Dark Souls II: Me:OW.

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

Now experienced with defeating Velstadt, the grand knight, I thought I'd have another crack at the ugly siren with Benhart and Ellie. I also decided to try the drake armor for mobility since I know she likes her adds. It goes much better but still ends in defeat for us. Withdrawing, I opt to revisit the Shrine of Winter again which takes me to a snow fortress (now visible since there's no snow storm).

Backstabs with two handed swords are cool.

The gates open for me this time and despite a voice warning me about "the old chaos" I enter anyway. Surprisingly there's a boss fight nearby, the disembodied voice warning that "Aava is watching" (like the Jesus is watching joke?). Welp, the zone is a blizzard and I couldn't see a damned thing as some invisible thing (which I guess is Aava) tore me to bits!

Putting myself back together at the bonfire I opted to go the other way this time, and explore the rest of the city. As expected it was guarded by ice themed undead who were weaker than their poison cousins in Sanctum City. At least this let me make progress, gaining "the eye of the priestess" near a large flame at a central tower. After defeating the invader Holy Knight Aurheim, I was joined by my old allies Glencour (still Masterless) and Ellie to face Aava. Turns out Aava is a giant, sabertooth cat!

Bad ninja kitty!

Being able to see it doesn't help much as we are all sent packing pretty quick. Such a strong kitty!

Dark Souls II: The Jester

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

Exploring Sanctum City is painful, and it gets worse when I reach the Mayan Temple Dragon Sanctum which is patrolled by ghost knights, who are immune to all attacks until I destroy their suits of armor. The first two have theirs laying out on display which is fine, but there are a lot more further in who I just have to run past since their armor is hidden. This takes more than a few attempts.

It's a huge place.

Near the bottom I am invaded by my once ally, Jester Thomas! Low on healing at this point I just dash past his pyromancies and out into a large shallow lake full of half dinosaurs, who join Thomas in chasing me. In the distance I see my salvation: a bonfire! I sprint as hard as I can and light it just in time before the Jester immolates me to death. Fortunately I can now respawn right there, which is a MUCH better starting point to explore that temple.

I thought we were friends! :(

After sneaking back past through dino land, I find Jester Thomas once more and this time after a long duel, slay the bastard. I also discover the "armory" room during a sprint scout and go to town smashing everything. This understandably angers the "ghosts" but I don't care since it makes them killable. Amazingly, I soon have the run of the interior of that temple - finding a stone key to raise a bridge to reach the next part of it, as well as an elevator shortcut back to the very first bonfire!

It's in situations like this that I wish I could carry the old D&D staple: rope. Sigh.

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!

Bane of the Falmer

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

From the vision from the scrolls led us back to the dark cave I had previously cleared with Cutter. Fortunately all the shortcuts were now open so it was pretty quick to traverse down to the shrine. This time, the snow elf paladin Gelebor was there - explaining that he'd give us the bow provided we kill his brother - who happens to be sitting behind a swarm of falmer that wiped out this colony. "Great. Sign me up," I said.

Turns out the shrine, or "Wayshrine" as he called them was actually a portal that would lead deeper into their Sanctum. The three of us followed the deep dark path through falmer scum (including larger, general types) until we reached a very pretty valley high up in the mountains. Both Bane and Serana didn't like the cold. Continued finding wayshrines here and clearing out small caves of falmer until we reached an icy lake. NO sooner had Serana questioned the thin ice when suddenly two named dragons shattered their way through. This was a great fight since there was no cover and the dragons would occasionally dive, smashing more sections of the ice - Bane was caught in one such section and fell into the lake leaving Serana and I to down the fire breathers. I'm not the Vanquisher for nothing though, and soon enough the twins were dead.

After pulling the Khajiit out of the water we continued clearing the valley of falmer scum and the deeper we went, the more fortified their positions became. Still, with three of us we managed to do keep up a good pace - eradicating everything in our path until we reached the Inner Sanctum at the mountain summit. Inside all the falmer had been turned into icicles but that didn't stop some of them from attacking us. We also fought past a frost giant before reaching Gelebor's brother who turned out to be behind the whole thing.

"Imma stab you with my icicles," said the Ice King.

He made us fight through his army of ice statues (lots) before fleeing to the balcony and once there he revealed his hand, right before summoning more ice elementals into the fray. Given that the three of us were exhausted having spent hours fighting uphill I could see that this freak was aiming for a prolonged battle. I deftly got into position and let out a "Fus Roh Dah" when suddenly he pulled Bane in beside him. The Thuum sent both of them over the railing and I watched helplessly as they both fell to the icy lake below - it was so far I couldn't see where they landed.

"CRAP," I exclaimed loudly as Gelebor showed up thanking me for my help, somehow knowing his brother died just then. He also offered me the super magical bow we came for but it was the extra reward that was awesome. From out of the newly opened Wayshrine popped out a cold, and wet Bane. He had survived the fall by chance, falling into one of the large holes the dragons made earlier. I couldn't help but hug the silly cat while Gelebor laughed and Serana smirked. After getting Gelebor (who was going to stay there) to imbue the power of the sun into all my elven arrows it was time to head out. We looked to Bane if he was ready to go and he nodded, saying "You're taking us somewhere warm, I trust?"