‘Riju of Gerudo Town’ quest walkthrough in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Completing “Riju of Gerudo Town” in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom helps you find Riju, one of the four companions you’ll need to seek out.

You can start this once you have become acquainted with Purah, who sends you off in four directions as part of the Regional Phenomena main quest — with this being in the south-west of Hyrule’s map.

Riju is in the Gerudo Town desert and before she helps you, you’ll need to assist her in freeing Gerudo Desert from a terrible sandstorm.

What you need to know before starting Riju of Gerudo Town

Getting to Gerudo Town can be hectic, but if you start from the Kara-Kara Bazaar and just keep heading in one direction without turning or getting distracted, you should be able to get there with no problems.

Once you actually arrive in Gerudo Town, Buliara will prevent you for getting tossed out. You’ll be free to explore the now-underground town, buy stuff from the vendors, and most importantly, find Riju.

Before you head off on this long journey, consider farming up some hydromelons and cooking them to give you heat resistance. You will frequently need to cool down if you’re caught out during the daytime and it’s better to have the cooling food on-hand before, so you don’t have to run back and forth between the town and wherever you’re supposed to be.

You can find hydromelons around Gerudo Desert, so feel free to lose yourself in the sandstorm to find them, as long as you have the nearby shrines unlocked to teleport back to.

How to find Riju through the Valley of Silent Statues

To find Riju, you’ll need to head deep into these caverns, heading this way:

Keep following the path and you’ll eventually hit the Valley of Silent Statues, which drops you into a pit with moving quicksand. Luckily, there’s tons of Ultrahand-able planks to help you cross.

You’ll need to set up the planks to drop from one rock to the next, but be quick — the planks move with the quicksand. That being said, you’ll want to set the planks a bit further out, so they drift past you, allowing you to quickly jump from one platform to the next.

Once you get to the other side (with vases and some ore), you can climb up both manually and/or using Ascend.

Optional: Solve the mirror light puzzle

At the top of the quicksand, there’s some suspicious statues holding up orange plates that you may have seen in the Soryotanog Shrine. On the other side of the platform, you can see some rocks blocking a light source. Do not break the wooden box that is in front of the lightsource.

Attach a bomb flower to an arrow and fire it off at the rocks to free the light. There are bomb flower on the walls of this area.

Once you break the rocks, pick up this mirror:

Carry the mirror into the light beam and aim it diagonally at the two orange plates on each side of the area, like this:

This will move the statues, allowing you to step on a switch and open up new rooms. The left room has a Bubbulfrog inside and the right room has a fan and a sand pile inside.

After taking out the Bubbulfrog, head to the newly-opened right room and pluck the fan out of the sand with Ultrahand. Use the sand to blow away the dirt pile to reveal second mirror.

Head back to the first mirror in front of the light, and set it up on top of the nearby wooden box like so, using Ultrahand. (This is why we said not to break the box.)

Grab the second mirror, stand in the reflected light beam, and aim it at the orange plate behind the wall like so:

The last room will open up, similarly to the other two rooms. Inside, there’s a shock like enemy, some arrows, and a bow. Defeating the shock like rewards you with a Gerudo shield and the chest behind it has a topaz inside.

Head through the following door and keep following the path forward, defeating the baddies, until you find Riju:

She’ll teach you how to use her ability: you fire an arrow, and her lightning will strike where it lands. After this tutorial, it’ll be time to put your skills to the test in Kara-Kara Bazaar.

Teleport to Mayatat Shrine and jump straight into the action. You’ll just need to use arrows with Riju’s lightning to take out the Gibdo, and then hit the center of the hive with a final blow when prompted.

If you run out of arrows, one of the nearby Gerudo warriors will provide you with some more.

Now that you know how the game’s psuedo-horde mode works, it’s time to really put all that practice to the test ...

Defending Gerudo Town

Once you head back to Gerudo Town, Riju will talk about preparing for battle. One Gerudo woman has tons of loot that you can freely take, including rupees, weapons, and other valuable materials. She’ll also place one barricade at one of the Gerudo Town entrances.

The other woman will direct soldiers where to go, and you can place them at various entrances.

To beat out the baddies, we placed the barricade in the east, and just set one group of Gerudo warriors per entrance. It doesn’t seem to matter too much where you place the barriers.

Once you’re done looting and setting up, you can talk to Riju in the throne room to start the fight.

You will largely be using arrows for this fight, directing Riju’s lightning around, while defending Riju in the center. Keep your eyes on Riju’s health, because if she dies, it’s game over (literally).

The best way to navigate the town is to climb up and run along the roofs, since you’ll be mostly using arrows anyway. Try to focus on one hive at a time, leaving whichever one you barricaded for last.

Each hive will be immune to damage until it glows like so:

When it glows like this, hit it with an arrow to direct Riju’s lightning and take it out. Just like in the tutorial, Riju’s lightning can only reach far when it’s charged up, so make sure that the points you’re firing at are within the range of her lightning, as indicated by the yellow glow.

Between taking out hives, make sure to clear out the Gibdos around Riju and monitor her health. The Gerudo warriors can hold up pretty well, but you still need to make sure that Riju isn’t being attacked, so make sure to pay attention to her health. (We keep repeating it because she’s pretty squishy and can’t survive long if you leave Gibdos attacking her.)

Once you take out all three hives, you’ll just need to clean up any straggling Gibdos. The gang will celebrate and Riju will tell you to meet her back in the bunker downstairs.

Before you head down, we recommend picking up any of the drops that killed Gibdo left behind during the fight, as they all add a ton of attack power to your weapons.

Solving the red pillar puzzle

After you meet up with Riju, she’ll read the mural in the bunker, talking about being back to back from the throne, red pillars, and light.

Starting from the beginning, head to the throne room upstairs and look out into the distance. You’ll see — gasp — three red pillars straight ahead. Run straight there and try not to take any unnecessary turns, as your map will still be obscured by the sandstorm.

There will be Gibdo along the way, so use elemental arrows and weapons to take them down.

Climb up the tower and break the cracked rocks in the center using bomb flower arrows or a hammer-type weapon:

This will free the light, now firing off a beam of light in a new direction. Follow the light to find the next tower. There are still Gibdo along the way, but there are also updrafts you can take to ease the trip.

At the second tower, use Ascend to climb up this nearby rock and use Ultrahand to spin the crank at the top:

The rock can be hard to see in the sandstorm, but it is faintly visible from the pillars.

Just keep spinning it and eventually the mirror in the tower will flip, shooting a beam of light to a new direction. Again, follow the light.

At the third tower, break the rocks at the bottom of the tower to see some platforms and tiny pillars. Using Ultrahand, attach at least one of the tiny pillars to a platform, and float the platform as high as you can, like this:

Ascend up the tower and jump down to the grated floor. Use Ultrahand to pick up the platform and float it as high as you can again, like so:

Jump down, re-Ascend up the tower, and use Ultrahand to grab the platform and the small pillar(s). Attach a small pillar to the broken crank at the top of the tower and spin it, aiming the mirror’s light towards the first tower. When the light lines up, it’ll automatically play a cutscene, showing a suspiciously lightning-rod-shaped statue appear from the ground.

Head there and help Riju strike the rod with lightning to reveal the next and final part of “Riju of Gerudo Town:” the Lightning Temple.