So far I've picked up a claymore, a flamberge, and my ds1 weapon of choice, the mighty halbred.

So far everything seems relatively medicore scaling-wise, although the halbred went from D/D to D/C on the first upgrade. Haven't noticed any other increases, so I slapped a fire stone on the claymore for some variety

If you ember up, you can take the coward's route and summon the swordmaster from right outside firelink shrine. I assume you have to kill it first, naturally. Although the NPC's health bar seems to be about half of what the normal summons in DS1 and DS2 would have, so it wasn't EZ mode like I was expecting. Somehow I managed to kill the boss as it killed me, which was a pleasant surprise lol

tower on the wall 2nd bonfire note saying illusionary wall with 2856 appraisals but nothing after I hit it and try hitting x

I found another note with a lot of appraisals about an illusory wall around the same area and also couldn't find anything. Either the troll game is really strong around release or I'm missing something

I accepted the free level, and now everytime I die I gain a "hollowing" point. Not sure how to reverse this, or if it's even a bad thing. I assume it is.

in Crucifixion Woods

The very FIRST chest you come across in the game, assuming you take a certain path, is a mimic. Well Played.

- Starting shield is very weak (like 62% physical absorption) and the estoc is also fairly weak since while it may seem good to be able to block/poke with it, since the shield is awful that makes dodging more important. I died about 10 times on the first boss, but that was mostly to awful timing on my dodging roll as well trying to take him down by poking him with that needle weapon lol. It was a great first boss to get into the game and felt satisfying taking him down. I had some success just keeping my distance and then waiting for his attack and then going in for a couple of pokes. One thing that did help a bunch for the 2nd phase is when he does the transformation you can do like 5-6 hits on him before he starts trying to attack you. Those 5-6 hits are very helpful with widdling his health down.

- I haven't used it a ton so I don't know if I will use the spook spell very much except for falls.
- Killed the ninja outside of the shrine on 3rd attempt since he one hit kills me if I get too greedy with the estoc pokes. The katana he drops seemed like it would be my go to weapon but was too slow for me, especially with the enemies being quick like Bloodborne style with their attacks.
- In the High Wall of Lothic I had some very decent success in searching around. Sometimes I go a little quick on souls games on the first playthrough and miss things. It didn't seem that way so far here. I found an estus shard, Claymore, battle ax, cell key which unlocked an NPC that gave me a blue tearstone ring I think it was, 1 blue crystal lizard so far, one mimic chest, and several other weapons and one armor.
- I found two notes for illusion walls but they were troll (gg people).
- There were two spots where the dead guys turn into those huge worm like monsters that I found out you can avoid that as long as you quickly kill the dead guy before he turns.
- I got a lucky shield drop from the knight that looks like it has 100% physical absorption. It requires 18 strength but I think that is worth it trying to get that stat up (16 str required for claymore anyway).
- I then purchased the soul spell and a leather shield for now until I can get to 18 str. I'm hoping leveling this up first won't hinder my upgrade path as I haven't really touched int/stamina/equipment load much yet.
- I'm thinking that possibly there is a way to kill the dragon with either arrows or soul spell but I haven't tested it yet and need to learn how to shoot with the bow with aiming lol. I thought R1 would do that but not so much. I'll figure it out.

My only concern at around level 26-27 with my build is I am working on pumping about 6 stats into str only to be able to use that shield but I think that will be worth it early game. You knights who start with that or similar shield have it so easy lol. So far the game seems like 80% Bloodborne with 10% Dark Souls and 10% Demon Souls to me. The fast fighting/locking seems a lot like Bloodborne so far with the controls. I also noticed that my cast time seemed fairly quick for early on....wondering if it is solely for the 15ish dex I am at. I saw goofy's post about the backstab. I noticed the backstab hit area does seem a bit smaller but it's still early on for testing.

- Day 2 goals - level up a few more times to hit 18 str, and infuse with raw to one of my weapons...not sure which one. I like that Ax I found and I know it's an early weapon but I noticed infusing with Raw took its base from (off the top of my head 105 to like 162ish??). That is huge lol. I may do that or the Claymore if I like it. Also possibly farm 20k for the key to get that out of the way. I think I need to do some more firelink searching as well as searching in the high wall area since there is one soul in the window early on I haven't gotten yet lol. Cheers boys.

Reminds me of pinwheel if pinwheel casted 4 crystal soul spears and a million homing magiks.

It gave me something called a dark sigil and a hollowing stat. When I visit the maiden now, she offers me the opportunity to 'heal the dark sigil' for a cost. It looks like the cost to heal goes up every time I level up. That's all I know so far.

It causes hollowing. What hollowing does beats me, but apparently it's considered a curse. I found a statue of Velka that let me request "dissolution". at the cost of 3000 souls. If it's gone for good, that was quite cost effective considering I got two levels out of it.

The statue is in the Undead Settlement sewers. If you've been attacked by a giant rat, you're quite near. There's a locked door in the way; the shrine handmaiden sells the key.

The one Seigfried or whatever is by. I went to the area halfway up and killed the big fire beast miniboss thing - but there seems to be nowhere to go from this way and I had to homeward bone out. Also went to the top and got Flynn's Ring (which seems like it may be awesome being I'm going STR/END/VIT first playthrough) but can't figure out how to make it go down. I've got it to go down a few times randomly and got wrecked by the ice guy at the bottom but no clue what I am doing to trigger it.

It unlocks the "hollowing" mechanic, which can be good or bad, but luckily can be controlled.

Basically after your first free level you get a Dark Sigil in your inventory, every time you die your "hollowing" count goes up by 1. At various hollowing levels, the guy will offer you additional free levels, and each free level gets another dark sigil in your inventory. Every death your hollowing counter goes up by the number of sigils. So if you have 2 dark sigils in your inventory and you die, your hollowing count goes up 2, etc.

After 5 free levels (and thus a max of 5 Dark Sigils) the NPC dies and is replaced by a new NPC. You can reset your hollowing count back to 0 at any time by using a purging stone (which the new NPC sells) or by praying at some alter.

However it will continue to go back up after death as long as you possess the dark sigils. There's one item in the game you get at some point, not sure where or how, that you can use to permanently get rid of your dark sigils. Doing so will kill the hollowing mechanic for good, and also piss off the NPC who repalced the rock guy.

Hollowing at this time has known effect other than to make your character look decayed/dead.

There appear to be ways you can scale weapons and stuff with hollowing, so maybe there are such things as hollowing builds or something later.

There may also be other downsides to being hollowed but none yet known.