Eefina's reflexes are good enough to match the assault, but that's all they're good enough for. There's no room for anything else but adrenaline. But her mind never stops being capable of processing the entire battlefield. She slips between attacks that there should be no escape from, she lands counter-blows that seem almost accidental, but aren't. She is a graceful storm of violence.

One of the boss's strikes ricochets off Cupil and skewers one of the small crabs. This gives Eefina just enough breathing room to dump her entire remaining azyr reserve into the biggest Lightning Bolt she can throw.

The lightning strike hurts the beast. It gives a short monstrous scream when the energy grounds itself inside its shell, entering through the eyes, before redoubling its efforts.

It doesn't actually get any faster or deadlier after that. It was already trying its very hardest to kill her. Some strikes get through her dodging and the active defense of Cupil. They hurt, and they scratch her armor or leave her bleeding.

...Using Azyr as a lightning bolt is the purest and simplest force the Wind can muster, a line of light and heat connecting the shortest distance between two points with mathematical beauty.

Much of it is drawn along that charged line, lingering around the terminus of the bolt.

...a missed beat of the fight sends Eefina tumbling across the room with a badly-bruised chest.

That was a mistake. On the boss's part. As she fetches up against the opposite wall, she has a moment to think.

She has a moment of inspiration.

She springs back into the fight. And ball lightning bursts alight inside the boss's body.

Inspiration. The spreading electricity is beautifully lethal, originating inside the defenses of a lightning-weak enemy. The monstrosity spasms and screams, vulnerable for several long moments, visible burns spreading out the seams of its shell. One of the tentacles turns black and withered, two of its eyes boil away and start bleeding through the wound, a large section of crystal encrusting keens with a painfully loud high-pitched resonance before shattering, sending razor crystal across the room but leaving it much more exposed. It's badly hurt.

And then all the azyr in the room is gone, too scattered to be usefully gathered up again.

And the boss monster stands up.

And a door at the far end opens, allowing in a veritable flood of monsters, as well as a literal flood of rushing water that churns and froths and tugs at her ankles.

Oh void, NOPE.

Even as the boss thrashed her, she was still treating this fight as a means to an end, trying to win the dungeon's game. Now, she's out of the thing she came here to practice, and is staring a wave of on-rushing death in the face. Game over.

"ETERNES!" A scream of panic, a curse, an incantation. None and all of those.

Silver spreads from her hands, filling the air over her head with a glimmering nexus of power that explodes in all directions with a continuous wave of nullifying spikes, screaming outward in a full sphere, indiscriminate.

The spreading wave of nullification explodes inside the dungeon's body, tearing through magical structure in all directions, leaving a - metaphorical - great, gaping ragged hole, bleeding energy and magic profusely.

The water stops flowing. The deadly and threatening giant enemy crabsquidthing resists the torrent of destruction only momentarily. The sealed doors un-seal. The floor and walls start shaking ominously. The other, lesser monsters are barely an afterthought.

...And something deeply sickening happens to the physical space, as if it's - flickering, unstable, twisting. The floor is shaking as a low, angry, wounded roar coming from everywhere and nowhere vibrates in her bones.

Panting, Eefina flinches at the buckling of the dungeon's reality.

That did... more damage than she meant it to. And used up the majority of her remaining mana.

She whirls around, orienting herself, and sprints for the exit to the first floor.

Nothing intercepts her until she reaches the way up to the first floor. The first floor boss room is empty.

The shaking and rumbling is a lot quieter up here and reality isn't - flickery - anymore, but it's still slightly present.

Crap crap crap.

This is bad.

Eefina isn't running flat out anymore, since it seems more stable here, but she doesn't waste any time getting the rest of the way out.

It seems to be slowly leveling off, in the five minutes or so it takes to jog through the first floor and to the dungeon exit.

