Dark Souls Return to Lordran: The Ceaseless Discharge "Skip"
Apr. 22, 2017Dark Souls Return to Lordran: The Ceaseless Discharge “Skip”
As we are immersed in what we all expect is the grand finale of the Dark Souls franchise, I return(ed) to the roots of the series after a hiatus of several years. DJ Jazzy Jeff ripped through Anor Londo, the Painted World and I alluded to getting a coupleLord Souls. More importantly, I promised you a DJ Jazzy Jeff tale to reveal one of the best (and for some reason unappreciated) secrets in the game. Skarekrow13 Productions, in cooperation with FextraLife Studios, presents “The Ceaseless ‘Skip.’” Starring DJ Jazzy Jeff. And introducing Plucky the Wonder Pigeon!
This requires some back story first. A long while back, someone translated the Design Works book for the game. I mention the translation rather than just saying “the book came out” because it’s the translated information that came to my attention. Anyway, inside there was an interview with Miyazaki that hinted that you could beat the game and “skip”Ceaseless Discharge. Now, the first thing to note is that translations can be tricky. So what does “skip” really mean. It was also pointed out in the interview that this method might seem like a glitch. I point this out because I’m going to talk about a couple techniques that sound like glitches or exploits so it’s impossible to say which thing is what Miyazaki meant (if either).
The community spent far less time on this mystery than most Dark Souls projects. That’s because speedrunners came up with a way to run past the lava pretty soon after this was revealed. And that fit the criteria. 1. “Skip” Ceaseless Discharge; 2. seems like a glitch. Everyone was happy and the mystery was put to bed. Well, not EVERYONE was happy…
Especially not over at FextraLife. I only take credit insofar as that I doubted the speedrunning technique was the right answer. What I’m about to discuss is credited primarily to Ublug, a member that’s not so active these days but did the bulk of the leg work on this one. Others were there to help the discussion and some initial testing. I was fascinated by Ublug’s work and did extensive testing on his ideas. What I’m getting at is that out of the entire Souls community, I have every reason to believe only a tiny fraction have seen this. I don’t patrol some of the communities like I do Fextra, but there’s a further possibility that only Ublug and I have actually DONE this. And I confirmed it again with DJ Jazzy Jeff.
Before I blab on the big secret, a disclaimer. This is only cool for lore nuts. It’s very powerful as part of a story, but if you don’t know the story it’s meaningless and potentially aggravating to accomplish.
For the full discussion with a very awesome crew of dedicated lore nuts,this is a fun read. To just read the reveal, page 17 or 18 I think.
Now, some lore to set the stage. We all know the Witch of Izalith had a bunch of daughters. You might even know where to find all of them, because all seven are likely in the game. But do you recall, the most famous reindeer of all? I hope so. But this article is about the Son of a Witch known as Ceaseless Discharge. And yes, it’s confirmed by the developers that Ceaseless Discharge is the Son of Chaos. He was doomed to burn in agony, but wasgiven a ringto ease the pain of lava. It’s important to note for later that this ring was made for him by his sisters. His ill fortune continued when hedropped his ring. That short backstory goes a long way to explain why he spends his days staring at the final resting place of one of his dear sisters. It is CRITICAL to the story of this character that he is completely docile until you mess with his sister’s corpse right in front of him. Ceaseless is not an enemy. He is an obstacle with a tragic background. This is important to why I desperately want to promote the Ublug Method of Ceaseless Skipping. That isn’t speculation either by the way. That’s the actual game trigger if you recall. Dude will let you live and let live unless yousteal from his dead sister.
Remember that I said the translation might not be exact? Well if you’re trying to completely avoid Ceaseless or his death, this isn’t for you. You’ll want to use the speed run tricks to get over the lava.
Ublug gave us a bunch of hints, and he did a ton of research to refine what he knew. In the end, the method is absurdly simple, but so far out there that very few players would ever find it.
When you enter the boss arena, walk up to the vicinity of her corpse. I don’t know if it’s necessary to be up that far in the arena, but it’s important to me for the symbolism involved. I will say for sure you need to be in the arena though. The next thing is important. DON’T take her clothes off her corpse. You sit there and grieve right there with the guy. And then you do it some more. By “grieve” I just mean let your character sit in the arena with him. Nothing special is required beyond that best I can tell.
All of the times I’ve gotten this to work (three or four), I’ve had to let the character just sit there for over an hour. It doesn’t have to be all at once. You can quit and reload. Coincidentally, you can use this to test to see if it worked yet. Quitting the game is quite acceptable in any boss arena for the record. Ordinarily, you will find yourself outside the fog and the battle must start again (Bed of Chaosis a sort of exception in that the battle doesn’t start from scratch, but you will be outside the fog). Once you’ve grieved with Ceaseless long enough though you’ll reload INSIDE the arena. This is unique, and dare I say, it seems like a glitch.
That’s seriously the whole trick. You wait and you wait (feel free to quit and reload every so often to see if you nailed it). And then wait some more until quitting and reloading puts you inside the fog door.
So then what happens? Once you confirm it’s worked, THEN you take the armor/clothing set off the corpse of the witch. At this point, Ceaseless accepts you and does not attack. In fact, the first time I did this I shot him in the face with arrows a bunch and he still won’t attack. My best guess is that you’ve just triggered the best end to his story. Because after you have her armor he lets you leave. You can walk out almost the entire way and he doesn’t even blink. Once you’re near the door though he triggers and looks like he’s pursuing you.
Remember at one point, there was a common glitch that involved running back to the fog gate and he’d do this weird jump attack and then be helpless. They worked to remove that if I remember correctly. They weren’t able to all the way, as users are still indicating it works (although it’s much harder than it used to be). It’s interesting to me that they didn’t remove it entirely. Maybe by giving him a range he won’t exceed. It’s always seemed like that unique jump attack was there for some special purpose.
But here’s the thing, if you do the trick I just explained stop moving and turn around to look at him when he starts pursuing you…
Well, he doesn’t even come close to hitting you with that last ditch jump “attack.” He jumps and prevents you from leaving or retreating, but doesn’t hit you. Then what does he do? He stares at you. With his big pleading lava eyes, he just stares.
You have to hit him. He’ll fall and die eventually. You don’t “skip” Ceaseless Discharge. You don’t “skip” his death. You skip the fight. And turn it into a mercy killing.
Ceaseless Discharge offers the purest moment of sadness and camaraderie in the game. And almost no one knew about it.
But now…
you do…
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The normal Ceaseless kill still works every single time. This isn’t really a skip in the sense that you can carefully jump through the lava (source LobosJR) to not even go into the boss arena.
This seems more of an intentional thing for people who read the lore… but still doesn’t seem worth it. It’s kinda cool I guess.
