the blade apart into two swords, finding it much easier to run with the more balanced weight.

Before long they reach a part of the cavern made open by large chunks of it having been knocked over. There is a gigantic snake, as advertised, its tail curled twice in a large circle, obscuring whatever is inside. The snake's head is visible above that, rearing back to strike. It's missing an eye and bleeding quite a bit.

The creature strikes, and is interrupted by something huge and dark wrapping itself around its neck. And then an orc jumps and stabs it in the good eye. The snake gives a deafening scream at that.
"Jeez!" Auleoris covers her ears with her wrists. The snake starts thrashing back and forth, pulling its way up and over to a nearby building. Its tail uncurls and follows as it moves, soon making a kneeling orc woman with a spear visible.

The snake screams again, and this time there is a very clearly visible gout of fire from its mouth. Its tail seems to peel apart at the tip into five or six pieces. The inner part of each piece seems to be covered in either red scales, or scales stained with blood. The pieces move independently, mostly writhing and spasming randomly, as the split goes farther and farther up the tail until a good half of its length is taken up by the impossible anatomy.

When Auleoris' hearing returns, she hears two things. The first is a song seemingly from nowhere; the second is a quiet, high-pitched, giggling laugh from someone nearby she hadn't noticed before. "Hee hee hee hee..would you...would ya look at that? Hah, it evolved. Hee hee hee.." A...satyr? Just sitting around, grinning like an idiot.

The snake's head comes back down, the upper half of its body held up by the lower half, now spreading out to act like so many feet. It spouts some more fire into the air in front of it before sticking out its tongue a few times, sensing the air.
"Well, s***."
"I agree. Excrement."

>

SpoilerShow

I promise the attack from inside idea is now very much on Neyla's mind, but she couldn't make it work just yet.