Blade of Darkness - Playthrough Part 2

The struggle continues in this castle level filled with mist. It's annoying how a single orc is basically a boss battle. It kills you in 3 hits and their weapons poison you, so you can't bide your time for attacks. If you use their sword to poison other enemies by the trusted strategy of throwing it at them, it takes way too long for it to be effective. Plus it's very uncharacteristic for my poor barbarian to dodge for a minute before being able to actually strike (since most enemies will block and even counter your attacks if they are not in the recovery stage of an attack). Then it hit me - I was actually playing a clunkier version of Dark Souls complete with anti-player level design and stamina-based combat. This led me to save-scumming which doesn't feel good. The game even derides you for using too many saves, which seems like a slap in the face considering the FU level design. After some wandering of the castle (since you don't have a clear objective) I found a new usable weapon for my poor barbarian - the Death Sword. It does more damage and has a few different combos, but as previously stated - combos are not very useful in this game. Then I seemingly murdered everything and I couldn't find a key to progress. I had to run around one of the walls in the castle to reach a completely blocked section where the key was located. Then I met a dying knight who informed me that the Duke was kidnapped and asked me to save him. Escaping from a secret tunnel I discovered a mysterious tablet explaining some sort of origin story of the world and then I moved on to the next level - the dwarven mines.