The Dreadful Wale

Fixing the leak

Before you talk to Meagan or Dr. Hypatia, check all over the ship for more stuff to pocket. You'll also find a new to-do list with another thing to fix on the ship and an optional objective.

To complete it, pick up the valve wheel from the workshop behind the main briefing room. Take it to the lowest deck and shut down the leak.

Lower Aventa

When Meagan drops you off in the Aventa District, turn to the right. There's a hallway there where you can pick up a few more useful things. Go up the stairs on the far side of the workshop you come out into. There are a lot of guards patrolling the street at the top of the stairs that make it pretty much not worth the trouble. Instead, just avoid it. Turn around at top of stairs and Far Reach up to balconies above you. There are a few collectibles you can grab from right here.

Black Market and Paolo

Head to the end of the buildings toward the guard shack at the end. Take out the elite guard if you want — it'll save some you another person to avoid — then take a right into the alley. Your goal is to cut across and take stairs down toward the black market. You can use the length of the alley to put some distance between you and the patrolling guards if you need to.

Head down the stairs into the alley and then take the stairs down on the left to enter the black market.

Inside, the shopkeeper won't deal with you until after a local thug named Paolo comes in. Find something to hide behind and you can watch Paolo shake down the shopkeeper. You can carefully take out his friends starting with the big guy without being noticed. When you take out Paolo, though, he turns into a swarm of rats that attack you. Killing him — or the rats he turns into — does not affect your Merciful rating.

With Paolo handled, you can finally shop. Cash in on any blueprints you've picked up lately — we recommend upgrading your to Instant Sleep Darts and any other crossbow upgrades you'd like. Your mission clues are going to guide you toward buying a rewire tool to get into Aventa Station. We're not going to recommend getting inside that way — it's a pain. Feel free to buy as many rewire tools as you'd like, but we're not going to be using any right away. Pick up the Ticket Booth key as well — it'll come in handy in a minute. Stock up on anything else you'd like and then head back outside.

Aventa Station

One option, which your HUD and mission clues will point you to, is to hack your way in through the front door. It's extremely difficult to get inside without getting spotted or attacked, so we're going to go over.

Backtrack your way to the main square in front of Aventa Station and Far Reach up onto the lamppost. From here, you can Far Reach onto the roof of Aventa Station. You have a couple optional tasks here. To your left, there's an apartment building to loot. Behind the station, there's a rune that's baiting a Howler trap. Neither of them is strictly necessary, so we'll leave those to you.

In the middle of of the roof, there are two skylights that are open. Facing the front of the station, look down through the left skylight. You'll see a blue-shirt and an elite guard that arrives in a carriage. The elite guard will just kind of hang out there while the other guard patrols. Wait for the blue-shirt to turn his back and then drop onto the elite. Quickly pick him up and Far Reach back to the roof to hide the body. You can do the same when the blue-shirt comes back again. There's one more patrolling guard to take care of. Turn to the left and watch for him on the stairs below you.

When all three guards are out of the way, head downstairs and use the key you bought from the black market to loot the Ticket Booth.

When you're done there, head back upstairs and take the carriage to Upper Aventa.

Upper Aventa

Frustratingly, but predictably, the carriage doesn't deliver you all the way to the Clockwork Mansion. You'll have to unblock the tracks. Turn right immediately after getting off the carriage. You'll discover that you'll need a combination to get the carriage moving again, which you'll find around here somewhere.

Turn left from the control panel and then immediately right. Continue through the white door into the lobby of the Grand Guard offices. There's a guard at the front desk and he's got a friend behind there with him. Far Reach past him and carefully open the door on your left. The guard at the desk is pretty focused on his work, so focus on his buddy first — he's usually in the room directly behind the typing guard. When both of them are taken care of, loot the rooms on the ground floor.

There are two guards in the room at the top of the stairs. Peek through the keyhole to watch them and wait out their tea break. One will head to a desk and the other will start pacing. It's not strictly necessary to confront these guards, but taking them out lets you move around a bit more freely.

There's a whale oil tank on the wall here that powers the wall of light outside. You may be tempted, like we were, to shut it down. Do not do this, though. Powering down the wall of light will bring all of the guards outside in to investigate and that won't end well.

Go up the next flight of stairs to the classroom behind the door marked Private. There's a blueprint laying on one of the desks inside. To the right, there's an adjoining office with a veteran guard passed out at his desk. Knock him out and loot everything from his body — he's holding the Side Alley key that opens up several more collectibles. He's also got the carriage code on his desk.

Backtrack through the building and back out front. You can use the pillars and posts to avoid the guards and explore the Side Alley. These are covered in the collectibles guide, so we'll skip them here.

Head back to the control panel by the carriage and enter the code you found in the sleeping guard's office, then take the carriage to the mansion.

Clockwork Mansion

There are no guards outside of the mansion, so just exit the carriage and make your way inside. With another load screen out of the way, you can now proceed. Explore the first room you enter, then go through the doors to the right. Pull the lever to your right. The room will rearrange itself you'll meet your first Clockwork Soldier.

ON CLOCKWORK SOLDIERS

Jindosh's Clockwork Soldiers are a new enemy you'll face here (and periodically throughout the rest of the game). They're easily the toughest enemy you'll face. Clockwork Soldiers are armored, have eyes in the back of their heads and they look like General Grievous meets Edward Scissorhands.

There are two things you must do to defeat them: Remove their heads and stay stay quiet.

