Riddle of Baa'l

The Riddle of Baa'l is a puzzle to obtain [Baa'ls Darksign]. The puzzle consists of riddles where you'll have to hunt and rub pebbles across Kul Tiras and Zandalar in a certain order.

Prerequisites[]

Level 45
A fully-empowered and world-toured Uuna who will return /hugs
Any battle pet (Level 1 Pets make the battle significantly easier).

Some additional items/mechanics are recommended:

Swim speed boost: [Swim Speed Potion] or [Feast of the Fishes] or [Underlight Angler] or [Travel Form]
Water walking: [Elixir of Water Walking] or [Water Walking] or [Levitate] or any Water strider mounts
Controlled slow fall: [Goblin Glider Kit]
Invisibility: [Draenic Invisibility Potion] or [Skaggldrynk]
Flying: [Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder, Part Two]

Tracking quest[]

You can use the following script to track your progress.

/run local a,q=0,{{52819},{52809,52810},{52818,52812,-1},{53632,53634},{52827,52831},{52898,52922}} for x, y in ipairs(q) do for i = y[1], y[2] or y[1], y[3] or 1 do a=a+1 print(a.." ("..i..") "..tostring(C_QuestLog.IsQuestFlaggedCompleted(i))) end end

The macro tracks both the Riddle of Baa'l and the It's a Waist of Time progress, as the two are connected. Baa'l stops at step 15.

Step by step[]

This set of instructions just contains the highlights of what needs to be done but doesn't explain the puzzle or the solution. The pebbles themselves (except the thirteenth) do not provide any gossip text or other interactions beyond being clicked once. They were originally found by players brute-force searching for them by taking advantage of some game data files that update as objects are seen.

The riddle starts with a Conspicuous Note on top of the Heart of Darkness in Nazmir.^[51, 59]
Travel to Drak'thul's camp in the Broken Shore. The old warlock can be found looming over his pebbles. One looks exceptionally ordinary.^[37, 71]
A second pebble can be found in a cave in Boralus.^{[44.7, 38.5]}
The third pebble can be found in a cave in the hills behind Atal'Dazar in Zuldazar.^[31, 35]
The fourth pebble can be found in a cave underneath Gol Osigr in Drustvar.^[36, 53]
The fifth pebble can be found in a cave in Darkwood Shoal in Vol'dun.^[63, 21]
The sixth pebble can be found in a cave on one of the northernmost isles in Stormsong Valley.^[68, 13]
Seventh pebble is north of Nazmir in the South Seas at the back of the ship. Some kind of swim speed buff will be necessary as the ship is in fatigue waters ^[54.5, 7.3] on the continent map
Eighth pebble in the maze in Boralus in an underground basement (behind the keg) ^[37, 80]
Ninth pebble on the side of an island in Drustvar, at a cave ^[17.1, 6.4]
Tenth pebble in a cave in Tiragarde Sound guarded by more Clatterbacks (use invis or stealth to get past) ^{[75.4, 70.6]}
Eleventh pebble behind a waterfall in Tiragarde Sound in a cave, under a scroll at the very back ^{[80.2, 19.5]}
Twelfth pebble in an underwater cave in Tiragrade/Boralus ^{[10.0, 82.6]}
Thirteenth (the final) pebble past fatigue waters at the end of the ocean, traveling from Vol'dun of Zandalar. The fatigue will go back up once you have enterted the area where the cave is located underwater. ^{[55.7, -10.2]}

The thirteenth pebble reads

(Something is carved in the stone)

Heckler of the Murkiest Thugs, sheathe your

Bat and remove the Keg Cork, Wot?

Focus on the capitalized words:

Heckler | Murkiest | Thugs | Bat | Keg | Cork | Wot

Kurgthuk the Merciless | Get Back To Work

One of the anagrams decodes to "Get back to work", which is said by Kurgthuk the Merciless in Frostfire Ridge. Right next to Kurgthuk is a new battle pet, Baa'l at ^[62, 22]. Baa'l will one-shot battle pets unless Uuna (with her completed storyline) weakens him. As long as there's a player nearby with an empowered Uuna, players can battle Baa'l to capture him.