Dark Soul

Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Starting a New Game
3. Undead Asylum
4. Firelink Shrine
5. Undead Burg
6. Undead Parish
7. Lower Undead Burg
8. Depths
9. Darkroot Garden
10. Darkroot Basin
11. Northern Undead Asylum Revisited
12. Blighttown
13. Quelaag's Domain
14. The Great Hollow
15. Ash Lake
16. Sen's Fortress
17. Anor Londo
18. Darkroot Garden Revisited
19. Painted World of Ariamis
20. New Londo Ruins
21. The Duke's Archives
22. Crystal Cave
23. The Catacombs
24. Tomb of the Giants
25. Demon Ruins

26. Lost Izalith
27. Kiln of the First Flame
Introduction
This guide is written with the sole intent of being as complete and thorough a walkthrough as possible. Everything
you need to know to get through the game, find all the secrets, and pound every boss along the way is in here. What
the guide does not include is full appendices and lists for every item and character. For all that information, you can
consult either GameFAQs.com, or my personal favourite:
http://darksouls.wikidot.com/
Starting a New Game
How you choose to design your character makes very little difference, it is simply a template for the kind of
character you wish to build. You should focus only on the stats of the initial build, the names of the "classes" are
irrelevant. I also suggest you choose the "Master Key" as your starting item, each other item can be found fairly
easily in the game, and the Master Key will grant you early access to some interesting areas.
Now before you begin, how about a few points I wish I had known when I started a new game?
You can slide down ladders with the roll/dodge button
Almost any attack in this game can be blocked with enough stamina and a good
enough shield
You can riposte enemy attacks with the secondary left trigger and counter, you can
also perform powerful backstabs from behind
Upgrade your weapon as soon as you find a blacksmith, the benefits will be far more
noticable than gaining a level or two
Learn magic or pyromancy regardless of what kind of character you play, there are
spells that greatly benefit melee players too
Do not use Fire Keeper Souls from your inventory! Give them to a Fire Keeper.
You can summon player and NPC phantoms to help with bosses while in human form,
but you also risk being invaded by other players in that form
Kindle fires often, especially ones you revisit. Huamnities are not difficult to get in
large numbers if you really try, don't hesitate to use them.
Whenever you have enough souls to level, use them, unless you know for sure you
are saving up for something else
Whenever you die on the way back to your bloodstain and lose hours and hours of
progress, just take a deep breath, eject the game disc, and toss it into the nearest
incinerator.
Now let's get to it.

Undead Asylum
Dungeon Cell Key
Estus Flask
Undead Asylum F2 East Key
Big Pilgrim's Key
Soul of a Lost Undead

When the game begins you'll find yourself inside of a locked cell. Pick up the DUNGEON CELL KEY and exit. If
you're a beginner to the game I'd recommend reading each of the messages you pass written on the floor, these
contain valuable tips to help you get used to the game. Follow the hallway around to a ladder and lib it. At the top
you'll reach the first bonfire. Bonfires act as checkpoints where you can level up and restore your health flask,
among other things. Doing so will respawn all non-boss enemies however.
Proceed through the door and you will encounter the first boss the Asylum Demon. At this point you are ill-equipped
to fight him, so when he drops out of the sky quickly run left through the small door. Another bonfire waits in here.
In the next hallway you'll encounter your first enemy, as well as find a weapon and shield which are different
depending on your starting class. Quickly pick up and equip these before eliminating the undead archer, then
proceed through the fog.
Around the next corner, make a right and you'll come to asset of stairs. As you go up, be ready to roll off to the right
as a large metal ball is pushed down toward you. This ball which crash open a hole in the wall to reveal an injured
soldier who will produce you with both your ESTUS FLASK (your reusable healing flask)and the UNDEAD
ASYLUM F2 EAST KEY. Now go down the stairs outside and unlock the shortcut leading back to the first bonfire,
it may be a good idea to stop and rest.
Head back up the stairs and through the door. If you're a mage you'll find a catalyst here, which is a type of weapon
that allows you to cast your magic. You can equip it in the same hand as your melee weapon and switch on the fly
with the D pad. Around the corner you'll find a room with a locked door you cannot access yet, and another wall of
fog leading back to the boss.
BOSS: Asylum Demon
You will begin the fight on a ledge above the boss. As soon as you do, equip your melee weapon and quickly drop
off, pressing the light attack button in midair. If done correctly you will land a special attack on the boss for quite a
lot of damage. If you are too slow he will destroy the ledge you are standing on (likely with you along with it).
Now that you've made a solid dent in his health, you have two options. You can run back up top and perform the
manoeuvre again, or you can fight him at ground level. Once you get the hang of his attacks you'll realize the
majority of them are aimed ahead of him, so for melee characters simply stay close, and continue running around
behind him to make 2-handed attacks on his backside.
The attack you'll need to watch out for in this case is his jumping attack. When he lifts up into the air, simply roll
back and keep your distance until he is on the ground again, this should allow you to avoid being hit, then you can
move in to repeat the above.
For magic users, simply keep as much distances you can and spam your default spell. His attacks have limited range,
so as long as you continue to circle the outside while you cast, you should have no trouble.
For defeating the boss you receive the BIG PILGRIM'S KEY.
Use the key on the large door in this room and make your way out. As you go up the stairs, you'll find a hidden path
on your left leading down to a SOUL OF A LOST UNDEAD. These items stay in your inventory even after death,
and can be redeemed for souls anytime, you will find them very valuable.
At the top of the stairs, there is a cutscene, and the game begins.
Firelink Shrine
Humanity
Firebomb (x6)
Homeward Bone (x6)
Talisman
Morning Star
Cracked Red Eye Orb (x4)
Lloyd's Talisman (x4)
Large Should of a Lost Undead
Large Soul of a Lost Undead
Caduceus Round Shield
Soul of a Nameless Soldier
Transient Curse (x2)
Estoc
Fire Keeper Soul
Ring of Sacrifice

