Tropes E to P / Dungeon Keeper Ami

Tropes A to D | Tropes E To P | Tropes Q to Z

Return to Main.

open/close all folders

E-F

Ear Ache: In Strategy Meeting, when Ami is removing a frog clamped to her ear, there's some slight pain:
Ami sighed, busy with removing the fat frog from her ear. The animal had clamped down on one of her small blue earrings, which added some pain to the general discomfort of being attacked by a slimy amphibian.
Eating the Eye Candy: When intensified Dungeon Heart corruption starts changing all clothes into skimpier versions of themselves, it's not all that surprising that teenage boys rather enjoy an eyeful of Mercury. Kevan is alarmed by his son's reaction, though, assuming that if Mercury notices, she'll levy unspeakable punishments on him.
Eject... Eject... Eject...: From "Inhuman Waves", after Ami inadvertently threw herself into the air:
"AAaaaAhhhHHHhhh!" The skin of her imp-cheeks fluttered in the wind and tried to crawl to the back of her skull, and the airflow stung in her eyes as the world spun like a top around her. Had she been capable of a coherent thought aside from "Eject! Eject!" it would probably have been along the lines of 'Darn it!' at the failure of this workaround.
Elemental Hair Composition: Ami's Ice Golems, made of ice, that look like Ami, a human, so they have hair. And when empowered with her Sailor Mercury transformation, they gain Ice Magic Is Water attacks.
Elite Mook:
- The Death Priests have proven to be some of the most dangerous foes Mercury has encountered. At one point it is shown that at least some of them are capable of casting three spells simultaneously.
- Ami's feral youma monster also counts. Nothing aside from a Lesser Aspect of Death is even capable of harming it, it tunnels straight through stone, and eats magic. When it's created by accident it homes in on the enemy dungeon heart like a guided missile and devours it.
Elite Army: Ami's forces have fought, on average, at a four-to-one disadvantage in every engagement. They have yet to be decisively defeated.
Eldritch Ocean Abyss: A very toothy, ugly deep sea fish is described:
"A tiny deep sea fish investigated the probe from up close, startling Ami by filling the screen with a set of fangs that even Rabixtrel would have envied."
Emergency Transformation: As said in "Gauging the Opposition": Turning creatures into something about the size of a chicken, allows them to avoid being teleported away by the unnamed spell of Nero's. ^{Spell name}:
"I recently fought an enemy Keeper who had a spell to bring all of my employees to a battlefield of his choice. I analysed the magic and found out that it only works on creatures above a certain size," Ami explained. "If everyone carried a potion like that and used it at the right time, then the spell would be essentially harmless."
Empathy Doll Shot: In "Making an Entrance", there's an Abandoned Playground, well, sandbox:
In a sandbox littered with hastily-abandoned children’s toys, she spotted a half-finished wooden figurine and a carving knife. Its grip was just the right size for the tiny hands of a toddler.
Empire with a Dark Secret: Ami suspected the Shining Concord Empire of being this after learning that in all major government buildings there was an Oracle Tower - a structure that closely resembles the temple Zarekos was using in his bid to become a god.^note
Enemy Civil War: The Dark Kingdom seems to descend into this.
- The Keepers are almost continually in this state, which is a major reason as to why the Light Side is still holding on.
- When Crowned Death discovers that his plan worked after all, but that the Unraveller captured Ami and planned on withholding her he flies into a blind rage. The Unraveller gleefully lets him past to get at Ami... only to backstab him once he is distracted.
  “Oh. Was that something important?” The Unraveller sounded decidedly cheerful. ”Please, do ignore me again. I don't mind.”
- And once Crowned Death starts attacking The Unraveller for her betrayal, Azzathra takes advantage of this and backstabs Crowned Death as well.
Enemy Mine:
- The Avatar is not fond of Mercury, but is level-headed enough to temporarily work with her against a common foe for mutual benefit.
  Ami: Um, would you consider helping me out with the defences? I don't think the army is fond of either of us.
  Amadeus: The longer this siege takes, the longer it will delay my own plans.
- Baron Leopold isn't willing to directly co-operate with Ami, but if she's going to give him the location of another Keeper's dungeon, and weaken its defences for good measure, then he's not going to pass up the opportunity to sink the boot in.
- Mercury is able to cooperate with most of the surface world leaders to take down Crowned Death's aquatic temple. They don't entirely trust her, but they're willing to believe that they have a mutual enemy.
Entertainingly Wrong: The forces of Good manage to keep reasonably well-informed on Mercury's actions, but they tend to misinterpret things because Good Cannot Comprehend That in this rare case, Dark Is Not Evil.
Epic Fail: After Ami defeats the Avatar, the dark god Crowned Death approaches her and requests that she worship him, then gets pushy when she refuses. However, every time he escalates, she finds countermeasures. By the time the dust has settled, Crowned Death's priesthood is dead, one of his Lesser Aspects has been eaten, his secret centuries-long plan to fully enter the material world is literally on fire, and his credibility with potential worshippers is in shambles due to the discovery of a spell that would allow anyone to take control of his undead servants and turn them against him. Oh, and the people he was going to sacrifice to himself are now working for Ami.
Ethnicity Monarch: Most, if not all kingdoms, seem to be sorted by races, like the human kingdoms, the three Dwarf Kingdoms, the elf kingdom, and the Fairy kingdom of the Shining Concord Empire.
Event Title: For some chapters, like:
- "A Hairy Situation", where Ami deals with her hair.
- "Making an Entrance", where Ami makes herself an entrance to a Dwarven stronghold.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: And vice versa. The Light Gods literally can't comprehend the motives of the Dark Gods, and pretty much everyone in the world of Dungeon Keeper (with the exception of the Cathy-Jered-Snyder trio and possibly Jadeite), whether Good or Evil, seems to regard any benevolent action on Ami's part as simply something to try and lull the forces of Good into complacency. Duke Libasheshtan eventually accepts her after she performs a task that only a good person can do, but until that point he steadfastly rejected the possibility and doubled down on villainous explanations for everything she had done.
Evil Counterpart: Both Ami and Mukrezar are inventive and imaginative in their tactics, both have made innovations in magic that no-one else can understand. Their personalities are even diametrically opposed to each other - Ami is quiet and studious, Mukrezar is charismatic and goofy.
Evil Counterpart Race: Presumably what the dark elves of the Dark underworld are, to the normal elves of the Light surface.
Evil Gloating:
- Subverted for laughs when it's revealed that Mukrezar wanted to monologue at one of the Avatar's doubles, knowing that the original can share their senses and thus hear his taunts about sending a loyal follower to die — but it turns out that the "double" is a transformed sheep.
- Duke Libasheshtan, though not actually Evil, indulges in some gloating after apparently defeating Ami, including informing her of exactly what she would need to do to escape the trap — on the assumption that a Keeper wouldn't be able to use the information.
  Duke Libasheshtan: Since the knowledge is completely useless to someone like you, it will simply make my victory so much sweeter.
Evil Is Not Well-Lit: Whenever Ami tries to alter the appearance of her dungeon, it changes itself so it's not well lit. It's also coupled with Creepy Changing Painting, Fisher King, and Eldritch Location. She eventually works around the problem by making the lights look like creepy glowing eyes and such.
Evil Overlord: The Dungeon Keepers.
Evil Takes a Nap: The dark god, Queen Metallia, is comatose due to the need to heal her injuries.
Evil Wears Black: What the fairies think Underworld garb looks like, as said in Cornering the Duke:
Do you see any black? Of course you don't! It doesn't look like Underworlder garb at all!
Exact Time to Failure: In Creeping Degeneration, Ami's Mercury Computer could calculate that her Dungeon Heart would fail in "two days, three hours, and fifteen seconds".
Exact Words:
- On several occasions, Ami is able to truthfully assure people that she doesn't work for a Keeper. It helps that she doesn't act anything like people would expect from the actual Keeper.
- Defied — the Light Gods deliberately leave the terms of their agreements vague so that they may stick to their spirit rather than their letter. Amadeus himself notes at one point that technically, his agreement to not attack Mercury doesn't apply to current circumstances...
  Amadeus: Still, attacking immediately without some kind of grace period would be bad form.
- Used routinely by Mukrezar, such as when he is reminded that he owes a debt of gratitude to Crowned Death.
  Mukrezar: And I am willing to show him the full extent of my gratitude. ^note
Exhausted Eye Bags: After being forced to stay awake for over 24 hours to prepare for a difficult battle in a week, Ami's companions are described thus: "dark circles under her companions' eyes".
Expecting Someone Taller: From Getting More Nurses:
[Melissa] absently noticed that the ice statue was no taller than the blonde. How odd. In her mind, the dark empress had been taller.
Exploited Immunity: Ami's cover story for letting the Avatar go free is that it will hinder her rivals much more than herself. It's not entirely untrue, either.
Explosive Results: Not only does Ami's attempt to convert life force into a healing spell cause a chicken to explode, the rats that eat the results start popping too.
Extradimensional Emergency Exit: Ami can save her minions from most dangers by putting them into stasis in what's basically a Pocket Dimension.
Extreme Omnisexual: Averted, but Ami has a hard time convincing anybody of that. The rumor mill insists Ami has these tendencies.
Eye Scream:
- Crowned Death blinds his prisoners as a precaution to stop them from trying to run. Ami swears that he'll pay for that.
- When nothing else seems to hurt a Lesser Aspect of Crowned Death, Ami resorts to injuring its eyes so it can't use its deadly gaze.
Facepalm: Multiple.
- After Ami is confronted with the laziness of her first Reaper:
  “I said ‘My skills might be a little bit rusty after centuries of disuse’,” he hissed angrily. “What of it?”
  Sailor Mercury suppressed the urge to face-palm, if only because doing that while running wasn’t safe. The beast had just slacked off for centuries? Not even Usagi was that bad!
- Here:
  "Three arguing warlocks stood around a waist-high pedestal covered in schematics. One kept tapping the blackboard behind him with his index finger, smearing the scrawled runes on it in the process. The other held up an open book like a ward against ignorance, pointing at a certain passage. While the two shouted at each other, the third covered his forehead with one palm while glaring at the wax dripping onto his notes from a toppled candelabra."
- Baron Leopold prompts one from one of the Avatar's body doubles, when he suggests attempting to kill Ami at the gala — right in front of Ami (and not caring that he is).
  Avatar ring holder: Baron Leopold, why must you do this every time?
Fake-Hair Drama: When Ami is made bald by a Dark God, she cares what her love interest will think of it, and makes a fake wig with her magic, and when her love interest notices that the wig is deteriorating, she badly lies about it, but he doesn't notice. In the end, she grows her hair back, magically.
Faking the Dead: Multiple people have faked their death, such as:
- In "Generals Plot", one youma, where youma die and automatically get Reduced to Dust:
  the forgotten pile of dust shuddered and shifted, and a tiny hand poked out through its side. A miniature version of the green-skinned youma crawled out, hatred gleaming in her too-large eyes.
- A priest of Crowned Death presents an illusion of their death, and uses Invisibility to hide and perform a sneak attack.
- Ami makes a convincing corpse of herself to distract Crowned Death from her real body long enough for her to return to her surviving Dungeon Heart.
Family Title: The chapter "Siblings" about the sisters Ami and Tiger, who get recognized as sisters in the previous chapter, "Family Matters".
Fantastic Race Weapon Affinity: In "Out-of-Dungeon Experiences", it's said that the traditional elven weapon is the bow and arrows. The dark elves have replaced these with crossbows.
Fantastic Underclass: Referenced in "Shipping Preparations" and "Skirmishing", where Imps, magically created servants, are treated this way:
An imp's life was hard, no matter whom they served, and they held little loyalty to their employers. It came as no surprise that they eagerly took the offered opportunity to remain among the living.
Father's Quest: Baron Sodnil wants to go on one for his daughter, Iden, who has been captured by a Keeper, Keeper Mercury, the protagonist, but he needs the support of his country's army, and they're not willing to take that risk, as of the story at the end of 2019.
Feathered Fiend: From "Ultimatum": Ami worries about the possibility when she disturbs some crows:
A group of crows cawed in surprise when a sinister presence joined them on top of the inaccessible rock spire that served as their nesting grounds.
...
Ami briefly tracked them with her gaze, worried that they would come back to defend their nests. The crows back at Rei's shrine were somewhat aggressive, and the last thing she needed was being pecked at while she was preoccupied with not slipping on the weather-worn stone.
Feed It with Fire: Keeper Alphel sends her favourite minion after Ami, a tremendous ancient dragon. When Ami tricks it into touching a temple of Metallia, its life force is absorbed, rapidly killing it. Metallia is greatly pleased by the gift of life energy, and bestows a "dark blessing" on Ami, giving her access to a portion of Metallia's power, which restores Ami's ability to make imps, as well as giving her other options for creating youmas and related beings. And the dragon's corpse is very useful in alchemy. After repairing the damage from the dragon's rampage, Ami is in a much stronger position.
Fiery Salamander: Implied:
- Giant salamander eggs have been used as a source of warmth, in A Call from Home
- Ward Troubles has some connection between salamanders and what appears to be fireproof skin, presumably salamander skin.
Fireballs: An ability of at least one Horned Reaper, Sailor Mars, and at least one bounty hunter mage.
Fisher King: Played with. The lands around a dungeon heart are corrupted with energies from the Dark Gods and generally themed on the God in question; they are influenced often, but not necessarily always, by the Keepers themselves. Played straighter with Ami's experimental heart designs which, due to the attempts to reduce corruption, created a strong manifestation of this trope as a side effect.
Flashy Teleportation: Multiple methods are available:
- A Summon Magic spell with a long casting time, for static targets (generally allies or prisoners), and involving a lot of flames, is available to everyone.
- Keeper Teleportation has different effects on arrival and departure. Arrival's effects are described before departure's:
Arrival: Implied in "So Hungry", has a fade in effect, shown when Ami presumably uses Keeper Teleportation, her only fast teleportation method, and is described as "fading into view":
Ami, reappeared on the hatchery grounds, fading into view with her visor already covering her eyes.

