War stories, articles & game guides
Gamer
Tribute
2026
Expeditions,
War Stories &
Culture
War stories, articles & game guides
Gamer
Tribute
2026
Expeditions,
War Stories &
Culture
“Those shards you recovered can only have come from one place, Malykriss. It’s the seat of the Lich King’s metalworking operations, to the east of Corp’rethar. What’s puzzling is that metal isn’t needed to stitch together abominations or flesh giants, or to summon skeletal servants.
Find the skeletal runesmiths working on the bottom level of Malykriss and capture the plates they’re working on. We need to find out why this metal is finding its way to the Fleshwerks.”
-Crusader Olakin Sainrith
Bring 5 Runed Saronite Plates to Crusader Olakin Sainrith at Blackwatch.
You will be able to choose one of these rewards:
You will also receive:
Upon completion of this quest you will gain:
Quest Giver: Crusader Olakin Sainrith — Blackwatch, Icecrown [35.4, 66.3]
Objective: Bring 5 Runed Saronite Plates to Crusader Olakin Sainrith at Blackwatch.
Quick Facts
Walkthrough
Head to the bottom/middle level of Malykriss, southeast of the furnaces where you completed I’m Smelting… Smelting!. The Skeletal Runesmiths are found in large numbers around [59, 74], working near anvils.
Kill 5 Runesmiths and loot Runed Saronite Plates from their bodies. The drop rate is very high (reported near 100%). Return the plates to Olakin at Blackwatch.
Olakin’s conclusion: the plates match the jagged shards almost exactly. The Scourge is cutting fragments from these runed saronite plates and embedding them into ghouls to weaponize even their lowest-tier forces.
Efficiency Tips
Lore Context
This quest completes the three-part mystery that started with Jagged Shards. The investigation chain goes: (1) Find crude metal shards in Fleshwerks ghouls, (2) Smelt them at Malykriss to identify the metal as raw saronite, (3) Trace the source to Scourge runesmiths who are mass-producing runed saronite plates and cutting them into shard-sized fragments for ghoul implantation.
Olakin’s reaction: “The Scourge is desperate enough to make a weapon of anything.” The Lich King is scaling up armament of even disposable troops, a sign that the Scourge is preparing for a larger conflict. This desperation mirrors the broader Icecrown narrative where both sides are racing toward a final confrontation at the Citadel.
Malykriss itself is described in quest text as “the seat of the Lich King’s metalworking operations,” a weapons forge built directly adjacent to Icecrown Citadel. It’s the industrial heart of the Scourge war machine, and the Blackwatch chain is systematically dismantling its operations.
Explore Icecrown’s hidden easter eggs, lore mysteries, and connections across Warcraft history in Vikstone’s Icecrown Chronicles, along with the complete quest storyline.
Vikstone's War Journal“Those shards you recovered can only have come from one place, Malykriss,” Olakin said. “It’s the seat of the Lich King’s metalworking operations, to the east of Corp’rethar. What’s puzzling is that metal isn’t needed to stitch together abominations or flesh giants, or to summon skeletal servants. Find the skeletal runesmiths working on the bottom level of Malykriss and capture the plates they’re working on. We need to find out why this metal is finding its way to the Fleshwerks.”
He is puzzled that anybody bothered. The Scourge does not need steel. Flesh and a summoner will produce an army by morning, and I have watched that happen at four altars with my own hands on the stone.
The runesmiths work the bottom level in numbers. Skeletal, hunched over the benches. They are cutting runes into finished plates of saronite, stroke by stroke, the way a scribe works a page.
The shards are the offcuts from these, the pieces that come away at the edge when the plate is trimmed, and somebody down in the Fleshwerks is pushing the trimmings into ghouls.
I took five plates. The runesmiths did not stop when I came in and did not stop when the first one went down.
“These plates match the shards almost exactly. They must be using cuttings from them to ‘enhance’ the ghouls produced here. The Scourge is desperate enough to make a weapon of anything, it seems. All the more reason to hasten our destruction of this abominable place!”
This person was not a runesmith or a foreman but a specialist with a laboratory of his own inside the Fleshwerks, which meant the next call Vikstone paid was A Visit to the Doctor.