Between the boss and the Soul of a Lost Undead, you should have just enough souls for two levels when you rest at
the bonfire here. Each level requires more souls than the previous one. Souls can be lost upon death, but once you've
levelled up you cannot lost what you've gained, so always be careful about carrying around too many souls at once.
The stats you upgrade should depend on the kind of character you want to play. Look elsewhere in this guide for
examples and suggestions for how to build a character and distribute your stats.
Immediately behind you on the corpse on the well you'll find a HUMANITY. These items have multiple uses
through the game, though at this point its best held onto. Start by heading up the stairs toward the ruins and staying
to the right side. Through a couple doors you'll find a corpse with FIREBOMB (x6) on it. Back a little and through
the next door over you'll meet a man who gives you a COPPER COIN. He also asks you to join a covenant, a
concept which is explained in more detail elsewhere in this guide. For now the best advice is that joining covenants
can have some nice rewards, and there is no punishment for leaving, so it is advisable to join each new covenant you
find until you have a reason to stick with one. Once you have joined his covenant you can purchase miracles from
him, useful for faith-based characters.
You can also learn a "gesture" from this man which can be performed by hitting the select button. Their use is
primarily restricted for online play.
Climb up to the top of the stairs behind the man to find another SOUL OF A LOST UNDEAD. Go halfway back
down the stairs and to the right to find two small doors. Fall down either of them and go through the hall where you
will drop down in front of a number of chests containing HOMEWARD BONE (x6), TALISMAN, MORNING
STAR, and CRACKED RED EYE ORB (x4). The path out of here also leads to a chest with LLOYD'S TALISMAN
(x4).
When you drop down you will most likely aggro a few skeletons, these enemies are likely a bit too difficult to face
at this point in the game. To lose their pursuit simply run left and follow the path through the ruins toward the
bonfire. Resting there will reset the enemies.
From the bonfire, head up the stairs toward the ruins again into the large room with the water. Take the left exit and
make a sharp left again, around a thin path along the cliff here leads to a corpse behind the wall and a SOUL OF A
LOST UNDEAD. Turn around and go back to the door. There is a set of stairs leading up above the water room that
takes you around the other side to another SOUL OF A LOST UNDEAD.
Now a bit of optional loot if you want. You can try and go through the entire graveyard if you wish, but I'll just
mention the easy stuff for now. As you enter the graveyard, if you drop down on your left you'll find a LARGE
SOUL OF A LOST UNDEAD. Keep running down the path to another item, a second LARGE SOUL OF A LOST
UNDEAD. From here, make a sharp left and around this corner near the cliff surrounded by graves is a
CADUCEUS ROUND SHIELD which provides good defines against magic attacks. This is all I suggest for now,
but if you wish you can keep exploring, though there's nothing too exciting to find here. I'll cover the rest of it when
we return later in the guide.
Back at the starting bonfire, the undead souls should give your more than enough for one more level before we head
out to the first area. Before we do however, there is one more optional bonus that I highly recommend you collect:
Optional: Before you even start into the first dungeon you have a fairly easy opportunity to upgrade the power of
your Estus Flask. There is a set of stairs leading down a few steps away from the bonfire behind the tree. Follow
these stairs down, down, down to an elevator which goes even further down. Exit this elevator and go left. Drop
down to find a SOUL OF A NAMELESS SOLDIER. Keep hugging the left side down a couple more sets of stairs.
Just before you reach the thin bridge over the water you can turn around to find a large urn with a corpse in it. Break
it open to get TRANSIENT CURSE (x2), and further behind that is a corpse with an ESTOC on it. (Save the
Transient Curses for later in the game, to use them now would be a waste).
Now, as for the secret, all you need to do is run across the two bridges here. On the other side you'll encounter some
ghosts which you can't even damage at this point. Just run/roll by them while holding your shield. Your goal is to
make an immediate right when you come off the second bridge and follow the stone wall around the corner. When
the wall ends, do almost a full U turn and head back along the wall on the other side. It's difficult to see, but this is a
very thin rock path, so run very straight and ignore the ghosts that pop up. If you make it to the glowing white item
on the other side you will find a FIRE KEEPER SOUL, this is what you've been looking for (whatever you do DO
NOT USE IT YET).
Making it back is more difficult than making it here. If you don't have too many souls I suggest you don't bother
trying to come back if you die. The item is all you need.
Now that you have the Fire Keeper Soul, simply go down the stairs near the bonfire again. At the bottom of the first
set of stairs there is a small cage built into the wall with a woman who will not speak, but she will use the Fire
Keeper Soul to upgrade your flask for you. You will find this is a very handy upgrade to have so early.
Now you're ready to begin! From the bonfire head up past the well and up a large set of stairs. This area is populated
by enemies. Once you've defeated them you can collect the SOUL OF A LOST UNDEAD from the corpse on the
cliff. Now, just before you go up the last set of stairs there is a small grassy ledge that leads around the opposite side
of the pillar. You can actually drop down from here onto the stone support of the bridge below and run across to that
shiny object in the distance which turns out to be a RING OF SACRIFICE. Back at the other end you can jump back
to safety.
The last thing to do is climb all the way to the top of the stairs. Here you'll find another SOUL OF A LOST
UNDEAD. Through the door and left, past a diseased rat, is another SOUL OF A LOST UNDEAD. You can't open
the gate at the other end, so proceed through the other door to reach the Undead Burg.
Undead Burg
Rubbish
Humanity
Residence Key
Throwing Knife (x10)
Wooden Shield
Black Firebomb (x5)
Gold Pine Resin (x3)
Blue Tearstone Ring
Titanite Chunk
At the top of the stairs as you enter you'll notice a number of barrels. Destroy the barrels to the right of the small
steps to reveal a hole in the wall where you can drop down onto a LARGE SOUL OF A LOST UNDEAD. Drop
down from here, kill the enemies, and you'll notice a door into the building you just dropped down from. Check
inside to find a SOUL OF A LOST UNDEAD. Go back down the stairs and around the only path you can take. After
beating up some zombies collect the RUBBISH and go up the ladder. At the top there's a corpse with another
HUMANITY and a hole in the wall leading back to the entrance.
Head toward the door with the fog and go through it. Below the stairs in this room is a SOUL OF A LOST
UNDEAD. Go up the stairs and out the door, but move slowly, and do run out too far (you'll see why). Continue
across the bridge and up the stairs ahead of you to reach a bonfire on your right. Level up as you see fit, but I
recommend you save 1000 souls. You'll see why in a few seconds.
Continue across the bridge and to the right. Kill a couple of shield wielding enemies here and then break all the
boxes on the left side to reveal a hidden staircase. Kill any enemies you find downstairs, then go out the closest door
to the bottom of the stairs to find the game's first merchant. The one item I recommend you buy is the RESIDENCE
KEY, you should be able to afford it by using a few of those Souls of Lost Undead. The Master Key will work on
some doors, but there's at least one you can only open with this key. The Repairbox is also handy, but it's easier to
afford later when you'll need it more.
(Also note that once you have the Residence Key, you don't really need this guy for anything else, so if you don't
care about losing him forever, you can kill him to get an Uchigatana, a DEX scaling weapon and one of the most
powerful katanas in the game. Also, if you want to try and get the Drake Sword early, you may want to purchase a
Short Bow and arrows here).
Now descend the stairs in the previous room and go up the big ladder to find THROWING KNIFE (x10). Drop back
down from here to a familiar area and head forward. Before you go up the stairs, open the door on the right to reach
a WOODEN SHIELD. Now return to the bonfire and rest.
From the bonfire, run quickly across the bridge to avoid firebombs falling from above. Ignore the locked door and
go outside to find a doorway and a set of stairs going up. Go through the door to reach a room with a treasure chest
containing BLACK FIREBOMB (x5). Now leave and go up the stairs. After killing the enemies climb the ladder
behind you to reach ha SOUL OF A LOST UNDEAD. Back down again there's a door here that can only be opened
with the Residence Key or Master Key. It leads to a chest containing GOLD PINE RESIN (x3). Now go back out the
door you came in.
Climb the tower here and eliminate the annoying archer. Down the stairs from the tower are three relatively power
undead, you'll want to be careful and take your time with them. Down a set of stairs from here is a MUCH more
powerful enemy, totally optional and I wouldn't suggest fighting him unless you're experienced or well geared. If
you do take him on, good blocking/dodging skills are essential, and may want to lure him up the stairs to a more
open area. One idea is to try throwing Firebombs after moving backward to avoid an attack so that he's vulnerable. If
killing him doesn't seem like an option to you, you can always lure him out and run behind him. The knight will
usually drop a Titanite Chunk and/or a Black Knight Sword. Behind where he was standing you'll find the BLUE
TEARSTONE RING which increases DEF when you have low health.
Be cautious before continuing upstairs, there's another undead soldier waiting to toss a flaming barrel at you. Dodge
it, and continue up. Through the door ahead of you (which you can open with the Master Key) is a much more
difficult knight than the one you just faced, and it leads down into a new area which again, will be too difficult for
you at this point. I won't cover fighting the knight now, only to say that again the best strategy is to bide your time
and get behind him for timed backstabs. He drops a ring that increases equip load I believe, which is handy.
Anyway, head up the spiral stairs to the top. Roll through the barrels and if you're lucky you may free a crystal
lizard, which you must catch and kill quickly before it disappears. If you do, the lizard will always drop some kind
of Titanite. When you are ready for a the boss, go through the fog.
BOSS: TAURUS DEMON
Before the boss even appears, climb the ladder on your right and eliminate the two enemies up top. Remember
where this ladder is because it will be very useful during this fight. When you are ready to begin, climb down and
run toward the opposite end. Get ready to turn around and return the second you see the boss' health bar.
Make sure you have your melee weapon equipped and climb up the ladder. Turn around immediately, and if you see
the boss below waiting for you, run off the edge and hit the light attack button! Same strategy you used for the first
boss, if you do it right, you'll land right on his head and do massive damage. Now here's where it gets tricky:
You can do one of two things, you can keep fighting him now or try and turn around and do the same thing again.
Remember that when you get up the ladder you have to be quick about your drop attack, more than 10 seconds and
he'll jump right up there with you.
For a melee character keep rolling around behind him and hitting him with 2H swings. When you see him reach
back with an attack, you want to dodge to the side as soon as you see his weapon about half way toward hitting you.
Too early a dodge and he'll correct his swing and smack right on top of you.
For a mage, after dropping on him get on the opposed side and start backtracking toward the other end while casting
spells. When you reach the other end and he catches up to you, wait till he jumps and lands, then get in close and
dodge his close range attack. Doing so should put you on the other side of him to continue the same strategy moving
the other way.
Remember you also have Firebombs and Gold Pine Resin for extra damage if you're having difficulty.
Lastly, this boss has a habit of simply falling off the edge like an idiot sometimes. It's difficult to get him to do it
intentionally, but you can high five yourself if you get lucky and he does. Of course you won't get the weapon he
sometimes drops, but there are much better weapons you'll be getting before long anyway.
Now keep going through the door on the other side. Break the boxes at the top of the stairs to get a LARGE SOUL
OF A LOST UNDEAD. Continue down the stairs and make a right at the bottom. Talk to the knight there and say
yes to his questions to get a WHITE SIGN SOAPSTONE that allows you to summon people.
Now make sure you don't have anything too heavy equipped so you can run fast and roll. You'll see a large bridge
back in the direction you came from with undead soldiers on it. Start sprinting with your shield up while hugging the
right wall. Along the way a huge dragon is going to fly in blasting fire, your goal is to either A: make it to the stairs
half way down on the right first, or B: survive his first fire blast and make it there anyway. You certainly won't
survive a second, so you need to move quick.
At the bottom of the stairs you'll find two doors, you want the one that leads down a set of stairs to a ladder. Kick
this ladder down to create a shortcut back to the previous bonfire and rest.
One thing I recommend here is that since you probably have a couple of Humanities in your inventory, you "kindle"
this bonfire. If you are in undead form it will require two. Use one Humanity to revert to human form, then use
another and offer it to the fire. Now this fire will be forever kindled and give you 10 Estus every time you rest here
rather than five.
Optional: This will detail getting a very powerful sword early in the game, the Drake Sword. You will need a bow
and about 50 - 60 standard arrows if your DEX is at the minimum to use the short bow (12). The Short Bow and
arrows can be purchased from the vendor for 1000 souls and 10 souls each respectively, although bows can be found
elsewhere too.
Once you have these climb the ladder in the bonfire room and go out the door onto the underside of the bridge. On
the right side you can see the red dragon's tail hanging down. Stay on the side close to the door and pull out your
bow. Shoot one arrow to hit its tail and wait for it to fly close to you. When it does, shoot another arrow straight into
the tail hanging down in front of you when it's much closer. Repeat this process about 25 - 35 times and you will
suddenly find the Drake Sword added to your inventory. This is a very powerful sword that requires 16 STR and 10
DEX to wield.
From the bonfire, climb the ladder and go out the door onto the underside of the bridge. When you cross the small
ledge toward the opening into the next area, be very careful to dodge the attacks of the rats in there. Even the shield
wont block their poison, and being poisoned at this point in the gamer will likely kill you.
After killing the rats, climb the ladder. There's another difficult knight enemy at the top of this tower that will net
you a TITANITE CHUNK if you can manage to defeat him.
Undead Parish
Alluring Skull (x4)
Mystery Key
Knight Shield
Titanite Shard
Fire Keeper Soul
Humanity
Large Soul of a Nameless Soldier
Gargoyle Tail Axe
Sunlight Medal
The beginning areas of the Undeaad Parish are dangerous, so move slowly and try to pull the enemies one at a time.
The armoured boar is your biggest threat, but he's not too difficult to defeat. His thrust attack is easily dodged,
giving you a chance to move around behind him. The only part of his body that isn't armoured is his rear end, so if
you can manage to line yourself up perfectly behind him, you can jam a sword up his ass for a huge chunk of
damage.
Another option if you like is to climb the stairs on the left, eliminate the archers and pick up the ALLURING
SKULL (x4). Dropping one of those down below will distract the boar and let you get in a nice drop attack.
Take the stairs down below the gate and be very weary of the enemies in here, although weak they have a tendency
to gang up in large numbers. Up the stairs before you climb the ladder you'll find a corpse with a MYSTERY KEY
on it. Climb the ladder, kill the two ghouls, and then turn around. You can walk across a thin beam here to reach a
LARGE SOUL OF A LOST UNDEAD. Now make your way up and out through the fog door.
At the end of the bridge make a right and you'll approach an enemy with its back turned. If you walk slowly up to
him it's very easy to do a backstab and often take him out in a single hit. He's guarding a KNIGHT SHIELD.
Backtrack a little and go up the stairs in the other direction. This will lead you past a number of enemies to a more
open area. Don't take the left turn past the next red-caped knight, instead keep going toward the cathedral. Once you
kill the three undead out front your safe. Ignore the cathedral for now and instead head down the path opposite its
door. This will lead you straight to the next bonfire. Be sure not just to light it, but to rest as well (this is also a very
handy bonfire to kindle).
Further down the stairs you'll encounter a blacksmith. The blacksmith can reinforce your weapons and armour which
is VERY handy, even at this point in the game. If you're still using basic weapons, try saving up some souls and
buying Titanite Shards from him to reinforce your weapons, you'll really see the damage start ramping up quickly.
Outside the bottom door there's a large crippled lightning demon! He'll fire lightning at a range and swing his large
staff when you get close. He's fairly easy to take out from a distance with a mage, but if you're going to try and kill
him up close you'll want to stay behind as much as possible and roll to avoid the big swings he does. Killing him
will net you 1000 souls and a DEMON TITANITE, though it may be best to come back a little later if you feel he's
too difficult at this point. Behind the miniboss is the exit to the Darkroot Garden, but it's still a little early to go
there.
When you're ready to move on head back upstairs from the bonfire (or take a second to investigate the path away
from the bonfire toward the large gate, though there's nothing you can do here until later aside from speak to the
knight). Now head back out toward the cathedral.
When you enter the cathedral from this side, one of the first enemies you'll encounter is a huge knight wielding a
mace and a large tower shield. He looks a lot more menacing than he is, his attacks hit hard but he's pitifully slow.
You can easily stay close and sidestep around him, when he goes in for a pounding attack, use that opportunity to
pound his back a few times. You'll get a TITANITE SHARD out of it.
Back inside here the knight was waiting by the altar is a second FIRE KEEPER SOUL. Furthermore you're just
steps away from an elevator leading down to the Firelink Shrine that once used, becomes a permanent shortcut
between the shrine and this cathedral. Now would be a great time to go back and upgrade your flask at the woman
below the Firelink bonfire.
Back on the main floor of the cathedral, there are three more red-caped knights to take out before going out the front
door. If these enemies are too difficult, you can backtrack a little in the direction you came toward the cathedral to
find a small shortcut that leads to the front of it. Here you will find a HALBERD, a BASEMENT KEY and a switch
to open the large gate and create another shortcut.
When you are ready to approach the boss, take the stairs up near the elevator and get ready to take on an army of
undead minions and their sorcerer leader (once killed the sorcerer does not respawn). Make a left, then another left
here and follow that hall past the knight around a corner to a corpse in a barrel with a HUMANITY. There's a
breakable wooden barrier on the corner you just past, smash it open and climb to the top to reach ha cell you can
open with your Mystery Key and free the knight imprisoned knight inside. Note: Lautrec will eventually betray you
and kill the fire keeper in Firelink Shrine, so you can kill him now if you wish, however you will also have an
opportunity to get revenge on him in a special battle later and revive the fire keeper, so it's actually worth it to leave
him alone. You'll end up with a few extra items if you let him live, but if you don't want to go through the trouble,
you can kill him now.
Head back down the hallway and explore the opposite corner of the second floor, there's a LARGE SOUL OF A
NAMELESS SOLDIER. You are now ready to fight the boss. I suggest you try the boss at least once, and if you find
him difficult, try using a Humanity to revive to human form. While in human for a summon sign will appear in front
of the fog and allow you to summon Solaire to help you, he makes this fight MUCH MUCH easier. Anyway, you'll
find the boss up a couple of ladders at the top of the cathedral.
BOSS: BELL GARGOYLE (x2)
I may as well spare you the spoiler to save you the hardship and say that once you have the boss half dead, another
one with 50% health flies out of the sky to join the battle. This is essentially the only reason the fight is hard, and
that's why summoning Solaire while in human form just before you enter the door is invaluable help.
Regardless, you can take your time with the first gargoyle. A decent shield like the Knight Shield will block all of
his attacks 100% with the exception of his fire breath. Use this as a means to slowly get closer to him, and once
you've managed to sidestep around behind, put your weapon in both hands and start pounding his back a couple of
times before re-equipping the shield and starting the process over.
This fight is fairly easy for a mage, just spam Soul Arrow or your best pry spell from as far away as you can while
either strafing to avoid his attacks, or letting Solaire take the attention.
The real trick to winning this battle is noticing when the first gargoyle is close to 50% health. When this happens go
for an all-out offensive, get behind him and pound him with 2H attacks. Don't even think about the second gargoyle
unless you know he's right behind you. The instant the first one is dead the battle is essentially won, but as long as
there are two flying around it's almost impossible to reliably block their attacks, things just get too unwieldy.
A final note: focusing your attacks on the tail of the gargoyles will crop them off and force them to drop the
GARGOYLE TAIL AXE, which is a fun weapon that is more of a novelty than truly useful. If you don't get it don't
worry, you'll fight gargoyles as regular enemy spawn later in the game and have the chance again. The boss drops a
SUNLIGHT MEDAL when defeated.
Now all you have left to do is climb up the tower and ring the first bell! Congratulations. This is also a good time to
mention if you haven't realized yet that you can press the roll button while on a ladder to descend very quickly.
Handy little trick.
On your way back down you'll find a vendor who sells a few decent items.
At this point you might want to backtrack a little to catch up on things here and there, level up or upgrade your gear.
When you're ready to progress again, your next destination is the end of the red dragon bridge where you first met
Solaire. Here there is a door that was locked to you before, but now can be opened with the Basement Key.
Lower Undead Burg
Sorcerer (Armour Set)
Sorcerer's Catalyst
Twin Humanities
Mail Breaker
Black Leather (Armour Set)
Thief Mask
Target Shield
Key to Depths
Note that if you find this area or boss too difficult, try skipping ahead to the Darkroot Garden, you'll find quite a few
items and souls in that area and it's an optional area now, but can be undertaken fairly easily at this point.
After sliding down the big ladder through the locked door, you'll come to a couple sets of stairs at the bottom.
Immediately take the stairs up and unlock the shortcut to the bonfire in the Undead Burg, you will find this path is
likely much easier to take when you die rather than risking your life on the red dragon bridge.
Head down into the lower burg and take out the dogs racing around at the bottom. Turn around as soon as you hit the
bottom and head in the opposite direction. If you stay along the wall you'll come across a door with someone
trapped inside. This is the door that can only be unlocked with the Residence Key I told you to buy earlier, the
Master Key won't do it. Inside you will find Griggs who, once rescued, will be found at the Firelink Shrine and able
to teach you new sorcery. The corpse in the barrel also has a full set of SORCERER HAT, SORCERER CLOAK,
SORCERER GAUNTLETS, SORCERER BOOTS and SORCERER'S CATALYST.
Continue past the door, and after clearing some torch-wielding zombies you'll find TWIN HUMANITIES which
gives you two Humanity instead of one. This is a dead end, so turn around and continue down into the slums. Move
slowly, you'll notice that many houses have a surprise ninja ambush waiting inside. These enemies have counter and
grab attacks, so be very careful and time your strikes to attack after they've missed with one of theirs.
Be sure to check the houses after you've killed them, one of the first hides a MAIL BREAKER. Another further
down has a full set of BLACK LEATHER ARMOR, BLACK LEATHER GLOVES, BLACK LEATHER BOOTS,
THIEF MASK and TARGET SHIELD. A corpse in a barrel opposite that house holds a LARGE SOUL OF A LOST
UNDEAD.
Just before the fog, make a right and go down the stairs. At the end of this alley you'll find another LARGE SOUL
OF A LOST UNDEAD. Now ignore the locked door and go up the stairs. This leads to a merchant and a shortcut
back to the Firelink Shrine. It's a good idea to rest at the bonfire there because it provides the quickest and easiest
return trip to the boss (who will likely kill you at least a couple of times). You can also pick up some new sorcery
from Griggs. Magic Weapon for example, works great for a huge damage boost (although don't bother if you're
using the Drake Sword, it doesn't work).
When you're ready, head back up from the bottom of the Undead Burg lower area to the fog door again. Prepare for
a boss fight inside.
BOSS: CAPRA DEMON
I would consider the Capra Demon not the hardest, but possibly the most annoying boss in the game. Everything
about this fight is designed to cheap you out and kill you before you know what's what. For starters the room is
incredibly tiny so the camera gets wonky at every turn, and second, he starts the fight with two demon dogs that are
constantly leaping at you and throwing off your guard while trying to avoid the boss' powerful attacks. Yikes.
Alright, after beating this guy three times now and countless deaths along the way, I've finally got a system that
works (although I can't promise it will work for you). In fact it wasn't until I started ignoring strategies against this
boss that I started to perform better. Here's how I suggest you do it:
Every time I start the fight I begin by running ahead and to the right toward the boss, then leaping as he goes into his
huge downward smash (which he always does). Done correctly and jumping toward the tree you will dodge it every
time. Now you can try and pick off one of the dogs quickly here, but I suggest running immediately up the stairs and
waiting for the dogs to come to you. The only problem with this is that you won't get any consistency out of them.
Sometimes they run up quick, other times the boss will be up in your face before the dogs even figure out where you
are. The best strategy in this fight is to think quick.
So to start you'll basically be running up the stairs, trying to kill the dogs, then jumping down and running back to
the fog door, repeating this until the dogs are dead. If you have a lot of endurance you can block most of this boss'
attacks, but I found them much easier to dodge than block. You'll find they're all pretty slow, so you have plenty of
time to dodge right as he swings (and a backward roll is the best way to avoid his leaping downward smash).
When you finally have the dogs down, you will see this crazy unpredictable boss isn't so crazy and unpredictable
after all, in fact it's not too difficult to simply hover close to him and roll to avoid each of his attacks as they happen.
The trick comes in actually killing him. You can get in a couple of quick hits after his 1-2 single slash combo, if you
want to try and slow and methodical way, but it's not the only way.
The best way to kill him is as follows: run up to the top of the stairs and wait for him to follow. When he gets close,
drop off the ledge and wait until he drops down on top of you. When he does, this is your chance. Roll away and
quickly run back up the stairs. You only need to go about 2/3 of the way up to be in a good position for a dropping
power attack that should take off a huge chunk of his health and stun him just long enough to go up and do it again.
Voila. Cheap but effective.
Killing the boss will net you the KEY TO DEPTHS.
Now that you have the key, make your way to the button of the Undead Burg where the locked door was. This will
lead you right down into the Depths.
Depths
Large Ember
Greataxe
Sewer Chamber Key
Humanity
Humanity
Heavy Crossbow
Heavy Bolt (x11)
Blighttown Key
Hard Leather (Armour Set)
Standard Helm
Turn around at the bottom of the stairs to find a LARGE SOUL OF A NAMELESS SOLDIER on a corpse in the
corner. Continue down the stairs at the opposite end and eliminate all the undead here. Now, if you're a mage or an
archer, you can try and pick off the butcher down in the room below. Doing so will pull him up toward where you
are, so be careful. There's a second one hiding way on on a beam in the opposite corner of the room, you can see him
and get sights on him from the area with all the tables. Once the two of them are dead you're relatively safe to drop
down and deal with the regular dogs and zombies.
Once they're cleared, head over to where the first butcher was standing by the table. There is a chest here containing
the LARGE EMBER which increases the limit you can upgrade your basic gear from +5 to +10, very useful. Give it
to the blacksmith below the bonfire at the cathedral. Secondly, on the opposite side there is an open doorway to a
large empty room full of barrels. Roll through the one in the corner and free the man trapped inside, he's another
friend to join you at Firelink.
Now when you're ready to proceed, there is a closed door in the only remaining unexplored corner of the previous
room. Be very careful as you descend into the water, there are creatures on the ceiling that will drop on your head
and suck the life out of you. Either shoot them down or lure them down by passing slowly toward them. One is
waiting above the corpse in the first room containing a SOUL OF A NAMELESS SOLDIER.
Slowly make your way through the next hall, waiting for the slimes to drop (they're relatively difficult to kill unless
you have fire type damage). You'll be happy if you have the Master Key here, you can use it on the door at the end
of the hall to reach a bonfire (if you don't you'll have to progress a little further to find the specific key below).
When you're ready to continue, head down the stairs beside the door to the bonfire and through the hallway at the
bottom. On your right is a clump of about five rats to take care of. This is actually one of the best places in the game
to farm the Humanity item. Rats have a relatively high drop rate of Humanity, and there's that bonfire very close by
to run back and rest/reset them. If you're planning on trying to collect Humanities, you may wish to wait until later
in the game, you'll find a a ring that increases item drop rate in a dungeon called Sen's Fortress).
Collect the GREATAXE here and turn around. There's a big box at the next corner with a rat hiding inside waiting to
ambush you, and more rats down the stairs ahead of that. Pick up the SEWER CHAMBER KEY off the corpse
through the bars, and if you don't have the Master Key, go back and use it to unlock the bonfire. Further down is a
SOUL OF A NAMELESS SOLDIER and a fog door.
Kill the enemies here and make a left down the small stairs. Hidden at the end is a corpse with a LARGE TITANITE
SHARD on it. The next section has trap doors and can get a little confusing so listen careful. When you enter the
tunnel make an immediate right then an immediate left. Collect the SOUL OF A NAMELESS SOLDIER. Now, if
you continue forward there's a miniboss, but though it will sound counter-intuitive but I recommend you go back
and rest/save at the bonfire again. There is a special shortcut that leads right back to where you just were.
Backtrack a bit more to where the first butcher was standing, next to the chest that had the Great Ember in it. Beside
that chest behind some boxes you can break is a hidden shortcut. When you drop down you'll find yourself above the
giant rat. You can walk over to the other side and collect the SPIDER SHIELD from the corpse, which prevents
against poison, and is actually one of the better shields in the game.
Now equip your strongest weapon and position yourself over the rat. A single drop attack may bring this guy down
in a single hit, and if not, you're in a great position to polish him off with a couple of extra attacks which he's still
trying to figure out what happened. Pick up the HUMANITY that he drops and the SOUL OF A NAMELESS
SOLDIER in the corner. Now run to the end and drop down the waterfall.
At the fork here, make a left. Follow this around and up some stairs to a hallway with a SOUL OF A NAMELESS
SOLDIER in it. Be very weary of these frog-like enemies. They inflict curse on your character, which not only kills
you instantly, but also requires you to go back and purchase an item from that vendor in the cathedral tower for 3000
souls to cure it. Not pleasant.
Anyway, keep carefully trekking through here and make a left at the fork (lots more frog-creatures here). At the
bottom you'll find a LARGE SOUL OF A NAMELESS SOLDIER. Turn around and follow the tunnel here to find
the RING OF THE EVIL EYE. Go back up the stairs to where you reached a fork in the road, turn left and cross the
thin walkway to the door. Get ready to jump over a hole at the top and collect the HUMANITY from the corpse
behind the bars.
Now that you've got everything, return to where you dropped down from the waterfall and head in the other
direction (toward the big rats). After climbing the stairs go straight ahead to find a door that leads u pa large
staircase to a closed door at the top. This will open up a shortcut right back to the bonfire, and is a good opportunity
to rest before the boss.
When you're ready, return to the bottom and head toward the large door at the opposite end. It's locked now, but
there's a vendor sitting nearby you may want to talk to. After that, look along the same wall for a door leading up
another staircase. Make a right and go down the first stairs you come to. Ignore the second set of stairs and instead
go past them to find a HEAVY CROSSBOW and HEAVY BOLT (x11) on a corpse. Now you're ready to descend
the last stairs approaching the boss.
BOSS: GAPING DRAGON

