Dark Souls Babe to Dark Lord Part 3

Feb. 27, 2014

Dark Souls Babe to Dark Lord Part 3

Part 3: Mistakes were made.[Edit: HUGE Mistakes were made]

When we last left off! I gained competence levels! Found the Dark Souls equivalent to Jesus! Killed the Gargoyles, and had absolutely no idea where to go next! What Joy!!

(I should also probably mention, if there’s something that you don’t know of in the game, and I’m not actually using its name[I do that a lot], then it’ll be in the cast list at the end of the post. So yeah. There you go)

Imoved over to the Parish, and eventually decided to explore the area past the Titer-niter. Upon arrival, I found a dark, dense forest; unlike any area I’ve seen previously in the game. (Appropriately named Darkroot Forest) There were some strange tree-shaped enemies, which I dispatch with ease. I discover trouble when I find the stone golems. I’d say my favorite thing about them is how they cast a spell called “Tranquil Walk of Peace” that essentially makes you megaheavy. I was a tank, and a bad one at that, so when this happened, I basically cried like a girl (Not sexist. Just a saying) and hid behind my shield. Good times, good ‘ol times…

I hated it.

I did make it to the fog gate at a certain point in time later. On the other side, I found a bridge, that led to another fog gate, most definitely meaning I’m in a boss battle. Okay, so where’s this boss-OH MY GOD IT’S A BUTTERFLY. Aw, wad a cute wittle gwuy. I just wanna huug him andlazer gurgle death

Oh. That’s not something to play around with. I’m sure it will go better next time. Sure of it. No other alternative beside that. Yep. Looking up from here. Sarcasm is great…

So, I must have died at least 20 times, and-wait,I can explain my immense failure!! PLEASE STAY!!!(I’m not a noob!!) Anyone who’s been in that battle knows that it’s not something to walk into with exclusively melee weapons, but I did. Repeatedly. The Commander told me that it was a fight that you MUST do with ranged weapons, emphasis on MUST. So what did I do?

I went again, and again, and again, each time getting (in no ways) better. Eventually, I did (yes, I did) kill off the Butterfly using only melee weapons. I accomplished this feat using an un-upgraded two-handed Halberd. Me:4 Bosses:156

I was so proud, walking up the stairs to the tower opposite the boss bridge like I owned the place. (I did just kill its landlord) And what was my prize for my hardship? A homeward bone… and a Divine Ember. Crap.

Um… I have some explaining to do. It was around the 10thattempt that I found the illusionary wall that hid the Darkfoot bonfire, but before, I just had to foot it from the Parish every time I died. I of course walked past Andrei along the way, and there were all these messages surrounding the area, suggesting I kill the “fatty.” Eventually, due to desperation, I did.

I wasn’t strong enough to face Andrei single-handedly, and died three times as a result. But, a bright idea appeared. “What if I lured him towards the thing, and had them duke it out?” (Brilliant plan, I know. To think it only took three deaths) This, proved successful.

So what’s Andrei’s most valuable attribute? Anyone?

…

Mm…, Yes! You! Tell me you know!

The Large Ember, sir!

That’s professor sir to you,YES!,The Large Ember! Indeed, the Large Ember is what allows weapon to be brought to +6, later allowing for certain weapon ascensions. So, what I have effectively done is made it so weapon ascension is impossible. Granted, there are loopholes to this, but I won’t find them in this playthrough. So, I’ve made it so I’ll waltz through this game, carrying unascended, and usually unupgraded weapons. Being a tank, weapons were the game, so this mistake is hands down the #1 mistake I will make this entire playthrough.

A moment of silence for Andrei, and the inevitably doomed Superdude8

I walk back, instead of bone out, returning to the Parish fire, and eventually returned to Firelink. Hello, old friend. Hello, Crestfallen. Hello, giant crow thingy. Hello, strangely imprisoned robed lady. Good to be back.

So now what? Obviously, the Forest boss led me nowhere, so I did what any sane person would have done. I talked to the closest thing that resembled a wiki, which at the time, was the Commander. He informed me of the door near the Hellkite bridge, which, in theory, I had a key to, and opening it would lead to progression.

Fastforward one hour: YOUDIEDYOUDIEDYOUDIEDYOUDIEDYOUDIED

“Hey, look! The door! [Insert religious deity of choice], it must have been HOURS since I’ve been here! How’ve you been, buddy? Remember when I was burned alive? Yeah, shut up” Open door, defriend door of the Tweeters, BookFaces, and the InstantaneousMeasureofWeightMetrically.

