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: Here be Pirates!

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

No, I don't actually have a beard.

Feeling good from the short forest adventure with Alfis, I warped back to the dark underground dock and was joined by Bradley of the Old Guard, a tanky miracle knight. The hollow pirates and their dogs were slaughtered in waves. Lucatiel was here too, though she just wanted to talk - revealing that under her mask, she too was going hollow and that she had come to Drangleic to find her brother. Pity she didn't offer to join the party though.

Bradley could almost solo this zone I think.

Near the top Bradley and I found the mechanism to activate the local lighthouse, flooding the zone with light. Bradley stayed to guard it while I pushed on, finding that it was very handy in pushing some black, alien looking monsters into shadowier parts of the ruins. Ringing a bell at the top of the ramparts summoned a large ship to dock so it was obvious where I needed to go next.

More heads does not necessarily make you smarter!

On the way I found a strange guy just watching the boat: Carhillion the mage. He turns his nose up and refuses to speak with someone so "uneducated". I guess I was right that he's a dick. Anyway, the boat is unsurprisingly filled with more pirates. The hull is also partially flooding and contains a shiva knight (two legs that support two full torsos). It's a little intimidating but fortunately easy to read, and after slaying it on my first attempt I inadvertently sail the huge ship to a nearby fortress island ... the Lost Bastille.