Vile Like Fire!

Quest Giver: Vile – patrolling the courtyard at The Shadow Vault, Icecrown [43.1, 25.2]

Objective: Steal a Njorndar Proto-Drake and use it to set fire to 8 vrykul buildings in the greater Jotunheim region.

Quick Facts

• Type: Daily quest
• Prerequisite: Crush Dem Vrykuls!
• Pairs With: Other Jotunheim dailies (Leave Our Mark, Shoot ‘Em Up) for an efficient daily circuit

Walkthrough

Finding the Proto-Drakes

• Fly to Njorndar Village in the Jotunheim area. Look for neutral (yellow-named) proto-drakes on the ground. Click one to mount it.

Burning Buildings

• Once mounted, you get a vehicle ability bar with a fire breath attack. Fly over the wooden vrykul buildings in Jotunheim and use the fire ability while hovering near or above the rooftops.
• You need to set 8 buildings ablaze. Balargarde Fortress cannot be burned (the quest text explicitly notes this, as it’s stone construction). Target the wooden structures scattered throughout the area.
• You cannot burn the same building twice in a row. However, you can alternate between two adjacent buildings, burning one then the other, even if both are still on fire. This makes a two-building loop the fastest completion method.

Efficiency Tips

• Find two wooden buildings close together and alternate fire breath between them. 4 passes on each building and you’re done in under 2 minutes.
• This quest requires no dismounting or ground combat. Grab it alongside your other Jotunheim dailies, do the ground quests first (Leave Our Mark, etc.), then finish with Vile Like Fire! as a quick aerial cleanup.
• One fire attack per building is generally sufficient for credit. The building will visibly catch fire when it counts.

Lore & Secrets

Bestiary: Njorndar Proto-Drakes

• The proto-drakes you steal for this quest are stationed at Njorndar Village [27, 37], a vrykul settlement in Jotunheim. Proto-drakes are the primitive ancestors of true dragons, creatures untouched by Titan influence. While the dragonflights were reshaped by the Titans into ordered species, proto-drakes remained wild. The vrykul of Jotunheim have domesticated some as war mounts, and the Lich King’s forces have even corrupted others with the Plague of Undeath at places like the Blighted Pool in Valkyrion.
• When mounted, the Njorndar Proto-Drake gives you two abilities: Burst of Speed (100% flight speed increase for 8 seconds) and Strafe Jotunheim Building (fire breath with 60-yard range). The generous range means you can strafe buildings from a safe altitude without needing to dive low.

Balargarde Fortress

• The quest notes that Balargarde Fortress “cannot be set ablaze” due to its stone construction. This isn’t just a gameplay note; it’s a worldbuilding detail. Balargarde is the seat of Overthane Balargarde, the supreme lord of Jotunheim and a frost vrykul elite. The fortress as “a place that tries to put Utgarde Keep to shame in size and number of decorative skulls.” It’s visible from as far away as Borean Tundra and northwestern Sholazar Basin. You’ll visit it later in the chain for the Banshee’s Revenge group quest, where Overthane Balargarde (voiced by Matthew Mercer) rides his personal proto-drake Safirdrang into battle against you.

Patch history: the quest originally asked for 10 buildings in its description while the objective counter tracked 8. Blizzard later corrected the description, so Classic players see 8 in both places.

Nearby Easter Egg

• While doing Jotunheim dailies, the Ebon Blade Prisoners quest (from Vaelen the Flayed) features a Silence of the Lambs reference: the caged death knights say “It takes the key and opens the cage,” echoing Buffalo Bill’s infamous “lotion in the basket” speech pattern.

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