War stories, articles & game guides
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2026
Expeditions,
War Stories &
Culture
War stories, articles & game guides
Gamer
Tribute
2026
Expeditions,
War Stories &
Culture
“Perhaps the crystals will ward off the undead gradually, but there is one more thing that must be done. We need to find the leader of these undead and kill him to ensure there’s no one to push the wretches back upon us. If my suspicions are correct, he will be somewhere inside the fallen pillar… the Sundered Shard. The corpses being dragged there would suggest as much anyway.
I’ll place the shards and bring the news to Soo-say… I’ll leave the rest up to you.”
-Moodle
Kill Artruis the Heartless. Moodle will not be able to accompany you on this task.
You will be able to choose one of these rewards:
Upon completion of this quest you will gain:
Quest Giver: Moodle (summoned via Moodle’s Stress Ball) — Mosswalker Village, Sholazar Basin
Objective: Kill Artruis the Heartless.
Quick Facts
Walkthrough
Get to Artruis
Phase 1: Fight Artruis (100% to ~30%)
Phase 2: Choose Your Faction
| You Want… | Kill This NPC | Save This NPC | Follow-Up Quest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oracles (Green Proto-Drake, companion pets) | Zepik the Gorloc Hunter (wolvar) | Jaloot (gorloc) | Hand of the Oracles |
| Frenzyheart Tribe (Disgusting Jar, consumables) | Jaloot (gorloc) | Zepik the Gorloc Hunter (wolvar) | Frenzyheart Champion |
Phase 3: Finish Artruis
Complete the Quest
Efficiency Tips
Faction Switching
Lore & Secrets
Artruis the Heartless
Artruis is a lich leading the Scourge invasion of Sholazar Basin, operating from within the shattered Lifeblood Pillar. His combat dialogue reveals that the titan crystals scattered around the Sundered Shard actively weaken him, and he admits to underestimating the titans’ power. He also draws a direct parallel to Arthas, taunting the player about following the same path.
Despite his dramatic role, he has no deeper backstory or identity beyond being a Scourge commander assigned to exploit the breach in Sholazar’s defenses.
How Moodle Found the Lich
Nobody told Moodle where Artruis was. He worked it out.
His quest text lays out the reasoning: “Perhaps the crystals will ward off the undead gradually, but there is one more thing that must be done. We need to find the leader of these undead and kill him to ensure there’s no one to push the wretches back upon us. If my suspicions are correct, he will be somewhere inside the fallen pillar… the Sundered Shard. The corpses being dragged there would suggest as much anyway.”
During The Mosswalker Savior you watched Blighted Corpses haul chained gorlocs along a road and into a cave. Moodle watched the same thing and asked where they were being taken and why.
Soo-say sends you places on faith, Rakjak sends you places out of spite, and Zepik sends you places because he thinks it will be funny.
He then admits he cannot come with you, which is the other half of his character. He is the one Oracle sharp enough to locate a lich and honest enough to say he cannot fight one.
The Faction Choice
The Oracles are the more popular choice due to the Mysterious Egg (available at Revered), which can hatch the sought-after Reins of the Green Proto-Drake (~6% chance) along with several companion pets.
The Frenzyheart’s Disgusting Jar offers consumables but no mount.
Both factions take approximately 19 days of daily quests to reach Exalted from Honored.
Explore Sholazar Basin’s hidden easter eggs, lore mysteries, and connections across Warcraft history in Vikstone’s Sholazar Basin Chronicles, along with the complete quest storyline.
Vikstone's War Journal“I’ll place the shards and bring the news to Soo-say,” Moodle said. “I’ll leave the rest up to you.” Then, because he had worked it out and wanted me to know he had worked it out: “The corpses being dragged there would suggest as much anyway.”
Dragged there. Something in that cave had been collecting.
The Sundered Shard sat east of the broken pillar, and the cold came out of the mouth of it.
Slagyn was waiting at the entrance with her cat pressed low against her legs. Another night elf, a hunter, and she had been working this basin as long as I had.
“Two of us against a lich,” she said.
She nocked an arrow. Good enough.
Artruis the Heartless stood at the back of the cavern, and on either side of him, frozen upright in the ice, were Zepik and Jaloot.
“Ah, the heroes. Your little friends said you would come. This certainly saves me the trouble of hunting you down myself.”
He opened with frost. Ice spread out from under my boots and I got clear of it before it set, and my mace came down on frost-rimed armor hard enough to crack it. Slagyn’s arrows came in from the far wall, and her cat went for his flank and pulled out again before the nova caught it.
“Arthas once mustered strength of the very same sort.” He turned my axe aside with shadow and did not seem to be working hard at it. “Perhaps his is the path you will follow.”
His nova locked my legs and the ice lance came straight after it, which is the correct order to do that in, and it went through my shoulder plate. But the crystals in that cavern were doing something to him. He was slower than he should have been.
“Even shattered into countless pieces, the crystals all around weaken me.” He gave ground toward the ice. “Perhaps I should not have underestimated the titans so.”
Then he stopped retreating and started binding.
Whatever he threw over Zepik and Jaloot ran back to him in threads I could see. The ice around them broke, and both of them came off the wall with their weapons up and nothing behind their faces, and when I put my axe into Artruis he laughed and took no wound at all.
Bound to them. Protected while they lived.
“These two brave, ignorant fools despise each other, yet somehow they both spoke of you as heroes.” He was not even watching the fight anymore. “Perhaps you just lack the will to choose a side.”
He had not offered me a choice. He had built a door with one key in it and told me I lacked the will to use it.
I made my choice.
Zepik came first, spear up, the same spear he had jabbed at me on the day we met when he called me a slave and threatened to taunt me a second time.
Slagyn had her arrow drawn. She looked at me and waited.
My axe caught him mid-lunge.
The threads went out of the air. Jaloot came out of it slower, blinking, and then turned and threw everything he had at the lich, and the three of us took Artruis apart on the frost-covered stone.
The phylactery lay beside what was left of him. Inside was a void with no floor to it and screaming coming up from somewhere a long way down, and an object turning slowly in the dark just close enough to reach. I closed my hand on it and pulled my arm back out of there fast.
Slagyn’s cat went over and sniffed at Zepik and made a sound I did not care for.
I had killed him. Not for the Oracles, whatever the Oracles will decide it meant. I killed him because a lich made him the lock on a door, and I have never once in this entire campaign been given a choice.
Slagyn slung her bow and said nothing about it, which was the correct thing to say.
Zepik was dead and Jaloot was standing, which settled a question Vikstone had been putting off since the day a wolvar called him a slave, and the wolvar had a standing offer of their own for anyone who changed their mind about being a Frenzyheart Champion.