The lower section of the Undead Burg is filled with Undead Dogs, (which I instantaneously died to. Did you know that they’re incredibly fast?) Torch Hallows, (which I instantaneously died to. Did you know that fire hurts?) and Undead Theives. (which I also instantaneously died to. Did you know that they have a nasty habit of slitting your throat?) I did manage, I believe on my fifth try, to make it to the fog gate, but barely. I was practically dead, (two Estus? I might as well be sitting in my coffin) and being extremely extremely nervous didn’t help at all. But, despite my fears, I was confident. After all, this was only the first fog gate in this area, it probably holds a nice bonbon to recharge my Estus at. (Yes, I did truly believe that) Things will be fine.

So. Capra. We all know the next part. You know Capra’s reputation, cuss, you’ve lived it. I’m not going to fill that mold. Go that route. Ride that ostrich. Pass that salt. Sample that Gorgonzola. Verb that Noun. Use that Metaphor. And so on.

No, I’ll just exclamate that I died at least 30, maybe 50 times, and perpetuated my addiction. This round, I went in with two phantoms, one of Sun-Broian descent. Upon entering, Capra became child’s play. The toughest part was making sure I survived so they could enter the area. (I dabbled in a little white soapstone work while down in the Undead Burg. That was a major problem throughout) But honestly, it was very easy with me times three.

Despite taking the easy way out, I look back on this fight with a smile, and there are many things that encompass the Dark Souls experience that I witnessed during my stint with Capra. My first phantom run happened here, in which I had someone who was equally as ill-prepared as I for Capra. (Sorry, bud. Picked the wrong dude.) I fought off the Hallow thieves, him cowering up the steps. Afterwards, I walked down, and hestilldidn’t follow me. I had to “point upward, beckon” to bring him to my side. We did both die to the boss, though, as this is Capra we’re talking about.

The Commander gave me some advice after I asked for it on Capra, but it was an Commander-esque as you could imagine. (I understand you don’t know the man, but it was very him, I assure you) He said, “This is where the game gets real. Be smart, and kill the dogs off quickly, or there won’t be a fight. You can go up the stairs and fight him if you’re a cuss, frankly, I just go toe-to-toe with him. This is where you learn how to roll, and you better. It’s very important for coming boss battles.” (The Commander had no idea I was a tank, so he didn’t know that rolling wasn’t an option for me. I just thought he was stupid) This embodies Dark Souls for me. A game, that’s already extremely hard, “gets real.”

So basically, something that, in the grand scheme of the game, wasn’t that big of a deal, or even hard, became one of my favorite moments. And it wasn’t a cutscene. It wasn’t Giant-flaming-goddess-flying-into-the-sun-and-you-have-to-destroy-every-single-piece-of-her-in-order-to-save-the-solar-system-from-a-premature-supernova sort of epic (Don’t ask). It was simply a boss battle, and a small one at that. But it still became a huge moment for me, and for countless others in this universe. Now that’s game design. Now that’s art.

So anyway, enough with my reminiscing. We have a Depths to die in!!

I opened the door to the Depths, but didn’t go past the steps. I wanted to check the door opposite the Depths door, so I did. Upon traveling up the spiral staircase, I found her. Or, should I say, IT.

The female undead merchant. I bought her Humanity (which I felt bad about doing. She desperately needed that Humanity) and exhausted her dialogue. Sorry, Ms. Merch, but I would trust a patch of moss over you…

I continued down the dark, dank corridor, and opened the shortcut on the other side. I quickly realized where I was when I saw the rat on the other side of the corridor.

FIRELINK!!! I ran down, barely even registering the enemies as they basically jumped onto my blade. Ahhh, Firelink. Hello, archtree. Hello, giant crow thingy. Hello, segment-I’ve-already-done. Good to be back.

I danced around the fire, for old time’s sake, (Old time’s sake was four hours ago) and took a quick trip to the Catacombs to see if it still sucked. “Ah, yep, still kicks my arse. Let’s go back to where I’m supposed to be”

Slight jog back to the Depths door, where I eventually went downward. (It’s called the Depths, I mean come on! Where else would it go?) The Hallows initially scared the crap out of me. Why? Imagine a situation:

“Gosh golly, today’s going to be a good-dogiddy doogidy day! What’s that I see? Oh, it’s simply a Hallow, humbly-bumbling about. I will make quick work of this one!!”

