Greetings Guardians! While many of us have been doing battle with the Taken foes, we may have come across a plethora of odd and seemingly unknown resources. With some used to open chests or upgrade gear, it’s the rare items known as Calcified Fragments that seem useless at first. Well, it turns out that gathering enough of these rare materials help unlock a quest line to receive the exotic scout rifle known as Touch of Malice. Now the missions themselves are not terribly backbreaking, like the fight you have to endure to receive The Black Spindle, but require a lot of searching for materials.
So how do you get this weapon? Well, it all starts off by gathering five Calcified Fragments littered about the Dreadnought, which will, in turn, open up a quest line with Eris back at The Tower. Now it won’t stop there as you are eventually going to need 45 of these materials of which only 50 exists. Now you could spend hours just running around checking every single nook and pile of rubble by yourself, but you will probably succumb to mind-numbing boredom before obtaining all the needed fragments. One website I found, https://destinycalcifiedfragments.com/, actually lists all of the fragments, their locations, and provide videos for you to follow. About 35 exists on the Dreadnought, with others requiring you to perform special tasks to obtain them.
Step 1 :
After you speak with Eris you will receive the “Shattered Past” quest, which requires another 10 fragments to be gathered and offered to her. This will open up the main quest line “Hunger Pangs” that asks you to play a special heroic version of the mission “Promethean Code.” Now if your light level is above 280ish, or even a bit less, you will have no problem soloing this level. Once you reach the very end you will scan the computers as normal, but the floor will begin to descend bringing you into a deeper area of the bunker. Here a Taken Centurion called Bracus will attack you, kill him to finish this section of the quest.
Step 2:
Turn the quest in to receive the hardest part of this entire quest, “The Old Hunger.” In this quest, you are going to need three rare/exotic items that can only be obtained by completing certain sections in the new raid King’s Fall. If you want the Touch of Malice, you will have to kill the Warpriest, the Deathsingers, and Oryx himself. Each boss fight gives you a different item and there is no way to work around this section. You do not have to finish the entire raid, only those three boss fights to get the materials needed. Though I would recommend doing the entire raid as you can collect the Calcified Fragments hidden within. Return to Eris once you have all three to pick up the next section.
Step 3:
Okay…whose ready to grind!? Don’t all jump at once now… Anyone? No? Okay. Well to get Touch of Malice, Eris is going to need you to obtain 25 Wormspore. 50 weapon parts, and 50 Hadium Flakes. The latter is the most tedious as they can only be obtained in chest throughout the Dreadnaught and only one at a time. I recommend going to the mausoleum section of the ship and running in a big circle, checking each of the hidden rooms for a chest. Most of the time they will respawn by the time you make the loop., but if not go out and reload the area just to be sure. This going to take some time so perhaps putting a movie or some music on will make the grind more bearable. Return to Eris and give her the needed materials…and maybe a nasty look to.
Step 4:
You will need 30 Calcified Fragments to continue the quest, but once you have them the next step will be unlocked. Now you have to enter a special version the Undying Mind strike and kill a Taken Knight that appears called Morgath, Lore-Keeper. I would recommend bringing a friend along with this fight as the road to the boss battle can be a dubious one alone. Once you actually release the boss fight, battle the Undying Mind as you would normally until he reaches about half of his health. At this time, both enemies and the knight will spawn in and attack you. Make sure to kill the knight before the Vex has a chance to. otherwise, you will not complete the quest. After this is done you can finish the fight up and return to the Tower.
Step 5:
Hang on Guardian this is the last step, but…and you guessed it…it only starts after getting more Calcified Fragments! I can hear your cheers from here. Finish obtaining your 45 fragments to receive the last step for your new gun. You’re going back to where the invasion all began with the mission titled “Fear’s Embrace.” This is a fight I really wouldn’t do alone as the boss fight itself can be a bit tricky if you’re soloing it. Once you reach the main boss room, the Echo of Oryx will spawn and attack. Bring him down to about a quarter of health left to spawn the wizard called Mar-Zik, the Blightcaller. Make sure to kill Mar-Zik before you finish off the Echo of Oryx. After completing this return to Eris to finally get Touch of Malice which drops at a guaranteed light level of 310.
There you have it! Yes, this quest is incredibly tedious at times but the Touch of Malice is actually a pretty good weapon. Once each one bullet left in the clip, you will have unlimited ammo until you reload and all shots receive an x2 damage increase. The catch is it will begin to siphon off chunks of your health as well, so make sure to use this special perk sparingly. That can sound like a pretty big negative until you take in the fact this gun’s damage bonus absolutely decimates bosses healths, proving it to be incredibly useful for raids. Do you have the gun already? What do you think of it? Was it worth the time and effort or should we not even bother? Sound off below!
A recent graduate of Arcadia University, Collin MacGregor is a freelance video editor and writer. He covers video games, television, and film for The Nerd Stash. Collin currently is the head film/television reviewer for the site.
