Slaves to Saronite

Quest Giver (Alliance): Absalan the Pious — The Skybreaker, Icecrown

Quest Giver (Horde): Brother Keltan — Orgrim’s Hammer, Icecrown

Objective: Enter the Saronite Mines beneath Ymirheim and rescue 10 Saronite Mine Slaves.

Quick Facts

• Type: Daily
• Level: 80
• Prerequisite: The Skybreaker (Alliance)/Orgrim’s Hammer (Horde)
• Pairs With: Blood of the Chosen, Assault by Air, Assault by Ground, King of the Mountain
• Note: This quest gives Argent Crusade reputation, not Valiance Expedition/Warsong Offensive like the other Ymirheim dailies. Both quest givers are Argent Crusade ambassadors stationed aboard their respective faction’s airship.

Walkthrough

Enter the Saronite Mines

• The mine entrance is at [57, 57], in the center of Ymirheim. It appears as a cave icon on the map.
• The first time you enter, you can also pick up Mind Tricks from inside the mine, a separate one-time quest involving Foreman Thaldrin.

Free the Miners

• Speak to Saronite Mine Slaves and choose the dialogue option to free them. Each slave will react in one of three ways:
  • Freed successfully: The miner thanks you and runs toward the exit. Counts toward your 10/10.
  • Attacks you: The miner goes berserk, enrages, and turns hostile. Does not count.
  • Runs deeper into the mine: The miner babbles about “beautiful voices” and flees further underground, sometimes jumping off ledges. Does not count, though some players report getting credit by speaking to them again quickly before they jump.
• Results are random, but killing the Val’kyr Taskmistresses guarding each group of slaves before speaking to them appears to improve your odds of successful rescues significantly. Multiple players have confirmed this.

Efficiency Tips

• Clear Taskmistresses first, then speak to the nearby slaves. This seems to reduce the rate of hostile or fleeing reactions considerably.
• If a miner starts ranting and running, talk to them again immediately. You can sometimes still get rescue credit even if they subsequently jump.
• Classes with aggro-drop abilities (Rogues with Vanish, Night Elves with Shadowmeld, Hunters with Feign Death) can ignore hostile miners and guards entirely, sprinting through the cave and just talking to slaves. Only stop to fight if you must.
• A useful macro for speed: /script SelectGossipOption(1); This auto-selects the first dialogue option, letting you rapidly speak to slaves without clicking through the dialogue window.
• The guards and Ymirjar in the mine count toward Blood of the Chosen kills, so pair these quests together.

Lore & Secrets

What is Saronite?

Saronite is the crystallized blood of Yogg-Saron, the Old God of Death imprisoned beneath Ulduar in the Storm Peaks. The tuskarr of Dragonblight call it the “Black Blood of Yogg-Saron,” and they’re not being metaphorical.

Every piece of saronite ore in Northrend is a physical piece of an Old God’s body, seeping up through the earth from his prison.

Prolonged exposure to saronite drives people insane. The “beautiful voices” the mine slaves hear are Yogg-Saron’s whispers, the same whispers that corrupted Keeper Loken, poisoned the World Tree Vordrassil in Grizzly Hills, and ultimately tainted every living thing that spent too much time near saronite deposits.

Absalan is alarmed that both the slaves and you are hearing voices, and insists you rest before returning. His progress line is bleaker still, since he has not heard of any freed men reaching the Argent Vanguard and asks whether you went at all. He does not yet know the rescues are failing on the far end.

The Lich King built Icecrown Citadel itself from saronite, as well as the massive gate Angrathar the Wrathgate in Dragonblight. His armor, weapons, and fortifications throughout Icecrown are all forged from this corrupted metal. The mines beneath Ymirheim feed the Scourge’s entire war machine.

The Deeper Horror

What makes saronite especially insidious is that the Lich King knowingly uses an Old God’s body as his primary building material, even though Yogg-Saron and the Scourge are not allies.

The Old God’s whispers potentially corrupt anyone who works with saronite, meaning the Lich King’s own soldiers and slaves are slowly being driven mad by a force that serves neither side. Whether the Lich King considers this an acceptable cost or simply cannot find an alternative material strong enough for his purposes is one of WotLK’s unanswered questions.

Cross-Expansion Connections

The Pit of Saron (WotLK Dungeon)

• The slave labor operation in Ymirheim’s mines is a smaller-scale preview of what players discover inside Icecrown Citadel itself. The Pit of Saron, the second wing of the Frozen Halls dungeon complex, is a massive saronite quarry deep within the Citadel where captured champions from both factions are enslaved. Forgemaster Garfrost oversees the operation, hurling saronite boulders at players. One of the dungeon’s quest objectives is freeing 15 slaves, echoing this daily quest.

Shadowmourne (WotLK Legendary)

• The ultimate irony of saronite: the weapon forged to destroy the Lich King, Shadowmourne, is itself made from Primordial Saronite, fragments of the Frozen Throne, and the light-infused hammer Light’s Vengeance that Arthas discarded when he claimed Frostmourne. Fighting fire with fire, or in this case, Old God blood with Old God blood.

Yogg-Saron’s Reach Across WotLK

• Saronite’s corrupting influence threads through nearly every zone in Northrend. In Grizzly Hills, the failed World Tree Vordrassil grew roots that touched Yogg-Saron’s prison, corrupting the Wild God Ursoc.
• In Dragonblight, Frostmourne Cavern contains saronite deposits. In the Storm Peaks, Yogg-Saron corrupted the titan Keepers themselves from within his prison. The whispers in this mine are one small symptom of a continent-wide infestation that players don’t fully confront until they face Yogg-Saron in Ulduar.

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