Looking like grubs is one thing, but because they move with such pronounced sloshy sounds, it’s suggested that these maggot men are fairly sumptuous and juicy, perhaps disillusioned members of Aldrich’s church that have a side gig in his snack drawer. The resolute wetness echoes the earlier oceanic connotations. It’s unpleasant, in large thanks to the sound. They emit vaguely human gargles as they die, and I emit vaguely human gargles in response. Every hit is like taking a butcher knife to a pile of rotting watermelons. Liquid sloshes around inside of the six or so maggot slug humans I’m fighting. It may sound like I was dancing around in ankle high water during this fight, but it took place on a stone surface inside a cathedral. Why should a church even need such a huge graveyard? What Aldrich did to cause such a sickness is uncertain, but our bellies are definitely meant to ache in gurgled harmony with the infected denizens affected by his presence.Īldrich was a known hungry boy, so maybe these walking corpses are failed acolytes, like the rotten apple counterparts to the fresh grub men I run into next. For there to be a graveyard in the open and not some guarded pit implies that this puking-slash-rising dead deal wasn’t always a problem, and perhaps Aldrich’s presence and transformation touched a certain dark magic-the deep-that ran wild and started to seep further out from the cathedral over time. I wonder if they died from this sickness and were buried in the cathedral graveyard in droves, or if the sickness is what caused them to rise from the dead. Every retch is an upsetting hybrid of a froggy croak and what sounds like a toilet flipping over, the exaggerated sound carrying connotations of overeating, sickness, and possibly trauma on a massive scale. It’s more overtly gross than anything I can recall from the previous games, but still serves to characterize the gluttonous goo man we’re after.
I’m no lore aficionado, so look at this piece as a close reading of Dark Souls 3 and its power as a dense impressionist game-not as the final word on our slimey man.ĭozens of these enemies dot this area, and even though they’re easy to avoid, running past triggers puking for most of them, kicking off a cascade of vomitry that puts Mr. It may not be possible to determine exactly who he is, but turning an open ear to the creatures and environments Aldrich has altered is enough to fill out his character in a few ways. Pay close attention and it’s easy enough to get the sense that he wasn’t exactly the saint his moniker ascribes-same goes for his affiliated religious institutions.
In other words, he’s meant to burn to prevent the apocalypse.
(Unless you count the tortured groans of the poor folks left in a Aldrich’s wake.)ĭark Souls 3 kicks off in pursuit of him-Aldrich bailed when called upon to link the fire. The line’s light context is enough to color the state of the world you progress through, and in turn, the sludgy descent of Aldrich as a character-all without uttering another word. The dialogue triggers in a timely fashion, around the time you’re progressing through the swampy lands below the bridge to Lothric and towards the Cathedral of the Deep. Hawkwood, the lowly defeated Undead Legionnaire that hangs his head low in Firelink Shrine, gives the player one of the first detailed descriptions of Aldrich, Saint of the Deep and unwilling Lord of Cinder.