In the end, Lost Izalith seemed like the best place to hit up first. Yeah, the way there was full of Taurus Demons and a Capra Demon, but I'd beaten these things before and now I was bigger, badder and less fucking terrified of everything; so I decided to set foot onto the blackened crust left underneath the poor, tragic Ceaseless Discharge.
It turns out, right, that the Demon Ruins are full of bosses, bonfires and very little else.
I have to say though, that first Capra is a revelation. You watch him run towards you like you did back in the Burg, but this time you can spot his tells and you dodge out of his way. You don't have the ledge to stun him anymore, but he doesn't have his dogs and in a one-on-one fight you can destroy him now. It's not trivial by any means, but do you remember ten to twenty hours ago when this fucker almost made you quit?
Of course, I felt like Billy Big Bollocks as I came down the stairs; I'd just wiped my arse with a Capra Demon. I was feeling confident and clever - I felt like I finally had mastered Dark Souls, and could deal with anything the game threw at me.
Yeah, I fell down the hole. Yeah, I felt the correct amount of shame for doing so - especially as on my second runthrough I noticed that the Soapstone message I'd skipped past the first time was warning me of it.
Seriously, that sudden rise and fall in confidence cannot be by accident - especially as it's not the only place in the game Dark Souls does it.
Time and time again the game gives you this intense feeling of power; it allows you to do something that makes you feel like a magnificent, throbbing monarch of achievement - before letting you do something completely and utterly embarrassing like walk into a bottomless hole, or find out that your new ultra effective weapon is worthless in this next section (see the lightning spear in Sen's, and your arrival in Anor Londo), before looking back at you, shrugging, and nonchalantly intoning "You Died" - the Sahara dry "how very silly of you" is only implicit, but you hear it and feel it every time.
But anyway. This first section of the Ruins contains a bumload of Capra Demons - and the first time you manage to aggro two at once you'll once again be under no qualms as to who's on top in this player-game relationship - which I only recently found out that you can actually skip by jumping to the platform below (thanks to the guys at Bonfireside Chat for this little nugget of info, about a month after it would have been handy, but oh well).
Whether you go through or around the GoatFaced Killers, you'll end up staring at a giant maggot sticking out of a wall. This guy fucked my shit right up a couple of times (if he slams yo against the wall you're pretty much dead), but getting him dead is well worthwhile because he's obscuring a bonfire and doesn't respawn.
You're going to need that bonfire as well, because the next part of the game involves a load of firebreathing things, a Taurus Demon, and the Asylum Demon's bigger, more firey cousin.
Fucking hell, the Demon Firesage almost made me quit the fucking game. The arena is a pain in the arse (whether or not those branches break seems frustratingly arbitrary), his attacks require dodging later than you'd expect, and the fact that he doesn't do fucking fire damage is baffling for a thing called the Demon Firesage. He took me so very long to beat, and it was only through the help of the hairy knowledge God Gary Dutton that I actually managed to put the fucker down.
But yeah, he's a prick and there's something about his piggy little face and his stupid little wings that proper fucks me off.
What happened next? Oh that's right another fucking boss. And Solaire.
But that's for next time.
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