<- Previous update: Bed Witch
Recap:
- Killed the Bed of Chaos
- Collected the last Lord Soul
- Opened up the Kiln of the First Flame
Current missions:
- Explore the Great Hollow
- Find the Painted World
- Beat the game
The Great Hollow + Ash LakeKnowing there's still much for me to do, I cut my excursion into the Kiln of the First Flame short for some endgame errand running. There's a couple of areas I still need to explore—including the Great Hollow—plus a couple of unchecked areas on my list: Ash Lake and the Painted World.
The last time I explored the Great Hollow was in
Update #17, just over two years ago. I did not have the best of experiences there, so I never bothered to unearth whatever it was hiding from me—so I supposed it was high time for me to get it over with.
On the way back, I met Seigmeyer in the Poison Swamp, who gave me a Piercing Shield in exchange for some purple moss. He's the only meme character I feel any sort of attachment towards, so I'm glad he's still okay.
Once I made it to the Hollow, I was instantly reminded of why I wasn't a big fan of this place—falling down a series of branches with awful, awful collision detection and horrible invisible wall placement. It has a neat atmosphere, I guess, and those creepy basilisk things are definitely fun enemies (so long as you don't let them curse you), but navigating this place is an absolute nightmare.
Eventually, I made it back to those little mushroom fucks that make cute loon noises when you kill them—as well as the
big mushroom fucks that bullied the shit out of me two years ago. I'm a lot stronger now, though, and they move just slow enough for me to make perfect use of my Chaos Fire Whip. They still pack a wallop if I get careless, though.
These guys were the reason I decided to put this place off—but, as it turns out, I had absolutely no reason to even fight them to begin with, because the next room brings me to a brand new area: Ash Lake, and there's a bonfire waiting for me just behind the busted log I emerged from. Looking around me, this is a pretty beautiful place—in fact, it's the same beautiful place I was admiring just before the Gravelord Nito fight, the place Chronic was telling me about.
Further out, I see an enormous yet familiar creature—a hydra, just like the one I fought in Darkroot Basin. I wonder if this one is stronger? Whether or not it was, I never found out, because I was able to slay it pretty easily regardless. I was half-considering posting a video for this thing, just like I did for the first one, but I honestly don't even think it's necessary at this point.
I didn't anything interesting from fighting it, either. Here and there, I was able to pick up random Dragon Scales, materials for upgrading weapons I'll never use.
Curiously, unlike most areas in the game, there was actually music playing. Pretty good music, too—the kind that makes me excited to see what's coming up next. Tension built as I followed the long, winding path of ash to wherever it would lead me. Scant few enemies were strewn about the map—easy-as-fuck clams that were a great source of Twinkling, and a (relatively) small hollow with a big mushroom and a couple basilisks, nothing too crazy or difficult.
The path eventually lead me to a dark, forested area—in the distance, I saw a bonfire, and a large, foreboding figure—as I approached it, I wasn't sure what to think of it. It couldn't be a boss, so what the hell is this?
After approaching the figure, I discovered it was an everlasting dragon, only he's WAY smaller than he should be. I have a weapon called a Dragon Tooth—a literal tooth from an everlasting dragon—and it's bigger than my fucking body. So why is fucking Charizard over here so small?
In any case, upon interacting with him, I was met with only ONE menu option:
"Join covenant."
I came all this way, after ALL that build-up—I even put this entire area off for two full years—JUST to have the option to join some crummy-ass covenant. Please fuck my nose with a fucking snowmobile.
As you could imagine, I have absolutely no desire to abandon my favorite covenant to join some other random one that I'm not even given any details about. He doesn't even say
anything to me, he just sits there. I almost attacked him, and I still kinda want to.
For the next thirty minutes, I desperately scoured the rest of Ash Lake for fucking anything of value that I could take with me, and the most valuable thing I found was a magic spell that I'll never be able to use, and wouldn't want to anyway. Ultimately, there's fuck all to do here. This entire diversion has been a complete waste of time.
