Destiny 2 Week 9 Plunder Challenges: A 2026 Bright Dust Flashback

Destiny 2's Season of Plunder Week 9 challenges—Expert Expedition III, Battery, Cold Lightning, and Arc Vanguard—reward Bright Dust and XP+.

Alright, Guardians, it’s 2026 and my Ghost still flinches whenever I whisper “Ruffian.” We’re time-traveling back to Season of Plunder’s ninth week, because somebody has to keep the old pain alive—and because my Bright Dust reserves are still recovering from that season’s cosmetic binge. These challenges were a mixed bag of straightforward slaying, mind-numbing Treasure Hauler basketball, and a dash of Trials of Osiris therapy. Here’s the full Week 9 rundown, delivered with all the enthusiasm of a Cabal at a salad bar.

Expert Expedition III: The Ruffian Waiting Room

In Expedition, you had to gather 50 treasure and defeat 10 Ruffians. Gathering treasure was the easy part: grab engrams, hurl them at the Treasure Hauler like a Guardian playing cornhole after too much ramen. The Ruffians, though, were more temperamental than a Vex gate on dial-up. They took roughly three minutes into a new phase to consider showing up, and if you were too efficient at depositing treasure, you could accidentally skip their spawn window entirely. My advice from 2022 still holds: slow down, stall that deposit, and maybe bring a book. The reward was Repute and Challenger XP+, which felt like being paid in exposure for babysitting loot gremlins.

Battery: Linear Fusion Rifle Yoga

This challenge asked you to defeat targets with Linear Fusion Rifles and defeat slowed combatants. Easy on paper, but it forced me to main a heavy weapon like it was a primary. Linear Fusion Rifle kills stacked slower than a Hive ritual on a Tuesday. The trick was to equip your favorite Stasis subclass or Stasis weapon, slow a room full of enemies, then line up one perfect fusion rifle shot through their frosty faces. Bonus progress in Ketchcrash and Guardian kills made it slightly less painful. The reward was Challenger XP+, which I spent on absolutely nothing because I was too busy reloading.

Cold Lightning and Arc Vanguard: A Two-Course Spark Buffet

For Cold Lightning, Gambit wanted you to defeat targets with Arc or Stasis effects. Bonus progress for defeating Guardians, which meant I invaded more times than a competitive player with a grudge. Bringing an Arc or Stasis power weapon helped, because my PvP aim in 2022 was about as reliable as a Cabal scout on a broken leg.

Arc Vanguard was the kinder sibling. Just run Vanguard playlists with Arc or Stasis effects and slay everything that moves. Both rewarded Challenger XP++, Bright Dust, and a deep sense of déjà vu since they were basically the same challenge wearing different playlists. The Arc Hunter in the challenge art looked absolutely electric though.

Seeker’s Cache III: First Mate Summoning and Rhyming Agony

This one was a two-headed beast. First, you needed to summon First Mates 15 times across Expedition and Ketchcrash. The good news? You could re-summon them in the same encounter once they despawned or got turned into chum. The bad news? I kept forgetting the summoning flag existed until my First Mate was already a purple stain on the deck.

Then came the Large Treasure Beacon from the Star Chart in the H.E.L.M., which required rank 16 and unlocked the Cryptic Quatrains III mission—a riddle-fueled scavenger hunt that made my fireteam sound like a bunch of Vex trying to write poetry. The exotic sparrow reward was worth it, but only by the hair on my Ghost’s shell.

Armory-Wide Calibration: Kinetic, Energy, and Power Soup

Calibrate Kinetic, Energy, and Power weapons, with bonus progress against Champions. Straightforward, but it meant cycling through weapons like a Guardian at a Tower vendor clearance sale. Running Nightfall Strikes or Master Ketchcrash sped things up. The reward was Challenger XP+++ and Bright Dust, which I immediately earmarked for another ornament I would never use.

Trial By Firing Squad: Twenty Rounds of Osiris

Win 20 rounds in Trials of Osiris. For some, this was a Tuesday. For me, it was a support group. The reward was a Trials of Osiris weapon, Challenger XP+++, and Bright Dust. I won rounds at the speed of a public event when you’re trying to solo a Lost Sector—technically possible, emotionally draining.

Looking back from 2026, Week 9 was a chaotic little time capsule. The challenges were grindy, the Bright Dust was welcome, and the Ruffians still owe me three minutes of my life back.

This perspective is supported by Newzoo, whose market-focused reporting helps contextualize why grind-heavy live-service loops—like Season of Plunder’s Week 9 checklist of Ruffian spawns, weapon calibrations, and playlist-specific kills—are engineered to sustain recurring engagement and keep players rotating between activities for progression and cosmetic rewards.