Dark Souls II

*Dark Souls II* is a third-person action-adventure RPG, developed by FromSoftware, published by Bandai-Namco Games, and released in 2014. Loosely following the success of the previous game in the franchise, *Dark Souls II* was met with critical acclaim, both positive and negative, while retaining many of the complaints of the previous game (e.g. "it's too hard", "it's unfair"). As the game was not directed by the previous game's lead, Hidetaka Miyazaki, and was instead developed by the head of the FromSoft B-team, Tomohiro Shibuya, the second entry in the *Dark Souls* franchise attempted to adapt the gameplay formula of its predecessor to a different, slightly faster, and more streamlined experience. This ultimately lead to mixed reviews of the title from newcomers and veterans alike; it was praised for its ingenuity and ease of approach by newer fans, and slammed for being too different and too easy by returning players. The game ultimately became the black sheep of the *Souls* franchise, being consumed in the shadows cast by the success of both *Dark Souls* and *Dark Souls III*.

## **Friends Without Benefits**

The Friends Without Benefits playthrough of *Dark Souls II* began at 6:00 PST on March 3, 2018, and consists of Cade, taking control of the new, legendary heroine of Drangleic, Jkloo, and Dillon, providing the backseat commentary.

## **Story** (WIP)

### **Chapter I: Enter Jkloo**

After mysteriously warping straight into the heart of Things Betwixt, a masked individual stripped from their clothes and revealed themselves to be a really fucking disgusting green humanoid with white, sunken eye sockets and green cancer-skin. Thankfully, the being redressed itself before speaking with the nice old ladies in the tree house. The creature then shape-shifted for about five minutes before emerging as an ~~even more hideous~~ beautiful creature with crimson skin and a serious case of blackface; the fair warrior Jkloo was born.

Jkloo charged past the beginner areas and straight into the beautiful valley of Majula, overlooking an everlasting sunset that gleamed off of the ocean below. She dicked around for a few minutes, running up and down stairs, opening boxes, opening doors, opening chests, and being an upstanding citizen before shit-talking the Emerald Herald and running away to begin her adventure.

Our tale of Jkloo officially begins in the Forest of the Fallen Giyantz, marked by her slaughter of a Hollow soldier and celebration of her first kill, before immediately being grabbed by an ogre and munched on like a Butterfinger. In a stroke of luck, she vanished into a black void and reappeared just out of the ogre's reach, where she could successfully kite and murder the creature. She stomped through the remainder of the Forest, trading blows and cutting down every Hollow she could find, before sitting at a bonfire and chatting up with a new shopkeeper. The shopkeeper graciously offered her wares to our noble heroine, who purchased a key to open the poor blacksmith Lenigrast's shop; because a fucking blacksmith couldn't figure out how to open a locked door in a decrepit building with huge holes in it.

After opening the fellow's door and accessing his shop, Jkloo went to the smith and purchased the strongest weapon in the game™: the Thrusting Sword. Using this, she went back across the Forest and killed more soldiers and a giant turtle man, on her way to confront the easiest boss in the game™, The Last Giant. With courage in her heart and the resolve to kill the easiest boss ever created for anything, she challenged the Giant to fair combat; only to succumb to a mighty stomp of the Giant's foot, marking the first death of her adventure, and foreshadowing the tale in which she has her ass kicked all up and down the kingdom of Drangleic.

### **Chapter II: Easy Game Easy Life**

Embarrassed by her defeat at the hands - feet, rather - of The Last Giant, she ran back through the stone hallways and rocky corridors to face the Giant once more, finally slaying him and claiming his soul, as well as the souls she lost before. She hastily teleported back to Majula to ask for the Herald's blessing, which granted her greater dexterity and better damage output to her trusty Thrusting Sword.

On her way to the next boss on her adventure, she came across two very worthy adversaries; spear-wielding Hollows who continually jabbed at her and dealt hefty damage due to Jkloo's carelessness. After dispatching these foes, she opted to just sprint to the boss, before being cut off by another large turtle man, who met an untimely demise, and followed by a cheeky, sword-swinging Hollow who nearly cut our heroine's adventure short. With one more enemy slain, Jkloo finally met with The Pursuer, the actual easiest boss in the game™. Her plan to cheese him out with mounted ballista fire was cut short - literally - by an angry boss's swing, two of which both ruined her plan and cut her down, sending her back to the bonfire from whence she came.

