You Have Died - Lets Play Dark Souls

So this is happening. I'm surprised it hasn't happened before (apologies if it has and I missed it).

Dark Souls is an Action RPG developed by From Software, and a spiritual sequel to Demons Souls. It has a reputation of being extremely hard. Other than a few places, it really isn't. However, it is very willing to punish you for small mistakes and you will die a lot. But you'll learn and get better and it will start making sense. But you'll still die.

I played through Dark Souls about a year ago, but I'm sure my skills have atrophied and I've forgotten a lot and there's new DLC so let's try it again!

So here's my character:



A wild purple-haired Pyromancer with a tiny head.



And apparently people are prejudiced against me for my atypical eerie great swamp looks. Starting classes really only affect your starting stats and items. You can grow your character however you want from there. Pyromancers start with pyromancy, which is a type of fire magic that does damage unrelated to your stats. I didn't play around with it too much last time, so I'll give it a shot this time. I also grab a master key for my starting gift.

Intro movie plays. The world was kinda boring with a bunch of dragons hanging out in the blackness. Then fire came, separating it into dark and light. The fire people kill the dragons, everything is cool for a while, but the fire starts burning out and everyone starts dying and becoming undead. Or something. I have become an undead and have been brought to the Northern Undead Asylum to rot. I'm stuck in a cell, when this guy shows up above me and drops down a corpse with a key on it.



Thanks dude!



So I unlock my cell, and walk down a hall filled with undead dudes who just stand around and let me whack them to death.



This game is really easy so far.

Make it to a courtyard with a bonfire in the middle.



In this game, bonfires serve multiple purposes. They are checkpoints, and when you die you will respawn at the last bonfire you've lit. They also refill your magic spells and healing potions. You can upgrade bonfires to give out more healing potions. The downside is that resting at a bonfire respawns almost all of the non-boss enemies in the world. You can also level up, store items, and eventually teleport at bonfires as well. They're pretty sweet.

Make it to a big empty room. Nothing to worry about here.



Oh, except him.



I have a broken sword hilt for a weapon, but surely that's enough to kill a giant demon.



Turns out it is not.

You Died 1 Time

If you're patient and skilled, you can actually kill the demon here and get a reward that isn't really worth the effort, but I'm neither skilled nor patient.

Might want to fix those image tags.

...I'm just a tiny bit disappointed that you're not playing a Deprived. Should still be fun, though!

I respawn at the bonfire and continue on. We're gonna duck through this little door on the side and leave our friend behind.



I pick up a cracked round shield. Sounds pretty awesome. Now we're cooking with gas!



I run down the hall a bit, and come across a guy taking a break in a room, but there doesn't seem to be a way in.



I walk up some stairs and nearly get run over by a giant metal ball! (I may or may not have actually gotten run over by this ball during my original playthrough). Fortunately, it's busted a hole in the wall, and I can go talk to my new friend.



He tells me he's going to die and lose his sanity soon, but wants me to go to the Lands of the Ancient Lords, ring a bell, and discover the fate of the undead. I'm not sure I know what this means, but what else do I have going on? He gives me a key and a tasty undead beverage in an Estus Flask. Then he dies.



I wander around a bit more and find a Pyromancy Flame. When equipped, this lets me cast Pyromancy spells, including that fireball that's been sitting in the GUI, taunting me until now. I'd honestly forgotten how to cast spells, and spent a decent amount of time jamming buttons to try to cast it prior to picking up the Pyromancy Flame. Fireballs do good damage, but have a short range and are a bit slow to cast.



I also pick up a hatchet at some point. A different starting class would have picked up a different weapon instead. But pyromancers like hatchets.

I wander onto a balcony, and who should I see below me, but my old friend the Asylum Demon.



I do a falling attack onto his head, and being armed with a weapon more intimidating than a broken sword hilt lets me make quick work of him.



I unlock the exit door and there's a message on the ground congratulating me.



In the world of Dark Souls, you can't be too trusting of messages, but this one turns out to be legit.

I walk up a hill, and a giant bird appears to carry me to the mainland.

That was quick. Yeah, I notcied it immediately after posting. Should work now.

But aside from killing you constantly for tiny mistakes and respawning the monsters when you save, it's not crushingly hard! No, sir!

