Daniel (@dungeondive) takes the normal-guy Dark Souls run down into the poison swamp below Blighttown, and sets himself one rule for the episode: a single attempt at the descent, no resting at the halfway bonfire, because climbing back up is — in his words — one of the worst things in Dark Souls.
Housekeeping first. He kindles for ten Estus, burns a twin humanity to reverse his hollowing, and walks into the invasion he actually wants: Maneater Mildred, a deliberate throwback to Demon’s Souls, backstabbed for her cleaver. Then a sweep of the swamp for Titanite, punctuated by entirely justified complaints about the mosquitoes — the most annoying enemy in the game, and one he wishes had a destroyable nest. The Server turns up too, a curved greatsword whose trickle of HP-on-hit he has never found useful but which looks tremendous.
The descent proper is an illusory wall, a second illusory wall hidden behind the chest, basilisks, exactly one purging stone, and a tangle of tree roots he calls fiddly rather than hard. Ash Lake gets the episode’s real affection: one of the only areas in the game with background music, which sets off a lovely digression on how well Dark Souls uses silence — and how that reminds him of the original Tomb Raider. He clips the stone dragon’s tail for the Dragon Greatsword, then discovers 24 strength is nowhere near enough to lift it.
Do you think the swamp deserves its reputation, or is Blighttown-to-Ash Lake one of the best stretches in the game?