Keep reading to learn how you can traverse through the Ashbourne Village and clear the level in Salt And Sacrifice.
Salt And Sacrifice is the second installment in Ska Studios’ Salt series. Salt and Sacrifice is also a 2D side-scrolling action role-playing game like its predecessor, Salt and Sanctuary. As you take on the role of a Marked Inquisitor, you’ll be tasked with hunting down the evil mages causing destruction across the Alterstone Kingdom.
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You have a long adventure ahead of you, and Ashbourne Village is your very first destination. What used to be a flourishing merchant town is now a ghost town and battlefield riddled with monsters. Our goal here is to guide you through clearing Ashbourne Village, starting from all there is to collect in this region and what bosses you have to fight.
Moreover, since this is an introductory level, we’ll also be explaining how mage hunting works. Last but not least, we’ll also go over all the optional activities you can do in Salt and Sacrifice’s Ashbourne Village.
Ashbourne Village Guide
As we’ve stated, Ashbourne Village is the very first destination of your journey, and it does a nice job of introducing players to the game’s overall mechanics. Once you have completed the prologue chapter and tutorial, you’ll find yourself waking up in Pardoner’s Vale. You’ll be using Pardoner’s Vale as your central hub throughout the course of the game.
How to get to Ashbourne Village
Once you wake up, you’ll meet a herbalist named Shanna, who has been tending to you while you were unconscious. Talk to her, and she will give you 5 Hearthen Flasks, which can be used for healing. Keep interacting with her to gather as much information as you can. When you have exhausted all her dialogue options, head out of the tent to find yourself in Pardoner’s Vale.
Explore the area a little and make your way west. Once you climb down the hill, you will meet another NPC named Warpsmith Zakie, who will advise you to talk to a person named Champion Hera. From there, keep progressing west until you run into her. Hera will then task you with visiting Ashbourne village. She will tell you that in order to get there, you must speak to Runereader Diedela first.
As you keep heading west, you’ll have to descend some stone stairs where you’ll meet a cat that you can pet. Keep progressing left, and you’ll eventually find Runereader Diedela standing next to a giant stone gate. Once you speak to her, she will teach you how to use the Mirrorgate, essentially a portal, to traverse the world using runes. She will give you the first set of runes required to make this travel.
Once you’re done exhausting her dialogue options, keep heading left of the screen until you reach the basket past the Mirrorgare. Then, set the Runes in place to activate the Mirrorgate. The Mirrorgate will start glowing once you’ve put in the required set of runes in their respective slots. Interact with the Mirrorgate to teleport yourself to Ashbourne Village, and after a flashy animation, you’ll reach your destination.
Obelisks
You will spawn right in front of a barn in Ashbourne Village. If you turn left, you’ll notice there is an obelisk you can interact with. You can use such obelisks throughout the Alterstone Kingdom as save points. Once you interact with an obelisk, your health, focus, and consumables will be replenished. Moreover, you can use these checkpoints to resupply materials or to return to camp, which will teleport you back to Pardoner’s Vale.
Exploring Ashbourne Village
Once you are done using the Obelisk, head left until you find some familiar foes looting some crates. The goblin-like Skallins you fought in the tutorial can be found in groups throughout Ashbourne Village. Keep killing them one by one as you keep heading west.
After you climb the hilly area, you’ll eventually reach an interjunction where a Brute will be waiting for you. Since it’s a slightly larger enemy who will pounce at you and perform heavy attacks, we advise you to evade first and then use range attacks on it.
Then turn right and climb up the zig-zag stone steps while killing the Skallins and Yew Nobles in your way. Be careful though, as some of the steps have been booby-trapped. Be mindful to pick up the bloodberries in your path as they too can replenish health.
Once you have climbed all the way up, you’ll notice that the big wooden gate to your right is locked, and there is no way to get past it. So, you’ll need to turn left and go all the way to the end of the screen. You’ll notice that there are wooden platforms you can climb there.
Pick up the Guiltless Shard at the topmost platform and climb down the ledge. Then, head down the stone steps to go down to the interjunction where you killed the brute. Going down the interjunction will take you to the sub-area called Root-Ceil Cavern.
