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For the Destiny 2 Preservation mission, you’ll infiltrate the Darkness Pyramid Ship in the swamps of Savathun’s Throne World that’s part of the Vow of the Disciple Raid. You need to grab the Report: Pyramid-Inspect from the Mars Enclave Evidence Board, and then you’ll be able to start the mission, which actually takes place in much of the same area as the raid, so completing the mission is a good way to get a feel for the very basic mechanics involved. Here’s what you need to do to complete the Destiny 2 Preservation mission and solve the symbol puzzle within to get lore entries and the Exotic Raid Ghost Shell.
UPDATE: The Preservation/Raid puzzle appears to be either bugged or working as intended as of hotfix 4.0.0.4 since it doesn’t look like it can be completed solo anymore. Based on some player reports, it seems like a fireteam of at least four is required to complete the puzzle as quickly as possible, which means you’ll have to solve it in the Vow of the Disciple Raid to get a six-player fireteam. This guide will be updated when we have more information about how exactly it works!
- How to unlock Preservation with the Pyramid-Inspect mission
- Preservation puzzle solution
- Preservation secret lore entries
How to unlock Preservation with the Pyramid-Inspect mission
The Destiny 2 Preservation is only accessible if you have a special mission from the Evidence Board at the Mars Enclave. Head there and grab the ‘Report: Pyramid-Inspect’ mission, which will task you with completing the Preservation mission. Also, the recommended Power level for this mission is 1540.
Now, open the Destinations page, select Savathun’s Throne World, and then navigate up towards the Vow of the Disciple Raid node. You’ll notice the Preservation mission node just below. Select that and then you’ll load into the mission. This mission takes place in the same areas as the new Raid, so it serves as a great intro for players to understand some of the very basic mechanics and get acquainted with the numerous symbols that appear all over the Raid’s encounters.
Preservation Approach walkthrough
The first thing to do when you load into the Destiny 2 Preservation mission is to destroy the Projection of Savathun that blocks the gate. Once the projection is dead and the gate is open, drive on through the swamp into an area called Disciple’s Bog on your Sparrow. You’ll eventually find a large, hovering, black slab with a spiraling, drill-like mechanism on it – we’ll refer to this as the Payload.
When you first reach the Payload, it won’t be able to move and you’ll spot a message in your text feed saying, “Drown in the deep…”. This will cause Scorn to spawn in, including a large Abomination called the Knowledge Bearer.
Note that stepping away from the Payload whenever there is a Scorn Knowledge Bearer around will cause you to get a stacking debuff called ‘Pervading Darkness’. Each stack limits your vision further, but it’s instant death when you reach 10 stacks. You can remove Pervading Darkness by standing inside the orange ring that surrounds the Payload. Pervading Darkness also stops building up whenever a Knowledge Bearer Abomination is killed and the “Rise from the deep…” message appears, telling you it’s safe to roam
Eliminate the Scorn enemies and the Knowledge Bearer to also cause nine Knowledge Spikes to appear around your current area – these are small black spikes with a glowing, orange aura, so they’re generally quite easy to spot. You need to pick all of them up just by running through them and then take them to the Payload to automatically deposit them. Unfortunately, you can only carry up to three at once, so you’ll need to do a lot of running around.
Once the Payload has received all nine spikes, it’ll automatically start moving and you just need to ride it or follow it on your Sparrow to the next stopping point where you’ll have to kill another Knowledge Bearer and deposit more spikes. In total, you’ll have to defeat six Knowledge Bearers and collect 54 Knowledge Spikes – quite tedious for solo players. At the end, the Payload will go inside a small room within the Pyramid entrance and unlock the main entrance door for you.
Preservation puzzle solution
Now that you’re inside the Pyramid, you need to reach the Destiny 2 Preservation mission puzzle. Keep running through the Pyramid until you reach a large room that is partially flooded with swamp water. You need to head to the back-right corner where you’ll find a deep pit lit up by a low ceiling light. Jump down, then keep following the main path until you reach a room full of vertical tablets with symbols on them.
