Silksong Journal, Entry 6

Oh, behold the glory of the glorious Citadel! After getting to the second act of Hollow Knight: Silksong, I've had some of my best times with the game so far, but also some of my most frustrating ones. By now I have reached a certain point right at the center of the Citadel and explored most of the Choral Chambers before that, with detours into the Underworks, the Slab, and the Whiteward. I also got caught up in a variety of distractions all around Pharloom, where I have been playing courier quite a bit...

Exploring the Citadel itself, especially the Choral Chambers, is quite the treat. The music is beautiful and the majority of the enemies are not that difficult to deal with (except for those fighting with pins), while they are on the richer side, dropping lots of Rosaries for you. It pays to run around here and smash some choir bugs.

Well, I made the "mistake" to go all the way around to where you would come out if you had entered the Citadel via the "Grand Gate", and not its backdoor. I mainly wanted to see what it's like. And it's hilarious how the game immediately tries to lure you into a trap. If you don't understand that you can climb those large scales at the Grand Gate hall, you may run directly into an elevator... one that malfunctions.

This leaves down in the "Underworks" and you have to fight your way out of there first. And this whole part can be entirely avoided, especially in my case where I didn't need to go here at all, but it gives you a valuable insight into the shadow of the Citadel. Here, bugs grind like slaves around the clock to keep the whole place running. They are literally working themselves to death.

It gets especially sinister once you finally get to a bench and learn that they only remain active for a moment and you have to pay some Rosaries each time you want to sit down. You want to rest? You have to pay for it! And if you do, you will be in good company of the corpses left by those who couldn't afford it. It's already common around Pharloom that all of the bell benches have to be unlocked with your money, but this is taking things to the extreme. Exploitation of the working class at its finest.

In the Citadel you can find a new transportation system, the so called "Ventricas", which is essentially a network of bug-sized pneumatic tubes. Since I already had activated other nodes, I didn't actually have to fight my way out of the Underworks, because there was a node down there. But I did so anyway in case there is a reward for it... (I think there wasn't.)

Another detour brought me to the "Slab", an area to the west / left of the Citadel, but there is not much I could achieve here yet, other than unlocking a Bellway Station. I was told that you can get there quite early in the game by getting caught and I have an inkling how that might happen, but I'm going to see for how long I can ignore this part.

Back to the Citadel, I could cleanse myself from the dirt of the Slab inside the nice bathhouse that they are offering. It even has a shower! But to my surprise I found a certain someone bathing there as well: Sherma! She also made it into the Citadel.

And while I'm happy that she is still alive, this raises a number of questions. First and foremost, how did she get into the Citadel? The Grand Gate is still closed and guarded by an annoying boss, who I won't touch for a while. I last saw her at the Blasted Steps, so it's unlikely that she also went all the away around. And she certainly wouldn't want to go on the Sinner's Road, since she is a good, little pilgrim.

Well, I also opened a path into the Citadel via the Slab, so this could be an explanation, but I doubt that this is the case. I can't say for sure, because I went to the Slab first, but it might just be an oversight from Team Cherry's end that Sherma already appears.

You can also meet Grindle again, where Hornet gives him her signature slap when he tries to steal from her. But at least in his case I can imagine that he also sneaked in some other way. And Garmond will eventually roam these halls as well, enjoying the brutal slaughter of choir bugs as much as I do, but I met him last at the Sinner's Road, so he definitely went the same way as I did.

There is a new type of enemy in the Citadel that it's really scary, the Clawmaiden. It reminds me of the Hunter Metroids from Metroid Prime, where they can siphon you from a distance. But in this case they are targeting your silk. They don't always appear and I'm not exactly sure what even triggers them, where I first thought it might be the usage of your silk skills. But that doesn't seem to be it...

Eventually, I arrived at the dining hall and this opened a can of worms, where I don't just mean the hygiene in the kitchen. You can get the oil here, which you require to sharpen your needle a second time (at least I think that's what this is, but maybe I misunderstood). And of course that's something you want to have, but there is a catch... You first have to bring five delicacies from all over Pharloom.

One is easy enough to acquire, the Mossberry Stew, but the others each bring their own challenge. The "Pickled Muckmaggot" sounded like something that you can find at the Sinner's Road, but while I was able to find some connoisseurs of Muckroach guts, who I had missed before, you instead will get a new tool from them, the "Tacks". But those are quite awesome, because you can litter the ground with them for lots of damage.

They even prove themselves useful for acquiring the next ingredient from Halfway Home, the Vintage Nectar, which is treated like a fine wine stored in a cellar. Except that this cellar has a big ant problem... Well, if you look at the map, the tavern is located right above the Hunter's March, so this surprise makes a lot of sense.

Anyway, you have to survive multiple waves of enemies with another Skarrgard at the end, which is where those tacks came in handy. I love how the small ants carry your tacks away, along with the remains of their fallen big brethren. There are so many fun details in this game, I could probably write a whole blog post about listing them all.

