Environmental lore
Throughout Wraeclast are various pieces of environmental lore that can be found in many different zones. These lore pieces provide us with much background information about Wraeclast and its inhabitants that is necessary to fully understand the plot and history of Path of Exile. All of the lore pieces listed here are necessary to complete the achievement "No Stone Unturned."
Act I
Letters of Exile
Found in Lioneye's Watch. They contain information on when and for what an exile was sentenced. Clicking on the object repeatedly will rotate randomly between different exiles.
Weathered Carvings (Lavianga)
Found throughout Act 1. They tell of the Karui's attempt to settle in Wraeclast, as told by Lavianga.
Lioneye's Standard
Found in The Climb. It marks where Marceus Lioneye commanded the Eternal Legion in what would be his last stand against the Karui.
- There is no Honour without Sacrifice.
Shavronne's Journal
Found in The Warden's Quarters.
- ...still the Karui barbarians advance from the South. Lioneye is dead, his legion slaughtered. Should the need arise we shall retreat through Prisoner's Gate, raising my barricade behind us. But our Lord Brutus nears readiness. Foul times demand heroism. The Warden will serve as our saviour. May he crush the Karui into the sand with the mighty fists I shall gift to...
Letter of Instruction
Found in The Warden's Quarters.
- Dear Shavronne,
- You have certainly had your work cut out for you with Lioneye's Legion. Do not concern yourself with Marceus' complaints. Our Emperor is fully aware of the General's fickle nature.
- As to your need to accelerate the implantation process, I can recommend a quite simple alteration. Dip the gem in a boiling solution of six parts blood and one part thaumetic sulphite for no more than thirteen seconds. Any longer and you invite the crystal's wrath.
- Once the gem is withdrawn from the solution, you have but a few seconds to install the gem in the prepared flesh and close the wound. Should the gem cool too much prior to implantation, it will become inert and your patient with it.
- Trust in that bountiful talent of yours, Shavronne. My thoughts are with you.
- Malachai
Sailor's Skin
Found in The Cavern of Wrath.
- Welcome, husband. We knew in our hearts that you would find us. Come, Daresso, Ambrosia and Amarissa must meet their father. Come, my love. Return to your family.
Damp Diary
Found in Merveil's Lair.
- Daresso gave me the gem, kissed me, promised that he would be by my side forever. I sang for him. I sang for Oriath with his gem at my throat. Kalisa's gem. Kalisa's voice.
- I sang in her echo, performing arias that had once made the Empire weep. I listened to Kalisa's lullabies in my dreams. I gave myself to her music. Mind...and body.
- Daresso left me, for Sarn, with a promise to free me from Kalisa. I begged him not to go. Tried to show him the wonder of my transformation, the beautiful daughters he would soon meet. He couldn't see. None of them could see. I fled from their hatred.
- When Daresso returns I will cast his cure away. I will teach him what true love is.
Act II
Etchings on Wood
Found throughout The Crossroads.
Ancient Reverie Device
Found in The Chamber of Sins Level 1.
- Inquisitor,
- If you attempt to transmogrify a virtue gem without the proper mental preparation, you will be a puppet master working strings made of vipers. Remember, these gems are phantasms in crystalline form, alive, with volitions inscrutable. Master conscious dreaming, as I instructed you. Your death would mean little to me, Maligaro. It's what your demise could unleash that concerns me.
- Malachai
Transmutia Device
Found in The Chamber of Sins Level 2.
- I bequeath this Transmutia Device to you, Inquisitor Maligaro, in recognition of your devotion to our sublime Art. May it be the chariot that conveys your dreams into reality.
- Malachai, Thaumaturge Laureate to the Empire
Proclamation
Found in The Western Forest.
- We, the Court of Reckoning find you, Doedre Stamatis, guilty of the following transgressions against God:
- Perversion of God's Creation
- Promotion of Heretical Beliefs
- Unlawful Enslavement of Eternal Citizens
- Torture of the Innocent
- Murder of the Servants of Purity
- For these most severe crimes, I do sentence Doedre Darktongue to burn at the stake till naught is left but ash. May her life serve as penance for the lives she has taken, and let Purity sweep away the dust of her deeds from our firmament.
- - High Templar Voll, Commander of the Army of Purity
Arteri's Letter
Found in The Western Forest.
- Arteri, my beautiful captain.
- I wish it were not you, but I cannot bring myself to trust any other with this most vital of tasks.
