# Secrets League In Path of Exile: Secrets of the Atlas, tears have begun to appear in the Atlas leading to different realities. The Originator of these realities has entangled themselves within the very fabric of the Atlas and they’re now trapped! Track down the source of the tears and uncover the secrets within. Our new expansion introduces an additive endgame storyline, a new type of endgame crafting mechanic, three new endgame bosses, a new challenge league, dozens of new unique items and much more. #### A New Endgame Storyline Meet Eagon, an intelligent man of mysterious heritage. He is trying to discover his origins, but in doing so, he has found more than he bargained for. In his investigation, Eagon has encountered distortions of reality. Occasionally he catches a glimpse of a young girl through the rifts - Zana. He knows her as the daughter of the great inventor who shaped the Atlas as we know it. These tears in reality, he has discovered, are actually threads of memory, distorted and made real by the Atlas. Eagon is adamant to discover what is causing this and save Zana. #### Step into the Memories In the Atlas you will encounter Threads of Consciousness, a strange thread-like substance that appears near the tears. By using a powerful gauntlet of his own making, Eagon is able to create a link to these memory threads and open portals to them. Working with Eagon, you must step through and find Zana, or whatever remains of her. The areas opened by Eagon can be fully influenced by your Atlas Tree, Scarabs and Fragments. Your goal is to reach the end, the source of this Stream of Consciousness by fighting through a number of Maps. #### Harness New Powers The areas you are asked to investigate are not just regular Maps, they’re influenced by the Memories of Zana herself and have manifested dangerous threats. This influence takes the form of having monsters imbued with Memory Petals. Defeating these enemies causes the power of those monsters to transfer onto you. Each of the Memories within the Threads will grant you a different special ability. The enemy power you received fuels this ability and allows you to use it. As you progress further into the Thread of Memories, the Maps can have more than one Memory and thus you can have more than one powerful ability. #### Face New Pinnacle Bosses The final map in each Thread is a true challenge, filled with new monsters and guarded by a powerful boss. Each of these bosses are familiar but dreamlike, drawn from Zana’s memories and warped by the Atlas into something very different and terrifying. If you manage to defeat one of these warped memory bosses, Eagon will be able to harness its power to delve deeper into the memory rifts. In those depths you will encounter the most significant of Zana's memories which manifested into three new Pinnacle bosses. #### Reap the Rewards Defeating the Pinnacle bosses will grant you new powerful uniques and Memory Influenced Maps which introduce Memory Strands, a new item mechanic. The new Pinnacle bosses also drop new Crafting Currencies which can be used to manipulate the Memory Strands on items. In addition, we have supported the new endgame content with a set of new passive skills on Atlas Passive Tree. #### Meet the Mercenaries of Trarthus In the Secrets of the Atlas expansion, we’re introducing the new challenge league, Mercenaries of Trarthus. In this league, you will meet lawless veterans who have travelled all the way from the brutal lands of Trarthus. They're ready to offer their sinister services, but not for free. You will find these Mercenaries as you journey through Wraeclast, one in each area. They each have their own personalities, and come with different builds, skills, and items already equipped. #### Respect Trarthan Tradition Upon meeting a Mercenary, as per Trarthan tradition, they will challenge you to a duel to test your strength. Before beginning the duel, you will be offered an overview of the Mercenary you’ve encountered. You can then decide to duel them, choosing a reward for your victory: you can hire their services, take one of their items, or exile them. #### Find a Perfect Companion After hiring a Mercenary, you can view their items, basic stats, and the skills they have at any point. All of these are randomly generated for each Mercenary, guided by a range of class archetypes. Any of your Mercenaries you have active or in your reserves can have their equipment replaced with items of your choosing. Their level doesn't change after being hired so you are constantly going to be looking out for more skilled and more powerful Mercenaries as you advance through the campaign and Endgame. #### Infamous Trarthan Armaments You may also find particular Trarthan Mercenaries throughout Wraeclast bearing the name of their house. These are noble Mercenaries that descend from the four major death trade families in Trarthus. Noble Mercenaries are less common, but their equipped items are far better - they are also the sole source of the new Infamous modifiers. Sometimes when you fight a Mercenary, you may notice the skills they're using are different from normal. If you're lucky you will be able to select that as your reward when challenging them. Then defeat them, and they'll drop the Trarthan Gem as promised. #### Complete the Challenges The Mercenaries Challenge League comes with a fresh set of 40 optional challenges to complete. By doing so, you will earn the pieces of Watcher's Wrath Armour Set. You'll start earning these microtransactions from as early as four completed challenges. #### Benefit from Kingsmarch's Services Kingsmarch from the Settlers of Kalguur League is going core but there will be no more town building! Instead, you will be able to enjoy Kingsmarch's services to their full effect right from the start. In addition, we have added Runegrafting, a new passive tree mechanic that can be used to replace a passive tree Mastery node. The Settlers mechanic has also received Atlas Passive Tree support and a handful of Scarabs. #### Betrayal Rework In Secrets of the Atlas we are reworking the Betrayal mechanic. The Mastermind is now accessible through a new fragment that has a chance to drop from Safehouse Leaders and no longer resets the state of the Immortal Syndicate. The boss fight itself has also been improved, now with significantly fewer immunity phases and new rewards, including Allflame Embers. We have also introduced several Quality of Life improvements to Betrayal, rebalanced Safehouse rewards, added Veiled Chaos Orbs back to the Betrayal drop pool, improved Betrayal Atlas Tree nodes and the Scarabs that modify it. #### Quality of Life Features In this expansion we have added a number of quality of life improvements our players have been asking for. For example, you will be able to unveil items by yourself at any time and use Orbs of Horizon on Elder-Guardian and Conqueror maps. We have also implemented the ability to pause the game, added a small additional inventory to the Map Device and introduced several other useful features.