Following the pan of the Capra Demon is what is undoubtedly one of the easiest main bosses in the game, although
you might think otherwise until you recognize his relatively simple pattern. It's very possible to defeat this boss
without even getting hit, something I was forced to do after being cursed and left without enough health to withstand
even one blow.
With a mage the strategy is even easier, but it works with any type of character. The trick is having as much mobility
as possible (ideally less than 25% equip load for the maximum speed running & rolling) and spending the whole
battle running to get to the side of the boss. Once you're beside him and a reasonable distance away, it's virtually
impossible for him to hit you.
So stay beside the boss as much as possible and wait for him to do his "charge" attack where he essentially runs in a
single direction then stops. Sometimes he stops for a LONG time. Like enough time to get two or three full attack
combos in. This is your chance to do your damage. After awhile the boss will lean backward, usually indicating he's
about to leap in the air. Just before this happens, START ROLLING/RUNNING AWAY. If you're quick you'll be far
enough away from his landing point every time. What to do next? Get beside him and repeat the process.
Two quick final notes for exceptions you may encounter: he does have a side tail swipe attack, but if this hits you it
usually means you were waiting too close to his side. And second, watch out very carefully for an attack where he
charges up well in advance, and unleashes a big wad of goo in every direction. This attack will DESTROY YOUR
WEAPON DURABILITY and is a huge pain in the ass. A fast character can outrun it without much difficulty, but
again, the fight is predictable enough that if it does hit you, it's probably your own fault.
After the battle you'll collect the BLIGHTTOWN KEY and a cool 25,000 souls. There's also a corpse lying around
the battlefield with a full set of HARD LEATHER ARMOR, HARD LEATHER BOOTS, HARD LEATHER
GAUNTLETS and a STANDARD HELM. Now it's time to get the hell out of here and back to the Firelink Shrine.
When you're ready, take the elevator through the cathedral and back to the blacksmith. The entrance to the Darkroot
Garden is below.
Darkroot Garden
Partizan
Elite Knight (Armour Set)
Wolf Ring
Soul of a Proud Knight
Soul of the Moonlight Butterfly
Watchtower Basement Key
Divine Ember
Be sure to kill all the plant enemies in this area, they have a very high drop rate of moss clumps which cure poisons
and bleeds. Follow the path along (ignoring a fork to the right) until you see a bright glowing door in the distance.
At this point turn around and you'll notice a LARGE SOUL OF A NAMELESS SOLDIER behind a large rock
behind you. The door itself can be opened with an item sold by the blacksmith for 20,000 souls, but it's not
necessary to get in there at the moment, so we'll move on for now.
Around the next corner before the fog door you'll see an item on a corpse to the right. Before picking up the item go
in and slash the three shrubs that area actually hidden enemies in the ground, this way you can take them down one
at a time rather than being ambushed by all three when you pick up the LARGE SOUL OF A NAMELESS
SOLDIER. Now prepare yourself for the area through the fog door.
The large knights in this area are extremely tough, especially for a melee character. They will cast a magic spell that
makes you open encumbered, so it's very important to get behind them and stay behind them if you want to survive.
Don't feel bad if you simply have to run and avoid the fights. Items in this area include a PARTIZAN in a small path
directly to your left when you enter (guarded by a venomous snake on the tree) and a body in the back right corner
surrounded by knights that holds the ELITE KNIGHT HELM, ELITE KNIGHT ARMOR, ELITE KNIGHT
GAUNTLETS and ELITE KNIGHT LEGGINGS.
Before you continue any further, if you make an immediate right as soon as you enter this area, a few steps in front
of you is a living tree, that looks much like other trees, but you can identify it by its moving roots. Slash the tree a
few times to reveal a hidden path. Stay right past the next tree and go up a steep path. You'll have to take down one
of the large nights head-on, but behind him you'll find a WOLF RING. Back down at the bottom follow the ledge
along to find a SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT. At this point you are ready to return back through the secret path.
With all the items collected, head back to the bonfire and rest if you need to, otherwise proceed forward through the
large stone arch at the other end of the wide open forested area, and up the stairs to the boss.
BOSS: MOONLIGHT BUTTERFLY
Note: There is a summon sign under the stairs on the way up to this fight for witch Beatrice to help you in this fight.
You may not need her since the boss isn't too difficult, but you must summon her here to be able to summon her
again later for a much more difficult boss, so it may be worth your time.
Equip the Caduceus Round Shield that you found in the graveyard by the Firelink Shrine, it has very strong magic
defines and will make it easier to reduce damage from the attacks you are unable to avoid.
This is another relatively easy boss coming off of the Gaping Dragon, mages will find it a cakewalk simply waiting
for the right opportunity between its slow attacks to fire off a Soul Arrow or ranged pyromancy. The melee
characters will have to be a bit more patient.
Stay around mid-range from the boss with your shield up. Its primary attack is a blast of magic spikes that will do
very little damage if you have the Caduceus shield up, although if you can time a roll or sidestep it's even better to
dodge them. The slow homing magic ball is the one you'll want to dodge for sure. Wait until it's no more than a
couple feet in front of your face before rolling to the side, an early roll will end just as badly as a late roll. Luckily
the attack is very slow so you've got some time.
After about 7-8 different attacks, which also includes a large laser beam that is tougher to avoid (but can be, again
with a roll) and an aerial bomb blast as he passes overhead (very easy to avoid, just stand back when it flies above
you), the boss will eventually move down within melee range and just sit there. For almost 30 seconds. A decently
equipped character will be able to pound more than 50% of the boss' health here, requiring only one more attack
volley from the boss before the next respite finishes him off.
Just remember that right before it returns to the air, it charges up a magic explosion, so do a couple of rolls backward
before this happens.
Your reward from the boss is a few thousand souls as well as the SOUL OF THE MOONLIGHT BUTTERFLY. This
item can either be consumed for a pathetic 1200 souls, or used with the help of a blacksmith to create a special
shield capable of firing magic blasts. Note that all boss souls always have a special use besides just consuming for
more souls, so check their specific use elsewhere in this guide and make sure it's nothing you want before
consuming them yourself, because once they're gone, you won't have another chance at those rewards until New
Game+.
Now with the boss defeated, head up to the top of the tower at the opposite end and collect the WATCHTOWER
BASEMENT KEY and the DIVINE EMBER. Now it's back to the bonfire to rest and redeem your souls.
You may remember that as you enter the Darkroot Garden, just past the first plant monster there is a somewhat
hidden path that branches off to the right. This time you want to take that path, then around a sharp corner to a path
that leads down the side of a cliff.
Darkroot Basin
Leather (Armour Set)
Longbow
Feather Arrow (x16)
Large Soul of an Undead Soldier
Dusk Crown Ring
Dragon Scale
Havel's Ring
Undead Asylum F2 West Key (in Firelink)
Keep going down and down until you reach a bit of a platform overlooking a corpse with an item on it. You can
easily drop down on top to collect the LEATHER ARMOR, LEATHER GLOVES, LEATHER BOOTS,
LONGBOW and FEATHER ARROW (x16). Drop down again and head back in the opposite direction. On your
way down prepare to fight a powerful knight. When defeated he drops a BLUE TITANITE CHUNK. There's also a
GRASS CREST SHIELD ON THE CORPSE AT THE BOTTOM. At the other end of this lowest path is a cave
leading to a bonfire. At the other end of this cave is an elevator that takes you down to the Valley of the Drakes, an
area which is likely too difficult at this point in the game. Turn around and head back.
Go back up the path and proceed straight along it until eventually you reach a wide open area populated by crystal
demons. You also need to be very careful of the enormous hydra way in the distance. It will fire magic water blasts
almost all the way to the end of this area, although one benefit of this is that the blasts tend to low through all the
crystal demons here, netting you a lot of souls in the process if you can survive.
To defeat the hydra miniboss, your best tactic is to get down into the water, until you get there you will always be
vulnerable. Once down in the water as close to the hydra as possible, it will start relying solely on melee attacks,
which with a decent shield, can be blocked, and if you find a sweet spot to stand can be avoided entirely. Try looking
out for helpful messages on the ground to indicate good spots to stand. Once you're in a good spot, just wait between
hydra attacks and slice the heads as they come down, or cast magic while you're there. For defeating the hydra you
get the DUSK CROWN RING and a DRAGON SCALE.
If you've managed to defeat the hydra, good on you, if not, don't worry, I won't be covering the next area until a little
later in the game. If you want to proceed further beyond the hydra then skip ahead to the Darkroot Garden
(Revisited) section which will detail the shortcut past the hydra and up into the area that was beyond the sealed door
in the Darkroot Garden.
For now, you'll want to head back to the opposite end of the hydra and the top corner of this area to where you'll find
a door that can be opened with the Master Key or the Watchtower Basement Key you just got. Inside is the knight I
mentioned from earlier in the game, he's very easy to kill if you slowly sidestep around him while waiting for his
attack. This gives ample time to move in for a powerful backstab. Defeating this knight will net you HAVEL'S
RING, which increases your maximum equipment load.
This would be a good time to investigate an optional area of the game, especially since it provides you with a handy
item before traveling to Blighttown. To get there all you need to do is return to the Firelink Shrine. We'll be traveling
back to where you started the game, the Undead Asylum.
Getting there is a relatively simple affair. All you need to do is hop in the elevator that takes you from the Firelink
Shrine to the cathedral in the Undead Parish, but just as it starts to go up you will hop out of it onto the platform
above where you stepped in. Walk around the cracked stone here onto a grassy cliff. From here you can see a sloping
stone structure that reaches a stone pillar just below you that looks as if you could make it easily with a jump. I
actually prefer a simple roll, but whatever works, it shouldn't be hard to get onto the pillar.
The pillar leads you up a stone staircase above a corpse on the roof. Drop down and pick up the UNDEAD
ASYLUM F2 WEST KEY. Now drop down and take the elevator up again to reach the same point you were at
before dropping to collect the key. This time climb the stairs all the way to the top and curl up into a ball in the bird's
nest, after a few seconds the crow will take you to the asylum
Northern Undead Asylum Revisited
Red Titanite Chunk
Peculiar Doll
Crest Shield
Titanite Slab
Winged Spear (in Firelink)
Zweihander (in Firelink)
Binoculars (in Firelink)
Soul of a Proud Knight (in VotD)
Dragon Crest Shield (in VotD)
Astora's Straight Sword (in VotD)
Soul of a Nameless Soldier (in VotD)

As you enter the Undead Asylum, only a few steps down on your left is the next of Snuggly the crow. Similar to his
appearance in Demon's Souls, he wants your items, but now he's prefer your soft and warm items to your shinies.
For a complete list of how trading with Snuggly works and what you can get, refer to that section elsewhere in this
guide.
When you go through the door at the bottom of the path be VERY careful not to run into the middle of the room, or
you will immediately trigger the boss fight. Instead, run around the edges and to the door on the other side with the
game's first bonfire. Climb down the ladder behind it and defeat the powerful knight to receive a RED TITANITE
CHUNK and probably another knight sword with it. Behind him, in the cell where you started the game, is a
PECULIAR DOLL, a hidden item that is useless now but will come in very handy later.
Make your way back to the bonfire again. Somewhere in this area you will likely be ambushed by another knight,
who when defeated, drops a CREST SHIELD. Now, remember the shortcut you opened at the beginning of the game
near the bonfire? The door in the wall leads up the stairs (to where the undead has retrieved him rolling stupid
cannonball again). Beyond him and the regular enemies is that locked door you were never able to open, but you
now can with the Undead Asylum F2 West Key. Just through the door you'll find the RUSTED IRON RING on a
corpse which makes it much easier to move through rough terrain and sludge.
Now, if you're ready to fight the boss, rest at the bonfire and then run into the centre of the room.
BOSS: STRAY DEMON
The Stray Demon is a relatively simple boss to defeat, again, if you know his strategy and how he works. The easiest
way to beat him is to learn his pattern and figure out how to avoid all his attack entirely, he is another boss where a
patient player should be able to defeat him without being hit.
The strategy is as follows, you want to get as close as possible and spend the entire battle sidestepping around
behind him. After the first fall you will want to try and roll when you land and heal in a corner since you'll end up
taking some damage. From here just spring toward him and try and avoid any large swings of his club. Once you
right snug against his feet beside him, you're relatively safe.
As you are tucked in close to the boss and sidestepping, he will almost exclusively use one of two attacks. The first
is a jump into the air and butt-stomp back down. He's in the air for a good few seconds so you have plenty of time
for a couple of backward rolls to avoid all damage before moving in again.
The second attack he'll use when you're close is a magic explosion, which has a fairly large range EXCEPT when
you're directly behind him, where it has none. This is your chance to do your attacking, and lucky for you, he uses
this attack a lot. The real trick to winning/losing this battle comes with patience in your attacks. If you keep going
for a couple extra swings, it won't take him long to turn around again and before you know it, you're in front of him
and this is not a good place to be. Both of his club attacks can be dodged with rolls to the side, but if you do this
fight right, he should almost never get to use them.
Quick note: when I fought him as a mage, though most battles I try and keep a distance, I actually found the above
strategy to be much better. Spamming magic while in front of him, even far away in a corner, is a poor strategy
because of the huge range and damage of his overhead club smash. If you simply stay close and sidestep behind him
when he creates his magic explosion, this will give you plenty of time for use of your spells while safely casting
from behind.
Beating the boss will get you a TITANITE SLAB and 20,000 souls.
That's all there is to the Undead Asylum. Just make your way back up and the crow will be happy to fly you back to
Firelink.
Optional: While we're here and a bit more powerful, let's take a moment to collect the rest of the items from the
Firelink graveyard. Feel free to skip over this is you already have. In the graveyard there are a fair number of regular
skeletons who give no souls, and two large skeletons that give 500 souls each. Take your time to clear the graveyard
of these enemies, the most difficult of which is a large skeleton surrounded by three regular ones. After they are
cleared, the remaining items I didn't mention earlier are a WINGED SPEAR, a ZWEIHANDER and BINOCULARS
at the very back of the graveyard.
Now at this point you are finally ready to tackle Blighttown. There are a number of ways to enter Blighttown. The
standard way is to enter from the bottom of the Depths using the Blighttown key you got from defeating the Gaping
Dragon on the huge door beside the item vendor. We'll be entering from a different way, although this first way is as
good as any.
The quickest way to enter is from the Firelink Shrine, go down the stairs and down the elevator to the New Londo
Ruins. From here it's only a few steps away to a locked door you can open with the Master Key. If for some reason
you didn't start wit the Master Key you can still reach this point by taking the elevator down from the Darkroot
Basin bonfire and going through the Valley of the Drakes. (If you do this, take the elevator down, run left past the
dragons, don't engage any of them ,especially the enormous ancient sleeping one. From that point it's only a few
steps further across a bridge to the other side of the door I mentioned in the New Londo Ruins).
Note: If you are a mage it is VERY easy to kill this ancient dragon. Simply stand out of range of his only attack
(massive puke blast) and spam magic until he's dead. The area under his body will reveal three corpses containing
SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT, DRAGON CREST SHIELD and ASTORA'S STRAIGHT SWORD.
Once you're on the Valley of the Drakes side of the iron gate to the New Londo Ruins, collect the LARGE SOUL
OF A NAMELESS SOLDIER from beside the door. Cross the thin bridge and enter the cave. You'll have to fight
past a few large hulking enemies that can poison (and kill) you with their giant clubs. Once defeated you'll find
yourself in Blighttown.
Blighttown
Key to New Londo Ruins
Fire Keeper Soul
Mask of the Sealer
Crimson Robes
Crimson Gloves
Crimson Waistcloth
Tin Banishment Catalyst
Sorcery: Remedy
Dragon Scale
Large Titanite Shard
Giant Club
Large Soul of a Proud Knight
Green Titanite Shard
Large Titanite Shard
Server
Plank Shield
As soon as you enter, adorn yourself in all of the Black Leather gear, Thief Mask and the Spider Shield. This will
give you the best poison defences available to you at this point.
Just before you descend the first ladder you'll find the KEY TO NEW LONDO RUINS which opens up the door
back to the Firelink Shrine from the Valley of the Drakes where you came from (the one you could also open with
the Master Key). Your only goal here is to go down, down, down. Every ladder is marked with a torch to make it
easier for you. After about 3-4 ladders be ready to hide yourself.
You need to be ready and very careful to avoid the blowgun-firing enemies in this area. When you start hearing the
distinct noise of a dart fired, have your shield ready and locate the source of the dart. It probably won't take more
than two hits to be inflicted with the dangerous toxin status. Hopefully you picked up a few Blooming Purple Moss
Clumps from the enemies in the Darkroot Garden.
The one bit of GOOD news that I have is that as soon as you kill one of these dart-blowing bastards he will never
respawn again, so things can only get better. At the bottom of the fourth ladder I believe, there is a path leading away
straight toward one. Don't get too cocky after killing him though, directly behind him are at least two more off in the
distance. Make your way toward them slowly, and eliminate them one at a time as you make your way around the
upper walkway.
Once they're all taken care of you can go back to the corpse with the SOUL OF A PROUD NIGHT. Now you're
ready to descend the ladder and face a new danger, fire dogs. After eliminating them there's a nice reward for all
your trouble, another FIRE KEEPER SOUL. Now head back to the ladders i the main area again.
Down the next one there's another branching path to take. Follow it along a very think tree branch to the other side.
Continue along to the end where you'll find a corpse with a MASK OF THE SEALER, CRIMSON ROBE,
CRIMSON GLOVES, CRIMSON WAISTCLOTH, and TIN BANISHMENT CATALYST. In the chest beside it is
SORCERY: REMEDY. On the way back there is a ladder going up, though I'm not sure there's anything to find up
there (feel free to prove me wrong).
Make your way back to the main area again and start descending. You'll need to ride a large wooden elevator to get
to the bottom here. There's nothing much to find until you eventually reach the swamp. The first thing you want to
do here is run along hugging the left wall until you quickly reach a tunnel wit ha bonfire in it. At the end of the
tunnel is a dead end with a chest containing a DRAGON SCALE.
And now, to explore the swamp. If you just came from the Undead Asylum that Rusted Iron Ring will come in very
handy here. Don't worry too much about poison, it's bound to hit you, you'll just be wasting items curing it then
running back through the swamp again. Just keep an eye on your Estus and come back to the bonfire anytime you
need to. This is a handy one to kindle as well.
I won't cover in too much detail the specifics of exploring the swamp. It's not as big as it looks. I'll just give you a
general idea what items you can find and where you'll find them. Back toward the way you came down across the
swamp there's a LARGE TITANITE SHARD, then across the web-infested trees and rock tossing giants on the other
side of the swamp is a corpse with a GREAT CLUB. Moving back in the other direction grab the LARGE SOUL OF
A PROUND KNIGHT, then to the next item you can see in the distance, another LARGE SOUL OF A PROUD
KNIGHT. Turn and face the other side of the swamp, you should see a third LARGE SOUL OF A PROUD
KNIGHT under a wooden walkway (this is only a few seconds away along the wall from the bonfire if you need to
rest).
From the bonfire again, go left and explore that side of the swamp. I don't recommend you go up the wooden ramp
where all the enemies are yet, we'll visit that part of Blighttown later in the game. On that side of the swamp you'll
start encountering leeches. Leeches are fairly easy to kill and provide one of the best drop rates for Large Titanite
Shards in the game if you're looking to boost your +5 weapons to +10 (most weapons will require 9 Large Titanite to
go from 5 to 10).
On that side of the swamp you'll find a GREEN TITANITE SHARD, LARGE TITANITE SHARD, SERVER, and
up the ramp into the tree a PLANK SHIELD. Back to the bonfire again!
That covers most of what this portion of Blighttown has to offer. While exploring you undoubtedly noticed the large
area of dead trees covered in webs back in the direction you came when first approaching the bonfire. This area
(heavily guarded by giants) leads up to a cave, and the entrance to Quelaag's Domain.
Quelaag's Domain
Soul of Quelaag
Pyromancy: Great Chaos Fireball
Twin Humanities
Make sure the first thing you do is cure your poison, you won't be re-afflicted here. Before entering I also suggest
you equip yourself with the Dragon Crest Shield, and the Wolf Ring (instead of the Rusted Iron Ring you were
likely wearing).
BOSS: QUELAAG
A difficult boss that can be made very reasonable with the right preparation. Before the battle you will want to equip
yourself with the Dragon Crest shield (because of its powerful fire defines) and the Wolf Ring. This will allow you
to block most of the boss' close range attacks with little repercussion.
The beginning of this battle is a very opportune time, so don't waste it. Start by sprinting toward the boss and
jumping to her side. Before anything she'll begin by establishing her "lava floor" and puking out some magma in
front of her a couple of times. This attack poses no danger as long as you are beside her, so use the chance to get in
as many 2H strikes or magic as you can.
Once the danger floor is established, she'll start focusing a bit more on hitting you with her close range strikes.
These fire elemental hits can be dodged with a quick timed roll, but sidestepping and blocking if you have the shield
I mentioned is a very good option as well. She's quick so you may have to wait out these attacks until she decides to
do something else.
TO change it she she will usually either do a bit of a fire burst that shoots fire in every direction ,including behind
her, this is probably the most dangerous attack to you. Learn to predict it and move back to avoid it. The one you
want to wait for is the forward-blasting fire spit, as long as you're beside her this is your best chance to get in
another volley of attacks (also when the lava floor wears off and she has to re-apply some more).
Besides that, just try and get in a swing or two here and there between her close range fire swipes. The boss has a
fair bit of health, and you may have difficulty if you're used to relying on pyromancy. Don't be afraid to enchant
your weapons or try something new if that's the case.
For defeating the boss you get 20,000 souls and the SOUL OF QUELAAG. This soul can be used to make Quelaag's
Furysword, a very powerful weapon with huge fire damage attached to it. You'll encounter the blacksmith to make
this weapon soon, in Anor Londo, so unless you're already planning on using another weapon, I'd highly suggest
saving this soul. I used the Furysword on my first character right through the end of the game.
Beyond where you fought the boss is the lever to ring the second bell. Now that both are rung the huge gate just off
the cathedral bonfire is finally open. After ringing the bell, head downstairs (walk, or drop through the hole). In the
chamber below you can attack one of the walls to reveal a hidden room. Make sure you TALK TO (not attack) the
creature ahead of you.
Rest at the bonfire and speak to thing in the wall. You can join this covenant and get the PYROMANCY: GREAT
CHAOS FIREBALL. Now return to the bonfire in Blighttown, there's a couple of optional areas to explore before
going through the gate.
If you remember where you found the Plank Shield up that big tree root in the swamp, go back up there. Now attack
the wall on the left to reveal a secret area with a chest containing TWIN HUMANITIES. If you attack the wall
behind the chest you'll reveal an even secreter area.
The Great Hollow
Titanite Chunk
Red Titanite Chunk
Blue Titanite Chunk
Cloranthy Ring
White Titanite Chunk
Blue Titanite Chunk
I'll just mention in advance that the next two areas are complete bullshit. The rewards are decent, but nothing
amazing (unless you're really hard up for Dragon Scales). But hey, this is Dark Souls and that's what we do.
So getting to it, this area is relatively straightforward, although very dangerous, as you have to deal with enemies
who can curse you again. As you make your way down you'll find a TITANITE CHUNK, then you can roll across to
a nearby branch and climb to get a RED TITANITE CHUNK. Go back and drop down to a branch leading to a frog
enemy and a LARGE SOUL OF A NAMELESS SOLDIER.
If you go up from the room inside here, you can keep climbing up and up. You'll see an item in the tree in the
middle. I grabbed it by climbing up above the trunk and rolling down inside. I wouldn't be surprised if there are
other ways too. The item is a CLORANTHY RING. The next few items just require you to walk/drop down and use
some fancy footwork to reach them. There's a WHITE TITANITE CHUNK and a BLUE TITANITE CHUNK on the
way to the bottom.
After reaching the bottom and fighting a few more frog things, take the ladder down in the middle. Get the LARGE
SOUL OF A NAMELESS SOLDIER here then take a walk around before going down further, you'll see an item
below you that you can drop to, although it's tricky.
Regardless of what you do, collect what items you can and make your way to the bottom. There you'll find the
entrance to a new area.
Ash Lake
Dragon Scale (x2)
Dragon Scale
Dragon Scale
Dragon Scale
Dragon Scale
Dragon Eye
Dragon Head Stone

