1901

Try doing to the rope ladder in the painting (while standing on the church side) what you did to the ladder somewhere else.

1902

Oh, I did do that, but I ended up on the side further away from the chapel, but noticed (and forgot) that there was a ledge on the chapel side, too…

1903

I plan on continuing my Pillars of Eternity game.

1904

Figured out what to do and took down Yhorm. Doesn’t seem to open up anything of note just yet, but I assume that something will happen once I get the third lord soul.

Threw myself at Pontiff Sulyvahn a few more times but still can’t manage to accomplish anything in phase 2.

Had better luck tackling the fire demon (though it took a few tries) and managed to reach Smoldering Lake. It’s a great-looking environment, but also very stressful to explore.

1905

Slowly making my way through the Grand Archives. I decided to just keep going this way for a while. My first few attempts didn’t get very far until I changed tactics and took potshots at everything to reduce the enemy density, not easy when the sage was throwing magic rain everywhere and my wax head kept running out. Finally took the sage out, phew. There are two crystal lizards next to each other in a dark room on the lower floor, I just cannot kill them! For some reason I can’t target them, and swings just don’t connect. Weird. Anyway, unlocked the shortcut back to the bonfire, back to Firelink.

1906

Or Sekiro!

I’m doing a second play through now. For how difficult that game was the first go round, I’m finding it actually very relaxing to play now. Once you’ve mastered the combat, it’s actually a pretty straightforward action game.

But fire emblem is a fantastic change of pace. That’s my commute and at-night-before-bed game.

1907

It’s so, so hard. The painted world was tough, Friede was insane, and the mess I’m currently in with the ringed city makes me want to stop playing.

I’m actually quite enjoying the bloodborne DLC. It’s the first FROM DLC I haven’t given up on.

1908

Pretty sure FROM was trying to make the Ring City an absolute nightmare hellscape given they knew it would be their last piece of content in the Dark Series series.

The run from the second Ring City bonfire to the swamp (this is Dark Souls) is…probably the pinnacle of bad times. Ringed Knights, a fuckton of those fatty giants on patrol, those murder chant priests that seem to not need line of sight, and those little pieces of shit lightning dicks all in such cramped quarters with zero room to breath replete with an NPC door in heart of the hostile zone…

1909

Well I’ve reached what I assume is the boss fight, a good time to take a break. Before that, I found an area with three winged fat knights, and holy crap they are pretty nasty. I’ve maxed out the bonfire, hopefully will find more estus shards though (13 right now). Didn’t manage to find every item in the archives, and I found a room with one of those frost knights. Nuh uh! I simply can’t kill those things. Need to try different weapons on it, but don’t have enough chunks to experiment with yet.

1910

I’ve upgraded a few weapons to max, the Exile Greatsword, the Winged Knight Twinaxes, the Fume Ultra Greatsword, but

My palms are sweaty, knees weak, armor’s heavy
There’s power in my hands already, Yhorm’s Machete

1911

Amen brother. I love the poetry. We should all try to write poems in our Dark Souls post.

Meanwhile, last night, after beating the crazy croc, I discovered I couldn’t get across the bridge without an item that I didn’t have on me. So it was back to the dangerous Smouldering Lake area. I finally gulped down the fear long enough to look towards what the hell was shooting at me. It’s not a Giant this time!

I see I have a choice, to go fight a boss, or to go fight some normal fire wielding old witches/warlocks. I ignored the giant worm for now. I wonder if I can trick the balista into shooting the worm? I’ll have to give that a try tonight.

1912

I can’t claim the poetry any more than Weird Al can, I guess. I based it on the similarity in rhyme and meter between “Yhorm’s Machete” and the memefied “mom’s spaghetti” lyric from that Eminem song.

1913

It fit really well.

His lyrics being used for the grueling Dark Souls,
Mr. Mathers would probably approve.
I tried to always keep my shield up,
while also dodging and staying on the move.

1914

These multi-phase bosses are really wearing me out.

1915

That item is back in the boss room at the Cathedral of the Dark. You must not have picked it up when you were there.

I have seen it done in videos but never managed it myself. I usually try to run past it and then plink it to death with a bow.

1916

The Cathedral? There was no boss at the Cathedral. Just some guy sniveling and bowed down. I explored the graveyard and other areas around the Cathedral, I thought.

1917

Cathedrals often have minor chapels. This one is no different. The main building is quite a bit more…grandioe.

1918

Oh, you missed something then. Did you ever see the giant room with the two Giants? If not, then you need to go back there.

You need to go back in the graveyard and take a path to the right. It will lead you to a bitch of an area that will test your patience. But use your bow, stay calm and try to fight one enemy at a time.

There is also a small ledge to the right near the small chapel door, as you exit it. There are some nice surprises down there.

1919

Well it looks like poor @Rock8man can’t progress
Because he missed a key item not found in a chest
Where could it be? He could find it, he might
A room he missed? Oh gosh it’s a boss fight!

(I didn’t claim to be any good at these!)

And yes, you can kill the centipede demon with the ballista. That’s what I did! Hide carefully though, the bolts go straight through it.

1920

So I went into the Twin Demon fight, not expecting to win mind you, didn’t even ember up, I was just going in to get a look at the fight so that I could remember what it was about. I didn’t do that with the Twin Princes fight and ended up getting killed by a move I had forgotten they did. Anyway I killed both demons and started to celebrate before realizing that it was only the end of phase 1. Yea, I died pretty early in phase 2.