Well nobody saw this coming. Destiny 2 players have been enjoying the new content of Season of the Chosen. However, it wasn't long until players discovered a hidden questline that gave them access to a brand new exotic weapon called the Dead Man's Tale. It is also an extremely long and complicated quest by Destiny 2 standards. This guide is to help you unlock and complete that quest and claim your rewards.
Presage Destiny 2 – Unlocking the Quest
First thing's first. You can't just go to your Director and activate this quest. First, you'll have to go into The Arms Dealer Strike on Earth's European Dead Zone. At the very beginning of the Strike, after you clear the room of enemies, search for an open door near the hologram display in the room. Go through and keep going until you come to a giant landing pad area. Defeat all the Cabal enemies there then look inside one of the storage crates for a datapad containing a distress signal.
Next, return to the Tower and speak to Commander Zavala. You'll get a small cutscene about him talking about the message, saying that it's an SOS from an abandoned Cabal ship called the Glykon out near the Reef. Furthermore, it appears the SOS is coming from a Guardian somewhere inside. Something about it seems fishy so he sends you there to investigate.
Open your director, pull up the Tangled Shore location, and you'll find Presage is now available.
Destiny 2 Presage – Navigating the Glykon
Before you start this mission, a few things to keep in mind. First, this quest is long. It might take north of an hour to finish on your first go. Second, there will be challenging enemy encounters inside, specifically Scorn, and the entire encounter has the Blackout modifier. Powerful Void weapons and constant spatial awareness are your friends here. Third, the majority of this mission will be based around key-hunting and some mild platforming challenges. There is no time limit like other quests so feel free to take your time.
When you first load into the level, you'll be on a ramp leading up to a locked hangar door. Look to the left side of the ramp and you should see some red pipes on the side of the ship. Jump to those pipes and follow them along the side of the hull. This should lead you to a side entrance into the ship proper.
Follow the tunnels until you come across several shutters highlighted by flashing red lights. You can break through these shutters. Keep an eye out for these shutters as you move further in; when in doubt look for blinking red lights. Keep following this path until you find a shutter on the floor, shoot through it and you should drop on the other side of the ramp's door from the start of the mission.
On your right side should be a lever. Pull it and the door will open, providing a shortcut for fireteam members who may have gotten lost. Continue through the room until you discover a pile of glowing blue spores and a sort of barrier glowing with energy. For brevity, these barriers will be called Darkness Doors. Shooting the spores will make them glow green and you'll gain a status effect called Egregore Link. This will let you pass through the Darkness Doors safely, but only for about fifteen seconds.
After passing through the first Darkness Door you should be face to face with a Cabal body wrapped in weird growths. Turn to your left and look up, you should see some pipes marked by some blue light. Hop up inside and follow the opening to the next area.
Continue this path and you should be in a big area with electrified walls and instakill grinders below. On the other side of the gap is a pathway leading to two Darkness Doors, but there are no Spores around. Look around and you should find a corridor with a lever nearby, also a bunch of nasty suicide-bombing Screebs.
Take them out, pull the lever, then head back to the gap. Before jumping, look to the left side. Pulling the lever should have opened up a door, revealing some Spores. Activate them, jump the gap, then head through the Darkness Doors. It doesn't matter which one you enter, they both lead to the same location.
Eventually, the path will lead down to a lower level. Head to the end, then leap up and you should be greeted by a new location with some Spores in a corner to your right. Continue ahead to another gap in the electric masher room.
Jump to the other side and you should see a red power line and a small hatch nearby. In the red powerline should be a white energy cell. Shoot the cell until it explodes, and the hatch will open. Keep that association in mind as we continue.
Drop down the hatch and get ready for another Screeb ambush. Once they're taken care of, head to the back of the room and look to the right side. There should be some grating for you to climb on, tucked away is another lever. Pull it then move to the opposite side and through the now opened door.
You should be at the third and final gap of electrified walls and deathtrap mashers. Jump the gap to the other side and flip the lever you find on the other side. Once you do this, double back to the room where you were ambushed by Screebs before and jump off the platform to the ground floor. Underneath the platform should be a newly opened door with an energy cell inside. Destroy it then head back to the third gap. Look down towards the right wall and you should see an open door. Drop down and a rotating platform nearby should activate, giving you enough ground to get safely inside.
