Elden Ring is So Vast

 After taking down Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy, I decided to tool around in various areas that I had kind of skipped past. Siofra River was the first "underdark" region I found, coming across the elevator in the Mistwood in southeastern Limgrave. It became immediately apparent that the foes there were a bit tough for me, so I left, and only just came back to do a pretty thorough clear. I realized, riding through, that there were braziers that could be lit in the lower cliff-side overlooking the starry expanse, and after running around for quite a while (and getting shot with star-arrows that still hurt even at level 97 or so) I got all 8 lit, and went to face down an ancestor-spirit boss that, well, I was a little overpowered for (I did manage to get killed once, but each Glintstone Pebble was taking off like a sixth of its health).

Then, doing some more exploration, I came back to a place I had seen in the Ranni quest chain, going to the "Siofra Aqueduct," which led to an actually somewhat-appropriately-leveled fight against two gargoyles. This, it turned out, gave me another coffin to hop in, but rather than falling down a waterfall, I was lifted up one, and found myself in the Deeproot Depths, which seems to be the "underdark" region below Leyndell and Altus Plateau. I fought a world-boss there, getting a spear I can't use and a suit of armor that I actually can (and was an upgrade over Blaidd's set).

I'm given to understand that there's a questchain that I need to do if I want to get everything out of Deeproot Depths, but it's nice to just have an area where the enemies aren't insanely tough, but are giving enough runes to actually make me feel like I'm making progress (my last level-up was like 57k, so enemies that drop less than a thousand runes feel hardly worth the effort).

I noted when I first came across basilisks in this game that they have a nearly-identical design to the ones in Dark Souls - kind of elongated frogs with big false eyes. I also noted that the gargoyle bosses you have to fight to get to Deeproot Depths seem to have a very similar design to the gargoyles in Dark Souls III.

Now, I doubt there are going to be any explicit connections between Dark Souls and Elden Ring - probably just some call-backs and references (The Lord of Blood apparently is trying to establish a Mohgwyn Dynasty, which did raise some alarms given a certain Gwyn from Dark Souls) but I do think it's interesting to see the patterns that repeat. In Dark Souls, trees were a big part of the imagery associated with the Age of Dragons, and naturally with the Erdtree visible from almost everywhere in Elden Ring, it's hard not to notice that.

If Dark Souls is a fantasy allegory for entropy and the heat-death of the universe, and if Bloodborne is an examination of procreation, I'm trying to figure out what the biggest themes of Elden Ring are. There are certainly motifs - lots of severed limbs, for example, which might be a George R. R. Martin contribution.

I also feel like there's some implication as to the origins of the gods. Actually, it's interesting: Elden Ring seems to effectively have a monotheistic mythos - Queen Marika is this enigma at the center of everything. I've seen some spoilers that complicate her role in the story and just what and who she really is.

I've also been on a quest chain that saw me helping cure a young woman named Millicent of Scarlet Rot. I also just secured a prosthetic arm for her that looks very familiar to a certain person's arm in the trailers for the game, and Millicent talks about how she's seeing Melania up at the Haligtree (I'm a little stuck on a boss that bars the way to the other half of the Haligtree Lift Medallion, though I have leveled up a few times since my last attempt) and I'm 100% convinced that she actually is Melania, as she looks just like her, only normal human NPC-sized.

I'm really in awe of the game's scope, but that also makes me feel more wary of playing through multiple times - I want to try out different fighting styles, but it's a big time investment (though apparently some speed runner has beat the game in under half an hour, which I just... but how?)

Oh, and I found an extra Margit the Fell fight out in the world outside Leyndell - which is odd, because in theory I've actually killed him (supposedly if you skip Stormveil Castle until after you've killed him for real, he doesn't show up at the start).