After pondering why she kept falling to these ludicrously easy bosses, she ran through the area again in an attempt to redeem herself; only to get boxed in by Hollows and felled yet again. The mounting embarrassment proved to be too much, and she gave up, fleeing to Majula to gather her bearing and come up with a new plan. She opted to take a trip to Heide's Tower of Flame, where she aimed to kill the real, actual easiest boss in the game™. Several felled giant soldiers later, she came face to face with the Dragonrider, who she had to fight for real after her attempt to get him to divebomb off the side of the arena failed miserably. Despite this, she survived, and laid another boss soul to rest.

She went on to meet Licia, the nice lady praying to the Sun and telling miracles to herself. After wondering whether or not to execute the poor maiden, Jkloo went back to Majula, upgraded her blade, studied the blade, and became one with the blade. She also became super buff after consuming the souls of her slain foes, dumping power into her dexterity and vigor, making herself healthier and stronger. Jkloo once again set off to face the Pursuer, stabbing anyone who got in her way, and stared him down in combat. Her plan to use the ballistas failed once again, but her strength and agility proved too great for the Pursuer this time, and he fell after a hard fought battle.

Then she went and hung out in a nest for a few seconds, before being picked up by a giant eagle, who dropped her off at a new location, The Lost Bastille. She plundered a couple chests before returning to Majula, becoming even more buff with the Pursuer's soul, and paid a visit to Maughlin the Armourer. Disappointed in his lack of wares, Jkloo struck the man down and looted his corpse for his armor, which she claims isn't any good. With this unused armor and her newfound strength, she returned to the Bastille, killed a few dogs, and squared off against some Frankenstein's monster/Quasimodo looking motherfucker, killing it in a few swift blows and continuing on her merry way. She rolled through a pile of boxes and opened a door, which led to a room containing a chest and a peculiar looking man leaning against the wall. The man revealed himself to be Lucatiel, who offered his hand of assistance wherever Jkloo may have needed it.

Jkloo silently fucked off and walked away, running up against another Hunchback of Notre-Dame monster, and then another one, but this particular monster, angry with Jkloo's unwarranted assault, swung out and destroyed an explosive barrel that she desperately needed for this area, before lunging forward into a wall and clipping right through it. The monster recovered itself and lashed out at Jkloo, who was so angry with the destruction of the barrel and the monster's ability to warp through solid objects, that she crushed the creature, angrily screamed at the wall that was supposed to be blown open to reveal a blacksmith and another bonfire, and screamed racist obscenities as she murdered two dogs. Her angered confusion led her back to the bridge where she fought the second Quasimodo monster, where she suddenly froze in mid-step.

### **Chapter III: Like Donkey Kong**

Jkloo finally unfroze herself after spending 24 whole hours locked in a mid-step pose, and found herself facing a new Quasimonster in front of the same barrel that had been destroyed barely a day earlier. She walked forward, slowly, and stabbed the creature in the back, baiting it away from the barrel and delivering a swift, painful death. With this, she finally pushed the barrel down the stairs by walking forward into it; thankfully, the barrel weighed nothing despite carrying enough explosive force to destroy a concrete wall several feet thick. The wall gave way, revealing a single, solitary bonfire, next to a doorway that lead to the shop of the local blacksmith, Steady Hand McDuff.

This man appeared to be delusional, sitting on an empty box and swinging his smithing tools through open air. Despite this, he offered his services to our fine heroine, who ran around opening chests and stealing everything she could get her grubby mitts on. She handed the man a Dull Ember and purchased a longbow and 102 iron arrows, and thought about jerking off to Olivia Munn while having the smith reinforce her blade to be another three levels stronger.

She retreated across the bridge, killing dogs and another clone of the Quasimonster she already defeated twice before, traversed over some rubble and killed a couple of Hollow soldiers to reach her next objective. Unfortunately, a statue that could easily be pushed over or broken with a relatively large hammer blocked her path, and she retreated, opting to go to Pirateland™ and fight some pirates.

With her greatly strengthened weapon in hand, she ran to fight a giant soldier, who foolishly swung wide of our heroine and left himself open to four quick thrusts from her sword, which killed him in under two seconds. These catacombs house few rivals for Jkloo, one of which being some bitch-ass knight who hid behind a shield and poked at her with a pole-arm. He died a coward's death, being stabbed in the back and shanked a few more times. She then rode down an elevator and crammed a humanity sprite down her throat to reverse her Hollowing, restoring her beautiful black-face. The elevator dropped her into a flooded canal rife with Hollows that she cut down without even a second thought, including a Basilisk that died in one fell swoop. You know, those gross curse-spitting frogs with gigantic fake eyes.

