Destiny 2 Treasure Beacon Guide: How To Solve The Cryptic Quatrains Pirate Riddle

Among the many new things to do in Destiny 2’s Season of Plunder are – fitting enough for a pirate season – quests that involve solving pirate mysteries to hunt down buried treasure. You’ll need to level up the Starchart seasonal trader quite a bit before engaging in it, but once you do you’ll get a small treasure fire that starts a quest called Cryptic Quatrains I. Here’s how to complete them.

How pirate puzzles work and what the reward is

For better or worse, these puzzles are mostly very obvious, with the possible exception of the last step. Each step of the quest will puzzle you, but certain words in each sentence are highlighted in yellow – these words strongly suggest where you are going and what you need to do. If you’re hoping for some real head-scratches, you probably won’t get them, at least not with this first quest, Cryptic Quatrains I.

The steps lead you from one place to another and finally to the buried treasure. It’s unclear at this point if the rewards will be randomized at all, but in our case we got Glimmer, a resonant version of one of the seasonal weapons (No Reprieve), five map fragments, and a crude cipher fragment (the purpose of which is currently a mystery) .

Below we have outlined the steps required to solve the first of the three Treasure Beacons – the Small Treasure Beacon, which is a reward for reaching Rank 7 on the Star Chart. You can increase your Starchart rank by earning Savvy through the seasonal Ketchcrash and Expedition missions.

Cryptic Quatrains I

Step 1

After getting the Small Treasure Beacon, you will receive the Cryptic Quatrains I quest. The first step puzzle is as follows (with bold text instead of the yellow highlighted words that appear in-game):

The solution here is simple: go to the moon.

step 2

Once you arrive, the next puzzle will be presented:

Putting these words together will ask you to go to the Sorrow’s Harbor area on the moon where the K1 Revelation Lost Sector is located. Load up at the Sorrow’s Harbor landing zone and head into the Lost Sector, which you can see labeled on your in-game map (the entrance is pictured above if you can’t find it). Complete it as usual, and the chest at the end will complete this step.

step 3

Once you complete Lost Sector you will get this puzzle:

This instructs you to complete the SABER Strike trap in the Cosmodrome. You can launch it directly by viewing the cosmodrome in the director and selecting the appropriate node that you see in the top right corner near the Forgotten Shore. Complete the Strike to complete this step.

step 4

Finally, we come to the step that might cause some confusion. Here’s the riddle:

You’re clearly directed to Europa’s Eventide Ruins area, but there are a number of cranes to find. Luckily you don’t have to go far. Once you load into Eventide’s landing zone, you should see two cranes right in front of you. The closer of the two holds nothing. Move just below where the crane’s hook is hanging and you should see a clump of snow marked with a green icon (see image below), similar to what you would see at the end of an expedition. Dig up the treasure to complete the quest.

We’ll be in touch with more details on the following two Treasure Hunts once we’ve unlocked them.