This is the puzzle room and you’ll be interacting with these symbols to solve the puzzle. As you approach each symbol, you can see the name of it under your motion tracker in the top-left corner of your screen. Remember, you can get two other players to help you out with puzzle in the Preservation mission – in fact you might have to, as the puzzle is either bugged or fixed after a recent hotfix. This puzzle can also be solved in the Vow of the Disciple Raid where you’ll have up to five other players ready to help.
To solve the puzzle, you need to first find the code. On the wall to the right of the entrance to the puzzle room, you’ll notice that there are some tall windows, all of which are blocked off by bars except for one. Jump through the clear window to get into a small room with a wall that has four columns of three symbols on it.
Think of each column as a command that you need to follow to complete the puzzle. The top symbol in each column is always the Guardian symbol (black figure with a Ghost above their head) and can be ignored. The middle symbol in each column is also always the same and tells you how you need to interact with the symbols in the main puzzle room – the Enter symbol (grey triangle with a red semi-circle below) means you must melee the symbol, Commune (dark triangle with green lines fanning out above it) means you must follow the ‘Activate’ button prompt in front of a symbol, and Kill (white triangle stabbing a red circle) means you must shoot the symbol.
Finally, the bottom symbol in each column is always random and indicates which symbol you need to interact with in the main puzzle room. You’ll know you’ve successfully interacted with a symbol when it makes a noise and briefly gets covered by black smoke after you’ve done what the code told you to.
Here’s an example of what each column, from left to right, might look like and what it all means. Remember that only the final symbol in each column changes and they’re random:
- Column 1: Guardian, Enter, Drink = melee the Drink symbol.
- Column 2: Guardian, Enter, Ascendant Plane = melee the Ascendant Plane symbol.
- Column 3: Guardian, Commune, Grieve = follow the ‘activate’ button prompt on the Grieve symbol.
- Column 4: Guardian, Kill, Guardian = shoot the Guardian symbol.
If you correctly followed the commands of each column, you’ll get a lore entry, and all the symbol tablets will shut off. However, sometimes nothing happens, but you can fix this by entering the first command again. If you mess up the code, you can return to the secret room through the window and reset the puzzle to start over.
To repeat the puzzle to help you get the Imperious Sun Ghost Shell, you’ll need to restart the Destiny 2 Preservation mission each time as the puzzle can only be completed once per run. To get the Ghost Shell, you should also collect five secret lore entries found at the end of this mission, and we’ve got information on those below.
Preservation Acquisition walkthrough
After leaving the puzzle room and walking through some corridors, you’ll arrive in a massive area with lots of doors with symbols above them and some Scorn enemies dotted around. To clear this section, all you need to do is defeat the Scorn but prioritize the Chieftain inside the room with the Gift symbol (red hands and a black triangle) above its door and the Abomination in the room with the Stop symbol (a red square) above its door.
Head left as you leave the Stop room, and you’ll spot the Knowledge (multi-colored brain) and Drink symbols (white figure having water poured into their bowl-head) on the wall with a doorway between them. Head through and you’ll emerge into a room with two large statues of horses with many, many butts. At the far end of this room, there are three large Fanatic’s Chosen Scorn enemies that need to be defeated.
Preservation secret lore entries
Once they’re dead, the Destiny 2 Preservation mission will end, but you’ll be left with a 25-minute timer to freely explore Acquisition for secrets. There are five lore entries that you can pick up that will contribute to the ‘“Vow of the Disciple” Lore Book Unlocks’ Triumph, which will help you get the Imperious Sun Exotic Ghost Shell. Here’s where you can find each of the secret lore entries at the end of the mission:
- Lore entry 1: At the very edge of the platform where the three Fanatic’s Chosen enemies were.
- Lore entry 2: Towards the back-right corner of the Stop room.
- Lore Entry 3: Just in front of the mural in the Gift room.
- Lore Entry 4: On top of the little hut just below the entrance door of the main Acquisition room.
- Lore Entry 5: At the edge of a platform on the right of the main Acquisition room that overlooks the massive dead worm.
After you’ve got these five secret lore entries, you’ll need to get five more by completing the earlier symbol puzzle five times to complete the triumph and get the Ghost Shell.
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