Next up were these two suckers: Pill & Tipp. Or Tipp & Bill. That's another reason why I went to the Sinner's Road, you have to look for Tipp there. And previously you had to search for Bill to get new supplies for the shop at Bellhart. Anyway, these courier bugs task you with deliveries to certain places, where this works pretty much like the Delicate Flower quest in Hollow Knight. This means that you are not allowed to use fast travel and you should avoid getting hit at all cost. The major difference is that you have some leeway, where your goods can take a number of hits before they eventually break.

Still, the strategy is the exact same. Clear the path beforehand. And don't use any benches to avoid respawning enemies. This makes it significantly easier. For the food delivery quest, however, you're also on a timer, because the "Courier's Rasher" will eventually spoil rotten.

I'm not sure what is the best route to do this, but it's not like I had any options with the main gate to the Citadel still blocked. And I doubt going via the Blasted Steps is actually faster, so I went over Greymoor and Sinner's Road into the Citadel. I got hit once and accidentally bumped into a wall for two hits, but barely made it nevertheless. I believe you might even be able to connect the Underworks to Bellhart or the Shellwoods somehow, but even if this were the case, I'm not sure it would be any easier. It is a long road to clear, though.

But all these efforts didn't pay off right now, because I don't even know how to get the other delicacies yet. One is said to be at some choral region, where I haven't been yet. And this feels like quite some severe gatekeeping for what's only the second needle upgrade. In Hollow Knight you could get the first two nail upgrades fairly quickly, and I'm quickly getting tired of doing too little damage.

Anyway, if you found the deliveries fun, there is more where they came from. You also get optional courier quests, where you can deliver goods to all the other towns and settlements all around Pharloom, which includes the newest one you can create at the First Shrine, Songclave:

It sits at the top right at the Citadel and you can meet Sherma here once more, who is still in good faith, despite seeing the state of the whole place. But that's going to change soon.

Since I'm sometimes a little too stubborn when it comes to video game challenges, I actually went out of my way to clear the whole path to this settlement again for the delivery, only to find out that they changed their target to the Pilgrim's Rest. Come on now...!

On a side note, you can obtain another Simple Key from Songclave and since I came across the Green Prince multiple times during my tours, I just let him out at some point. There was no other keyhole for me to use it right now anyway... Let's see what this will bring. But he seemed like a nice guy. 

Songclave also lets you acquire the White Key, giving you access to the Whiteward, what's probably the creepiest place in the entire game so far, all cobwebbed like some haunted house. And what's up with the baby carriages?

It's where they have experimented with Weavers, where their silk is behind the whole Haunting in Pharloom. Hornet learned that the silk gets woven into the shells of the bugs and that the silk controlling the bugs is attaching itself to these strands, which explains why some bugs fall victim to the Haunting, turning hostile against you, while others are immune.

There also some annoying enemies in the Whiteward, which rapidly attack with silk, and some new, fat scissor monsters. But eventually you get back to the Underworks to the place where the Diggernauts got constructed, which scared me for a moment. 

But instead of another annoying boss, you can find the Clawline here, this game's version of a hookshot. The main difference is that you will get pulled to your needle, even if it doesn't hit a wall or an enemy, so you can always use for some aerial acrobatics, making the ZL/L2 button get a lot more usage that in Hollow Knight with the Crystal Dash. Which was awesome, but very situational.

Anyway, I find it very hit and miss, literally. It takes some getting used to it, where you always have to pay attention to Hornet's vertical alignment before you shoot. Still, this was very exciting for a new upgrade, because I had a variety of markers on my map with positions of those hanging rings. And I immediately got some major incentive to explore, because there is another shop down there, ran by the constructor. You can invest some good money here for cool tools, like a sawblade weapon, but they require you to obtain Craftmetal, where I had already spent all of them at the Forge Daughter.

Luckily, you can easily return there, because it creates a shortcut back to the nearest Ventrica, via a tunnel that extends through the magma chamber. These crossroads that let you only go straight, where the Citadel also makes use of one below Songclave, are actually quite clever.

Now, some of those markers on my map let me back into the Far Fields and Deep Docks... But oh boy, I was now in for some frustrations. And it's mainly their fault:

The Flintflame Flyers. While I previously complained about the Driznits, they are nothing compared to these overly annoying motherbombers. I can't overstate how much I hate these guys with their giant double damage explosions that don't even harm them. It would actually be a lot fairer if they just blew themselves into oblivion with that nonsense.

There is a mob fight around here, which has three of them in an enclosed chamber and this got me to give up after a number of attempts. And each time you return there, you still have to deal with the Flintflame Flyer shown above, where you only have limited to space to dodge his bombs. But as usual, the Wanderer is for the win, because eventually I realized that I could just pogo the guy into the magma.