The three things I've been secretly searching for for the longest time—the Armor of Thorns, the ninja flip ring, and, of course, the Peculiar Doll—I've visited every single one of the game's locations at this point, and I
still haven't found any of those things.
Return to the Undead AsylumI gathered my first couple leads about the Painted World in
Update #19, where I saw the Peculiar Doll's description on a loading screen for the first time, identified it as the object I need to pass through the mysterious painting in Anor Londo, and determined that would bring me to this "Painted World" I've heard whispers about so often.
Turkey then gave me a hint as to where this doll would be, but promised it would be small enough that I wouldn't be able to suss out its exact location. In the end, that wound up being only half-true—his hint, paraphrased, is that I would need to revisit an area I haven't visited in a long time.
Obviously, he's implying that I can go back to the first area of the game, the Undead Asylum.
Technically, I still don't know how that works. The one who brought me away from the Asylum in the first place was the giant crow, who's always been perched there, but every time I try to interact with it in any way, it doesn't respond to me at all. I've contemplated attacking it a couple times, but something tells me that wouldn't get me anywhere either. I've tried all sorts of different and silly things—I even tried using the Beckon motion—but nothing ever worked.
And then I looked up.
There it was. I noticed a very large nest sitting up near the top of the shrine, one that obviously belonged to the crow, and looking further around it, there were distinct points in the shrine that made it distinct to me that I should be able to reach the nest. Either something important must be inside of it that allows me to interact with the bird, or I have to fuck with it somehow in order to get her to fly me back to the Asylum again. Either way, I was gonna find out.
I figured the easiest way to climb up the shrine would be to use the Undead Parish elevator—I always noticed the platforms you could jump to while ascending, but never bothered to actually see what would happen if I did. In doing so, I found myself climbing in places I didn't know were possible to climb before, and collecting items I never could've seen before. It's a weird feeling, knowing I always had the ability to do so.
One item I picked up was a key for the Undead Asylum, which confirmed in my mind that I was on the right track.
I eventually climbed my way up to the crow's nest, found two eggs, and nothing else. The game only gives me the option to curl up into a ball and pretend I'm an egg, too. Doing so does absolutely nothing, so I figured I had to stay put for a few seconds, kinda like the secret coffin passage in the Catacombs.
That did the trick.
From here, I'll cut to the chase—I killed the Stray Demon on my first try, and found the Peculiar Doll shortly thereafter.
Because the Stray caught me by surprise, the first 10-15 seconds of the fight were cut off. In essence, it's just a rehash of the Demon Firesage fight, which in itself was a rehash of the Asylum Demon fight. As such, I'm not going to bother recording commentary for this one, because I have absolutely nothing more to say about these things. I've fought so many of them at this point, it's a good thing I didn't die against him, because then, I'd pretty much have to rescind my Dark Souls license forever, because it's basically just a regular enemy now.
Don't feel like you have to watch this, or anything—I'm only posting it as a formality at this point.
The Painted World of AriamisFirst and foremost, I just wanted to say
SUCK MY DICK to whoever said I would never find this place on my own.
Second... Guys, you're killing me. This area was pretty goddamn underwhelming, too.
I mean, it definitely wasn't as much of a waste of time as Ash Lake was—but once again, I've found myself in an area where there's not really a whole lot for me to do. I found some cool pyromancies, but I can only be so excited about that, given that this is the endgame, and all my opportunities to use them have already expired at this point. In particular, Fire Surge is almost
exactly what I wanted Chaos Fire Whip to be, and it even only takes up one attunement slot. The other one is a spell that corrodes weapons, which is neat and all, but again, I have no use for it at this point.
The rest of the area is a pretty barren, snowy-ass place filled to the brim with pathetically weak hollows, some of which have giant, creepy, and gross heads that spew HIV when you stab them. Most of the items you collect will be souls—boring consumable souls that I just don't need anymore. I'm getting the impression that this area would've been a lot cooler to find WAY earlier in the game, and not the very last one. But, you know, oh well, I guess?
