Silksong Underworks walkthrough

After exploring the eerie area of Whiteward in Hollow Knight: Silksong, you’ll have wound up in the Underworks. Silksong’s Underworks region is a maze of traps and other threats you’ll want to carefully avoid while looting this area of all key items, including one of our final movement abilities, the Clawline Skill.

To ensure you don’t get lost or miss out on any vital pieces of loot, here’s our Silksong Underworks walkthrough.

Silksong Underworks walkthrough

There are two ways in which you might have come across the Underworks in Silksong.

The first way of entering the Underworks is via the Grand Gate and/or Choral Chambers, which sees you entering the region from the western side; you will not be able to access the eastern side of the area from here. The second way of entering the Underworks is via Whiteward – which is beneath Choral Chambers – and this allows you to explore the Underworks region in its entirety.

As a result, if you’ve wound up in the Underworks via the Grand Gate, I recommend leaving the area for now, exploring Choral Chambers and gaining entry to Whiteward (which means collecting the White Key from Choral Chambers’ Songclave area). Then, explore Whiteward – which is a small area – until you soon wind up back in the Underworks.

Once you’ve entered the Underworks via Whiteward, come back to this page to walk through everything the Underworks has to offer.

Unlock the Bench

Upon entering the Underworks via Whiteward, you’ll find yourself in a room with a large Fourth Chorus-like robot chained up in the back. Hit the lever on your left and exit, then hit the lever at the bottom of the following passage to exit again.

Jump down into the next room and head left, past a lever, to reach a Bench.

You can attack the nearby lever to drop down into a small room containing some Shell Shards.

With the Bench unlocked, we’re going to go ahead and grab a Spool Fragment, some Craftmetal, and the Clawline Skill. We’re also going to rescue a lost Flea while we’re at it!

Collect the Spool Fragment

From the Bench, go right – the whole way – until you enter a new room.

In the following room, head right and downwards through a long passage filled with crates. There’ll be lava at the bottom that you’ll want to avoid.

Once at the bottom, destroy the wooden barricade blocking the exit to the left, then enter the next room.

Past the wooden barricade is a Spool Fragment you can collect! With that done, climb back up the passage filled with crates and return to the Bench from earlier.

Rescue the Flea

From the Bench, head left and down to reach a lever.

Attack it a few times to create a draft that you can use the Drifter’s Cloak on. Glide up it and exit to your left. You’ll enter a room with some molten platforms and Cogwork Underfly enemies.

You want to make yourself to the bottom of this chamber. I recommend pogoing off the Underfly enemies along the way too; they die to a single hit so killing them all as you descend is pretty satisfying. Just be careful to not fall into the lava at the very bottom of this chamber.

At the bottom, exit to the left first. Run past the Cogwork Hauler enemies here to find a lost Flea. Attack him to free him!

Return to the chamber containing the lava and Cogfly Underwork enemies. This time, exit to the right.

Collect the Craftmetal

In the following room, you’ll need to dash past falling lava, crumbling platforms, and molten platforms – as well as plenty of enemies – quickly. You’ll soon reach an upwards exit.

In the next corridor, go up and then left. You’ll need to dash past more lava and more Cogfly enemies to reach the far-left side of the room, where you can collect a piece of Craftmetal. Upon collecting it though, be prepared for an Undercrank enemy to spawn. Kill him and exit.

Back in the corridor, continue climbing up the walls. At the top of the room, there’s some Silk you can grab if you want. To continue, hit the lever along the walls here and exit to the left.

Unlock the Clawline Skill

In the next room, quickly use the crumbling platforms to make your way over to the left-hand side of the room, being cautious of the river of lava flowing below you.

Just up ahead, you’ll be able to finally unlock the Clawline Skill. This Skill transforms Hornet’s Needle, allowing it to act as a grappling hook, meaning you can now use the discs found across Pharloom and beyond to traverse new areas.

