My Edlen Ring Arcana Run - Part 2 (Site Seeing 1 - Part 1)

Welcome to the first of two site-seeing trips of this run.

Our first stop will be Siofra river

Hereto, open your map and if you have not already acquired the map for this region, mark the strange obelisk looking thing a bit south of your position (assuming you're still where we left off).

Head there ... . You might aggro a bear, so ... watch out.

At this point we might also speak about materials. If you've gotten into crafting already, you notice that some of the stuff can be quite useful - and in case you want something specific it's nice to have it. Or generally know where to go and what to look for. We don't really need it - but just picking stuff up while you're running by won't hurt. To the right of the stele you'll find an item nearby a huge bear scratching a tree. It's a Handbook (Handbook of the Nomadic Warrior [4]) - and I'm not sure if the items it enables you to craft are useful at any point. To see what items a handbook allows you to craft, select it and push [square] to change the info displayed of the item. This way you can also see how many runes a Golden Rune gives you. You can find your handbooks in your inventory under "Key Items".

Further South of the Map Stele there's one of the many Lesser Erdtrees. And near them you'll usually find tear drops for the physik flask. Usually guarded by an Erdtree Avatar. Not here however - so it's a free pickup.
A bit north of the Erdtree you'll find a small building. In it there's an elevator. Step on the platform to descend.

At this Grace you might reconfigure your Physik. The two tears we probably just picked up are great; And since we're not going to pickup any more any time soon - they're like all we got at this point. A pros pos: The item that's in your up quickslot by default ... I think it's useless. It might be there to help you escape certain predicaments you might have gotten yourself into ... but ... whatever.

What we're here for is to pick up some items. Some might say: All the items. So - what we're doing, essentially, is this: We hop on our horse and run around picking up everything that is pickuppable. The enemies on this layer are quite slow. So, it shouldn't be trouble to get around them. Even on foot. You only have to be cautious of too many of them getting too close.

If you so walk down the slope, you'll see an item by a pillar. That's the main reason we're here. To pick up Golden Runes. If you turn to the right and follow the wall, you'll find some plants, then an item; And then a strange looking flower. It has some tiny orbs dangling from it. That's the second reason we're here. These are "Ghostwarts" - and they're used to upgrade special Spirit Ashes. There are two types. Gravewarts upgrade the basic Ashes like the Wolves; And Ghostwarts upgrade Unique Ashes, like the Mimic or Warhawk Deenh. We'll collect enough to upgrade two Unique Ashes to +10; Once for the Mimic and supposedly Deenh if you so choose.

You don't really need to explore this area thoroughly. If you just "go up the stairs" you'll get most of why we're here. The rest is by the water at the waterfall.
I wouldn't recommend getting into a fight here - but it's relatively easy to stock up on a few runes.
Up the last flight of stairs you'll find another Elevator. It'll take you down. Here, just head up (you can summon Torrent) the slope to the left you'll find a grace. Further up there are some stairs. There you'll find the map; And a bit away from it, in the water, a Ghostwart [2]. And that's all from this side.
For the next bit you best hop on Torrent and move along the walls - picking up all you can find. No need really to go up that one hill. All the good stuff is basically right by the water.
Eventually you'll approach a warmly lit chamber. In there you'll get a smithing stone - but more to the point: Be cautious of the Octopus thingies. The big ones. They can get you good. But, one is guarding a Ghostwart [2] that we want, so, you'll have to lure it away.

The Spirit Warriors you'll find here are mostly harmless unless you get into a fight with them. That is ... getting too close to them. So for the wooden construction you can ascend. If you go up and follow the way, you'll get into a hidden room with a Merchant. One way to get there easy is to try and lure the first one down and just run past the second. However, more importantly, try to get up onto the second level of the shack in front of the pillar. We'll be notoriously short on Smithing Stone's [3] - and here you'll find two of them.
Beyond this pillar there's a site of grace in a building/pillar of sorts, and further beyond on a cliff opposite to a waterfall there's a Scarab that holds the Duel Ash of War. Yet further in, up some rocks, you'll find a golden sapling indicating a golden seed. On your way there you'll see an item by a pillar. We'll need that one. Turning right instead will lead to a cage in which you'll find a rune arc. I never found much use for them. They'll activate the equipped Great Rune - of which we don't have any yet - for a buff that remains active until you die. Anyhow - from here you can get a great glimpse at Mogh's Palace. That also concludes our first trip through this region. If you go further in ... you run at risk of getting sniped by Warriors with Bows.

