Help a Demon Souls noob out

I'm playing the remake on Ps+ and don't have much time to sink into it so I want to complete the playthough quickly-ish,. I'm in need of advice as to what's the best progression path here, I didn't want to look at a guide so I come to you guys.

I defeated flamelurker but noped out of Dragon God, didn't attempt the fight, looked scary af.

I had previously cleared the first level of the next archstone 3-1 but couldn't progress past the locked gates after dead guy npc. (I perished once there in human, form ( Ik,Ik)) I went back and thoroughly looked for keys or something, but found nothing. Got stuck there.

I've figured out that the world tendency is tied to progression, so maybe that's the issue?I'm playing offline and it didn't occur to me that I could off myself in the nexus (duh) so I was rolling with dying in the world one time after a boss, asuming the game wants you to take that L. world tendency still looks neutral there though, Or am I missing something else?

So after flamelueker I progressed through islands edge a little bit, didn't do the boss right away, wen't through the level thinking that I'll eventually get looped arround. But got killed (in soul form this time) by a dual wielding katana guy before a big fog gate, that fog gate looked... A 'lil more ominous(So maybe another boss?) then died again trying to get back to my souls quicky, that level feels a little tougher, but is it worth doing before Dragon god? so I'm weighting my options so I can move this playthough along, heh, any advice on what to tackle would be apreciated. I'm level 31 doing a quality build.