- This is the only pass between the inner and outer Empire. No further exiles are to enter the inner Empire. We have material enough for our work.
- Ensure that the barricade remains in place, and if any exile should somehow pass through, kill them.
- I will send for you when my work is complete in Sarn.
- Until we share our next night together,
- Piety
Plaque (Fellshrine Ruins)
Found in The Fellshrine Ruins.
- On this day, the 2nd Sacrato of Verusi, 1334 IC, the Army of Purity remembers its most devout and beloved servant, Archbishop Geofri of Phrecia.
- As spoken by Geofri:
- Only will and truth can prevail
over the evil of our own kin.
- - High Templar Voll, commander of the Army of Purity
Act III
Ancient Graffiti
Found throughout Act 3.
Official Orders
Found in The Warehouse District.
- Captain Alsarus,
- Remain in the warehouse until I personally send for you. In the unlikely event that Chitus should fall, you and your fellow legionnaires will be safely beyond the perimeter of his heart gem's influence.
- You men and women are my finest work yet. I would not lose you all to some aberration of chance.
- Malachai, Thaumaturge Laureate
Ancient Notebook
Found in The Marketplace.
- I write this now in hope that someone will remain. Someone may remember.
- The sun is an orb of blood. Twisted twilight shrouds my eyes. The air reeks of anguish. Sarn has plunged into nightmare.
- The man who served me coffee now writhes on the floor. He rants of visions he alone can see, as writhing red tentacles grow from his face, as if his eyes had been seeds waiting to sprout. He is quiet, now, my waiter. No more cackling and screaming. Dead.
- Of my fellow patrons, only two live. The others have fallen. Their blood is everywhere. The survivors, Gemlings both... their skin shrivels and greys to the hue of necrosis. Their gems flare with unholy lustre. Their eyes... black as... hatred.
- A gemling ghoul... it twisted off a corpse's head... gnaws at skull like dog. My head now... visions clawing at me... Thinking burns! I see... horror, envy the mute corpses at my... feet. Words flay me... flee me. All is madness...
Journal Entry
Found in The Solaris Temple Level 2.
- Malachai, 1st Caso of Divini, 1329 IC.
- "Pretty as porcelain, but her mouth spins like the potter's wheel." That's how I once described Dialla. Yet on this day, my lady is as ravishing as a nightmare, radiant as the fullest moon.
- Dialla is my Gemling Queen and we shall rule, side by side, over the world that will soon come to be.
- - Malachai
Reverie Device
Found in The Eternal Laboratory on Normal and Cruel difficulty.
- I awoke, feverish, and barely conscious I set to drawing these maps through the sable hours. By morning my fingers ached, my eyes burned, yet still I found no rest. The Reverie commanded its rendering.
- The Reverie Device now stands completed. I have placed the first of my maps within its receptacle. I have taken my maiden voyage into Nightmare.
- I know now that which sent me this precious gift. It knows me, expects my return. It would be foolish to disappoint.
- - Malachai
Malachai's Journal
Found in The Eternal Laboratory on Normal and Cruel difficulty.
- Tear down the walls that imprison the mind... that is what the gems do. That is their true 'virtue'.
- The moment my fingertips brushed the cool, silken planes of that first gem, I felt it. My skull ached, as if its contents were growing, pressing against the bone, searching for a way to break free.
- That night, once the wine had dulled the pain enough to allow the onset of sleep, the dreams began. I have not been without them since. Nor would I be. Every spark of thaumaturgy that I wield, every device that I forge, every creature that I transfigure, I owe to these lessons cloaked in Nightmare.
- From whence do these precepts hail? Certainly not the mundane grey between my ears. I possess only one reference that bears faith. Translated with unquestionable clarity by that idiot savant, Icius Perandus. "The Beast". Doryani of the Vaal knew the truth. Soon now, so shall I.
- Malachai
The Purity Chronicles
Can be found throughout The Library and The Archives. They tell of the Warriors of Purity and their insurrection against Emperor Chitus.
The Ancients
Can be found throughout The Library and The Archives. They tell of the fall of the Vaal Empire and the rise of the Eternal Empire.
Victario's Writings
Can be found throughout The Library and The Archives. They contain anecdotes and allegory written by the poet Victario of Sarn.
Dark Tome
Found in The Library with the 
Unbearable Whispers IUnbearable Whispers IDark runes skitter across the pages of the tome, concealing the Whisperer's allies.You will discover a tome in the Library, Academy Map, Museum Map, or Scriptorium Map.Right-click to add this prophecy to your character.
prophecy.
