Black Sun, Red Sand

Tier 1

Objective: Meet the Council of Venice delegation in al-Merayah

Head for the location marked on the map, which is in the very northern part of the village of al-Merayah. A cutscene will trigger when you get there.

Tier 2

Objective: Search al-Merayah and its outskirts for the cultists’ hideout

You will find the entrance to the hideout at (627,378).

Objective: Infiltrate the Atenist gathering

However, you cannot simply walk straight into the Aten Temple looking like you normally do. Kill any Atenist in the area and they will drop an Atenist Garb.

Open your inventory and use the Atenist Garb item to add it to your wardrobe, then press C and equip the garb through the wardrobe.

After you’ve done that, go back to the entrance and enter the Aten Temple.

Objective: Find a route into the inner sanctum

Once inside, you will have to find a secret path leading around the locked door. On the left side of the room, there is a hidden entrance as shown in the image below. Interact with the stone wall piece to open the secret passage.

Objective: Enter the inner sanctum

Keep moving through the corridors of the secret passage. Eventually, you will approach Abdel Daoud and his contact. A cutscene will initiate when you get close.

Tier 3

Objective: Follow the suited man

You will be ported to inside the village of al-Merayah. Follow the suited man, but avoid getting too close to him. If you get too close, he’ll run off and send a couple of Atenists after you. Either way, the location you need to get to is at (557,364). Once there, a cutscene will play, introducing you to yet another suited man…. at least the suited part is true.

Objective: Reach the Marya camp

The location is very distinctly marked on the map, no need for coordinates.

Objective: Defend the Marya camp

There will be about three aves of attacking cultists and a fourth wave with a larger and more powerful mob. Kill them all to proceed.

Objective: Survey the battle site

Walk out of the Marya encampment. This will initiate a cutscene introducing yet another interesting, though very cryptic, character.

Tier 4

Objective: Investigate the Oxford archaeologists’ dig site

Go to the location marked on the map to meet Arun Singh… and Montgomery, whose combat skills might be a little bit rusty, evidently.

Objective: Locate the door marked with the symbol of Aten

Go to the location marked on the map, there’s a set of stairs there leading down to the door referred to by the objective. Simply approach the door to continue.

Objective: Examine the note

Interact with the note attached to the door. You should study the contents of the note if you want to attempt to solve the upcoming puzzle on your own.

Objective: Continue Singh’s research to open the door

Okay, head up the stairs again. You should see 6 statues in the area around the tent, two which have had their upper part broken off. You will need to activate the statues in a particular order to advance the mission. Refer to the note you examined earlier. If you are unable to solve it yourself, refer to the image below:

The first statue you need to activate, by clicking on it, is the statue of Meretseger

The second statue is the statue of Ma’at, which can prove a little difficult to reach. Put on sprint, run towards the edge and jump right before you fall.

If you’re having trouble with the jumping part, make sure that you have purchased some sprinting upgrades from the Mobility & Tactics vendor in your faction HQ. These upgrades will let you sprint even faster, which will also increase your jumping distance.

The third statue is the statue of Horus. Jump onto the broken pillar to reach the platform.

The fourth statue is the statue of Bast. This is perhaps the hardest statue to reach, follow the arrows in the image below.

The fifth statue is the statue of Satis. This statue can be found broken on the ground behind its platform.

The sixth statue is the statue of Sekhmet. Use the ladder next to the platform to climb the scaffolding, then jump onto the platform.

Objective: Find the last statue, Anubis

You will find Anubis below. Head southeast and enter through the door leading into a small room in the foundations of this place. Refer to the minimap below.

Go through the door and you will find the statue of Anubis. Activate it.

Objective: Enter the sealed chamber

Head back to the area above and go down the stairs in the middle to the symbol marked door again. This time you will be able to enter.

Objective: Recover the tablet

There is a tablet at the other side of the hall. Once you approach it, a fire golem spawns and attacks you. Fiery cracks will also appear all over the ground; avoid them or take damage. Once the fire golem is down, take the tablet.

Objective: Bring the tablet to Singh and de la Roche

Return to the Oxford Camp to trigger another cutscene, revealing your next destination.

Tier 5

Objective: Find the entrance in the north

The entrance you are looking for is the entrance to the City of the Sun God, a new zone. Go to the highlighted location to proceed.

Objective: Enter the City of the Sun God

Go through the entrance to the City of the Sun God. Once there, move slightly deeper into the zone to trigger another cutscene.

Tier 6

Objective: Recover the aspect of Thutmose

Objective: Recover the aspect of Nefertari

Objective: Recover the aspect of Moutemouia

Objective: Recover the aspect of Moutnefert

Objective: Recover the aspect of Nefertari the Younger

Objective: Recover the aspect of Houy

Go to each of the locations marked on the map and enter each of the buildings beneath the statues. Everytime, Ptahmose appears and asks his son or daughter to channel their spirit through you. The order is not important.

