After meandering my way through Earthen Peak, repeatedly dying like an idiot to falls, poison, and headless puppets, I encounter my first Mimic of Dark Souls II!

It’s unbelievably glitchy, what the hell.

I encounter Lucatiel, waxing poetic about her long-lost brother in a back room near the bottomless poison pit, and then kill off the Covetous Demon, dying repeatedly and stupidly along the way.

I make it into the first room of Earthen Peak and then die repeatedly in that same room because of my own stupidity.

Also, I encounter my first player invader: the magic-shooting, fire-throwing Batman. It was a phenomenally inept fight on both sides.

I head into the poison-filled corridors of Harvest Valley and there’s just windmills, like, absolutely everywhere for some reason.

I return to Dark Souls II after a short break for… something, I forget what, and encounter the three Skeleton Lords!… who are about as much of a threat as Nito was in the first Dark Souls.

I make my way through the forest, filled with poison-spewing butterflies and NPC phantoms, before arriving at a cave system filled with skeletons, necromancers, and malicious laughter.

♪We’re halfway the~re! Oo~ooh, living on a-♪

so-called “miracle” provided by Licia of Lindeldt in order to operate a mechanism and reach Huntsman’s Copse.

After releasing Rosabeth of Melfia from where she was petrified and blocking a door to a new area, I head back to Heide’s Tower of Flame and encounter an old, dragon-slaying friend who really just shouldn’t be here.

I finish up No Man’s Wharf by summoning over a spooky, scary ghost ship to access the boss, the familiar Flexile Sentry from Sinner’s Rise.

Gavlan wheel? Gavlan deal.

I wander about No Man’s Wharf for a bit, discover just what the hell’s been screaming, and encounter the item-buying Gavlan.