Departure: as shown in "Seizing Heart Number 3" has the sound of a vacuum being filled in at the departure point:
"This way," Ami gestured, pointing with a transparent hand over her shoulder. Ice made grinding noises with the movement, but the sound abruptly stopped when the water-filled simulacrum disappeared, leaving only a near-inaudible popping sound of inrushing air.
- Metallian Teleportation: As seen in "Catastrophic Failure, Part 1", it reflects their Elemental Powers:
  - Shock and Awe: Lishika gets electricity.
  - Casting a Shadow: Umbra darkens the area.
  - Dishing Out Dirt: Tiger gets "scattering pebbles".
Flipping the Bird: Multiple instances:
- From "Out-of-Dungeon Experiences":
  "Mercury? What are you staring at?" Jered asked, following her gaze to a particular troll, who noticed their scrutiny and flipped them the bird.
- From "Assault on Wemos":
  "Wemos' face was a grimace of hatred and defiance as he lifted both fists in his sire's direction, middle fingers proudly erect."
Fog Feet: The ghost fish that Mercury makes:
the front half of a fish. Everything behind the main fins dissolved into a trail of indistinct mist.
Food as Characterization: Goblins like to eat insects, as their crunchiness goes well with chicken, but also because goblins aren't very civilized, living through banditry, with other species appearing to make civilization.
Forced Transformation: There are multiple methods to achieve this trope.
- spells and potions to turn people into chickens, mice, and other creatures against their will.
- As seen in "Trapped, Part 1", Ami's Mercury energy mixed with Metallian energy, chaos magic, and Dungeon Heart Corruption.
Foreshadowing: Pops up quite often, from early mentions of Mukrezar, the brewing Dark Kingdom Civil War, Keeper Alphel's plans for Mercury's Prototype Armor she received from Azzathra's priesthood, along with other numerous things.
- ALL of the Dark Gods that have appeared thus far have been mentioned repeatedly before becoming plot-relevant.
Formerly Sapient Species: Chaotic magic can transform intelligent creatures into these, altering their bodies and minds until they count as "mindless neutral creature[s]".
"Freaky Friday" Flip: In a botched possession, the first Horned Reaper and Ami switch bodies. The Reaper is furious, wrestling his original body in the nude. Cue unexpected spectators watching that scene, and the unintended results...
Random Goblin: "Go go Keeper!"
Friendly Enemies: Ami and The Light. They both are on the same side morally, respect each other, and have pretty good reasons to be in conflict anyway. And they're prepared to help each other as well, particularly in an Enemy Mine situation. The Light even helps Mercury escape The Unraveller for nothing, and Mercury passes on all her research and data on Dungeon Hearts. Doesn't get much friendlier.
The Light: However, you have not yet turned from the path we warned you against. We cannot allow you to render your world vulnerable to the influence of the dark gods, and shall proceed to seal you away within your dungeon. Will you do the right thing and surrender peacefully?
From Bad to Worse: Poor Ami can never catch a break. Mostly because she keeps pissing off ever-more-powerful foes. Once she starts pissing off just one deity she promptly gets multiple Gods annoyed with her.
Frontline General: In the first few arcs Ami tends to be deeply involved in each battle. Later on, as she gains stronger and more reliable minions she learns to delegate more, but as one of the strongest fighters in her army she still tends to get her hands dirty. It helps that she can use golem bodies, minimising the risk to herself (though advanced magic can still harm her spirit).
Furniture Blockade: In Surprise Guest, a mysterious person approaching a bar is causing fear, and the Absurdly Ineffective Barricade is bypassed, by going through a wall:
"Help me barricade the door, you worthless fools!" the troll who had burst in earlier shouted, struggling to drag a wall cupboard towards the door.
"Right!'"'
Stirred into action by fear, the Underworld denizens started piling up furniture in front of the entrance, cursing and shouting as they got into each other's way.''
Fusion Dance:
- Keepers have the ability to possess their minions, which gives the keeper access to skills and powers possessed by the minion in question. Yes, that sometimes means demons and imps in sailor uniforms with makeup and everything. Ami also gets a lot of mileage from the fact that her original body disappears in the process; possessing a durable minion can be a form of armour.
- This gets taken one step farther with youma, whose appearance is determined in part due to their self-image. As a result, when possessed they become literal amalgams of Mercury and whatever they looked like before.
- Taken yet further by Tiger, who possessed Mercury while she was also possessed by the Dark God Crowned Death. In that case, not only did Mercury and Tiger's features blend, but Mercury's armor fused with her/them, resulting in a towering, muscled amazon with metal skin and the burning crown of Crowned Death.
- Boris encounters a more unfortunate case when he inadvertently carries Tserk the tentacle monster into a room full of chaos magic, and their bodies are blended together.