Find a bonfire in Lordran, the Land of the Ancient Lords, and I have enough souls for a few levels. I don't really have a plan for what weapons and armors I want to eventually use right now, so I stick points in vitality to get more life. You can never have too much life.



(Yes, after taking this screen shot, I realized I had enough souls to make it to level 4 and did so.) Sitting near the bonfire is this guy.



He tells me there are two bells, and he bets that something awesome will happen if you ring both of them. One's up above in the Undead Church and one is down below in Blighttown. The guy seems completely trustworthy and not crazy at all, and again, nothing much else going on in my life, so let's go find some bells!

I wander up some stairs and come across this guy.



He says he's waiting for his friends and tells you to go away, but if you bug him enough he gives you a copper coin (honestly have no idea what it's for, but yay!) and a Talisman for casting miracles. And he sells you miracles (basically priest spells in a standard fantasy RPG) and lets you join his covenant. Coventants, briefly, are 9 groups you can join, which loosely align with the D&D alignment system (lawful good, chaotic neutral, etc). There are benefits to each one, which the game mostly does a poor job of explaining. I forget what this covenant is called, but it's one of the good-aligned ones and does something stupid like increasing your chances of getting summoned into co-op with other people of the same covenant.

I wander around a bit more and come across two alcoves with no floors.



While generally, jumping into random holes is a Bad Idea, in this case the hole leads to a bunch of treasure chests!



Pick up a Talisman, a morning star, some cracked red eye orbs, and some lloyd's talismans. I forget what the latter two do, but I'm not going to worry about it right now.

Getting treasure was awesome, but now the only way out is through this spooky graveyard.



There's more treasure in the graveyard (!) so I run around grabbing that. Unfortunately, these skeletons start animating and some of them are pretty big.



They hit pretty hard.



You Died 2 Times

Fortunately, you keep all your items when you die. The currency of the game is souls that you gain from killing monsters, and you do lose all of those when you die. I just spent almost all of mine leveling up, so dying isn't much of a setback.

I haven't finished looting the spooky graveyard yet, so I go back there.



I make it to that glowing treasure and press the button that rolls instead of the one that picks up treasure.



Oops.

You Died 3 Times

When you die, a green ball of light appears near the place where you died. If you pick it up you get all your souls back. If you die again before you pick it up, you lose those souls. So if you were carrying a decent number of souls when you die, you really want to try to make it back to your corpse.



I finish grabbing all the treasure in the spooky graveyard, and it exits into The Catacombs.



It's dark and full of skeletons. The problem with skeletons is that unless they fall in a hole or are killed with a holy weapon, they keep respawning. I avoid them, but The Catacombs is also the home of necromancers.



I think if you kill a necromancer, the skeletons stop respawning in that area. Unfortunately, their fireballs really hurt, so I never get to test that hypothesis.



You Died 4 Times

I respawn at the bonfire, and this time we're going to go up the hill, in the opposite direction of the spooky graveyard and The Catacombs.



There are a bunch of undead guys running around, but they don't do a lot of damage and die easily enough. The guys that throw fire bombs are annoying, but manageable.




There's some treasure on the path under the bridge, so it should just be a simple roll over the gap to grab it.



You Died 5 Times

Fuck. Let's try this again. Clear the undead guys again, and one simple roll over the gap later, I have a Ring of Sacrifice.



When equipped, it lets you keep your souls even if you die, but is used up in the process. Great if you're carrying a whole lot of souls and are worried about dying – not terribly useful for me right now. I don't equip it.

I cross the bridge, wander around a bit, and see this.



Those undead guys hanging off the side of the wall don't look suspicious at all. When I try to grab that sweet-looking treasure, they hop over and ambush me. I almost die, but manage to kill them all and am rewarded for my efforts with...



Rubbish. Fantastic.

Wandering around the world, you'll come across messages left by other players. Sometimes these are helpful – informing you that a secret area or ambush is coming up ahead. Sometimes the messages are placed by trolls and not helpful – telling you to jump down into a bottomless pit of death. And sometimes they're neither.



Praise the Sun is another popular one.

I wander around a bit more and come across a merchant. Like basically every other NPC in the game, he ends his sentences with a creepy laugh.



I buy a bottomless box so I can manage my inventory at bonfires and a key for opening doors in the area (I vaguely remember needing this even though I started with a master key, but I could be wrong).

I come up a ramp, and a really big dragon touches down in front of me.



Fortunately, he immediately flies off.

