Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan overcame the first real boss and nabbed herself a stylin’ new helmet.
Afraid of the troublesome undead knights that stood in my path, I had yet again let Dark Souls sit unplayed for a good month or so. By this point I was starting to come around to actually liking the game rather than playing it because all the cool kids are playing it. Still, the constant deaths aren’t quite as endearing as some would say.
Normally when you rest at a bonfire or die, all the minor enemies that you’ve killed will respawn. Luckily, this is not the case for a few enemies here and there, and the giant armored boar is one of those who are perma-dead once you off them the first time. So his area was reduced to a short gauntlet of zombies, and was easy enough to navigate.
Getting the hang of duelling the undead knights was not as hard as I’d made it sound last week. It’s pretty much the same as with zombies, only the knights have much higher stats and shorter vulnerability windows. By playing very carefully, I was able to move on past the one that killed me so many times, and finally made my way to the level that opened the big iron gate that stood between the bonfire and the Undead Parish.
I opened the gate, and immediately entered the parish, where three knights were waiting to take me down. You can fight them one at a time, but I was still getting their fighting style down and one ambushed me as I walked through the hallway door into the parish lobby. You Died.
Dusting myself off, I battled back into the parish, and through the cluster of knights up to their leader, the Tower Knight. He loomed at the back of the parish by the altar, and once I entered the main hall, a wizard started lobbing magic at me from the second floor balcony. I got the Tower Knight’s attention and lured him back into the lobby area where the wizard couldn’t see us and engaged the knight.
Honestly, he went down pretty easy. I’d battled the trio of regular knights in front of the parish a few times from practice, and had gotten good enough at fighting them. Tower Knight is just a bigger version of them with a really big shield, so I was able to take him out without a fuss. I proceeded to the altar, where a corpse layed in the fetal position, holding a Fire Keeper’s Soul.
The item description of the Fire Keeper’s Soul says “used to upgrade your Estus Flask” so I used it right away and it… gave me 5 humanity points. Only later did I learn that I actually had to give the (incredibly rare) Fire Keeper’s Soul to an NPC back at the Firelink Shrine to upgrade my Estus Flask. Whoops. Thanks a lot, whoever wrote the item descriptions.
There were two ways to go from the altar, I started left and got ambushed by a knight. You Died. Changing my mind, I travelled to the right, past some zombies, and found myself a new bonfire in a small building outside the parish. I could hear a clinking noise, and as scared as I was to investigate, I raised my shield and headed down into the basement. The clinking turned out to be a blacksmith clanging away at his anvil, and he offered to upgrade my weapons and armor. I happily forked over a few souls and some material for the service, and even bought myself an ACME Home Smithing Kit, which allowed me to upgrade my armor at bonfires.
I went back to the altar in the parish and got my vengeance on that sneaky knight, and followed the stairs up to the second floor. I knew that wizard was up there, so I took it slow, expecting to be blasted with magic. Instead, I was rushed by at least a dozen red zombies, who are somewhat weaker than their browny-gray cousins. But, in such a large group, all flailing their sharpened sticks at me at once, they posed a real threat. Luckily, the narrow stairwell acted as a nice bottleneck and I was able to take them out without taking too much damage.
The wizard was next. He… posed very little threat. I ran around the corner from the stairs to his perch and sank my blade into his gut. He leapt off the balcony and “hid” in a corner back on the main floor. I followed suit and came up behind him. The bugger didn’t try to defend himself -didn’t even turn around– as I sliced him to ribbons.
I went back upstairs and down the hallway the wizard was guarding and fought another knight. At the end, I found a boarded-up doorway. I smashed my way in and discovered a staircase that led up to a tiny cell. What an odd little room. The man trapped in the cell begged me to set him free, and though I worried that it was a trap, I opened the cage. He thanked me and promised that he’d reward me at a later time. He didn’t leave the cell, but there wasn’t anything else of interest here, so I took off.
At the other end of the second floor was a set of ladders leading up to the roof. The door outside was, as you may have suspected, a Fog Gate, and I braced myself as I passed through it. I took a few steps onto the roof and a huge monster flew down from the bell tower and tried to slice me in half. The Bell Gargoyle was a fearsome foe indeed, but I was skilled enough to match its attacks and counter with my own.
The fight was rough, but I was managing to inflict decent damage while blocking the monster’s blows and healing when necessary. Suddenly, when the gargoyle was at about half health, a second gargoyle came out of nowhere and set me ablaze with its fire breath. I was caught totally off-guard and the first gargoyle brought its massive axe down on my head. You Died.
Tune in next week for Part 5: Ring That Bell