Everly's sponsor uses helpful-looking gifts to preserve her just long enough for a deliberately memorable death.
The company sends a party mercenary Hasten Poison, saving Everly's group, and later gives Everly an eighth-floor shortcut tool. Those successes build trust and hope.
Everly eventually discovers the items formed a path toward a specific death optimized for audience impact. Her final Cookbook note curses the company and its descendants but does not explain the exact mechanism.
The sponsor is the precedent for apparently protective item packages concealing a lethal production objective.