Just as you enter you can reach a bonfire by running down the path and making a right at the end. Here you'll be
safely across from a new hydra. This one isn't much different than the last, and he'll let you get closer before starting
his barrage of attacks, though he does have noticeably more health. If you can manage to take him down you'll get
10,000 souls and 2 DRAGON SCALES as a reward. Fortunately the nearby bonfire makes repeat attempts fairly
simple.
If you can't kill the beast you can try and run past him, but it won't be easy. Following the beach left will bring you
to a corpse with a DRAGON SCALE, and following it through the log in the other direction also nets you a
DRAGON SCALE. Further down on the beach is another DRAGON SCALE. Now keep running a long, long, long
way along the winding sand to eventually reach another bonfire. You can talk to the dragon there to join his
covenant and receive DRAGON EYE and a DRAGON HEAD STONE.
Note: There's a large tree along the beach you can go inside. I was never able to figure out how to get the item, but
apparently if you look down as you walk along the branch that leads into the tree, you can drop onto another that
leads up into the tree to get the item.
That's it. It's a big pain in the ass getting back from here, up The Great Hollow again and to the bonfire, but it's what
you gotta do. I hope it was worth it.
Now it's finally time to head through that huge gate beyond the cathedral in the Undead Parish. When you're ready
make your way back to the bonfire above the blacksmith, and then head out toward the gate.
Sen's Fortress
Soul of a Brave Warrior
Demon Titanite (x4)
Scythe
Titanite Chunk
Large Titanite Shard (x2)
Ring of Steel Protection
Shotel
Lightning Spear
Soul of a Hero
Covetous Gold Serpent Ring
Black Sorcerer (Armour Set)
Sorcery: Hush
Sniper Crossbow
Sniper Bolt (x12)
Large Soul of a Brave Knight
Ricard's Rapier
Divine Blessing
Rare Ring of Sacrifice
Titanite Chunk
Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring
Core of an Iron Golem