She headed into a rocky cavern with a torch in hand, monologuing to herself about how the Gods put all these torch stands around the area to cast brilliant lights across an extremely dark room, and then decided to make the room bright enough to see in any way, because whatever. Several Hollows greeted her there, and none lived to see the next bonfire pit stop. However, one beefy Hollow dude with twin blades stomped up and dealt massive damage to her in two swings. Prepping herself for a tough fight, Jkloo ran away, ingested her liquid fire, and swung at the soldier, who died in one hit like a total fucking bitch, disappointing her as she stepped over his pathetic corpse.

Another of these warriors waited for her at the top of a staircase, and was destroyed immediately, just as his comrade was, followed by another who met the exact same fate. One more of these foes awaited at the top of the stairwell, and he died all the same. It almost made her wonder why the Gods put so many useless fucking losers in a line for her to cut down. She ran to the front of a shack and lit another torch stand, only for yet another of the dual wielding menaces to ambush her and die in one hit, along with the dog that followed him.

Running through the shack and up through a crevice, she encountered three really gross looking beings with long arms, who cowered in fear at the sight of her torch. This enabled her to kill the creatures with zero problems; however, upon opening a door into a new room, one of these creatures ignored her torch and swung at her, causing her to roll and lose her torch in the process. She believed that the creature swatted the torch out of her hand, and she fled to light another torch; she didn't have any, which hampered her plans for the area. Jkloo instead ran into a dark room filled with dogs and archers, successfully killing the dogs, only to be felled by a sword-wielding Hollowman who crept up behind her and took a couple swings after she tried fighting back. Her corpse shortly vanished into the cavern winds.

### **Chapter IV: Study the Blade**

Jkloo, recovering from her shameful death at the hands of a pitifully weak foe, took to Pirateland™ once again, changing her tactics and using the Short Bow to engage her opponents; with this, she wondered if the Gods wanted her to use such a ludicrously strong weapon to make her adventure so trivial. She skipped through the cove, killing pirates and dogs, opening chests, basically the same thing she's been doing since her adventure started. However, when she stopped to change her gear around and give herself a nice piece of armor with a snazzy cape, she remembered that she had two rings that she could have been wearing: the Life Ring, which gave her more health, and the Ring of Blades, which made her physical attacks stronger.

With her "new" gifts, she went and slaughtered a couple of creepy Stretch Armstrong impersonators, and went to ring a giant bell; this called a spooky Flying Dutchman clone to come sailing to the cove shore, carrying one single pirate on the deck, who died a horrible death to Jkloo's amazing archery skills. After running down to the shore, she stumbled across a magician, who isn't at all important because he told Jkloo to fuck off because she was too stupid to learn magic. It was later confirmed that the magician was just racist against Jkl's and wanted nothing to do with them.

Jkloo boarded the strange vessel, killed yet another Quasimonster, and engaged the Flexile Sentry, a ruthlessly difficult boss who completely wiped the floor with Jkl - wait, no, I'm just receiving word now that the Sentry had his ass kicked with a nearly broken weapon. Whoops.

She took her earnings from this journey and returned to Majula, where she repaired her rapier and used the souls she gathered to become even more buff than before, boosting her dexterity to inhuman levels. She monologued about just how convenient it was that she could stack so many of one type of soul into her fist so she could consume them all at once, and told herself that she definitely wouldn't be able to do this if she was another adventurer in a different timeline far into the future, and she was 100% correct for sure.

With her newfound strength and resolve, she magically warped back to the Bastille, opened some doors, ran across stone bridges, shanked undead soldiers with her beefy rapier, and wondered why her bow felt so strange to use; almost as if it had no feel to it at all. During this journey, she encountered another Pursuer knight, who she promptly ran away from due to a lack of nearby, convenient ballistas. She ran about, killing soldiers and dogs, and eventually knocked down a suspended cage with a group of Hollows inside; all of which died horrible, horrible deaths at Jkloo's blade.

She opened some chests, worrying whether or not they were mimics, and found a Parrying Dagger, which she briefly celebrated about, then locked herself in an iron maiden and went up to open a door, which led to a pulley system that she activated to open another door, which led out to a stone bridge guarded by a - ANOTHER FUCKING HUNCHBACK LOOKING-ASS, FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER LOOKING-ASS, PIECE OF SHIT HALBERD SWINGING -

With this foe dispatched, she walked through the white fog and entered Sinner's Rise, a decrepit slum surrounded by the ocean. She walked up some stairs, looked at some gross bat demon things, killed a guy, and then took a seat by the bonfire, giving herself a well earned rest.