Don’t let the excitement of this new Skill get to you and immediately harpoon yourself into the lava like I did. Bad idea.

The original exit to this room is inaccessible once you enter, so you’re going to have to use your new Clawline Skill to safely make your escape.

One thing to note when using Clawline is that it isn’t solely used to attach yourself to the discs found in this room and around the map; it can also be used to attack enemies, as a mid-air dash with better range, and to safely climb up spiky or cog-filled environments.

Make your way to the original exit for this room using Clawline, and you’ll see another disc and platform above you. These were inaccessible previously, but now that we have Clawline, this is our path out of here.

After reaching the platform pictured above, continue left and prepare for enemies. Fortunately, you can use your new Clawline Skill to make light work of these foes.

In the top-left corner of the room, there’s a Shard Bundle to grab, but you ultimately want to use Clawline on the Cogworker Underfly enemies here to reach the exit in the top-right corner of the room.

Beat the Cauldron gauntlet

Once you do reach the top-right corner of the room containing Clawline, there’ll be one final disc for you to use the Skill on. Doing this, however, begins the Cauldron gauntlet which you’ll need to beat in order to progress.

During this gauntlet, you’ll face waves of Underwork and Cogfly enemies, but you can now use Clawline to deal with aerial foes with ease. Clawline into a pogo attack can clear some of these foes out quite quickly, but take extra caution of the explosive Cogfly enemies; these fellas obviously take care of themselves upon exploding, but you don’t want to get caught in the blast.

Once you beat the gauntlet, climb up the wall on your right to leave. You’ll find yourself back in the long hall containing the Bench so go rest. You’ve earnt it!

We’ve a few things left to do in the Underworks now. Up next, you’ll be collecting the Architect Crest and meeting Loam. After that, we’ll grab the Underworks Map and the Delver’s Drill.

Meet the Twelth Architect and unlock the Architect Crest

From the Bench, use your new Clawline Skill to grapple up to the disc to the right of you. Attack the lever on the ledge here to then enter a room containing the Twelfth Architect.

Speak to the Twelfth Architect and peruse her store, as she sells all sorts of useful Tools that you might want to use. Her inventory includes the Cogwork Wheel Tool (360 Rosaries and one Craftmetal), Sawtooth Circlet Tool (230 Rosaries and one Craftmetal), Scuttlebrace Tool (140 Rosaries and one Craftmetal), Crafting Kit (450 Rosaries), Architect’s Key (110 Rosaries), and a Shard Bundle (50 Rosaries).

Hit the lever to the right of the Twelfth Architect to continue. In the following hall, head upwards and left, attacking another lever to enter the upper half of the Architect’s dwellings. Head left again and exit.

In the following room, you’ll arrive at the entrance to the Chapel of the Architect. To enter, you’ll need to purchase the Architect’s Key from the Twelfth Architect, which will only be available for purchase once you’ve acquired a total of 25 Tools.

Once you head on inside, you’ll be able to claim the Architect’s Crest free of charge. No gauntlets or other shenanigans necessary.

With that out of the way, return to the Bench.

Unlock the Underworks Ventrica Station

From the Bench, hop down to your left, then hop down to your right. In the next room, keep left and exit. You’re now in the chamber we were in earlier that contained the Cogwork Underfly enemies.

Platform upwards to reach a lever. Attacking it reveals a temporary bridge across the chamber that we can use. Cross the bridge and head into the room on your left – with a Ventrica sign outside of it – to unlock the Underworks Ventrica for 80 Rosaries.

Exit this room. Hit the lever here and advance downwards but be careful of steam below!

Beat the Underworks gauntlet to collect a second Spool Fragment

Proceed downwards and exit to your left. You’ll arrive at your second Underworks gauntlet against some Underworker, Underloft and Undercrank enemies. Be mindful that one of the Undercrank enemies will break the floor halfway through this battle, revealing some spiked cogs below that you definitely don’t want to fall into. Good luck!

