Just beat the 1-2 boss (the tower guard or w/e). He was a good bit easier this time. Killing him netted me 10k souls.
At first I thought "Woot! 10 new soul levels! until I realized that it'll cost me 2800 souls to go up the next level, and even more after that. =/
And why is it the the broken archstone just so happens to lead to the area I want to go the most? A land of giants is full of crazy possibilities.
I can only hope they plan to add it in as DLC down the road.