Drangleic Castle

Interior Castle
Once inside talk to the invisible NPC, Wellager, on the staircase. After exhausting his
dialogue options and learning about the King and Queen, he will become a merchant
selling the following items.

Flamberge
Lucrene
Bracing Knuckle Ring
Magic Arrow (Infinite)
Lightning Arrow (Infinite)
Magic Bolt (Infinite)
Lightning Bolt (Infinite)
Radiant Life Gems (10x)
Wilted Dusk Herb (10x)
Divine Blessing (1x)
Repair Powder (1x)
Great Magic Barrier (Miracle)

After speaking with Wellager head down the left stairwell (facing the entrance) and you will
fight Knights wearing Syan's Armor and carry great shields and various weapons. Once you
enter the hallway on your left will be three enemies; two Royal Knights and one Syan
Knight. Avoid them, because the door they are guarding is a dead end so head to the right.
You will face a door with two Royal Knights hiding behind it, so be reading to guard or roll
once the door opens. After dispatching them head down the ladder and directly in front of
you will be two sets of pale blue doors. Open both and there is a bonfire.

Interior Part 2
From the bonfire there will be two paths, one right one left. Since you need a Key item to go
left, you should go right instead. You will enter a room with six pairs of stone enemies each
in front of a Golem door that you have to fill with a soul in order to open, just like how you
entered the castle. At the back of the room are two more Golems that will light torches if
you fill them with souls. When you enter the room the stone enemies will come to life, so
move cautiously otherwise you'll wake them all up at once. Stick to one side of the room to
keep the other side from coming to life, and avoid going too far into the room unless you
can handle them easily.

Once you kill a foe near one of the Golem doors it will open, but don't get excited. Behind
each door except the first one on the right as you enter, is a Ruin Soldier guarding an item
or chest. These will respawn, making this room fairly dangerous if you open all of the
Golem doors to get the items. The door that continues your path is the first one on the right
when you enter the chamber, the last one on the left has an area in the middle that
crumbles away under you when you pass over it. If you do decide to drop down there, you
will immediately find the entire Faraam Armour set. If you take the left tunnel from here you
will see a familiar face; Darkdiver Grandahl... or not, but if this is the third time see him you
will be able to enter his Covenant 'the Pilgrims of the Dark'. Make your way to the other
tunnel to a new bonfire.

Once you pass through the first Golem door you will find a chest, and after going up the
stairs you eventually come to a room with corrosive acid covering the floors and
contraptions shaped like dragons spitting even more acid at you. It does not affect HP but
will destroy your armour quite quickly if you want to play around in the acid. Ascend to the
next area and you will come across a door to a room filled with masks. The masks spit
poison arrows at you so quickly open the next door and use a recovery item if you need to.
The next room has three Syan Knights that you'll need to deal with and a large painting of
the Queen (I think). It is cursed and if you get too close it will fill the curse meter VERY
quickly. Exiting this area will lead you outside to some more stairs where there are a
number of Royal Soldiers ahead of you shooting crossbows. Take them out and you will be
invaded by an NPC Dark Spirit who will appear just outside of the room with the Queens
painting, so turn around and head back down the stairs. Once he's dead you'll find a ladder
going down to the left of where the Royal Soldiers were, take it down and if you didn't kill
them already there are two more Royal Soldiers waiting for you here guarding a corpse
with an item. Another ladder will take you down to a chest and one more Royal Soldier.
After opening the chest, climb back up to ledge and examine the wall; press X for the PS3
or A for the XBOX to reveal an illusory wall that opens to a bonfire. This is a good time to
rest because you have a mini-boss fight coming up with two Dragon Riders. After resting
climb back up and continue along the path then you will see the Queen at some point. Talk
to her and get ready to cross the misty thresh hold of... mist... yes, that will do.

I can offer some sound advice here. Take out the Dragon Rider that is launching projectiles
at you first, the other Dragon Rider with a halberd is not too fast so it's easy to out run him
while returning and tagging the ranged one. Once he is out of the picture, the halberd
vanguard one is very simple.