Root-Ceil Cavern
Right as you enter the Root-Ceil Cavern, you’ll be welcomed by a new enemy called the Valley Bat. Besides that, you’ll find plenty of Skallins and Yew Nobles who can be hard to shake off.
So instead of attracting large numbers of them, try to kill them one by one as you progress west. Keep descending down the series of platforms and head east until you find a ledge with a sack containing a Guiltless Shard next to a torch.
If you head right, you’ll find yourself in a new sub-zone called Greymoss Mire. Head left and open the treasure chest to collect the Golden Candle and Bronze Snuffer. These items can be used in Co-op mode only.
Sadly, there isn’t much more you can do here, as the cliff behind the treasure chest is a dead end. So you’ll need to backtrack and get back to Root-Ceil Cavern. Now you can head further down the area. If you choose to head left, you’ll eventually come across a room with a Verdant Guard, who basically looks like a spear-wielding green samurai.
Beware that this boss is formidable, and there is no real need to fight him at this stage. Still, if you think you are up for the challenge, you may fight him as he drops some decent loot. Moreover, defeating him will also cause you to level up.
With that being said, if you don’t wish to risk dying and losing your progress until this point, it’s better to just drop down the ledge and head right instead. Then you’ll find yourself outside Greymoss Mire again.
Greymoss Mire
This area will offer more than what you’re expecting. As you head out of the Root-Ceil Cavern, you can collect 3 Wispleafs from the nearest foraging bush. Then if you progress a little more to the right, you’ll find the second Obelisk checkpoint in Ashbourne Village.
Rest up to replenish your Health, Focus, and restock your supplies and consumables because you’ll soon be facing the very first actual boss in the game. In addition to fighting Uryks, you will also be able to collect the Grappling Hook inquisitor tool from this zone.
Defeating Uryks Necklace-Of-Ears
Uryks is a giant warrior who is quadruple your size. Since this is still part of the introductory phase of the game, the boss-level difficulty is actually pretty basic. However, you should still be careful because you won’t get away from his hits unscathed.
Uryks Necklace-of-Ears wields a great blade which he will use to land heavy attacks on you. His move sets typically consist of pouncing on you, followed by a forward slash, and then a straightforward piercing in an attempt to stab you. He will pretty much repeat this pounce, slash, and stab move set throughout the course of the fight.
His movements are considerably slow due to his heavy size, but he can be pretty deadly when he catches up to you. So the best way to deal with him is through using ranged attacks while dodging his hits. When defeated, Uryks will drop one Ashpyr, an Engraved Box, and one thousand Salt.
Obtaining Grappling Hook
Once you’ve defeated Uryks, keep heading right until you reach some stone steps. If you progress a bit further, you’ll find yourself in a secluded underground cave. Drop down the ledge and take a leap of faith to your left. When you drop down on the ground, keep heading left and climb down the set of stone steps.
Inspect the dead body by the candles and interact with it. After some tugging, you’ll have acquired the Grappling Hook, an inquisitor tool that’ll come in handy during your future adventures. Now that you have the grappling hook, head right and press the action button to attach your hook to the tree branch. Keep attaching your grappling hooks to climb all the way out of the cave.
Once you’re outside, climb up the set of stairs and jump to attach your grappling hook to the tree right above the cave entrance. Now just keep climbing up the stone steps and climb up the wooden platforms on your left to reach all the way to the top.
Interact with the treasure stash to collect 3 Silver, Irona Ore, Haze Spiral, and Poison Bomb. Then climb up the final ledge and interact with the Obelisk to save progress. Then climb down the wooden platforms and enter the cave to your right. You’ll find yourself in a new sub-zone called Cratersone Mine.
Craterstone Mine
Use your grappling hook to climb up the platform and collect 5x Page of Curses from the treasure chest. Kill the Yew Noble on the platform over your head and head left. Then collect the Irona Ore and interact with the door emitting red light. You’ll see that it is sealed and requires 2 hearts of Named Mages to unlock.
