In addition to the main campaign, Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate features a bunch of new side quests on the Kepler location. Alongside new gear, these side quests also give small drops of lore and narrative to flesh out the story of Lodi, the Aonians, and the Nine. However, one side quest in particular has been proving quite frustrating for players looking to complete them all.
Dark Academia is an Ikora Rey quest that takes players to the Augur’s Bethel region of Kepler. It’s a pretty short and sweet quest that grants a gear drop and some additional lore about Orin and The Nine. However, it requires finding a Mattermorph spot and identifying three environmental triggers, plus waiting through a series of dialogue prompts–all of which can cause frustration.
In this guide, we walk through the Dark Academia quest and explain how you can avoid some of the potential issues with completing it.
Getting to the quest marker
After trekking over to Augur’s Bethel, you’ll find that the quest marker is actually hidden behind a closed door. Notice the generator next to the door–it’s shielded, but it’s clearly one of the generators that requires Matterspark shocks to trigger. Thus, the first (and primary) task is to clear that shield so you can shock the generator.
You’ll need to find and shoot three power cores to short-circuit power to the shield. These are a bit hard to find, so we’ll take them one at a time.
First power core to shoot
The first and easiest power core to find on the lowest level of the area, very close to the bridge where the generator is. Drop down and find it under the bridge; it’ll be glowing blue. Shoot it to enable the first trigger.
Finding Mattermorph
The next two triggers require you to grab Mattermorph so you can manipulate other parts of the environment. The Mattermorph mound is well-hidden. You need to jump up to the highest level of the arena–the series of platforms that are placed upon pipes. Walk up the pipes toward the doors with laser grids that are at one end of the arena.
About halfway up the pipes, a junction will send one pipe up and to the right. Look that way and you should be able to spot the trademark green glow of Mattermorph. The picture above is taken with the character’s back to the laser grids; it shows the Mattermorph mound at the top left and the back door to the arena at the bottom right.
Second power core to shoot
Once you’re charged with stabilizing dark matter, run toward the laser grid doors and you’ll see a pipe above you flashing light green. Use your Mattermorph ability to expose the second power core in the righthand end of the pipe. You can see it glowing blue in the image above.
Third and final power core
The last power core is on the main level, near the subway train portal. You’ll see a flashing green sheet of metal; hit it with Mattermorph and the sheet will fly away. This will expose the last core to shoot. Shoot it and “Generator overloaded” will pop up on your HUD.
Opening the door and finishing the quest
Now run back to the closed door, turn into Matterspark, and shock the generator. The door will open, exposing the quest marker. Trigger the quest and you’ll get the next quest steps.
You actually don’t need to go anywhere else to progress the quest all the way to the end. Some of us have encountered issues with completing the next few steps if you do not wait for each piece of dialogue to fully complete, so to be safe, we recommend waiting for the discussions between Ikora and Ghost to fully play out before triggering the next step.
Try to follow this specific cadence: After beginning the quest, wait for the dialogue to finish. Then, trigger “scan remains” first (do not activate the pillar yet). Wait for the subsequent dialogue to wrap up. Only then, activate the shrine at the back of the room. The game will let you trigger these in any order, but we have experienced sequence-breaking issues if they are not done in this order.
If you do happen to run into issues completing the quest, try to go finish a different task in the meantime. We have had some luck in “resetting” Dark Academia by doing this.
After successfully navigating these steps, you’ll acquire an artifact that you just need to take back to the Caldera and Dean Rebecca. Complete that and enjoy your Kepler gear for finishing the Dark Academia quest!