G-H

Gag Haircut: And how! Torian attempts to assist Ami in growing out her hair by modifying 'the Beastly Beard Booster' spell. The result... well...
“Torian,” Ami began in a voice that had the warlock edge away from her. She turned towards him, one eyebrow that now hung down to her chin twitching. “Did you, by any chance, only expand the target region?”
Game Face: From "Strategy Meeting", Ami's new hires expect her be, as Snyder says, "revealling [her] grotesque and horrifying true form" to prove that she's really the Keeper of the dungeon they're in.
Gem-Encrusted: In the Valuable Art chapter, a high priest of Crowned Death wears a "mask of rubies and amber".
Gender Scoff: Twice, once for each gender:
- From "A Meddler Appears":
  Jadeite was sitting on the highest outcropping of the spire, pouting. Ami worried that she had offended his pride when she offered to carry him for a change, allowing him to relax some more after straining himself so. Her youma body was certainly large and muscular enough for such an undertaking. She shook her head at his reaction. Men.
- From "In Transit", after shooting down one girl's idea, and being given a different girl and her idea:
  Jadeite stared at the fairy and remained silent, his expression unreadable. Finally, he shook his head and spoke "Girls and their silly ideas.
Genius Loci: The way dungeons, dungeon hearts, and the corruption interact with the rest of the world (especially the surface) has shades of this.
Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: When running away from an army of Light in Chapter 19: Escape from Arachne's Dungeon, Snyder was so traumatized by the idea of working for a Keeper that Jered had to grab him by his collar and shake him to make him snap out of it.
Ghostly Chill: Ghosts with enough ghost energy, that are durable enough not to be popped like a bubble, produce such a chill in their wake.
Ghost Pirate: Empress Mercury faces off against an Undead Navy and Zombie Octopus in her war against Crowned Death.
Giant Footprint Reveal: : In "Back to the Iceberg", After a giant dragon has attacked the dungeon:
Her armoured boots slipped on wet ice and almost sent her stumbling into an oddly-shaped pool of ice water.
...
"That's one strange puddle," Jered commented as he peered into depression. "It almost looks like a four-fingered hand."
"Not a hand." Cathy said, paling as she stepped over one of the cracks extending outward from the hole. "That's a footprint."
"What? That would mean that the owner's toes are longer than you are!"
Giant Spider: Arachne's spiders are big enough to begin with, many of them about the size of a sheep, but she can also infuse energy into one to rapidly expand it into a house-sized champion. And if it's somehow killed, she can just choose another.
Girls with Moustaches: After being shaved courtesy of the Unraveler of Mysteries preparing to vivisect her, Keeper Mercury looks for a quick and dirty way to get her hair back. So she has one of her warlocks modify the "Beastly Beard Booster" spell. The results can be accurately summed by her reaction to the modified spell.
Mercury: "Torian. Did you, by any chance, only expand the target region?"
Giving Radio to the Romans: There have been numerous comment threads on this story as to how Mercury can do this in ways that will have minimal benefit to the Dark Gods if the knowledge passes to their followers. So far, none of these suggestions have been taken up.
Giving Them the Strip: Camilla strips off her shoes after they get glued to the floor, as said in the Sticky Situation entry.
Global Currency: Gold, since Dungeon Hearts seem to make relatively standard gold coins:
- From "Out-of-Dungeon Experiences":
  The entrance fee is ten gold per person.
- From "Getting More Nurses", some bounties are measured in gold:
  As the Silver Hawks informed me, the current total price on Mukrezar's head is over two million gold pieces."
Glowing Eyes of Doom: Keeper Eyes glow red when angry.
Godhood Seeker: Zarekos, an already quite powerful vampire, is attempting to ascend to godhood when Ami encounters him. Later, when Ami asks one of her own minions whether Zarekos thought he was a god, she's answered that he wasn't that delusional — he was planning to become one, yes, but he was fully aware of his current limitations.
God of Evil: The Dark Gods whom the Dungeon Keepers serve. The Dark Gods counterparts, The Light, have been doing their best to try and prevent the taint of The Dark Gods from spreading any further. The Dark God of Strength and Martial Skill, Azzathra, has wished to see Mercury dead for some time for Mercury's perceived insults of all he stands for, and Mercury has declared war against the Dark God of Death and all of his followers for their actions.
God of Knowledge: The Unraveller is the evil goddess of reconstruction, vivisection, and dissection of technology in pursuit of innovative ideas.
God of the Dead: Crowned Death, whose focus is on decay, death, killing spells, the eventual end of everything, and The Undead.
Godzilla Threshold: Several times but the most prominent is stopping Crowned Death's High Temple. The followers of the Light were willing to work with the Dark Empress, one of the most notorious Keepers AKA Sailor Mercury, to stop it.
Gold Makes Everything Shiny: In the "Valuable Art" chapter, a high priest of Crowned Death is "wrapped in six layers of gold-trimmed black cloth".
Gold–Silver–Copper Standard: In Ambush, there's mention of "coppers" as a kind of currency, and Keepers' money is represented in gold coins, but a gold coin isn't a sign of being connected to Keepers, so some surface nations use gold coins as well.
Go Mad from the Isolation:
- Youma sentenced to "Eternal Sleep" are completely sense-deprived forever, and will eventually lose their minds. When Ami rescues Jadeite, he's been holding on by counting, and is over 600,000, but desperate to be freed. Tiger later becomes Ami's host of choice because she has been in Eternal Sleep so long that her mind is gone and she's basically a blank slate.
- A Metallia-empowered ice golem actually survives an aeons-in-an-instant spell, but is driven completely feral by the subjective centuries of total isolation.
Gone Horribly Right: Ami's idea of using a Dominate Undead spell to take over an undead dungeon heart worked beautifully. Unfortunately, since the heart was undead, doing so connected her mind to Crowned Death, who really doesn't like her.
- Similarly, modifying the Dominate Undead spell to affect thousands of undead at once was also perfectly effective. But doing so wound up partially reconstituting the spirit powering them, and having it possess the caster. Poor Torian...
The Good Chancellor: Despite her position as a Dungeon Keeper, Ami has managed to attract a core group of loyal people to serve as advisers.
Good Hurts Evil: Holy wards, holy spells, and temples of the Light Gods all cause instinctive fear and disgust in creatures of evil...and those tainted by dark forces, such as Ami. Powerful enough holy magic can burn or kill them.
Good Is Dumb: All over the place. The tendency in the story is for all good characters to assume the worst about any and all acts by team evil at the drop of a hat, followed shortly by being a jerkass towards those perceived as evil. And Keepers are at the top of this list. Even those directly ordered by and given hints by the Light Gods themselves still treat Ami with all the same distrust they throw at other keepers, twisting those (very real) God's words if necessary to justify their viewpoint.
Good Is Not Soft: Perhaps Ami used to be, and she still goes out of her way to avoid killing when she can, but in a world containing horrors that the Sailor Senshi never dreamed of, she's had to harden up a lot. She has a lot of experience in choosing the Lesser of Two Evils, and she can hurt or even kill when the situation demands it.
Good Princess, Evil Queen: The Sailor Senshi are looking for the Moon Princess, which they think is the only way to defeat the evil Dark God, Queen Metallia. They are opposed by Queen Beryl, who is basically Metallia's High Priestess.
Good Running Evil: In a fairly short period of time, Ami ends up boss of a veritable swarm of evil minions, each convinced they are serving a powerful conqueror who has barely known defeat. To be fair, they are, it's just she's subtly trying to do good rather than destroy things. By attacking other Keepers and evil warlords, Ami manages to still be heroic while also remaining in-character as a Dungeon Keeper.
Good Versus Good: Whenever Ami goes up against the Light Gods or their servants. They genuinely mean well, and so does she, but the conflict remains.
Gossip Evolution: The tales of Mercury's deviance, the tales of Mercury beating up the various Big Bads and powerful monsters of the Underworld (usually while naked), and the growing tales of her power and cunning. She later invokes this to solve the insubordination problem.
Great Escape: Breaking Dwarf Master Smiths so Ami can learn how to forge Adamantine is discussed, but tabled as a possible, but unlikely plan.
Great Offscreen War: Used often throughout the fic as both Backstory and foreshadowing:
- The conquering of the Avatar Islands.
- The Dwarfs' Civil War
Green-Eyed Monster: After losing her most important memories, grasping at straws trying to keep anything of her former sense of self and identity, gaining knowledge of what it's like to have friends, and then having essentially all her dreams come true, Tiger then comes to the realization that no, these aren't her memories, she has no friends, she's powerless, and the thought that all her dreams had come true is all lies. In short, Tiger is jealous of Ami, and is acting out because of that.
Grievous Harm with a Body: Tiger gleefully watches one of the reaperbots seize a skeleton and use it as a flail until it breaks apart, then wield the individual leg bones.
Groin Attack: A few times:
- A subverted one, in Ambush, when Jered is using Ami as a Human Shield:
  “EVERYONE STOP!” Jered shouted, causing an interruption in the melee as the combatants turned to look at him. Incidentally, this also postponed the meeting between the blue-haired girl’s heel and his crotch.
- On a skeleton, from Cerasse, in Bombardment:
  Before Dandel could take another shot at the creature, she saw Cerasse put her weight on the contested staff and use it like a lever, ramming it between the death priest's legs in a move that obviously caught the undead mage by surprise.
Gross-Up Close-Up: After zooming in on a wounded eye, Usagi has to throw up:
Ami saw her friend jump up from her chair and sprint toward the kitchen sink with a hand in front of her mouth before the crystal ball went black. About half a minute later, the image returned.
Group-Identifying Feature: Dungeon Keepers and the ones that are possessed by them, are marked by red glowing eyes.
