Ghost of Tsushima - From the Darkness: how to poison the Mongol drinks and beat Ryuzo
How to sneak through Castle Shimura to poison the drinks in From the Darkness.
From the Darkness is a stealth-heavy mission in Ghost of Tsushima, towards the end of Act 2.
It's one of the tougher forced stealth quests in the game, so with that in mind we've put together this page detailing how to sneak past the Mongols and how to poison the Mongol drinks.
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Ghost of Tsushima: how to infiltrate Castle Shimura in From the Darkness
From the Darkness begins straight after The Fate of Tsushima ends, with the first day of battle at Castle Shimura ending in bloody stalemate.
First off, you'll need to speak to Yuna to get the plan in motion: you're going to sneak into Castle Shimura and weaken the Mongol forces, instead of charging your men in for a brutal head-on battle.
Infiltrate the Keep of Castle Shimura; Do not raise the alarm
After the cutscene with Yuna, wearing your spangly new outfit, you'll spawn down by the river, near the now-broken bridge to Castle Shimura's main keep. Head to the bridge and, avoiding the arrow fire coming from the keep, grapple a couple of sticking-out posts along the side of the bridge to land on a rock.
From the rock, turn right under the bridge, walk along the fallen tree sticking out of it, and jump past the waterfall to a grapple a slightly lower, marked tree stump just ahead.
Climb up onto that ledge and then head right, using the marked grips to go down, right, and back up around a jutting-out tree to another ledge with a grapple, and you're almost there.
Jump right towards some more marked hand grips and climb up, swing across another thinner branch, up some more grips, and you're at the castle, with a big open window and a Mongol right in front of you.
Do not raise the alarm; Eliminate the Mongols in the first keep
Drop into stealth right away and, when the guard's turned away, hop through the window and assassinate him - there's another at the end of that corridor, so take him out too. Sweep the ground floor for supplies and then start climbing ladders. You've got two more floors of this to work your way through.
On the first floor, there's one guard. Quickly take him out before he turns back around, grab the supplies in the area and either head up the ladder or hop our the window and climb up from the outside - both work fine.
On the second floor, there are two guards which take up positions on the outdoor corners of the platform. Take them out.
Do not raise the alarm; Survey the Mongol Defences
Stay on that top floor and head to the waypoint to survey the defences, where you'll spot more Mongol guards dotted across the garden path outside. You'll also spot Ryuzo, the place where you'll be poisoning the Mongol drinks, and their hefty explosive defences that your uncle will be walking right into if it weren't for you.
How to sneak through the Garden in Ghost of Tsushima's From the Darkness mission
Now you have a plan: you need to sneak through the garden path to get to the Mongols drinks, which you can then poison.
Do not raise the alarm; Sneak through the garden
The easiest way to get across the garden is via the very conveniently-placed slacklines (like telephone wires) that you can run across, above the majority of the guards.
Drop down one level of the keep you're on and ignore all the guards below. Go to the left corner of the ledge and you can walk onto the wire, following it all the way to the raised platform with a guard on. Go halfway across and stop.
When you're halfway along the wire, stop and pick off that guard on the platform with a headshot from your bow, then carry on.
From that platform there's another slackline - follow that back across to the left side of the garden and drop down behind the small hut there to stay out of sight.
Now use your special X-Ray vision to wait for the coast to be clear, and sneak towards the wooden fence with the closed gate. On the left side of that fence is a gap you can squeeze through. If you're having trouble with the guards you can throw a quick wind chime to distract one of them, but you can also get by without it.
How to poison the Mongol's drinks in Ghost of Tsushima's From the Darkness mission
Right, time to get to the dirty work. Stay in stealth and hang left in the pampas grass towards the ledge.
Climb up and there's an archer in front of you. If you're unlucky with timing he'll turn around, in which case just hang left behind the corner of the wall and wait for him to reach assassination distance.
There's a gap in the fence to your right where you might get spotted - use a nice and tactical combat role to dart forwards past it quickly. It might not be necessary but it'll make you feel really cool.
Keep going, hugging this left hand side, and you'll reach some stairs with a guard in front. Quickly take him out and dart into the nearby tent just ahead.
Outside that tent, towards the stairs, is another guard who seems to be staring at a wall - take him out or ignore him.
Turn towards your waypoint, still hugging this left-hand wall, and stay crouched behind the waist-high cover as a guard walks towards you. This is probably the toughest part, with lots of scattered guards that are all in each other's sight lines, so you'll need some patience.
Wait for this nearby guard to stop, and quickly sneak up behind him for a kill, staying amongst the scattered crates and cover to keep out of sight.
Turn back towards the tent and just check no-one's spotted a nearby body - for us they did, so we quickly killed two more guards before they raised the alarm.
Go back to the waist-high cover and get closer to the fire, behind a low fence and some barrels. There are three guards here that you need to get past.
We opted to use a wind chime on the farthest one, wearing the helmet, to make him turn away.
Then we rushed up to the other two and did a chain assassination, taking them both out. The alternative is to use more wind chimes or more patience for them to turn away, and rushing up to the waypoint as quick as you can.
The good news is, as soon as you reach it and press R2 to poison the drinks, the screen fades to black and you're safe, so you could probably rush it without using any patience or stealth anyway once you're by that bonfire. There's a second barrel you need to poison after that quick black-screen fade.
Enter the Keep to confront the Khan
After the rather grisly cutscene, sweep the area for any supplies and end the suffering of any stragglers to top up your resolve ahead of the coming confrontation. Then head inside the keep.
Ghost of Tsushima: how to beat Ryuzo in From the Darkness
Look who it is! Time to finish this lad off for good. The fight plays out very similarly to your previous duel with Ryuzo.
How to beat Ryuzo in From the Darkness
Switch to Stone Stance if you're not in it already, as Ryuzo is still a swordsman.
He has some slightly more elaborate heavy attacks. One starts with a red mark lower, as he spins and then follows up with a parryable attack quickly after, so get used to dodging then quickly parrying.
Another is an unblockable kick, which you need to dodge.
Again, you'll do your best work from the side. A quick dodge followed by up to three attacks will be pretty successful in most cases. That said, he can often parry after fewer than three hits, so be patient and be prepared to just chip away with one hit now and then.
He also still does the same attack where he sheathes his sword before launching a quick unblockable flurry. Always attack when he does this, as it's a couple of free hits if you do!
Stay calm, use the opportunities you're given to heal, and he'll go down.
After the cutscene, the mission will end - and roll straight into the next one in Ghost of Tsushima, Honour and Ash.
Head back to our main Ghost of Tsushima walkthrough for more pages like this, including plenty of other collectables guides too.
