Hollow Knight: Silksong is full of clever little secrets that can help you survive the brutal journey through Pharloom, whether it’s a shortcut that skips major sections of the map or a hidden tool.
Some secrets, however, would probably be better off if they stayed that way. According to YouTuber Kilroy Was Here, there is apparently a specific set of speedrunning tricks you can perform that will lock protagonist Hornet in jail with no escape and no way to continue the game.
Plenty of players have already been to The Slab, a prison area you get taken to after being captured by a specific enemy early in the game. It’s a scary place that strips you of your gear and forces you to fight your way out with your bare hands and basic movement abilities. Parts of Silksong can be cruel, but Team Cherry at least designed it so you can’t be imprisoned unless you’ve progressed far enough into the game to have the tools you need to escape.
Or so we thought.
Kilroy found a way to get there without those tools, sentencing poor Hornet to life in bug prison.
“I don’t know why anyone would want to do this, but I have done it anyway,” the YouTube description reads. “Rest in peace Hornet.”
Sending Hornet to jail is a lengthy process that involves precise speedrunning tricks that let you reach areas normally only accessible with her dash. Kilroy explains it all in detail, including where to grind up enough rosaries to buy a key, and how to kill Hornet in just the right way to pogo off of her corpse. “Just roll with me here,” Kilroy says as they intentionally walk into a pit of spikes to leave behind a bundle of silk.
Some jumps require moving in such a way that the game’s checkpointing system places you on a platform you haven’t reached yet and others require using Hornet’s healing skill to stall mid-air long enough to grab a ledge. The most impressive of the bunch uses her taunt ability to lure an enemy into just the right spot to jump off of them and skip an entire area.
The goal is to grab the wall cling ability that triggers the jailer enemies to show up without the dash and without unlocking the game’s fast travel system, thus trapping Hornet in The Slab until you start a new save file.
“So I had initially thought that this was the endgame,” Kilroy says when finally entering The Slab. “I assumed that by getting to The Slab with no dash and with no other abilities Hornet was truly trapped here and that she couldn’t even be able to get her cloak back and her needle, but that is, in fact, not true.”
Kilroy put in the extra effort to see how far you can get in the area with even fewer tools than a normal player would have access to. Turns out, you can make it far enough to get Hornet’s stuff back before hitting a wall. The only door out is locked and the Bellway system to hitch a ride out is inactive because Kilroy intentionally left the Bell Beast trapped in an earlier area.
“This is your end and your beginning,” Kilroy says. “This is your life. And this is a particularly nasty kind of softlock because you’re so close to freedom. You can get your stuff back, but you can never leave.”
Kilroy was also one of the first people to figure out how you can avoid a central mechanic in the game long enough to find a secret item in the final act. I appreciate that their passion for finding the most obscure parts of Silksong also includes finding the most upsetting parts of it too.