The Guards Must Be Crazy: Played with. While infiltrating one of Morrigan's dungeons, Monteraine is able to bluff her way through an absurd number of checkpoints. However, it's largely justified because she was a former minion of Morrigan, he was currently banished — and thus the minion-particular wards didn't automatically recognize her (or anyone at all), and his minions didn't hold any particular loyalty to him.
Hammerspace: The Keeper Storage ability works along these lines, and is used and abused to great effect by Keeper Mercury. She can even keep active spells in it, held in stasis and ready to deploy on a moment's notice.
Happiness in Slavery: Ami herself is a fairly Benevolent Boss, but she theoretically holds near-absolute power over her minions. She can instantly transport them anywhere in her Dungeon (including a prison, torture chamber, or for that matter her bedchamber), vary their salary at a whim or cut it off altogether if she thinks she can control them by force, slap them, watch anything they do...oh, and that ability to move them around also means she has the power to snap their necks as easily as snapping her fingers (and when she learns about the horrors that Keeper Malleus has committed, she does just that). Nonetheless, many of her most powerful employees are there by choice, knowing that she's a good person and that her service offers great opportunities.
- Snyder initially joined up because he didn't have many options, but he later has the opportunity to leave and redeem his reputation among the surface nations. He instead chooses to stay with her and continue providing her with his magical expertise, believing that serving her is a noble thing to do.
- Cathy was not happy about being backed into a corner and having to sign up, and tries to conceal her identity so that her family won't be tainted by association. Nonetheless, she is firmly loyal to Ami, even fighting the Avatar face to face to protect her.
  Cathy: Look, Mercury is a nice girl who hasn't hurt anyone! This is a misunderstanding! Just give her a chance!
- Jadeite is initially perturbed to find that he's unknowingly entered the service of a Sailor Senshi. Nonetheless, he quickly realises that it's a tremendous opportunity; she appreciates his skills, she represents an opportunity for revenge on Queen Beryl, she's a rising star both on Adushul and in Metallia's esteem, and she's quite attractive (and finds herself attracted to him). Ironically, a group of fairies becomes utterly convinced that he's being magically compelled to serve her, and must be freed, but he just finds them irritating.
Heart Is an Awesome Power: Ordinarily, winning a duel sponsored by Azzathra results in receiving a portion of the loser's strength. But since Azzathra is displeased by the cunning trickery employed, he instead gives Ami a portion of the Reaper's knowledge, about summoning and using his scythe. Ami and her inner circle assume that it's intended as an insult: it's mostly useless (as she's too small to effectively wield a scythe) and a bit dangerous (since the Reaper's equipment summoning spell entirely replaces the user's original clothing, and the result includes very little armour). However, Ami takes the knowledge and teaches the Reaper's equipment summoning spell to her goblins, allowing them all to train with the scythe, then makes them the pilots of her magical remote-controlled reaperbot army.
The Hecate Sisters: Tiger fills the role of Maiden, being flirty, sexy and a bit of a ditz, while Cathy fills the role of matron, being the mature voice of reason that keeps Tiger in check and takes care of Ami whenever she pushes herself past her limits while still allowing herself to be sensual with her boyfriend. Ami fills the role of the crone, being a somewhat tomboyish, wise, and sharp-witted member of the trio.
Heel–Face Turn: Jadeite signs up with Ami largely as a matter of pragmatism, but he comes to show signs of genuinely caring for her and appreciating her attitude. He remains ruthless, but devotes himself to her service, even when talking about the possibility of killing Metallia. Seems like what he really wanted all along was a powerful, wealthy, influential Benevolent Boss.
High Priest: The position exists in most of the Dark Gods' priesthoods. Not many are known, with the ones without sections in the Characters page being:
- High Priest Karmalun of Crowned Death's clergy, named in the narration after he died.
- Unnamed High Priests of Crowned Death, who take the position after their predecessors' deaths.
Hired for Their Looks:
- From Assault on Wemos: Not precisely a hiring, but close... It's apparently how Zarekos chose his vampire candidates, given how he responded to a Brainless Beauty failing a task:
  "Note to self: do not choose any more vampires candidates purely on looks."
- Possibly the reason why Isolda, a Dark Mistress, was hired (she was likely hired by Jered, who might've been Distracted by the Sexy).
Hit-and-Run Tactics: Jadeite's first combat assignment is to assassinate an enemy Keeper during Ami's assault on the dungeon, but the Keeper is possessing other creatures, so it doesn't just die when a host is killed, and if Jadeite stays still, the Keeper will be able to strike him with lightning. So it becomes a chase, with Jadeite repeatedly hearing the Keeper's latest coordinates, teleporting in, attempting to kill the current creature, and teleporting out before the retaliation can land. Eventually Ami is able to reach the Dungeon Heart, and the Keeper flees in its true body, which Jadeite catches and kills.
Ami: Please, just show up, attack, and immediately return here, regardless of the outcome. I can't stress enough how dangerous Keepers are and how important it is that you don't give him time to react. No introductions, no grandiose gestures — just pop in and fire away. The slightest delay means that he will teleport away and counter-attack. So take no chances!
Holding Back the Phlebotinum: Ami loses the mantle because of a very disappointing blunder, where she fails to use her Mercury Goggles's see through illusions function. (In fairness, she couldn't use that remotely through Keeper Sight.)
Hollywood Tactics: Averted magnificently. Especially evident in the Avatar Island Battles and the Battle of Dreadfog Island. Zarekos uses a three-pronged assault, flanking maneuvers, and ambushes. In the Battle of Dreadfog Island, Crowned Death's forces use the sun to blind Mercury's forces and approach under cover of a diversion. Later in the same battle, Mercury uses harrassment and area-denial to rob Keeper Clairmonte of the benefits offered by a Dungeon's home turf advantage.
Holy Burns Evil: Applies with the God of Good collective, The Light, and their magic, harming demons who step onto temple grounds, and being one of the simplest ways to permanently kill vampires, who usually have Resurrective Immortality. Ami is also repulsed by it, and feels like she's reaching into a fire when removing the Avatar's mantle.
Holy Water: Blessed water can wash away enchantments and dispel conjured equipment.
Hope Spot: Ami is filled with joy upon seeing Jadeite's portal to the Dark Kingdom, a step toward home — until, a moment later, lava pours out, revealing that the portal has instead gone to the local Underworld.
Horrifying the Horror: With careful use of unconsciousness, synthetic blood, and fear magic, Ami is able to convince her minions that she successfully tortured a Dark Mistress. Bearing in mind that this is a being who volunteered to share in the punishment just because she likes pain.
How Many Fingers?: In "No Wonder Cure", Ami uses this to test someone's eyes after they've been restored:
Mercury answered. "Can you see me properly?" she asked Ulrich. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
[...]
"F-four, your Majesty."
She smiled, nodding once. "Good! Now, what about depth perception? Um, what could I use..."
How We Got Here: The beginning of Bad Neighbours shows how Ami got the telepathic "Argh! Some help here, quick!" that ended the previous chapter, A Surprise for Nero.
Human-Demon Hybrid: As said in "Oh Gods!", demons can have hybrid children with humans, as Ami once got mistakenly detected as part-demon part-human:
To my magic, she registers as having demonic heritage. Faint, fourth or fifth generation perhaps, but it is there.
Human Mail: The trope allows animals as well, and Ami needed to get rid of some people quickly, so she shrunk them and put them in a box for transport. Well, not exactly people, since the chapter is "Vampire Solution".
Human Sacrifice: Usually how people give souls to entites in the realm of the Dark Gods:
- It's how most Keepers appease the Dark Gods, if they've offended them.
- Dark Angels are hired with a payment of souls, and it's also used for their upkeep, or a continuous hiring cost. The precise mechanic is unclear, since Ami quickly ends the conversation once she gets the gist.
Human Shield: In Ambush, when the party is being ambushed by goblins:
[Ami] felt herself pulled toward [Jared] roughly, and then used as a human shield.
“EVERYONE STOP!” Jered shouted, causing an interruption in the melee as the combatants turned to look at him. Incidentally, this also postponed the meeting between the blue-haired girl’s heel and his crotch.
“GOBLINS! Harm this girl, and you will draw the direct and personal ire of a Keeper!” he shouted.
Humiliation Conga: The Horned Reaper really doesn't get good results from his manipulation of Ami into becoming a Keeper. And that's without even mentioning the fact that she kills him in their third duel. And then uses his knowledge to build her reaperbot armies.
Cathy: Well, let's see. She somehow forced him to serve her for a while. She also got him into that pretty outfit I'm wearing now. She somehow exchanged bodies with him, and then involuntarily destroyed his reputation by making it appear as if she was doing unspeakable things to him. Then she beat him publicly twice. And threatened to transfer him permanently into a chicken body. Add to that that murderous rage is his base state of existence, and...
Hypocrite: Azzathra's temple servants. While they may have a point in that Mercury cheated during her duel with the Reaper, they themselves are highly biased and specifically set the rules and match up to ensure Mercury would lose. They're real sore losers like that.
Hypocritical Humor: Keeper Mukrezar complaining and calling it cheating that the Avatar is copying his tactics, which his butler finds funny, in Frenzied Fortification:
A growl sound came from the pink-haired elf. "I hate him hate him hate him HATE HIM sooo much! He's cheating!" he shouted, pounding the table with his fist.
"What's wrong, your Hypocrisy?" the imp butler asked as he approached, carrying a tray with a steaming kettle and a cup full off black liquid. "Underhandedness is to be approved of!"
"He stole my trick!"
Hypno Trinket: Jadeite creates a mind control headband to contain Baron Leopold. It's temporarily effective, but he eventually fights it off.

