The Barrow-Dyad is an Exotic SMG added into Destiny 2 in Episode Heresy. This is one of the most exotic-looking weapons you’ve seen, given it’s circle form. Today I’m going to run though the exotic questline “The Taken Path”, plus the exotic mission “Derealize” and show you how to get Barrow-Dyad in Destiny 2.

This is a relatively lengthy quest, and a little different from recent exotic quests that were added into previous episodes. Today I’m going to show you:

• How to find The Taken Path in The Nether
• Hunt down secrets around the solar system
• Unlock the Derealize mission to get Barrow-Dyad

How to start The Taken Path

To start the exotic questline you’ll need to load into The Nether on Explore mode and you’ll find a Taken Blight (big black orb) somewhere high in the sky. The Hall of Souls seems to be the best location to get this Taken Blight. You may need to load in a few times to get this to spawn for you. The Taken Blights can appear in any of the 3 locations, however, the most reliable appears to be in the Hall of Souls (Where you start the King’s Fall raid).

Once you load into The Nether you’ll see the Court of Oryx area, jump over to that and then into the starting zone for King’s Fall. You’ll see the large Taken Blight on one of the posts high in the sky. You may need to kill all the enemies in the room here to make it easier to climb up to the Blight. There are some invivible platforms there, which you can use to climb, then jump into the Blight.

Wehn you jump in you’ll get teleported into the Blighted Cyst. There is a green barrier in front of you and a blank Hive rune. There is a plate on the floor and one side of the plate will be pointed. What you need to do is stand on the plate, the rune will display a symbol, and you’ll get a message saying “something whispers to the right”. Shoot the rune, then walk off the rune in the direction it’s telling you e.g. to the right.

Then you’ll get to the other side of the green barrier, go to the table and interact with it. This will give you a Taken Osseous Fragment. Once you have the fragment go back to Eris’ apartment and speak to Sloane and you’ll get The Taken Path exotic quest.

How to complete The Taken Path

The first step here is to activate the Scotopic rune which can be found by speaking to Sloane/Taken slab in the Eris’ apartment. If you haven’t ranked up enough, you’ll need to complete activities in The Nether to level up enough to do this.

Next, head to Sorrow’s Harbour and the K1 Reveleation Lost Sector on The Moon. There’s a Taken Blight once you are past the opening section. Shoot the blight, then step on the plate while looking at the rune. Step off the plate in the direction indicated with the point. Then kill the enemies and the boss.

Then you want to make your way to The Cosmodrome and the Forgotten Shore. Go into the Veles Labyrinth Lost Sector and look for another Taken orb. Shoot the orb, follow the instructions where to walk off the platform like before and then clear out the enemies and the boss.

Next you’ll need to get three more Taken Osseous Fragments. These are locked behind short quests called curses. Each curse quest directs you towards an activity around the solar system where you have to get kills with a Taken Relic.

Curse Of Endurance – At the Altars of Sorrow on the Moon, use the Taken relic to defeat combatants quickly. When the curse’s requirements are satisfied, destroy the relic. You’ll find the Taken relic at the foot of the first set of stairs in Sorrow’s Harbor. Grab the artifact and tear up the Hive with your new Taken gun. Once you get a text prompt that says the relic “grows heavy with power,” run back to where you first grabbed it to destroy the relic.

Curse Of Urgency – In the Hallowed Grove on the EDZ, use the Taken relic to cleanse the area quickly. When the curse’s requirements are satisfied, destroy the relic. Urgency’s fragment is in the Forgotten Shore, a Lost Sector within the EDZ’s Sludge patrol space. Make your way inside and grab the Taken artifact at the entrance. Your goal is to clear the entire Lost Sector with the artifact before the debuff timer hits zero. Kills extend the timer, so don’t worry about speed here; you have plenty of time. Destroy the relic when you’re done to finish this step.

Curse Of Revenge – In Nightmare Hunt: Pride on the Moon, use the Taken relic to destroy the powerful Taken combatants. When the curse’s requirements are satisfied, destroy the relic.

Then you will need to find three fragments on The Dreadnaught in The Nether. Load into a Private instance of The Nether on explore mode. You are looking for a Hive Statue. When you get close to a statue it will give you a prompt saying “Call to power”. Interact with the statue and kill the powerful enemy that spawns.

Here are the locations:

The Mausoleum Nether Fragment Location – From spawn, look 45 degrees to your right and jump down the platform. You’ll find the statue behind a tentacle-like structure. Interact with it and kill the Taken Wizard that spawns behind you. The fragment will spawn on the statue once the Wizard is slain.

Hall Of Souls Nether Fragment Location – From the Court of Oryx platform in the middle of the chamber, look to your left and jump across the gap. Follow the left wall until you find the statue. It’ll be hiding in a corner where the wall ends. Light it to summon an Attendant miniboss. Once slain, head back to the statue to claim your fragment.

Complete this, and you’ll get access to the exotic mission “Derealize”.

