Creatures · Creature
Twilight runner
A long-eared hopper of Mercury that always keeps to the twilight line, between the burning day and the frozen night. Follow it: it waits and calls for you.
In the game
How to get it
It lives on Mercury, on the twilight line, one or two together; it comes with the land the first time you see it.
What it is for
A guide: follow it and you stay on the twilight line, where neither the Sun's heat nor the night's cold kills you. Fall more than 10 m behind and it stops, turns back and calls you.
Why it exists
On Mercury the line between day and night never stops moving; the runner always knows where it is.
The same text the game shows in its progress tree and on the item's sheet (I).
How it behaves
- It keeps to the middle of the line, the Sun just under the horizon, where a space suit stands both the heat and the cold. Off the line, it runs back to it; on it, it hops along it, the way it was going.
- Lost far in the day or the night, it feels which way the Sun climbs and heads for the line: toward the night from the day side, toward the dawn from the night side.
- Any player in Survival within 30 m is its follower; past 10 m, it waits for him and calls every 5 to 8 s.
- Hurt, it runs away like any small animal. Lead salamanders hunt the runners that stray into the day.
What it leaves
Fur (one time in two). A guide is worth more alive.
How to recognise it
Its left flank glows amber like the day, its right one blue like the night, a lilac line down its back between them; its ear tips shine like two small lanterns.