There is a similarly frustrating mob fight further down Far Fields, where you end up in a magma chamber with crumbling floors and lots of flying enemies, including a new variant that shoots lava balls, the Tarmites. Well, you can purchase the "Ascendant's Grip" at Songclave, which lets you stick to walls and is very helpful in this fight. It's still frustrating as hell.

At this point I developed the mentality that all of these challenges might be a lot easier to overcome with a double jump, so I decided to proceed with my main goals for a bit. Though, I very much doubted that I would get the double jump so soon after the Clawline...

Still, I went on into center of the Citadel to face the boss there, the Cogwork Dancers. And this was a lot of fun! Learning a boss fight in Hollow Knight (and similar games) is often like learning a dance, where they took this literally here. And a boss that keeps showing you its next move is certainly the nicest thing this game has done in a while.

The ending of the fight was also heartbreaking. If you were ever supposed to feel sorry for taking down a boss, they certainly have achieved this here, despite the fact that these are machines... You can find smaller machines like these two nearby and whenever you destroy them, it is revealed that they are powered by one of the Lumaflies, those creatures that have helped and guided you before. Overall, I keep smashing the lanterns around the Citadel just to free them. Out of principle. Thank you, little butterflies!

After defeating the Cogwork Dancers, this is where the game has its Tourian statue moment. You're tasked with learning the "Threefold Melody", which has three parts and you need to track down three individuals all around the Citadel, where you're given their locations on the map. It's similar to the three Dreamers in Hollow Knight, though here you are not required to travel all over the world to find them.

I've done some first exploring through the lower part of the Cogwork Core, which is giving me White Palace vibes, though I'm getting these vibes from a lot of places. Somewhere in this game world another Path of Pain will be waiting for me...

From there I took a first look at the Whispering Vaults, which is where the "luvvv youuu!" boss seems to be waiting, who I recognized from the trailers... like actually most bosses so far, so Team Cherry wasn't shy from showing a lot with how little they have shown.

You can find a very disturbing centipede down there as well, who is doing a music collection and wants you to bring him cylinders. I also hadn't realized until earlier that the artifacts that you can sell at Bellhart give you little lore pieces this time, which you can access via a small menu there. So far I was simply keeping them in case I need the Rosaries, but there was lots of money to spend with all the new shops.

Eventually you loop back into the Choral Chambers and I decided to do some more side missions before this whole Threefold Melody quest. One of them takes you back into the Whiteward to rescue Sherma...

Now she eventually opens up to the idea that not everything is peachy about the Citadel and her little faith trip... But who am I kidding? At least I'm not worried any longer that she will fall victim to the Haunting with what Hornet has learned about it.

Via the Surgeon's Key, where I completely forgot where I found this one, you can also open a big hole at the Whiteward which traps you with another boss, the Unravelled. It's in the category of "easy boss who will summon other enemies to make it difficult" and I felt like having a double jump would make this much less annoying, because he is so huge and charges through the entire room.

But I can't keep using this as an excuse, so I went back into the Far Fields and Deep Docks to deal with the open ends there. Plus, there was actually a path further down into the Deep Docks that I previously didn't take. And it speaks for itself that the boss battle, the Forebrother Signis and his brother from another mother, felt a lot more doable for me than the mob battle with the Flintflame Flyers.

This unlocks a sauna, yay! I could now open the big vault door from the other side, but I'm still missing something to enter the giant bell housing further down. Or I simply didn't understand what to do there, which happens more often than not.

After some more attempts I also have beaten the stupid bomb mob battle, but this "only" let me find another flee. I like these guys, I really do, but after such hardships you expect a little more... Like one of the Craftstones that I was originally looking for. Or maybe Team Cherry is just severely underestimating how painful these mob battles can be for mortal players.

On my way back to the magma cavern at the Far Fields, I came across another Savage Beastfly... This wasn't a major surprise, because there is a quest at Bellhart to hunt it down, but I expected it to be behind the gate near the Pilgrim's Rest, because some beast keeps slamming against it...

But you fight the Savage Beastfly in the same arena that made you face the Fourth Chorus (the Diggernaut)... And now it will break the floor when it's doing its downward smash and also spawn Tarmites to its aid, which may even fire on the remaining floor tiles. Their burning spit remains for a while, so you can't step on them afterwards.

However, you can just leave... You're not locked into the screen here and can even use this to cheese the battle a bit. You can heal yourself in safety or take out the Tarmites from a distance... Still, I couldn't be bothered, since I still have trauma from the first time beating this boss.

At least I then did the magma cave battle for another victory. Another hard earned one, I might add, because after besting all the foes down in the crater, the magma rises for a Tourian-esque escape sequence. But you are getting properly rewarded for this one with another Mask Shard. Well, in my case it felt rewarding, because this gave me my seventh mask. I can survive more than three hits now with your regular bosses, yaaayyyy!