I-L

I Am Spartacus: Played straight by a villain, in that Mukrezar's plan with the magic rings revolves around whoever is wearing them turning into copies of himself, confusing people as to where Mukrezar really is, or who is the real Mukrezar.
I Choose to Stay: Jered, Cathy, and Snyder initially sign up with Ami because they're caught in a no-win situation and she's their only way to survive. Later, though, Snyder is captured by a town with a Light temple, which tries him and concludes that he is sincere but has been deluded or otherwise tricked by the Keeper. When Ami comes to rescue him, she gives him the option of leaving her service if he wants, but he decides to remain with her.
I Control My Minions Through...: Traditionally, Keepers go for fear, money, sadism, and corruption. Naturally, maintaining discipline among her evil minions without resorting to one of the above is one of the problems Ami faces.
I Did What I Had to Do: Mercury's career as a Keeper is filled with distasteful-but-necessary actions, from hiring Underworld monsters to executing Malleus to worshipping Metallia to keep her soul away from Azzathra.
Mercury: What I want to do and what I am forced to do are, unfortunately, very different things.
I Know You're Watching Me: Sufficiently magically-powerful beings can detect scrying, and even the specific direction it's coming from so as to be able to look at the viewer.
I Want Them Alive!: The Light, after realizing Ami is not pure evil. Also Crowned Death, after their plans are thoroughly thwarted.
Imagine Spot: Eline in Umbra's Report, immediately following her capture. She pictures Mercury as a towering, lecherous, naked amazon. It is hilarious.
Immortal Ruler: Dungeon Keepers are immortal due to the Dungeon Heart that lets them control their territories. They rule and are immortal because of the same device, and can only be overthrown by being killed, or with the destruction of their Dungeon Heart.
Immune to Fire: There are fire immunity enchantments that protect the object they're applied to from being set on fire.
Impeded Communication: Ami is prevented from contacting her dungeon twice when assaulting Salthalls, due to unexpected events reducing her magical abilities that she uses.
Imperfect Ritual: As seen "Backfire - Part 2", a spell that uses both fuel and ritual preparation before hand, performed without the ritual preparation, results in a weaker result:
It looked vastly less impressive than the Lesser Aspect she had defeated, probably due to the lack of ritual.
Implacable Man:
- Nothing Ami throws at the Avatar can stop him for long. Except a large electromagnet.
- Ami herself presents this appearance to the dwarven city of Salthalls. Interestingly, though, she's the one constantly attempting diplomacy, while dodging, blocking, overpowering, or shrugging off the defenders' attempts to stop her.
  Ami: Give me the location of Duke Libasheshtan!
Improvised Weapon: Getting injured with a hot rake is unusual but understandable; how exactly Baron Leopold managed to wield a tuning fork, though, is hard to say, and Jadeite isn't telling.
I Need a Freaking Drink: Upon hearing that Ami has just hired Rabixtrel the Horned Reaper, Cathy not only declares that she needs a drink, she drags Ami along to have one as well.
Infernal Retaliation: Fireballs really don't work well against Arachne's magically enlarged house-sized champion spiders.
The spider let out a high keening wail, and turned from a towering, sharp-bristled, poisonous whirlwind of death and destruction into a towering, sharp-bristled, poisonous, burning whirlwind of death and destruction.
Inhuman Eye Concealers: Ami hides her red and glowing Dungeon Keeper eyes by glamour.
Injured Limb Episode: Ami breaks her arm after punching out the Reaper.
Instant Runes:
- A long spell to summon things, which involves some of these:
  Ami had both of her hands raised high over her head as she struggled to pronounce the unfamiliar syllables of the spell. A clean circle of ground had expanded in front of her, pushing a ring-shaped wave of clogging blood outward as it grew in diameter. The magical circle's perimeter burst into icy flame, and thirteen evenly-spaced flickering runes appeared in the burning curtain.
In the Name of the Moon:
- Played straight by the fairies in the chapter Fairy Attack, as well as by Sailor Moon herself.
- Deconstructed by Mukrezar, who is a bit taken aback that, after all these dark years, the Avatar no longer bothers with any theatrics.
  Butler: It saddens me to see that standards for heroes have fallen so far. I will miss their proud and defiant posturing and self-righteous condemnations. But most of all, I will miss seeing their disbelieving, shocked faces when you ambush them during the pre-battle formalities, your Unexpectedness.
  Mukrezar: Ah, those were the good times.
Incompatible Orientation: One of Drunk Ami's fears about her relationship with General Jadeite, as said in her thoughts from "Beryl's Plan":
A horrible thought almost made her gasp out loud. Could it be that he was gay? She needed another drink! A moment later, she settled back against him, her thirst slaked. This required some careful observation.
Intoxicated Superpower Snag: Combined with Drunken Master. When Ami was drunk, she managed to reconfigure a spell to change the shape of its effect - but can't figure out how to do it while sober.
Invisibility with Drawbacks: Ami's invisibility wands don't allow their target to see, since invisible eyes can't detect light.
Ironic Last Words: From "Nero's Spell (Part 2)", facing a target in a metal cylinder, right before her current body dies from being eaten by something, due to sticking her claw / paw in its "mouth" while trying to open the "tin":
"Seriously, Keeper? Tinned food?" Alphel gloated as she sat down before the covered pit, raising a giant paw like a cat ready to strike. "I shall crush you with these very claws!"
Island of Mystery: The chapter, "Mysterious Island", where the titular, presumed-to-be-lifeless island is somehow home to a civilization of trolls. It's also home to magical secrets that Ami is hoping to discover.
It Came from the Sink: In "Out-of-Dungeon Experiences", during Keeper Arachne's previous attack on Baron Leopold's territory, her spiders used the richer areas' internal plumbing to sneak in and attack people.
It's All My Fault: Part of the reason that Ami takes responsibility for thousands of blinded civilians is because she believes that she inadvertently caused their situation.
Ami: You don't understand. This is my fault! If I hadn't lost the Mantle, none of this would have happened!
It's Personal: Spiders Everywhere!:
"Abbot Durval," Snyder informed her, "He wasn't at the abbey when Arachne destroyed it, and wants revenge for all the innocent deaths."
Job Title: Dungeon Keeper Ami.
Judicial Wig: As seen in Corruption?, Audshul's human judges have long white wigs, as seen with Evercalm's judge:
Behind the high wooden podium in the middle sat a wrinkly man who could only be the judge. Powder was trickling down from his white, curly wig onto the hammer resting before him as he leaned forward, looking Ami up and down.
The Juggernaut:
- Ami faces two on the Avatar Islands:
  - Keeper Alphel, who cuts her off from any resources she could use to harm it.
  - The Avatar, who is good enough to almost defeat her, on her own territory, when she can bring everything she has to bear.
- Ami herself is one at times, notably when breaching Salthalls to meet with its Duke, as a One-Man Army, fighting in the streets, and against a competent army.
Keystone Army: The Dungeon Hearts are the Keystones of a Dungeon Keeper's army, as killing the heart banishes the Keeper to the realm of the dark gods until they can claw their way back (and killing the Keeper's last Heart will kill them permanently).
Kill It with Fire: When plan A to take down the underwater temple of Crowned Death doesn't work, Tiger turns to copious amounts of fire.
"The enemy temple! It's on fire!" the voice shouted.
"Huh?" He involuntarily looked down, and then kept looking, his eyes growing wider and wider. Something underneath the waves was burning bright enough to make them shine like the setting sun. "I- I can see that." He looked up at Tiger, his expression begging for an explanation. "What are they burning?"
"The temple."
"Yes, you already told me that!"
"You don't understand! The stone is on fire! Underwater!"
Torian blinked. So did most of the youma.
"By all the dark gods, it just crashed and now the sand is burning too! Look at it!" another warlock shouted in the background.
"I think even the water is on fire," the first one muttered in a voice that bordered on religious rapture.
"Don't be silly," Tiger interrupted. "The water is too busy exploding to be on fire!"
Kill the God: Ami is at war with Crowned Death, and Azzathra strongly dislikes her.
Killed Mid-Sentence: Happens more than once:
- From Surprise Guest, how a Mukrezar dies:
  Mukrezar smirked “Just as I planned, you—” That was as far as he got before the Avatar’s two-handed sword cut off his words, along with his head.
- From Resignation:
  "You fool have doomed us b-" Zarekos's terrified screech ended abruptly as a gauntleted fist flattened his face, which bent under the force until his skull caved in.
- From Hunt's End:
  “But you haven’t even heard yet what I’m offering,” she said as she stepped towards him. “You want me gone, I don’t want to be here-”
  Her vision went black as her [speaking] golem died.
Klingon Promotion:
- Unintentionally. After slaying the self-proclaimed Emperor Zarekos, Ami has been given his title and is now Empress Mercury, Ruler of the Avatar Isles as decreed by the Light Gods. The full implications of this have yet to be fully seen.
- Later on, an Orc attempts this by trying to kill Cathy. He fails and had a 50-50 chance of surviving his injuries. Then he gets punished.
Knowledge Broker: Keeper Midori. He provides Ami information on what is threatening her dungeon, in exchange for requests to become a noble or royal, which she can grant, as she's an empress.
Knuckle Cracking: In Surprise Guest, when a bar patron is talking and laughing about burning the place down, another patron responds like so:
One of the nervous trolls turned to glare at the dark-clad figure. "You think that’s amusing? Shut up or I’ll show you something really amusing!" He cracked his knuckles threateningly.
The Lad-ette: Cathy.
Lady Looks Like a Dude: From Deeper Into Trouble:
"Maka look like a girl in that dress!" one of the goblins taunted, pointing a crooked finger at another, who promptly picked up a wooden stool and swung it by one of its three legs, clobbering the mocker into the ground.
"Maka IS girl, idiot!" the still fuku-clad goblin crossed her arms and huffed.
Lantern Jaw of Justice: In Interrupted Plotting, Ami references this trope when thinking of her first horned reaper:
With his large, jutting chin he had - and he would have hated this assessment - looked almost heroic.
Lap Pillow:
- From "Beryl's Plan": Ami uses Jadeite's lap as a pillow after she gets drunk.
  Jadeite couldn't have been more nervous if someone had dumped a ticking time bomb onto his lap. The comparison was uncharitable to the red-faced girl who was using his legs as a pillow, but he found it fitting.
- She's also insistent on using him as a pillow when she's stressed out by her impending duel with the Reaper. "Insistent" in this case meaning "while asleep, she uses her Keeper powers to yank him back into her bed whenever he moves away."
Laser-Guided Amnesia: Discussed in "A Small Deception", where Mercury says she wiped the memories of her torture victims. But, actually, they were just unconscious before being woken up by a fear spell.
Late to the Punchline: In "Recovering", Ami makes an Accidental Pun in regards to "her country" since she's both a Japanese schoolgirl Trapped in Another World, but more relevantly, has the powers to enforce control over any land that she claims, a.k.a her country:
"I'm too young to drink in my country," the teenager pointed out patiently, which drew a round of snickers from the table. "What?"
"Well, considering your current job..." Cathy chortled, her face flushed from half-emptying her own mug already.
Ami thought for a bit and joined in with a giggle. "Yes, I can see how this would be humorous."
Lesser of Two Evils: Oh so much.
- Ami's life as a Keeper is basically made of this, from the first moment that she realises she's bonded with the Heart, and chooses to make the best of it rather than just commit suicide to remove the Heart and the Reaper from the world. Of particular poignance is choosing to worship Queen Metallia — albeit not very devoutly — rather than risk her soul being claimed by Azzathra.
- Her human companions come around to seeing her this way, too, before eventually concluding that she's actually a good person.
  Dwarf: What's the lass doin'? Look at her eyes! That's a downright evil look!
  Jered: She's trying to summon help. I'd rather take my chances with her than with that monster spider outside!
- Jadeite reveals to Ami that he serves Queen Metallia because he believes her release is inevitable and the best option is to have her favor.
Lethal Chef: Multiple:
- In a stealth crossover with Ranma ½, Nephrite's plan of "inspiring" a young girl into cooking using cursed kitchen items to drain life energy backfires when the young girl's family makes him stay and enjoy her creations. Hilarity Ensues when he collapses in Beryl's court due to food poisoning.
- Mukrezar. He took a bite of his "world's biggest cake" and it tasted absolutely horrid.
Lie Detector: Ami tried to used her Mercury Computer as one, in "Adamantine":
she paused to focus all of her computer's sensors on the trapped dwarf. She didn’t want to miss any sign he was lying when he answered her next question. [...]
The readings on her screen indicated that the padding of the Duke’s armour kept him warm under the ice, and there was no shivering to obscure his body’s involuntary reactions. There were no indications that he had been less than truthful, either. [...]
this being her first attempt at using her computer as a lie detector[.]
Light/Darkness Juxtaposition: The Light Gods of good vs. the Dark Gods of evil.
Limited-Use Magical Device: A few:
- Mixed with Single-Use Shield, the shield charms introduced in "Nero's Spell (Part 1)":
  magical trinkets and consumables- that reminds me..." [...] a ceramic disc with three embossed runes.
  "Here, that's for you. I acquired an extra." Cathy looked at the ceramic amulet resting on her open palm and traced the golden lines with one finger. "Magical? What does it do?"
  "One-use shield charm. Crack it to release the spell. It's meant as an emergency defence.
- A wand introduced in "Abandon Ship, Part 2":
  "Here, Empress. The simplest of the tools granted to you." Olon produced an unadorned white wand from his bag and offered it to Ami.
  [...]
  "That's a weapon," Olon clarified. "Three shots. Use on dark angels. Wasted on anything stronger. Flashy."
Literal Metaphor:
- Arachne telling Alphel and Morrigan that, "I am willing to let you two take the first stab at her. I know something that you don't, and it will get you burnt." What they don't know is that Jadeite can create portals to the Underworld, filling their dungeons with lava.
- Also, when Tiger jokingly accuses Ami of having "sicked tireless, bloodthirsty telemarketers on people", she means it literally, said "telemarketers" being vampires.
Little Miss Badass: Mercury has been shaping up into this as the story has progressed. With Mercury's Declaration of War against the Dark God of Death, and his legion of undead followers, Mercury is quickly approaching the level of being a Lady of War in her own right, on top of being considered one of the MAIN Big Bads by the rest of the Dungeon Keeper world.
- In Ultimatum, she shows up at the City of Salthalls and requests an audience with the Duke. Because she lacks an army, there is little chance of that. When he refuses (and his soldiers attempt to shoot her with a ballista) she takes on the entire city single-handedly. Without lethal force.
Living Lie Detector: From A New Arrival, the "Judge's Eye gift", which appears to tell if people are speaking the truth, is used by Abbot Durval on Ami, is presumably given by the Light Gods, and works through eye contact with the subject, given the name. Although, he doesn't seem to need to be looking them straight in the eye as they speak.
Load-Bearing Boss: Invoked. Ami rigged the ceilings above her Dungeon Hearts to collapse if she dies to prevent anybody else from taking and using them.
Lodged Blade Removal: In "Out-of-Dungeon Experiences", Ami does this to herself after an Assassination Attempt involving being stabbed with two weapons (one In the Back). She can do it because she has a Healing Factor due to possessing an ice golem body at the time, which makes her a bit harder to kill, plus the golem is ultimately expendable.
Loss of Inhibitions: In "Beryl's Plan'', after Ami sobers up, she mentions this effect of alcohol, as she was planning on wearing a Stripperific outfit she wouldn't wear normally out of embarrassment:
Right. Alcohol also lowers inhibitions. Good to know.
Lying by Omission: The God of Good-collective-provided truth-detection magic circles flash green for truth and red for lies, and said in "Skirmishing" to have problems with questions like "Are you human?" for a Uneven Hybrid that's majority human, where it would allow "Yes" as a truthful answer, letting them keep their possibly demonic ancestry hidden:
This kind of half-truth was one aspect where the magic could have problems with.

