This is the easy area?

After my misadventure with leveling up and deaths in skeleton land, I finally meandered my way to the aqueduct that just looked like background scenery. Holding my shield up, I engaged the first two hollows, then ran towards the soldier only to get hit from above with a firebomb. The soldier took advantage of it, but I managed to get back and heal with one swig of my- That’s all it heals? What the hell? I eventually defeated this first ambush, and entered the aqueduct, killing the rat at the close end before entering this wondrous “Undead Burg.” I breezed through the hollows guarding the fog door and entered it, wary of some kind of boss. I emerged from the stairs and- OH SHIT! DRAGON! Upon recognizing this, I raised my shield only to realize that all this thing would do was fly off. Well, that was lame. I continued on, conquering the three hollows and an archer before discovering a bonfire. Ahh, rest. Hey, why do I only have 5 estus now? I got ten from that Firelink place, what gives. This now is when I experimented with humanity, which, while I have heard complaints of not making sense… I understood pretty fast. There is an option for kindling at a bonfire. You can’t kindle if you’re hollowed. You can’t reverse hollowing without humanity. How do I add humanity? I have like 5 right here. Ohh, there we go. Now I have 10 estus!

So now I continued on, dispatching the hollows as I went, and continuing to level intelligence along with strength, vitality, and endurance. Eventually, I made it to a group of three hollow soldiers, who promptly owned me. And again. And again. Over and over. Eventually I stopped and went to where the Undead Merchant resided, he insulted me, I killed him… it was kind of ugly. But I got a cool sword out of it and started levelling Dex to use it. Then, on my run to the Taurus Demon, some guy dropped a battle axe. Upon seeing this rise in damage, I promptly switched to the new weapon and started killing my way to the bridge. I felt so unstoppable that I thought I could easily kill the Black Knight before the tower. Needless to say, I avoided that lower area for a time. After entering and seeing a long bridge with another door at the end I turned around and couldn’t get back through, although I noticed a ladder and went up it, killing the crossbowmen up there before going back down to face this as-yet-unknown boss. When it jumped down, I immediately ran back the ladder, climbed up it, and waited for him. I dropped down, taking about a quarter of his life. Yes! I’m using the environment to get an easy kill! Let’s do that agai- oh. He can hit you off the ladder. Quick, roll away from his-

And so ended my first encounter with the Taurus Demon. I threw myself at him a few more times, then made it through, feeling even better than beating the Asylum Demon. Yes! I can beat this game.

I made it to my buddy Solaire, who gave me a useless online item. Remember, I didn’t pay for Nintendo Online, so my Dark Souls was without help from or for me. He promised his help, and I ran across the bridge to discover that the dragon had developed a taste for crispy undead. I survived the fire blast to open up the shortcut, grateful for the bonfire. At this point, I had no idea of the Drake Sword, and no ranged weapon to get it. So I went under the bridge… about 10 times because some asshole rat would poison me. Eventually, I emerged back to sunlight and thought, “Sure! I’ll go up this tower!”

Another Black Knight politely, if a little firmly, informed me that this was his tower and I was trespassing. After some light discussion he got angry and removed me from his tower by force. After another try, I made it to the courtyard, where I discovered that a boar had been armored and was going to kick my ass. I ran down the stairs in the courtyard and just left him as I explored the lower depths. I got the mystery key and entered the fog door, then saw an enemy with his back turned. Ah ha! Easy kill! Lemme just sneak up and-

And so ended my first encounter with a Balder Knight. When I finally made it back and killed him, I took the knight shield from the corpse he was guarding (why he was guarding it, I do not know) and, ignoring the stats but thinking it was pretty, equipped it. Finally, I fought my way to Andre, rested at the bonfire there, and said, y’know what? I like the look of this massive German sword. I’ll level up until I can use it!

