Destiny 2: Black Armory guide: Mysterious Box quest for Izanagi’s Burden

Over the last week, players have been hunting for keys to unlock an item called the Mysterious Box in Destiny 2: Black Armory. The box is a quest which leads to the Izanagi’s Burden, a sniper rifle. But getting through the quest is the only real burden. There are quite a few steps standing in the way of you and your fancy new sniper. That’s where we come in.

Heads-up: If you randomly get a rare bounty from Ada-1 — they drop from her normal, daily bounties and reward powerful gear — complete the objective and then hold onto it. You’ll need to turn one in for a quest step, so it’ll be very useful to have one banked at that point.

Finding the Mysterious Box

The easiest part of this quest is finding the Mysterious Box, the quest item that you’ll shove all your keys into.

Once you start Black Armory and gain access to the Volundr forge, walk into the arena, jump over the bridge and immediately do a 180. Follow the path down the rocks to a small cave next to the ravine. Walk in and you’ll find a small Black Armory box. Open it to receive the Mysterious Box.

Bungie via Polygon

Finding the first three keys

Great job! You found the box. This is where things get a bit tougher if you’re trying to do this all by your lonesome. The Mysterious Box requires four keys to be inserted into it. The first three keys are in the first three forges. The fourth and final key is a bit more complex, so we’ll save it for its own section.

Volundr key locations

Since you’re already here, jump into the Volundr forge.

Complete the first wave like normal, and get ready to spring into action with a longish range weapon — a sniper or scout will do just fine. Between waves, two shield drones will spawn on either side of the arena.

The first drone is on the left side facing the forge, floating around on the far left tree in the distant island.

Bungie via Polygon

The second is in the cave area to the right of the forge, floating around on the ceiling near some stalactites.

Bungie via Polygon

Once you’ve killed both drones, you should see a Maximum Temper buff on the lefthand side of the screen. Complete the rest of the forge like normal. When you kill the boss, you’ll notice that a Black Armory box has dropped near the forge. Open it to receive your first key.

Interact with the key in your inventory to slot it into the lock on your Mysterious Box.

Gofannon key

This key is probably the easiest to get on your own. Set yourself up with the same weapons as you did in Volundr. Between the first and second wave, stand around the crashed ship at the very back of the arena.

One shield drone will be floating around in the skeleton of the ship.

Bungie via Polygon

The second is to your left if you’re looking at the ship, floating around a pillar sticking out of the ground.

Bungie via Polygon

After getting the Maximum Temper buff, collect your key from the box just like last time.

Izanami key

To get this key on your own, you’ll definitely need a sniper rifle. After the first wave, as you’re looking back at the entrance to the forge, position yourself on the island on the right.

Drone one is on the island you’re standing on. Look toward the forge and you’ll see a small pillar poking out that’ll have the drone floating around it.

Bungie via Polygon

Drone two is across the vast pit, and is floating around a darker pillar farther away from the edge, close to the cave entrance to the arena.

Bungie via Polygon

Finish the forge with Maximum Temper activated and claim the third key.

Forging the fourth key

Now that the Bergusia forge is open, Ada-1 is offering the key mold for the fourth and final key. You’ll need to build this thing through a long and occasionally obnoxious quest line. But the reward is well worth it.

Return to the Leviathan

Your first step is going to be in the underbelly of the Leviathan to kill Watchers. Even if you aren’t a raider or play solo, you’ll still be able to complete this step relatively easily. Equip an exotic that speeds you up if you can — Dunemarchers or Transversive steps are great here, but Mida Multi-tool also works — as it’ll make this next part much easier.

Bungie via Polygon

Spawn in the Leviathan and ignore the Cabal standing on the bridge. Drop down to a secret level before where they are standing and you’ll find a small room with six levers.

Going left to right, you need to pull the levers quickly in this order: 1 - 5 - 3 - 2 - 4 - 6. This is easy to do in a group and manageable on your own. If you’ve done this right, you’ll see a message that says “the way is open.”

Walk up the ramps until you get to the most open area. Walk forward and there’ll be a pool of death-water (don’t fall in this if you can help it; it’s called death-water for a reason) with a pipe sticking out of it. Follow the path and jump along the pipes until you reach a big fan. Pull the lever in the room to your left and ride the waves up the shaft.

Bungie via Polygon

You’ll be presented with a choice: Go forward or turn left. Take the left turn and make your way down the hallway until you reach the door to Engine. You can use any room to farm this, but in our experience Engine is the fastest to clear and get through.

Open the door and kill as many Watchers as you can before they go immune. Once their shields come up, you’ll need to clear the Cabal and then clean up the rest of the Watchers.

Bungie via Polygon

Now that you have four lenses for the four Watchers you killed, walk back out the door you came in, let it shut behind you and start this process all over again. Once you’ve collected 24 lenses from the Watchers, you’ll be given a new task.

Public Events and Strikes

Now you’ll need to collect Glimmering Amethyst for Ada-1. This stuff drops naturally throughout the game, and you can collect it from Strike chests, Public Events or random chests out in the world.

We ran through a handful of public events in the EDZ — a really easy cycle starts there every few minutes. However, speed running through the Lake of Shadows strike via the director is much faster. Complete 20 Public Events or 10 strikes to complete this step of the quest.

Temper Bergusia

Now you’ll need to run a Bergusia forge and kill shield drones. These two are pretty easy to find, even if you’re just running on your own. They spawn between the first and second rounds as usual.

If you’re looking from the entrance, the first drone is on a pillar to the left of the forge, disconnected from everything.

Bungie via Polygon

The second drone is on the right of the forge from the entrance, floating next to a red pipe and a Black Armory crate.

Bungie via Polygon

Now that the forge has Maximum Temper, finish Bergusia and collect your key from the box as usual.

Completing a rare bounty

Insert all four keys into your Mysterious Box and return to Ada-1 in the Tower. She’ll ask you to get an Obsidian Crystal. Remember our warning earlier about the rare bounty? Hopefully you have one on you.

Turn in the rare bounty from Ada-1 to receive the Obsidian Crystal.

If you’re still missing a rare bounty, do all of Ada-1’s normal bounties every day until you get one.

Do Shattered Throne

Here is the first step that will require a coordinated team for most people.

You’ll need to go into Shattered Throne and defeat Dul Incaru, the final boss. If you need help with that, we’ve got a Shattered Throne guide for you already.

Keep in mind that this dungeon is only available every three weeks, when the Dreaming City curse is at its most intense. If it’s Shattered Throne week, you’ll probably want to grind on this quest as hard as you can so you don’t get locked out for nearly another month.

Do the Pyramidion quest

After you do Shattered Throne, you’ll need to do a tough version of the Pyramidion. Even at 650, this mission is not for the faint of heart, so we suggest getting a crew together instead of attempting it solo. If your Fireteam wipes, you go back to orbit. Be careful in there.

It’s worth mentioning that you also need to launch this via a quest on Io, not through the Strike node itself. If you just complete the normal Pyramidion strike naturally, you’ll get nothing toward the quest. Go to the quest node on Io and be prepared for your equipment to lock. Keep in mind that Solar Singe and Heavyweight are also on, so Sleeper Simulant is your friend here.

Take down Siviks once and for all

Now comes the final step in the quest: killing Siviks. Take a trip to the EDZ and launch the mission from the quest marker in the patrol. All you’ll need to do here is kill Siviks. This is relatively easy if you have Whisper of the Worm or anything similar. Just hang out at the top of the door, by the entrance on the landing, and shoot the boss until he’s dead.

Once the mission is over, head back to Ada-1 and collect your fancy new sniper rifle.