Y’know, just saying, but if you had to walk through a pitch black catacomb, kill multiple wizards, rats and a ninja whose every strike drives you to literal insanity, sneak past unkillable specters who will go full A Quiet Place if you make a single noise, raid a mansion full of unflinching greatsword warriors, while hearing a man scream his lungs out thanks to the unholy bone sword he has instead of a spinal column and the eldritch evil begging to crawl its way out of his skin, one might, y’know, get the idea that maybe you’re not wanted here. But, hey, sunk cost fallacy is a bitch, and you’re not gonna go all that way through the Abyssal Woods, and not talk to the guy at the end—Midra—find out what his deal is.
Spoiler alert: his deal is murder. Murder, and fire.
Midra’s Abilities
When you first enter Midra’s room, you’ll see this poor old man keeled over in the middle of the room, and before you can even say “need something, old timer?” he’ll start calling you an idiot, and feebly rush at you with a stick. If he grabs you, he does some damage, but, i mean, just look at him.
Once you’ve beaten him down, though, a cutscene will play, Midra will give up the ghost, and literally unleash hell. After one of the most profoundly fucked up things you’ll ever see in what is essentially Profoundly Fucked Up Things: The Video Game, you’ll have your real target: The Lord of Frenzied Flame. You know, that thing you might become if you choose to be a very naughty Tarnished in the base game?
Anyway, once you have control back, first thing Johnny Storm here will do is shoot a bunch of flaming tendrils at you in two waves. After that, he’ll start taking swipes at you with combos from his greatsword-cum-spine. All of which involve big sweeps, but one in particular is two quick swipes followed by a fiery, sliding thrust, kinda like the Stinger from Devil May Cry. He also has a variation that will throw a flaming tendril attack in there right in the middle of a normal combo. He’ll occasionally try spinning, because that’s a good trick, and it’ll connect for three hits if it works. He also carries a bone dagger in his off-hand that he might surprise you with from time to time.
After you’ve taken a third of his health, he’ll float into the air and drop himself like a bomb. After this, his sword combos will start leaving pools of flame on the ground, which especially sucks since he will start doing a long six-hit sweep combo from time to time. He’ll gain a new diving attack, and whether he catches you with his sword or not, he’ll explode in flaming spikes after a delay. He’ll also occasionally spawn a fiery orb that will follow you around the room for a few seconds. And on top of all that, sometimes he’ll pull a Cyclops, and shoot a beam of fire out of his eyes. Oh, and did I mention the part where all of his fire attacks induce Madness? Because they do.
Defeating Midra
So, despite the horrifying build and the dramatic fire, Midra’s still kind of a feeble old man, it turns out. While magic users can get by staying out of combo range, dodging his sliding strikes, and hitting him with anything that inflicts Frostbite or Bleeding, once you know when his combos end, heavy melee users can just straight up bully this poor bastard with guard counters, stance-breaking him multiple times during the fight. If you’ve got a weapon that also inflicts Frostbite or Bleeding, this ends up being a real short battle.
That’s license to get aggressive, not stupid. The big problem is that even though armor and a half-decent shield can block most of what he throws at you, the Madness buildup on every strike can add up quickly. If you can mitigate that, half the battle is already won. From the charm side, if you got the Clarifying Horn Charm+2 from Lamenter’s Gaol, bring it. For armor, the Solitude set you get for beating the Blackgaol Knight is a top tier choice. If you don’t want to go hunting for those, however, the Ailment Talisman—which gives you resistance to recent maladies—can help, but it also requires that you actually get fully afflicted by Madness once. That’s a desperation pick.
Once Madness is less of a concern, the first part of this fight is pretty straightforward. The initial flame attacks can be dodged by rolling forward, with a slight delay to avoid the second one. That’ll put you right up in the Eye of Sauron’s grill. Even with some (hopefully) decent Madness protection, you still want to roll through as many of Midra’s strikes as possible to avoid the build-up, and magic users will want to roll out of range and make some space as fast as possible. If you choose to bring a Spirit Ash to make this go even faster, dodge the fire attack, then roll way out of range first.
Phase Two
When phase two starts, Midra’s big divebomb attack works a lot like Messmer’s, but there’s a twist: The epicenter of Midra’s explosion actually can’t be dodged through. If you’re in the glowing red range of that explosion, you’re screwed. So the move there is to actually run out of range of that instead of roll.
After that, the fight is tricky, but most of the same principles apply. It’s mostly a race against the clock, because the Madness-inducing flames Midra now leaves in his wake are hard to avoid, even if you’re doing everything right. If you loaded up on Madness resistance, you should be fine, but, still, the faster you can put him down, the better. He’ll give you some extra help with that, though: His six-hit combo can’t turn very well and it’s lengthy, so if you manage to roll behind him early on, and can withstand the Madness, you can engage in some serious elder abuse. The diving attack is more a matter of timing than anything; just remember the delay after he lands before he detonates. The orb he summons is an annoyance more than anything, and it’s slow enough to avoid entirely, as long as you stay out of range. His face laser does pretty extensive damage, but he’ll only shoot it off if you’re too far away, and if you dodge it, he’s locked into that for a few vulnerable seconds.
Once you’ve put the old man to bed, you’ll get a hospice fee of 410,000 Runes, and the Remembrance of the Lord of Frenzied Flame. Turning that in at the Roundtable Hold will get you either Midra’s horrifying Greatsword of Damnation, or an incantation, Midra’s Flame of Frenzy, that summons his flame tendrils. By the way, did you pick up Nanaya’s Torch earlier on in the Manse? It only really clicks into place after the fight that this torch is Midra’s actual spine.
…To answer your next question, yes, you can absolutely get the hell out of there now.