I continue on, and find a bonfire.



When you're wandering around the world, sometimes you'll see the ghosts of other players who are also connected to the server. You can't interact with them, but it does make the world feel a little less lonely.

I've played a bit more and have another update to type up, but I'm gonna stop here for now. Still haven't settled on a weapon I want to use. Last time I went with an estoc (like a rapier), an iaito (katana), a winged spear, a dragon sword, and eventually a Moonlight Greatsword. So those are out. I could stick with one- or two-handed axes, go with giant hammers or clubs, a halberd or scythe, two-handed swords, a whip, fist weapons, or some weird unique weapon I come across. I've started putting a few points in strength, so something heavy would definitely work. Weapons have significantly different movesets and attack speeds, so fighting with a giant club is going to be a matter of staying away and timing your wind up so you can be very sure to land your hit, while with sword and shield you can stay in close with your shield raised and wait to pick your spots.

You Died 5 Times

From everyone's discussions, I got the impression Dark Souls was almost a rogue-like. I guess not, other than the soul-crushing difficulty.

Oh this is going to be epic. We need a standard "You Died" counter for this, however. Here, I'll help...we're at 5 to date.

I really like the Claymore and the Longsword moves. If you haven't tried either yet, maybe that's one direction you can go? Or just go with a 2 handed axe...the Black Knight Great Axe is pretty ridiculous if you can get it.

There's not an in-game way to see how many times you've died is there? I count 5 too. I'll start updating that going forward.

Yeah, I don't think I've spent much time with either sword. 2-handed axes do sound fun, though...

So, I continue on my journey, and right next to the bonfire I see this.



A bridge leading into a small room. There are undead guys throwing fire bombs onto the bridge and the room is full of undead guys. I play it safe by running halfway across the bridge and luring the undead guys out.

I clear out the room, continue on a bit more and come across a bloodstain.



If you click on the bloodstain, a ghost pops up and recreates another player's death that happened at that spot. These can be hilarious at times (guys walking off of cliffs you wouldn't have thought it was possible to walk off), but in this case it was just a guy who died fighting undead guys he couldn't handle.

I go down a path and come across a black knight. These guys are pretty badass and usually a sure death for any new player who comes across one. It's basically the game's way of teaching you that if you see a really tough enemy, it's okay to skip him and come back later.



I decide to fight him anyway. I chuck a few fireballs at him, he gets a few hits on me, and I manage to circle around get a backstab on him.



I thought this would finish him, but apparently they've nerfed backstab damage in the last patch. Surprised when he stands back up (you'll notice on that red bar that I barely have any life left), I manage to flail around and finish him. Somewhat unfortunately for the purposes of this Let's Play, it seems that pyromancy is easy mode early on. Those fireballs took off a decent chunk of his life before he could close in.

He drops a black knight sword, which is sweet, but I don't have close to enough strength or dexterity to wield it yet.



I continue on, and I make it to the top of a rampart.



Big, empty spaces always look safe in this game, particularly if they're littered with blood stains.

Fortunately, I receive some advice from a kind player suggesting that something might be afoot.



A Taurus Demon pops up, and in my haste I completely failed to get a decent screenshot of him. I should probably start using FRAPS or something. Anyway, here's a picture of him from the internet:



There are some archers up on a ledge behind me that I completely forgot about, and they're shooting at me so I go to deal with them.



Unfortunately, after I finish dealing with them, fatty jumps up and crushes me.



I was so surprised that I missed the You Died screenshot, but believe me when I say I died.
You Died 6 Times

I respawn at the last bonfire, and decide not to play it safe across the fire bomb bridge this time. I'm in a hurry, and I'm sure I'm a badass, so I rush into the tiny room ready to bring the pain to the undead guys inside.



So the three in there, plus the one that follows me in from near the bonfire that I forgot to kill, turn out to be too much. I die. (From this screenshot, it looks like I had accidentally pressed the button to put my shield away and wield my weapon in two hands. That shield might have been useful)



You Died 7 Times

My glowing green corpse near the Taurus Demon disappears, and I lose a decent chunk of souls. You get used to it pretty quickly but it still sucks.

I take it slightly more carefully this time and make it back to the Taurus Demon. This time I clear out the archers before he appears. When he pops up, I sprint away, climb up to the ledge, and do a falling attack on him. That takes off about a third of his life and I finish him off with fireballs and a couple whacks of my axe.



