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Drangleic Castle Walkthrough

Access

The Castle is reached after defeating and acquiring the souls the four Bosses: The Old Iron King in Iron Keep, The Rotten in Black Gulch, The Lost Sinner in Sinners' Rise, and Duke's Dear Freja in Brightstone Cove Tseldora. Alternatively, the door can be opened by acquiring sufficient Soul Memory, that vary according to your NG status - click here for more details. 

From the Ruined Fork Road Bonfire in the Shaded Woods, head up the stairs to find three doorways. Out the left doorway, you'll find a path riddled with Forest Grotesques that lead down a slope until you reach a door arch blocked by rubble. Look left for a stone path, and you will enter the Shrine of Winter. If you have all four souls or sufficient Soul Memory, the Black Gate will open and you can proceed through the other doorway, and down the path to take you to the Castle. On your way, when you come down the zig-zag slope, head right to pick up a Soul of a Hero, then continue left. You will shortly come across a Divine Blessing, and a Heide Knight resting ahead.

Continue down the path to find a corpse on a small wall on the right, containing a Large Soul of a Nameless Soldier, and a Human Effigy. Shortly after, you'll arrive at a large set of stairs, which eventually leads to a long spiral staircase. Atop of which, you will find three Royal Swordsmen on your left. Proceed up the next set of stairs, making sure to check a boulder on the right for 2x Holy Water Urn. Walk a little further to be prompted with the title, signifying your entry to the Castle.

Exterior Staircase

Immediately after seeing the 'Drangleic Castle' title prompt, you'll find a Crystal Lizard on the stairs. At the first archway, the Emerald Herald from Majula will be there to allow you to exhaust her limited dialogue. If you continue up the stairs, you'll come across two Primal Knight statues; they will attack when you get too close, so get the jump on them before they do on you.

Once you make it to the castle doors, you will be attacked by several Royal Swordsmen. This can get tricky to deal with since you also have to feed a soul to each of the Golems by the doors to actually open them, however the big open space can play well into your hands. Once they've been dealt with, search the right side of the building to find a chest containing a Fire Seed and Great Combustion, then into the doors to enter the castle.

Interior Castle

Once inside talk to the invisible NPC, Wellager, on the staircase. After exhausting his dialogue, learn the "This one's me" Gesture, and learning about the King and Queen, he will become a merchant.

After speaking with him, head down the left stairwell (facing the entrance). Once you enter the hallway on your left, there should be a total of two Royal Swordsmen and a Syan Soldier in this particular hallway. Open the door at the end, and take care of the Royal Swordsman then head down the ladder to find two sets of pale blue doors. Open both to find the King's Gate bonfire.

Golem Door Hall

From the bonfire there will be two paths, left and right. Since you need a Key item to go left, you should go right instead. You will enter a room with several Stone Soldiers. Some in pairs in front of Golem doors that you have to feed a soul in order to open, just like how you entered the castle. All the Golem doors in this room house a Ruin Sentinel, except for the first door on the right. At the back of the room are two Golems that will light torches if you feed them a soul. Once the golems/golem doors are fed, they need not be again.

Once you kill a foe near one of the Golem doors it will open, but don't get too carried away yet. Behind each door except the first one on the right as you enter, a Ruin Sentinel guards an item or chest:

• Left side:
  1. Nothing to collect from the first room.
  2. 1x Pharros' Lockstone in the middle room.
  3. The last room on this side hides a hole leading to a darkdweller guarding the Faraam Set. If you take the tunnel on the left from down here, you may find Darkdiver Grandahl. If this is the third time see him, you will be able to enter his Covenant 'the Pilgrims of the Dark'. Make your way to the other tunnel to the Under Castle Drangleic bonfire. 
• Right side: 
  1. For progress, enter the first room.
  2. Claim a Mastodon Greatsword from the middle room.
  3. The Royal Soldier's Ring +1 can be obtained from the last room on this side.

Farming (Souls & Titanite)

These Ruin Sentinels and the Stone Soldiers respawn, making this room a constant danger, if you open all of the Golem doors to get the items. While a danger, this also presents an opportunity to farm since they spawn infinitely and Stone Soldiers have a rare chance of dropping Titanite Slabs.

A good way of dealing with the Ruin Sentinels is to take them back to where the bonfire is, and keep them in that corridor. They won't attack you, but they will keep their shield up. It's slow to kill them, but it's much safer. You just have to stand in front of them while they try to walk back to the big open area. You can pull them towards that corridor so they start walking back, then moving towards them to make them attack. All of these attacks are guardable with a 100% physical resistance shield, and easily evaded by rolling. After they've attacked, you've got time to get one or two attacks or spells in while they don't have their shields up. As soon as their attack animation is complete, they'll raise their shield and ease out of the corridor, allowing you to rinse and repeat until they're finished. Try using poison arrows. 5-6 hits on a Sentinel are required to trigger the poison effect. You can also use Poison Mist and Toxic Mist through walls to poison them. They give some decent souls and can also drop their armor, so this area is pretty much ideal for farming, but only in NG, as they don't respawn in more advanced playthroughs.