Once you beat the gauntlet, head left to collect a Spool Fragment. Hit the lever on the ledge here to open the exit.

In the following room, ignore the Underpoke enemy and platform to your left, swiftly exiting.

Meet Loam

You will arrive in a room containing another Underpoke enemy, as well as dangerous terrain. Beneath us, there’s spiked cogs we don’t want to fall into, and just up ahead, there’s a moving spiked block we need to avoid.

Keep left in this area and carefully maneuver past the spiked block, heading upwards of it. Head left to come to an Undersweep enemy. Kill him and then go directly upwards of him, into a passage (pictured below) that’s easily missed.

In the following passage, head left – being careful of the sawblades – and upwards into a room containing Loam. Nothing much to do here except exhaust his dialogue and feel deeply sorry for him. Make a note to come back here once you enter Act 3.

Onwards! Believe it or not, there’s still more for us to do in the Underworks.

Collect the Underworks Map and Bone Scroll

From Loam’s room, head right until you’re back outside again with some Underpoke enemies. You then want to climb up the walls and crates in this section and exit via the top-left corner, where there will be a Bench sign.

In the following room, quickly dash over the disappearing platforms then platform up where the next Bench sign is to reach some Benches that cost 15 Rosaries per use. In this instance, it’s definitely worth the 15 Rosaries to rest, so do that if you can. If you’re low on Rosaries, nip back outside and kill some Underpokes to get some.

Exit the room and keep heading left, where you'll need to quickly jump across some more disappearing platforms while avoiding falling rocks and debris. Exit the room, and again, keep heading left. Nothing to worry about in the following room bar some steam vents you’ll want to dash past.

You will now be outside again with more Underpoke enemies. Platform down to the gold lever shown below, ignoring the silver lever along the way (as this leads to an empty room).

Attack the lever and a crate will come crashing down, paving the way forward. We ultimately want to descend to the very bottom of this chamber we’re in, but we will be making one stop along the way.

After the crate has been sent crashing down, hop down onto the crate below it and look for a sign on your left.

Go into the room next to this sign to retrieve the Underworks Map at last. Before you leave, attack the broken gate on the left wall.

This leads to a passage with some steam vents to avoid and a Drapefly enemy. At the end, you can loot a Bone Scroll that you can go and give to Relic Seeker Scrounge in Bellhart.

When you’re done grabbing the Bone Scroll and the Map, head back outside.

Collect the Delver’s Drill

Outside again, we want to continue making our way all the way to the bottom of this chamber. You can glide down it if you want, but be careful of enemies. The very bottom of the chamber is also covered in spikes.

As you head down, look for a lever on the right and attack it (pictured below). It’ll move a crate below us, unblocking an exit.

Hop down (being careful of the spikes below), and exit to the right. The next room has more platforms disappearing into cogs that we need to carefully and quickly jump across. At the end of the room, however, you can claim the Delver’s Drill finally. This is an offensive Tool that can be equipped to drill into enemies if you fancy.

With that done, the Underworks has been looted bare. You can leave this room and exit the chamber to the left to rest at a Bench (which will cost you another 15 Rosaries) and enter the Grand Gate area of the map again.

Make your way to The Slab and Mount Fay

After unlocking the Clawline Skill finally and having your heart broken by Underworks’ Loam, now is a good time to go and unlock one of our final movement abilities in Silksong, the Faydown Cloak. This is located in the region of Mount Fay which is accessible via The Slab. Here's our Silksong The Slab walkthrough to help you with that!

Alternatively, the Clawline Skill will now allow us access to the Surgeon’s Key in Whiteward, which we can use on the ornate lock in that region to face a boss. Take a look at the final section of our Whiteward walkthrough if you wish to go and try fighting them!

For more on Hollow Knight: Silksong, take a look at our list of all bosses, all Mask Shard locations, and our Silksong walkthrough.