Blind Spots

What it isCopy Anchor Link

The Starless is gone, but crumbs of its hunger still drift through all three spaces — the Solar System, the Interrift and the Depths. Every five days or so one of them settles somewhere for two days. The stars there go out in a ragged blot with a cold crescent on its edge, and inside it even a ship’s lamps fade. A clot of shadow hangs in the middle, five dead hearths around it, and Shades of Hunger at each.

Spots come only to those who defeated the Starless. In multiplayer a companion without that victory sees the spot while a victor is near, can help and is rewarded equally.

A spot nobody clears leaves by itself — nothing bad happens. The server remembers kindled hearths: if it restarts in the middle of the work, the light you have already returned stays.

How to find oneCopy Anchor Link

In the magmascope you take the spot by walking around it, not by rhythm. The ring of a strike dies in its dark and wakes only the embers on the near side — they glow for five seconds. Strike from another side before the first ones fade: when all five glow at once, the spot is found. A strike into the dark itself gives no ring — no light is born in there.

The ship’s scanner finds a spot in any of the three spaces, and flying within four hundred blocks finds it with no instruments at all. A found spot becomes a jump target for your ship — while it stands and until you clear it.

How to clear itCopy Anchor Link

It takes five to ten minutes, and it is not “kill everything”. But it is work for a ship with a cannon: unarmed, you can only lead the Shades to a burning hearth, which will not win you the clot, and on foot they are simply too many. If you enter a blot unarmed, the line “Bring a ship with a cannon” lights up under the crosshair — you can leave at any moment: the Shades do not chase you beyond the blot.

1. Kindle a hearth with light. Fly within 28 blocks of a dead hearth and keep it in front of your ship’s nose for about six seconds — five diamonds and a bar of light appear under the crosshair. On foot you need to be within 10 blocks; with the Lightbearer in hand — within 18, and it kindles twice as fast; a Star in the Palm on you makes it one and a half times faster.
2. Deal with the guards first. Every dead hearth has two Shades. A Shade hovering within eight blocks of the hearth shields it, and a Shade within eight blocks of you eats your light: the bar turns pale and melts (slowly — what you gathered is not lost at once). Draw the guards onto yourself and lead them away, shoot them, or lure them to a hearth that already burns — near it Shades burn, and are gone in a couple of seconds. Your ship’s hull takes their blows for you, but not forever. When a hearth is half kindled it calls a second guard: one or two Shades rise off to the side and fly at your light — meet them, then finish the hearth. A half-kindled hearth you fly away from fades back quickly.
3. The clot answers. For every hearth you light it sends a Shade from the middle and hurries its exhale. About a minute after the first hearth the clot draws breath: darkness pulls toward the middle, and under the crosshair you see “Inhale: to a burning hearth!” with a melting bar. You have five seconds: get within 18 blocks of any burning hearth (they call with a warm circle) or leave the blot, farther than 110 blocks from the clot. Whoever the exhale catches in the dark takes a blow to the hull (on foot — to health) and has their light blown out for six seconds; everything half kindled goes dark. After the exhale the hearth farthest from you smolders again, and a Shade rises by it. Rekindling it takes two seconds, and from that moment the clot counts its next minute; a hearth left smoldering for 45 seconds goes out for good. A Draft of Light shelters you from the exhale anywhere.
4. All five burn — the clot lies open. The rays of the hearths meet in the middle. Shine into the clot for ten seconds; it will keep letting Shades out while you do. What you have built up barely fades if you turn away to deal with a Shade.
5. The last breath. Half lit, the clot draws breath once more — the same sign and the same five seconds. While it inhales it takes no light: get to a burning hearth. This exhale dims the farthest hearth to an ember again, and the clot closes until you rekindle it; what you built up on the clot stays. Rekindle it, come back and finish.

With every hearth you kindle, a window of stars opens in the black sky around it, and the darkness thins. When the clot bursts, the light comes back all at once.

It is faster with two: the count of hearths is shared, one keeps the burning hearths, the other moves on. Each hearth then has three guards.

What you getCopy Anchor Link

Spoiler: this lists rewards.Show

Everyone who helped gets three shadow clots, two returned light and eight of the supply of their road. Your very first spot gives two more clots and one more light. A cleared spot in each of the three spaces is a unit of data in the anomaly codex.

Shadow clots are needed to call the Starless again — eight of them, which is two or three spots. The Shades of a spot drop nothing: here clots come only as the reward for clearing. Returned light comes from nowhere else, and it makes:

• the Lamp of Returned Light — as bright as a lantern; a Shade of Hunger cannot put it out and burns near it;
• Starlit Glass — night glass with glowing stars;
• the Dawn Tile and the Umbral Tile — pale stone with a golden cross, and a black disc in a cold crescent;

• the Draft of Light — drink it and glow for a minute: darkness lifts from your eyes, and at a spot the Shades cannot eat your light;
• Locket of Returned Light — a necklace artifact: three returned light around a jewel setting, a shadow clot below. With it you kindle hearths on foot from 16 blocks instead of 10, and the Shades eat your light only closer than 4 blocks instead of 8; blindness and darkness do not hold on you. The price — you glow: foes notice you from one and a half times farther. Two spots give the three light it takes.

Crafting table