Dark Souls II Walkthrough, Part Forty: Undead Crypt - Velstadt, the Royal Aegis

The trip into the earth below Dranglic Castle continues. Far from being done at the Shrine of Amana, this dark path takes you into one of the last places you'd ever want to go: an Undead Crypt. Some of the foulest beasts in the kingdom wait for you here, including a certain royal presence who hasn't been seen aboveground for a veeeery long time...

Undead Crypt

- Approach the Crypt, but don't enter yet. Check around the left side of the entry stairs. There's a Bonfire here, Undead Crypt Entrance. On the opposite side of the stairs you'll find a Radiant Lifegem.

- Enter. The first room is empty, but the second has a patrolling ghoul with a torch. Take it out.

- The next room up has several ghouls and, at the far end, three spellcasters that launch five missiles skulls at you. Yay! Lure the ghouls out of the room to kill them unmolested, then rush the spellcasters. The third is hidden on the right. Avoid their spells by hiding behind columns and kill as you can. They have other spells, but once you're close you can stun them out of using any.

- In the next chamber you'll receive a warning not to use light in this place, ie no torches. Go up the stairs on your right and you'll find a platform with several armed guards, though they won't attack you unless you bear light (or attack first). A man up here named Agdayne will tell you about the Crypt, and reveal that King Vendrick is down here somewhere. Yay. Keep speaking to him and you can purchase items from him, as well as learn the Have Mercy! gesture. Check a corpse here for a Large Soul of a Nameless Soldier, then press on.

- There's a set of stairs down the next passage, and beyond a pair of knights. You met their kind in Drangleic Castle. Fight them off as best suits you, and retreat to the passage if necessary. They won't follow. If you're lucky, fighting on the stairs will muck them up and they'll fall into the pit to your left.

- Up ahead is a fog door. And beyond...

- ... headstones. Not much else. This area is full of graves, and as you move through it ghouls will rise up to attack. They're nothing special. Check the left side of this area to find a small room where the Undead Ditch Bonfire waits. Light it up, then check a skeleton across from the Bonfire's door for a Simpleton's Spice and two Black Firebombs.

- The only other thing of note here is to the right of the entrance. There's a corpse behind a bundle of graves, and you can reach it by smashing through the rocks. Be warned, though - there's also a carving of a soldier here, and if you get too close a reaper wil leap out of it and attack. Avoid all of them in this area. (You can destroy the statues to stop them from spawning, but at this point it's easiest to just run past.) The corpse holds a Titanite Chunk and a Petrified Dragon Bone.

- There's a door on the right side of this chamber. Inside is a smaller chamber with more gravestones. Another spellcaster watches over this area. In the far corner is a corpse carrying a Bracing Knuckle Ring +2, and if you drop off of the stairs leading to the next chamber you'll find a Soul of a Lost Undead. Not worth the trouble.

- The next chamber over is empty, save a corpse that holds a Soul of a Hero and a Divine Blessing, but if you get near the walls phantoms will peek through and attack with swords. An invader will also appear to attack in here. Either take out the phantoms first or stay in the middle of the room while fighting to avoid their slashes.

- The adjacent hallway is full of phantoms, so stick to the middle of the room. At the end appears to be metal walls - but these are actually the twin shields of two huge knights. Draw them back to the larger room to fight them off, or just steer them here and run past. They're pretty tough, but easy to avoid.

- In the room they were defending you'll find a hole. Hop down into it and you'll find yourself in a ring of gravestones. There are four doors to choose from at the edges of the room, and a corpse that holds a Radiant Lifegem and a Homeward Bone. The doorway straight ahead upon landing has a corpse with a Soul of a Proud Knight and a Dragon Charm. You're surrounded by reaper-summoning stones here, and once you move away from the middle of the room a ghoul will ring a bell and bring them out in large numbers. You can destroy the stones to ease your passage, but it's best to just find your way out of here as quickly as you can. The correct passage is ahead and to your left upon landing, assuming you're facing the room above's single skeleton.

- The passage out of here leads to a wide room full of torches. To your right is a long hall to a mist gate. Ignore it and run past to find a chest in the shadows; it contains a Magic Stone and a Darknight Stone. To the left or where you come out is a switch that will open a path back to the Bonfire.

- The hall to the mist gate looks long, opulent, and empty. As you might expect, it's far from empty. There are a bunch of knights guarding the mist gate at the far end, and a number of reapers lurk by the shrines flanking both sides of the hall. You can fight through here if you really want, but it's far easier to dash behind one line of shrines, get up onto the stairs, lure the knights away, and then make a return trip to the mist. Else you'll be facing a huge fight that will take forever, sapping your health and weapon uses.

- Beyond...

Velstadt, the Royal Aegis

This is a tough battle, but you've seen its like before. Vestadt is predominantly a melee combatant, and his massive mace is quite good at flattening you. Nevertheless, you have the advantage of his poor speed wind-up time. Velstadt uses the following attacks:

- A horizontal swipe. Sometimes Velstadt will follow this up with another swipe right after; sometimes he won't. It's best to roll twice anyway, just in case. This will occasionally turn into a three-hit combo with a final jab of the mace, but the combo is rare.

- An overhead bash. This is perhaps Velstadt's most common attack, and it's good for getting in hits. Roll to your left, beneath the mace.

- A thrust. Velstadt has good reach, but he doesn't use it that often. Roll to the side.

- Halfway through the battle Velstadt will charge his mace with dark power, gain resistance to dark attacks himself, and begin using a projectile attack from a range. As soon as he plants his mace in the ground and bells chime, run behind him. You'll get in a few attacks, and as long as he's not facing you the attack will miss every time.

Pretty standard battle, really. Dodge attacks, get in close, wait for one of his attacks to go off, attack, roll away. Repeat. Once Velstadt begins to charge up his mace, rush forward, get in three or four attacks, and then back off. He does more damage in his second form, and seems the slightest bit faster, but the battle doesn't change at all beyond adapting to the ranged attack.

- Taking out Velstadt will earn you the Soul of Velstadt. It'll also open up the chamber behind his...

- ... where poor King Vendrick resides. The king is a huge Hollow with a massive sword, but so long as you don't hit him he won't hurt you. You can leave him be, if you wish, and it's for the best that you do right now. We'll come back to Vendrick in a later article, when fighting him is not suicidal.

- Check Vendrick's armour. The King's Ring sits among it. With this you can open the large, black doors you've found in several areas of the game. With this, in essence, you can trigger Dark Souls II's end game. Woo! Back to the Bonfire!