[This post contains spoilers for the first two sections of the first world of Demon's Souls]

Life One, Soul Four
After failing to properly heed the advice of the dead guy I watched fall off a narrow path and falling to the same fate mere moments later, my fourth soul respawned at the beginning of the world. Soul Four felt like a winner.

I retracted my steps back to the narrow path on the outer side of the castle wall, regained my soul by touching the blood splatter where I had died (gaining back the money I lost by dying earlier). I then activated the blood splatter to watch the ignorant soul that was Soul Three laughably fight an enemy and then fall off into the depths of the ravine surrounding this castle. Learning from Soul Three’s naivety, I approached the ambushing enemy with care, let him strike first, and then dispatched him with a strategic strong attack lunge.

I then declared victory on life.

As I moved carefully through the following segments of the level I paid very close attention to all environmental details, red, dead ghost replays, and the messages left by other players. I was occasionally astonished at the size of the level; there seemed to be a handful of instances where there was more than one or two equally plausible paths for progression. By the time I came across these, though, I was too afraid to really explore them and just settled on any given one. Soul Four was treating me well and had been alive for twenty-thirty minutes. Minutes. I didn’t want to jinx that by being all adventurey.

And then I saw a dragon. He was just chilling on a tower in the distance. He was probably sleeping. That said, he was a dragon. He was probably a half-mile away from me and I still felt dwarfed by this sleeping giant. And you know what they say in the kingdom of Boletaria: let sleeping dragons lie. I tepidly proceeded along my path through the level, wary of the fact that a giant behemoth was in the background and could, potentially, awaken at any moment and fry my tender soul. He didn’t, though, and I kept progressing through the level and tactically annihilating all foes who attempted to get in my way. I felt I had a handle on the game for the first time since the tutorial. I was prepared for every encounter and knew the game’s tricks.

Demon’s Souls does not consider this a healthy mindset.

A bit further into the level (still the first section of the first world), I came upon a lengthy bridge. Near where I was standing was a charred pile of bodies. I also heard a terrifying screeching noise in the background. I thought: no. Video game, don’t you dare make me fight this dragon. I tentatively walked onto the bridge and a terrifying screech echoed through the level. A message was near the ground where I was standing that said, simply, “This is a safe spot.” I had an idea forming in my head as to what it was safe from, but while it was materializing, I heard a loud screech, and flames filled the entirety of my television screen. I watched as the source of these flames came into view as the flames moved along the length of the bridge and, eventually, showed the body of an enormous dragon flying above the bridge, searing everything in his path. Once the dragon successfully roasted everything along the length of the bridge, he flew back into the air.

While I was recovering from my heart attack, I saw the dragon repeat the same pattern again. When he was finished, I had decided it was time. I waited for the dragon to come again, timing my run across the bridge like Sean Connery did the movement of the furnace flames when entering Alcatraz, and sprinted across that bridge with fury and intent. Moments before I was safe, I heard and felt the dragon’s next pass behind me, and I rolled into safety just as he would have roasted my character. It was a perfectly timed sequence that Soul Four just barely managed to execute.

Shortly after this, I found a switch which opened the front gate that I remembered seeing at the beginning of the level. While I was progressing from this point (presumably to that newly-opened gate), I encountered a new blobular enemy whose head was a giant shield. This enemy was wielding a large spear which he either threw at me (with frightening accuracy) or, as I discovered when I got close, simply jabbed me in my face. A nearby player message suggested I use fire, so I tossed a Fire Bomb on this enemy and he died. Huh. I remember thinking: that was easy. I did this five or so more times.

Eventually, I made my way back to the beginning of the level and the front gate which I saw open earlier. I walked near the gate and saw a large fog plane covering the entrance. I entered the fog plane thinking, oh, hey, neat refraction effects. As I later discovered: the fog plane signals that some serious shit is about to go down.

I entered the fog plane and saw a brief cinematic which introduced the Phalanx to me. The Phalanx is a big, cohesive mass of the aforementioned blobtastic shield-head enemies with big spears. The enemy does, in fact, move like a Greek Phalanx except, well, composed of viscous fluid masses with shields for heads and self-replenishing supplies of spears for appendages. As I ran in horror from column to column as these blob enemies were tossing spears at me (and dropping off blobs here and there to chase after me apart from the Phalanx), I remembered: oh yeah! Fire! I scrolled through my inventory for my Fire Bombs and discovered a terrifying fact.

I used all of my Fire Bombs on the individual blobeons that the game was getting me acquainted with as I made my way to this boss battle. Oops.

I resigned myself to hit-and-run tactics where I would strike one of these blobs in their shield/head, recoil from the fact that I just hit a giant shield with my unimposing slab of metal I called a broad sword, then run away utilizing serpentine escape tactics. Using this strategy I estimated that I would be done with this boss battle in approximately three hours. This would not work. I ran from player message to player message in the room, saddened by the discovery that they all said “Kill it with fire” (paraphrasing here) and “I need help, please recommend this message” (not paraphrasing and I hate anyone who put these in boss arenas).

At this point, my years of video game knowledge kicked in: behind these shield heads must be a juicy, defense-less blobby back which is weak to my sword! I serpentine’d my way behind a rogue blob that was separated from the Phalanx, tried this tactic, and was able to kill the enemy in two swift attacks. Using this strategy, I kept attempting to isolate and then kill the black blobs that were falling off the phalanx. I whittled down the Phalanx to its still enormous blob core and, then, was able to fairly easily strike at it continuously to slowly bring down its health. At one point, the Phalanx blob core did damage to me and I attempted to heal myself by using the SQUARE button to activate my healing item. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a healing item handy.

Whatever item I did have selected, however, lit my sword on fire. Two sword strikes later and the core of the Phalanx gloriously died. I beat my first boss in Demon’s Souls without dying (during the boss fight, anyway). I was proud.

I went to the Archstone that appeared in the middle of the room and activated it. I received a demon’s soul for the boss I killed, which is placed in my inventory and can be used later to receive a large sum of souls (currency). The purpose of these items is to be persistent in a player’s inventory and, unlike the active quantity of souls, does not dissipate if a player dies. They can just be “used” later in exchange for whatever number of souls the item contains. It’s a handy concession to the game’s purported love of killing the player (a love I would understand in the future).

By touching the Archstone, my character was also restored to physical form. Soul Four really was a winner.

Life Two, Soul Four
I touched the Archstone again and was transported back to the Nexus. When I was transported back, the game took this time to introduce me to the more of the story and over-arching narrative. This narrative was delivered by a cute, gothic-looking blind lady. This lady then told me to go seek one of the “Monumentals” in the upper-levels of the Nexus. Six stair-cases later I came upon a row of babies in Monk clothing. Apparently, only one of these Monk Babies was alive and he told me the story of some heroes and demons and fog and stuff.

When I made my way back down to the base of the Nexus, I prepared to go back to the world I had just left to continue my trek through the level. I purchased some statistics upgrades with the souls I earned throughout Soul Four’s life, upgraded my shield, and talked to some other NPCs in the area. Then I remembered about the random item that, essentially, saved my life against the Phalanx.

Looking through my inventory, I saw I had six “Turpentine” items. This item sets your weapon on fire and adds fire damage to all of your attacks for a set period of time. Information I wish I would have known approximately, oh, before my fifteen minute boss battle: that I didn’t need Fire Bombs when I had a way to light metal on fire.