Welcome back to the Race to Git Gud, where I’ll be trouncing through the dark, depressing worlds of FromSoftware with reckless abandon and firmly below-average ability.

Today, Katia stumbles through the armor-clad hallways of Castle Grayl, commits bad touch on the statues, and gets merc’d by a flying sphere.

Fresh out of the Shayl Passage (in desperate need of a bath and armed with misplaced confidence), she marches forward looking for any shred of info about her missing father.

Armor? I Hardly Know Her!

One of the big issues with Lost Kingdoms is how painfully linear some levels are, and Castle Grayl is the poster child for it.

You enter a castle that’s basically a big square of hallways, lined on both sides with massive suits of armor like a medieval department store mannequin aisle. When you hit a blocked path, the “puzzle” is simple:

Walk back.

Touch the suit of armor when the exclamation point pops up.

Congratulations—your brain remains completely un-teased.

Even the secrets feel weirdly deflated. You’ll spot a long hallway and—boom—there’s a treasure chest sitting at the end like it’s waiting for you to finish your chores. Whether it’s a stylistic thing, a limitation thing, or a “padding the runtime” thing… it just looks off.

An Explosive Situation

The enemy roster here is led by my least favorite creature in the game: the Will-o-Wisp.

These floating fucks zip around with a big electric field like they’re sponsored by a Tesla coil. Get too close and they explode—except the explosion also triggers every nearby Wisp to explode too, because why would one mistake only punish you once?

Katia’s first death in Castle Grayl comes courtesy of a chain reaction that dumps 70 damage into a 100 max health bar. It’s absolute nonsense, but whatever.

Back to the start—because of course we are.

The runback is faster this time, mostly because nothing changes between death and rebirth. I clear out some lizards, deal with more Wisps, dodge a Stone Head trap, and push toward the throne room.

Throne Room Showdown: Helena Wants to Duel

At the end, we find the King of Grayl dropped to one knee in front of a hooded woman. As Katia approaches, the woman slowly turns—anime-villain style—and whips out a card of her own.

It’s time to duel!

She’s another runestone bearer, with her own deck and her own monsters. She’s also got more acrobatics than Katia: flipping away from damage, sprinting across the room, acting like the throne room is her personal gymnastics floor routine.

The good news: she isn’t particularly difficult. By this point your deck should be more than ready to handle her. Once she drops, she disappears with her tail between her legs—classic villain behavior.

Katia takes the spoils:

Runestone #2 acquired +50 max HP (a genuinely huge win)

Plot Update (Thanks, King)

Talking to the King is… not exactly a lore feast. He basically tells you to continue your quest to find your dad (thank you, king, very helpful) and curses the hooded woman by name:

Helena.

Returning to Gurd points Katia toward the next destination: Kendarie Castle, across the Bridge of Sarvan.

Next Time on Race to Git Gud

Stay tuned for more Lost Kingdoms in the Race to Git Gud, as we find out whether Katia has the strength, courage, and raw athleticism required to do the most terrifying thing imaginable:

Walk across a bridge