Well last night was basically me kicking ass and taking names. My stubbornness wouldn't let me drop the Rat Authority boss, and after reading a message left by another player to use blocking as well as changing my tactics up a bit, I was able to conquer this guy. Basically I had to channel my inner Demon's Souls and Bloodborne for this fight. Despite being a large mother smurfer, even a mediocre shield like mine can tank the hit if you have enough stamina, which allowed me to stay free from his swipes while I dealt with the actual annoying part of the fight which were the Toxic Minions. After that, it was basically a case of being super aggressive like in Bloodborne. Initially I kept trying to keep the Rat Authority separated by his minions but that kept getting me killed, so instead, I rushed the boss with my shield up, and took out the remaining minions, whenever they actually did reach me under his legs. He did get me once cause he had some weird toxic breath I was unaware of and not watching my health since I got too greedy, but my next attempt saw great success after double downing on my aggression.

After that, I attempted the Rotten again, and discovered another secret passage that led me to the swordwoman of Myriah, whose summon sign became available in the second bonfire area. Now that I had a companion who could deal real damage and hold aggro long enough for me to heal, I had a much easier time dealing with him and crushed him first attempt. Discovered the first DLC area, but decided to hold off since my weapon was doing tick damage at best against the enemies in the area.

So finally I tackled the Skeleton Lords, who were amusing for the sole fact that I was way overleveled for them, and opening laughed when I screwed up and took both a pyromancy ball to the face with a follow up scythe attack from another lord, only to watch maybe a fifth of my health get taken out. This coming back from two boss fights where one hit would take three quarters of my health. So I took my time and dealt with them. The skeleton minions were a nice touch, even if I still really hate the wheel skeletons, though they were not as bad as the ones from the Catacombs since there are only four of them this time, and I wasn't fighting in near complete darkness this time.

So I finally got the Stone Girl, picked up a healthy amount of stones, including the Large Titanite I desperately needed, and to kind of explain how off my stone collecting has been for this game. Once I got the Lg Titanite needed, I was able to upgrade my main weapon up to the Titanite Slab option, because I have been generously blessed with Titanite Chunks. So it's going to be interesting to see how much damage I do going from a half upgraded weapon to a mostly fully upgraded one. For those wondering, I've been using the Heide Straight Sword as my main weapon due to it's slightly greater length from regular swords, and the innate Lightning Damage it does cause it seems to me that the majority of things in this game are weak to Lightning. I have a few other weapons as well, and the whip turned out to be a real handy weapon in the Black Gulch for destroying those stupid statues. I am thinking of adding a Greatsword into the mix since that was my main weapon in DS1, but we'll see. It depends on how much upgrading has changed since it feels obvious that DS2 may be taking more of a Demon's Souls approach to weapon infusion than DS1 by keeping the blacksmiths down to two with one being basic and the other being for advanced stuff.

I'm now debating on whether I should do Harvest Valley or Tseldora? I've unlocked Shulvan I think it was called, but I'm going to leave the DLC for after I acquire all of the Old Ones Souls since they seem to be the tougher challenges and I figure if I can conquer them, I'll have a good shot at the DLC then.