Carried off by gargoyles at the end of Sen’s Fortress, Daniel (@dungeondive) arrives in Anor Londo and expects to spend three episodes there. He stops first at the kindled bonfire and its fire keeper, whose bronze armour he admires enough to occasionally kill her for it, and notes how late the game leaves it before explaining that the keepers’ linked flames never die and that the keepers themselves will never meet.
He detours to show a golden fog wall — the thing the next several hours are really about. Beyond Ornstein and Smough, which he calls the hardest fight in the base game, lies the Lord Vessel and the lords behind those walls, plus the Four Kings, gated instead by a ring won from a very large dog.
The loot is a study in trade-offs: crystal weapons that hit hard and cannot be repaired, and a Dragon Greatsword doing 429 damage with no scaling at all, heavy enough to drop him out of fast roll. He would rather dodge than swing. The buttress climb under silver knight archers — the trickiest stretch in the game — goes sloppily but survives, Solaire turns up, a mimic dies for its drop kick, and Havel’s confiscated gear finally comes home.
Daniel gives up 429 damage rather than lose his fast roll. In a Souls game, do you build around mobility or around the biggest weapon you can lift?