The door is basically a stud at this point, so change, climb up the platforms on your left, and keep heading upwards. The Craterstone Mine is riddled with Yew Nobles, Skallins, and Brutes, so keep fighting them off as you progress forward. You’ll also find plenty of Irona Ore throughout this area.
Once you’ve reached all the way to the top, climb up the ledge on your left and climb up the stone steps. Head out the gate, and you’ll find yourself in the eastern part of Ashbourne Village.
East Ashbourne
Interact with the Obelisk near the entrance and keep heading left. Once you reach the interjunction where you can either head down the stairs or climb up wooden platforms, head up. Keep killing the Yew Nobles and Skallins in your way.
You’ll eventually meet an NPC Knight guarding the gatehouse who will mention a talking tree that only wants to speak to someone who has “devoured the heart of a Mage.” He will ask you to get on the mission by investigating the corpse emitting magical distortion. Moreover, interacting with him will also unlock the Vulgar gesture.
Once you’re done talking to him, drop down the ledge behind him, and you’ll find yourself at the starting point of Ashbourne Village. You can actually start the hunt from inside the gatehouse, but you should definitely save your progress at the Obelisk first.
But for now, recall the booby-trapped stairs leading to the area where you found your first Guiltless Shard. This is where you have to head next. Once you reach the stairs with a Skallin and Brute, defeat them.
You’ll notice that there is a hook on your right where you can latch your Grappling hook. Use it to swing to the other side and climb up the stone steps to enter the abandoned warehouse. You’ll find a frozen figure that you can interact with, and it will activate the Devour Celus Zend Mage Hunt. Keep in mind that this is an optional mage hunt quest that can be missed.
Mage Hunting
You may be wondering what mage hunting is and how it works. Mage hunting in Salt and Sacrifice is essentially mini-boss fights. You’ll come across plenty of sealed doors that require devoured hearts of named mages. You can get these hearts by activating a mage hunting quest and then winning the boss encounter.
The sealed doors in a particular region can only be unlocked with the devoured hearts of named Mages from that region only. For instance, the sealed doors in Ashbourne village can only be unlocked by devouring hearts in Ashbourne village. With that being said, some of these sealed doors are required to be unlocked for progressing the story.
To start the mage hunting quest, you’ll first have to find the corpse of the mage to activate the quest. Then a particle trail will appear, which you have to follow to get to the mage. Upon following it, you’ll have to go through a chase sequence where the mage will summon mobs of monsters and teleport to different areas. Once it stops running away, the main boss fight will commence.
Mage Hunts in Ashbourne Village
Ashbourne Village has 5 named mages you can find and then devour. They are:
Arzhan-Tin, The Ceaseless Fury
- Location: East Gatehouse
- Drops:
- Gel Sac x 1-3
- Sooted Nail x 1-5
- Burning Heart
- Ash-Caked Lung x 1-2
- Blazepyr x 1-3
Celus Zend, The Mourning Winter
- Location: West of main pathaway
- Drops:
- Frozen Heart
- Silver x 250
- Icy Vein x 1-5
- Frospyr x 1-3
- Salt x 500
- Icy Lung x 1-2
- Blue Finger x 1-3
Kundry Kahn, The Drowned Behemoth
- Location: Near Eastern Ashbourne Village Obelisk
- Drops:
- Drowned Heart
- Frospyr x 1-3
- Voidepyr x 1-3
- Silver x 250
- Weeping Gland x 1-2
- Waterlogged Organ x 1-3
- Salt x 1,625
- Deep Drop x 1-5
Varren Ovrin, The Vilest Hatred
- Location: Above Stonehall Dungeon entrance in Craterstone Mines
- Drops:
- Poison Heart
- Salt x 1,675
- Silver x 250
- Venom Gland x 1-2
- Mosspyr x 1-3
- Guiltless Shard
- Toxic Gut x 1-3
- Poison Drop x 1-5
Ekriks Graycloud, The Precipice of Chaos
- Location: On a castle bridge west of the Obelisk in Valesnight Square
- Drops:
- Crackling Heart
- Salt
- Silver
- Static Fiber x 1-5
- Blazepyr x 1-5
- Silver Tooth x 1-2
- Graphite Nail x 1-3
- Guiltless Shard
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