When you enter the fortress, the first thing you'll step on is an arrow trap plate. Use this to your advantage and
before stepping on it, lure the two lizardmen down the stairs and centre them in front of it (the arrows fire out of the
stairs). This will be enough to take one of them down right away. Afterwards grab the SOUL OF A BRAVE
WARRIOR from the upper right corner.
The next room gets dangerous quick. The swinging blades are easy to avoid if you just keep moving one by one.
Watch out for the magic lizards firing lightning at you. I would recommend if you're looking for some extra loot,
drop down on either the left or right side at the end of this walkway, you'll take some damage but land safely below
(safe aside from the three lizards there).
You may find it safest to drop once more and hide in the tunnel entrance. At the bottom you'll encounter more
danger, including two of the large crippled demons. The same strategy applies to them as the earlier one, however
close quarters and additional enemies might make it more difficult. Each one of them drops a DEMON TITANITE.
You'll also find a SOUL OF A BRAVE WARRIOR and a SCYTHE at the end of the tunnel.
At the opposite end of this area is a small door leading to a ladder and a LARGE SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT at
the top. It also leads back to the beginning, but if you're up for it there's still another large connection room with two
more of those demons and two more Demon Titanite. Also do note that you can slash open a fake wall at the top of
the ladder and climb another ladder to a huge iron golem at the top of the fortress who drops a TITANITE CHUNK.
When you're ready to continue, cross the thin bridge and head upstairs. Pass another bunch of swinging blades and
be careful of the enemy as well as arrows trap on the other end. Inside this room there's a chest containing LARGE
TITANITE SHARD (x2). In the next room ignore the lizardman standing against the wall, we'll get to him in a
minute. Be VERY careful before entering the next room. Stop at the doorway and wait for the huge cannonballs to
roll by. They will never stop so you need to carefully time your advance, running up toward where they are coming
from and left into the doorway. After waiting again you can run up even further to find a chest containing RING OF
STEEL PROTECTION. Now pass through the fog door. (Quick note, if you drop down over the edge of these stairs
before the fog door you'll see a SHOTEL below you).
This room has an arrow trap you can use in your favour, just remember the arrows come from behind you, so you
need to move quick. Wait for the large steel ball again in the next room, then when you're ready, chase it all the way
dow the stairs and turn left at the bottom then STOP! Don't open the chest. This is the first "mimic" in the game,
which basically means chest monster. Walk up to it, equip your best weapon and start pounding relentlessly. If you're
lucky you kill it before it even takes a swing. Killing the monster will get you a LIGHTNING SPEAR, which is a
very powerful and useful weapon.
Wait for the elevator to come down and then get on it, but be ready to get off when it stops, if you wait too long it'll
keep going up into a spike trap. When you go up the stairs at the top you'll come out above a large staircase. Climb
this staircase to find the source of the rolling cannonballs. Here you can change their direction to fire in any
direction you'd like. The first change is to move it so that it launches down the stairs you just came up. This will kill
that lizardman who was hangin' out against the wall, as well as break the wall open for you. Change it to fire out the
back window and head down the stairs.
Here you can rescue Big Hat Logan from one of the cages if you have the Master Key (you may have to wait a little
while if you don't). Logan teaches some of the best sorcery in the game when back at Firelink. You can also pick up
a SOUL OF A HERO.
Back at the cannonball direction-changing room, take the next exit out one spot clockwise of where you just went.
This will take you down a path you've been before, but now without the boulder chasing you you're free to continue
straight at the bottom and grab the COVETOUS GOLD SERPENT RING. This ring increases item drop rate and is a
fantastic help when farming for Humanity or Titanite. On your way back up the stairs, drop over the side to land on
an enemy and a corpse with LARGE SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT. In the adjacent room back in the direction of
the cannonball room, you'll find BLACK SORCERER HAT, BLACK SORCERER GAUNTLETS, BLACK
SORCERER CLOAK, BLACK SORCERER BOOTS and SORCERY: HUSH.
Back at the cannonball room again, you are ready to continue. There is a small door that leads out of here separate
from the four main exits (watch out for an arrow trap in the first hallway). Run and jump between all of the swinging
blades on the bridge, then head past (not up) the stairs to the end of the hall to find LARGE TITANITE SHARD
(x2). When you get upstairs, if you have magic or arrows be sure to take out the magic lizardman before crossing the
thin bridge, it makes it a lot easier. Take the swinging blades two at a time when you do, but don't get too cocky on
the other side, there's two more arrows traps. Proceed through the fog when ready.
Now, let's get our priorities straight before anything else. Listen carefully. Make an immediate left in this new area
and go about halfway up the stairs. As soon as you reach the top, a huge golem is going to start throwing powerful
firebombs down from above. You have to run across a few platforms from staircase to staircase. What you want to
do is sprint across the first platform to the stairs, then up, then instead of going to the next stairs, turn around and run
to the edge. You will see a broken wall here (and probably a message if you're playing online). Drop down over the
edge and you'll land right on top of a bonfire. When you leave the bonfire it drops you right back at the fog door.
Good. Alright now through the fog door go left and halfway up the stairs again. This time, you're going to run onto
the first platform, then do a U-turn and leap off the edge back in the direction you came. If you've done a nice jump
you'll go over the spiked wall and land right on top of a SNIPER CROSSBOW and SNIPER BOLT (x12). Now drop
down and kill both red-caped knights in the area below. You'll find a chest containing FLAME STONEPLATE
RING in the corner (which is exactly what you want to equip right now).
Now you're ready to actually head up the stairs. You can wait until you kill the golem, or you can risk looting the
corpses on the way up to get LARGE SOUL OF A BRAVE KNIGHT and LARGE TITANITE SHARD (x2). There
are two ways to go at the top, one is back toward the direction you came from, the other is down toward a large
knight waiting in a rounded corner area. Head that way first. After the big one you'll encounter a more agile knight
who drops RICARD'S RAPIER. There are two chests at the top which are safe (but starting at this point in the game
it's a good idea to attack every chest you come to first, just in case). They contain DIVINE BLESSING and RARE
RING OF SACRIFICE.
Now return to the fork in the path at the top of the area where the golem is throwing firebombs and proceed in the
other direction. Follow this narrow path around, ignoring the broken parts, to the right, and then again right to get
inside the building he's throwing from. Continue up and around a narrow path outside again, past an archer to a fog
door. Ignore this door for now and make your way to the top of the tower where the golem waits. He's powerful but
extremely slow. After his stomping attack he'll get so tired he just hunches on the ground for a good ten to fifteen
seconds. That's your chance. He drops a TITANITE CHUNK and it's now safe for you to go and explore.
The first place to check out is reached by jumping across the small gap in the stone walkway you took to get into
this building. Back down a couple of floors on your way out you will see a broken section only a few feet wide that
leads to a small tower that is easy to jump over. Inside there's a vendor who sells Large Titanite Shards (for 4000 a
pop, a ripoff compared to how easy it is to farm slugs and Blighttown). He also sells the rare (and funny looking)
Catarina armour set and some magic defense rings. More important than the vendor down at the bottom is a single
magic lizardman guarding the CAGE KEY. First of all, if you don't have the Master Key, use this to free Big Hat
Logan back inside after smashing the wall with the cannonball. Second of all, use it on those two cages hanging in
the building on the way up toward the firebombing golem to create a very handy shortcut back to the entrance of the
fortress.
Back to the walkway where you jumped to reach the vendor, try jumping in the other direction and you'll land right
by the golem who is dropping those big cannonballs. Feel free to kill him and stop his cannonball rampage (although
he will respawn). This is also a nicer way to get back to that part of the dungeon without having to go through the
swinging blades.
Now, again from the room where the cannonball dropped, take the exit you took (the one beside the small door)
where you dropped down on the magic lizardman and the corpse hanging over the side. Instead of going through the
door in the opposite direction and drop down through the bars. Walk across to find a SLUMBERING
DRAGONCREST RING. That about covers it for items in Sen's Fortress. All there is now to do is rest and head
back up the shortcut toward the boss. It's the fog door you passed on the way to the top of the tower.
BOSS: IRON GOLEM
Fortunately the difficulty of the boss doesn't come close to matching that of the difficulty in getting to him.
COmpared to the rest of the fortress, he's cake, but don't get too overconfident, there are still plenty of incredibly
frustrating things about this fight.
First things first, if you're a sorcery mage you shouldn't have any problem at all. There is a perfect "sweet spot" just
outside of the range of his normal attack, but not far enough away that he'll shoot his energy wave, so all he really
does is keep swinging and missing, swinging and missing, all while you slowly backstep and case Soul Arrow spells
the whole time. Doing this I beat him with my mage on the first try, in about 13 seconds, at level 42.
On the other hand, when I fought him at 50+ with melee character at an even higher level, I must have died about 10
- 15 times on this boss. The main reason? The horrible camera when you're locked on coupled with the fact that
there's a cliff on every side. Over and over again I got his health down to almost zero and just walked right off the
edge like an idiot because the camera was looking way up into the sky at this guy's head. A lot of that is my stupid
fault obviously, but let it be a warning to you, the hardest part of this fight is to make sure you know your
surroundings.
As for the rest? The sweet spot for melee characters, like most bosses, is right behind him. He's a slow turner, so as
long as you keep moving you shouldn't have difficulty staying out of range (and most of his swipes are dodged with
a quick roll). The most dangerous attack is his grab attack, which can catch you even if you're beside him but still
too close. A backward roll is the best way to avoid this, learn to anticipate it based on him he moves, he charges it up
longer than most of his other attacks. If you can consistently avoid this, the battle is yours.
If you keep hacking away at the back of his ankles, eventually he'll go down similar to the Tower Knight in Demon's
Souls. This is your chance to let loose with all your most powerful 2H swings.
For beating this boss you get 30,000 souls and a CORE OF AN IRON GOLEM.
Examining the odd yellow circle in the field after this fight will warp you to a brand new zone. Don't hesitate to do
this, it's not difficult to reach a bonfire there without aggroing any enemies.
Anor Londo
Crystal Halberd
Twinkling Titanite
Demon Titanite
Demon Titanite
Ring of the Sun's Firstborn
Blue Eye Orb
Darkmoon Blade Covenant Ring
Soul of Gwyndolin
Sorcery: Great Magic Weapon
Black Iron (Armour Set)
Greatsword
Black Iron Greatshield
Sunlight Medal
Occult Club
Dragon Tooth
Havel's Greatshield
Havel's (Armour Set)
Gold Coin
Silver Coin (x5)
Soul of a Hero
Tiny Being's Ring
Demon Titanite (x2)
Demon Titanite (x2)
Silver Knight (Armour Set)
Dragonslayer Greatbow
Dragonslayer Arrow (x1)
Titanite Chunk
Ring of Favor and Protection
Souvenir of Reprisal
Fire Keeper Soul
Leo Ring
Soul of Smough (one or the other)
Soul of Ornstein (one or the other)
Lordvessel
Ring of the Sun Princess
Miracle: Emit Force
Like Sen's Fortress, you may find the jump in difficulty in Anor Londo to be a bit more than expected, though it's
just as much a matter of acclimatizing yourself to the enemies here as it is a matter of upgrading your character.
Make your way down the stairs and run past the large armoured guard, through the next room and out into a huge
wide open space. The first big door you come to on the left leads to the bonfire. There's also someone here who can
upgrade your Estus Flask if you have any Fire Keeper Souls.
Now, using the bonfire as a base of operations, leave this room and check the large rooms both to the left and right.
The left hall has two guarded chests. Of them, the one on the right is a mimic and drops a CRYSTAL HALBERD,
the other is a TWINKLING TITANITE and the chest in the other room across the way has a DEMON TITANITE.
Return to the bonfire and rest, then exit straight ahead outside of the room to reach an elevator. At the bottom there's
a large gargoyle, similar to the Bell Gargoyle. After killing it head back toward the building with the elevator, but
instead turn before the door and you'll see some stairs going down below. Follow them all the way around at the
bottom to find a chest with DEMON TITANITE inside. Where you actually have to go is right near the bottom of
these stairs. There's a large connecting support pillar from the cathedral to the ground at the bottom of the stairs.
Carefully walk up this to the top, drop through the right, and go through a broken window to get inside.
Things start to get kind of frustrating here. Climb the ladder then slowly and carefully make your way across the top
here. Make sure to cut the chandelier on your way across. When you get to the other side drop down the ladder and
go through the fog door. In the centre here there is a large crank you can do. Turn it twice and then run to the bottom
to find a new bonfire and find RING OF THE SUN'S FIRSTBORN.
Optional: If you have the Darkmoon Seance Ring from the Catacombs (if you're following the guide, you'll be
reminded to come back here at the point when you pick it up) then equip the ring now and walk forward toward the
statue in front of the bonfire and it will disappear. Kneel down when you reach the bottom and join the covenant to
get the BLUE EYE ORB and the DARKMOON BLADE COVENANT RING. Now, if you wish to break your
covenant and extinguish the Anor Londo bonfire, then you can proceed through the fog.
BOSS: GWYNDOLIN
Gwyndolin has powerful attacks but very very low health. You can avoid all of his attacks by hiding behind the
pillars if you need a chance to heal. I suggest using a shield like the Crest Shield because of its high magic block.
Start running toward the boss at regular speed without sprinting (save your stamina for blocking). His arrow attacks
is very easily dodged just by running left and right, his magic attack can also be dodged with a roll, and his homing
arrow attack is blockable. As you get closer to the boss, start sprinting. If you get too close he'll begin his
teleportation sequence, so you want to reach him as fast as possible and start swinging. If you're a magic user, your
Homing Soul-spells work very well too. After the teleportation, just repeat this process until he's dead.
For beating the boss you get 40,000 souls and the SOUL OF GWYNDOLIN. You also become guilty and can now
be invaded by players invading worlds of the guilty. It also makes the Anor Londo Fire Keeper hostile, and
extinguishes the flame (though you can still warp there), and kill the Fire Keeper (and any Fire Keeper) will get you
another Fire Keeper Soul
Now, from the bonfire at the bottom of Anor Longo, head back up and you can exit from the top to reach the main
floor of the cathedral. Be very careful in here, the white clothed soldiers can be a lot more dangerous than you'd
expect, especially in large numbers like you'll face here. Once you've cleared the room pick up SORCERY: GREAT
MAGIC WEAPON from the chandelier and BLACK IRON HELM, BLACK IRON ARMOR, BLACK IRON
GAUNTLETS, BLACK IRON LEGGINGS, GREATSWORD and BLACK IRON GREATSHIELD from the corpse
in the corner.
There's an optional world if you examine the large painting and have the Peculiar Doll from the Undead Asylum in
your inventory. I prefer to finish Anor Londo before visiting this area, so it will be covered later, but it's up to you.
It's a pretty difficult trek to the next bonfire, so I suggest returning to the one at the bottom and resting first. Once
you've done that, go back to the top of the stairs and turn the crank once. You can now proceed forward toward the
huge stairs. There are locked doors ahead, and to your left at the top, so turn right. Go down the stairs, kill the
demons, and then take the ramp that descends down. There's a couple more demons to deal with at the bottom, and
then a ramp going up.
HOW TO DEAL WITH THE TWO SNIPERS: This is what a lot of people are going to be coming here to figure
out. There's two big knights with huge bows firing at you from two different directions. This is without a doubt one
of the worst sections in the entire game. The only foolproof method I know of is using the super long range Bow of
Pharis with poison arrows and a lot of patience. For the rest of us, try one of these two options:
First: With a decent shield, run up to the top and quickly sprint over to the knight on the right while rolling under his
arrows. When you get close he should switch to his sword. Now, don't even attack. You'll be out of range of the
other archer which is good, just keep blocking all his attacks and nudging toward him until he eventually bounces
off your shield and off the edge. The real trick after doing this is not to fall off with him, you might want to try this
without locking on to avoid plummeting down after him.
The second method is more reliable, but requires more moving around. Do the same thing as the first and approach
the knight on the right until he puts away his bow and pulls out the sword. Now turn around and run back down the
ramp. The stupid knight will turn to follow you diagonally and walk right off the cliff. The trick to this method is
making sure to keep moving, because unlike the first method, you won't be out of range of the other sniper.
When you finally have the knight on the right dead, follow that ledge around and drop down onto the balcony below.
Lucky for you, inside the first room on the left is a bonfire.
Explore the various rooms in this area at your leisure, just watch out for the powerful enemies. In the room across
the hall is a SUNLIGHT MEDAL. The first room on the left on the other side of the spiral stairs has a hidden path in
the fireplace that you can reveal with a weapon strike. The chest on the far left is a mimic, but the other four are
safe. They contain OCCULT CLUB, DRAGON TOOTH, HAVEL'S GREATSHIELD, HAVEL'S HELM, HAVEL'S
ARMOR, HAVEL'S GAUNTLETS and HAVEL'S LEGGINGS.
Leave here and ascend the spiral stairs. Both chests at the top are mimics and drop GOLD COIN and SILVER COIN
(x5). The room on the left right where you reach the top of the steps has a SOUL OF A HERO inside. On the other
side of the stairs one door is locked so take the other door. You'll have to take down another knight here on your way
up. At the to there are two tower entrances each guarded by a knight. If you go down the one on the left and speak
with the guy in the Catarina armour, he'll ask you to defeat the three big knights in the adjacent room and give you a
TINY BEING'S RING if you do. You can also find a chest with DEMON TITANITE (x2) and unlock this door for
quick access back to the bonfire.
Head upstairs again and this time head for the tower on your right. Down the stairs in there you'll find two rooms,
the one on your left has a crippled demon (they're getting a lot harder) that drops DEMON TITANITE (x2) and the
room on the right has two chests containing SILVER KNIGHT HELM, SILVER KNIGHT ARMOR, SILVER
KNIGHT GAUNTLETS and SILVER KNIGHT LEGGINGS. It also creates a very handy shortcut for the boss,
which you're going to appreciate, because it's a tough one.
Go back through the shortcut and up the stairs. Keep going up into the large hall. There's stairs going further up here
to reach a broken window. Drop through the broken window and walk the ledge along the outside. Roll at the end to
land on a platform with a DRAGONSLAYER GREATBOW and DRAGONSLAYER ARROW (x1). Drop down
from here to find the huge giant blacksmith. This blacksmith, among other things, can forge lightning weapons and
weapons using powerful boss souls including Quelaag's Furysword. Open up the shortcut door just outside where
the blacksmith is, (also grab the nearby TITANITE CHUNK) then go back inside to the great hall.
Optional: If you did not kill Lautrec (remember, the guy you rescued from the cell in the Undead Parish cathedral)
and he killed your Fire Keeper in the Firelink Shrine, you should have received a Black Eye Orb from her body. You
will find that the Black Eye Orb resonates here in the hall. If you use the orb while in this area you will invade the
world of Lautrec and have the chance to get your revenge. Killing him (you don't need to kill his bodyguards) will
get you RING OF FAVOR AND PROTECTION and SOUVENIR OR REPRISAL. It also allows you to collect his
armour set outside the chamber of the princess when you reach it. You also get a FIRE KEEPER SOUL which you
can use to revive the Fire Keeper in Firelink, which will also let you use the bonfire again. You may choose not to do
this and reinforce your Estus Flask. The choice is yours. There are a total of seven Fire Keeper Souls in the game,
and in order to reach the maximum (+7) for the flask you are required to be in New Game+ anyway.
Make your way down to the floor of the great hall, ignore the fog door for now and head in the other direction.
There is a lever in the corner that opens up the main gate. Once all these shortcuts have been established, you're
ready to proceed through the fog door and fight the boss.
BOSS: ORNSTEIN AND SMOUGH
Without a doubt, the toughest boss yet. Taking on two enemies at once is never fun, but when they're both this
powerful you've got your work cut out for you. I've got two different strategies that have worked for me depending
on what type of character you have.
Note that if you are in human form you can also find a summon sign for Solaire outside this battle near where the
knight archer is.
First of all, in both cases I highly recommend using Havel's Ring and the Cloranthy Ring, and then equipping
whatever the best armour you have that will still keep you below 25% equip burden. The mobility you gain in this
fight have having low burden is much more useful than any defines your armour may provide (unless you've built a
complete tank character). In this fight it's all about dodging their attacks, with which a bit of practice, can be done
with fair consistency.
For melee characters you are going to want to kill Ornstein first. He's faster, so he'll be closer to you most of the
time. Get used to dodging his lightning attack with a roll to the side. Wait for him to do his flying spear thrust, then
after a dodge you should have an opening for a couple of 2H swipes on his back. The same applies after his 1-2 hit
combo he uses when he's at close range. This strategy also requires you to be constantly aware of Smough's location
and even give up obvious chances for attack if you expect doing so could result in the blunt of his hammer down on
your head. Keep running from one end of the map to the other and waiting for the quick Ornstein to come to you,
while the slower Smough still hobbles along behind him.
Inevitably you are going to get hit unless you're on NG+++ or something. When this happens, it's not too difficult to
safely heal as long as you roll behind a pillar before doing so. Use the pillars to your advantage in this fight, despite
being smashed by Smough there'll still be enough left to protect you.
Don't bother trying to attack both. When one of them dies the other one gets powered up and heals to full health. The
fight doesn't get much easier at this point because the one who remains tends to get a lot more aggressive. In the
melee case of fighting against powered up Smough, you have to be very diligent about circling behind him. His
hammer attacks won't be too deadly in this scenario, and you've got a lot of opportunity to attack, all you have to
really be careful of is his lightning butt-stomp, which can kill an unsuspecting player in a single hit. The moment
you see him rising in the air, get the hell out of there and relaunch your assault out from behind a pillar. (Also if you
kill Ornstein first, he'll drop the LEO RING).
For a mage the fight is considerably easier. Smough is definitely who you want to defeat first. He has a weakness
against pyromancy and it's too strong against sorcery either. The key spell in this battle is Homing Soulmass (learned
from Big Hat Logan). It allows you to do heavy damage while still dodging attacks. The fight against powered up
Ornstein should be fought from behind a pillar. Ornstein starts going crazy with the lightning projectiles, which
won't touch you if you're behind a pillar, even a broken one. Since the charge up on this attack is so long, you've got
time between them to step out from behind the pillar, fire a spell, and step back again. Repeat as necessary.
For defeating them, you get the soul of whoever you defeated second, SOUL OF ORNSTEIN or SOUL OF
SMOUGH as well as 30,000 souls.
Take either of the elevators up and use the bonfire. In the next room you will receive the LORDVESSEL, which
allows you to warp between bonfires (which in reality means between the Firelink Shrines, and a bunch of bonfires
in Anor Londo). You can also enter a covenant here to get the RING OF THE SUN PRINCESS. Head back to the
bonfire and warp to the Firelink Shrine. The knight of Catarina should be back there. He'll give you the MIRACLE:
EMIT FORCE.
Now you have a choice to make that will determine part of the course of the rest of the game, and a sort of good
guy / bad guy ending kind of thing. To proceed as normal, you should speaking to Kingseeker Frampt (the big
creature sticking out of the water in the centre of Firelink and go down to place the Lordvessel on the Firelink Altar
below. This is the standard progression of the game.
To take a more "evil" approach, do not take the Lordvessel down to the Firelink Altar. Hang onto it and proceed
forward in the guide and finish the New Londo Ruins. After killing the boss of the New Londo Ruins, you will
encounter Kaathe, a similar creature to Frampt who will guide your progress through the rest of the game and allow
you to enter the Darkwraith Covenant. Note that doing this will mean you are no longer able to interact with Frampt
at Firelink, sell him your items for souls, or trade in your shards.
Feel free to proceed however you like, it does not affect the core gameplay or the remaining worlds that you visit.
At this point I usually have enough spare souls lying around to go and buy the Crest of Artorias from the blacksmith
by the cathedral for 20,000 souls. You may well have done this earlier, but this is usually the point in the game when
I return to the Darkroot Garden. This is a required area, you will need the item dropped by the boss to proceed in the
game (you can, of course, skip the 20,000 soul fee by defeating the hydra and just climbing the ladder behind it).
Darkroot Garden Revisited
Eastern (Armour Set)
Cat Covenant Ring
Large Soul of a Brave Warrior
Covenant of Artorias
Soul of Sif
You can enter this area through either the Darkroot Garden using the Crest of Artorias purchased from the
blacksmith, but as I mentioned, taking the ladder behind the hydra is also a viable cheaper option. For now I'll be
covering it from the hydra ladder entrance, but both of them lead to the exact same area.
Beyond where you fought the hydra is a large waterfall with an equally large ladder beside it. Climb up and cross the
bridge to find a SOUL OF A BRAVE WARRIOR and another ladder on the other side. Head into the forest from
here without crossing the bridge, there are a ton of plant monsters in here for you to deal with. Off on the edge of a
cliff you'll find a full set of EASTER HELM, EASTERN ARMOR, EASTERN GAUNTLETS and EASTERN
LEGGINGS.
Throughout this part of the forest are very powerful ghosts, around 7-8 of them, many are impossible to lock on to.
Challenging these enemies yields roughly 2000 souls each, so they're worth fighting, however just try and be careful
to move slowly and only pull 1-2 at a time at most.
There is also a large door in this part of the forest. A cat sits on a ledge inside and allows you to join a covenant that
gets you the CAT COVENANT RING. While wearing this ring you can earn rewards by defeating other players
invading in the forest to get rewards, however note that this covenant is very buggy and you can get the rewards
other ways, for example the Ring of Fog by trading with Snuggly the Crow.
Continue across the bridge to the second part of the forest. Beware of large crazy possum monster things that spin at
you like SOnic the Hedgehog. In the back right corner there's a LARGE SOUL OF A BRAVE WARRIOR on a
corpse. After that you're pretty much ready to take on the boss.
BOSS: Sif
If you've come here at the point I mentioned in the guide, after Anor Londo, you're not going to have a tough time
for this boss. Even lower level players can take him on without too much difficulty as longs they have a reasonable
shield (upgraded as much as possible). All of Sif's attacks have a large range (due to the size of his sword) but
they're also easily blockable. Healing as also fairly easy because when you begin to back off, he also has a tendency
to jump backward and give you lots of breathing space.
Getting the opportunity to attack is a little more difficult. Maintaining a spot at his side or behind him is made harder
simply because he jumps around like crazy. The trick is to recognize when you do have an opportune moment,
especially when he jumps almost right on top of you and you're caught underneath him. Use this opportunity to plant
as many hits in as you can.
For a mage, the Homing Soulmass spell again is the most effective in this battle. Pyromancers will find the more
powerful close range spells useful when cast right underneath Sif's body.
For defeating the boss you get the COVENANT OF ARTORIAS and the SOUL OF SIF along with 30,000 souls.
At this point you are free to go to any of the remaining areas before the end of the game, the order is your choice. I
suggest the optional Painted World of Ariamis first to boost your character up for some of the challenges coming up,
but you can essentially pick and choose to start at any area below.
If you remember, the painted world is accessed in the large hall / cathedral / whatever building in Anor Londo full of
those white robed assassins where you had to walk across the ceiling beams and cut down the chandelier. The is a
huge painting at the end of the room on the bottom floor that you can enter as long as you have the Peculiar Doll
found during your return trip to the Northern Undead Asylum.
Painted World of Ariamis
Dried Finger
Dragon Scale
Bloodhsield
Red Sign Soapstone
Painting Guardian (Armour set)
Pyromancy: Acid Surge
Annex Key
Pyromancy: Fire Surge
Dark Ember
Miracle: Vow of Silence
Mask of Velka
Black Cleric (Armour set)
Velka's Rapier
Gold Coin
Xanthous (Armour set)

