Thom's words caught Merrick off guard. They had just finished one and their number was up again already, it was hard to believe. So hard to believe that it only took Merrick a second to figure out what happened.
"When you say that we have another Faction War… you mean that you went to see the Registrar, felt awkward about the little bit of light stalking you've been doing on that nice lady, and decided to buy another slot instead of just saying hello… right?"
Thom gave an awkward smile and looked away, "I wouldn't say that is exactly what happened. I was in the area, she was working, and you know I was going to just talk to her but then I remembered that she's only in the game because it's her job as a member of the dev team to oversee the first major event."
Merrick nodded.
Thom continued, "Then I saw that Modesto was lining up to buy another slot and we just managed to pass his faction on the leaderboard. If he pulled off a win… I started feeling a little competitive when he-"
Merrick waved his hands in the air, "I get it, I see what happened. I regret asking. It's alright that you bought another slot, hopefully it will give us a chance to make this dream of yours come true before the end of the event."
"If we can't manage to snag one of the top ten spots, I'm not sure what all this has been for." Thom seemed more serious than normal, "Merrick, I need you to help us do this."
"That's what I've been doing, Thom, and I'll keep doing it."
Faction Wars had become a staple of Dungeons Below for a lot of players. Some Factions were consumed with the PvP option. The one who's Faction Leader Thom had ran into earlier, Modesto Miso, was one of those factions. Others had started out because they viewed the Factions as Dungeon Belows' guild system. The Curious Glades fell into that camp.
However, when the Faction War event was announced. Everyone learned what the Factions truly represented. Rather than setting in-game factions, the developers decided to give the alpha and beta testers another reward for sticking with them in the process.
There were currently two hundred Factions in Dungeons Below but after the Faction Wars were done and the leaderboard was immortalized, only the top ten would remain. Those Factions would then become like starting houses for new players when Dungeons Below finally goes public.
All other Factions would be disbanded. They would be left to myth and message boards. At the end of the event, the ten Factions would then receive bases of operations complete with resources, custom dungeons, and unknown spoils. The lower five would get bases in the current game zone, that had already been trekked and traversed. The upper five would get bases in the new game zone, undiscovered and unexplored.
That was Merrick's motivation for helping. The new game zone was created when he faced off against Xerxes, before he had been booted from the game there had been some kind of terraforming explosion. That terraformed area was the new game zone. It came suddenly, but Alex had known about it, so Merrick figured that it was something that could get him closer to the heart of the game. If he got closer to the heart, he assumed he would find answers.
They had both been silent for a while so Merrick cleared his throat before speaking up. "After that last War, where are we on the boards?"
Thom checked a notice on his desk, "We landed at eleven. One spot away."
Merrick was shooting for the top five, but his leader was only shooting for the top ten. "Who are we up against?"
"Number Eight. Hades Collective."
Merrick nodded, "That'll be a tough one depending on what we draw…"
"Yeah… but we don't want a bad name like Hades Collective being immortalized, do we?"
"No." Merrick chuckled, "You want to get your typo memorialized in this game."
Thom nodded with a wide smile.
Merrick took a deep breath. As the faction leader, Thom had access to information about Faction Wars that only he was allowed to know. Thom was not secretive, but he did seem to follow the rules. Despite that, Merrick still pushed for as much information as he could.
"What's the battle?"
"An Item hunt."
Merrick nodded, the short answer gave him all he needed. They would be delving dungeons, going after specific items. The short answer also let him know that there was more to it than that, but the rules prevented Thom from giving out more information.
After a second, Thom added, "I am going to need you for this one."
Merrick nodded slowly. "When is it?"
"Four days. In-game."
Merrick sighed, "That is not a lot of time. I've got work for the next two… I should be back online half a day before it starts. Which means…"
"That's not a lot of time to prepare on your end, I know. I'll work with the faction to get them as ready as I can."
"I appreciate it…" Merrick was thinking about how he would prepare his abilities and items on such a short notice. "Any idea where I can pull some resources from in less than a day?"
"The City Labyrinth?"
Merrick nodded. Unlike the dungeons, there was a randomly generated maze full of monsters beneath the game's main city. It was only five floors, each with a different theme, and it was really only good for loot-farming. However, some of Merrick's new abilities required charging up and he had not been able to do so since he used them in the last Faction War.
Thom stood up from his desk, "Good luck down there. Folks have been saying it seems to be getting harder lately."
Merrick smiled, "Finally, they're reading my comment cards."