Important Note: If you are opening the chests and only getting Glimmer, make sure that your inventory is not full. You cannot get the Hadium Flakes if you don't have room to store them.
Update: In addition to completing the story and the Dread Patrol quest, we are also hearing that this will unlock after you find your first Calcified Fragment, which can be obtained from the first mission, The Coming War.
To actually unlock the quest you must first complete the main story missions in Destiny: The Taken King. This includes Regicide, the final mission aboard the Dreadnaught where you face Oryx. Once you’re done that, you will need to complete another quest that’s called Dread Patrol. This quest is given out by Cayde-6, and he can be found in the Hall of Guardians at the Tower. You'll be headed back to the Dreadnaught to place beacons down and open up the patrol option.
After you complete Dread Patrol, return to the Tower and speak with Eris Morn. She's moved from her old location, and can now be found just inside the Hall of Guardians. She will have a quest for you called A Broken Will, and this is how you can get either the Void Edge, Sol Edge or Arc Edge sword.
The first part is very simple. Turn around and speak to Shaxx, who should only be a few feet away from where you got the quest from Eris Morn. This is the entire first part of the quest, and when you’re done you’ll be heading back to the Dreadnaught.
Shaxx will ask you to grab him 25 Hadium Flakes and bring him 10 Motes of Light. As mentioned before, this is done on the Dreadnaught. If you have completed all of the steps up to this point (the story missions and Dread Patrol), you should have the patrol option unlocked on the Dreadnaught. Head to Orbit, and then choose the Level 35 patrol option aboard Oryx’s ship.
You’ll spawn in at a region called the Hull Breach, and the direction you want to travel is toward the middle of the area in front of you. If you look up, you’ll see a large ship that has crashed into the Dreadnaught, and below it you’ll find a ravine. If you follow that ravine you will end up in a winding tunnel that eventually delivers you to an area called the Mausoleum. It’s here that you can quickly grab your 25 Hadium Flakes. There are likely other areas to find these chests, but this was the first and most convenient that we located.
What you want to do is work your way around this area in a clockwise fashion. There will be several rooms off to the side, and inside those rooms are chests. Open these chests up much the way you would on any other planet and you will find the Hadium Flakes you’re looking for. There tends to only be two or three chests in this area, so keep doing laps and they will continue to respawn. If you find that they aren’t respawning as quickly as you’d like, head back to the Hull Breach area and then return. This will take you anywhere from 15-30 minutes, depending on how lucky you get.
When you have all of your Hadium Flakes, return to the Tower and speak to Shaxx one more time. He won’t have an indicator letting you know he wants to chat, so just trust us. You’re also going to want to bring the 10 Motes of Light with you, and at least 25 Spinmetal, 25 Helium Filaments or 25 Relic Iron. You only need one, but the resource required changes based on the sword you choose.
After you’ve turned in the required resources you’ll get your choice between three swords, and each one will do a different type of damage. It’s for that reason that we advise you to choose a different damage type for each of your three characters, but of course you’ll have to repeat the quest two more times to get the other two. For now, you will either have the Void Edge, Sol Edge or Arc Edge.
Once you have the Legendary sword you have the option to obtain an Exotic. To do this, you must first level your Legendary sword’s attack value up to at least 280. When you do, Lord Shaxx will present you with another quest, A Sword Reforged. Prepare to spend hours completing this, and waiting even longer if you don’t time your activities properly. When it’s done, however, you will have either the Dark-Drinker, Raze-Lighter, or Bolt-Caster Exotic Sword. It will have an attack value of 310, and a special move that will obliterate almost any enemy in Destiny. It’s a game changer.
The first part of this quest will take you about an hour, and the type of resource you need to farm depends on the type of sword you have. Void swords will require Relic Iron, Solar swords will require Spinmetal, and Arc swords will require Helium Filaments. The problem is, you are looking for a random drop that will only come from the resource itself, not chests. Let us explain.
We have a Void sword, and thus had to farm Relic Iron on Mars. We headed out on Patrol and started using Nightstalker’s enhanced radar to find Relic Iron. After finding about 10 different Relic Iron resources, we got a rare, random drop that gave us a special material. That gave us 1 of the 10. That we needed In a nutshell, you need to run around the planet that contains your resource and farm about 100-150 pieces of the resource it is known for, waiting until you get your 10 rare planetary materials. Be sure to track this quest so you can quickly check your progress.
When you’re done that, it’s on to the ability kills, which you should be doing as you are farming if you wish to get ahead. Again, the ability kills do not include weapons, so if you are using a Void sword, you cannot use a Void weapon to get the kills. They will not count. You must use your super ability, grenade and melee attack. For our Nightstalker subclass with our Hunter, we configured our Shadowshot with the Quiver modifier, giving us three bolts for every super, killing targets by direct impacting them. We also used our grenade.
Of course, this part of the quest can take a long time, but the good news is you have until the next Armsday to get it done. If Armsday (Wednesday) is approaching, you might want to get a move on. Patrolling the Steppes on Earth is a good place to get these, although you may know of a better spot.
This quest sounds bad (and it is), but it’s not quite a horrible as what you might think. You’re going to have to fire up the Sunless Cell Strike at Light 300. If your Light isn’t there yet, you’re going to struggle, but it is possible to pull it off. Be sure to bring your most capable friends.
Bring a three-person fire team with you, and make sure that you are covering all three types of elemental damage, as there will be loads of enemies with shields to take down. Be patient and slowly work your way through the Strike until you reach the final boss fight, and then take the following steps to ensure success.
When the fight kicks off you will see Alak-Hul, the Darkblade, but you’ll also see three different Knights that are known as the Warden of Oryx. Each will have a different name, as well as a different shield type. The one you’re concerned with is the one that has the same shield type as your sword. We had the Void sword, so we had to be concerned with Heolstor, Warden of Oryx. As for the other two Knights that don’t have the same shield type as you sword, just kill them.
You want to bring Darkblade’s health down so it’s between 5 and 10 percent. You also want to do this with your Warden of Oryx. They should both be near death. When they are, get your fire team ready, and ensure that you have your super abilities ready to burn these suckers.
Start by killing the Warden of Oryx, which will start a 30 second countdown timer. You won’t see this, but it’s ticking away just the same. Your goal is to kill Alak-Hul, the Darkblade within 30 seconds of the Warden of Oryx dying. If you can do this, you will have completed this step of the quest, and it’s on the last.
Head back to the Tower and speak to Lord Shaxx again. He’s going to have a 310 Exotic Sword for you, and it’s significantly larger than your old one. It also has a special attack that you can unlock by leveling it up, which you should definitely try out. We were smashing almost any yellow bar in the game with ours, but of course Light level matters. Oh, and the best part is you get to keep your Legendary sword, so now you have two.
The damage type of your Exotic sword depends on the damage type that your Legendary sword has. Void for Void, Solar for Solar, and Arc for Arc, as you may have guessed.
Now, Guardian, head out on Patrol and try out your new toy. When you’re done, visit our Destiny: The Taken King Walkthrough and Guide for all of your Taken King strategy needs.
