Faction Wars is the ninth floor's contest for control of Larracos in This Inevitable Ruin. Ten teams begin the floor: nine attackers occupy territories around the central city, while Team Retribution defends it. The contest has a rule system separate from ordinary crawler combat. Warlords enlist soldiers, appoint officers, govern territory, negotiate truces, and can lose a team through the death of its leaders or the occupation of its throne room. The route to victory changes with the combat phase. Carl and Donut enter as the Princess Posse's two warlords, so the rules that normally turn crawlers into expendable recruits become tools they can use against the sponsored factions.
The battlefield and its teams
Larracos occupies the center of a wheel-shaped battlefield. The attacking teams start in nine surrounding sectors, although later territorial changes can give one team more than one sector. The Princess Posse begins in spot three, with its transferred castle serving as a stronghold. Team Retribution, the NPC faction led by Juice Box and Ferdinand, holds the city itself. The arrangement makes the central castle the ultimate objective while giving each attacker a base that can also be captured. The defending team has a different victory condition from its challengers; merely having troops in the city does not make its allies joint winners.
The geography matters before the first attack. The Bone Clan's sector includes a prebuilt castle on high ground, rivers, and mountain terrain. The Princess Posse's sector is relatively flat and has a lake near its base. A river crosses the Operatic sector before entering Larracos. These differences influence approaches, defenses, and water access. Baroness Victory's map shows the Posse a large enemy force gathering across the northern border and the Dream's long-range weapons being placed farther away. Faction control is therefore more than a name on the map: it determines where armies can assemble and where an offensive must pass.
The Posse also gains control of Shanty Town through a trade with Team Retribution. The settlement circles Larracos, making it an outer defensive layer for the city while remaining under Posse control. This is distinct from the Posse's original sector and castle. Victory points out that town-upgrade coupons could be spent either on Shanty Town or on the main base. That choice connects territorial ownership to fortification: a team can hold ground, develop it, and use its position to protect an ally without making the two teams identical under the rules.
Warlords, officers, and recruitment
On arrival, Carl's warlord display assigns the Princess Posse spot three and reports an army of only 58 approved soldiers. Other recruits are waiting at headquarters, but the Posse initially has no officers to swear them in. The same interface supplies troop lists, secured locations, faction messages, and a channel for officers and the adjutant. Warlord authority thus has practical limits. Carl and Donut cannot turn a crowd into an army simply by declaring allegiance; they need officers and a recognized recruitment process.
The first recruitment deadline is the end of the Ceasefire. Crawlers may volunteer for a faction during that period. Those who remain unaffiliated after it ends can be captured and compelled into an army. Carl recognizes that recruiting other crawlers is urgent because a failure to join the Posse can expose them to enemy conscription. The Posse's cause gives this rule a different meaning from the sponsors' usual use of volunteers: joining is a means of protection as well as an act of participation in the war. It also means an unaffiliated crawler's choice becomes harder to preserve once fighting begins.
Officers are appointed through the warlord system, and Donut learns that naming one requires physical contact. The rule frustrates her wish to appoint Katia immediately while the group is still arranging its command structure. The Posse's warlord menu also permits a personal guard of 15, despite Carl and Donut sharing command. Soldiers assigned to this platoon receive a constitution bonus when close to either warlord. This benefit rewards keeping protectors near the leaders, whose survival is itself a condition of their team's survival.
Baroness Victory is the Posse's adjutant, an official who explains the rules and helps interpret proposed actions. She can join the warlords during major conflicts and has limited movement privileges, but says she cannot participate in combat as a soldier. She can call fouls against her own side. Her role is therefore different from that of a loyal officer: she supports a faction while also enforcing the contest's boundaries. Her account of ordinary practice is revealing. Many warlords stay in their flag rooms throughout Faction Wars; Carl and Donut instead intend to operate on the battlefield.
Ceasefire, Ramp-Up, and Open Hostilities
The floor begins with a Ceasefire, followed by a 180-hour Ramp-Up, then Open Hostilities. A final phase, the Peeling of Larracos, begins when the field is reduced to four teams. The scheduled sequence is not perfectly fixed. An early voluntary withdrawal triggers an acceleration scenario that shortens the Ceasefire. When it ends, the system removes unaffiliated crawlers from Larracos and announces that the first combat rules have begun. Commanders who plan around the printed clock can therefore be surprised by an event that changes its start.
During Ramp-Up, non-scouts entering enemy territory must use designated corridors. Scouts have an explicit exception, and units that reach enemy ground may move freely once inside. The corridors concentrate traffic at known crossing points. The same phase suppresses direct offensive magic and teleport-based magic or skills across the floor. Celestial summoning is also prohibited during this period. The restrictions do not ban every extraordinary ability. Victory tells Carl that his Gloom Wraith Phase remains usable because the system classifies it as an offensive phase skill rather than teleportation, while Donut's Puddle Jumper is blocked. A magical weapon can still function as a weapon even if a separate spell attached to it does not.
