Gargoyle Rewards

“Let’s check the loot before anything else.” I say, to tired agreement from the others.

Walking to the chest that spawned in the middle of the rooftop, I fling open the lid and pull out the first piece of loot.

As usual, the money in the common part of the loot table is a nice addition, $10,000,000 this time. I really have more money than I know what to do with now.

The Garoyle’s Shield dropped from both gargoyles in the uncommon category, and I add it to the growing pile of weapons in my inventory.

In the rare category, we get one drop of the Gargoyle’s Helm, and one drop of the Gargoyle’s Halberd. Both are also added to my inventory.

I was really hoping to be able to get the Pyromancy spellbook, since the Arcane spellbook that dropped from the Channeler was so useful, but neither that, nor the Gargoyle’s Tail Axe dropped, which is a shame, but no matter.

“So where do we go now?” Mia asks. It’s a valid question, it doesn’t look like there are any other enemies in the area.

I look up at the bell tower, knowing from the game what we have to do. “Follow me.” I answer.

Crossing the rooftop towards the bell tower, I head inside with the rest of my guild in tow.

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to do this, ever since I first played through the game.

We climb the various ladders inside, until eventually, we’re all standing in the bell chamber. Looking at the scenery around us, I can see the various undead settlements, broken up and divided by almost random seeming wall segments. In universe, this was Gwyn’s effort to keep humanity divided.

I look upwards, high up into the mountains, and can spot the walls surrounding Anor Londo. I know the sight that awaits us when we get there. I also know what the next challenge is likely going to be.

I grab hold of the huge lever and pull it, sending the large bell ringing loudly. The sound of the chiming bell reverberates through the land, and through my body. It’s a beautiful sound that makes us all fall silent in awe.

The world starts to grow dark and swirl around us. It’s a dizzying effect.

“What the hell is happening?” Belle asks.

“It’s part of the raid.” I say reassuringly. I think.

The darkness creeps in, obscuring our vision entirely as the world fades around us.

When the swirling stops, and the darkness clears, the world is remade around us. We’re standing in an entirely different area from the high rooftop we were on not moments before.

We stand inside a chamber, enclosed and dimly lit, with not a soul around us, save for our party. The main source of light is a small bonfire in the centre of the room.

Ahead of us, is the way forward. A gate, constructed of scrap metal, with the door leading to a pit, no doubt with ladders leading to the rotting settlement below.

“Blighttown.” I say.

Mia looks around, noticing the sludge that’s pooled in the part of the room we thankfully aren’t standing in. “Ew, gross!” She exclaims.

“Blighttown is pretty gross.” I say. “Of all the rotting and decaying areas in Dark Souls, Blighttown is one of the worst. It was established as a mining community. It was never a nice place to be, but once the place was infected, it became even less so.”

“Infected?” Paige asks, wary of what that could mean.

“Since this is a dungeon based off a game, not an actual living place beyond that, I’d wager we don’t have to worry about being infected with whatever they had. I’m just loredumping for dramatics.” I admit, and Paige smiles.

“Let’s get outta here, I don’t wanna think about this place right now.” Mia says, and I nod in agreement.

“A-fucking-men to that.” Belle says, just as disgusted by our surroundings as the rest of us. I really can’t blame them. It’s probably not a great idea to tell them that the entrance to Blighttown is the sewer for the undead settlements.

Instead, we exit out of the raid and head inside to shower and rest. Ivy and I stick around outside, as per usual, to do our statpoints. And, thanks to us reaching level 152, I also have another class level to spend.

We decide to do our statpoints first. For Ivy that’s an easy choice, 30 points into Wisdom, and that’s it.

As for my points, I finally have enough to hit the magical mark that we were aiming for. 250 Agility. I hammer the points in, and get the popup immediately.

I stare at the popup with wide eyes as I read through it a few times over, just to make sure I’ve read it right.

“I’m fast enough to run on water?!” I exclaim.

“What?!” Ivy asks.

I look it up, find multiple sources on the physics, do the math myself, and realise that the window is right. I’ve been fast enough to do that for a long time now, I’ve just never really thought about it.

“Holy shit.” I shake my head in wonder. “That’s really cool.”

I already have a degree of control over my body in the air and can reorient myself in superhuman ways.

This perk upgrades my mobility to nearly unthinkable levels. The continued investment into my Agility stat is paying high dividends, and is slowly turning me into an absolute demon of speed.

I’m hoping the Warrior class can continue that trend, as I put the class level in and the popup opens to select my perk.

Honestly this is a pretty decent skill to have. The ‘debuff a target’ is almost more useful than the buff to me.

Obviously I’ll take the Agility version of the skill. It’s the most in keeping with the path I’ve started down so far, and it builds on top of all my existing skills.

The other benefit to the Agility debuff is that this will make my ice magic even more effective. Both skills are ways of slowing something or someone down, and either levelling the playing field that much more, or pressing an advantage even more.

With that decision made, I’m left with a further 12 statpoints. I decide to put them into my Strength stat, to hopefully get that to 100, both to eliminate the weakness against stronger opponents like Max and Mathias, but also to get the synergy bonuses.

I’m not sure what the synergy bonuses will be, but they’re likely to harmonise well with my current build, if the historic trend is anything to go by.

With all said and done so far, our overall power has increased immensely since we started this grind.

Here’s hoping we can keep this momentum up all the way to Mathias in 10 days time.

For now, Ivy and I close our character sheets and head inside to join our girlfriends in the shower. My armour goes into my inventory, while the dirt and grime mostly melts off Ivy’s magical body.

Life with 4 girlfriends is pretty damn awesome, I can’t help thinking as I open the door to the bedroom, discarding my clothes and heading into the shower, where Paige, Skylar and Mia are already waiting.

It’s a life worth fighting for.