I decided to return to Sen’s Fortress before returning to Anor Londo once more, having remembered that there were still bodies to loot, and demons I had not yet slain. What awaited me was pain…
11:01PM
I have killed two demons for their titanites, and acquired a Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring. This seems useful for backstabs, though I’m not sure what else at this point in time. I also managed to discover an elevator that takes me to both the front of the fortress and the exit. This will make return trips much less nightmare-ish.
Even better, I discovered the bonfire that was hiding somewhere near the top. Very sneaky. I would have appreciated knowing this was here earlier – it would have made for a very convenient respawn point. I already died many times in the hour it took me to navigate this place all over again. I have the layout memorised just fine, but all it can take to ruin a trip is to fall off an edge, or get two unlucky hits…
But I made it. I know how to deal with this place now. Off to Anor Londo.
11:07PM
Made some progress, only to discover yet another gate ‘sealed by the Great Lord’s power’. I suppose these are all places I’ll be returning to once I’m nearing much closer to the end of the game. I’m left somewhat baffled, however. I don’t know where else to go from here. Every route leads to a dead end. There must be something clever going on. I remember an important quote…
Plan your strategy based on the enemies’ positions. Try to think like the enemy commander will think. If you can put yourself in the map designer’s mind, a lot of doors will open for you.
There’s a lot of buildings around here… it has to be a hidden path of some sort. Maybe if I try hacking away at more suspicious walls… or there’s some more parkour to do. There’s far too much going on outside on a visual level for there to be nothing of the sort…
I did find Smough’s statue. I almost feel like it might spring to life at some point. Surely not. The truth is probably more simple, but no less stunning. Though I did notice that Ornstein’s statue has a weapon on it, and it didn’t look fake. Who knows? Not me. The person reading this? Probably.
11:14PM
Bonfire!? I really thought I explored this whole initial section, but I just skipped over the bonfire entirely. It’s not even that I didn’t know this room existed, I just kept telling myself I’d ‘check it out later’, and then I completely forgot to actually do that. I’m a little suspicious of the fire keeper here… I get the feeling she’s more important than your average fire keeper. The only way I could be sure now is to attack her and check the description of her loot, if she has any. I won’t do that, of course.
11:26PM
This is it. I found a route to another section! Yep, building to building, from the outside. The enemies inside were rather pathetic, and very easily back-stabbed. What made them a threat was merely everything being so elevated from the lower level. One mistake, and I have to do this all over again. And I sure had to do this all over again, at least three or four times.
A giant painting, though? I feel as though I’ve heard stories about a ‘painted world’… is this relevant?
11:39PM
Finally made it. I thought it was strange that I couldn’t simply walk over to this structure earlier, but it turned out that by reaching it from the building I came from, I could lower it and turn it around, making it connect different locations together. This is going so slowly, though. I wasn’t expecting to spend so much time just getting lost around here… I thought it would be fairly straightforward after the fortress.
12:07AM
Bizarre things are happening. I spent a solid chunk of time exploring the sides of a building, falling off, and trying again. I was about to continue this when I realised there were stairs leading down from the structure I mentioned. I assumed it was merely a steep drop. I took the stairs, and found myself on the lower section of the place with the painting.
I killed my enemies.
I looted the place, learned of Tarkus, and…