I continue on and come across Solaire of Astora.



I am Solaire of Astora, an adherent to the Lord of Sunlight. Now that I am Undead, I have come to this great land, the birthplace of Lord Gwyn, to seek my very own sun!

He says he enjoys staring at the sun all day and asks me if I want to join him on his journey. I say yes and he gives me a white soapstone. In your journey you will sometimes find “humanity” from monsters or items which you can spend to become human. When you're human, you can use the white soapsstone to create a sign that allows other players to join you for some co-op fun.

I leave, but Solaire decides to stick around.

I will stay behind, to gaze at the sun. The sun is a wondrous body. Like a magnificent father! If only I could be so grossly incandescent!

Alrighty then.

I come to a bridge where some areas looked scorched.



I proceed across slowly, and a dragon appears and breathes fire all over the place.



I retreat and make it back mostly unscathed.

I run across and make it to some stairs down.



I kick down a ladder and I'm back at the bonfire I last rested at. But I have the ladder to use as a shortcut.



I decide to try to run past the dragon across the bridge.



It doesn't go well.



You Died 8 Times

I try again.



You Died 9 Times

He does fly down once after I was waiting around, but he still roasts me before I can get past him.

So I give up on the scary dragon bridge and go the other way.



I run up to the side but fall off onto some stairs leading down. Fortunately the giant metal boar can't fit through the passage. A few fireballs kills him easily.



I continue on and I see this guy.



An undead dude with a rapier. He's tougher than your average hollow undead, but nothing compared to a black knight.

He's guarding a Knight Shield which, after killing him, I happily equip.



I continue on and I find Andre of Astoria. He's a blacksmith who can upgrade my weapons.



I buy a titanite shard and upgrade my battleaxe to a battleaxe +1. I'm pretty much an unstoppable juggernaut with that weapon now.



Near Andre is a bonfire, which I light.



This is where the game starts opening up. I can

1. Go where I'm "supposed to" go, the Undead Church, to ring the first bell
2. Go the opposite way and mess around in Darkroot Garden for a while. It doesn't further the plot just yet, but it's approximately level-appropriate and has some decent treasure iirc.
3. Use the master key and head towards Blighttown and the second bell. At this point in the game, that would be the masochistic option, but if you want to see me die a lot that would be the place to go.
4. Go back to the beginning and return to the Northern Undead Asylum. It's an optional area that is now full of black knights and a new-and-improved Asylum Demon.

You Died 9 Times

Lol awesome. Though I would suggest instead of "Death Count" make it a "You Died" Count...

And Undead Church for now.

Thinking about it some more, there's no reason not to do the Undead Church now since I'm there and it has to get done some time. And Capra Demon, one of the aforementioned unfairly cheap difficult areas of the game, is basically the raison d'etre of doing a Dark Souls Let's Play. So we won't be skipping to Blighttown either. So it's Undead Church -> Depths, possibly with some North Undead Asylum and/or Darkroot Garden in between.

Ugh, so much for keeping my death count low. Pressed on a bit further and committed the mortal Dark Souls sin of thinking that banging your head against the wall the same way over and over again would eventually produce positive results. Will try to finish this write-up tomorrow some time.

Yep, someone had to do it.

Digging the LP so far. There is this charm in seeing you die over and over and over again, you know.

I'd like you to go to the Undead Church now if possible. Capra Demon awaits, after all.

Huh, I did not realize there were Dark Souls references in Hatoful Boyfriend.

So, we head for the Undead Church to ring the first bell. I enter the ground floor of the church and after clearing out a few of the rapier undead, I see this guy:



I run outside and he follows. His giant shield is a little intimidating.



Unfortunately for him, it must be heavy, and it's really easy to get behind him. I think this is supposed to be the fight that teaches you about circle-strafing.



Remember those two alcoves I fell down a while back that had treasure at the bottom? I'm now above them and there's an elevator here I can send down. So that will make it easy getting back to Firelink Shrine (the very first bonfire I encountered after leaving the Asylum).



While walking through the church, there was a guy sniping me with magic missiles from above. I climb up and here he is. In addition to casting spells, he also has a long trident.



He's surrounded by a horde of undead. I get sloppy, get overwhelmed, and die.