So, return to the foot of the well - to ascend back up to the surface. During this ride you can eat up all the Golden Runes we found, but - we're not entirely out of harm's way yet.

Next Stop: Kenny's Fort

So, back out ... just follow the road south and don't mind all the screeching. You'll eventually encounter a howling however - and when next you talk to Kale you can ask him about it. It comes from a ruins where you'll find a bear sleeping by some stairs. Down there you'll find a talisman that improves charged attacks. We'll equip it because its the first best thing that goes with our build. Just ... try not to wake up the bear.

Further South the road will take a turn left and ahead you'll see a site of Grace. To the west of it you'll find another Graveyard - and even further west you'll get to the bridge leading to the Weeping Peninsula. We're not going there however.
On the Bridge itself you can however find another stonesword key. You can try to get it - but it's not needed. If you want to invest more into Greatswords or get a Zweihander - you should definitely visit the peninsula. The first Merchant you'll meet sells the Bastard Sword, way too the West of it you'll find the one selling the Zweihander - and inside Castle Mourne you'll find the Claymore.

Neither are we entering the Fort just yet. We just got the Grace for Later.

As for what we picked up - it's hard to tell if you found everything. You should have enough Runes to Level your Strength to 16 and give Dex a nudge to 19. You should also have two Glovewart's [1] and [2] - and a few Smithing Stones [1] and [2]. There's also a somber Smithing Stone somewhere, but we don't really need it.
And now we return to where we started this tour.

The wonderful Vista's of Caelid

North of the third Church of Marika there's way up. Just follow the path and kill the Scarab on the way. It'll drop the Sacred Blade Ash of War. Then just follow the path further until it turns North - and turn North with it. Dodge the Giant that's trying to roll you over - and then approach the Church you'll see there. You'll eventually unmount from Torrent because an invasion is about to happen. Therefore, just run into the Church - ignore everything else - and activate the Site of Grace. The Assassin can one-shot us at this point, so ... activate the grace, pick up the items, possibly die - and then hop onto Torrent and leave Eastward to a small set of Shacks surrounding a safer Site of Grace. (If you're moving downhill and some strange creatures start swarming you as you approach a lesser Erdtree ... you're down the wrong path.)

To the south of the Site of Grace there's a rocky extrusion you can make your way up to. From there you have a great (though not particularly flattering) view onto Limgrave, but also a great view onto the Erdtree. Around the south of it you'll also find a Graveyard with a few Golden Runes. Not much however. But ...
If your Strength is at 16 and your Dexterity at 19 - and if you have three Stonesword Keys - you can open the Fog-Gates in the Roundtable Hold to obtain the Assassin's Prayerbook. The incantation we're interested in is Assassin's Step. If you can you might also want to pick up Heal. You definitely want that eventually. I also like to pick up Antidote. However, we can't really use any of it right now. What we can do however is to put the Sacred Blade Spirit Ash onto the Greatsword we have. It's something good to have against undead enemies.

Moving on. Following the Road Eastward will take us straight through a pack of Zombies. Really ... nasty stuff. They nearly one-shot us, though with Sacred Blade it's at least not entirely pointless to lean into some curiosity. Also, a charged and a normal heavy attack should be enough to stagger them - and that 'chkonk' sound is definitely something we want to hear ever so often, so ... maybe try to get the tune of it.
If you're standing on that rocky extrusion from earlier and scan across the stunning landscape of Caelid, you can follow the cliff face to the left of you come to an end. That's the best way down. And over there we'll also find our next Site of Grace.
If you here look to the north you'll see a Chariot and some ... uh ... "Dogs". The Chariot contains a Colossal Sword that some might really want - so, if you have to ... knock yourself out!
The only thing I can do to make it less painful is to tell you to aim for their head. Same goes for the ... uh ... "Birds".