M-N

Machine Blood: Ami's ice golems are humanoid, and, when damaged, "bleed" water, which, when covered in a glamour (a.k.a illusion) to appear human, actually becomes the blood.
Made of Indestructium: From "A Better Plan?", Ami's analysis of the substance, Adamantine, gives this trope to items made of it:
from what she could determine, it seemed to be all but indestructible. High temperatures, acids, enough force to break a steel girder - nothing so far had been able to damage the metal.
[...]
While the confirmation of the material’s near-invulnerability was reassuring in a way, it also presented an enormous problem. How was she supposed to work with it if she couldn’t shape it? “I’m missing something here,” Ami concluded, pacing up and down. “Someone has clearly forged it into this shape. Perhaps it needs to be in raw form?”
Mad Scientist:
- All the warlocks have shades of this, constantly performing dangerous and unethical experiments that frequently leave them with burn scars or transformed into frogs.
  With one eye closed, Torian stared at the drop of reddish liquid quivering at the tip of the dropping glass he was holding over a half-filled vial. Would the addition of dragon blood increase the duration of the shape-shifting potion, or would it lead to new and interesting effects? Either way, he was eager to find out. He smirked at the shivering imp sitting on one of the desks, tied up with enough rope to make it look like a large-eyed sausage.
- Ami herself gets involved in a lot of their research (and is sponsoring it). Invoked when she gives her friends a tour of the lab, as Ami puts on a Mad Scientist act as a joke.
- The Unraveller of Mysteries is the patron God of mad scientists.
Magic A Is Magic A: Spells that aren't granted directly by a deity are generally devised by modifying an existing spell or studying a magical creature that can already do what the caster wants to accomplish.
Magic Fire: There's fires that don't seem to use fuel that are used for lighting in places where electricity would be unsafe, such as in a water-based area like a bath / pool.
Magical Incantation: They are used in-place of manipulating magic through gestures:
- When Abott Duval talks of Ami's complex spells, in A Short Break:
the proper incantations for simplifying the arcane gestures. That convergence of three lines over there, for example, looks as if it could be summarised by a properly pronounced Sul rune."
"Well, I don't actually have any formal training in spell creation," Ami admitted. When the abbot raised his eyebrows, she clasped her hands in front of herself. His teacher-like demeanour made her feel somewhat inadequate. "I can place some of the more common syllables, but I have never had the time to actually study how warlocks put chants and incantations together. For me, it's much easier to manipulate the magic directly using the dungeon heart. It is a fascinating subject though," she hurried to reassure him.
- A long spell to summon things, which involves one of these:
Ami had both of her hands raised high over her head as she struggled to pronounce the unfamiliar syllables of the spell. A clean circle of ground had expanded in front of her, pushing a ring-shaped wave of clogging blood outward as it grew in diameter. The magical circle's perimeter burst into icy flame, and thirteen evenly-spaced flickering runes appeared in the burning curtain.
[...]
Ami's voice reached a crescendo as she refused to let herself be distracted by the plight of her comrades. In response, lines of fire pulsed and drew a pentagram in the centre of the summoning circle. Suddenly, the entire room coloured with the bright orange tones of an active furnace when a tornado of flame exploded from the ground, sending large chunks of the summoning circle flying.
Magic Kiss: From Strategy Meeting, when discussing how to remove a frog transformation:
"The traditional means would be a kiss by a prince or princess," Jered supplied with a grin, "fortunately, being a Keeper should make you some kind of Princess of Darkness."
...
"That's just a children's story," the red-headed acolyte blurted out quickly. Transformation magic usually isn't permanent. Just give it some time."
Magic Misfire: Ami is surprised to learn that new spells are usually invented by apprentices, not fully qualified wizards. The reason, however, is that the wizards who lived long enough to become experienced are the ones who quickly learned not to experiment like that.
Durval: The side effects of the wrong words are often dramatic and dangerous. The accidents I have had to fix...
Magitek: Mercury's decidedly modern approach to magic is shaping up to be one of her greatest advantages so far.
Make Sure He's Dead: In Creepy Crawlers, when Ami attacks a giant spider:
Just to make sure the spider was really dead, Ami walked up to the iced-over debris and kicked the head off the rump. There. This thing wouldn’t be feasting on any villagers.
Malicious Slander: The tales of Mercury's deviance, as well as some of the earlier rumors of Mercury being weak and prone to losing her dungeons.
Mana: From Ambush: magical energy is called Mana, as Jared says:
all her clothes were conjured. Not many people can waste mana that thoughtlessly.
Manipulative Bitch: This is Ami is seen by both the light side and dark side, except for Jered, Snyder, Cathy, and maybe the Light Gods.
Master of Illusion: Jadeite is capable of glamours that not only cover a large area, but actually have solidity as long as he can maintain them.
- With sufficient effort, he's able to cover Ami's entire iceberg dungeon, repairing cracks until Zarekos' invasion is repelled.
- Maintaining thousands of replacement eyeballs is much easier, so long as he stays in range.
Memory Trigger: After Ami raids Malleus's mind for information and had to relive snippets from that Evil Overlord's centuries-long life to get the information she wanted, Ami gets reminders of what she experienced while in his head at relevant times and she doesn't like how her body's copying his reactions, like when looking at his Sex Slaves, before she frees them.
Memory Wipe Exploitation: In "A Small Deception", a memory wipe is exploited to keep experiences fresh. They were actually just unconscious:
"What did I do to you?" Ami asked, smiling evilly. Getting the smile right had taken quite a bit of time in front of the mirror, not to mention a lot of teasing from Cathy and Jered until she managed to combine the frown and the curvature of the lips correctly. "Can't you remember?"
Both he and Isolda shook their heads.
Ami's smile widened. "Good. I could tell you, but that would make me wiping your memories a waste of time. I'd hate for my methods to get out and ruin the surprise. Besides, this way, every time can be as horrible as the first!"
Memetic Badass: The forumites at Sufficient Velocity created a Chuck Norris-style list for The Dark Empress, you can read it in the Awesome tab. The list also doubles as a Shrouded in Myth entry, as it's pretty much what almost everybody in the setting believes of her.
Mesodiplosis:
- "Time Flies": When Ami is thinking about her Student/Teacher Romance crush, she questions the ethics of it, inadvertently using "He was" Anaphora and "her" Mesodiplosis because of his multiple roles in relation to her:
  He was her employee. He was also her teacher, which made things doubly wrong.
- "The Duel": Jared's summarizing an event that occured between him and an "unsympathetic troll":
  Good for me, bad for him,
Mind-Control Device: The dungeon hearts do this to a minor degree with Keeper minions, mainly keeping them from attacking the Keeper. It's used as an explanation for why Being Tortured Makes You Evil in the Dungeon Keeper setting itself, as most minions can't easily break the bonds the Dungeon Heart places on them.
Mind Hug: Being a Keeper, Ami is more than a little uncomfortable in the Light Gods' temple. Nevertheless, they cure the emotional trauma she suffered from her earlier Mind Rape of Malleus.
Mind Rape:
- Ami ends up doing this to Malleus. The experience is lethal for him, traumatic for her.
- Much later the Unraveller almost takes this trope to a rather logical extreme. To elaborate: the Unraveller intends to Mind Vivisect Ami, though it is implied that Mind Rape will also occur - specifically, "a few adjustments and improvements".
Minions Customized at Creation: Ami has two ways to make minions, both with flexibility after being taught how, but none of these are her own unique methods, so it's not a trope that's only for her.
- Ami tries to make stronger, or at least more durable imps by changing the material she summons the spirits into. The spell usually sends them into a flesh body, but she tries materials such as stone, water, and mud, and while her plan eventually works, she needed the help of much more experienced magic users to do it.
- Ami can create Animate Inanimate Objects that obey her because they're reliant on her magic for food, and trying to implement someone's advice on making custom minions rather than just enhancing what's already there, reveals that she can make them look like whatever she wants, not just based on items around her.
Mirror Character: Ami and Tiger express their shared memories by having the same gestures:
"Hmm, they kind of do look like sisters when they stand next to each other like that," Sailor Moon said when the ensuing silence threatened to turn awkward.
This prompted Ami and Tiger to look at each other. Sure enough, they both stood with their backs straight and their hands in front of themselves, fidgeting slightly.
Mirrors Reflect Everything: Mirrored orbs allow Azzathra's anti-magic gaze to affect anywhere seen through a mirror.
Mirror Reveal:
- Ami only notices her Battle Aura after seeing it in a reflection.
- In "Ward Trouble", Count Zatkel only notices his Forced Transformation into a chicken when he sees a reflective shield.
A Molten Date with Death: When fighting Nero, when he's a Dungeon Keeper, some of Ami's minions die by falling into the lava around his Dungeon Heart, the destruction of which is a key component of victory.
Mobile City: Ami's Iceberg Dungeon, which is a ship made to move Ami and her forces from one continent to another. It's basically holding an army, but it's also self-sufficient, being able to farm all its food.
Monster Whale: At least one undead whale is part of the undead forces set against Ami.
Mood Whiplash: Ami inflicts one on the other Sailor Senshi during the war on Crowned Death, going from casual to serious in a sentence.
Ami: Everyone, I need your help. It's rather urgent.
Usagi: Sure thing. Do you need some dating advice?
Ami: I have about two days to move my troops to an island over three thousand kilometres away, or thousands of people are going to die.
Mook Horror Show: In Surprise Guest, the Avatar appearing in a small underworld town causes this trope:
Stirred into action by fear, the Underworld denizens started piling up furniture in front of the entrance, cursing and shouting as they got into each other's way.
Mordor: What the lands the Keepers inhabit turn into due to the corruption of the Dungeon Heart. It has a side-effect of revealing the presence of a dungeon in the local area. The Avatar Islands are the best example: the continent had multiple Keepers warring over it, and despite their passing the land has not recovered. It most likely never will.
Morton's Fork: After Ami captures the city of Salthalls, the dwarfs hold a series of strategy meetings that are largely fruitless, because all options — direct action, indirect action, reconnaissance and monitoring — seem to be unworkable.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Tserk (a tentacle monster) can wield (and reload) six crossbows simultaneously with deadly precision.
Mundane Solution: The Avatar, wearing his mantle, is essentially impervious to all magic — but his armour is not immune to magnetism.
Mundane Utility: Ami managed to turn her corrupted landscape into a massive windstorm that provides electricity for the dungeon, and has figured out how to take advantage of some of the other corruption effects to create hot springs and geothermal power with the use of lava instead of wind.
- What better way to use your new horned reaper than as a living smelter or water heater? After all, fireballs are much more environmentally friendly than coal or gas.
- Ghosts are terrifying, yet fragile; one good hit is enough to disperse them. What does Ami use? A giant fly-swatter wielded in her Keeper hand.
My Skull Runneth Over: From "Trapped (second half)", Ami passses out from her Dungeon Heart's information when she reconnects with it, and so ends the chapter:
Far away, her dungeon heart sluggishly awakened from slumber. Her awareness was limited to its immediate surroundings, as everything further than a few metres away remained hidden behind a curtain of darkness. Tile by tile, this darkness receded, as if she was rapidly claiming the territory.
The wave of expanding awareness reached the first intersection and rushed down each of the three outgoing tunnels simultaneously. Everything it passed provided information. The state of the walls, the clicking of traps rearming themselves, the amount of water within the pipes within the wall.
Another intersection, and yet another. The rush of knowledge sped up exponentially. The amount of gold and gems in her treasury. The number of withered plants in one of the farms. An imp, rubbing her eyes in confusion. More intersections.
Ami grabbed her head in discomfort as the flashes of knowledge came faster and faster, too quickly for her to process them. They produced a sensation like pins and needles, multiplied by the size of her dungeon.
Running goblins. Armoury. Swords, daggers, clubs. Half-finished reaperbot. Frost patterns. Wandering civilian. Right angles. Aquamarine tiles. Dripping water. Trolls. Beakers. Cables. Mixed patrol. Intruders. Gems. Dragon. Tall ceilings, right angles. Pools and water. Warlocks. Slender pillars. Chatting dark elves. Intersectio-
The flood of information became too great for her tired mind to handle. Already weakened from draining her own life energy, she slowly toppled forward from her seated position, unconscious.
Mystical Plague: The dark gods send a magical sickness in punishment for Ami attempting to obtain help from the light gods, causing vomiting, boils, bloody coughs, high fevers, and weakness, with death to follow. Ami tries to devise a cure, but it mutates in response, actively countering her efforts.
Mythology Gag: From Corruption?: When Ami muses on sacrificing gold in her temple, her Reaper says: "The temple is no wishing well, you dolt!", a reference to Dungeon Keeper, where sacrificing gold in the temple, in single-player, would receive "This is no wishing well, Keeper." as a response.
Named After First Installment: The first chapter is called "Dungeon Keeper Ami (DARK)", with the "(DARK)" just being a content warning — but the name does fit the series, as it's Role Called.
Nasal Trauma: Multiple occasions from different causes:
- Ami's corrupted Shabon Spray has some very nasty effects on sensory organs:
  the dark magic performed the same task of blinding and disorienting the targets that Mercury's usual chilly fog would have. [...] she saw monsters claw at their eyes in the darkness. Blood was flowing from their ears and noses.
- From "A Meddler Appears", a rat gets a bloody nose due to sniffing something from that came from a room with concentrated bile demon stench:
  Ami dropped the loot unceremoniously in her own treasure chamber, where it landed on the ground with a soft thud. A rat scuttled out of the shadows and approached cautiously, twitching its nose as it sniffed the new box. Moments later, it let out an offended squeak and bounded away, bleeding from its nostrils. Bile demons, the young Keeper shuddered. A locked room would concentrate the smell...
Natural Spotlight: In "Crystal Investigation":
The gem was lying on the broken tip of a chalk-white stalagmite. It glittered in the single ray of sunlight that shone like a spotlight through a tiny gap in the cave’s roof.
Ami didn’t believe for an instant that the crystal had landed in the only illuminated spot by sheer good fortune. This was either an attempt to mislead her, outright mockery, or possibly both.
Near-Rape Experience: In "A Deal with the Devil (DARK)", it's Inverted, by the assaulted stopping it, instead of the assaulter. When Ami's first Reaper is using rape as a threat, she escapes by teleporting away:
[Ami] struggled to shake her head. "I don't trust you."