You Died 10 Times

I run back from the bonfire without clearing the area around the church first, because:

1. I'm impatient
2. I don't think the two undead swordsmen will follow me all the way from outside the church up the stairs
3. Even if they do, I figure I can handle them.

For some reason an extra rapier guy I didn't think would notice me also follows me upstairs.



Two rapier guys and two undead swordsmen are too much for me to handle at once.



You Died 11 Times

“Patience” is the new watchword. I carefully clear out everything, and manage to kill the fat priest guy. I continue on and there's a boarded up area with some light inside.



I tear down the boards and go inside. I find a man in a cage.



Being sure that he was wongfully imprisoned, I free him. His name is Lautrec of Carim. He promises to reward me later. Sweet.



I make it to the room before the boss with half life and no healing potions. I spend a good minute contemplating this, before doing the smart thing and returning to the bonfire to level up a bit.



I clear the path to the boss again and make it there in pretty good shape. I can see the bell tower in the distance. All I need to do is walk across this roof and go up the stairs.



I start walking, and one of the gargoyles comes to life.



He's big and carriers a halbred.



He has a few attacks. He can fly up in the air and land on top of you, swinging his halberd. He can swing his halberd vertically onto your head. And he can swing his halberd laterally two or three times in about a 270 degree arc. The first two attacks aren't too hard to dodge, and the third is easy to block. I think he also has a tail swing, but I solve that by chopping off his tail and am rewarded with a Gargoyle Tail Axe.



After a little while, a second gargoyle shows up. It doesn't really matter because I take an “easily dodged” halberd to the head.



I die.



You Died 12 Times

I return to the scene of the crime. Last time I was focused on cutting off the Gargoyle's tail to get the axe, so this time if I just focus on killing him before the second guy shows up, I should be fine.



I'm not fine.

You Died 13 Times

You can wield one-handed weapons in two hands to get extra damage, but of course, you lose the ability to use a shield. I'm trying to get behind the gargoyle with my shield raised to block his lateral halberd swing, switch to a two-handed stance, and hit him a time or two before I need to raise my shield again. In my haste to kill him before the second guy shows up, I'm not being that careful and am taking a few hits here and there. If I retreat to drink a healing potion, he flies up and/or lunges and does almost as much damage while I'm drinking it as I heal. So when the second guy shows up and starts breathing fire everywhere, I'm already in poor shape.



Try again, die again.

You Died 14 Times

I'm not sure what this disease is called, but I'm now afflicted with a myopic desire to keep going back to the gargoyles to try to kill them. I'm never getting that close to winning, but I know I can do it if I keep trying.



You Died 15 Times



You Died 16 Times

At this point I snap out of it.

Hey, Hanacker.

Hey, me.

Whatcha doing there?

I'm trying to kill the Bell Gargoyles.

How's it going?

Awful. But I'm sure I can do it eventually.

Why?

…

I raise a good point.

I have a bunch of items in my inventory that I can use to receive more souls. I spend them and upgrade my battle axe to +4.



I also have a secret weapon in my inventory that I've been ignoring.



Gold Pine Resin lets me temporarily coat my weapon in lightning, which makes each swing do a hefty amount of damage.

Armed with this significantly improved weapon, the first gargoyle goes down in about four hits, and the fight becomes really easy.



I climb up the bell tower and ring the bell.



Nothing appears to have happened, but the guy at the Firelink Shrine did say I'd have to ring both.

At the bottom of the bell tower, I do encounter this guy.



His name is Oswald of Carim and he's in the business of sin. He can absolve mine if I ever do anything bad. He also sells purging stones, which can remove curses. I'm not cursed yet, and don't plan to ever be, but I buy one just in case. Curses last through death and lower your maximum health until removed. Not fun.

I use a “homeward bone” to teleport back to the bonfire and level up.



2 hours 40 minutes played.
You Died 16 Times.
1 death per 10 minutes.

Excellent! We can die alongside you, in solidarity.

Also, it's good that you're describing the contents of these screenshots, cuz I can't see a damned thing in most of them.

And I hope this goes without saying, but if anyone is at all unclear about what is going on in certain places, please, please, please ask questions. I have a tendency in my writing to assume that the audience knows as much as me, even when they obviously don't.

Oh, is it too dark, or some of them are just poorly composed? I knocked the brightness down to the suggested level but I can bring it back up a notch or two.

