Daniel (@dungeondive) finishes the Painted World of Ariamis, starting in its basement of bone wheel skeletons, which he says come straight out of Berserk and can shred stamina and poise when they gang up. He swaps back to the Claymore, having read that the Man-Serpent Greatsword has trouble chaining combos, and gets a drop he has never seen in any playthrough: the Bone Wheel Shield. A big shield, he notes, is the answer to their tight corridors. A Berenike Knight’s greatsword then kills him outright, which he blames on a few days away from the game.
At the end of the gauntlet comes Priscilla’s plea to leave. Daniel spares her, and explains that no other moment in games shows the player as invader so clearly. The Painted World is a sealed-off refuge that would be peaceful without us, and he compares it to Link smashing pots in strangers’ houses. With no build that needs her scythe, he takes the narrative reason over the mechanical one.
The second half sets up the DLC. He upgrades the Greatsword (Guts’s sword, he says), farms a crystal lizard, and kills the Black Knight whose halberd was once so good that speedrunners reset until it dropped. Then comes the Hydra, which he finds tedious, adding that FromSoftware has never made a great dragon fight. He falls off the edge once before winning, then frees Dusk of Oolacile from a crystal golem.
Daniel spares Priscilla because the Painted World makes the player the invader, but kills the Hydra purely to unlock content. Which Souls boss do you most resent being made to fight?