I was just expecting something REALLY special, because... I don't know. The way people talk about this area, like it's this super cool place, made me think it was different from the rest of the game, or that it was special. But it's not, really. It's just another area, and a particularly boring and unmemorable one at that.
There's a big poison dragon thing, like the one I fought before in the Valley of Drakes, but I decided to just cheese with arrows, because fuck it. He only gives you a Dragon Scale anyway, so who gives a fuck. Down the bridge he was guarding, I found an equally large beast-looking creature—I don't know if it's another poison dragon, or what, but it wasn't moving and it wasn't acting hostile towards me, so I didn't really want to just attack it. I gave it one stab, just to see what it would do, because it's blocking my path, and I didn't know what else to do. I don't even know what this thing IS. I can't tell where it begins and ends. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen, but after awhile, I just left it alone.
Later, I had to go down to the sewers. With my trusty Hidden Body spell, those bonewheel cunts weren't able to detect me at all (and neither could anything else, for that matter), so I was able to clear that section of the area pretty well. I imagine this spot gave a lot of people all kinds of trouble, but fortunately, my willingness to use weird spells and shi paid off for me once again.
The switch I activated down there caused a statue above ground to turn a new direction—now, it's facing a door that was previously locked, opening it and revealing a fog gate. I guess it's boss time?
The individual described on the Peculiar Doll's lore piece is who I gathered to be Crossbreed Priscilla, the only name left on my hitlist that isn't Gwyn or Gwyndolin. She's the one I'll be meeting after I cross that gate.
And, lo and behold—there she was. Upon seeing her, I couldn't help but notice that nohealth bar appeared, as would be typical for a boss—nonetheless, I raised my shield and walked up to her as slowly as possible, before I could confirm that she was, indeed, not hostile, and was willing to speak with me.
Now, if you understand why I refuse to fight Gwyndolin—or hell, if you know how I play video games at all—then it probably doesn't surprise you, that I never actually wound up fighting Priscilla, either.
Basically, she's not evil or anything. She simply tells you that you shouldn't be there, and politely asks you to leave.
So, uh, I did. I spoke to her twice before jumping off the plank home—no more than that, though, because I was scared of triggering the boss fight which I couldn't bring myself to commence.
I mean, maybe I just made the Painted World completely pointless for myself. But look, man—if a boss is going to be
that nice to me, it doesn't exactly inspire me to just go and kill them, you know what I mean? She didn't do anything to me, so I feel like I have literally no reason to fight her. It just wouldn't feel right.
What exactly is her deal, anyway? You can answer that, I certainly don't mind. Who knows, maybe I
should fight her.
My only idea is this—I found an Egg Vermifuge while exploring. That makes me think it could be possible to get infected by those big-headed poisonous hollows, and then Priscilla is there to cure you, or something. She starts off by saying that I'm not "one of them"—one of them meaning "crossbreed," I assume. So, if you're in no need of her services, she just sends you on your way. That's all I can really imagine.
Anyway—this has probably been the most boring fucking update ever. But don't worry, there's only one more after this. Then I'm officially done.
No, seriously. It's almost time. I can't really believe it either.
Asylum Demon
Bed of Chaos
Bell Gargoyles
Capra Demon
Ceaseless Discharge
Centipede Demon
Chaos Witch Quelaag
Crossbreed Priscilla (spared)
Dark Sun Gwyndolin (spared)
Demon Firesage
Dragon Slayer Ornstein & Executioner Smough
Four Kings
Gaping Dragon
Gravelord Nito
Gwyn, Lord of Cinder
Iron Golem
Moonlight Butterfly
Pinwheel
Seath the Scaleless
Sif, the Great Grey Wolf
Stray Demon
Taurus Demon
From that screencap, eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that I have the Ring of Favor & Protection equipped.
Oh yeah—that's how you know it's time.
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