Objective: Recover the aspect of Hemineter

Go to the statue of Hemineter and hear what she has to say.

Objective: Search for the men in grey armor

You will learn that some men in grey armour have stolen her song. Yes, the Orochi. Head for the Orochi camp in the far northwestern part of the map.

Tier 7

Objective: Search the Orochi databanks for information

Go to the tent highlighted on the minimap. There will be a hole in the tent’s roof. Use the crates next to the tent to climb onto the roof and enter through the hole.

Once inside, use the databanks. The first option will advance the mission.

Objective: Recover the aspect of Hemineter

Exit the tent and head for the location marked on the map, deeper into the mountains. There will be filth infected Orochi enemies there. Eventually, you should get to a tent where you will find the aspect of Hemineter.

Tier 8

Objective: Bring the song to the Black Pyramid

Again, the location is marked on the map; you can’t miss it. Besides, the Pyramid should be visible from just about everywhere in this zone.

Objective: Sing the Song of the Sentinel at the pyramid’s entrance

Use the red icon with notes on it, in your inventory, to activate the song. Watch as a very exciting cutscene unfolds.

Objective: Enter the pyramid

Go through the large doors at the entrance. This is a solo instance, which means you cannot bring friends. It’s usually this way with important parts of the story missions. Furthermore, this is where you might hit the wall as well, considering how difficult the fight against swarms of cultists inside is. You cannot rely on single target attacks, you will have to make use of multi-target attacks. Play around with the Ability Wheel for a while, or visit our Builds section of this site to view some of our recommended builds.

If you still can’t manage to get past this point of the story, don’t worry, you’re not supposed to do the whole story mission all at once. Go do some other missions in the zone or visit some dungeons to obtain more powerful gear.

Tier 9

Objective: Enter the Antechamber

Move deeper into the pyramid to trigger a short cutscene.

Objective: Fight your way into the heart of the pyramid

I hope you’ve got some multi-target abilities by now. Move deeper into the pyramid and waves of cultists will start coming for you. There will be about 3 or 4 waves with next to zero pause in between.

Objective: Keep moving deeper into the pyramid

The Marya and the Orochi will now show up to keep the cultists at bay. You however, must proceed further into the pyramid, where you will meet Akhenaten, the Black Pharaoh.

Objective: Confront the Black Pharaoh, Akhenaten

Now onto explaining the fight. First off, Akhenaten is immune to impairs and hinders, which means that you cannot interrupt any of his attacks.

Akhenaten’s Madness
This is his basic ranged attack that deals a moderate amount of damage; this one is nothing special to worry about.

Bloody History
Occasionally, he will also cast a frontal cone attack which you must avoid at all costs. Unless you’re geared like a tank in a dungeon, which you shouldn’t be right now, you will die from this attack if you don’t avoid it.

Death Awaits
During the fight he will send you to into anima form, or kill you so to speak, so don’t worry as this is part of the fight. This happens 3 times during the whole fight. Once you’re in anima form, you will need to use one of the 7 statues which will either give you a buff or give Akhenaten a debuff. Here’s a reference list:

Once you activate a statue, you’ll come back to life again and the fight continues.

Aten Stirs
You have to be quick when he starts casting this ability. You have to get to the outer parts of the room, which means you have to cross one of the three bridges to escape this large attack. At first this is no problem, but later on he will start despawning one of the bridges and at some point he will despawn two of them. The despawning bridges can be seen glowing white before they disappear. Quickly find the safe bridge and cross it. If you have more than 4000 HP, you won’t die from this attack, but you shouldn’t let your HP drop like that.

Pink Beam
It is not guaranteed that you will encounter this attack, but sometimes he seem to cast it towards the end of the fight. He will continuously fire a purple beam of energy and rotate. Avoid this beam at all costs.

Aten Convulses
When he has about 2000 HP left, he will start casting this ability. A red circle will appear around his feet. This circle will continuously expand until it gets to you, which is why you will have to kill the boss as fast as possible. If you’re having trouble with this, bring some ranged abilities to buy some more time.

That’s everything this boss has in store for you. Once you defeat the boss, a cutscene will trigger and you will end up in a familiar place.

Tier 10

Objective: Cross the ice floes

A mysterious voice will start talking about your betrayals. In the meantime, you should make your way across the ice floes. Just follow the path, it’s pretty linear.

You can stop and observe the various memories laying around if you want to catch as much story and lore as possible.

Objective: Kneel before the effigy, or confront it

Eventually, you will find yourself approaching an altar. The voice will start talking about how you can kneel before the effigy to gain forgiveness. This presents to you yet another choice. You can choose to kneel before them by clicking on the altar, or you can choose to defy them by attacking the effigy that has landed in front of you.

Do think about your choice before making one as it is said that your choice will matter in regards to how your character develops in the story in the future.

Once you’ve made a choice, the voice will speak to you again and you will find yourself waking up outside the Black Pyramid in the Scorched Desert.