How to complete Stepping into the Shadows in WoW Dragonflight

The Night Elf Heritage quest line is finally available in World of Warcraft. Even though the set of armor you receive for completing the quest line is definitely worth getting, the chain is a bit of a pain to complete—and it’s mainly due to the existence of one quest. 

The quest “Stepping into the Shadows” is found right in the middle of the Night Elf Heritage quest chain, and it’s the one quest in the storyline that’s giving some players confusion when trying to get their new armor. The escort quest doesn’t have too many direct objectives and it’s easy to fall into a trap where you think you’ve completed the quest but are instead standing around without any direction. 

Here’s how to complete Stepping into the Shadows in WoW’s new Night Elf Heritage quest line. 

How to discover what lurks in the depths of Shadow Hold

The objectives for Stepping into the Shadows are to extinguish six Felflame Braziers, as well as to “discover what lurks in the depths of Shadow Hold.” To accomplish this, you must escort Maiev Shadowsong throughout the whole of Shadow Hold. She’ll walk at a very slow pace and you must stay by her side the entire time. 

Throughout the duration of Stepping into the Shadows, you must stay within the blue dome that circles around Maiev. Should you leave it at any point, Maiev will scold you and stop walking for a few moments until you return. If you leave the blue dome for an extended amount of time, the quest will need to be abandoned and you’ll have to start it over from the beginning. 

As you traverse Shadow Hold with Maiev, be sure to extinguish the green Felflame Braziers that she points at along the way. Once you’ve extinguished six of them and finally arrive at the bottom of Shadow Hold, you’ll get credit for both of the objectives in the quest. 

Stepping into the Shadows will conclude once you get to the bottom of Shadow Hold and come face to face with an Orc Warlock named Cultist Nethus. But you cannot kill Cultist Nethus prior to escorting Maiev all the way down through Shadow Hold yourself. You must stay by her side the entire way through the area. 

When I first ran through this quest on my Night Elf character, I went down into the basement of Shadow Hold, defeated Cultist Nethus, and waited for the quest to be completed. After standing around and looking at Maiev for a few minutes, I realized I had to abandon the objective and start from scratch. 

Once you complete this quest, the back end of the chain is mostly filled with cinematics and easy-to-run-through objectives, so you won’t have to worry about any more major inconveniences.