Which left him with a bit of a problem. [...] He had no problem with torture [...] Lack of experience [...] left most of his victims dead before any desirable results could be achieved. [...] Hmm, what could he do that wouldn't cause too much damage? He snorted at the thought. Him, worried about causing too much damage. Then he had a bright idea. She was a female, so...

"A stupid choice. I see you need some more 'convincing'."

Ami felt true terror at the malice expressed in those few words. Then, a scaled hand reached down, and grabbed a hold of the front of her sailor senshi uniform. Her body jerked as the demon gave the garment a violent tug, and with an agonised ripping noise, the front half came off. Oh no. No! No! NO! Not that! Ami froze in horror as she felt the chill of the dungeon air on the exposed skin of her chest. I wish I had died instead! I wish I was a real Keeper and knew how to get out of this situation! Having barely finished the panicked thought, she felt a surge of energy from the dungeon heart, as if she had just re-affirmed their connection. The next moment, she was gone.
Necromancer: There are a few, given there are necromancy spells, and followers of Crowned Death have the ability to raise the dead as undead minions.
- In Escape from Arachne's Dungeon, Nero calls himself "great necromancer Nero"
Neural Implanting: Queen Metallia beams a spell to retrieve youma from Eternal Sleep into Ami's mind.
New Life in Another World Bonus: When Ami arrives in Adushul, she becomes a Dungeon Keeper, making her effectively immortal, increasing her magic capacity, and gaining a place to call home, all at once. She also gets a Horned Reaper, one of the best fighters in Adushul. And all it costs her is her soul.
Nigh-Invulnerability: Wards can radically reduce the effectiveness of offensive spells, and even stop physical blows that might otherwise prove lethal. Enough of them can make a spellcaster exceptionally difficult to harm.
- Mercury's ice golems could be a lesser example. While they are harmed by magic and weapons, they are far more resilient than fleshy soldiers, as their bodies simply freeze over any wounds. Given access to enough water, they become nearly indestructible, which Mercury takes full advantage of for intimidation when possessing them.
Night of the Living Mooks: When Ami fights against a Incarnation of Extinction, a servant of Crowned Death, whose main attacking force is formed by Raising the Steaks with marine animals, but there are few Vampires and undead priests of Crowned Death as well.
Noble Fugitive: Ami, at the conclusion of the Avatar Islands Arc, due to getting the title of Empress.
No Eye in Magic: Some abilities seem to rely on eye contact:
- From Magic Lesson, Snyder explains that:
  Seeing something establishes an ephemeral, exploitable arcane link with it. Suffice it to say [in combination with a scrying device], you can use this to find out who is watching you, but not necessarily from where he is watching.”
- Azzathra's magic cancelling gaze abilities need visual contact with the area where magic is supposed to be prevented in, it works with areas seen through mirrors too.
- From A New Arrival, the "Judge's Eye gift", which appears to tell if people are speaking the truth, is used by Abbot Durval uses on Ami, is presumably given by the Light Gods, and works through eye contact with the subject, given the name. Although, he doesn't seem to need to be looking them straight in the eye as they speak.
No-Flow Portal: Depends on the type of portal:
- Jadeite's portals, don't prevent things on the other side from going through, as shown with the first one seen, where a jet of lava rushes out.
- Underworld Portal installations don't cause atmosphere exchange between the locations they connect, shown when one connects to a very hot location, from a cool underground dungeon, and the temperature of the destination is only noticed when the portal is exited.
No Man Should Have This Power: The instant mass fabrication abilities of a Dungeon Heart are described as a chemist's dream — but Ami knows of a few substances that could instead make a horrific nightmare, which she doesn't intend to use. When she's incapacitated by Crowned Death, though, Tiger borrows her body and has no such reservations.
Hmm. What was that amazing molecule again that her sister was too much of a worrywart to risk proliferating? It was some ridiculously simple formula. One chlorine and three - right! Oh, yes, this would be perfect. Construction chosen, area: any available free space. Go!
Non-Human Undead: There are undead octopuses, undead fish, undead coral, basically any sea life that wasn't also plant life, was a type of undead seen in the assault on an underwater temple dedicated to death and undeath.
Noodle Implements: The tools that Mercury appears to be using in the incident described in the Nothing Is Scarier example include a live chicken. This is probably just to get people wondering what she did with it.
Noodle Incident: Mukrezar has had quite a few magical mishaps, which the Adviser Imp loves to bring up to embarrass him.
No Party Like a Donner Party: In "Dungeon Discoveries", the last Avatar Isles' non-undead dungeon minions resorted to cannibalism as Ami discovered:
Cannibalism? Ami vaguely remembered hearing something about a terrible famine a short time after the last resistance was crushed by the forces of darkness. So everyone had died of hunger in the end? Why hadn’t the dungeon’s chicken farms provided enough sustenance?
No-Sell:
- The Avatar is almost untouchable in battle, and anything that might hurt him is instantly blocked by the Light Gods. In fact, Ami quickly realizes that the only thing that actually slowed him down, single combat with herself and Cathy, only actually slowed him down because he was being careful not to kill them.
- Surfacers are often horrified when impaling Ami's ice-simulacra fails to do much more than annoy her. Using glamour to make them match her true form, and even bleed, helps sell the injuries as believable, terrifying the opposition as the Dark Empress shrugs off telling strikes.
No Sympathy Between Mooks: When Ami's goblin fighting force suffers its first fatalities, she tries to make sure proper Due to the Dead is given. The goblins have other ideas.
"You heard! Go loot bodies before someone else do!"
Not Brainwashed: The fairies persist in believing that Jadeite must be under Mercury's magical control, and trying to rescue him, but the reader knows he genuinely likes her service and the opportunities that come with it. (And he likes her.)
Nothing Is Scarier: Due to her aversion to torture, when faced with having to discipline her minions Ami is forced to bluff. She invents a device that combines a tracking spell and a general fear trap into a selective fear charm — and then knocks the offender (and a dark mistress) unconscious. When they revive, the selective terror hits them, Ami then informs them that she wiped their memories to preserve her technique. In other words, whatever she did, she can do again, and it will be just as horrifying each time. Their imaginations do the rest.
"Not How I'm Dying" Declaration: In the first chapter, Ami, when facing possible death, has thoughts that she's "not going down without a fight".
Not Hyperbole: From Writing Home:
She had thought that the references to Boris' homeland being an outpost of hell now had been hyperbole. She was surrounded on all sides by sulphurous wastelands and blackened rock formations, broken up only by patches and rivulets of lava that gaped like open, bloody wounds in the landscape.
Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering: The Shining Concord Empire is stated to have one of these.
Not the Intended Use: Scavenger Rooms are supposed to enable minions to whisper temptations into the minds of their foes, tempting them to switch sides. Ami quickly works out that this means they're capable of transmitting any telepathic messages, albeit one-way, and they become a cornerstone of her battlefield command and control.
Not What It Looks Like: Tends to crop up a fair few occasions for Ami, much to her mortification, like the times when she's naked along with some of her minions. Tiger deliberately makes her time locked in a room with Duke Libasheshtan sound like something very different from what it was, prompting Ami to insist to her mother that it's not what it sounds like.
Not Where They Thought: Baron Leopold and crew, due to a moved hero gate endpoint, think they're in Ami's dungeon, and start disparaging it, when it's actually Baron Leopold's attic.