If you remove the head of a Clockwork Soldier, they can no longer see and will rely instead on listening, meaning you become invisible to them when crouched. Removing the head is best done with a drop attack. Failing that, a couple of crossbow bolts or a close-range pistol blast work as well, but expose you if you miss or the head survives the attack. If you're set on destroying the soldiers, try to attack from above — the first drop attack will remove the head, the second will destroy it.

If you're somewhere where you can't get the drop on them, remove the head first, then pick away at them and their armor. Your goal is to remove the limbs. When all of the arms are removed, the soldier will explode.

You technically have two choices here. You can go up and confront Jindosh, or skip that and rescue Sokolov first. Confronting Jindosh is an exercise in futility, though, and will lead you right back here. So lets skip that and just head for Sokolov. Your goal, then, is the doorway behind the soldier ahead of you. When you approach, it will go into attack mode.

This is as good a time as any to practice facing the Clockwork Soldiers. When you've dealt with it, go through the doors.

There's a helpful map on the wall inside that will do you approximately zero good since all the walls move anyway. Turn to the left and pass into the hallway. Move up toward the two guards discussing the Clockwork Soldier at the end of the hall, then duck into the alcove on the right. Wait out the conversation and the guards will start patrolling.

The woman will come down the hall toward you while the man will patrol left and right. Either sneak behind the back of guard that passes you or knock her out and stash her in the alcove. Cut across the hall and out the window on the other side. There's a chance that you could manage this before the guards start patrolling, but you'll be passing back through here later, so better safe than sorry.

Head to the right, following the signs for the dining room and lounge. At the end of the hall, you'll find a pool table (please feel free to argue at length in the comments about how this isn't technically a pool table).

Climb up and through the hatch in the ceiling to enter a crawlspace between the first and second floors. Follow the signs to the waiting room. If you watch through the vents, you can see guards raise up an Arc Pylon in the dining room. Continue around in the crawlspace to avoid it completely.

Continue past the waiting room and drop through the floor twice. You'll end up in the basement of the mansion.

Follow this new crawlspace around and you'll soon come to a whale oil canister powering the Arc Pylon above you. Go ahead and disable it now — mostly out of spite since we're going to be circumventing the dining room anyway.

At the end of this crawlspace, you'll be able to open a hatch and drop into the elevator. Duck immediately to one side because there's a pair of guards waiting right outside. Take them out, then turn to the left to find the Assessment Chamber.

Assessment Chamber

Take the stairs down into the assessment chamber. Open the chamber by pulling the lever and rearranging the walls blocking your progress. Stand on the square on the floor to rearrange the walls again. Right inside, there's a Clockwork Soldier waiting for you. Use Far Reach immediately to warp over to your right to avoid too much trouble. If you're lucky, it'll walk over to investigate where you were just standing, triggering the walls again and trapping itself inside. Otherwise, just keep moving — there are plenty of walls between you and it to keep it out of sight and out of mind.

Continue back into the the chamber and generally toward Sokolov's marker. Smash the wood planks you find on the floor, and stand on the square you expose to open Sokolov's cell.

Smash the planks in Sokolov's room to expose another square to close off the room again if the Clockwork Soldier is patrolling. Talk to Sokolov (and grab that painting in his cell). When you're ready, you're going to have to carry him out.

Use the floor squares to get back out to the entrance. Stash Sokolov and deal with the Clockwork Soldier if it gets too close. When you get to the exit and are ready to head back to the elevator, three guards will show up.

Your best chance to avoid detection is to quickly Far Reach up onto the ceiling of the Assessment Chamber, then get behind the screen to the left of the stairs. There's a lever here that calls down the waiting room. Deal with the civilians inside — or just ignore them — and Far Reach into the crawlspace above it. There's a button that will raise the room back to its original position.

From here, you can backtrack all the way to the carriage and stash Sokolov there. Once he's safe, head back inside again to deal with Jindosh.

Kirin Jindosh

Use the same path once again to make your way to the elevator. If you get in the elevator in the basement, you circumvent the dining room and the guards there. Take the elevator to the second floor. There, you'll find two guards and one Clockwork Soldier. Use a combination of Sleep Darts and Far Reach to outmaneuver them.

Down the hall to the left, you'll find Jindosh's bedroom. Again, use your Far Reach to keep out of sight. You can climb on top of the photography backdrops to get above the soldier.

Use the switches to rearrange Jindosh's ridiculously complicated bedroom/bathroom/photo studio. Ride his bed around to the other side of the wall and go through the doors there to find Jindosh's laboratory.

Laboratory

Jindosh and two of his Clockwork Soldiers are up on the second level of the lab. You're welcome to Far Reach up onto the chandelier in the middle and confront Jindosh and the soldiers directly. It won't be a pretty or easy fight. Instead, we recommend immediately turning right and working your way around the lab on ground level. You'll come to a nondescript door. Pass through the door and take the elevatore you find there up to the third floor.

Climb onto the boxes by the elevator and use your Far Reach to avoid detection. You can make your way to Jindosh's desk. You'll find a note here that hints at the nonlethal solution to the problem presented by Jindosh.

Knock out Jindosh and carry him back to the first floor — jump over the railing to get away quickly if the Clockwork Soldiers catch sight of you. Place him in the electroshock chair.

You'll discover that the electroshock machine doesn't have enough power to fry his brain just yet. Use the hints provided by the nearby chalkboard to figure out that you need to call up the Anatomy and Optics pods to free up enough power. Flip the switch to make sure Kirin Jindosh is no longer a problem.

From here, your task is to retrace your steps all the way to the skiff and Meagan. Make sure you check our collectibles guide before you leave to make sure you haven't missed anything. Just like before, stick to roofs and balconies on your way back to avoid detection.