So… I was fed up with dieing against the gargoyles and decided to check out the preceding areas. In the city of undead (before the taurus boss) I found a cliff, directly beside the stairs leading up to the tower.
To my dissatisfaction I wasn't able to get into the hole in the wall below the cliffs and died. Now my posessions (which is a not inconsiderable amount of souls) are lieing there, easily accessible on the cliff.
But as I see it there's no way to get back up from that cliff without dieing from the fall…
Is there any way I can recover my posessions from there?
Best Answer
There is a way back. I've marked up a portion of this map to show you how.
Homeward bones work just as well, of course, but the drop to get back up is quite safe. The real danger is in jumping off in the first place.
I think this was meant to be a place to escape the boulder trap at the last second but anyone attempting this should definitely edge off and to one side (so probably walking off the stairs while heading up them would work) but jump or otherwise step off too energetically and you'll miss it.
Once you're down there, just break the stuff to find the path to jump off and get to the stairs by the knight to get back up to where you were before. This means you don't have to use a homeward bone (which aren't exactly abundant so early in the game in NG) and you won't have to deal with respawned enemies.