To reach this optional world, warp to the Darkmoon Tomb in Anor Londo and simply run to the top of the stairs
outside, then into the large cathedral. At the back of this room on the wall there is a huge painting you can enter if
you have the Peculiar Doll from the return trip to the Northern Undead Asylum.
There is a bonfire right at the top of the stairs when you enter here, just be aware that once you light it, you can't exit
this world from where you came in, you have to venture through and find it inside.
Head up the first few sets of stairs and turn right at the top, just before a couple of deformed torch-wielding booger
monsters there's a SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT. Go into the house and down to the bottom for a SOUL OF A
BRAVE WARRIOR. Leave the house and descend the stairs you came up to reach it. At the bottom of the first
couple flights there's a small path that leads around behind the house. Climb to the top and grab the SOUL OF A
PROUD KNIGHT. This will prompt a couple of burden to fly in from the sky and attack you. Once they're dead,
look over the edge and drop onto the little balcony below and grab the DRIED FINGER off the body. Now exit the
house through the upstairs door again.
Cross the bridge and take out all the boogeymen (watch out for the toxic status if you kill them at close range). Go
out onto the balcony in the direction you came from and cut loose the corpse with the item on it. There's nothing to
do upstairs so go the back door and turn left to find a LARGE SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT. In the other direction
on your left there's a large bridge with an elder dragon. You can run to pick up the LARGE SOUL OF A PROUD
KNIGHT, which will get his attention and cause him to start running toward you. This enemy is very slow and you
can take him down incredibly easily with a mage or archer. Melee characters will have to use his side as an
advantage since it takes him a moment to turn his attention from side to side. For killing this enemy you get a
DRAGON SCALE and below him, a BLOODSHIELD.
Turn around and head back toward where you came from, then turn left to go inside of the large round structure.
There's a big staircase spiralling up toward the top littered with harpies on the way up. A single corpse at the top
holds RED SIGN SOAPSTONE. Turn around and look down and you'll see that after only a few steps you can drop
down to find the SOUL OF A BRAVE WARRIOR. Now drop down and take the stairs back out the door you took to
get in here. Just outside the door you can drop over the edge on the left to land on a walkway below. Over in the
corner of this section is a corpse with a SOUL OF A BRAVE WARRIOR.
On the other side, you can do a running leap off the edge to land on an even lower section (and hopefully avoid
falling all the way to the bottom). This leads onto a small path between some stairs. Go down the stairs and into the
house, after killing the rats you can open the chest to get PAINTING GUARDIAN HOOD, PAINTING
GUARDIAN ROBE, PAINTING GUARDIAN GLOVES and PAINTING GUARDIAN WAISTCLOTH. There's a
ladder back at the top of the stairs that will take you to the upper walkways of the house you were in before.
Grab the SOUL OF A BRAVE WARRIOR off the corpse in the window. Across on the other side you'll find an EGG
VERMIFUGE. Now you can drop down. Once you've done all this return to the large round structure in the centre
of the area and take the stairs to the bottom (enter from the outside just past (but not across) the bridge where the
elder dragon is. At the bottom of this tower is a fog door leading to the next area.
There's a big mass of shielded blob monsters in the centre of this courtyard. If you think you're comfortable fighting
them, they're not too hard as long as you fight them from the side or behind (the enemy is similar to Demon's Souls'
first boss). If you don't want to fight them, no problem, simply run with your shield up straight ahead past them. On
the other side is the large door you encountered right at the beginning, and if you open it up from this side you've
created a shortcut right back to the bonfire.
Back in the courtyard again, head over to the far side you would reach if you were to turn right after coming from
the fog. There's a corpse with a HUMANITY here (if you cut it loose earlier) and up at the top of the stairs, a RING
OF SACRIFICE. Over on the other side there's a huge zombie graveyard with items including LARGE SOUL OF A
PROUD KNIGHT, SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT, SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT and hidden in a far corner,
PYROMANCY: ACID SURGE.
Now, if you're ready to continue into dangerous territory, go up the stairs beside the door back to the bonfire. There's
a ladder here that takes you down into the underground. In the first large room there are at least 7-8 rolling spike
skeletons hiding, you want to be VERY CAREFULLY and proceed slowly to try and pull them one at a time,
making sure your shield is up and you're watching every direction whenever you can. After defeating them all pick
up the SOUL OF A RPOUD KNIGHT, SOUL OF A BRAVE WARRIOR, and turn the crank on a pillar just beside
the fake wall at the other end. This will open up the door to the boss.
Destroy the fake wall and prepare for a few more spike skeletons. Keep clearing fake walls until you find the
ANNEX KEY, and then a staircase going up (not a ladder). At the top there's a lone booger monster you can kill to
get PYROMANCY: FIRE SURGE. Go back down the stairs and find the ladder in this small little maze that leads
up and out of the well at the top. The Annex Key you now have opens up the door in the annex just on the other side
of the shielded blob things.
Proceed through the annex door and up the stairs. Go straight ahead when you come up and this path will lead down
to a statue holding the DARK EMBER. Picking it up will summon another couple of harpies. Head back to the door
at the top of the stairs and take the other path this time. Climb to the top and defeat the harpies to get MIRACLE:
VOW OF SILENCE. Back down to the landing below you there's another small set of stairs that will take you to a
corpse with MASK OF VELKA, BLACK CLERIC ROBE, BLACK CLERIC MANCHETTE and BLACK
TIGHTS. Return once more to the door at the top of the annex stairs. There's a flimsy wooden wall you can smash
here that leads right to VELKA'S RAPIER. Now drop down into the rat infested house below. At the top of the
stairs, before you climb the ladder, use arrows or magic to destroy the barrels across from the ladder and jump to
that platform to find a GOLD COIN.
Optional: If you revert to human form and have not yet defeated the boss of this area, there is a black phantom you
can fight. From the bonfire, head into the courtyard, then turn right into the zombie graveyard area, run around for a
little while and soon you will be invaded by a black phantom called King Jeremiah. This enemy shoots powerful fire
spells, but the spells are easy to dodge by simply moving left and right and keeping your distance. Killing the black
phantom will get you souls and the NOTCHED WHIP. There are more rewards waiting after you've gone to the
boss.
Now that the other door is open at the bottom of the tower you can go through it and across the bridge. Beware of
the huge knight at the other side, he's powerful and he respawns every time you die. Also beware of the ambush of
four undead about 3/4 of the way down the bridge. Pass through the fog when you're ready. This is an "optional"
boss in the sense that, you do not need to kill her. You can walk right by and drop down over the edge to exit the
painting and return to the real world, of course, there are obvious goodies if you do beat here.
NOTE: If you killed the black phantom Jeremiah, walk past the boss and toward the edge of the walkway behind
her. There will be a corpse sitting there that has XANTHOUS CROWN, XANTHOUS OVERCOAT, XANTHOUS
GLOVES, and XANTHOUS WAISTCLOTH. If you have no need for the Xanthous Crown and lost the chance to
invade Lautrec's world, you can still get a Ring of Favour and Protection from trading the crown with Snuggly the
crow. The ring boost health, stamina and equip weight, but will break if ever removed.
BOSS: PRISCILLA
An interesting boss that spends the majority of the battle completely invisible. Her attacks also kill you primarily by
inflicting the bleed effect, so if you have the Bloodbite Ring make sure to equip that (along with any other armour
that may help in that regard).
You get the first hit on the boss by default, so make use of it. After that she'll go invisible and suddenly things get a
lot harder. Fortunately she's slow and more than 50% of this battlefield is covered in snow, thus revealing her
footprints. If you run circles around the edge, even at a jogging pace you'll easily stay ahead of the boss. You can use
this time to watch for the footprints behind you. When you know the boss' location, try and sprint around toward the
side of her and get in a few attacks, or wait for the swing of her scythe, and then attack after dodging.
After getting enough hits in she will turn visible and the fight will get a lot easier. If you're playing a mage, the best
strategy is to make use of the stairs. Since your back is protected you know she will be coming in front of you, so
you won't even need to lock on to hit her with spells like Heavy Soul Arrow or any pyromancy.
If you can manage to cut off her small tail (make sure you focus all attacks on it, it's easy to kill her first before it
even comes off) you'll get PRISCILLA'S DAGGER, a relatively weak weapon with a very powerful bleed effect.
For defeating the boss you get SOUL OF PRISCILLA and 30,000 souls
Walk toward the edge of the raised platform to return to Anor Londo.
New Londo Ruins
Transient Curse (x2)
Parrying Dagger
Key to the Seal
Humanity
Composite Bow
Large Arrow (x16)
Humanity
Very Large Ember
Cracked Red Eye Orb (x6)
Bequeathed Lord Soul Shard
Begin by using one of the Transient Curses you should have in your inventory, this will allow you to interact with
and attack the otherwise invincible ghosts in this area. If you don't have any now you can find TRANSIENT
CURSE (x2) of them from a corpse in an urn just before you go up the first set of stairs near the edge of the water
behind a wall. If you didn't get it at the beginning of the game there's a Fire Keeper Soul down at the end of a path
here.
Head up the stairs and into the ruins. The ghosts are going to start getting real annoying real fast, so move slowly
and take out every single one (or race past them, which also works sometimes), just make sure you go with one or
the other extreme. Down the spiral stairs and straight ahead at the bottom you'll find a PARRYING DAGGER. Head
around the path and through the fog. At the top of the next stairs kick down the ladder and then go get the LARGE
SOUL OF A NAMELESS SOLDIER in front of you.
Go down the stairs on the other side and inside the ruins. Make a right and go straight. Follow the path around
through all the ghosts and you'll find a SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT. In the centre of this building there is a ladder
leading up to the roof. A lone NPC up there will gladly hand over the KEY TO THE SEAL as well as cure you of
curse and sell you curse-curing sorcery.
Circle around the outer hall while still inside this building and go dow the stairs. Make a right at the bottom and
follow this hall around to a CURSEBITE RING. Go back inside and through the door at the bottom of the stairs.
Head left and down the stairs to get a GREEN TITANITE SHARD, then right and up the stairs for a LARGE SOUL
OF A NAMELESS SOLDIER. Going a little further down and then up a large flight of stairs will lead to a
HUMANITY.
Finally, go back down the stairs and through the door at the bottom. Down a small set of stairs here is a door you can
open with the Key to the Seal and then push a lever to lower the water level. This will create a very nice shortcut
from back at the beginning of the ruins. If you remember where just after you enter there was that urn with a corpse
in it and two Transient Curses, you can now drop down over the ledge right next to it and land safely at the lower
area of the New Londo Ruins.
Go up the stairs from the water switch and grab the COMPOSITE BOW and LARGE ARROW (x16) from the
balcony. Now go down and take the elevator to the bottom floor (again, don't feel too bad if you die, the shortcut
will take you right to this area from the beginning). Take out the skeleton knights and start making your way up the
stairs. You'll pass a LARGE SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT on your way to another fog door.
Through this one is a very dangerous room with three knights and a giant monster blob (topped off with exploding
skulls). Take your time with this one and explore the area when you're done. Down at the end on your right is a
corpse with a HUMANITY. There's two paths from here, an elevator and some stairs. The stairs lead up to a SOUL
OF A BRAVE WARRIOR close to the top, and another branch that winds all the way around and up some more
stairs to a chest containing the important VERY LARGE EMBER. This now allows you to upgrade +10 weapons all
the way to +15.
Back down to the room at the bottom where you found the Humanity, the other path with the elevator is a nice
shortcut back up to the entrance of the ruins. When you're ready to go back head through the remaining door to get
outside again. Follow the straightforward path and collect LARGE SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT, LARGE SOUL
OF A PROUD KNIGHT and CRACKED RED EYE ORB (x6). Beyond the next goo monster is a fog door, as long
as you have defeated the greatwolf Sif, proceed through the fog door.
Within the fog you are safe, but there is one more thing you must do before you face the boss. You must have the
Covenant of Artorias equipped that you got for defeating Sif. Once you do you can walk off any of the little stone
planks into the centre of the spiral stairs. You'll fall for a good while and, because of the ring, eventually land safe in
The Abyss.
BOSS: FOUR KINGS
Note: If you summoned Beatrice for the Moonlight Butterfly fight, you can find her summon sign for this fight. Just
before you cross the bridge to enter the fog for the boss battle, turn right and look for her sign near the wall. I'll
assume for the majority's sake that you'll be fighting the boss alone however.
Not long after you face Ornstein and Smough you come up against what is arguably another of the game's hardest
bosses. There are a lot of strategies floating around for these guys, so let's go through a couple that I find most
effective.
The most important strategy to use against this boss, regardless of build, is heavy offense. Because new kings spawn
on a timer, the longer it takes you to kill each one the harder the fight is going to get.
For melee characters, wait for the first king to spawn and then start sprinting toward him with your shield up. All the
kings' sword attacks are incredibly deadly and stamina draining fro ma distance BUT once you are in close all they
can hit you with is the blunt of their arm rather than the blade, and you'll take A LOT less damage when you're snug
in close. This is also obviously a great opportunity to start 2-handing your weapon and smashing the king with
everything you've got. Unfortunately being close isn't all flowers and lollipops, they're still got two tricks up their
sleeve. The first is a grab move which you can usually avoid by sidestepping and trying to stay behind them while
attacking. The second is a huge magic explosion that for the most part I find is almost indefensible, you kind of just
have to suck it up and block if you can. There's an element of luck here that makes the fight a lot easier if they use
fewer magic attacks.
After you've killed the first one, quickly move onto the second and repeat the same strategy. Iron Flesh is a very
helpful spell to have in this fight too if you need the extra defence.
If you're playing a mage or pyromancer, this fight can be tricky still. I had a lot of difficulty before settling on a
strategy that finally worked well. This strategy has you essentially tanking the boss and just blasting every bit of
pyro / sorcery you have until they go down. They seem to have a weakness to fire to pyromancers may have an edge
in this fight.
This requires you to have Havel's armour set which you found in the chests through the fake fireplace wall in Anor
Londo. What you want to do before dropping down is equip the full set of Havel's armour which is ridiculously
heavy. I had an endurance of 8 for this fight so I couldn't even run wearing it, but that doesn't matter since you'll also
be casting Iron Flesh. The combination of the two means that even direct hits from any of the kings' attack only does
a small notch out of your health. You don't even need to be blocking, just spam your most powerful spells regardless
of how slow they are. As for rings you will obviously need the abyss-walking ring, the other should be either the
Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring or the Wolf RIng if you don't have that.
I've heard that Great Magic Shield is also incredibly effective for this battle, allowing you to completely block their
attacks, though I haven't tried it. The above strategy worked flawlessly for me needing only four Estus before the
battle was over.
Beating the boss gets you 30,000 souls and the BEQUEATHED LORD SOUL SHARD.
The Duke's Archives
Twinkling Titanite
Crystal Knight Shield
Twinkling Titanite
Archive Tower Cell Key
Archive Prison Extra Key
Miracle: Soothing Sunlight
Miracle: Bountiful Sunlight
Archive Tower Giant Door Key
Large Soul of a Brave Warrior
Maiden (Armour Set)
White Seance Ring
Twinkling Titanite
Sorcery: Strong Magic Shield
Blue Titanite Chunk
Enchanted Falchion
Archive Tower Giant Cell Key
Crystal Ember
Channelers (Armour Set)
Fire Keeper Soul
Prism Stone (x20)
Crystalline (Armour Set)
Blue Titanite Chunk
From the first bonfire in Anor Londo, make a left and follow that path all the way up through ha large opening into
the Duke's Archives. This opening was previously sealed before you received the Lordvessel after Ornstein and
Smough. Head down the hall post the couple of armoured boars to reach a bonfire right neat the entrance. Proceed
up the elevator when ready.
Go upstairs in the next room and check the left side of the upper walkway for a chest containing TWINKLING
TITANITE and the right side for a fake chest that drops a CRYSTAL KNIGHT SHIELD. Out on the balcony you'll
find another TWINKLING TITANITE. Now ride the elevator up. At the top you'll reach a fog door that leads to a
boss. This is one of those "no choice but to die situations" as the boss is actually invincible.
When you wake up you'll find yourself in a jail cell. kill the guard leaning agains the bars to get the ARCHIVE
TOWER CELL KEY. Make sure to rest at the bonfire in your cell as well. Exit the cell and start taking down the
enemies outside. Descend the stairs and try opening every cell door you pass. You can drop down one of them into
another cell to find the ARCHIVE PRISON EXTRA KEY. Continue down until you reach the bottom. If you kill all
the squid monsters in the room here you should get MIRACLE: SOOTHING SUNLIGHT and MIRACLE:
BOUNTIFUL SUNLIGHT.
Outside the squid room there is a ladder to climb up. Kill the enemies at the top and take the ARCHIVE TOWER
GIANT DOOR KEY out of the chest, as well as pulling the lever for the weird sound device. Once you have that,
descend the ladder and start heading up the spiral stairs again. There should be one new door you can open on the
way up, there's a corpse with a LARGE SOUL OF A BRAVE WARRIOR inside. Climb the ladder at the top of the
stairs and unlock the door. If you go left of the door before passing through it there is a wooden walkway. Carefully
drop down at the end and keep looking to find MAIDEN ROBE, MAIDEN GLOVES, MAIDEN SKIRT, MAIDEN
HOOD and a WHITE SEANCE RING.
Follow the hall here to reach another large part of the archives. Watch out for sniping mages in here, there's one who
will constantly throw magic down from above. Turn left and proceed into the other large half of this large area and
head up the stairs. Half way up the stairs is a device that lets you spin the stairs around. Do so, and then go down
them to the other side. Here you will find a chest containing TWINKLING TITANITE. Now go up the stairs to the
top of the other side.
Back in the other side of the room again there is a gap in the railing along the walkway where you can drop down
onto the staircase in the middle. Eliminate that pesky mage on the other side and make a right to find a chest
containing SORCERY: STRONG MAGIC SHIELD. On your way back down the stairs, flip them around. This will
allow you to reach the door with the bright yellow light. Slide down the ladder and pull the switch at the bottom to
unlock the shortcut. This shortcut will lead you straight out to a bonfire on the balcony.
After resting, go back to where you pulled the lever. The small room on the side has a chest with a BLUE
TITANITE CHUNK in it. The larger room has a mimic chest at the back right that drops ENCHANTED
FLACHION when killed, another chest with ARCHIVE TOWER GIANT CELL KEY in it, another chest with SIXEYED HELM OF THE CHANNELERS, ROBE OF THE CHANNELERS, GAUNTLETS OF THE
CHANNELERS, WAISTCLOTH OF THE CHANNELERS, and a final chest hidden behind a bookshelf containing
CRYSTAL EMBER. Now, if you go all the ay back to the spiral stairs where you were locked in the cell, and all the
way to the bottom again where all the squid monsters are, it will be well worth your time. The key you just got will
unlock the door behind them to free Big Hat Logan a second time (he will now be stocked with new extremely
powerful spells) and also the game's last FIRE KEEPER SOUL you can find, aside from killing the Fire Keepers
themselves.
When you are ready to proceed return to the room where you got the large door key in the chest, and pull the lever to
reveal a hidden staircase. Downstairs there is another chest containing PRISM STONE (x20). When you head out
through the fog you'll be in a forest area. Check the middle of the forest for a corpse with CRYSTALLINE HELM,
CRYSTALLINE ARMOR, CRYSTALLINE GAUNTLETS, and CRYSTALLINE LEGGINGS. There's also a
BLUE TITANITE CHUNK at the back up near the walls of the archives. In the opposite direction down the slope
around the centre is the entrance to the Crystal Cave.
Crystal Cave
Humanity
Blue Titanite Chunk
Sorcery: White Dragon Breath
Big Hat
Tin Crystallization Catalyst
Large Magic Ember
Sage Robe
Traveling Boots
This area can be a huge pain if you're not sure what you're doing, so listen carefully. Expect instant death if you go
in any wrong direction. On your way down the sloping crystal path, turn right when you reach another chunk of
crystal path leading away to the right. If you keep going straight you'll slide down to your doom. Beyond the crystal
monster the path is relatively straightforward until you start approaching a point where you see a corpse with an item
in the distance.
Here you will see a bunch of snowflakes falling and seemingly bursting in thin air. These snowflakes are there to
show you the location of invisible paths(I know, invisible paths above certain death), but if you follow their lead for
the most part they're pretty good about guiding the way. In this case they show you there is an invisible path along
the left wall leading to a corpse with a HUNMANITY on it. Remember that other players' notes are also handy for
revealing the path.
From the Humanity, drop down the the visible path below and follow it to the bottom. Here at the bottom ahead of
you is another invisible path all the way across the huge chasm to a thin walkway with a crystal golem on it. Past
that enemy is yet another invisible path. You can drop off the side of this one not long after you walk onto to it to
land on the ledge below beside a corpse with a BLUE TITANITE CHUNK, and then weave your way back up, but I
don't really think it's worth it. Whether you dropped off or not, this path is the one your take a long way ahead all the
way across the big chasm to the other side (it is a perfecto straight path if you get the angle right).
Make a left when you get to the other side and you'll find a corpse around the corner with a SOUL OF A HERO on
it. Now continue on past the teethy clam monsters to reach the boss.
BOSS:SEATH THE SCALELESS
Assuming you've been following this guide and have bee through the New Londo Ruins, then the most important
preparation you can make for this battle is to equip the Cursebite Ring. This makes the boss' primary attack much
much less dangerous, and makes repeated attempts (if necessary) about a thousand times less painful.
With a bit of practice this is a relatively simple and straightforward boss. The real trick here is if you are interested
in collecting the MOONLIGHT GREATSWORD, which requires you to chop off the boss' tail. Managing to do this
successfully is more difficult than finishing the battle itself. I'll outline a brief strategy here.
Moon Light Greatsword: This is a large sword that requires only 16 strength to wield and scales very impressively
with intelligence, so it's one of, if not the best weapon in the game for INT-heavy mages. To get it however requires
that you cut off Seath's tail, and for a boss that is constantly spinning and spinning it's not easy. Make sure you have
the Cursebite Ring on, as well as taken off enough of your gear so that your equip burden is below 25% and you
have maximum run/roll speed. Race into the battle and shatter the crystal, then start sprinting around the boss toward
the tail. You want to make sure you are attacking as far back on the tail as possible, anywhere closer than the end
25% or so cannot be severed and I believe won't count toward cutting off the tail itself. You also have to be careful
not to strike the final blow while the tail is clipping through the wall as you risk having the item appear inside the
wall and having to start the battle again. Lastly, because you are behind the boss for most of the time his crystal
spike attack isn't too dangerous to you, however his tail stomp is VERY dangerous, and he will use this attack
randomly at times you are close to the tail. Each time you reach the tip of the tail start swinging as hard as you can
with 2H attacks, but be prepared to give up your position if you see the tail start to rise in the air, at which point roll
away as fast as you can. Repeat this process (I think the tail's HP is roughly equal to about 25% dmage toward the
boss' total HP) and eventually it will sever and the Moonlight Greatsword is yours.
As for the boss itself, that's a lot less of a problem (but by no means easy). Maneuverability is key, as is curse
resistance. The best strategy I have found is simply to run against either of the tentacles sticking out of his side and
just keep pounding on them (further out toward the end) while he kind of spins around to try and get you in front of
him. The benefit of this strategy is that you are completely safe from his tail attack, and you are rarely more than a
couple of rolls away outside the range of the crystal spikes. The one attack that poses any real danger to you is the
moving energy beam, but if you have a quick reflex you should be able to see it coming and dodge. If not, your
position allows for fairly easy healing.
For defeating Seath you will receive the BEQUEATHED LORD SOUL SHARD and 40,000 souls.
Optional:Once Seath the Scaleless has been defeated, you can finish the final part of Big Hat Logan's story. First
you must purchase every single spell that he has for sale (which will consume quite a lot of souls, probably
200,000+, so likely this will be an ongoing thing you come back to). After you have done this, talking with Big Hat
Logan over and over will sort of reveal his descent into madness. Now leave the archives, or quit and load your
game and come back (sometimes you have to talk with him and quit/load a couple of times). Eventually he will be
gone.
At this point, head up the elevator in the first big room to where you fought the invincible Seath the first time. Here
you will find a half naked crazy hallow Big Hat Logan running around like a doofus throwing spells. He's not
difficult to defeat, and when you do, you receive SORCERY: WHITE DRAGON BREATH, BIG HAT, TIN
CRYSTALLIZATION CATALYST and LARGE MAGIC EMBER. Return to where he was sitting before to find a
chest to complete the ig hat armour set including SAGE ROBE and TRAVELING BOOTS.
The Catacombs
Lucerne
Darkmoon Seance Ring
Miracle: Tranquil Walk of Peace
Demon Titanite
Eye of Death (x2)
Gravelord Sword
Holy (Armour set)
Mace
Rite of Kindling
Mask of the Child
To reach the Catacombs, simply return to the Firelink Shrine and go into the graveyard. The stairs leading down into
the catacombs are on the left side toward the back of the graveyard.
Note: Before you enter here you will greatly benefit from a "Divine" weapon in the following dungeons. You can
make one with just about any upgraded sword and the Divine Ember that you received after defeating the Moonlight
Butterfly. Many of the skeletons in this dungeon will respawn when killed. You can stop this from happening by
killing the nearby necromancer, but you can also kill them permanently by using a divine weapon. This is most
useful agains the final boss which has a number of repspawning skeleton minions that make the fight very difficult if
you can't keep them down.
Head down into the catacombs and drop down the ladder. You'll find plenty of skeletons and your first necromancer
(and bonfire) in a room down to the left. Once you've killed the necromancer and rested, pull the lever beside the
bonfire to open the door in the previous room. Now go back and head out the door.
Necromancers fortunately will not respawn even after resting at bonfires, so just run past the skeletons you find and
make sure to kill each one ahead of time before taking the time to stop for loot. After you get the one across the
bridge here you'll find yourself inside some ruins. In the first separate room on the right there is a LUCERNE.
Further along, just before you go outside again, take care of the skeleton archer and check that room for a LARGE
SOUL OF A NAMELESS SOLDIER.
When you get outside make a right and just run with your shield up, there's about a hundred different dangers here.
At the end of this path is a lever to pull that flips the bridge so it's no longer covered in spikes. It also leads to a
SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT. Go back and cross that bridge, kill the necromancer before focusing on any of the
skeletons. If you enter the first room on the right you can fall through the floor and land in a cave with a couple of
crystal lizards below. They'll drop rare titanite if you can kill them fast enough (plenty of spike traps here though). A
ladder leads up to another room with a fake floor. Drop down and head back across the bridge.
On the way down the spiral stairs you'll find a LARGE SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT and a second LARGE SOUL
OF A PROUD KNIGHT. Again, don't bother with the skeletons, you'll find the necromancer if you just keep running
further down the stairs. After killing him go into the next room and push the lever that opens the door just a little bit
back up the stairs. When you go through make an immediate left (straight ahead is a bottomless pit) and go left
when you get outside. Eventually you'll reach a ladder. Before going up the ladder strike the wall to the left of it to
reveal a hidden passage to a bonfire.
Now from this bonfire, go back inside and continue down the spiral stairs. If you run (not sprint) at a normal pace
and just keep running even when the stairs end, that should put you on just the right angle to fall and land on a
platform below. I find if you try and roll off it screws everything up and you usually fall to your death. Drop again to
a ledge with a GREEN TITANITE SHARD, then drop again to the bottom. When you drop through the hole here
you'll trigger a scene. You've now unlock access to a new blacksmith capable of forging fire-based weapons. When
you leave through here you'll be at the bottom of the catacombs. There's plenty more to fire from the last bonfire so
either use a Homeward Bone to go back, or die, or go skip ahead to the boss who is just beyond the big canyon
outside of here. The guide will continue from the previous bonfire to collect the rest of the items.
Back out and up the ladder is another lever to push. Now drop down and cross the bridge into the fog door. At the
bottom of the stairs is a broken brick wall you can smash to reveal a path into a fit full of skeletons (yeah, great).
Once you defeat the giant skeleton you can loot the DARKMOON SEANCE RING from the coffin (Note: You can
now warp to the Darkmoon Tomb in Anor Londo, and with the Darkmoon Seance Ring equipped, proceed beyond
the statue into a hidden area. More information is found in the Anor Londo section of the walkthrough). Exit through
the wall beside you go up all the way up the sloping path. Kill the necromancer at the top and climb the ladder
beside him to reach a corpse with MIRACLE: TRANQUIL WALK OF PEACE. Now drop down through the ground
to be back near the entrance again. I suggest you rest at the first bonfire just back a little further toward the
beginning, it's actually the closest one to the boss.
For the last few items we'll be taking the shortcut that leads you right to the boss from the beginning. Leave the first
bonfire and go outside. As you cross the first bridge, notice there is another right below you. It's easy to walk right
off and land on it. Now the next one is a bit trickier, but still easy. Turn around and face the direction where you
came from. You'll see below you is a rock ledge that sticks out. A simple roll makes it easy to land on this ledge.
From here you have two options, the first is to go through the door and explore in there, the second takes you on a
further shortcut down to the boss. They're numbered 1 and 2 below.
1. Enter the room and run down to the end. There's another crippled demon to kill for a DEMON TITANITE and
EYE OF DEATH(x2) behind him. OPTIONAL: Once you have an Eye of Death, there is a coffin in this room that
you can approach and choose to nestle into. This will trigger a scene and allow you to join the Gravelord Servent
covenant. doing this will get you the GRAVELORD SWORD and Gravelord Sword Dance miracle.
From the room with the coffins, you can go through a hole in the wall and drop down into another room with two
areas of weak floor. Be prepared before you fall further because you will have to face a powerful knight. He drops a
WHITE TITANITE CHUNK when killed, and you can find a SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT on the way out. When
you drop down to the bottom be very weary of the extremely annoying spiked rolling skeletons. If you drop down
and go back up the hill out of the valley sort of in the direction you came from, you'll pop out above where you
dropped down to fight the night, and have the chance to kill the final necromancer in the catacombs (no more
skeleton revivals!). From here you can go back to the bottom of the map and run across the valley to reach the boss.
The next time you're going down this way, follow instruction #2 (right below this) when taking the shortcut from the
first bonfire for a much better shortcut than the one you just took. If you make it past the rolling skeletons from here,
you can skip ahead to the boss section.
2. From where you rolled down onto the extended rock outcropping, walk a few steps back toward the main path
and look down, you should see an item roughly 20 feet or so on a corpse below you. You can drop AGAIN from
here to land on that ledge and pick up the LARGE SOUL OF A NAMELESS SOLDIER. Drop down yet again onto
the corpse below and pick up the PRIESTS'S HAT, HOLY ROBE, TRAVELING GLOVES, HOLY TROUSERS and
MACE. Now you are ready to drop down to the ground from here and take the closest exit out of the valley from
where you are to reach the boss. You're only about a 30 second sprint away. Unfortunately the spinning skeletons
here are among the game's most annoying enemies, so make sure you're running with your shield up, and watch your
back.
BOSS: PINWHEEL
Pinwheel is without a doubt, the easiest boss since the Taurus Demon. Possibly easier. He splits into three forms,
two of them fake, who will shoot magic beams at you (slowly) that can be easily dodged. As you strike down the
fake forms to narrow down which is real, eventually you'll connect with the real one and unless you're horribly
underpowered, probably find your attacks taking massive chunks out of what I don't imagine is more than 12001500 HP. After a couple of hits he'll teleport and split into three again, but that shouldn't be a problem for you. For
mages, Homing Crystal Soulmass Arrow(and maybe even Homing Soulmass) can take him from full health to 0 in a
single cast.
For beating this "boss" you get a pathetic 6000 souls, but also the very handy RITE OF KINDLING which allows
you to offer an extra Humanity and kindle bonfires to fill 15 Estus, as well as the MASK OF THE CHILD, which
gives a sizeable boost to stamina regeneration and doesn't take up a ring slot.
From here you can climb a ladder to reach a very dark map above. Slowly walk toward the small lights ahead of you
to reach the second one which has a stone platform beside it. Carefully walk across this to reach the Tomb of the
Giants.
Tomb of the Giants
Humanity
Skull Lantern
Replenishment
Eye of Death (x3)
Large Divine Ember
Covetous Silver Serpent Ring
Effigy Shield
Soul of a Hero
Soul of a Hero
White Titanite Slab
Lord Soul
You'll encounter a large skeleton hiding in the dark right away, so be prepared. Past the skeleton is a light that
indicates another stone object that you can slide down, followed by another at the bottom. You have to be ready
when you hit the boot, this is one of the most frustrating parts of the whole dungeon. You're faced with essentially
invisible archers above you and two large skeletons to your right. You have to get past the large skeletons, and most
people will likely find it easiest to roll/run past them rather than risk being pelted by arrows while trying to fight.
There is another sliding structure on the other side of them, when you get on it, get on it on the right side and hold
right on the stick while you slide to fall off and land on a corpse with a HUMANITY.
When you reach the bottom of the slide go directly left and climb down the ladder there to the safety of a bonfire.
Now that you can collect yourself there's more to explore. At the top of the ladder toward the light there is a man
who asks if you are a cleric, choose "no". Now approach the light ahead of you to trigger a scene familiar trick from
the last game. At the bottom there are a bunch of corpses with LARGE SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT, LARGE
SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT, and the ever important SKULL LANTERN.
Equip the Skull Lantern as a secondary on your left hand and follow the wall around until you find a woman who
warns you of some hallows. When you approach just ahead they'll ambush you. After killing them you can speak to
the woman again to get REPLENISHMENT. Turn right from where you fought them and go up a small slope to find
WHITE TITANITE CHUNK, then continue past where they were to find a path leading up a ladder to a fake wall
you can attack to dissolve.
Make a left turn coming out of the fake wall and be ready to defend against archers (if you die, this area is just up
the ladder from the bonfire, with an immediate right turn at the top of the ladder). Make a left when you get to the
square shaped hole in the floor and go up the sloping path. There is a ladder at the top that leads up to two more
large skeletons. When you've killed them all you can pick up the LARGE SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT on the
corpse on the floor. On the rear left side there is a ladder to climb, and then another ladder. Go up the sloping path to
the top and get the LARGE SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT. Go back down and make a left before the ladder. You
can see from here you can drop down onto another corpse with EYE OF DEATH (x3). Now drop down and head
back toward the ladder. Instead of sliding down, drop down to the right of it and you'll land on a corpse with
LARGE SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT. From here you can drop down the the bottom, then walk down the hill to
the square shaped hole in the floor at the bottom.
If you're ready to fight about one billion large skeletons, climb down this ladder and drop to the floor below. I
suggest trying to take out as many as possible with ranged attacks first. Down here you'll find a SOUL OF A
BRAVE WARRIOR and a LARGE DIVINE EMBER. Now climb the ladder back out of here and return to the
bonfire to rest.
At the top of the ladder above the bonfire is the little shit that kicked you into the pit. Unfortunately the best thing
for you to do for the time being is forgive him and be on your way. Continue on around the big pit hugging the wall.
Kill the weird skeleton on all fours and then when you pass through the fog get ready to take on a bunch of different
kinds of enemies at once. Kill the knight to get a WHITE TITANITE CHUNK. Afterward you can pick up the
SOUL OF A BRAVE WARRIOR off the corpse. If you drop off the ledge right in front of where you picked up that
soul (hopefully a nice person will have left a message to show you where to land) there is a platform you can land
on below that leads to the COVETOUS SILVER SERPENT RING, which increases the amount of souls you get
from kills. From here you can roll across to where the large skeleton waits. Make a right and follow the path around
past another dog-skeleton thing to reach a new bonfire.
Before going any further down from the bonfire, go back up a little and straight ahead at the top around a long ledge
to find an EFFIGY SHIELD. Now return to the new bonfire. From here, when you come back out from where the
bonfire is hidden, stay left and go down that sloping path. There's a corpse in a little cubby at the bottom with a
WHITE TITANITE CHUNK. Kill the couple of dog skeletons ahead and then walk the edge with your lantern until
you see an item not far below you. Drop on top of it and pick up the SOUL OF A BRAVE WARRIOR. Continue
down from here and down a ladder at the bottom until you get outside.
The path from here is pretty straightforward. Soon you will reach a large chamber full of Pinwheel-like enemies.
Make your way around the room taking them all down so that you are free to collect the items; beware though, there
are infinite spawning tiny skeletons whenever you are traipsing through the water below. Check the items around the
room to find SOUL OF A HERO, SOUL OF A HERO, WHITE TITANITE SLAB and WHITE TITANITE CHUNK
(the slab is hardest to find, just before the fog door is a small ledge you can drop down into a tunnel where it's
found).
NOTE: This is one of the best Humanity AND soul farming areas in the game. The baby skeletons respawn forever,
and have a very high drop rate for humanity. Equip the Covetous Silver Serpent Ring and the Covetous GOld
Serpent Ring and go town town, wherever you find is most comfortable. My preferred way is to use the slope just to
the right of the entrance to the chamber. If you wait awhile on land, then run into the water the babies will all spawn
at once. Using a large weapon you can swing once or twice and kill a huge climb of them, just beware that the
Humanities they drop disappear VERY QUICKLY so you have to jump right on them the second you see them. Step
out of the water again, wait 15-20 seconds, then jump back in and repeat.
Step through the fog when you are ready to face the boss (note that fighting the boss will break your covenant if you
joined the (Gravelords).
BOSS: GRAVELORD NITO
The very beginning part of this fight is one of the most dangerous parts. You'll take a fair bit of fall damage entering
the area and be rushed by three skeleton enemies. Kill these skeletons with a divine weapon if you have one,
otherwise Nito will continually revive them (in which case it's probably best just to ignore them. The boss' attacks
will usually kill the skeletons for you).
Allow Nito some time to approach you, while regularly rolling to avoid his magic ground spike beneath-your-feet
attack. Once he gets about halfway toward you from his starting point you should be able to move up and get behind
him without pulling the other large skeletons in the back corner. At this point just repeatedly smash his back while
watching for him to start charging up a powerful magic explosion . When this happens simply roll backward and
black with a decent shield, then return to the fight.
For a mage, you'll have a lot of success with the Havel's armour set / Iron Flesh combination (no surprise, it works
on almost any boss) while blasting your most powerful spells. The same works by simply dodging his attacks rather
than tanking him (a quick well timed roll usually does it), but to each their own.
For beating the boss you get the LORD SOUL and 30,000 souls.
Demon Ruins
Gold-Hemmed (Armour set)
Green Titanite (x2)
Large Flame Ember
Demon's Catalyst
Orange Charred Ring
Green Titanite Shard (x2)
Chaos Flame Ember

