Earthen Peak #1

This area with its variety of enemy types, different routes and general nastiness is one of my favourite thus far. It reminded me somewhat of Sen's Fortress with its large central space with its feeling of height and constant whirring noise(of cogs not blades thankfully). It conveys the atmosphere of the poison processing plant that it is and it blends perfectly with the preceding area in terms of tone and continuation of theme (something sadly missing form a lot of the areas in DS2).

It was definitely the first challenge since setting out from Huntsman's Copse. The initial assassin type enemies are nimble but don't prove a challenge but the later combos of warden knights and pyro ladies have a nice balance between armour and ranged attacks which can prove tougher.

I began by meeting Lucatiel for the 3rd time. She seemed on the brink of hollowing so it may be the last. She did give me a Ring of Steel Protection +1 which adds a whopping 50 onto my physical defense. With the Gyrm Armour at +5 I now have 760 defense!

I was tearing through the level until I came across a mimic and was promptly eaten. Fortunately the second bonfire isn't too far from the end which requires you to negotiate a couple of tight squeezes with the fire mages. I used Toxic Mist on them as a ranged approach as fire obviously wasn't going to work. Another tight spot sees you drop down to two knights surrounded by a poisonous lake as they guard the doorway you're trying to enter.

Again another generously-placed bonfire, albeit behind a hidden wall but with all of the orange soapstone signs is there anything really hidden?!, which is right before the this entrance is most welcome. Beyond which is the boss and an absolute stinker she is. The deformed queen takes the shape of a snake with a decapitated Medusa-like head in one hand. It's bad enough that she has powerful magic attacks and lunges with a flurry of spear pokes but the battle takes place in a lake of poison! Aaaagh!