The screenshots look ok on my monitor, but a bit dark. For reference the asylum demon looks really murky, and while the broad daylight pictures mostly look ok they seem darker than usual.

If you compare the messages you've screenshotted, the first message you recorded (in your first post) has an elite knight as its icon. That is the marker for a developer message, and it can be counted as always true if not always useful. Unfortunately, the hierarchy for other messages rarely works out thanks to people not voting as often from network issues, but "if it isn't a dev message, look before you leap" is a pretty solid way to sift it out. Only rarely will a carefully studied camera rotation/binocular-bow scan not show you what you are looking for.

Oh shit I think I got lost what am I doing here

More endurance! Also, the Gargoyle Halberd is actually a pretty solid weapon once you buff it up a bit. You should think about that as an option.

Or go back to the bridge the dragon was flaming and grab the claymore. I love the claymore!

Do you need a bow to get him to come down? I tried for a while, but it wasn't working.

And yeah, I'm starting to realize I need more endurance.

I always get lost at this part, but next up is Lower Undead Burg and the Depths. But on the way, there's a black knight that I'd previously skipped.



He has a giant sword, I don't have enough endurance to block more than one swing without getting staggered, and it really hurts when I miss a dodge.



You Died 17 Times.

I come back and get him on the second try.

There's a door near the dragon bridge that I unlock. I head down the stairs.



There are some dogs, but I dispatch them without incident. I hear someone yelling from inside a room to let him out. I do so.



It's Griggs of Vinheim.



He's a sorcerer who's on a secret mission and somehow got trapped. He says I can meet him back at the Firelink Shrine. A nearby corpse has a full set of sorcerer gear on it, which I take.

I clear out some undead guys with torches and some assassins that pop out of doors and throw poisoned knives at me. This one was hiding around a corner, but I see you!



I skip past a glowing doorway and come across this woman. I don't catch her name



She sells moss, arrows, and a few other things. I don't buy anything and she seems sad.

I do buy a shortbow from the undead merchant in the Undead Burg.



I don't have enough dexterity to use it well, which I realize after I purchase it. Hopefully it will still let me use it.

Back to the glowing doorway. Inside is the infamous Capra Demon



He's a horned demon with two giant swords and two doggie friends. He hits hard, but he's slow enough to be manageable on his own. The doggies are the key to the fight as fighting three monsters in tight quarters is almost always a recipe for death in this game. Every time you try to swing at something, one of the three will likely be attacking and will hit you before you can get your swing off. Or you'll run out of stamina while holding your shield up.

I'm a little distracted trying to take screenshots and I die.



You Died 18 Times.

It's actually eerie that even about a year later I can almost do the run from the bonfire back to the Capra Demon in my sleep. Gives you an idea of how many times I've died to him before.

This time, I dodge his initial leaping attack, run up the stairs behind him to separate the dogs from him, and kill them before he can catch up. I roll off the stairs, and it's just him and me.



He gets a few hits in (and boy does a giant double sword smash hurt), and at one point I'm at a sliver of life. However, my axe and a few fireballs manage to take him down.

I made a video of the first 30 seconds of the fight (I don't know how to get FRAPS to record more than 30 seconds at a time, but I'll try to figure it out). It looks way smoother and in-control than it felt.



Victory!



I'm honestly kind of stunned that I was able to take him out on the second try. I've died soooo many times to him before that this feels a little too easy. Oh well, onwards and upwards.

I teleport back to the bonfire, and after looking at the stats for two-handed axes, I realize I still need a bit more strength.



3 hours 23 minues played
You Died 18 Times.
1 death per 11 minutes.

Next up, The Depths. Or possibly detours into Darkroot Basin or the North Undead Asylum.

There, that's better. I am actually in NG now, more seriously for the first time (thanks extarbags) and I keep going back to it over and over, despite having a pretty decent arsenal (5 almost fully upgraded weapons, ranging from enchanted to lightning to fire). It's just so ... balanced.

No. But if you taunt him by standing on the bridge (hint, there is a place where you have cover from the flame) he will eventually get ticked off and come down to you. Might take a minute or two, but he *will* deign to drop by (to try and murder you). That's when you make your move.

Oh, do you have to just stand still? I kept poking out back and forth from behind the wall and that would just make him breathe fire. I don't have the patience for the parts in this game where you just don't move for a while.