Enter the Demon Ruins from the rear of Quelaag's Domain, a tunnel leading out the back will bring you into a huge
underground magma world starting at a bonfire. If you walk forward a little bit and look down, you can walk right
off the edge to the right and land on the path below. This takes you across a bridge and to a fog door. As you make
your way around here to a dead end with an item, as soon as you pick up the GOLD-HEMMED HOOD, GOLDHEMMED CLOAK, GOLD-HEMMED GLOVES and GOLD-HEMMED SKIRT, a boss will appear.
BOSS: CEASELESS DISCHARGE
This is more of a miniboss than a real boss. There are two ways of defeating him, both very effective. The first, run
back to the fog door where you came into this area. The boss will follow you around toward the fog door. Beside the
door there is a huge pit of death, the boss will try and jump over it and have to catch himself to avoid falling. Cut his
hand a few times and he automatically falls to his death. This is the scripted way of defeating him.
NOte: If you die and you're coming back, you need to run all the way back to the altar and watch for him to release
an extra appendage from inside his chest, this is the arm he uses to grab on with. If you don't do this and just wait by
the fog door, he'll keep using fire attacks from a distance until you die.
The second method is to walk right up to him by the altar, learn where he typically smashes his arm down,
roll/dodge out of the way and then go in and start attacking the arm that he leaves there for a good ten seconds. If
your character can dish out good damage, this is probably even easier than the "easy" way.
You get 5000 souls for beating him, and the lava at the bottom of this dungeon mostly drains out, revealing a new
path.
Head back to the bonfire, then make your way down all the way to the bottom. Don't bother keeping going across
the magma pools, we'll come back later when we've picked up some gear better suited for traversing this. Instead,
keep to the right and head over to the opposite wall, picking up the SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT along the way.
As you go around the corner, be careful of the enemies here with powerful physical attacks and the cracked edges
that make it easy to fall to your death.
Around the left corner past the first enemy you'll be chased down by a couple more. Below you, you can see a
corpse with an item on it. Drop down to that platform below, but be ready to be ambushed by a giant work. Keep
moving and get beside it, then use whatever attacks you are able to get in to defeat it. Below where the worm
popped out of the wall is another bonfire. Pick up the item where you landed to get a SOUL OF A PROUD
KNIGHT.
Run all the way to the end of this path. You will see that it turns right toward a large fog door, don't follow the path
right, instead keep running straight until you hit the wall, then turn right. You'll see GREEN TITANITE SHARD
(x2) hidden below the stairs here.
Now descend the large stairs ahead of you. If you're powerful enough, you can start taking on the huge minotaurs
down here. You'll have to if you want to take the left path, which leads all the way around past a couple of them to a
long walkway where you'll be ambushed by worms at least twice before reaching a chest at the end containing
LARGE FLAME EMBER. Now head back and go up the hill toward the fog door. Make a right before you reach it
to find a SOUL OF A BRAVE WARRIOR. Now you're ready to pass through and face the next boss.
BOSS: DEMON FIRESAGE
The Demon Firesage is just a modernized version of the Asylum Demon you fought at the beginning of the game.
Run up and get close to him as fast as you can if you're playing a melee character. Stay behind him for as much of
the fight as possible, and look out for his air jumping attack and his ground-stabbing explosion attack. Make sure to
back up and get out of the way and you'll be totally fine. A 100% physical blocking shield and some crafty dodging
will take care of the rest.
For beating this miniboss you get 10,000 souls and the DEMON'S CATALYST.
Beyond where you fought the boss is a room with a large staircase going both up and down. Take it up toward the
top first. Near the top you'll find three of the weird monster blobs guarding a SOUL OF A BRAVE WARRIOR. Just
a few steps beyond that is an elevator you can activate that now takes you back and forth between here and
Quelaag's Domain. Now take the elevator back down and follow the stairs to the bottom. There's another bonfire
there. The tree-branch path leads all the way down to a fog door, (you can drop to a SOUL OF A BRAVE
WARRIOR on the side on your way down) and then finally, the real boss.
BOSS: CENTIPEDE DEMON
This one's a little bit more difficult than the last couple. If you're a melee character you basically have to wait it out
for awhile until the boss comes to you. Fortunately the attacks he uses at a range are 100% blockable if you have a
decent shield with good stability. Keep waiting for the boss to approach the land before starting your onslaught.
Aside from the big swinging ranged attack, the boss also uses a big stomping attack if you are underneath him for
too long, as well as a very powerful grab you need to predict and roll to avoid. There are a few ways to deal with this
fight.
The first is the simplest, and that's sorcery. The boss is immune to pyromancy, so this is your best bet for massive
ranged damage. If you don't have any available, wait for the boss to get close and then try and attack his backside,
more specifically his tail. This is not only one way to do great damage, but it also allows the possibility of cutting off
his tail and getting the ORANGE CHARRED RING. Once you have this equipped you can (relatively safely)
traverse the lava and find it much easier to get behind him.
For beating the boss you get 20,000 souls and the ring.
Equip the Orange Charred RIng and start exploring this area. All you'll really find here is a GREEN TITANITE
SHARD (x2) on the right side. Now is a good time however, before proceeding any further, to backtrack to the big
lava pools that drained after Ceaseless Discharge died. At the very back past the minotaurs in the centre of one of the
big pool is a corpse with the CHAOS FLAME EMBER on it. Not far from there along the wall you can also find a
LARGE SOUL OF A PROUD KNIGHT.
Optional:Before you proceed any further past the Centipede Demon's chamber, you have an important choice to
make. If you enter Lost Izalith, then it will be too late. You can save knight Solaire and alter the course of the story,
but it will take some effort. First you must be part of the Chaos Servant Covenant (the one you join just back inside
Quelaag's Domain through the hidden path through the wall. After joining you must offer up to reach the second
level in the covenant. Doing so will open up a shortcut just to the right of the fog door you entered to fight Demon
Firesage. When you enter you will encounter a number of bugs, make sure you kill all of them before entering Lost
Izalith, otherwise you sill not save him. Follow these directions, and take this path to Lost Izalith, rather than the one
beyond the Centipede Demon and you will save Solaire. Enter Lost Izalith from the other direction, even for a
second, and you've missed your chance on this playthrough.
The walkthrough will continue along the standard path, assuming you did not meet the pre-requisites to save Solaire.
If you did, Lost Izalith is the same world, you just enter from a different direction.
Lost Izalith
Divine Blessing
Divine Blessing
Soul of a Great Hero
Rare Ring of Sacrifice
Soul of a Hero
Demon Titanite (x2)
Humnanity (x2)
Sunlight Straight Sword
Sunlight Shield
Sunlight Talisman
Iron Helm
Armor of the Sun
Iron Bracelet
Iron Leggings
Red Titanite Slab
Red Titanite Chunk
Red Titanite Chunk
Green Titanite Shard (x2)
Lord Soul
This massive sprawling lava pit is among the game's worst stages, but what can you do. Populating the great
lavalake are enormous magma guardians that will jump on you and kick you and do all sorts of nasty things. The
only two saving graces of these enemies is that one, once killed they never respawn, and two, they can just as easily
kill each other as you. With a mage the Homing Soulmass made taking them down quite bearable, but I remember
trying to clear them out with my melee character and it was just one big mess.
However you wish to approach the dungeon is your call. One quick thing to note is that if you die, collecting your
soul back is a big pain in the ass. The best way to do it is to angle the camera down as much as possible, you should
just barely be able to see the soft glow of the bloodstain. It'll look more like a black patch against the lava than the
regular green glow when looking at it from nearby.
In terms of items to collect, on the far left side you'll find a SOUL OF A BRAVE WARRIOR, and if you hug the
wall to the right, hidden behind a big root there's two DIVINE BLESSING. There are two kind of "safe huts" in the
centre of the big lava pool. The closest has an opening on the side and a chest in it containing SOUL OF A GREAT
HERO. Just outside it a few steps away down the stairs is a corpse with a SOUL OF A BRAVE WARRIOR.
The other safe hut has no obvious door, but if you strike the wall facing the opposite side of the lava lake, it will
open up to reveal a bonfire. Heading directly straight out of this door will also lead you to the exit of this area, a flat
tree root that leads up and above the wall.
Make your way down and through the tunnel. At the top of the stairs on the other side you'll have to fight and kill
some kind of weird tentacle monster. Enter the small room at the top of the stairs and remember this point because
you'll have to return a couple of times. Turn right when you exit and run to the end of the path, there's a long tree
branch that takes you all the way down above the entrance of the tunnel. If you drop very carefully here you can
land on a RARE RING OF SACRIFICE. Go back up and then down the same branch, drop off earlier to get the item
you see, a SOUL OF A HERO.
Head back up to that small room again. This time when you exit, go down the tree root directly in front of you. At
the bottom you can go either right up some stairs or left into a tunnel. If you enter the tunnel the floor collapses, so
let's go up the stairs first. Defeat another crippled demon to get DEMON TITANITE (x2) (be very careful of rolling
to avoid attacks, it's not too wide a bridge). Beyond him is a bunch of bugs, and if you didn't save him, hallow
Solaire. Defeating him will get you HUMANITY (x2), SUNLIGHT STRAIGHT SWORD, SUNLIGHT SHIELD,
SUNLIGHT TALISMAN, IRON HELM, ARMOR OF THE SUN, IRON BRACELET and IRON LEGGINGS.
Now turn around and run straight ahead. Stay on the left of the tunnel and you should be able to land on a tree root
going down. Make your way down to the bottom and then approach one of the outer edges (you'll notice i the centre
it's full of sarlaac monsters, you don't want to drop down there. Equip the Rusted Iron Ring before you drop down,
and something with poison protection if you care about that. Run around the edge to find a chest containing RED
TITANITE SLAB, then up one of the sets of stairs to find a corpse with RED TITANITE CHUNK.
Back down at the bottom, find your way into the middle and prepare yourself. These stupid things spray a gas
similar to the Gaping Dragon that destroys all your equipment if you're hit by it. Mages, keep you distance, melee
characters, well, good luck. Inside the middle of the room you'll find RED TITANITE CHUNK, SOUL OF A
BRAVE WARRIOR, and GREEN TITANITE SHARD (x2). Might not be worth it.
The other set of stairs leads up and back out the tree root to the top. Make your way back to that little room before
you came down into this section. It's finally time to move ahead up the stairs. There's a crazy pyromancer at the top
that drops the IZALITH CATALYST. Continue down the stairs straight ahead and around the corner. Behind the
enemy is a chest containing PYROMANCY: CHAOS FIRE WHIP. Now you are ready to face the boss, head down
to the fog door you just passed a few seconds ago.
BOSS: BED OF CHAOS