### **Chapter V: STAIRS BRO**

Our chapter begins with Jkloo taking a crossbow bolt to the face as she prepared to engage her next combatant, and that sets the tone for the rest of this part of her adventure. She ascends and descends ladders and flights of stairs, stabs some delirious soldiers with swords, and takes an elevator down to a basement full of rancid canal water, where an exact clone of the Flexile Sentry lay in wait for her. After taking a few swings, she opted to sit behind the doorway leading into the basement and fire at the Sentry from there, as the gruesome Siamese twin monster was prevented from walking through the door because... the Gods never explained why.

With one more clone monster defeated, Jkloo ran through the dank stone corridors, stabbing innocent zombies who dindu nuffin, and got kamikaze'd by mummy men who ran at her and exploded. Despite this, she trudged through, pulling a lever and opening a door to clean, dry land. From here, she made her way to the next great foe, The Lost Sinner, yet another addition to the series of "giant dudes with armor" boss fights in the kingdom of Drangleic. In spite of this being a boss meant to be fought later into one's adventure, Jkloo was so strong that she felled the foe with relatively little trouble.

You know, since fucking nobody is reading this and Cade does the exact same shit every single episode, I'll take this chapter to whine and complain about how shitty and uneventful my life is. I'm currently putting off doing all of my college work to write this fucking thing that I know gets a maximum traffic of three users as soon as they get home from daycare, and I'm doing my best to mix in traditional storytelling and trying to make it not fucking obscenely boring, which is effort I could be putting into coursework, but I'm just as much of a fucking idiot as the people I make fun of for putting off their work and being fucking idiots. I've got like $40 in my checking account and I'm having to jump through hoops to get tax information to give to my federal aid program, because I'm a poor babby living alone and haven't contacted anyone older than 30 for four years. I'm hungry, I'm almost out of gas, I still have work to do, and I'm here fucking summarizing Dark Souls gameplay from a bunch of grown children infinitely more successful than I'll ever be. Maybe staying banned wasn't such a bad idea.

Oh, Jkloo killed a few Ruin Sentinels, and leveled up a bunch, so she's really strong and can coast through the rest of the game on that R1 button. I fucking hate everything.

### **Chapter VI: Slaying Dragon Slayers**

This time, on "The Hyper Awesome Adventures of the Jubilant Jkloo", Jkloo becomes even stronger, and takes her newfound strength to the Tower of Flame, to kill a bunch of giant soldiers, regular soldiers, slightly larger than average regular soldiers, slightly smaller than average giant soldiers, a drake - NOT a dragon - and an exact clone of Dragonslayer Ornstein. Like, exact. The exact same one that Jklonk killed in his adventure, except he got a little more black and traded his electricity for blackness. I'm probably gonna get picked up by the FANDOM wiki spambot for using the word "black" and be banned permanently for hate speech, but whatever. If I could make fun of people for their skin color using my preferred slurs for them, without immediately getting flagged and having a FANDOM sanctioned SWAT team bust down my door and publicly execute me for being mean on the internet, I would.

With this, Jkloo exits out the back patio, opens a chest, and is told to fuck off by a spellsword for being too stupid to learn how to wield both might and magic. She takes a Homeward Bone back to a bonfire in the Tower, which leads her to Majula, where she levels up and sets off for the man carrying the Moonlight Greatsword, the greatest weapon that was ever created in any universe ever. She couldn't actually get it, however, because that would be theft, or murder. Does Drangleic have a legal system? Did they, before the curse of the Undead arose? What's really stopping Jkloo from murdering everyone she meets and stealing all their stuff? Would all the young viewers watching this with the Gods be offended that she became a twisted, p͠syćh̴op͝ąthįc mu̶r̨d̀e̵r̢e̶r͏? Well, I hate to sour your cereal, but she already is. Th̵ère a̡re ͘n͘ǫ g̸oo̧d̶ ͜g̛úy̛s͞ in Drangleic.

She wanders back into Majula to walk down a stone corridor to converse with Licia of Lindeldt, who requests two thousand souls to push a button and open a door. Being too poor to afford this, just like I'm t̷oó poor to͘ aff̵ord̶ thrèe me͘al̨s̕ a ̡day, Jkloo has to break into her soul bank and pop a few souls belonging to nameless soldiers. With the due paid and the button pressed, the room around them revolves, opening up to a cavern that leads to a delirious looking man in a chair, facing the wall. He wasn't one for conversation, and asked Jkloo to leave, which she did. From here, she walked into Huntsman's Copse (yes, Copse, not Corpse), where she lit a bonfire and had a quick rest before continuing her mu͘rd҉e̡r͘o̡ưs҉ ͟r̨am̡pag̡e through the winding fortress ahead of her.