Anyhow. Looking to the east you'll see what definitely is a Ravine - and hints of a ledge through which you can cross to the other side. On that other side you'll soon find another site of Grace. If the name of the Region scares you ... don't sweat. Most of the Dragon's here are too lazy to care about you.
Close to the site of Grace you'll find a small incline next to a tower. Further down there's a way leading down to the foot of the tower - and don't forget to pick up the map. At the foot of the tower you'll find a Somber Smithing Stone [9] - and on that incline, sitting on a root, a scarab holding a Somber Smithing Stone [8].

If you look down that road - onto that puddle with the Dragons on it - you'll see an item just slightly off the road - possibly with a Dragon sitting ontop of it. That's a Golden Rune [5].
Anyhow ... down the road you'll get to a fork. We want to head right - but rather than staying on the road we'll want to head straight south and follow the south side of the small wall ... until we reach yet another site of Grace. Here ... run in ... into the room to the left, into the door at the end and up the ladder. If you're fast enough the poison won't start to kick in. If you get poisoned ... don't worry. Most likely you're far enough out of danger to open the map.
The worse that could happen is that one of the bats followed you in. But ... it's one of those "this never happened before" things. Maybe don't run straight for the door, but on an arc tilted slightly to the right.

Now we have a choice. We can do the thing that people do but ... people normally don't ... which is to cheese an enemy out of 42.000 Runes and a pretty useful ash of war to put onto a really light weapon like ... uhm a dagger ... - which is a skill similar to the one already on the dagger, just better - and while we're there we can also pick up some Golden Runes and another Somber Smithing stone 9. Like, eventually we have to go there ... anyway. But we can leave all that aside and just head for the Smithing Stone too.
So, return to the previous Site of Grace but instead of going right, turn left. There's another site down there - but there's a dragon sitting right in front of what little passage there is. So, just ride past that dragon. At the site, take the left path further down until you reach another site of Grace near a tower. There are boulders you'll have to dodge though. Or not get hit by. Hugging the wall to the left should do the trick.
At the site - it might be a good idea to spend all your runes before trying to get this down.
If you so will, you can also skip this part.

Around the Tower you'll find a gust of wind that'll carry you up to a graveyard. Across the bridge is another site of Grace and to the left of it you'll see some ruins. The thing is ... we're not really comfortable dealing with the enemies there. The item we seek is held by a Scarab in the ruins like ... "straight ahead". You can try to pick the little pricks off one by one, or sneak around the southern side and towards the thing. A charged heavy attack should stagger it and prevent it from jittering away.

Sewage

Swamps, poisoned Swamps, Sewage and the weird creatures that live there - aren't really what we're interested in here. For what we want next however, there's a hard way and an easy way. If you have a big enough Arcane Number, you can take the easy route. Hereto, we'll revisit the artist's shack. The shack with the painting in it. We head north again, but instead of East we head West. You'll see a gust of wind - but instead of taking us up, we jump down trying to land on it. That'll negate fall damage. Then we head south until we're taken off Torrent. The task here is to survive until the dude with the strange hat we met earlier comes to help. Jumping helps and moving sideways also helps. Once Yura arrives you can relax a little. You might want to help, getting a backstab, but note that he attacks whomever last damaged him. So, if you hit him - it's nice to hide behind Yura.

With that weapon equipped - it's now time to help Kenny with his Fort.

Though, in its current state it isn't much prettier than the place we just saw. Follow the road up the hill - on Torrent - pick up the Golden Seed, head up the stairs - jump past the big thing with the strange hat - and in there ignore everything but the stairs to the left. Run up - while trying not to get attacked by rats or hit by firepots. You should be able to one-shot the dudes on your way up with a jumping heavy attack. Try to stay clear of barrels as you do that.
Once up there, go straight for the door in the tower and go up the ladder. The issue of whether or not the Keeper of the Fort catches up to you is a peculiar one. It seems that if he tries to strike at you while you're still running towards the ladder, you're safe. If he hits you it's too late. You might still try though. Once up the ladder, turn around and jump on the platform you see there. Take out the Knife and use the Weapon Skill on him. Once he falls down and still lives, wait until he tries to climb up, jump down to the next ledge and finish the job. Once dealt with, go up again and take the item in the chest.
The Ash of War we got from this we want to slap onto our Twinblade ... with a Blood Affinity ... and with that ... our primary weapon is online. [Play Acquisition Fanfare of Choice]

Now, that was the stressful part. Now we come to the chill part of this.