Yeah, as the title says up there, four times now I've suddenly been met with the message that I am being summoned as a grey spirit, despite me just going about my business being a very lonely Blue Sentinel. Two times I've spawned in and been hit with massive spells right away and died. So, basically, what's this all about?

@gatehouse: Are you in the area that you arrive in after you drop down the well? Because if so you are getting summoned by the Rat King Covenant members. If you aren't a covenant member you'll consantly get summoned while in that area.

it happens in the two rat covenant areas, the grave of saints and doors of pharros, tackle those areas offline if it gets annoying.

it's dumb that they spawn you in at the same spot every time, and that mobs are hostile to you but not the other player, makes it a camp-fest, pretty irritating.

@demoskinos: Twice summoned in the Pharros Door place, twice more in Grave of Saints. So, they pull you into their world? Any reason why, or is it just for fun? Oh well, totally murdered the two fellows who summoned me in the Saints bit, so at least I feel good about that.

I assume it's just to mix things up compared to normal invasions. It's ultimately a good thing for us, because if you do die there's no penalty.

They pull you into their world because they can set up traps using lockstones, which they receive whenever they successfully kill their invader.

You don't have to fight. If you make it to the fog door it'll say "Objective Complete" and give you a pharros' lockstone.

It's pretty easy to run past every enemy.

I've been summoned once in Pharros Door and it freaked me out at first because I didn't know there was another Rat King place. The host dropped down into the water to try to gank me with one of the Mastodons, but after he tried to melee me and got a face full of blacksteel katana all he did was back up waiting for a chance to cast a pyro; however, anytime he started to it gave me enough time to catch up to him and slap him. It felt really weird when I won.

If you're really not in the mood for pvp and happen to have to traverse these two areas, you can just use the black separation crystal to go back to your world unless the guy is waiting at the spawn and jumps you but they have to be pretty quick. There's no penalty for losing but some people really hate the pvp and want to avoid it at all costs.

@skyrider: where did you get the black steel Katana from? Really gagging for a katana of any type. Loved the ones in DS1

@leebmx: The knights in Iron Keep have a chance to drop them. I have no idea if the drop is common or rare, as I only killed them whilst making boss runs (granted, I killed them enough to make them stop respawning, but I don't recall it taking very long). If you don't want to farm, I know that you can buy the Uchigatana from one of the Blacksmiths.

Being summoned in Pharros is kinda shit cause there are big enemies and small enemies around. But last night I had just respecced into a mage/int build, so I couldn't use any of my upgraded strength weapons and my vit wasn't high enough to wear heavy armor and shield and still roll. So I had on lion mage stuff to improve my cast speed and used an un-upgraded wisdom staff. I went into Pharos looking for Gavlan so I could make some souls off him, but I accidentally stepped one foot in the wrong doorway for literally a second when I got summoned as a gray spirit. When I came in I was met with the mastodon enemies and rat dogs while the player was trying to snipe me with arrows. I decided not to fuck with the enemies and run up the perch to where he was. I managed to get past all the enemies unscathed. He was still trying to pelt me with arrows while I was running up toward him too. He met me halfway and we duked it out close range. Not having a melee weapon, I decided to try out the soul greatsword. He was dead in two hits. It was the most badass I ever felt in Dark Souls 2. I felt like I defied all odds against me. I was on low ground, outnumbered, had light armor, and no melee weapon and I charged toward him through all the enemies and arrows.

You can also buy Uchigatanas from McDuff.