- My Council,
- The sky turns black as ink.
- We must gather at once, for I fear the end draws close.
- I have uncovered a tome that illustrates certain forbidden techniques used to prolong life far beyond ordinary means. We shall fracture our very souls, and keep safe a piece of one another's very being. With this, none of us may perish unless all of us perish at once.
- It is not without a cost, for life granted requires life be paid, but it need not be any of ours. Bring your most loyal and healthy retainers, and bid the rest farewell, for we shall not see them again.
- Make haste and do not speak of where you are going. Immortality is within our grasp, but there are countless who would risk death - who would kill - for a chance at eternal life.
- -Inya
Letter to Chitus
Found in The Sceptre of God.
- My dear Chitus,
- The Empire has lived in fear and ignorance since its inception. Our Azmeri ancestors, in their arrogance, turned their backs on the lessons of the Vaal.
- The emperors before you lacked courage, lacked vision, paying lip service to 'Eternity' while scrabbling for approval and comfort within the prison of their meagre, mortal lives.
- You are not one of those emperors. You are Chitus the Great, the man who will make this Empire truly understand the meaning of the word 'Eternal'.
- We shall build this Thaumatocracy together, my emperor, gem by gem, immortal by immortal.
- Your devoted servant,
- Malachai
Plaque (Sceptre of God)
Found in The Sceptre of God.
- Malachai
- Laureate Thaumaturge to the Eternal Empire
The Father of Dreams
Act IV
Note
Found in The Aqueduct.
- Captain Vincenti,
- The Highgate holds the secret to the true origin of the gems. Cleanse the mountain of those Maraketh parasites and secure the entrance to those Mines.
- Do not disappoint me, Vincenti. As you well know, my displeasure can change a man.
- -Piety
Voll's Confession
Found in The Dried Lake.
- I vowed to "care for this empire with my eyes open". I lied to my people. I lied to myself. Blinded by my lust for 'purity', I placed my faith in the most corrupt of men.
- I watch now as my legion dies, their flesh melting from their twisted bones. They fall...and rise. A tide of mortal death and eternal damnation.
- I feel it now in my own flesh. The heat. The corruption.
- I have failed you, my Empire of Purity. Do not forgive me but please, I beg of you, survive me.
- -Voll
Malachai's Notebook
Found in The Crystal Veins.
- The Rapture Device has absorbed its fill of harvested life from Fury and Desire. It is ready.
- So am I.
- I know now that I was born to be the end and the beginning of the Empire. The Beast has made this clear to me. As clear and undeniable as the sacrifice I must now make.
- My Lady Dialla, my love, my life's greatest achievement. She must leave me now, for she cannot follow and she will perish if she remains.
- And so I will ask of her more than she would ever give. I will betray her. I will break her heart so that I do not break her soul.
Weathered Carvings (Kaom)
Found throughout Kaom's Dream and Kaom's Stronghold. They tell of the Karui's attempt to conquer Wraeclast, as told by Kaom.
Plaques (Grand Arena)
Found throughout The Grand Arena. They tell of Daresso's youth and his love for Merveil.
Malachai's Dedication
Found in The Harvest
- On this day, the eve of this Rapture's completion, I honour those who have passed and whose passion and knowledge have brought us to the brink of salvation.
- Inquisitor Maligaro, a creative force without equal.
- Shavronne of Umbra, an aesthete of transcendent sensibility.
- Doedre Darktongue, an idol of fervor and dedication.
- You taught me far more than I ever taught you, my students... my friends. We strove to make a greater world together and, in your memory, I shall make that world a reality.
- Malachai
Other
Vaal Letters
Found in corrupted areas. They tell of Atziri's subjugates how their turmoil under her reign.
Inscriptions
Can be found beside Stone Altars in the Talisman leagues. They are the memoirs of Thane Rigwald.
Bronze Monographs
Found throughout Trials of Ascendancy.
Bronze Plaque
Found in the Aspirant's Plaza.
- "The Just Goddess presides over us all. The future of the Empire rests in her even hands."
- The Lord's Labyrinth, opened by Emperor Izaro Phrecius on the second Galvano of Azmeri, 1317 IC.
Bronze Inscriptions
Found throughout The Lord's Labyrinth.
Poems
Found throughout The Lord's Labyrinth. They tell of Thane Rigwald and how he was betrayed by Chitus Perandus.
Memory Fragments
Can be found throughout maps. They are the memoirs of The Shaper.