The Duke's Dear Freja

A very dear pet, indeed

    The second part of the Brightstone area is a cliff-y, sandy area that has some houses built into the surrounding rocks. It's tough to explain, but it's another great looking, imaginative area. During the run-up for the Magus battle, you traverse a cave area filled with spiders. During the second half of Brightstone, you find more spiders and spider-men (not men in red tights, unfortunately, but spiders that look like they've sprouted a human underneath them), until finally you come to a large room COVERED in huge, thick spider webs, with I believe an endless stream of spiders. Foreshadow much?
    Once you make your way down this giant room, carefully climbing down disgustingly large webs, you'll reach the bottom. Go through the fog, and you're met with a cut-scene. You see dozens and dozens of spiders scurrying away from you. They climb up something that isn't quite descript at the time, and it wasn't until after the battle that I saw what it was they were climbing up: a HUGE, dead (I assume) dragon caught in the spider webbing. Simply astounding. Well, Freja climbs down from this dragon, and the cut-scene ends. I have been reading up on the lore a little bit (and I hope to figure out more myself when I have the time), and from what I understand, this Freja is a creation of someone who is in the business of trying to create things. Not sure exactly who. The full name of the boss is, "The Duke's Dear Freja". Is this the same Duke who had archives full of books back in the first game? I know there is some sort of connection between Freja and its maker, and Seath the Scaleless. Could be, who knows?
    Freja is, surprise surprise, a huge spider. But it isn't an ordinary spider, like the ones you've seen throughout the level. Each end of his body has a head, and he seems to be covered in some sort of incredibly hard exterior. In fact, only his two heads are vulnerable. His body can't be hurt; your weapon will just bounce off. Firstly, there's a bunch of spiders in the room to deal with. Luckily, unlike the RRA fight, they are pretty easy to deal with and aren't a major danger. If they crowd you, though, they can definitely kill you. People complain that the boss battles in this game rely too much on having to deal with mobs as well as the boss. Yes, a decent amount of bosses (relatively speaking) have mobs with them, but the only time this is ever more than a minor annoyance is the aforementioned Rat Authority battle. Man up, people!

Shooting a blurry magic beam

    Freja can attack with his legs, which he'll stomp around with. This hurts, but it's easy enough to avoid. If you are far away from him, he'll shoot a long magic beam that sweeps most of the cave. You can't roll under it, but you could block it (I assume? I haven't tried) with a shield with high enough magic defense. The way to completely avoid it is to run to his side when he starts up this attack. You get some free hits in now too, as he's shooting magic at no one. Also, I LOVE how the magic beam lights up the semi-dark (but no Lost Sinner room) cave. Great effect. Finally, if you're directly in front of one of his heads, he'll attack with that. I was helping somebody as a phantom, and I swear we cut off (???) one of his heads, because it couldn't be attacked anymore, and it didn't look like the normal head. Not sure exactly what happened.

Yup, the killing blow

    Freja can be a pain, but he wasn't too difficult. He only killed me twice; I got him on my third attempt. It's a bit nerve wracking doing this one melee, but it was fun. I just went up to a head, attacked, then rolled out before I could get hit. I also tried baiting him into the magic beam attack, because this was a great chance to attack him. Healing is pretty easy, just run away. He doesn't try very hard to follow. Just be aware of the magic beam. Overall I enjoyed this battle. It was a bit easy though. The boss design again knocks it out of the park for me. The Souls game haven't done much with spiders (aside from Armor Spider in Demon's, but Freja is much better looking), but I like a big giant spider boss battle as much as the next guy. Can't wait to get into NG+ and see how these bosses differ!

Times I died: 2
Difficulty: 3.5/10
Rating: 8/10

Heading for the final great soul next!

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BOSS SOUL DESCRIPTION: "...the Writhing Ruin's keeper; The Writhing Ruin is an ancient thing whose shadow remains cast over the land. Tseldora is a place burdened by terrible misdeeds, and those who remained were transformed beyond recognition." 

 

Spider Fang

 Spider Fang: "Supposedly, the duke himself, an eccentric soul fascinated with spiders, went on to take a form that was far from human."