Dark Souls Playthrough Week 4

Day 6
Was it twenty? I think I’ve died twenty times now. I barely know what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s not even the demon that’s my problem anymore. I can dodge his blows just fine, it’s the damn dogs that keep catching me off-guard.

Day 9
I did it! I got passed those dogs and managed to dispose of them before moving onto the giant goat-headed demon. He dropped a key to The Depths. I decided to go poke around before making my way back to the Gardens and finish exploring.

The Depths were like nothing I had seen before. Slime seemingly crawling across the walls, ghouls everywhere, and more of those ruthless dogs. After making my way into the Depths a bit, and fighting off what appeared to be a cannibalistic chef for the undead, I discovered another sensible person in this world.

Leaurentius was my reason to continue, a pyromancer like myself, but he was from The Great Swamp. Upon deciding I’d poked enough around The Depths I headed back up to The Firelit Shrine to find my new acquaintance. He saw that I was still having trouble with my memories, so he filled me in on details as well as provided several powerful spells for my arsenal.

“Pyromancy is the art of casting fire, to produce flame then channel it. A pyromancer must be in tune with nature herself. Pyromancy has a primitive aspect to it. It meshes poorly with advanced culture and pyromancers are considered ‘unsavoury’. A pyromancer’s flame is a part of his own body. The flame develops with his skill.”

All things I knew, yet had to be reminded of. How could I forget? It was like riding a bike. This newfound social connection inspired me to go converse with the others around Firelink Shrine. The creepy man that had told me of the Bells being two, instead of one, mentioned that others were in the Shrine, performing rituals of some sort. They all ignored me.

The same man mentioned that he saw an undead like myself, being taken somewhere by a raven, similar to the one that brought me to the shrine. I discovered the nest and soon enough a curtain of black feathers swooped down to meet my shoulders and hoist me back off to the asylum.

Wandering around the asylum, I discovered a peculiar doll where my holding cell was. This strange doll was wearing a ragged dress. As I clutched the fragile, fraying figure, a story popped into my head. The strange doll in the dress. There was once an abomination who had no place in this world. She clutched this doll tightly, and eventually was drawn into a cold and lonely, painted world.

Day 11

I managed to clear out the rest of the asylum. There was a large Stray Demon in the basement, who proved a formidable opponent but extremely predictable. After 3 attempts I slayed him easily, picking up a large titanite slab in the process.

I returned with this slab to talk to the blacksmith more about how reinforcing my equipment would benefit me in the long-run. I’m glad I’ve been reinforcing my items! The Blacksmith said that when my equipment was ready I would be able to use his furnace to ascend my equipment to inconceivable levels. Imbuing a weapon with a special soul, such as the one I received from the Moonlight Butterfly, would make it a weapon of legend.

Day 13

I decided to go finish exploring the Depths, being drawn downward for some reason. After a long trek through a disgusting aqueduct system, I discovered a large open cavern, ruins of what used to be the rest of the aqueducts. Before I could venture out far, a giant dragon with its ribcage exposed had creeped up into the cavern, forcing me to defend myself.

I quickly removed its tail, so it would have less balance and opportunity to attack. At this point I just needed to stay behind or off to the side of the beast. Every time it charged, it left me with a wide opening, allowing me to plunge the black steel of the Knight’s Sword into the monstrosity. The dragon fizzled into a putty-like substance on the floor, the tail turning into something wieldable.

A merchant informed me, I’d discovered the Dragon King Greataxe. Unfortunately it’s still way too heavy for me to wield. If I ever get used to the weight, I’ll be sure to document its effectiveness.

______________________________

This week’s assignment: Emphasize the conventions of storytelling. Does the story create a reality, or are you more engaged with gameplay or story. Also add anything new about characterization, or general interesting storytelling techniques.

This game has the most unique story-telling system. On one hand, the plot is minimalistic and your character interaction can be relatively devoid of anything more than “buy the next best item from [x]-vendor.” But on the other-hand, the plot is so extensive that there’s no way anyone could absorb it all on the first go. Every item in the game has a unique description, the most unique the item, the more lore-related the description.

 The black-knight shield I picked up described how the Knights are now black because they were literally burned, fighting off chaos demons. The chaos demons must have also been massive because the Black Knight Sword is supposed to “reflect the size of the knights’ former adversaries”, and the sword is pretty much the character’s height.

Now that I’m reaching the part of the game I haven’t played yet I’m noticing a lot more attempt to pull in more characters, provided you interact with them. The rest of the game I still consider a “learning experience” or “tutorial” because it was teaching the player important things about the game.

One important thing about the game would be how certain bosses drop “special souls” that can be used on weapons. Another is that you should be reinforcing your weapons so you’re not just leveling up while your equipment stays crappy.

A final is that there are now characters I can affiliate with, and/or piss-off. I need to make sure to stay on other NPC’s good sides, I don’t need to have an entire zone become more difficult because I don’t pay attention to what an NPC wants.