This is one of the easiest bosses in the game if you know what you're doing. The nice thing is that the boss is that
you can actually make progress on it that doesn't reset when you die, so it will inevitably get easier and easier, even
if you have to respawn.
The trick to this boss is destroying the two glowing red orbs on either side of it. To do so, run forward toward the
orb, staying in close to the boss with just enough radius to reach the orbs. Make sure you run with your shield up to
block the swinging branch attacks. The ground will start to fall out from below you which is the primary cause of
death in this fight, but again, if you stay close to the boss while running you should avoid most of the holes
regardless of which side you're running toward.
After you've broken through the branches and destroyed the orb, it will be destroyed forever, you won't have to do it
again even if you die. Once you've taken one out, head back around and destroy the other. With both gone, the boss
is now vulnerable.
To kill the boss, head directly toward him from the centre of the room where you land. As you approach him
suddenly a huge hole in the ground will open up, and below it is a single tree root platform that you can leap to. This
leads right up into the centre of the boss (just watch out from the swinging arm attacks as you go up). Once you're
inside you're home free. Roll through the dense branches until you get to a little creature in the centre. One hit and
the boss is dead.
For beating him you get the LORD SOUL and 40,000 souls.
Now is your chance to go back and do everything you want to do with your character before completing the game.
Make sure to take advantage of all the opportunities you have to collect items now that you think you are going to
need for New Game+. Some good examples are the trades from Snuggly the Crow, and more Fire Keeper Souls by
killing the three Fire Keepers (the one at the Anor Londo Bonfire, the one right in Firelink Shrine, and the one at the
back of Quelaag's Domain near the entrance to the Demon Ruins).
Kiln of the First Flame
Have Frampt take you down from the Firelink Shrine into the altar and give all four of the souls from the previous
four main bosses to open the way to the Kiln of the FIrst Flame. The path to the final boss is dangerous, but
compeltely straightforward. There are no items to find here.
BOSS: Gwyn, Lord of Cinder
Unlike the final boss in Demon's Souls, this guy really packs a punch. In fact, unlike most of the other bosses in
Dark Souls, there's rarely a period of time in which he isn't charging at you full force. This is without a doubt, the
hardest boss in the game to heal against.
Of course, this isn't too say it's impossible. There are two strategies for this boss using a melee character. The
strategy most recommended is the riposte strategy: get relatively close, block his first attack with your shield and
then use the L2 button to riposte his second swing. While he's vulnerable, that's your chance to strike. If he steps
forwad for a grab, simply step back and wait for his combo so you can repeat the process.
The second method is to simply prompt him to do either the grab or kick attack. This means staying as close as
possible. Much of the time the boss will still use his sword combo, which you should either block with a 100%
physical and fire resistant shield, or roll underneath; just beware that his attack often has up to four swings.
When the boss finally does reach out to grab, or try and kick, that is you chance to get either 2 or 3 good strikes in
before he comes after you again. The grab attack is also the one chance you have long enough to heal and still safely
get out of the way of his next attack (the only other opportunity you get is when he jumps back and you can get one
of the rock pillars between his line-of-sight.
It's a very skill-based fight, and serves as a very appropriate final boss battle. Once you get his pattern down you'll
find he's a lot easier than he seemed at first, but he leaves very little room for error. Make sure your equipment is up
to the task just as well as you are.
Finally, for a mage, the Homing Soulmass spells are very effective against the boss. Your strategy will be similar to
melee, sometimes prompting him to do a grab attack so you can either heal, or get off another spell.
So that's it. Now you can choose one of two endings. Either light the bonfire, or leave it dark, and exit the room.
When the credits finish you'll be back at the back at the beginning in New Game+ with all of your equipment,
moderately boosted soul rewards, and heavily boosted enemies. Good luck.
Copyright 2011 A I e x.
Written for, and hosted exclusively at www.GameFAQs.com
If you have any questions, comments or corrections, you can reach me either at staroceandc@gmail.com or by
sending a PM through GameFAQs.
Unfortunately I wrote the majority of this guide on my macbook which seems to have its own version of autocorrect
it likes to spring on me without notice. I've done my best to give the guide a quick once over, replacing instances of
"minibus" with my original "miniboss" and such, but if you come across any errors (especially repeat ones) I'd
appreciate you letting me know. Thanks, hope you enjoyed it.
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Dark Soul

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Table of Contents

25. Demon Ruins

You can slide down ladders with the roll/dodge button

Now let's get to it.

Undead Asylum F2 East Key

Big Pilgrim's Key

Soul of a Lost Undead

Soul of a Lost Undead

Homeward Bone (x6)

Cracked Red Eye Orb (x4)

Lloyd's Talisman (x4)

Soul of a Lost Undead

Soul of a Lost Undead

Large Should of a Lost Undead

Large Soul of a Lost Undead

Caduceus Round Shield

Soul of a Nameless Soldier

Transient Curse (x2)

Fire Keeper Soul

Soul of a Lost Undead

Soul of a Lost Undead

Soul of a Lost Undead

Soul of a Lost Undead

Soul of a Lost Undead

Throwing Knife (x10)

Black Firebomb (x5)

Soul of a Lost Undead

Gold Pine Resin (x3)

Blue Tearstone Ring

Large Soul of a Lost Undead

Fire Keeper Soul

Large Soul of a Nameless Soldier

Gargoyle Tail Axe

Black Leather (Armour Set)

Large Soul of a Lost Undead

Soul of a Nameless Soldier

Sewer Chamber Key

Soul of a Nameless Soldier

Soul of a Nameless Soldier

Soul of a Nameless Soldier

Large Soul of a Nameless Soldier

Heavy Bolt (x11)

Hard Leather (Armour Set)

BOSS: GAPING DRAGON

Large Soul of a Nameless Soldier

Elite Knight (Armour Set)

Soul of a Proud Knight

Soul of the Moonlight Butterfly

Watchtower Basement Key

Feather Arrow (x16)

Large Soul of an Undead Soldier

Dusk Crown Ring

Undead Asylum F2 West Key (in Firelink)

Winged Spear (in Firelink)

Zweihander (in Firelink)

Binoculars (in Firelink)

Soul of a Proud Knight (in VotD)

Dragon Crest Shield (in VotD)

Astora's Straight Sword (in VotD)

Soul of a Nameless Soldier (in VotD)

Soul of a Proud Knight

Fire Keeper Soul

Mask of the Sealer

Tin Banishment Catalyst