Destiny 2 Lore You May Never Know Of
Destiny 2’s lore books hold some incredible tales that players may or may not know about, from alternative perspectives of seasonal events to histories of places and people from long ago in its world. Many narratives may also exist outside the main in-game story arc – one such tale, called Dust, tells Lavinia Garcia Umr Tawil’s life story as Cryptarch of Earthfall.
Introduced into Destiny 2 during Season of the Drifter/Joker’s Wild, the Dust lore book can be acquired by scanning items located within Reckoning activity. Organized as an exploration into Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, Lavinia uses this book as she attempts to unravel mysteries surrounding entities known as The Nine.
Lavinia was told by her mother that when she was born a witch pronounced her lucky and sought answers about its significance to Venus from Xur in the Tower hangar. Unfortunately for Lavinia however, Ikora Rey discovered her and reported theft and exiled her from Last City.
Once again, she finds herself gathering intelligence from Eliksni on the Reef when her luck runs out: she is apprehended by Awoken soldiers and sentenced to life imprisonment for spying. After being freed by Paladin Kamala Rior, she boards a warship to observe and help analyze Calus Leviathan for signs of the Nine. There, she actually witnesses them “reaching out” but before she could report this information back to Last City she is sent back into cell confinement.
Lavinia escapes prison by paying off a Corsair to take her to space station Cocytus, only to become lost once there and confronted by Paladin Rios’ pursuit. Desperate, she leaps through one of the Golden Age gates on Cocytus into one of its Golden Age Gates where she meets Nine, which reveal themselves as shadowy representations of each planetary mass within our solar system – shadows who appear when any potential invader comes near!
Lavinia learns of The Nine with an understanding that would drive anyone insane were they still functioning; their presence is everywhere within all living and moving things, from each system and person, right down to trillions and pentillions of dark matter tentacles plunging deep within our bodies, feeding off of life experiences, thoughts, lives, thoughts… infinitely long spiderlegs all have an effect.”
Lavinia encounters Emissary Orin and is warned by him of her impending danger, yet too late as Lavinia is taken from Nine’s reality and brought into a small cottage where a “clever-looking old lady” greets her warmly: “Don’t be alarmed; this place has always been prepared to accept you. Here, your talents can truly make use of everything that has happened during your lifetime – didn’t I tell you then that your birth would bring much good?”
Do you recognize who was behind all this chaos? Well it was Savathun: Lavinia was no doubt orchestrated to serve Savathun and gain information on The Nine from them – what an inconvenient truth it is indeed!
Lavinia has only been mentioned once since her introduction in Dust lore book: in Season of Arrivals quest steps text notes Drifter encountering Lavinia out there “in the nothin’,” wondering if she ever found what she sought – while Savathun values knowledge, while Lavinia as someone searching for secrets has found somewhere she truly belongs – both parties find peace within each other in court of Witch Queen.
