Party

Party is the Tower’s basic working arrangement for collective climbing. It is neither an absolute requirement nor merely a social label. A Party lets Climbers coordinate their Classes, share access to certain opportunities, divide danger, and receive rewards as a group, while also exposing every member to the consequences of poor judgment, unreliable allies, and changing battlefield conditions.

Definition and Formation

The System recognizes a Party as soon as the required formation is completed, announcing, “You have Formed a Party!” Formation gives a group an institutional identity that individual Climbers do not possess alone. Parties can be assembled in different circumstances: some members already know one another, some meet through hunting teams, and others are recruited because their abilities appear useful to an expedition.

The early social picture of Party life is deliberately mixed. A group of five Climbers—two women and three men—crowds around a countertop, their Relics indicating distinct roles within the Party. Elsewhere, Ben explains that he has been hunting with Kyle Fontaine’s team, pointing toward five Climbers who are conversing together. These scenes establish the Party as both a combat formation and a social network, with equipment, reputation, and existing associations influencing who works with whom.

The System does not make membership indispensable. Being in a Party makes it easier to coordinate according to Classes and makes it easier for The System to calculate contribution and assign rewards to a group, but a Climber can still act without one. This flexibility creates a practical distinction between formal organization and actual cooperation: people may fight beside one another without fully sharing a Party, while a recognized Party turns cooperation into something measurable and reward-bearing.

Roles, Rules, and Compensation

Party composition is regulated by immediate operational needs rather than sentiment. Nathan, the veteran assigned to oversee a Quest, orders the Climbers to divide into teams of no fewer than two and no more than five. He leaves the logic of each choice to them but warns that choosing badly can get them killed. The rule gives Parties a manageable scale while placing responsibility for internal judgment on the Climbers themselves.

The Party also functions as a labor and payment unit. One stated arrangement offers one hundred gold per Quest and fifty gold for each floor advancement, with special missions negotiable and higher floors paying more. A bounty can likewise be assigned to the Party that claims it: one such notice promises three thousand gold and twenty thousand experience points, to be shared among the members. Rewards therefore encourage collective action, but they also make contribution, participation, and entitlement matters of practical importance.

The Party’s importance becomes especially clear in floor advancement. Climbers may use established routes between floors, which are slow, safe, and reliable, or clear a Key Site on the 1st Floor to open an inter-floor Door, a faster but more dangerous and rewarding route. A Party can share the orange Door opened for its members, turning access into a collective privilege rather than a purely individual achievement. The fastest route may involve following the wake of a bus and helping clear a Key Site; Climbers who are present and do not actively sabotage the others can receive the benefit, showing that the wider climbing economy permits temporary cooperation beyond a tightly closed Party.

Coordination in Expedition and Combat

A Party’s real value lies in how different capacities become coordinated action. Loth’s control over dozens of insect species inside a bucket-sized barrel of soil and food scraps gives a group an unusual form of reconnaissance and control. When a gap must be crossed, Loth throws a rope to Will, converting a hazardous separation into a manageable team problem. Such moments make the Party more than a count of fighters: tools, creatures, terrain, and specialized abilities all become part of its working network.

The arrangement is equally important during retreat. At the Kaith Bridge, Nathan is supposed to serve as the spearhead holding the bridge while the Parties determine how to destroy it. Once circumstances change, the remaining task is to return to the surface, bring Nathan and the other Parties back the next day, and ensure that everyone is rested before renewed action. The Party system therefore supports rotation, recovery, and command continuity as well as direct assault.

Its logistical character appears again in the response to the fire-mote swarm and the Tangled threat. After planning, one member is sent to lure the fire-motes away while the other three descend into the water tanks to rig them for explosion. The resulting steam explosion leaves the Tangled collapsed and writhing in pain. The victory comes through divided tasks, timing, engineering, and deliberate exposure of one member to danger rather than through undifferentiated force. The Party distributes action across bodies and spaces, allowing a small group to affect a much larger threat.

That scale can become frightening. Loth reports that thirteen thousand Tangled are stalking the city, up from just under nine thousand three days earlier. Against such growth, the Party is both a weapon and a limit: it can plan, lure, sabotage, and exploit infrastructure, but it must work within the pressure of an expanding enemy population. When Oilton explodes while Will and Loth are discussing Build strategy, the Party’s plans are abruptly overtaken by a crisis larger than any one member’s intentions.

Trust, Recruitment, and Membership

Party membership is also a judgment about trust. One prospective recruit asks to join because he sees that the group is going somewhere and wants to be part of it. Will refuses to invite him immediately, not because his abilities are irrelevant, but because he attacked without warning. Will treats unprovoked violence as a warning sign and offers conditional acceptance only if the claimant stays with the group, demonstrates that he is not irrational, and earns reconsideration.

This exchange defines the Party as a moral and security boundary. Capability alone does not guarantee entry. A useful fighter who cannot be trusted may endanger every other member, so recruitment becomes a test of conduct as well as strength. The Party’s apparent openness is therefore conditional: it can absorb outsiders, but only after observing how they behave under pressure.

The same principle governs the treatment of injured or endangered members. Will refers to a companion as his Party member while negotiating over a health potion, first asking to give the potion to that member and then asking whether the healer can heal the injured companion. The wording turns care into a recognized obligation. A Party member is not simply another nearby Climber; the relationship creates a claim on resources, attention, and assistance.

Continuity and Narrative Significance

Party identity persists across separation and disaster. After a major upheaval, accounts indicate that Will’s Party should be present at the expected meeting place. Steve later reports that the members are resting at an inn a few streets away and had arrived hours earlier, asking around town for Will and Loth. The Party thus operates as a dispersed but continuing unit: its members can be separated physically without the group’s purpose disappearing.

When Will reaches the next stage of advancement, The System identifies him as a level 11 Resourceful Climber, but the achievement is framed within a history of shared effort rather than solitary progression. The Party helps make advancement possible by linking Classes, routes, equipment, planning, and reward calculation. At the same time, it cannot erase individual responsibility. A bad teammate can get others killed, a reckless recruit can threaten the group, and a sudden catastrophe can scatter members before they regroup.

The concept’s larger significance lies in this tension between individual agency and networked survival. Parties are formal enough for The System to measure contribution and distribute payment, yet flexible enough to include temporary alliances, buses, rescue efforts, and members whose loyalty must still be tested. Their work is sustained not only by Climbers but by Relics, controlled insects, ropes, doors, bridges, mines, water tanks, fire-motes, and the rules governing access and rewards. In the Tower, survival is achieved by assembling a temporary institution capable of turning unequal abilities and unstable environments into coordinated action.