I am terrified of going back down into that narrow walkway area again, and instead opted to do some exploring off of the hub world and go and have a chat with the blacksmith about my weapon upgrades. So far all the blacksmith does is give me +1, +2, etc. to my weapons in exchange for currency (souls) and materials (which he sells). This is sort of a moot point, as I have a terrifyingly overpowered weapon in comparison to everything he offers for upgrading vast supply of regular weaponry. This sword does not augment its power based on my stats, though, so it will become underpowered as the game goes on. I needed to find someone that would increase my stats augments on regular weapons (specifically my highers stat of intelligence). I gave up on this and went to explore off of the hub. There are three paths that I can find. One that lead my to my current position, one guarded by some fucking RUTHLESS skeletons that give me no souls for killing them making them not worth the effort, and one that goes down to a set of easy enemies followed by invincible ghosts.
This ghost route was where I went when I first got to the hub, but quickly departed when I saw that I was not damaging the ghosts and I could not block their attacks. Upon entering this place again, I found I have an item that I could expend in order to deal damage to these ghosts and block their attacks. This was very useful, but I only had two of them. I quickly dispatched the first two ghosts who were pretty easy, and they dropped more of this ghost fighting item. Very helpful.
So I fought up this building they were inhabiting and found some areas where I was being attacked from unseen areas. This was very discerning, but it seemed like I could just press on without this invisible damage following me. Also, I was blocking all of these unseen attacks because YOU ARE ALWAYS HOLDING THE BLOCK BUTTON in this game. Like, always. Everything is terrifying and you need to have your guard up. Anyways, I fight my way through some terraces and into a room with one red eyed ghost (all other ghosts were blue eyed). This layered an extra level of caution on the situation when I charged in the room. All of a sudden ghosts just jammed right through the walls and there were about 5 or six of them now. This is where I discover that they can attack through walls and this red eyed ghost has a grab attack that goes right over your guard and she chomps you over and over until death becomes you. Well, those were some souls I knew I was not going to be able to go down and retrieve..... SIGH.
Not all was lost, though, as I found a blacksmith right before ghost area hidden down some stairs. He forged my longsword +6 (which I was hanging on to in order to turn it into something worth actually equipping one day) into a MAGIC LONGSWORD that now used my int stat, but very lightly. He could apparently continue jacking up this magic version, but I only had enough of the resource he required to turn it from a regular sword into the magical variety. Not great, but a nice discovery.
Okay, now for some progress!I realized that I had beaten a miniboss down by the blacksmith and ran into a pretty weird enemy that I just ran from because I was in no condition to go on after the miniboss battle. I decided to probe that avenue. This enemy (a tree man) was taken down with a warning fireball I threw at him to let him know I meant business. I expelled a few more with my fire magic, but was desperately low on magical charges when I discovered the real meat of this area. There were these enormous golem knights that would cast a slow spell on me. My character is lightly armoured and is based on blocking and mobility, so taking big golem sword hits is not really what I am used to... I managed to clear the area of threats with some extremely cautious combat. This lead me up some stairs that was littered with notes letting my know I needed sorcery or ranged attacks on whatever was to come. I encountered a white fog gate at the top of the stairs. Now, for those who are unaware, white fog is sort of a boundary that separates phantom spawn zones or it could mean a boss is to come. When it is a boss, usually the helpful community leaves notes letting you know that a boss battle is to come. There were no notes, so I pressed on. I immediately noticed the large health bar on the bottom of the screen telling me that this was indeed a boss. I was HIGHLY unprepared. I won't spoil the boss fight if you want to actually play this game, but I totally fucking murdered it and felt amazing that I was able to do it in a single try. I then went down the stairs and left a message for those who would come in the future.
I picked up a key to some watchtower, an ember to give to a blacksmith to expand his abilities, and pressed on. I found the watchtower, walked in and WHAM! One hit killed by a giant knight who was positioned immediately inside the door. I then turned off my videogame machine and watched an episode of the xfiles.
