The Cleansing

Quest Giver: Watcher Moonleaf — Steel Gate, Howling Fjord [30, 28.6]

Turn In: Watcher Moonleaf (same NPC)

Objective: Climb to the Frostblade Shrine atop Frostblade Peak, meditate to summon Your Inner Turmoil, and defeat it.

Quick Facts

• Level: 71
• Faction: Alliance (Horde has a parallel version)
• Chain: 1 of 5 — The Cleansing → In Worg’s Clothing → Brother Betrayers → Eyes of the Eagle → Alpha Worg

Walkthrough

Find the Path

• From Steel Gate, head northeast. The path up Frostblade Peak starts at [53, 8], where the road forks and a footpath branches east up the mountain. If you hit the Grizzly Hills border, you’ve gone too far north.
• The trail is long and winds upward. You may encounter Howling Cyclones (air elementals) along the way, so don’t expect a peaceful stroll.

Meditate at the Shrine

• The Frostblade Shrine sits at the peak around [61, 2]. Click the shrine to begin meditating (roughly 8-second channel).
• Your Inner Turmoil spawns as a shadowy doppelganger of your character. It only uses basic melee attacks regardless of your class. Warlocks, mages, hunters all report getting a petless melee version of themselves. The fight is trivial.

Enjoy the Descent

• After defeating Your Inner Turmoil, you receive the Meditating buff: a 3-minute slow fall effect. Jump off the mountain and glide down.
• Alliance: Aim south toward Fort Wildervar or Caldemere Lake. Landing in the lake avoids fall damage entirely if you click off the buff early.
• Horde players doing the parallel version: Avoid drifting east toward Fort Wildervar. Alliance guards will kill you.
• You can mount while the buff is active, but mounting significantly increases glide distance.

Group Note

• Only the player who interacts with the shrine receives the Meditating buff. Party members can help kill the Inner Turmoil for quest credit, but they won’t get the slow fall unless they use the shrine themselves. Make sure each member takes a turn.

Efficiency Tips

• The walk up is the longest part of this quest. Plan to combine this trip with anything else in the northeast Fjord.
• After turning in The Cleansing, Moonleaf gives you In Worg’s Clothing, which sends you into Rivenwood with a Worg Disguise to speak with a worg named Ulfang. Save the disguise item on your action bar after the quest. It gives a significant movement speed boost on a short cooldown, and it’s recommended to keep it handy for the rest of the zone since many quests involve short runs where mounting isn’t worth it.

Inner Turmoil Dialogue

• Your Inner Turmoil whispers during the fight:
  • “You think that you can get rid of me through meditation?”
  • “Fool! I will destroy you and finally become that which has been building inside of you all these years!”
  • “You cannot defeat me. I’m an inseparable part of you!”
  • “NOOOOOOOoooooooooo!”

Lore Context

Watcher Moonleaf is a night elf druid at Steel Gate who senses that a worg named Ulfang is calling for help. Before she can teach you to walk among the worgs, she requires you to purge your inner darkness through meditation.

This is the gateway quest for the entire Ulfang storyline, one of the longer chains in the Steel Gate area, culminating in a confrontation with the Alpha Worg.

Frostblade Peak is described in Exploring Azeroth: Northrend as the “sister mountain to Gjalerhorn,” but unlike Gjalerbron (which is crawling with vrykul and undead), Frostblade Peak is relatively peaceful.

The slow fall buff is a nod to the idea that meditation makes you “light as a feather.” The view from the peak is one of the better scenic vistas in Howling Fjord, and the glide down is genuinely fun.

Explore Howling Fjord’s hidden easter eggs, lore mysteries, and connections across Warcraft history in Vikstone’s Howling Fjord Chronicles, along with the complete quest storyline.