Concealment
Not everything in the water is simply floating there waiting to be flown into. Some of it is sealed inside the water itself — under a stone, behind a curtain of grass, under silt or crust — and getting it open takes gear you have to earn first.
01 Four kinds of cover
A cover is a fixed object built into a zone, standing in for whatever it’s hiding until the right gear opens it — once, permanently. Every cover kind reads differently on sight, and each answers to exactly one kind of tool.
Cover kinds & what opens them
| Cover | Opens with |
|---|---|
| Boulder | Your claw — no separate tool |
| Sea-grass curtain | The Shear Tool |
| Silt mound | Wash Thrusters |
| Coral crust | The Chisel Arm |
What’s underneath is always one of two things: a creature that was never on the sightable list until the cover opens, or a straight crystal payout credited on the spot. Either way, opening a cover is a genuine salvage moment — it pays Pilot XP on its own, on top of whatever it reveals. See Pilot & Classes.
02 Tools are earned gear, never sold
Three of the four cover kinds need a tool you don’t start with. A boulder is the exception — your own claw opens it, provided it’s a strong enough tier. Every tool below is a one-time milestone grant. None of them has ever appeared, or will appear, in a shop.
An articulated arm ending in a paired blade. Swings out, closes once, and whatever it closed on stops being attached to the rest of the plant.
Earned by: Charting your first Twilight crystal fieldA slow, patient tool. It does not cut so much as insist, one flake at a time, until the crust gives up its shape.
Earned by: Reaching the Midnight ZoneA pivoting nozzle off the main manifold. A few seconds of full wash lifts a silt mound clean off whatever it was covering.
Earned by: Capturing five creaturesOwning a tool doesn’t automatically clear every cover of its kind — the tougher coral crusts and boulders further down the water read their own, higher tier. A stronger claw or a better tool build always opens more than a weaker one, exactly like every other piece of the AV-1’s equipment.
03 The T key, and the honest refusal
Swim close enough to an unopened cover and pressing T — the same key that talks to a station keeper or takes a passage — attempts to open it. Succeed and it’s gone for good: whatever it hid joins the world (or the wallet) on the spot, and the cover itself never reappears or re-locks.
Try it without the right gear and the game never just says “no.” It names what’s missing, and the wording changes depending on how close you actually are:
Two refusals, not one
No tool at all: “your claw cannot get a grip on this stone”
Tool owned, tier too low: “your claw is too light for this stone”
No tool at all: “you need shears to cut through this curtain”
Tool owned, tier too low: “these shears aren't sharp enough for growth this thick”
No tool at all: “you need a stronger wash to blow this mound clear”
Tool owned, tier too low: “this wash isn't strong enough to clear a mound this deep”
No tool at all: “you need a chisel arm to chip through this crust”
Tool owned, tier too low: “this chisel can't bite into crust this old”
A refusal never costs you anything — no charge, no cooldown, no lost attempt. It’s simply the game telling you exactly what to go earn before this particular door opens.
04Sonar hears what you can’t reach yet
An unopened cover isn’t invisible to your instruments even when it’s far past your lamp’s reach. Sonar draws it as its own distinct kind of return: a dim, muffled dot behind a broken ring — a signal the water itself is smothering, unmistakably different from a clean contact on a creature or a crystal cluster.
Wanting precedes having. You’ll often know exactly where a cover sits, and roughly what kind it is by the ring around it, long before you own what it takes to actually open one.
05 The Ledger already told you
A handful of the book’s silhouette entries carry a hint written specifically about their own cover, not just their habitat — a line in the margin that reads differently once you know what to listen for. Some entries name their cover in the margin; the rest simply describe where the animal lives. Neither this chapter nor the Ledger’s own will spell out which species sit behind which stone — that reading is the game, not a spoiler to avoid.