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Okay, down we go. Zombie soul in a stand over here, a bit below the Bat Company soul. Honestly, I can't think of what else I'd expect it to do...
It's guarded by an Ouija Table from which I salvage another Belmont subweapon. Could be handy, really; it's not affected by gravity like the dogs, after all.
Not a big tea drinker myself, but I can understand the appeal at least.
Yoko's weapon crafting service. I did not randomize this, so it will only be mentioned in the future if I ever make use of it.
I do make a Balmung (Ascalon + Gergoth) immediately, but it's not remotely worthwhile.
Hammer's shop, on the other hand, is randomized. He's got plenty of consumables, of course (including criminally overpriced Meat Strips), of which I plan to buy plenty of Tasty Meat (290 healing for 200? Yes please!), alongside Caviar and Starfish (100% and 120 healing respectively, both for a mere 100).
The Valman-Bhuj is actually valued fairly appropriately (sells for 5000 each), so I'm not gonna be having financial trouble this seed. Thus, I'm probably just gonna buy his entire stock and figure out what to do with it later.
...and for the record, that Dainslef gives absolutely no stat changes; the only difference from fighting with my bare hands is the fact that Dainslef is another sword cannon.
Oh, and yes, he sells the Alucard Sword, and it is absurdly overpowered, if a bit slow on the draw in Soma's hands.
I'm probably oversupplied by now thanks to farming up a second stack of 8 Bhuj for sale, but whatever. Anyway, moving on: A disappointing accessory, aside from the Int boost.
Spin Devils give an MP regen soul. Not too bad, if I wind up needing to use MP a lot.
...If I'd known this was here I wouldn't've bothered making one.
Oh boy, hit a bit of a motherlode in this secret room. Well, except for the fact that the Flying Armor soul is redundant when I have the Bat Company.
I do get my first familiar-summoning soul though.
There's a joke item at the "end" of this corridor; I'll need the Paranoia soul to get that cape over there.
...Student Witches dropping this brings up so many questions. At least it looks like it has better range than that anemic uppercut (which I promptly test and confirm by eating a respawned Student Witch). Still prefer projectiles, though, so I won't be using this.
Hit a switch to drain the moat so I can loot it.
Ooooh, nice! Better stats and more souls!
This, on the other hand, is nothing to get excited over.
Last physical item I can access here at the moment is just a bit of fungus. Not the last thing I can get here, though; there're two new enemies in this room.
Skeleton Apes give me javelins. Which, unlike Aria, can actually hit pretty hard. Mostly because it's dropped by an endgame enemy in vanilla. I could also combo it with Gaibon to get twice as many javelins per throw, but that requires unequipping Bat Company.
And Hell Boars upgrade my baton-spinning. Yes, getting extra copies of souls in this game upgrades their effects. Means there're a lot fewer souls in this game that're just "the same, but more so" than there were in Aria.
Anyway, after farming those two to 9 copies each (like literally every other non-boss drop thus far), I've just gotta figure out how I want to enter the castle.
After reviewing the map for a while, I choose to enter through the moat; turns out the drawbridge goes to the Guest House too. No wonder that pig hit so hard (it did like 30-40 damage to me- I forget the exact number, since it only managed to hit once).
Anyway, the local Ghosts drop some really good armor basically as soon as I show up.
I'm not impressed with their soul, though.
This soul I got from a stand a bit below the entrance may or may not be a Jojo reference; it wouldn't be the only one in this game, I can assure you.
Bomber Armor drops another joke item. They're not a total loss, though, since they drop more Bone Pillar souls to boost my defenses too.
Slimes (which I accidentally kill here thanks to forgetting that I had the Rycuda soul equipped, which turns out to be Chain Lightning of all spells) teach one of Alucard's spells. It is strictly inferior to one of Soma's souls (I forget which one) due to the startup lag.
(edit: turns out Soma can't get Hellfire or Dark Inferno in Dawn)
Bomberman's other drop is only slightly less lackluster; it is at least technically usable, if not exactly useful.
Behind that guy is a sack of cash. Not impressive when I can farm up items that sell for 5000 each without issue basically right next to the shop.
And there's a stand with a Yoko spell in the bottom-right corner of the room, too.
I briefly considered pressing on, but then I remembered enemy drops are a thing, and I've barely entered the area. Gonna have to save the rest of what I can access here for next time, I guess.