A Dark Souls Pacifist Run

What is this?!  Three months since a Dark Souls post?!  This is an outrage!  Who’s running this place, I’m going to complain to the manager!

Oh, right.  But anyways, this won’t do.  We’ve got to get this Dark Souls bidness taken care of.  Do you have any idea how close we are?  So close!  With exclamation points!  That’s how close we are!  We have to keep the momentum up!  This Dark Souls train cannot be stopped!

It only takes detours.

And it’ll take one today.

Last time.  We kicked ass.  We kicked giant ass.  We kicked huge stupid demon monkey ass.  Which, I mean, granted, that ass kind of smeared us across town for a good long while, but still, in the end, we prevailed!  Eat that, Manus!

And of course, with victory, comes the spoils.  I’ve rescued the damsel.

She’s totally my girlfriend.  Have I told you guys about that?

Right, and she’s so happy to see me, and we are going to go on the best date after this.

She’s showering me with smooches and okay what the blazes.

The whole ordeal has left her senseless.  I use Artorias’s pendant to kick the Abyss back a bit, but it doesn’t help.  She is completely unaware of everything around her.

I spend a good long while trying to figure out what I can do.  The only way out of here is via a bonfire, and I can only take one person through with the Lordvessel.

While I’m poking around the arena, looking for any other option, I spy this.  So, this is where Manus was unearthed from?  This grave looks rather human.  Was this the Father of the Abyss, before it ran wild?

In any case, there’s nothing left for me to do here.  I warp on out, and report my success to Elizabeth.  Someone has to get in there to get Dusk out, after all.  How a completely immobile mushroom is supposed to do that when I could not, I don’t know, but eh, I’m sure she’ll figure it out.

Right on!

See, even the past knows I rule!  Elizabeth gives me three mushrooms.  To eat.  I’m a little squicked out by that, but hey!  I conquered the Abyss!  I can see it now!  I’ll get back to the present, and there will be statues of me all over the place, and I will go down in legend as a figure even greater than…

But whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

No.  No, the praises are good.  Everyone should sing my praises.  And I’m sure I’ve freaked with temporality enough already.  What’s one more paradox, really?

Fine.  All go back to the stupid lousy future, with no glory to sing of, where all my best friends either suck or are dead.  We’ll let me grow up without being known as a great hero for things I haven’t even done yet.

So I do.  Specifically, I go back to see Dusk.  Who you might recall, is totally my girlfriend.  She agreed to it and everything.  You were all there.  You saw.  Hey Dusk!  Do you remember that time I kicked some giant monster ass?

I know.  I was sort of there.  Thanks to a monkey.  Well, a demon monkey.  It’s complicated.

Not anymore, love.

Yep, Manus.  And you were rescued by this great big hunky sexy hero, right?  Whom you’ve been waiting to reward with a fun date?

WHAT

NO WHAT

Yeah, yeah, now you’re getting it.

That’s right, baby, I, the great…

Crappit!

Well, there’s my smooth pickup completely shot.  I died a thousand times to save the girl and the world, and neither of them even remember me.  I mean, I guess it worked out, given that I still live here, but still.  Barely worth it.

I head back in time again, which I can apparently do through the linked bonfires, because the fabric of time is more fragile than these zombies that keep trying to jump me.  I’ve got a little bit of unfinished business.

I try to check on Ciaran, but she’s gone.  I remember finding a corpse with her ring on it resting against Artorias’s grave in the future.  Poor girl.  She’s not dead yet, I can only hope she’s finding some solace in the time before this small shrine gets built up to that massive thing Sif was guarding.

And… well, maybe you remember this.

Here there be dragons.

Big stupid dragons that chump me with darkness breath!  Gah!  Thing was on me almost as soon as I reached the center of the area.  I tried to block its breath, but to no avail.  I’m gone in a single hit.

The second time, my shield does seem to catch its attack.  Small solace when I’m already surrounded by the darkness flame.

I try a few more times.  Never to any productive end.  I reach the center, the dragon flies up and bathes the area in black flames, and I die.  Rinse and repeat, over and over again.  There seems to be nothing I can do.  No opening to attack.  I ram my head against this big burny wall before I’m forced to give up.  Maybe something I’m just not seeing, but I can find no way to survive the dragon’s first attack, much less take the fight to it.  And with that, I’m left with a sorrowful realization that chills me to the bone.

I just went through an entire post without slicing up a single thing.

Next time: Let’s pick up the pace a little bit.