Our valiant hero takes a half-cussed swing at the Hallow. Hallow runs forward and slaps our drop-dead gorgeous hero with its sword

“EXCUSE-MOI? What’s that I see?!?”

(One eighth of health hath disappear-eth, just so you know)

“Oh daaaaaaaaang”

Well, that’s exactly what happened, minus our extremely dapper hero speaking garble followed by a current century slang.

Traveling infinitely more cautiously, I dispatch the Hallows on the wooden floor above the Butcher’s pad, and dispatch the Butcher with equal speed. I grab the Large Ember, (hehehehehehehehehehaaaaaaaiiiiiii’m going to die so hard, aren’t I?) and jump down to find the most gorgeous piece of Ratatouille on this side of Lordran. She was so beautiful, they had to offset her blinding beauty with an axe to the eyeball. (It’s not easy being easy, breezy, beautiful.) Sadly, we were not of the same species, and I’m also not one for rats. Oh, Ratilda, the places we could have gone…

Romance montage of Superdude8 and Ratilda’s time together while Check Yes, Juliet played in the background… (Great song. If I could animate, I would animate a music video for this song. Yes, that IS something I would like to do)

So I grabbed my catalyst (which I acquired from that locked up dude down in New Londo when I visited Firelink last time. I don’t have to tell you everything) and took aim at my beautiful Ratilda. After emptying my entire soul quiver (conveniently made out of nothing) Ratilda died. Shedding a silent tear, I moved on…

Did you know there’s a shortcut to the Gaping boss fight at the edge of Ratilda’s bachelor pad? When you slide down, just go to the very left and stay there. You’ll end up in the corridor opposite of the stairs that lead to the actual fight with Gaping. Guess who didn’t know that? MEMEMEMEME.

I fell down to the bottom, and fought the enemies that I still think should be referred to as “Treefrogs.” I walked throughout the labyrinth where the Treefrogs take up residence in order to find their goodies, but it wasn’t without death. A Treefrog breathed mist at me, and at first, I was relieved that it didn’t actually do damage. Then I noticed the miniscule bar filling rapidly, and I wondered, “What’s that for?” Seeing as no bar did good things after they filled, I did my best to stay out of the mist. One of them successfully filled the bar, however, and I got to see its effects. I crystal’d up, which explained the many statues in the area, and I instantaneously died. Okay. Whatever. There have been worse thi-WHAT’S THIS.

“You have been cursed. Humanity cannot be gained, and health is halved. Find purging stone to cure”

Oh, wow. Bravo, From, bravo. I’m always thinking, “It can’t get much worse. I’ll get better before things get substantially worse.” Then this happens. I figure out what a curse is.

You know those people you rage at this game? The people who laugh at the, “PREPARE TO DIE” warning on the back, thinking it’s a joke; then play the game only to cuss and scream every time a hallow rips through their defenses? I am not one of those people. I knew more than well what I was going into when I bought this game, and I concluded that I wouldn’t do this. (I did, though. Twice this playthrough. You’ll see.) No, what I did was smile, shake my head yes, and enter that state of quiet you expect your irate friend to before he kills everyone he sees. Sort of a chilled anger. Murderous calm. Another oxymoron. That was me. And that was also me at that moment.

Found out Ms. Merch sells purging stones for 8000 souls, which I obviously didn’t have on me since I just died. So I had to recover lost souls, AND farm up to 8000, then make it out alive. Seems simple, doesn’t it? Well, that wasn’t sarcasm. It strangely, actually was.

Uncurseified, I trounced the rest of the Depths, except for one exception. [Break: I should mention, there’s this intentional trick played on you in the Treefrog area where a Frog runs past on the other side of some bars, and there’s this path that leads to this exact area, that you MUST walk through if you want the looties. That cuss scared me so so badly; it was probably the only real moment of horror in the game for me. Speaking of with, did you know DS is considered a Horror-Action RPG on some sites? Yeah, so interesting tidbit.] You all know Sir Kirk, Knight of Fluff. Nobody can resist hugging Kirk’s fluff. Well, I danced in human, expecting to make it to the end with phantom help. Knight o’ Fluff happened instead. No matter how many times I play through this area, Kirk gives me trouble. Even now, if it weren’t for my parrying skills, I’d be a dead duck. He’s just so fluffed up, you can’t help but give him a big ol’ hugadug. Then die.

