Merchant Union

**The Merchant Union** or also known as the **"Mysterious Merchant Unions"**, is a group created by the numerous "Mysterious Merchants" who have come to the tower as businessmen in order to capitalize on the Obelisk's Resources, Clans, Wealth and Advancements as a source of income and money for the variety of different worlds they originated from.

The Merchant Unions and its members themselves are considered one of the unique factions within the Tower that possess unique privilege's and abilities due to them technically being non-players.

## Function and Structure

The primary function of the is Merchant Union is to create centralized group for the hundreds of Mysterious Merchant that have come to the Tower and combining their resources to increase their overall income. With the overall hierarchy of the Union itself being closer to that of a large scale corporation.

The Merchant Unions themselves are seen to operate an entire district within the Tower that was given to them to be a Market where they could sell, resell and acquire items, equipment, materials, weapons, ingredients, books, tomes, armors and even information. The territory of the Market itself was personally given to Merchant Union by the Bureau of Floor Guardians, further showing the Union's influence and effectively making the Market a "no-violence" zone due to the Bureau's support that prevents enemy clans and rankers from openly fighting while doing business in the Market.

The Merchant Union also possess its own "Auction House", where the Merchant Union could privately sell the more powerful and exotic items they come across that they cannot sell openly in the Market. The Auction house itself is also the location where Players can bring any item that they want to sell to make some money from their Trials within the Tower's Floors to the Merchant's for reselling.

The overall power, influence and place of a Merchant is completely based on their merits and achievements, this is seen with Atran, who upon successfully making a killing selling the Fake "Emerald Tablet" sold to him by a "Crow" to secretly and unknowingly to him in order to orchestrate a large scale conflict, Atran was immediately lifted up within the Merchant Union's Hierarchy and was even awarded a high position within the Union and his own private office.

### Merchant Groups

The Merchant Unions itself seems to consist of either singular merchants who joins to deepen their connections and expand their network of business through the influence of the Union or separate merchant groups that operate together with them to expand their factions power.

Some of these Merchant Groups were even stated to have enough wealth, influence and power to provide sponsorship to a Clan of Players hat boosts the power of both the Clan and their Group by entering into a business sponsorship contract with them. With the Merchant's themselves providing the clan with resources and funding for their activities in exchange for the clans assistance to further consolidate their power and reputations within the Tower.

### By The Table

One of the most powerful, influential, wealthy and mysterious groups within the Union is the mysterious Merchant Group called "By the Table", who are notoriously known to be one of the most powerful and wealthy of the Merchant's Union Groups that has sponsored/sponsors some of the most power and influential clans within the Tower.

The Organization itself is noted to be a complete mystery, with the members identities being completely hidden due to the always wearing masks when they do business and their exact identities are known only to their leader. The Hierarchy of the Group itself is seemingly divided into two categories, The "Weeds" and the "Wildflowers". The "Weeds" are implied to be the new or lower ranked members while the "Wildflowers" are implied to be its senior members.

By The Table, is infamous due to them being stated to only support and sponsor Clans when a "King" appears and was stated to be highly exclusive, secretive and picky Merchant Group that does not allow just any member to join them. With the Group itself having stated to only exclusively approach a clan when they are chosen by their leader and are deemed worthy by her as a profitable future investment and although many clans have tried to approach them instead to enter into a contract with them, By the Table was stated to simply flat out reject them due to them not being chosen.

This is seen where their leader,Freesia, sponsored and supported Arthia during its rise to power and greatly contributed to the Clan's growth and development as an Organization due to Freesia seeing that Jeong-woo had the potential to become a "King" and personally approached him to offer her backing and investment in his clan. With her group's support, Arthia's members managed to acquire artifacts, resources, materials and other high end equipment they where never able to acquire before hand with their previous sponsorships and resources and later was stated to have funded and supported them greatly to the point that they re-organized their personal finances to a much higher standard due to the gigantic backing given to them.

Freesia herself was also stated to be acquainted with the Current Martial King and was implied to have also begun sponsoring the One-Horned Tribe when he rose as the Clan's leader.

So far, By The Table has sponsored;

* Arthia
* One-Horned Tribe
* Cha Yeon-woo