The guards at the dungeon entrance are alert and worried. One of them is speaking into a glassy blue sphere. "-Four unaccounted for, a tinbadge and three bronzebadges - the tinbadge is coming out now-"

"Miss!" The other guard calls urgently. "Something has upset the dungeon. Are you alright?"

Eefina freezes in horrified realization.

Three bronzebadges, he said. Three people who were below her in the dungeon when she blew up the second floor.

"I'm... sorry."

She turns on her heel and runs back inside. Her mess. Her responsibility. She has to make sure the other three adventurers make it out.

"Don't go back in there, it's not safe!"

The guards don't follow her inside. The first level is still rumbling, but it's getting steadily quieter.

She runs. Once she makes it back to the ruin of the second floor, she searches for the entrance to the third.

Maybe it's the direction all those monsters are coming from? They're making a beeline for the second floor in ones and twos, all along the same path, though every one that sees Eefina turns and heads for her instead.

Eefina isn't panicking this time, and she also isn't even trying to play the dungeon's game. She can be surgical. A single Eterni spike per target, instant kill.

Down to the third floor. She starts calling out, in case any if the three adventurers can hear her.

The three bronze-rank adventurers don't seem to be on the third floor! The surge of monsters is getting denser and stronger, though.

Eefina is not going to be responsible for their deaths, and she is probably the only one who can save them.

Fourth floor?

The fourth floor has the sounds of vigorous combat!

Three adventurers - two warriors in shining armor and a mage with elaborate flowing robes embellished with leather but clearly not much actual armor - are making a fighting retreat against quite a number of enemies along the fourth floor. They're tired, tense, worried, but not outright panicking.

"-Contact front, human!"

"What?"

"A tin- LEFT!" Clang! And then fwoosh, up in flames goes a demonic-looking seagull. "Tinplate, how long can you keep up that purple skill?!"

Eefina's mana is dangerously low, she could clear the horde but she might not have enough left to save everyone if the dungeon out-flanks them before she has a chance to recover. Her regen is fast, but will it be fast enough?

Have to take the risk.

Eefina reaches the adventurers and a silver star bursts overhead, raining spikes of nullification down on the horde of monsters and completely obliterating them. It's far more controlled than her panicked burst. Very few spikes are wasted hitting the walls and floor, and none are wasted on the directions in which there are no monsters.

"Hot damn!"

"Catch your breath, guys."

The mage squints at Eefina, then tosses her a small crystal bottle. "Drink that. Mana potion." She steps over to the dagger-using woman. "No time for looting, we are leaving!"

"But they're-"

"Not worth your life!"

Mana potion! She even has a couple on her she just forgot about them augh. Glug.

"There's no loot anyway!" Eefina yells. "C'mon!"

They start making their way towards the exit with her at a jog but not a sprint, the rogue pausing to snipe one monster with a thrown knife that returns to her hand afterwards.

The mage downs another mana potion of her own, and starts slowly healing Eefina. "Thanks for the blast. Still tin, with that? Uh anyway, word of advice, jogging's more sustainable than sprinting. What's the situation on the upper levels? Think we can get out okay?"

"The dungeon doesn't like 'that'. 'That' is why the dungeon is freaking out. And I was being literal, before. Monsters I kill with my silver magic don't drop loot. I cleared the third floor on the way down to you, and the second floor... isn't there anymore."

"-Why's there a dragon in my house. Not there anymore?"

"Shit, I can't even- No wonder the dungeon is freaking out! This is your fault?" The warrior raises his weapon in Eefina's general direction.

The party leading mage nudges his blade to the side. "Hey, hey, right now it's us versus monsters, we gotta leave. Keep moving." She shoots Eefina a wary glance, though.

She ignores the sword point at her. Too busy jogging and watching for ambush.

"I was overwhelmed. I was barely surviving against the boss there, the one with," Eefina describes it, her tone soft and direct, factual, "and then a ton more monsters burst into the room and I panicked. Then the dungeon freaked out."