The First Door on the Right

Once you pass through the Golem door, head up the stairs. On the left is a chest with 15x Dark Arrows, and after going up the stairs you can grab the 3x Old Radiant Lifegem, a Monastery Charm, and a Soul of a Hero from the skeleton beneath the stairwell. You eventually come to a room with corrosive acid covering the floors and contraptions shaped like dragons spitting even more acid at you. It does not affect HP but will BREAK your armor quite quickly. Be sure to remove all your gear if you want to play around in the acid. In here you will find a chest if you continue to the left, containing 3x Corrosive Urn, and a dead body just next to the stairs you will be ascending, holding an Elizabeth Mushroom. Move up to the platform with the statues, then proceed to the stairs.

Ascend to the next area and you will come across a door to a room filled with masks that will shoot poison arrows as soon as you enter. There is also a drop of a Large Soul of a Brave Warrior and a Twinkling Titanite. The best way to go about this is to rush to open the door, then pick up the items. The next room has three Syan Soldiers, and a large painting that builds up your 'cursed' state extremely quickly-so easy to avoid, just don't walk in front of it.  

Dragonriding Duo Duel

Exiting this area via the door will trigger the invasion of the Nameless Usurper that will spawn to the left of the door. Once that's dealt with, head continue up the stairs until you encounter two Royal Swordsmen. Look for a ladder here and take it down, and if you didn't kill them already, there will be another Royal Soldier waiting for you here guarding a corpse with a Soul of a Brave Warrior. Examine the middle wall here; press the "use" button on your controller to reveal an illusory wall that opens to the Forgotten Chamber bonfire.

This is a good time to rest because of the upcoming boss fight. Another ladder directly in front of the bonfire wall take you down to a chest containing Hunter's Blackbow and 20x Iron Arrows, and another  Royal Soldier. After opening the chest, climb back up the ladders and continue along the stairy path you enter a room with the Queen seated at the far end, that you can talk to.

Exit through the right side to find the boss fog.

BOSS FIGHT: Twin Dragonriders

Elevator Mechanic

After this fight, move right to the next area you will arrive at the Central Drangleic Castle bonfire, and find Benhart of Jugo nearby. From here, head down the stairs. There are three paths to take, two of which are unavailable. One is the iron door "King's Passage" and the second is an elevator that has yet to drop down that will cover the big hole in the floor. So take the only route you can, the lengthy ladder to a room with another Golem that needs to be activated by souls again.

As soon as you get to the top, hug the right wall. This will prevent all of the Stone Soldiers from reanimating at the same time and will let you deal with less. There are a total of six Stone Soldiers in this room, but using this technique will only force you to deal with three, leaving the fate of the other three in your hands. Hug the wall, taking them out as you go, and ensuring you kill one close enough to the Golem so he may claim its soul and activate the elevator from earlier. There's also a door on the same side of the room that within, contain two iron chests: one contains the Old Knight Hammer, and the other one Caitha's Chime and the Soul Greatsword. The next room has a doorway and a big staircase.

At the top of the staircase, it splits to two more stairs, and on each side holds a chest, guarded by two Alonne Knight Captains. On the right, the chest that contains the Pyromancy spell, Fire Storm. While the chest on the left is poison-trapped, and contains 10x Fire Greatarrow.  Head back down the stairs and proceed to the door to find a Primal Knight and two Syan Soldiers to deal with before you can find yourself back outside. 

Before you can even take a second to breathe, you have another Primal Knight to fight. After you do, on the right you will see a blue door, and right next to it, a path going down. The door doesn't open, but there is a ladder next to it which you can use to climb, and kill the three Alonne Knight Captains up here. Head back down the ladder and go through the small brown door at the bottom of the stairs, to two Desert Sorceresses, 5x Repair Power, and 10x Flame Butterfly. The chest near the ballista also holds a Estus Flask Shard. Now pull the lever near the gate and it will open. Open the door and make your way down the stairs to the previous Central Drangleic Castle bonfire.

Passage to the King's Passage

From here head to the room that had the locked door and giant hole in the floor. It will now have an elevator, the Golem you fed earlier did that for you. You can now take it up by activating the pressure switch in the middle of it. You can also now call it down by pulling the lever right next to it. Once at the top there will be a caged cell with an unlucky woman in it and an even more unlucky hollow, chained and bound to it upside down. His side-story can be found here: The Embedded.

There are three chests in here - one has the Key to King's Passage, another contains a Fire Seed and Soul Vessel, and the last one holds the Strong Magic Shield. Last but not least there's a hidden Hollow on the bars opposite of The Embedded. Just attack the bars and he'll drop a Small Smooth & Silky Stone.

Take the elevator back down and use the Key to King's Passage to open the previously seen big doors.