Dark Souls II: The Darksign Lives

Tales from Dark Souls - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

It's the "B" team!

Upon our approach to the Throne, Bellclaire and I were joined by Benhart of Jugo and Bradley of the old guard which is a pretty strong team! Inside a duo who are a poor emulation of Ornstein and Smough try to stop but are so easily defeated by our superior numbers. Then as the Emerald Herald predicted, Nashandra arrived - looking much scarier than before and proclaiming all of us should join the dark... by dying.

Nasty AoE's meant it was archery time!

Her aura of curse kinda caught me by surprise so I opted to stay far away from her and snipe with my lightning short bow instead until her health was low enough to burst down. Bellclaire and Benhart fell to her scythe during the battle but my plan worked - soon Nashandra was just another corpse. Before Bradley and I could even recover, Aldia then shows up in all the glory of a flaming, magic casting and tentacled shrubbery.

Die you shrubbery!

Bradley tanks him effectively while I get his patterns down. While this eventually leads to victory it is not soon enough for the old guard who is impaled by the bastard bush. Just like Nashandra, Aldia is surprised by his own death - asking what is it that I will ask the throne (in both his voice and that of the Emerald Herald) before he dies. Aldia was Shanalotte all along!? It's then I notice the "throne" looks a hell of a lot like kiln of the first flame, and have vivid memories of Gwyn flooding back. "Narp," I say out loud to the room full of corpses and turn my back on it all.

There must be another way to break the curse of the darksign...

Dark Souls II: A Flight of Dragons

Tales from Dark Souls - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Good thing this dragon had a similar move set to the one at the cathedral. While it certainly had more HP, I still managed to take it down and take a lift up the mountain side to a most magnificent sight: Dragon Aerie. The Emerald Herald was inexplicably here too, and tells me of the ancient dragon I should go talk to high up on the shrine. Sure, that sounds like a plan!

This place is great! :D

This place is a maze of tunnels, cliffs and flimsy rope bridges which are patrolled by prisoner type hollows with lots of knock back attacks (of course). They're not much of a problem though. Neither are the sleeping dragons I tip toe around nor is the return of Fencer Sharon who I defeat once more - this time tossing her off a bridge to make sure I don't see her again.

Eventually I make it across the final, long rickety bridge at a dead sprint (because going slow makes it break, thanks loitering dragon) I make it to the base of the dragon shrine and find a bonfire. Phew! I light it up and BOOM! Shrubbery surprise! Damn it! The shrubbery finally introduces itself as Aldia - the same creep who owns that keep where they experiment with monsters. Apparently he too tried to get rid of the darksign but failed. Now he is a shrubbery. He wonders how I will do before vanishing once again.

The shrubbery is very deep.

Dark Souls II: Monster Keeper

Tales from Dark Souls - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Having been defeated by Aava and again by the ugly siren, I decided to try another path from the forest crossroads and found myself at Aldia's Keep. On the grounds there I found Lucatiel camped by a bonfire, begging that I remember her name. We both knew she was about to hollow. While dealing with a nearby mimic (scary bastards) she vanished, and I found her again once I entered the keep proper. Only she was now Aslatiel, dressed and geared exactly the same. She was her own brother the whole time? What?

You are a confusing character.

So... was she searching for herself and ultimately lost herself during the search? Hell if I know. All I know is he/she was hostile so I turtle backstabbed her/him to death. The foyer of the keep was also devoid of guards (apart from a few that pop out of mirrors) which is worrying since there's a creep imprisoned there who tries to give me assassination jobs targeting the residents of Majula. No thanks buddy.

The whole back part of the keep is some messed up prison lab though run by strange dwarf sorcerer things. It has froggies, hounds, and hiclopsi. The real problem is when one hiclops breaks through a wall and proceeds to free the rest. Then it becomes time to FLEE! Of course by flee I mean run -through- them. This leads me straight into an aviary. Of a dragon. I should have guessed there'd be one of those caged up too.

Yes, I'm here to play!

Dark Souls II: King's Grave

Tales from Dark Souls - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

I find a lift down after the frog demon and light another bonfire which EXPLODES! Goddamnit shrubbery! It asks again what I'm going to do once I take the throne and indicates that Vendrick is nearby... in the Undead Crypt. Sigh. Again with the naming. The crypt is guarded by a variety of undead (no kidding), as well as relatives of Sellsword Luet - big guys using twin shields.

Having a party always makes it easier!

Fortunately Devotee Scarlett is down here and between the two of us we smash everything including the Nameless Usurper again (guess she really wanted to kill Vendrick). There's an interesting section with metal bells that when hit, ring loudly to summon evil spirits from standing coffins. It's cute that the minion type foes instinctively go for the bells but the solution is simple: destroy the coffins and the bells can ring all they like.

It's not all bad guys here though, the wight, Gravekeeper Agdayne is quite personable as long as you keep all light sources away from him. He even joins the party to fight a very familiar, towering mace knight. Heyyy isn't this the same guy the ugly siren summons? It takes a few attempts to learn his moves (more importantly the timing) but thanks to Agdayne's sacrifice Scarlett and I defeat him.

Mace guy has some sweet looking armor...

The chamber he was guarding holds Vendrick... the now hollow king. He isn't hostile though, so I am content to just nab his ring and get out of there.

Dark Souls II: Earth Mover

Tales from Dark Souls - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Balor (erm I mean the old iron king), is a ridiculously simple fight with easily readable moves yet he still manages to 1HKO Manhunter O'Harrah and knock me into the instadeath lava lake half a dozen times. I finally win but am frustrated that it took me so many attempts. Using the bonfire just past him scares the bejeezus out of me though since it explodes as a shrubbery appears to tell me "I'm interesting" then goes away. WTF? Ok to be fair, he also speaks a little bit about King Vendrick, who "almost" claimed the throne. Whatever that means.

Hello Mr. Jump Scare!

There's also another shrine teleporter here which leads to more locked doors so I return to Majula where I find a new, stout fella named Gillian sitting by the pit. He claims to be a laddersmith so I pay him a fair bit of souls for his longest ladder. This pays off in that it leads to a key! Not to the locked doors in the lava lake but to the locked doors beyond the lair of the Rotten!

I sure hope he decides to land.

Following the path down I find myself in a huge cavern which houses the ancient Sanctum City. The Mayan temple in the distance is a nice touch. This place is guarded by giant, poisonous skeleton warriors, corrosive bugs, and more poison shooting statues - these ones actually move since they ride little turtles! Even cooler is that the city landscape changes upon hitting switches (which I accidentally discovered during combat). Whole buildings move to form or reveal new paths. Best of all, there's a great white dragon down here. I suspect I'll be fighting him eventually!