Motif · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

Sponsorship

The patron system Mordecai explains in the tutorial guild — organisations that sponsor a crawler by buying boxes, and the Benefactor Boxes only patrons can send — changed by the AI as the second floor opens: three patron slots per crawler, each auctioned for one day as the fourth, fifth and sixth floors open, bids from one credit, and 'the more your patron pays for you, the more and higher-quality Benefactor Boxes you may receive.'

Segment appearances

• Chapter 1 — Hump Town
• Chapter 5 — Rapid Detox
• Chapter 7 — The frog con
• Chapter 8 — A yam from the pacifists
• Chapter 9 — Ruckus
• Chapter 12 — Dolores Doesn't Splat
• Chapter 13 — Gerbils
• Chapter 14 — Maggie
• Chapter 17 — Jennifer and Dale's house
• Chapter 30 — Get Orthrus
• Chapter 33 — Phase three
• Chapter 34 — Seeding the pond

Progression

Second sponsors: the pacifists for Carl, Veriluxx for Donut at the highest bid in the series' history, the Squim Conglomerate for Katia (ch. 7); a product sample that must be seen used and an infomercial (ch. 7, ch. 18); benefactors building an item over five floors (ch. 9); Maggie sponsored twice by the Skull Empire and armed through a saferoom (ch. 14); Emberus a locked god no one may sponsor (ch. 31); the Maestro's grenade thrown at Quan (ch. 31); a politburo's warning that antics affecting sponsors will not be tolerated (ch. 34); an anonymous sponsor paying every hunter's entry fee (ch. 33).