That's my feeling, yeah. I also taunted with the running back and forth across, and that did nought. I don't know the exact trigger though but ... I rather like the parts where you wait for them to come to you, so that may be what I was doing. :D

I also have no patience in this game, and that's probably the reason I saw "YOU DIED" so often.

Ok...I see the pattern...I just wait...OH SCREW IT BANZAAAAAIIII!!!!

You died.

Now it's time for Messing With the Hellkite Dragon. So apparently all you need to do is sit around for a half a minute or so and the dragon flies down. I run underneath him and take a few whacks at him.



He roasts me.








You Died 19 Times.

I try again, but this time I just run past him into the next room.



I figure I'm safe, but he figures he'll try blowing fire into the room.



You Died 20 Times.



I decide to try poking at him one more time. He doesn't seem to mind much.



You Died 21 Times.



I give up on trying to kill the dragon, and just run past and kindle the bonfire that's in the next area. I grab a claymore and a couple of other minor treasures. Oddly enough, this makes the dragon vanish. Maybe he'll come back again some day, but he's gone for now.

I head to the Depths. I kill some skeletons and come across a fat guy with a couple of meat cleavers.



Unfortunately for him, he's slow and easily backstabbed.



He's guarding a chest with a large ember inside.



This will let me upgrade my weapons past +5 the next time I go back to Andre, the smith.

I roll into a hole behind the chest and come across a giant rat.



He sits there helplessly while I rain fireballs onto his head.



I wander around the sewers killing rats and eventually find a key.



I also find a new bonfire.



I find a greataxe. It does good damage, but it has a really short range , swings really slowly, and takes a ton of stamina per swing. It's a completely impractical weapon. I love it. I decide to table it until I can upgrade it a bit, however.



I continue wandering around in the sewers, killing rats, and I fall down a hole. I come upon these charming creatures.



They're basilisks that spew gas that curses you. Curses lower your maximum health until you remove them. Death doesn't help at all. I hate basilisks. Here's what they look like dead.



I manage to escape without getting cursed and find a Ring of the Evil Eye.



It regenerates life on kills. It's pretty useful early on so I equip it.

I kill another priest like the one from the undead temple. I thought I grabbed a screenshot of him dancing around, but I can't find it. Oh well.

Eventually I cross a glowing door into a giant room.



A little crocodile-looking thing peeks up from behind the water. It's kinda cute.



The giant dragon it's attached to, not so much.



It's the Gaping Dragon!



He's a fairly predictable boss. He can flail around ineffectually with his arms. He has a tail whip. He can fly up in the air and try to land on you. He can spaz out and hit you if you're dumb enough to stay close to him. And he can put his head down, pause, charge forward, and pause again. The last move gives you two decent chunks of time to get some hits in.



If you cut off tail, it drops the Dragon King Greataxe and totally neuters his tail whip.



The fight is a bit tedious, I get a bit lazy, and the dragon smashes me beneath his fat stomach.



You died 22 times.



I come back, and get him low on health. At this point he starts spewing out some brown bile that severely corrodes your weapons and armor.



I avoid most of it, and kill the Gaping Dragon.



I continue on, and find Domhnall of Zena. He sells gold pine resin, crystal weapons and a shield, and a set of armor from Zena. I but a couple gold pine resins.



I open the door to Blighttown.



I level up a bit and call it a day. If I want to use that greataxe, I'm gonna need quite a bit more endurance.



4 hours 20 minutes played
You Died 22 Times.
1 death per 12 minutes.

I realize that there's a bit of The Depths that I skipped over. I'll probably clear that out next before going to Blighttown.

Nice! I was afraid you'd skip the Gaping Dragon tail, after skipping Hellkite's tail. I understand, though, you're going for axes. Axes are awesome!

aw, you missed Kirk. Shame.

Make sure to try the claymore...the strong attack is a crazy long distance thrust. And yeah, too bad you didn't go off Kirk, that guy is a bag of dicks pretty much.

I've been trying to mostly go off of memory and not consult guides much. I'm probably going to mess up the Solaire ans Seigfried chains as well. If people wanted to give me hints about things I shouldn't miss in the upcoming areas, I'd be okay with that.

The only other rule I have for myself is that I'm not going to summon help unless it opens up stuff down the line, I think like the witch in the Moonlight Butterfly fight (is that the only one?).

I haven't become human yet either, for no real reason. I think there's something worth becoming human for near one of the next bonfires, though.