They met up with the rest of the party at the top of the spiral staircase, where they were waiting by a locked door. Amon fumbled for his tools again, he kept glancing back nervously at the stairwell. The footsteps of the automatons were faint, but were still easily audible.
Amon worked feverishly, wiggling the lockpick this way and that in the torchlight. As he watched, Grango swapped hands, holding Derrick by his bonds on the left while reaching out to Amon with his right. "Can I have the map? Maybe I can figure out where we are."
"Couldn't have asked in a better situation, huh? I'm trying to get this door open before we fucking die," Amon replied snarkily. "Besides, there's no reason to. I know exactly where we are."
"What do you mean?" Grango asked.
Amon leaned in, placing his ear against the top of the lock. Aralynn could hear a click. Amon turned to Grango. "Well, for starters, I memorized the blueprints on the way here. Second of all, we're here at our objective." He flung the door open and stepped through.
Aralynn stepped through after him. The sight shocked her. It led to a massive hall with an expansive stone ceiling. Ornate carvings stretched across the stone high above them, and elegantly carved pure white marble pillars upheld the ceiling.
In the middle of the hall lay a larger than life pile of gold, stretching from one side of the herculean hall to the other. Seemingly random objects, presumably magic items, stuck out of the pile, dotting the gold like diamonds in stone. In the middle was a red circular portal, slowly sucking the riches into who-knows-where.
At the end of the hall was a roaring waterfall, presumably the same one as before.
The entirety of the hall's left wall was an assortment of cubbies, each labeled with small name tags and sorted underneath letters carved into the stone wall itself. Perona gaped, and so did the rest of the party as they beheld the sight to be.
The party was abruptly reminded that they were being chased by the casino's security forces as the steps grew louder, and they could faintly hear shouting down below. Aralynn slammed the door shut and locked it behind her again- though she doubted it would be much use.
Grango took charge. "Aralynn, do you mind finding our weapons? Since you can fly." The cubbies spanned from the bottom of the wall to the top, which Aralynn estimated was over 50 feet high.
"I'll do my best."
"Thank you. I would help, but…" He raised his hand, who was still holding Derrick. The goblin seemed very grumpy indeed, but the sight of all the gold seemed to have awoken his kleptomaniac instincts, and his eyes lit up, positively glowing at the sight of all the riches.
As Aralynn took flight, below her the party scrambled to start the search for the joker's card box.
[Observant Lv. 4 has been activated!]
Aralynn scanned the cubby wall- each of the party member's bins glowed a soft green from her skill. She ascended to hers first, thirty feet up, slid the box halfway out, and strapped on her rapier and revolver. One by one, she retrieved the others' bins, placing them nearby as her party rummaged through the gold, searching frantically for the deck.
Once all the bins were down, Aralynn joined the search, using Observant indiscriminately, but the deck still evaded her. The others paused to don their gear when-
CRASH.
The door flung open, and the automatons stormed inside like a horde of scary, angry, mechanical ants. They leveled their polearms and in practiced coordination charged forwards with a shout, brandishing the wall of prickly points at them.
"We need to find this thing NOW!" Hadarai only re-stated the obvious. Soon, the automatons were almost upon them, and in a desperate attempt, Grango searched frantically for anything that could give the party an edge. He picked up the closest thing he could find, a harmless stick from the ground and pointed it at the charging automatons.
"Grango, wait-" Aralynn's attempt for a warning was abruptly cut off as Grango along with the stick glowed a brilliant orange. Not a second later did a massive roaring fireball roll off the tip of the stick, smashing into the automatons' formation, singing everyone in the room with the heat. The stick, having been used, crumbled to ashes.
However, the automatons had been knocked prone, several burnt black with soot. They struggled to stand. Amon was still desperately searching for the deck. He bumped into a mahogany wooden box, which then started to glow white-hot.
"Shit-" Amon barely managed to throw it in the direction of the automatons before a massive shockwave emanated from the box and knocked him back, smashing him into the mountain of gleaming metallic coins. He coughed up blood, clutching his side. "Don't touch boxes. Got it," he said, his speech slowly slurring.
The automatons had stood up and had almost reached the party on the ground.
The situation was dire- and while Aralynn could've fired her last bullet it wouldn't make much of a difference. That was when a new notification appeared.
[Innate Birdfolk Trait: Shape the Wind has been recollected!]
Aralynn tapped on (I) and skimmed the summary. She didn't fully understand it, but it definitely seemed as if it would help- plus, it's not like she had time to spare.
[Innate Birdfolk Trait: Shape the Wind has been used!]
[Remaining Uses Per Day: 0/1]
[The wind answers your command.]
Aralynn could feel her chest heaving as if it wanted to throw up, her eyes crackling with green lightning. Through some supernatural instinct, she opened her mouth, and the following words rolled from her tongue, rumbling like thunder, warm and crisp, swallowing the entire room.
"Push. Them. Back."
There was silence for a split second before the howl of wind picked up in the cavern. Aralynn's wings remained unnaturally still as the currents kept her suspended, as if she were the queen of the wind itself.
Then the gusts rolled in. Not the normal, small ones- tornado force winds swept through the cavern, slamming the automatons back, tossing their heavy metal bodies around like ragdolls. Those that remained standing quickly lost their footing, sliding backwards on the piles of gold.
"I got it!" Perona shouted triumphantly below. She held up a deck with the faces of the joker painted on the box. In the brief moments that the automatons were pushed back, she had miraculously found the magical item.
"Let's move." Amon struggled to stand, so Hadarai grabbed him by the collar and bolted—straight for the waterfall, away from the advancing automatons. Perona followed, Grango close behind, dragging Derrick. Aralynn brought up the rear, still airborne as wind howled through the corridor.
"Jump!" Perona shouted. "I have a spell for this-" The party leapt from the cliff, plunging from a terrifying height. Aralynn looked at the system window for Shape the Wind:
[Shape the Wind duration: 00:12]
It ticked down rapidly.
[Shape the Wind duration: 00:11]
[Shape the Wind duration: 00:10]
[Shape the Wind duration: 00:09]
As Aralynn jumped off the cliff herself, falling headfirst down the waterfall basin, she could feel the strength fading from her limbs with each passing second.
Soon, the duration reached zero.
[Shape the Wind duration: 00:00]
[Innate Birdfolk Trait: Shape the Wind duration has run out.]
[The winds pewter out around you, leaving you in blessed silence.]
Indeed, the winds calmed down and as Araylnn plummeted downwards, she could feel a trickle of something from her nose. Reaching up instinctively, she brushed her nose with her hand. It came away red.
A nosebleed? Did it come from using that innate trait or whatever? I… her thoughts trailed off as a wave of fatigue crashed into her. She closed her eyes, and her world went black.
Aralynn was still falling, falling, falling. At the last moment, something slowed her fall, sparing her from crashing into the brackish water. She hit the surface with a light slap, wings fanned out behind her in a spiraling arc. A couple moments ticked by before without so much as a gurgle, the unconscious birdfolk girl slipped beneath the surface.