How to complete “Derealize” mission

You’ll start the Exotic mission at the floor bed of The Mausoleum aboard the Dreadnaught. The first section is a simple combat encounter, requiring you to eliminate a few Subjugators, Tormentors, and other Dread forces. There’s no timer or limited revives here, so take your time.

Floating eyes will inflict Suffocating Darkness if you’re within their line of sight. At x20 stacks, you will fall to your knees and die. Find cover to remove any stacks you’ve accumulated.

Up the path will be more Dread and a portal protected by Darkness resonance. Clear out the nearby Dread and the subsequent Subjugator miniboss to remove the resonance field. Hop through the portal and follow the path to reach the first encounter.

Defeat Vrhiisk, Seeker Of Power

Vrhiisk is a Subjugator with a fairly large health pool and a small army of Taken fighting by its side. Most of this encounter is add management, so bring a good add clear loadout before you rally. Start the encounter by damaging the boss or any of its Taken minions. You’ll need to remove roughly 10% of the boss’ HP to phase it.

Damaging Vrhiisk will force them to project an immunity barrier, spawning a small Taken army shortly thereafter. Two of the minions will be Ogres. Kill them to spawn a Taken relic. You must grab this relic and clear the next pack of adds to charge it. The person holding the weapon doesn’t need to land the kills; the adds just need to be eliminated.

Once charged, an area will be marked on your HUD for deposit. Walk up to the area to destroy your relic. You will now be Torn Between Dimensions, the same debuff from King’s Fall but without any downsides. Grab the second relic, charge it, and then deposit it atop a Blight to remove Vrhiisk’s shield.

The final phase will teleport you to an enclosed space with no cover. Have a close-range DPS weapon or a Super at the ready.

You’ll repeat this process once more to eliminate the Subjugator, juggling adds and relics throughout the encounter. Play it safe, remember to use your Super, and focus the boss the instant they’re vulnerable.

No Escape Puzzle

Eliminating the Subjugator seems to place you into a Hive trap that you can’t escape from. The good news is that you can, and doing so is surprisingly easy. If you remember the plate at the start of the Barrow-Dyad quest, this puzzle works the exact same but with four plates instead of one.

You will be presented with four Hive runes in order from left to right. Each room you teleport to will correspond with a rune, which you can deduce by standing on that room’s plate. Your goal is to activate all four runes in the correct order. For our run, the order was counter-clockwise, starting from the right.

The chevron on the floor plate tells you which direction to walk in. For example, the plate showcased above points to the right of the rune, so you would strafe to the right. You’re activating the runes in order from left to right. If the room you get is for a rune later in the sequence, sit still and wait to be teleported.

If done correctly, you’ll see the rune dissipate from the escape code. Repeat this process for all four runes until you’re freed from jail. The next section is a fairly straightforward jumping puzzle, at least the first potion.

Taken Energies Whisper…

Oryx’s Dreadnaught has been outfitted with piston traps and dormant Hive structures. For this section, you’re looking for gaps in the sack-infested walls you can jump through. These holes will have lights in them to help guide you. Some of these are rigged to push you back from pistons, so be careful before you jump.

The end of the path will be blocked by a Taken forcefield that you’ll need to destroy. There are three Hive crystals hidden on both sides of the chasm. Breach through each wall and destroy any crystals you find. There’s one crystal on the left side and two on the right. Once broken, a seal will break on the right-most wall near the top of the path. Climb up to the top of the path and proceed. Follow the tentacles on the other side of the chasm to reach the boss arena.

Defeat Xir-Kuur

Guarding Barrow-Dyad is a pair of Hive Knights, one torn and another in the material realm. You’ll be alternating DPS phases between each Knight. Despite just grabbing Barrow-Dyad, we discourage you from using it here. Use Queenbreaker or any high single-target DPS build for this encounter. Constant healing, such as Restoration on Solar, is also highly recommended.

You’ll be damaging each Knight throughout the entire encounter, damaging Blights on occasion to remove their immunity shields. The Knight on the ground level is always the vulnerable one. Each time the Knights rotate, part of the arena will become infested with Taken energy, causing you to take damage over time while standing within it. Fight on the upper floors near cover or near the boss to avoid it. Beyond that, this is a simple DPS check.

Once both Knights are heavily damaged, you will be forced to retreat and seal the boss arena. Run into the Hive capture plate and stand inside for a few seconds. You’ll accumulate Suffocating Darkness as you’re doing this, but you should be able to close the door well before you hit x20 stacks. The mission will finish once you seal the door.

Return to the slab in Eris’ Apartment to claim Barrow-Dyad’s second Exotic quest, which is tied to unlocking this weapon’s additional crafting options.

Barrow-Dyad

Barrow-Dyad is an Exotic Kinetic Submachine Gun and it comes with these exotic perks.

Panic Response – This weapon generates blight as it deals damage. While not firing, blight depletes, and the magazine is gradually refilled. Reload the weapon to convert stored blight into Blighted Seekers.

Taken Divergence – This weapon resonates with your choices.

Let me know what you think in the comments.