I found an Ultra Greatsword did large damage, One thing I manage to do at the very
beginning of the battle was get a couple soul vortexes off which hit both of them and gave
me a bit of a hadicap. Before you walk in have a large area effect spell/pyromancy, or hex
attack ready, launch it at them when you traverse the fog and have your shot lined up. They
will be on the back left side of the room. If you can get it to hit between them it will get them
both a little, if you can get it to barely tag one, it will do one larger damage and still get the
other one a little. I would aim for the one that is behind the halberd wielding vanguard. You
may not be able to lock on because of how far you are away so either use very quick spells
that do moderate damage in smaller areas or spells that take a little more time but can
envelop a large area; the only quick small area large damage spell I found is lightening
spear. I used a very light armour so moving around was easy. Equip one right hand
weapon that is long but fast, like a Black Knight Great Sword or Ultra Great Sword that has
a Slash/Thrust attack or a buffed katana. The great swords that only have a slash attack
are slightly slower. I am going to reload this boss fight and try it with no shield, dual-
weilding katanas, and a chime with soul vortex, lighting spear, and great heal excerpt spells
(not great heal, it takes to long to cast). The good thing is about this fight is how close the
bonfire is to it.

After this fight move in to the next area you will arrive at the Central Dranliec Castle bonfire.
Rest here first and then you can talk to the NPC; who should look familar. The merchant,
Benhart, you actually spoke to earlier when you reanimated the woman from stone. If you
exhaust his dialogue he will disappear and go to the Cardinal Tower. From here head in to
the room with a giant round hole in the floor. There are 3 paths to take, two of which are
unavailable. One is the iron door "The King's Passage" and the second is an elevator that
has yet to drop down that will cover the big hole in the floor. So take the only route you can.
Up a lengthy ladder to room with another Golem that needs to be activated by souls again.
Once you go through this door you will drop down, hug the right side of the room to
discover an exit to the next area. Staying on the right side of the room will only cause stone
soldiers on that side to become active. Kill one near the Golem to activate him like in the
previous room. One way to fight the stone soldiers that reanimates is to quickly drop into
the room and quickly open the door on the right hand side. Killing them from this exit is
easier and they don't seem to leave the area they come to life in so you can lure them
toward the door and fire bomb them from around the corner or use other ranged
attacks. Tip: Try not to get stuck with 3 or more of them attacking you at once, they are
quick at attacking and will wear down your stamina quickly. Tip: Stone soldiers can be
activated with arrows and will activate in preset groups, not necessarily just by proximity.
For instance, the trio soldiers on the right hand side of this room will activate together and
can be easily taken out from the door with a bow without ever jumping into the room. The
soldiers on the left hand side are harder to get from range but activate in twos instead of
threes. After jumping into the room (and you've killed the three on the right) head along the
wall. The first soldier carries a spear only while his activating buddy also has a shield. Go
bananas on the spear only guy IMMEDIATELY which will make it a fast one on one fight.
This can be repeated with their counterpart duo further along the wall. This also allows a
manageable one on one situation to activate the golem easily.
Exit and go into the next area. In this room with the big staircase beware of Black knights
trying to snipe you with great arrows.
Tip: You will see a chest on each side of the upper level. If you are facing the exit the chest
on the right is booby trapped with arrows.
Equip a strong shield and go around the back of the staircase for cover and then run up the
stairs to one side of the upper-level using pillars for cover from the opposing sides arrows.
With your shield ready run up to the first Black knight and try to line up the knight in back so
that he can't shoot through his partner while staying next to a pillar. Beware of a lighting
sword attack once they put their bow away this attack can kill you if you don't dodge or
block, you can tell it's coming from how the knight telegrams the move and electricity
begins to shoot out from the holster. If you have a spell, items or equipment that can
augment your defence against lightening do it for good measure. Once one side is taken
care of things are a little less hectic. Now, for the knight on the ground by the exit.These
knights have incredible defence and can only be dispatched swiftly if you engage them one
