Hazardous Materials

Quest Giver: Stefan Vadu — Ebon Watch, Zul’Drak [14, 73]

Objective: Return to Overlord Drakuru and complete his task (Zero Tolerance), AND secretly steal 5 Harvested Blight Crystals from crates inside Voltarus.

Quick Facts

• • Level: 75
  • Location: Voltarus/Reliquary of Pain, Zul’Drak
  • Chain Position: Step 7 of the Drakuru infiltration chain (following So Far, So Bad).
  • Next Quest: Sabotage

Walkthrough

Same dual-objective structure as So Far, So Bad: Stefan gives you the parent quest with a secret espionage task, you teleport into Voltarus to get Drakuru’s sub-quest, complete both objectives, then report back.

This time the espionage happens inside Voltarus itself rather than down at the Reliquary.

Understanding the Structure

Hazardous Materials has two tracked objectives:

• “Drakuru’s task complete” — Go to Drakuru in Voltarus, accept his sub-quest Zero Tolerance, complete it, and turn it in to him.
• “Harvested Blight Crystal (5)” — Stefan’s secret assignment. Steal crystal samples from crates inside Voltarus while Drakuru isn’t looking.

Step 1: Steal the Crystals Inside Voltarus

Activate your disguise, teleport into Voltarus, and look for sparkling crates on the same level as Drakuru. Right-click them to loot Harvested Blight Crystals. You must be disguised to interact with the crates.

The catch: Stefan warns you directly: “Handling those crystals can trigger your disguise to fail.” Looting crates has a random chance of breaking your disguise. Some report zero failures in 5 crates, others report it dropping after every single one. Be prepared.

• Stay near the outer edges of the platform when looting. If your disguise drops near the center, the hostile mobs spawning from Voltarus’s portals can aggro.
• Watch for the disguise warning. You get roughly 8 seconds’ notice before it fails. If you see the warning, stop looting and move to a safe corner to re-activate the choker.
• Safe spots: Behind the prisoner cages or tucked against the back wall (same safe zones from previous quests).
• You can loot crates out of disguise in emergencies. If your disguise drops, you can fight off any mobs that aggro, then re-disguise and continue. The crates only require the disguise to interact with.

Step 2: Get and Complete Drakuru’s Sub-Quest

Speak to Drakuru in Voltarus. He’ll offer Zero Tolerance, which requires you to use the Scepter of Empowerment on a Servant of Drakuru at the Reliquary of Pain, then use its abilities to defeat Darmuk. (See the Zero Tolerance quest page for detailed mechanics on the pet combat system.)

Important note about the connection: Drakuru is furious because his blight batch has been ruined: “Ignorance! Dis be intolerable, mon! My entire batch of blight be useless!”

He blames Darmuk for failing to watch over the blight and wants him executed. The irony? It was YOUR sabotage from So Far, So Bad that diluted the cauldrons. Drakuru is unknowingly sending you to punish someone for your own handiwork.

Step 3: Turn In and Report

After completing Zero Tolerance (turn in to Drakuru) and collecting all 5 crystals, exit Voltarus and blow Stefan’s Horn to summon him. Turn in Hazardous Materials to Stefan for your rewards. He’s eager to study the crystals: “We’ll look into the properties of these crystals right away.”

Lore Context

Stefan’s alarm at hearing about blight crystals (“What could this scumbag Drakuru be up to?”) foreshadows the full scope of Drakuru’s plans.

The crystals harvested by Blight Geists in It Rolls Downhill are being stockpiled inside Voltarus for something significant, and Stefan needs samples to figure out what.

The quest name may be a nod to Valve’s Half-Life, where an experiment with a similar-looking orange crystal triggers a catastrophic “resonance cascade.”

The subsequent chapter of Half-Life is also titled “Unforeseen Consequences,” echoing the chain reaction Drakuru’s crystal experiments set in motion.

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