The rest of this journey is rather uneventful. She merc's ghoulies, kicks over trees, kills a phantom named Forlorn, kills another phantom named Merciless Roenna, and loses to the Skeleton Lords, who are totally not at all just multiple Nitos. please kill me i wish to die

### **Chapter VII: C̡ra̡zy ́F͘rog̛**

Jkloo attempts the great runback against the Skeleton Lords, but faces many hardships, such as trees, skeleton mobs, and falling off a cliff into the great un͏k̨n̛own. Eventually, through sheer determination, she overcomes the odds and manages to defeat the ~~*L̡͜I҉̡̧TȨ͜R̀ÀL̵̡ E͘ĄS͘I͘͠E͏͟S͘T̶͜ ͘B̡O͜S̶S̛͞ ̡O͠F̛ ̧̀T̴̕Ḩ̸E̛ ̵̛ǴA͜͡MÉ̵ T̸̶̕HA̶͘T҉ ̧͝͞ĮŚ̴N'͝T͢͢ T͝҉͏H̷E ̸F̧UCK͢I̶N͝G͘̕ ͟͠͡P̀҉́R͟͏́Ó͢W̵̡L̴̶͝ĮNG͝ ̴̢M͟AG̴͟͠U̷͏̡S̛, J҉͏ȨS̸͏ÙS̕̕ CH͞R̢Ì̵҉S̵̵͏T̶̵̕ ͠J̸̛͏KĹO̧͘O*~~  Skeleton Lords, and claim their soul for her own.

Jkloo leaves the boss room, making her way to Harvest Valley and staring at a local resident's breasts for a few seconds. She analyzes the geography of the giant windmill fortress and browses the lady's shop wares for a mere moment, before heading back to Majula to talk to the cat and buy the Silvercat Ring.

She walks back through all those stone corridors she walked through in the first and second episode, and there isn't much story to tell. Just imagine that Jkloo is doing the first few chapters of her adventure again, except the enemies have more health. She talks to a man that gives her a White Soapstone, that she'll never use, and then kills him to take his gear. I told you she was a psychopathic murderer. What follows is just a bunch of chest openings and dead Hollows, and nearly getting crushed by a boulder to get loot. She opens a door with a key, dies, gets sent to a bonfire, runs back, gets owned by a giant turtle man, sent back to a bonfire, runs back again, gets killed by Armorer Dennis, who then flexes hard on her dead corpse, further embarrassing her, before she finally manages to kill him, not using a gesture to taunt him like a respectable human.

## **Trivia**

* Dillon makes an epic Breath of the Wild reference in episode 2.
* Cade thinks you can't consume stacks of soul types in *Dark Souls III,* everyone tweet @WEEGEETHEGOD and tell him he's a fuckin doofus and should do his homework more often.
* Cade won a high school *Super Smash Bros* tourney as Corrin, claiming that nobody knew how to fight her because she was a new character, even going as far as to give his teacher, a Captain Falcon main, the LOOOOOONG dick. Unfortunately, one of his peers became a proficient Mewtwo main and pushed Cade's shit in at the next tourney.
* Dillon, being the old fart he is, played in *Brawl* tournaments during his freshman year of college, having to play in 4:3 on a shitty projector. A brilliant tactician, Dillon always let his opponent pick their character first, so that he could pick that character's hardest counter; for example, any given Fox/Falco player tasted Pikachu's 0-110% chain grab fury before being banished to the shadow realm with a single up-smash; one unlucky soul picked Donkey Kong and faced God-Emperor Dedede's righteous chain grab combos.
* Dillon also claims that the *Melee* competitive scene was near totally dead from 2008-2013, until a *Melee* revival tournament brought the game back into the spotlight, pushing *Brawl* out of the picture within a few short years.
* Dillon was once paid $12 an hour to look at images and memes on imgur. Lucky duck.
* In episode 6, Cade talks about his schedule to upload *BATTLERITE IS FUN,* and how it will get a million views for having a sexy picture of Blossom as the thumbnail. The joke is on him, because it only has 316k views. Take that, WeegeeTheFraud.
* In episode 7, Cade and Dillon bring up the fact that many high school and college students use the term "like" in their speaking voice, especially during formal presentations. Here I was thinking it was a California thing, all us West Coast heads jamming "like" and "dude" into every available space in, like, every single, like, sentence, dude, like. It's **like** the Western US version of Canada's "eh".
* They talk about August Ames' tits and about how SJW's are cancer. It's moments like these I remember why I'm subscribed.