War stories, articles & game guides
Gamer
Tribute
2026
Expeditions,
War Stories &
Culture
War stories, articles & game guides
Gamer
Tribute
2026
Expeditions,
War Stories &
Culture
“It’s all a bunch of cryptic nonsense! Even with this cipher I can’t make heads or tails of these tablets. Admittedly, cryptography is not my strong point. You’ll need to take the cipher and tablets to our cryptographer, Stanwad. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard from Stanwad in two weeks. He took a team of twenty scientists to the dig sites on the southeastern bluffs of the fjord and hasn’t been heard from since.
The best I can do is have McGoyver over there give you a lift with his flying machine.”
-Beltrand McSorf
Deliver Beltrand McSorfs Bundle to Stanwad at the Explorers’ League Outpost in Howling Fjord.
Quest Giver: Beltrand McSorf at Valgarde Port
Objective: Deliver McSorf’s Bundle to Stanwad at the Explorers’ League Outpost.
Quick Facts
Walkthrough
After accepting the quest from McSorf, find McGoyver, a gnome standing in the shallows near Valgarde’s dock at approximately [60.7, 61.4]. He’s next to his flying machine.
Speak with McGoyver to take his flying machine to the Explorers’ League Outpost at [74, 65]. The flight takes 2-3 minutes and provides a scenic tour of southeastern Howling Fjord.
Upon landing, find Stanwad and deliver the bundle to complete the quest.
Story Context
McSorf, despite having the cipher and tablets, can’t make sense of them:
“It’s all a bunch of cryptic nonsense! Even with this cipher I can’t make heads or tails of these tablets. Admittedly, cryptography is not my strong point.”
“You’ll need to take the cipher and tablets to our cryptographer, Stanwad. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard from Stanwad in two weeks. He took a team of twenty scientists to the dig sites on the southeastern bluffs of the fjord and hasn’t been heard from since.”
“The best I can do is have McGoyver over there give you a lift with his flying machine.”
This sets up troubling implications: Stanwad’s team of twenty scientists has gone silent for two weeks. Between the four-person expedition team (two dead, two surviving) and now twenty more researchers potentially in danger, the Explorers’ League’s Howling Fjord operations have been disastrous.
The Anticlimactic Revelation: Stanwad’s completion text delivers a brutal punchline to the entire chain:
“<Stanwad takes the bundle from you and begins sorting the data.>”
“Wow. How many people did you say died to get this information?”
“<Stanwad shakes his head.>”
“You’ll be happy to know that what McSorf and his crew of bumbling imbeciles discovered is an ancient recipe for tundra stew. Did he not notice the icons of common vegetables and the pictograph of a humanoid mouth chompin’ down on said veggies? You don’t need a damned cipher to break this code!”
Two dwarves died for a recipe. Stanwad’s dismissive tone and interdepartmental rivalry with McSorf adds dark comedy to what was framed as a momentous archaeological discovery. The “missing link to humankind” was actually a vrykul cookbook entry.
Important Note: This doesn’t mean the vrykul-human connection was fabricated. The revelations about human origins come from a separate quest chain at Nifflevar involving The Echo of Ymiron and Anguish of Nifflevar. McSorf’s expedition simply recovered the wrong tablets.
Easter Egg: MacGyver
McGoyver is a reference to MacGyver, the American action-adventure TV series that aired from 1985 to 1992 starring Richard Dean Anderson. The show’s title character, Angus MacGyver, was famous for his resourcefulness: solving complex problems using common items like a Swiss Army knife and duct tape rather than weapons or high-tech equipment.
The name “MacGyver” has entered the English lexicon as a verb meaning “to improvise a solution using available materials.” McGoyver’s homemade flying machine fits this theme of improvised engineering.
Quest Chain: Explorers’ League Investigation
Chain Summary: What began as a search for missing archaeologists evolved into a gladiatorial gauntlet and culminated in one of WoW’s best anticlimactic reveals: two dwarves died for a soup recipe.
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.
You will be able to choose one of these rewards:
You will also receive:
Upon completion of this quest you will gain:
Vikstone's War JournalMcSorf stared at the tablets like they’d personally insulted him.
“It’s all a bunch of cryptic nonsense! Even with this cipher I can’t make heads or tails of these tablets.” He threw up his hands. “Admittedly, cryptography is not my strong point. You’ll need to take them to our cryptographer, Stanwad.”
Another delivery.
“Unfortunately, I haven’t heard from Stanwad in two weeks. He took a team of twenty scientists to the dig sites on the southeastern bluffs of the fjord and hasn’t been heard from since.”
Twenty scientists and two weeks of silence probably meant they were dead.
“The best I can do is have McGoyver over there give you a lift with his flying machine.”
The gnome’s contraption rattled and shook the entire flight, but it got me to the Explorers’ League Outpost in one piece. Stanwad was there, alive, surrounded by dig equipment and the general chaos of academic fieldwork.
He took the bundle and began sorting through it. “Wow. How many people did you say died to get this information?”
I told him.
He shook his head.
“You’ll be happy to know that what McSorf and his crew of bumbling imbeciles discovered is an ancient recipe for tundra stew.” He pointed at the tablets. “Did he not notice the icons of common vegetables and the pictograph of a humanoid mouth chompin’ down on said veggies?”
A recipe.
Pulroy and Zedd died for a recipe.
I said nothing. There was nothing to say.
A soup recipe and two dead dwarves, which Vikstone left where they lay for the moment, because the Dragonflayer harpoons were still sinking Alliance ships and somebody in Valgarde had turned up the manual that opens The Path to Payback.
