The 1st Squad

Lore & Background

In the Tower's 100th Floor, the test structure does not hand climbers a ready-made team. It scatters them, pits them against shifting environmental hazards and rival groups, and then watches to see who reaches out and who turns away. The 1st Squad is the product of that crucible: a small cluster of climbers who, within the first stretch of the test, recognize that their individual strengths patch each other's weaknesses. One brings raw physical power, another sharp tactical thinking, another a quiet, stubborn steadiness that keeps the group from fracturing under pressure.

What makes the 1st Squad distinctive in the Tower's social ecology is its impermanence. Unlike the Night Squad or the White Night Squad, which persist as named organizations with leaders and long-term agendas, the 1st Squad exists only for the duration of the test. When the floor is cleared, its members disperse, carry their scars and their memories forward, and re-enter a Tower that will immediately try to re-sort them into new configurations. This ephemerality is itself a statement about the Tower's philosophy: loyalty is tested not by duration but by the willingness to stand beside a stranger when the stakes are existential.

The squad's internal dynamics also mirror the broader themes of the story. Trust is earned in increments—a shared meal, a covered flank, a word spoken at the worst possible moment. Betrayal, too, is measured in small units. The 1st Squad does not resolve every tension among its members; it simply provides the space in which those tensions are first felt, first named, and first survived.

In Their Own Story

The corridor smelled of iron filings and old rain. Fuga had already moved on, his white coat a smudge of motion at the far end of the passage, and the rest of them stood in the amber glow of the test marker, breathing hard, waiting for the floor to decide whether they counted as a group or as five separate failures.

The youngest one—barely more than a kid in a too-large coat—pressed his back against the wall and said, very quietly, "I don't think we're done yet."

No one argued. They never did, not in that first stretch. They just looked at each other, at the bruises and the split knuckles and the way the light caught the dust in their hair, and they walked forward together into whatever the next corridor held. The Tower hummed beneath their feet, indifferent and vast, and for the length of that one hallway, five strangers were enough.

Reader's Guide

Purpose and philosophy: The 1st Squad exists because the Tower's test floors are designed to be survived collectively or not at all. Its guiding principle is pragmatic solidarity—no ideology, no oath, just the understanding that the next hazard is easier to face with someone watching your back. The squad's philosophy is earned in real time, not declared in advance.

Known members and leadership: The squad is composed of a small handful of climbers who converge during the early 100th Floor tests. Leadership is informal and situational, shifting to whichever member is best suited to the immediate problem. There is no permanent captain; authority flows with competence and the trust the group has built.

Relationship to the Tower and rival factions: The 1st Squad has no standing relationship with the Tower's administrative bodies, the Hunter's Guild, or the various named squads (Night Squad, White Night Squad, etc.). It is a creature of the test floor, born in it and dissolved by it. Rival groups on the same floor may cooperate briefly or compete openly, but the 1st Squad's identity is defined by its own internal bonds rather than by opposition to others.

Key story arcs: The squad's primary arc is the 100th Floor test itself—the climb, the cooperation, the fractures, and the eventual dispersal. Its members carry the lessons of that experience into the wider Tower narrative, where they encounter the larger political and personal conflicts that define the story's central characters.

Did You Know?

• Unlike the Night Squad or White Night Squad, the 1st Squad has no named leader or persistent organizational identity; it exists only for the duration of the test floor in which it forms.
• The Tower's test architecture is deliberately designed to force climbers into temporary alliances, making the 1st Squad a product of the Tower's own rules rather than a self-organized faction.
• Members of the 1st Squad go on to play significant roles in the broader Tower narrative, but their identity as a 'squad' dissolves once the test is complete.
• The concept of the 1st Squad highlights a recurring Tower theme: that trust between climbers is tested under pressure and measured in small, concrete acts rather than grand declarations.