In Destiny 2’s Leviathan Raid, you’ll be tasked with overtaking the Royal Pools, also known as the Bath House. Eventually, you’ll reach a giant statue of Calus, the emperor of the Cabal. Split your team into two groups of three: a left side and a right.

Royal Pools map

Royal Pools plates: axes, cup, spears and hound

On each side of the room, there are two plates: one in the front of the room and one in the back. Each plate has a symbol associated with it. Starting with the front left plate, the the symbols are, clockwise: axes, cup, spears, hound. There is also a very special plate with a sun on it in the middle of the room.

Each plate, including the middle one, has a silver ball hovering above it. Collecting this ball will give you 50 stacks of Psionic Protection, which will protect you from taking damage when standing in the water. However, for every second that you stand in the water, Psionic Protection will lose a stack until it reaches zero. When you no longer have stacks of Psionic Protection, standing in any water will burn you.

This encounter is essentially just clockwork, very similar to unlocking the Warpriest fight in the King’s Fall raid. But this encounter is far more difficult.

The main goal is to have one member of the Fireteam assigned to each of the four plates. The two remaining members will start in the middle of the room. Standing on the plates causes lanterns to rise in the middle room and chains near the plates to begin moving. After a certain amount of time standing on the plates, the lanterns will open, allowing players to damage them. Defeat all the lanterns to end the encounter.

But there is a lot more to it, so let’s break it down into phases.

Phase 1: Open the lanterns

The four players must move to their assigned plates and step on them simultaneously, gaining the Psionic Protection buff. These are the plate holders. The two middle players will jump onto the middle plate one by one, waiting a moment between them to ensure that each gets a Psionic Protection buff. (It takes a moment to respawn after one player takes it.) Once players are standing on all five plates, the encounter will begin.

Out of the chain pools in front of the two front plates, a Ceremonial Bather (also known as a “Nude Boi” in the day one Polygon stream) will emerge to attack the plate holders. These are very difficult enemies, and you must kill them quickly.

The middle players should go to the Ceremonial Bathers on their specific sides and help the plate holders defeat them.

Right side of the room: Cup and Spears

Left side of the room: Axes and Hound

Once the Ceremonial Bathers are down, the middle players (Middle) will swap places with the front plate holders (Front). The Front will then run to the middle plate, refresh their buff and head toward the bottom plate of their same side.

Around this time, Ceremonial Bathers should be spawning in the bottom areas. While the Middle holds the front plate, the Front will help with the bottom plate player’s (Bottom) Bather. Once that Bather is down, Front will take bottom plate and Bottom will refresh their buff before moving to front plate.

Essentially, you are running an L-shaped relay race between your original plate, the middle and the opposite plate on your assigned side. Each rotation should be done immediately after a Ceremonial Bather has been killed. Middle comes to help kill the Bather and then Front leaves to refresh their buff before helping Bottom kill their Bather. If each Bather doesn’t have at least two Guardians fighting it, you are rotating too slowly and putting the solo plate holder in serious danger.

Once you have the rotations down, the real battle begins. Your Fireteam must keep up these rotations with minimal to no time spent off of plates. The chains will continue to move as long as someone is on the plate. Once all four chains have pulled their Soap Stone (the grey, progress-indicating rock on the chain) all the way down, the chains will lock into place and a musical chime will happen.

Phase 2: Destroy the lanterns

Now it is time to deal damage. Everyone needs to run to the middle plate and stand on it. Drop whatever buffs you have, like the Titan’s Rally Barricade and the Warlock’s Healing/Empowering Rifts. Take aim at the purple goop in the lanterns and shoot them until they explode.

However, one member of the team should be on watch for enemies spawning in. Three Ceremonial Bathers will pop out at once, attempting to swarm your team. Thankfully, the middle plate seems to charge your Super very quickly. Coordinate as a team to use your Supers to clear the room as quickly as possible so that you can get back to damaging the lanterns.

Once you run out of the Psionic Protection buff, you will begin to burn, meaning your damage time is over. Jump out of the middle and onto the sides of the room. Stay where you are and do not return to your plates just yet. A Sol Councilor, enveloped in a immunity shield, will spawn on the middle plate once everyone is done dealing damage. Run up, use melee to kill them and be sure to destroy any Reflections that they summon. (They’re Psions that look translucent hovering around the lanterns/)

Once all of this is done, return to your plates and start the entire encounter over again. You should be able to complete this in two or three cycles maximum, but if any cycle takes too long (if one side doesn’t get their Soap Stones down), the encounter will wipe the entire party instantly.

For lanterns, it is worth noting that explosives like Hammer of Sol, grenade launchers and rockets damage a cluster of lanterns together. Similarly, Golden Gun will deal very high damage to a lantern, even one-shotting it when using the Celestial Nighthawk helmet.

After you’ve destroyed all of the lanterns, a chest will drop and you can return to the Castellum. Congratulations Guardian, you have completed the first of Calus’ challenges.