41 Factions Abound: Tactical Defeat

The Faction War began and Merrick was forced to watch from the sidelines for now. However, he was not able to join the rest of his Faction, the two participants waiting in the wings for their turn had to sit at the front of the stands in a small queue. It was from there that Merrick watched as Alric and Desci dropped into the ruins beneath the Fallen Colosseum.

The precarious path across the center of the Colosseum floor was not just for show. It served as a barrier between the two starting points of the dungeon below. As Alric and Desci met in the middle, they seemed to be stark contrasts of each other. Even though Alric was the rogue-archetype and Desci was the Druid, their color schemes could not have been more different.

Alric had changed into his battle gear and now he looked more like an Explorer than a Thief. His clothes were light and airy with a sun-faded color scheme. Alric's only visible weapons were a pair of daggers strapped to his back. Desci, on the other hand, was dressed in the Hades Collective color scheme of red and black. The druid wore armored robes and had a metal spiked staff.

The first contestants in the Faction War stepped from the path in opposite directions and fell into entirely different locations inside the dungeon. It was designed that way to prevent exactly the kind of tactic that the information broker warned Merrick that Hades Collective was going to try. From the surface, it seemed like it would be easier to just go for the item selected.

Those on the sidelines could monitor the progress of the Faction War through their system menus. It reminded Merrick of going to a sporting event just to watch the live feed on a phone. Though it may have only bothered him to see it because as a participant, his monitoring was restricted.

Those watching from the sidelines could monitor various corridors of the dungeon, the location of the item they were hunting for, and a view of each Adventurer. Since Merrick would be able to use that information to gain a seemingly unfair advantage in the Faction War once it was his turn to drop in, his monitoring was restricted to just the view of his teammate.

Merrick had been hoping to watch the enemy's feed so that he could pick up on some of the Druid's skills. Instead, he simply trusted that Alric would be able to follow the plan that Merrick shared with him at the last minute. Merrick was not worried in that regard. Alric had dropped into the dungeon only a few moments ago and the Thief had already run circles around the Druid.

Desci was still getting his bearings in the area that he dropped into but Alric had already delved most of the dungeon. The Thief was making a mental map as he went, Merrick could tell, and he was also using a piece of arcane chalk to mark the walls slightly as he went. It took Merrick a second to realize what Alric was doing. The Thief was circumventing the restriction on Merrick and Yorin's ability to monitor the dungeon.

Within a few minutes of the Faction War's first round starting, Merrick had already seen most of the dungeon. It was a simple, small layout. Mouseion must have built it specifically for this purpose. In order that Alric ran through it:

There was a barracks for fighters to prepare for the Colosseum above. The Thief ran through this area quickly, there was no loot and no enemies. After that there was a storage room filled with rusted weapons and some kind of skeletal enemy that Alric avoided instead of engaging. There were a few corridors that Alric sped through, only stopping to mark the walls, and then there was a medical wing where the Colosseum fighters could be treated. It was here that Alric found the item he was supposed to hunt: Wicked Surgeon's Scalpel.

The medical wing was also where he found himself face to face with the first real monster in the dungeon that he could not avoid: the Wicked Surgeon himself. From the monitor, Merrick assumed that the Wicked Surgeon was an undead-type enemy. However it was hard to tell because he was covered from head to toe in a bloody medical frock. Glowing red eyes peered out from above a face mask and below a surgeon's cap.

Alric wasted no time luring the Wicked Surgeon from the medical room. First Alric darted into the room and stole something. He was a Thief after all. Just watching his teammate move, Merrick was sure that Alric could have stolen the target item right out of the Wicked Surgeon's hand. Instead, however, he stole something that would anger any doctor… medicine.

Once he had the medicine in hand, Alric did a few things. Merrick was aware that rogue-archetype characters had special abilities called Tricks but he had never seen them in action. Now, he got to see Alric use several in a row.

The first Trick was called Dust Cloud. Alric kicked up a massive cloud of dust that settled directly around the Wicked Surgeon, making it hard for the enemy to see. Then he used a Trick called Hamper that involved planting a dagger strike into the meat right above the Wicked Surgeon's knee, making it harder for the enemy to move. Finally, he used a Trick called Lure that involved striking the Wicked Surgeon with a pebble right between its glowing red eyes.

The last Trick gained the Wicked Surgeon's attention, while the others made it easy for Alric to outmaneuver it. With the attention gained, Alric led the Wicked Surgeon out into the corridors. Unlike the Thief, the Wicked Surgeon was loud. He shouted taunts like:

"Get back here! You're not done with your treatment!" / "I'll teach you a lesson for not following the medical regime set out by your doctor!". / "Those are not your medications! Thief!"

It was… unsettling. Merrick was glad that he did not have to face the Wicked Surgeon. Alric handled it well, or at least he seemed to. After a few moments, Alric's plan became clear to everyone watching.

With the medicine in hand, Alric headed for the end of the dungeon that Desci had dropped in. The Hades Collective Druid was calmly walking down the corridor, heading toward the noise, when all of a sudden Alric came running around the corner with a wild smile. Merrick laughed when he saw Desci's face go wide in surprise.

That was when the fourth Trick came into play. It was aptly called Misdirect. The medicine tumbled through the air, distracting Desci and also shifting the Wicked Surgeon's focus from the Thief to the Druid. As Alric slipped past the Druid, Desci struck at the medicine with the metal spike on his staff. The contents fizzled harmlessly with a splash to the ground.

Then Desci realized the enemy that had been chasing Alric. He also noticed the target item in the enemy's hand. The Druid, incorrectly, assumed that Alric had simply been unable to take down the enemy and claim the prize.

With a quick few jabs of his staff, Desci took the Wicked Surgeon down and retrieved the item. It was a disappointing encounter for the spectators, because the Wicked Surgeon had seemed to be at least a mini-boss but turned out to just be a regular enemy.

As the War Officiant announced the end of the round, and the point to Hades Collective, Desci turned to taunt Alric but the Thief was nowhere to be seen.