You'll find the seaside city of Ashos on the coast southwest of Quidnar, after a substantial journey. It's the last major city you'll find in Two Worlds (not counting the orc-infested citadel of Gor Grammar near the volcano in the far south), and one with some of the most surprising twists and turns in a pacifist challenge run.
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| Approaching the gates of Ashos, flanked by stone statues of Yatholen's serpent people... |
We'll give the details about all the pacifist run quests we found in Ashos in the next post, but here's a key warning to be aware of in advance (including major plot spoilers, as usual): If you take the Relic Water Stone found in Yatholen's Temple, it can trigger the automatic failure of every profitable nonviolent sub-quest in the entire city, since it will cause a disastrous orc invasion of the city to take place. This disaster is scripted into the plot and is not avoidable in any other way we know of, but fortunately there is a way to rectify the situation later and bring about a surprise happy ending for Ashos and all its citizens...
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| The picturesque city of Ashos is not as hopelessly doomed as it might appear after the orc invasion takes place... |
The Death & Resurrection of Ashos:
In order to complete the main storyline of Two Worlds, you'll eventually have to sneak into the Temple of Yatholen near the far western oceanside wall of Ashos in order to reclaim the Relic Water Stone. (You may remember Yatholen as the same irascible sea deity who was sending the scapulari squid people to menace the villagers of Clovelly, if you visited that village earlier.)
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| Approaching the fateful temple of Yatholen... |
According to many of the citizens of Ashos, the orc invaders in the surrounding countryside can't capture Ashos since the city is under Yatholen's supernatural protection. This is facilitated by a magical relic called the "Eye of Yatholen," which the deity uses to keep watch over the city and all who would threaten it. (The details on how to actually get to this stone are covered in the next section on Ashos.)
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| The Eye of Yatholen, also known as the "Relic Water Stone", in the heart of the Temple... |
The bad news is that the "Eye of Yatholen" is none other than the Relic Water Stone you must acquire in order to complete the main quest to re-assemble the relic. Taking the Eye of Yatholen will result in the unavoidable disaster scripted into the game's plot: As soon as you take the Relic Water Stone, you'll emerge from the Temple to discover that orc invaders have sacked the city and massacred every single citizen of Ashos...
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| Uh-oh... Orc invaders have breached the Gates and slain everyone in Ashos. But don't worry: it's reversible. |
But there's some surprising good news: With the level 15 Air magic spell "Resurrection," you can actually revive every single slain citizen in the entire city of Ashos and literally bring the entire city population back to life again. (This still works even if there's a long gap between the disaster taking place, and your acquiring the Resurrection spell later on in the game.)
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| The hero (wearing orc Camouflage) finishes resurrecting four Ashos soldiers whose corpses were lying in the street... |
When this is done, everyone will again be alive and well again, and go back to their usual business in the city with the exact same personalities and daily routines that they had before the orcs sacked the city.
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| Resurrecting the mage Kano Mizoguchi, who was slain by the orc invaders in his home... |
The significant interim problem, of course, is that Ashos is still full of hostile orc invaders lumbering around the city after you exit the temple, which will cause a little bit of temporary "tension" between the people of Ashos and the orc invaders, and require the player to choose how to deal with the situation...
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| Resurrected Ashos citizens and soldiers, allied with resurrected orcs, brawl with orc invaders in the streets... |
Pacifist-Run Resurrection Spree:
The only "non-interventionist" choice we know of at this point would have been to just let the orc invaders slay all (and then flee the city), but we decided this wasn't palatable for various reasons, including that our mandatory quest to remove the Eye of Yatholen had already facilitated the orcs' successful breach of the city's supernatural defenses...
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| The hero observes several Chaos-Raged orc invaders battling each other... |
Our compromise approach: We wanted to bring all the citizens of Ashos back to life and reverse their deaths, but every being that gets resurrected can only be brought back to life once. To deal with this without letting the orcs murder any resurrected citizens a second time, we chose "indirect" tactics by casting Chaos Rage on the orcs to make them fight each other for a bit first, then resurrected the fallen orcs to tip the balance in our side's favor...
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| The gold-armored Ashos soldiers are the best match against orcs, but mettlesome citizens like these are also keen to do their part... |
Then we began resurrecting several clusters of Ashos soldiers and tough citizens who were more than a match for the orcs when fighting in a group. As the Ashos soldiers and citizens gradually defeat the orcs, you can immediately also resurrect any fallen orcs, who will jump up and join the defending side (remaining friendly and non-hostile after the battle ends).
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| Resurrected orcs dispatched by Ashos soldiers and citizens are added to the defending side's ranks... |
Caveat: Assuming you want to preserve the lives of the good people of Ashos, make sure not to be too hasty in resurrecting any of the less formidable civilians too early, because if they or any other resurrected entity gets bumped off a second time, you won't be able to bring them back to life again.
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| Resurrecting some of the more vulnerable citizens, after the majority of orcs are resurrected and fighting on our side... |
A theoretic alternative approach with a net-zero death toll:
Players who aren't shy about combat could theoretically dispatch all the orcs in the city first, then go on an even more extensive resurrection spree and bring every single dead orc and Ashos citizen back to life, without a single being on either side of the conflict remaining permanently dead...
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| Chaos-raged orcs express their cultural passion for martial conquest against each other rather than the people of Ashos... |
We didn't try this, since being improperly rewarded with a huge harvest of experience points for any "kills" or combat solutions to problems isn't a very sporting thing for our own pacifist challengers to do. However, Two Worlds admittedly provides so much nonviolent quest experience that many players won't care about this, so if you want to make the net "death toll" comes out a wash without a single Ashos citizen or a single orc remaining permanently dead, this is one other contrarian option.
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| The hero contemplates the moon over Ashos, while patiently waiting for some chaos-raged orcs to finish their brawl... |
Either way, once the hostile orc invaders have all been dealt with, all the resurrected orcs will be on their best behavior: As soon as they're resurrected and have finished fighting with any of the original orc invaders, the orcs will become docile and peacefully coexist alongside the natives of Ashos. We even found some of them quietly volunteering to sweep the city streets with brooms:
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| Resurrected orcs dutifully sweep the streets of Ashos after the battle ends... |
Just one final caveat, on a lighter note: The citizens of Antaloor aren't especially keen on orcish visitors to their cities, and Ashos is obviously no exception— so if you're wearing the Orc Camouflage armor in order to avoid being attacked by the orcs, you'll also have to watch out for being accosted by resurrected guards. Otherwise they are likely to falsely accuse you of stealing (or worse) even if you haven't done anything, and demand large bribes.
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| A guard resurrected by the hero several moments earlier makes accusations and demands bribes... |
If this does happen, you can usually buy them off for 30% of the amount of gold they demanded as a bribe. (You can also promise to leave the city, but if they see you again after a fairly short period of time passes, they might attack, making the already complex task of resurrecting the entire city of Ashos even more challenging.)
Now that you've been warned about the Doom of Ashos—and how to solve it if you've gotten the lv15 Air Spell Resurrection—it's finally time to go enjoy the many profitable sub-quests found all over Ashos, described in the next post...
