Borant

The corporation's name is in the welcome text (ch. 2) and its voice is the daily announcement: patch notes, toilet bugs, the stasis rule (ch. 14), a language patch ('Sorry about that, New Zealand'), the Blender Fiends withdrawn (ch. 20), six days instead of ten and the Rage Elemental penalty (ch. 31), safe rooms closing early (ch. 39), the stairwell exploit patched (ch. 44). Its people are Zev and Mukta; its slur is mud skipper (ch. 29). Mordecai's whispered briefing (ch. 36) is the politics: the Bloom, the Party badges, a bankrupt kua-tin system that needs the season profitable and over, and 'the kua-tin government is working extra hard to get you killed.'

The corporation that owns the NPCs it prints (ch. 3) and cuts the floor to eight days (ch. 2). Its floor announcement zeroes the experience for killing citizens and gives city guards 'a slight boost in stats' (ch. 7), which Carl remembers at the magistrate's stairs (ch. 18). Mordecai reads its newsletter between the lines: warn the shopkeepers, the crawlers are getting too strong (ch. 21). Carl's chat theory that it engineered the Skull Empire's murder of a Valtay asset (ch. 20). It burns its one veto of the season on 82 Celestial boxes (epilogue) and is 'on the hook' for the one already opened.

A veto answered by the AI with coupons (ch. 2); a ten-day floor and a note that the AI will push back (ch. 2); a system built with spit and duct tape (ch. 20); cores refused by Hinter (ch. 25); a floor that is its political cartoon about the Plenty (ch. 30); a Bloom rep who takes the account while Zev is sent to reeducation (ch. 25, epilogue); an appeal over fifty-to-one odds (epilogue).

Its saferoom rules explained by Mordecai (ch. 4); its admin's creed spoken aloud in a trailer — the Bloom, True Unity, the Great Consensus, a reawakening once the dry vermin are dead — and its admin dead by a toy (ch. 18). It chooses two crawlers over an admin, is punished with a teleport ban, and is called 'mudskippers' by the Syndicate's liaison (ch. 19). It lets the Gate method stand because the sixth floor is at a third of projected capacity (ch. 33); a politburo has replaced its board and approves what Carl is planning with a warning (ch. 34); a kua-tin underground is about to start a civil war (epilogue). Its walk-on bounty on a cat is collected through Odette's people.

Blackmailed with Bea into looking noble (ch. 18); severed from its government by a court (ch. 19); an Emancipation Front inside it (ch. 20); civil war at home (ch. 21). All the lost money flows to it now (ch. 60); its appeals against gifts are denied (ch. 63); its holds on a goat are negated (epilogue).

Mordecai's memories of past Borant seasons — a bacterial infection, bridges that could not be built — and the council stepping in (ch. 2). Zev says the Borant Corporation will be liquefied after the crawl no matter what (ch. 21); the admin is back to her chipper self, with tension hidden behind it (ch. 27); the proposal Borant submitted for all eighteen levels, and Cascadia humiliated (ch. 40); Borant loses the crawl — 'Things about to change, fam' (ch. 48); theatre in an ocean headquarters (epilogue).