Destiny 2 Presage – The Trash Compactor and Hangar Bay Fight
Now we get to the first big hurdle of the Presage quest, and it starts with you being inside a giant trash compactor. Once you pull the lever, the floor will open up, exposing several wires protected by shutters, a bunch of Screebs will spawn in, and the walls will start closing in. If you don't wanna be a pancake you'll have to search the floor for three energy cells and destroy them. If the walls close over a cell before you can pop it, you're screwed. Check the outmost shutters first before moving inwards If you hit all three cells, the walls will grind to a halt and one of the shutters on the floor will be surrounded by red blinking lights, that's your exit out of here.
Eventually, you'll enter an open area and you'll get your first major combat encounter with the Scorn. Fair warning, this battle is in a Darkness Zone. Worse still, the checkpoint is back at the trash compactor with the Darkness Zone still active. Depending on your skills and luck, this part will be a massive headache. Try to conserve your power ammo and hold on to your Super if you can.
This is because the next combat encounter is a doozy. You'll enter a large hangar bay, which will spawn a bunch of major enemies and two Abomination boss monsters. As if that wasn't bad enough, take too long in the encounter and Screebs will start spawning in to give you an explosive hug of death. If you survive, congratulations you're a little over halfway done.
You should see a platform hanging on the left-most hangar bay. Hop on it and follow the path to another hangar bay with a Cabal ship parked inside. Head inside, hop on the ship and follow the platforms to another tunnel.
This should lead you to a laboratory with a Scorn's corpse in the middle. Go to the left side of the lab and you'll find a lever. Pull it, and a door with Spores will open. Activate them then dash through the doors on the right side and the Darkness Door past that to the next area.
Head up the ramp of the room and look for a lever attached to a pillar in the center. Pulling it will open a door across the room revealing an energy cell.. Use a long-range weapon to hit the energy cell, then look up. Destroying the cell should have knocked out an electrified wall, opening up a small room above you. Get there as fast as you can, the wall will come back after about five seconds. Hit both of the levers hidden inside and return to the main room. Find the door with Spores, activate them, then head up the ramp and towards the elevated platform in the far left corner, then down the path past the Darkness Door.
Take out the Scorn in the area then pull the lever on the yellow generator. This should open a door with a gun turret inside. Destroy it and to the right of it should be another energy cell. Pop it, look for the spore room, activate them then head to the growth corner opposite the yellow generator. Tucked away is a Darkness Door on the floor; look out below.
Destiny 2 Presage – The Maze and The Boss Fight
Next up is a miniature maze. Once you drop down, there should be four shutters, one on each wall. We'll mark each shutter based on the four compass directions. For reference, the East most shutter has a path leading to some Spores, the South most is a dead end, and the West and Northmost vents are paths leading to the rest of this maze. The first thing you'd want to do is scour the maze and funnel any Screebs out before they can jump you. Once that is done go down the East path, activate the spores then head down the West path. Take the first left you see, continue down it until you come to a fork then head right. You should have passed through a Darkness Door with a lever nearby. Pull it and the door will open, bringing you back to the lab.
Don't panic, you didn't take a wrong turn. In fact, pulling that lever should also have opened up another door with another Darkness Door through it. Activate the spores in the lab and head into the next area.
Look around for another lever in the leftmost corner. Pull it, then turn around and look for an open door near some yellow pipes. Destroy the energy cell inside, activate the spores, then head through the Darkness Door on the right side.
Next up is an open chasm area with some rotating platforms. Once you land on a platform with red pipes underneath, turn around and you should see a pipe with an energy cell inside, take it out. At the end of the room, you should find a lever and a Darkness Door. Do not activate this lever. If you do, you'll open a door with an enemy turret and a dead-end for your trouble. Instead, backtrack to the room's entrance and you should find some spores. Activate them and go back until you see an open door on the leftmost wall. Go through the Darkness Door inside and you should find another set of spores. Activate those and continue to the end.
You should now be in a room with a lever and a place to drop a Raid Banner. Pull the lever, plant that banner and top off all of your stuff because it is boss fight time.
On paper, the Locus of Communion is an amped-up version of the Hangman boss from Forsaken. But once you get his health to a fixed amount, he'll vanish from the arena and leave behind some lackeys to fight you. This is because the boss has now dropped to a basement in the arena, surrounded by superheated pipes. If you wanna finish the fight, you'll have to activate three different computer terminals in the arena to cool down the pipes. Fair warning, the pipes will heat up again eventually, so be ready to rinse and repeat until the boss is dead.
After you pull all of this off, you'll be guided to the final room on the ship, uncover the fate of the SOS, and claim your Dead Man's Tale exotic scout rifle. Congratulations, now you can repeat this mission multiple times and scour it for collectibles and hidden lore dumps. There will also be a Master mode available later for the Dead Man's Tale catalyst. Start practising.