at a time, get close enough so one will come after you, then move on to the next, but if you
have enough ranged spells or items to lob at them go for it. Once the room is clear open
the doors and be ready to fight a Mastadon knight with a large halberd, while being snipped
at but this time by 3 Black knights instead of 4. You can either run past the Mastadon and
open the wooden door down the stairs, NOT up. Or Just fight him whilst dodging near the
right hand wall or hitting him with ranged attacks from the previous room. If you chose to
fight you can either try to take out the 3 Black knights or continue on. See the big blue
door?... Nope sorry, not for you, if you want to try taking out the black knights you will have
to take the ladder up to them if you do fight them, DO NOT drop down off the edge, the
gate will be locked from the other side. Whether you picked the cowardly survival way or
took out all of the foes in this area head through the small brown door at the bottom of the
stairs There is Repair Power x5 and Flame Butterfly x10. And in the chest near the ballista
is a Estus Flask Shard. Now pull the lever near the gate and it will open. Don't worry about
the balista, they don't fire at you. Open the door and make your way down the stairs to the
previous bonfire 'Central Drangleic Castle'.
From here head to the room that had the locked door and giant hole in the floor. It will now
have an elevator, the Golem that turned the floor key in the drop down room is what
triggered it to come down. You can now take it up via pressure switch when you stand in
the middle of it. If you happen to walk over it and miss you ride don't worry, just pull the
lever right next to it and it will come back. Once at the top there will be a caged cell with an
unlucky woman in it and an even more unlucky hollow by the name of "the Embedded"
chained and bound to it upside down. His side-story can be found here: The Embedded.
There are 3 chests in here one has Fire Seed x1 and Soul Vessel x1 another is Great
Magic Shield and the last one is the Kings Passage Key. You will also notice a pleasant
sound of someone passing gas every 10 seconds or so.
Take the elevator back down and use the Key to Kings Passage to open the Previously
looked big doors. This cathedral looking place has stone guardians lining the path. 4 of
them will come to life as you get close to them. Their eyes will turn red before they fully
animate which is a good chance to get some shots in. The Golden night at the end is
another shielded defense type and can only be injured while he is going into or coming out
of a offensive position. Before you pass through the fog look to the left, there will be a
summoning symbol. Use it and traverse the fog. This fight was very difficult with out the
Boss focusing on the spirit.
(This can be moved to "Looking Glass Knight" Boss tips)
This Boss is the "Looking Glass Knight", his opening move is a large jump/lunge at you with
his huge sword. Be careful not to get stuck between him, the wall, and his massive shield.
So once he jumps, roll out of the way. Physical attacks did not work well for me, but
physical attacks with magic imbued weapons did as well as magic attacks. The best one
was 'Lightening Spear'. When he is focusing on you summoned partner lock on from just
far away and unload on him. His attacks are over head chops, slashes right to left,
Lightening slash, Over head chop with lightening imbued projection when the sword hits the
floor, he can also use his shield like a gateway and summon knight through it on to the
field. He is also able to deflect ranged magic that hits his shield, but only in a certain spot it
seemed. I don't know if the same goes for arrows though.

Once the boss is finished you can move into the next area, but don't take the elevator down
just yet, there is a chest to your left on from when you enter this area on the other side of
the stones that contains Soul Bolt x1, Spell Quartz Ring +2 x1, Bonfire asthetic x3. Now
you can take the elevator down. The path here is very linear. You will enter the root
covered passage and in the first opening to the right, hack the branches away and receive
Green Blossom x1. From here it is a straight shot to the next area Shrine of Amana where
you first bonfire awaits.

King's Passage

Shrine of Amana
The first bonfire will be straight ahead. Through the door to your right, is a door leading to
some goodies along a dead end trail. Be sure to knock the corpse down, as the branches
will collapse under you. To your left is a staircase leading down.

Right after you leave the tower with the bonfire, you will see an Archdrake Priest who will
attack you on sight. There are also hidden dangers in the water, lizard men that are being
kept calm by the beautiful song you've probably noticed by now. You can still kill them, and
they might become a good way of farming Human Effigy, since they have a decent drop
rate.