I should mention by this time, I did find the Depth’s bonbon, and Laurientus with the help of a wiki. (Darksouls.somethingotherthanFextralife.com. Sorry guys, you’re not in this story yet. I promise, you will be. Seriously. Fextralife is as much a part of DS as DS is. Be patient, and I will tell the full story of how I found Fextralife, when it actually happens in the story) So I take a small trek down to the corridor that leads to Gaping.

“Trinkets? W-what?? Dom, whatever”

“Hey, Superdude8”

“…”

“It’s dangerous to go alone”

“…don’t you da-“

“TAKE THIS”

(Beautiful shiny gorgeous attractive approachable cool adjective crystal sword appears)

I bought a crystal sword from him, because a sword made of crystal sounded super sexy at the time. (Emphasis on “at the time”) When I finally reached the boss room, I was elated. I already knew what was on the other side of the door, due to watching a DS tactics video in which someone began it by stomping on Gaping’s gorgeous face. Still, that beginning cutscene is enough to make anyone cuss their pants, am I right? (High five friends, jump on Harleys, blow mud in some dude’s face)

But seriously, going into that fight, I had no idea what I was doing. I died five times, each time not even hitting Gaping. I asked (guess who?) the Commander for help, and he said that “it’s mostly a ranged fight,” and made me feel inferior by saying he killed Gaping in one try. (Honestly, he is better than me. A lot better.)

Keep, in mind, every time someone says “it’s a ranged fight,” I’m going to take that as a challenge.

Five deaths later-er. Crystal sword broke during one of the fights. (Because crystal sword, that’s why) Gaping was a lot easier than I thought, I just didn’t know how to approach him. SunlightBlade (YouTuber) said that against new players, intimidation is a perfectly viable stratagem, and it is. I died five times because Gaping has one sexy underbelly, (A.K.A. it’s frightening) and I was afraid to attack it. I had Solaire with me, as well as some other real dude. (PoopMcShoop4570820 Esq.) The fight was going well until Gaping jumped, and I couldn’t see him, oh right, that’s because HE LANDED ON MY FACE. What kind of move is that??? Cheap move, From. Cheap move. (If my health was higher, then yeah. It wouldn’t have been so cheap. Turns out I’m just terrible, because we didn’t know that already)

Two deaths after that, I killed him. It was with the help of two real people that it was accomplished. Not much to say about the fight itself; I had a tank out front, another warrior slashing where that was possible, and then you had me, trying to get at Gap’s tail. I was pathetic. It was around this time that I asked myself, “Am I playing this game wrong?” Yes. Yes I was. But lets move on.

So I got the key to Blighttown. Great. Now…where is it? I asked the Commander, and he said it was a room off the main corridor. (Which it was. I just thought the main corridor was the boss room.) I literally circled the boss room for 20 minutes. Frustrated, I quit the game, vowing to figure it out next time.

So did I trust my intuition and try to find it myself? Of course not, you silly bear! I YouTube’d it and found out it was the door beside Domhall! What would make you think I’d do this honourably?

So I walked over, granted the eccentric Domhall 4 seconds of my time, and proceeded to open the door. Upon opening, the dark crept through the door, as if everything in this world screamed at me to close it back up, to contain the horrors present down there. But I didn’t. As the words covered the screen, I walked to the edge, staring into the abyss below. For once, I wasn’t blindly optimistic that I would prevail. I knew that this, this hell, would not be one I’d forgot.

Blighttown

How will Superdude8 deal with the terrors of Blighttown?

Will he be able to withstand Queenlagg’s admirable chest cavity?

Will Superdude have his first rage at the hand of Sen’s Fortress?

Stay Tuned!!

Cast

Titer Niter=Titanite Demon

Tree-shaped enemies=Ents

IT’S A BUTTERFLY=Moonlight Butterfly

“Fatty” or Andrei=Andrei of Astora

Crestfallen=Crestfallen Warrior

Giant Crow Thingy=Me neither, bro

Strangely imprisoned robed lady=Anastacia of Astora

Capra=Capra Demon

The Commander=Trusted friend o’ mine who’s name will not be disclosed

Ms. Merch=Female Undead Merchant

Ratilda=Nightmare Rat (As in she’s so beautiful, she gives you nightmares when she rejects you)

Gaping=Gaping Dragon

Treefrog=Basilisk

Sir Kirk, Knight o’ Fluff=Darkwraith Kirk, Knight of Thorns

Laurientus=Laurientus of the Great Swamp

Fextralife=Where the cool cats are at

Domhall=Domhall of Zena

SunlightBlade=YouTuber who does a lot of PvP videos

Solaire=Solaire of Astora

Continue the series