So I finally tackled Darklurker, using the Drangleic Portal cause it's surprisingly the easiest one once you know what you're doing. Not too bad of a fight, took him down on my second attempt. He was a surprisingly fun fight, and was a well done boss overall despite the fact that I was probably way over-leveled for him. Pilgrims of the Dark are currently the only Covenant I've completed at the moment, and I'm now back to Heirs of the Sun, though this Covenant seems to be cursed for me, as I'm having a hard time getting successful co-ops going here and I seem to more often than not, get summoned to help a player farm souls in a tough section before getting sent away without actually fighting a boss.

Finally got the key to access the optional zone in Ivory King DLC, and was pleasantly surprised that it's not quite as bad as people make it out to be. The Lightning Reindeer are certainly a handful but manageable, and the gimmick of the zone is actually clever and has more thought put into it than the other two optional zones. The same cannot be said for the boss fight, which got me clobbered pretty badly, especially since my primary weapon was at it's breaking point by the time I reached them and I had to switch to a weaker one. The fight is also one of the worst of the DLC IMHO. Largely cause it's a reskin of a fight from this very DLC and to "mix it up" they made it into a another gank fight which is sort of a major symptom of some of the design problems DSII suffers from.

As for the rest of the Ivory King DLC, I'm still trying to hunt down the rest of the Knights, but have only found one so far and I've completed everything up to the "third bonfire" which takes place before the NPC Invader. I've noticed there is a slot for a fifth bonfire, but have no idea where it is.

I plan on focusing on beating the optional zone first before proceeding with the main DLC quest cause I want this to end on a high note and so far, finishing the optional zones early is a good way of doing that. Afterwards, I want to beat the Ancient Dragon, then Vendrick, then finish the game. Not quite sure if I'm going to dive straight into Dark Souls III afterwards.