Once you get in close to the hut, the song will stop and lizard men will attack you. Inside
the hut you will find first Milfanito. She will tell you about her sisters, some lore and
probably give you a Smooth & Silky Stone if you exhaust her dialog. Exit the hut and go
around it, you will find a chest.

Do not kill Milfanito! Otherwise you will lose a possibility to become human
without Human Effigy!

There will be three Archdrake Priests at the far end of the cavern, and the occasional
scattered path that you can use your torch to find. Be aware that the lizard men aggro on
you easier if you carry a lit torch, though. In the tunnel ahead is a side-cave on the left, it
has a large colony of lizard men and a chest. The lone gas bug here is an easy kill.

Upon exiting the tunnel, ahead is the crumbling ruins to your right with a second bonfire in
it. From here on you will meet Archdrake Priestess, they can shoot soul arrows from a
hundred miles distance at you and deal a lot of magic damage. They also usually have
lizard men somewhere around them, so be extremely careful. Good idea is to try and shoot
them with a bow.

After clearing the first and possibly second Priestess, backtrack to the tunnel exit. If you
look towards your right, you should see a bonfire in a ruined structure. In the water in front
of the exit is a lizard man, so clear him first before attempting to sit in the bonfire. Near the
area with the first Archdrake Priestess, you should notice a ramp leading into the air. Jump
onto it from the area that the first priestess was, and look down. In the water, you should be
able to clearly see a Pharros Lock. Head down and use a Pharro's Keystone to reveal a
chest containing the Helix Halberd.

Note! There is a hidden pathway in the water right near the place where your third
priestess is standing. Look to the left and tilt your camera down to see it easily. Use it to
get the cave where Soul of the King and King's Set is. Location is in this video.

Follow the path untill you reach the second hut and an Ogre near it, with a bunch of
priestesses. Kill priestesses, lizard men and go through the hut to lose him or fight him. You
can also go around and flank him from the ruins. Inside the hut there is a summon sign for
Felicia the Brave. Use it if you are human as she will help you a lot (really!) in the fight that
you are about to face.
Note! There is a somewhat hidden and dangerous pathway in the water after the
Ogre, on his right, with 2 Priestesses and some Lizard Man. The pathway is under
the columns, its very narrow. A chest is waiting for you with an Estus Shard on the
end (don't forget about Sunlight blade).
Once you leave the hut, there will be an Archdrake priest right outside the hut, it is easier to
lure him in than fight him in the open. Before moving to the left, carefully check the right
side. There is a hard-to-see chest which contains Fire Tempest. You will not see any
messages, as the will be submerged, but sometimes, a prompt will appear on the screen.
This lets you know you're getting close. After that you will find yourself near the ruins.
Come close to them but don't go any further as there are two priestesses on the other end
who will start sniping you with Soul Arrows. Use cover and try to shoot them down. Be
aware of lizard men and Archdrake Priests that might come to melee you as well (this is
where Felicia helps a lot). This part might be a little tricky since they always snipe you from
a long distance, so use cover.

Once you successfully killed them, go inside the cavern with gas bugs and use the bonfire
to rest. Once you exit the cavern, you will see two priestesses that will start shooting you.
Run forward towards the column that has a torch on it and snipe them from behind it.
Moving to the right, continuing behind the columns, you will come across a corpse
holding Homing Crystal Soulmass. In addition, if you move to the inside of the columns, you
will be invaded by Peculiar Kindehar. Moving to your left, kill lizard men and another
priestess. Continue forward to another hut and free the second Milfanito. Continue down to
face the Demon of Song boss.

Boss: Demon of Song

After the boss fight, off to the right is a semi-hidden path to a tower with another bonfire. At
the top there are undead worshippers, and a dark magician. Beyond them is the shrine with
a Milfanito you have saved earlier. Talk to the lady to get rewards, and when you run out
of Human Effigies you can revive here using the burning altar as long as you are on good
terms. If you leave through the other door and go down the stars you will find a chest and
an item on the ledges besides the stairs.