The Titanite Demon kicked my ass from his lair about 20 times. I still hate fighting the damn things to this day. The rest of the Parish story, as well as that of Darkroot Garden/Basin, will have to wait for another day.

Be safe, friends. Don’t you dare go hollow.

The beginning of Dark Souls Remastered

In the middle of my sophomore year of high school, I got a Nintendo Switch for Christmas. Yes, this matters. After only having Smash Ultimate on it, one of my friends told me about this super hard game, Dark Souls. I hadn’t played it before (and this is in 2019) so my perceptions had been overblown to the point where I thought that when you died, you went back to the start of the game. Ignoring that, my friend gave me a copy of Dark Souls Remastered for the Switch, and I started to play. This post will be kind of short, because it was just me figuring everything out. I started the game and spent about five minutes deciding what my character’s name would be. I finally decided on a female knight named Samus, and I can’t remember what my gift was, except I can tell you this: it was not the Tiny Being’s Ring, and it was not the Master Key. I left my cell, courtesy of Oscar, and walked down the hallway, reading every developer soapstone I saw. Finally, I reached the fabled soapstone that told me how to roll, I pressed the button… and I fat rolled. I was amazed. “This is the rolling they told me about? One of the things this series is known for? What the hell?”. I continued, finally reaching the bonfire and having my fears of dying and returning to the beginning alleviated. I opened the doors and walked to the other side, before seeing the developer “Look Out!” message and getting the hell out, just in time to see the Asylum Demon smash his gigantic ass directly onto the ground in front of me. Ignoring the demon’s massive size, I charged forward, not knowing how to two-hand weapons, and hit the demon, doing the massive damage numbers of 2. I feel like when I did that the demon and I both looked at my sword, and he smashed my ass with his club. My first You Died. I actually didn’t notice the door on the side, so I died to the Demon a few more times until I did. “Well, that was stupid” I said to myself. I grabbed my equipment and slashed my way through with my new broadsword and shield, finally feeling powerful. I went up those stairs and BAM! Giant metal ball knocked me flat, and opened the way to Oscar’s cell. I didn’t notice, of course, and instead tried to get up the stairs where the Rusted Iron Ring is, failing the whole time. Eventually I made it to Oscar, got his dialogue, my Estus, and a key. Oh Boy! You know the rest: killed hollows, opened doors, and did a drop attack on the Asylum demon, doing almost a third of his health. Killed the demon, which was my triumphant, “Yes! I can do this!” moment. I walked up the hill, didn’t notice Snuggly, and- Oh shit! Giant crow!

So I was carried off to Lordran, waiting for my new adventure. Upon landing, I leveled up at the bonfire, where I, the mighty knight, decided to level… Intelligence. I didn’t know what weapon scaling was, and thought this game was “just another rpg” so I decided to rp as a “smart” character. Dumbass.

I talked with Crestfallen, didn’t want to kill him, and went to Petras’ building, fell under the elevator, and got all the stuff. Now, this will come up later in a big bad way, but… I don’t have Nintendo Online. I can’t play the online of Dark Souls Remastered. So when I got a bunch of online-use Cracked Red Eye Orbs, I was bummed to say the least. Then I made the mistake every DS1 newbie does: I went to Skeleton World! There, I died to the skeletons. A lot. I actually managed to get the Zweihander before getting sliced by about ten of these assholes. Eventually, I went the other direction, the happy direction, and went to the Undead Burg.

Where the story will continue next time I feel like writing.

Thanks for reading, if you did. Be safe, friends, don’t you dare go hollow.

This is just an obligatory first post, detailing what I’ll be doing on this site. I mean, it may change or I may disappear off the face of the planet, but the basic idea is this: I will be retelling the wondrous tales of my journey through the three Dark Souls games, going out of order 1, 3, 2, simply because at the time of writing, I have not finished 2. Sometimes I’ll take a look at lore, funny stories, theories, etc. Who am I kidding? Why would anyone read this first post? Nobody cares about these things.