This classification changes how the Posse fights. Donut cannot rely on Wall of Fire during Ramp-Up, and Carl must distinguish a usable skill from a prohibited transport effect. Meanwhile, the enemy can fire non-magical projectiles and employ chemical attacks against the Posse's shield. Physical defenses, artillery, scouts, and battlefield positioning remain relevant while spell-heavy plans are constrained. The rule is not an assurance of safety; it redirects the forms that violence can take.
Open Hostilities follows the Ramp-Up timer. The Posse prepares Operation Ruin to begin at that transition rather than treating the earlier restrictions as permanent. Before it starts, the group holds several fronts: Florin's 101st Crocodiles occupy territory formerly held by the Operatics, while Tran's 102nd Bulwark holds the southern line near the former Blood Sultanate sector. The disposition shows what phase planning entails. A team can seize territory, position formations, and conceal an offensive while waiting for the rule set to change. The next phase then changes the value of ground and resources already held.
Truces, castles, and elimination
Eight attacking factions initially form the Bloc and declare war on both the Princess Posse and Team Retribution. Donut accepts a truce with the defenders through the warlord interface. That agreement has an immediate mechanical consequence: as an ally of Team Retribution, the Posse is permitted to remain within Larracos when the Ceasefire ends, whereas other attackers are expelled. A truce can therefore change access to a place, not merely express a promise of cooperation. It does not merge the allied factions into a single team.
Each attacker's primary base contains a throne room. The initial announced rules say an attacking team can be eliminated if its warlord or warlords die, or if an enemy holds its throne room for six hours. The Posse has two warlords, but their shared command does not grant two separate teams or two separate personal guards. Throne occupation creates a visible countdown and lets an army defeat a faction without killing every soldier. When Team Retribution forces occupy the Bone Clan's and the Dream's throne rooms, the system starts six-hour defeat clocks for both. Control of a room has a legal effect that the remaining troops cannot ignore.
Elimination also transfers assets. After the death of the Dream's warlord, the system announces the Dream's defeat and awards its assets to the Princess Posse. The rule makes leader survival and base defense central strategic concerns even for factions with substantial forces elsewhere. Earlier in the war, defeated soldiers can be offered a place in another army. That possibility matters to the Posse's attempt to build a coalition from former enemies and coerced participants. It later becomes precarious when an emergency rule change removes the ordinary opportunity for some defeated combatants to survive.
The Peeling of Larracos
The Peeling begins when the required number of teams has been reached, opening Larracos to attack. At the outset, Team Retribution can win by holding the city for a week once the phase begins. An attacker can win by occupying the central throne room for six hours. If the defender retakes it, its week-long requirement still applies. Only an individual team can claim the throne; an alliance cannot share victory. Control of the room also grants the city's defense system, with a half-hour delay before its towers activate after an attacker takes it. These unequal timers make the city both a fortress and a race against occupation.
The rule has immediate consequences when the War Mage Rebellion gains standing as a team and occupies Team Retribution's throne room. Its victory clock begins, and the city's towers are due to become available after the grace period. The Posse and Retribution, though allied against the rebellion, cannot simply rely on their alliance to satisfy the single-winner condition. They must prevent the occupying team from holding the throne long enough. The same timer that could have defeated the defending faction becomes a deadline for the Posse's counterattack.
The Rebellion's entry also illustrates how the written rules can change under pressure. After a quorum ruling, the system recognizes its standing. Agatha uses emergency action items to secure warlord resources, the ability to claim thrones, and access to a conscription spell for unaffiliated players. A further approved item changes defeat during the Peeling: affiliated soldiers and warlords still on the battlefield die when their team is defeated. The alteration makes affiliation itself dangerous. It also ends the expectation that defeated soldiers can simply join the victor, so the Posse must consider what a formal team defeat will do to people who are still present.
Action items and adjudication
Warlords can propose emergency action items, but a proposal is not automatically enacted as requested. Ferdinand submits an item that bars people inside the dungeon from watching outside live feeds, limiting a route by which factions might learn what their opponents are doing. Later, an item concerning summoned deities is split: the system rejects the proposed change to summoning rules but accepts a change that requires sponsors to pilot their deities when summoned. Agatha's requests receive their own rulings and caveats. The system can thus approve, deny, divide, or qualify a proposed change.
Adjutants and a quorum also police disputed conduct. When evidence emerges that a faction used prohibited outside information, the matter is judged through an adjutant quorum rather than settled by Carl's accusation alone. Ferdinand's feed blackout does not close every channel: Odette later explains that outside factions still exploit a news-service directory by repeatedly changing program titles. The distinction between a blocked live feed and a still-visible directory demonstrates the narrowness of a formal ban. A rule can be enforced and still leave a usable opening in the system around it.
Faction Wars ends through one more application of classification rather than a shared allied conquest. After the Dream falls, the Posse and Team Retribution are the remaining teams. Ferdinand and Juice Box leave the realm with the transfer of Larracos and Shanty Town. The system treats their departure as abandonment of their posts, declares Team Retribution defeated, and names the Princess Posse champion. Their alliance never becomes a joint title. The result follows the contest's governing distinction between people who cooperate and the single team the system recognizes as winner.