If you've spent some time in The Division 2's White House, you may have come across a locked weapon crate that indicates it needs 8 Ivory Keys to be opened. You probably also noticed you have zero Ivory Keys. And, as you've been running around the map you may also have spotted some unusual murals around Washington DC. Murals that looks like they contain some sort of code. Intriguing!
The murals and the keys are connected. The codes, once deciphered, provide instructions to follow in the form of a riddle. When those instructions are carried out (which is sometimes easier said than done), a very mean dude called a Hunter will appear. And once that Hunter is killed (again, easier said than done), he will drop an Ivory Key.
The Ivory Keys, and what they unlock, is perhaps the biggest mystery in The Division 2, but players have been working hard since these codes were first spotted in the beta, and they've made a lot of progress. Here's everything we know about the codes and Ivory Keys.
The first step is finding all the code murals and deciphering them, which has (thankfully) already been done. Translating the code into English can be done with a handy cipher, which you can find here. That same link also shows the eight mural codes, where you can find them on the map, and what the riddles say when they're decoded.
Naturally, having the riddles decoded doesn't mean instantly knowing what they're asking players to do, so there are also several Reddit threads where players are sharing what they've found while trying to follow the riddles' instructions.
For instance, the code translation for the mural at the National Portrait Gallery (seen above) reads: "From the south to the north, artists hurried to answer the call of rich patrons who wanted their portraits painted, only to have their work rot in a gallery."
If you enter the gallery you'll find a reception desk in the lobby to the south. Interact with the phone on the desk (there's a prompt), then immediately run north through the courtyard and into the lobby in the northern building. Interact with the phone on the desk (there will be a prompt here too, if you've been quick enough).
When I used the second phone, that's when the Hunter spawned and immediately dropped me with a single shot. I respawned and returned five different times to find him still in the courtyard, where he repeatedly humiliated me. The Hunter is clearly an end-game dude, so my advice would be to level all the way up and bring some friends before you even attempt to acquire your first Ivory Key from this jerk.
Some code murals aren't so terribly hard to find, such as this one on the side of the Washington Monument, which is a control point as well as a difficult thing to miss on the DC skyline. The translated text reads "Scan three lost souls / find the time to pay respects / souls honored after dark return to first monument and release another."
From the Reddit thread on the subject:
"We know that pushing the button in the basement room under the Washington Monument shows us a map and that if we follow the map, in order, we can find three SHD agent graves. When you salute at the graves, there is a subtle indication that it has been recorded as your HUD fuzzes up a bit. After finding and saluting all graves in the right order, returning to the basement room and pressing the button puts a big orange ellipse (or stretched circle) on the screen above the button. Going outside when its dark you can see a big orange circle of light on the ground from a lightbulb that has turned orange. But there should be one more thing that we need to do that we are missing!"
"Although there is the nearby Monument Field Hospital, I realized that I was taking it for granted that "first monument" was referring to the Washington Monument. A search for "First Monuments" revealed the First Division Monument - which seemed VERY appropriate for an easter egg. Going there, among the graves, I found two graves with wooden adorned by SHD watches, just like the graves of the SHD agents around the Washington Memorial. However, the only thing I could think of was to go there after dark and salute the graves - and nothing happened. At this point, I'm stumped, but I feel that there is something about the "release another" line that needs to be figured out."
Sounds pretty complicated, and there's still some work to be done on several of the riddles. The Division 2's finest code-crackers and riddle-solvers are on the case, however, and we'll let you know what's inside that mysterious weapon crate when they've finally gotten it open.
