A view of the Dust District.
The Dust District, previously known as the Batista Mining District, or simply Batista, is a location in Karnaca. The district is situated at the edge of the city and earns its name from the hazy plumes of silver dust emanating from the nearby silver mines.
This is the main location for the mission of the same name in Dishonored 2, where either Corvo Attano or Emily Kaldwin must investigate the disappearance of the mine baron Aramis Stilton.
Details
The Dust District is an industrial and mining area of Karnaca, where workers live and work at the silver mines accessible from the top of the Batista Overlook. With the disappearance of Aramis Stilton, the mines' owner, the Duke of Serkonos, Luca Abele, gave control of the mines to Duncan Bayles of the Bayles Trading Company in order to drive them at double the rate.[1] The nearby presence of the Sirhrocco Currents blowing through the mines, has resulted in silver dust billowing up from them to start falling unto the district at a constant rate. This phenomenon causes violent sandstorms, with sand piling up on the sides of the buildings, and people started walking around wearing masks. Life conditions have degraded considerably and miners are dying, all in the name of the Duke's profit. To make matters worse, the bloodfly infestation has spread across the district in some of the condemned buildings.
Lately, the Howlers have been trying to seize control of the district from the Grand Guard. Attracted by their violent acts and rumors of black magic, a group of Warfare Overseers led by Vice Overseer Liam Byrne started fighting them back, with the objective to build there a chapel for the Abbey of the Everyman. Neither side retracts from cruelty in order to achieve their goal, even at the cost of innocent lives.
Dishonored 2
Duke Abele ordered the withdrawal of the Grand Guard after losing too many men, either caught in the blast of Overseers' grenades or mauled by their wolfhounds, killed by the Howlers or blinded by their hallucinogenic dust. It was rumored that among the casualties was a distant cousin of the Duke, a young, female lieutenant who was accidentally killed by an Overseer grenade. Since then the Guard cut off the warfare from the rest of the city by closing the district with walls of light, despite its surviving inhabitants' misery.
Trivia
- This location is also visited during the subsequent mission, A Crack in the Slab, as the protagonists returns from Stilton Manor to Anton Sokolov and Meagan Foster. However, the area where the Howlers and Overseers are fighting has since been blocked off.
- Originally, that area was still going to be accessible, allowing the protagonist to see how certain choices they might have made during A Crack in the Slab affected the world at large. For example, the Crone's Hand Saloon would just be a normal bar, and the Overseer outpost would still belong to the Bayles Trading Company and suchlike. However, this was too much to do when only a few players would find it like that, and so most of the district was blocked off.[2]
- An unused asset of the signboard of Bayles Trading Company, which is covered by the Abbey's banners in-game, can be found in Eric Pira's Art Station portfolio.
- Corvo was born in the Dust District back when it was the Batista Mining District. A plaque has been attached to the house where he was born, which has been abandoned and sealed off since his mother died.
- Corvo's Blade Verbena trophy is still hidden in a hole in the wall, along with his mother's journal.
- Depending on the protagonist's actions in the past of Stilton's manor, the Dust District may be restored to its former glory.
- An in-game silvergraph shows Duke Luca Abele and Aramis Stilton during the inauguration of the windbreak in 1848.
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