47 Factions Abound: Mistakes Happen

Alric watched with disdain from the sidelines as he watched victory float upward from the shards of the Death Knight's sword. The Thief watched as the hero of his Faction slid to the ground by the fallen boss.

Merrick was in a unique position. He was on the verge of failure. Yet, there was still hope. The system had informed Merrick that he defeated the boss of the dungeon, but the War Officiant had not announced the end of the Faction War.

Since he had crossed several Death Knights throughout his dungeon delving, he had a pretty well defined idea of how they worked. The in-game Knowledge Archive for Death Knights had started out as a few bleak sentences talking about how dangerous they were as opponents. After a few close calls and some decisive victories though, Merrick's entry had grown to become a several paragraph analysis including strengths, weaknesses, and general lore. It was the closing paragraph, that was mostly lore, that came to Merrick's mind now.

***The process of creating a Death Knight is similar to the process that a Lich goes through to create their own phylactery and they suffer the same inherent weakness. The only difference is while the Lich's phylactery is hidden away and well-protected, the Death Knight feels the urge to wield the weapon their soul is joined to in combat. If the soul-bound weapon is destroyed, the Death Knight is destroyed.***

There were only a few Adventurers in Dungeons Below that had the experience of going up against a Lich. Due to the speed at which he had worked to reclaim what he lost when Alex reset his account from the Mouseion side, Merrick had faced several. The worst was an Ancient Lich. It was then that he learned that in the world of Dungeons Below, a Lich could have multiple phylacteries.

The iridescent soul glow that floated up from the shards of the Death Knight's blade reminded Merrick of when the Ancient Lich's soul was passing from one phylactery to the next. There was not much time, there was no second vessel for the soul to flow into, but there was something that Merrick had wanted to try if he ever faced another Ancient Lich.

He threw his Mage's Journal down on the ground next to the shattered blade. With one hand, Merrick flipped to the page he was thinking about. With the other, he started to arrange the shards of the blade into a weak magical seal.

Over the course of his time in Dungeons Below, Merrick had done his best to learn some basic commands or phrases to control magic. It was not as concise as the summoning or the lightning bolt that came with the Mage's Journal but he knew enough that he could craft an incantation to help him now.

The words for soul, binding, and capture sounded very similar as he started to repeat them. Over and over again, the chant sounded more like an arcane prayer than a proper spell but Merrick was alright with that. His promise to Thom rested on this working. His friend had trusted him to take care of this. Merrick could not fail. Merrick was one of the top players of Dungeons Below, even with his account getting reset right out of the gate. He could not fail at this.

Once the pieces of the blade were in place, Merrick took the rosary that he had already imbued with magic and laid it over the pieces. As soon as he laid it down, the iridescent glow of the Death Knight's soul started to swirl like a glitter-filled dust devil. The pieces of the blade beneath the rosary started to heat up from the arcane energy pouring into them.

Merrick was completely ignorant to what was going on around him. Alric had been watching with casual disdain. Part of the Thief's mind wanted Merrick to fail, so that the anger that had been rising was justified. The other part realized that they were not done yet. The boss had been dealt with, but there were still a few ghouls circling the scene. Despite his feelings, Alric sped into action to keep the ghouls from interrupting Merrick's work.

With his speed boosted from various items and effects, Alric had no problem keeping the ghouls off Merrick's back. However, it did keep him from watching exactly what his Faction's Vice Leader was trying. As a Thief, Alric had little that he could do to actually help. All he could do was mop up the mob that the Death Knight left behind.

Just as Alric was about to take down the last ghoul, there was a pulse of energy that radiated from where Merrick knelled over the fallen Death Knight. The energy tore away whatever power had been reanimating the ghoul and it returned to death just before Alric could stab it.

He looked over to see Merrick standing up with a wide, crazy smile. The Faction's Mad Magician was holding was looked like a bundle of metal twigs bound by a melted rosary. It gave off an ominous energy that gave Alric's bones a chill.

As the War Officiant announced the victory, Alric felt his anger boil into something that would fester if he ignored it. Instead of letting that happen, he walked over to Merrick. Alric kept his face neutral, trying to smile or at least look relieved that it was over. When he clasped Merrick on the shoulder and leaned in, those watching from the stands probably assumed he was congratulating the Mage. However, the words he whispered were much less friendly.

"If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have to do these hard fights. You and Thom are the whole reason we're here. You promised Thom that you would carry us for some reason until we get up to speed but it looks like you can barely carry yourself lately."

Alric let go and walked toward the dungeon's exit that the War Officiant told them to use. Merrick tucked the Death Knight's soul into his satchel and followed behind. Alric was not wrong. He did not respond to Alric's frustrations but he did not ignore them either. There was nothing that he could do right now about it.

As they left the dungeon, good news finally came for the Curious Glades. On top of their win, the Faction that was in ninth place lost to the Faction in fourteenth place. Instead of their win bumping them up a single spot, they were able to jump up to the eighth spot in the top ten. Thom and a few others in the stands were celebrating heavily but Merrick did not feel like joining them. Alric had been right.

With the Faction War over, Merrick still had a week of IRL time to wait before meeting his boss. Hopefully Thom would wait before enrolling them in another Faction War and in the meantime, Merrick could find some of the answers he had been looking for.