Motif · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Faction Wars

The ninth floor's war, named by Prince Maestro on his own show: nine factions, the Skull Clan victorious six times in the last ten, the Blood Sultanate almost always the first eliminated, and a War Leader's seat the prince intends to take.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 1 — Porthus; Welcome to Faction Wars
• Chapter 6 — Party Planner
• Chapter 8 — Larracos, City of Dreams
• Chapter 9 — Juice Box's war room
• Chapter 11 — Tipid; fifty thousand
• Chapter 13 — The FUPA; a suicide bomber
• Chapter 14 — The flag room and the Ramp-Up
• Chapter 19 — The ruling; the ceasefire ends
• Chapter 23 — Killing in the Name
• Chapter 24 — No Man's Land
• Chapter 26 — Milk; the Empress marked
• Chapter 27 — Gavrilo Princip
• Chapter 32 — King Rust arrives
• Chapter 35 — Volteeg; the dwarves' tunnel
• Chapter 37 — Growler Gary, and Princess Formidable's four choices
• Chapter 42 — The warlord council; Princess Vinata
• Chapter 45 — Prepotente's rant
• Chapter 46 — Operation Snake Pit: the line of succession
• Chapter 49 — Bijou, Theia and Khepri
• Chapter 55 — Head Banger; Milk
• Chapter 56 — Justice Light; the Nest
• Chapter 58 — Sultan Rishi the Usurper
• Chapter 59 — Operation Ruin
• Chapter 61 — The War Mage Rebellion
• Chapter 68 — The Grease Monkey
• Chapter 69 — Interlude — Several days earlier; Interlude — Rosetta; Zarogoths
• Chapter 74 — Bijanbi
• Chapter 76 — The Oak Fell
• Chapter 77 — Not yet
• Chapter 79 — Tart
• Chapter 84 — And then there were two
• Chapter 85 — Zerzura
• Epilogue — Epilogue: Don't Come in Last

Progression

The rules, read drunk by Cascadia: capture the castle; the city closed until four teams remain, then the Peeling; defenders win by holding a week, attackers by six hours in the throne room; a team dies with its warlords or its own throne room; 293 stairwells that open only at the end (ch. 1). Four phases, and a Ramp-Up of 180 hours with no offensive magic and no teleports (ch. 14). Everything else is exploit and loophole: craft magic that ignores protections (ch. 24), acid from a bar scroll (ch. 25), a fifth-floor bait shop as a back door (ch. 29), a mount through a teleport trap (ch. 63), a message log as illegal corroboration (ch. 64), a non-team entity (ch. 62), a hearing stalled on purpose (ch. 67). Agatha's action items restore the original rule — every soldier of a defeated team drops dead — and make it us or them (ch. 68). It is won by forfeit, when two warlords go to the twelfth floor with a city (ch. 85). 'This is war, I thought. This is war' (ch. 70, ch. 73, ch. 85).