O-P

Occam's Razor: The rulers of the surface keep finding simpler explanations of Ami's actions in terms of evil motives, instead of believing the unprecedented truth of a Keeper with benevolent intentions. The fact that she needs to leave a plausible evil explanation for her actions, in order to keep her minions loyal, doesn't help.
"What's more likely, a Keeper piercing adamantine or said Keeper finding a way to block scrying?" he asked. "One who has been temporarily unscryable in the past?"
The dwarf in the crystal ball grimaced. "But I could sense the seal hardening…"
"Thol, you have to face the facts. The Dark Empress and her illusions deceived you. I'm sure that if one of the priests were to check you for magical residues, he would find quite a number of them."
Offending a Foreign Country: Functionally, Dungeon Keepers are rulers of their own dungeon countries, due to having a great amount of physical control over what's in their domain, so those who enter such areas on more peaceful missions are wary about offending the Keeper. Then there's the special case of Keepers who actually legally rule lands... Due to having physical control of all of said land, in addition to their dungeons.
Offing the Offspring: As said in regards to Keeper Malleus in "Moving On":
he sired children for the sole purpose of sa-sacrificing them!
Off with His Head!: At least twice:
- In Surprise Guest, How a Mukrezar dies, Killed Mid-Sentence:
  Mukrezar smirked “Just as I planned, you—” That was as far as he got before the Avatar’s two-handed sword cut off his words, along with his head.
- From Underworld Army Attack: How an Underworld dragon dies:
  Actions magically slowed, the dragon plummeted like a rock, unable to keep itself aloft. A moment before it struck the ground, the reaper blurred and leapt, swinging his scythe. The dragon's head separated from its neck before the giant body crashed, releasing a huge gout of hot blood. Rabixtrel landed on the corpse and screamed his triumph at the wavering soldiers.
Oh, Crap!: Multiple:
- Eline the dark elf is a prisoner of war, worried about what Keeper Mercury will do to her (especially with Ami's Extreme Omnisexual reputation), but is briefly distracted and entertained by a girl teleporting into the prison right in the path of some cleaning goblins, getting covered in soap and falling over onto Tserk the slime monster. Eline can't help but burst out laughing.
  Eline: Hey troll, who's that clumsy sorceress? She should try for a career as a comedian!
  Marda: Oh. Her. That's just Keeper Mercury.
- Ami's chief warlock, Torian, has this reaction after he insults the rest of the Senshi, thinking them weaker than Mercury. He realizes the depth of his error when Mercury informs him that she is the weakest of the Senshi.
- King Albrecht's council has this reaction when they learn of details regarding how the Dark Empress defeated Crowned Death's Lesser Aspect. She ate it.
- Camilla has this reaction when she realizes that the conditions she puts on agreeing to help Mercury constitute making an employment contract with a Keeper, which has some bad consequences.
- The Unraveller of Mysteries steps in to interview Ami during her escape from the realm of the Dark gods. Which was emphatically not part of Ami's plans...
- The Unraveller has one herself when Ami escapes from her by activating a Holy spell while deep within the Dark Gods' domain.
  Unraveller: "Oh. No. You did not just do that."
- Marda's trolls are content to discuss Ami amongst themselves, mock her, stare at her cleavage through a periscope... Until they see her eyes and realise that she's a Keeper.
Oh, No... Not Again!: Marda's reaction upon realizing that Rabixtrel is still alive after all these years, and charging right at them again.
Omake: Started getting several, most of whom are written by fans. Which makes them Recursive Fanfiction.
One-Handed Zweihänder: For the Reaper duel, Cathy recommends that Ami train with a two-handed sword, figuring that Senshi enhancements will let her wield it one-handed, and it will strike a good balance between having the cutting power to hurt the Reaper, and being closer than the optimal range for his scythe. Ami's training sword is almost as tall as herself, but sure enough, she can use it effectively even in her off hand.
One-Man Army: Between her Senshi speed and strength enhancements, Teleportation and Flight spells, shielding, golem creation, possessing other bodies, Telekinesis, and a litany of tricks up her sleeves, Ami can fight her way through an army even outside her own domain. Such as the city of Salthalls.
Duke Libasheshtan: But seriously, what do you expect her to do? Throw a tantrum and attack us all on her own?
One-Steve Limit: Averted with the name "Taleth". There's Father Taleth, a surfacer healer, who healed Ami's arm, and Crowned Death's Priest Taleth, shown in "Dark Messenger", who conveys a request for Ami to desecrate the Avatar's Mantle.
One-Winged Angel: Played straight and subverted by most Dungeon Keepers as they can alter their forms. Hilarity Ensues when soon after the Cathy-Jered-Snyder trio learn Mercury is a Dungeon Keeper, they expect her to "reveal her true form." "But I'm human! I really look like this!"
- Played somewhat straighter when Tiger rescues Ami after her possession by Crowned Death. See Fusion Dance.
One-Word Title: There's a few chapters named that way, such as:
- Recovering: About recovering from the Reaper duel.
- Deadline, which is also a Portmantitle, and is about the deadline to rescue some sacrifices.
Only in It for the Money: Keeper Midori is notable for being willing to sell information to either or both sides of a conflict, and openly admit to doing so.
Ami: You sell my location to my enemies, and then you expect me to be willing to buy something from you?
Midori: If it's any consolation, I'm willing to sell out the others just as fast as you.
Orcus on His Throne: Referred to here: I hope I’m not expected to sit on my throne all day too as an empress, the teenager mused. I’d never get anything done.
Organic Technology: Organic Dungeon Hearts, being magically-created fusions of heart-like flesh with stone, "Dungeon Discoveries" has Ami / the narration call them "unholy amalgamation[s] of stone and living flesh".
Orgasmic Combat:
- Possibly mixed with Sex Is Violence, with the first Reaper, when he's switched bodies with Ami:
  The enthusiasm with which the Reaper took to killing was rather disturbing. Ami hoped with all his heart that those little moans and gasps he heard over the clanging impacts and crumbling noises were only signs of strain and effort.
- Rabixtrel goes even further when killing an unending tide of ghosts.
  His usual demented grin had long shifted from 'genuinely pleased' over 'orgasmic' into 'zen-like serenity'.
Orifice Invasion: In "Assault on Wemos":
One of the spectres supporting the unfortunate vampiric Keeper forced its way into his gaping mouth, slid down his throat, and wrapped around his strained vocal chords. His screams died down as his neck bulged and swelled to grotesque proportions, allowing Zarekos to address his slaves without having to shout.
Otherworldly Technicolour Hair: Ami's blue hair marks her as magical because she's been Trapped in Another World where only non-humans or magical accident victims have non-melanin-generated hair colors like blue, purple, or green.
Our Elves Are Different: Bows and arrows are considered the "traditional elven weapon", and there are albino dark elves in the underworld.
Our Ghosts Are Different: They can fly and are the tortured souls of the dead, with a Ghostly Chill. But one good hit is enough to disperse them.
Our Sphinxes Are Different: Referenced in "No Wonder Cure" when Ami is talking with Keeper Midori and sees a statue that she compares to an Egyptian sphinx with the body of a dragon.
Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires Sleep in Coffins, can turn into a bat, and wolves, although the latter's never been seen, can turn others into vampires in an undisclosed process involving their god, Crowned Death. They also have some powers to control those that they've personally turned, Cannot Cross Running Water, and have Super-Speed and Super-Strength. However, they have no vulnerability to garlic; in fact, they can't smell plants at all. Snyder suspects that that myth is deliberate misinformation.
Our Witches Are Different: Adushul people seem to use witch to mean a generic, usually evil, female magic-user. With the evil males being warlocks.
Out-Gambitted: After Marda goes on unauthorised and insubordinate missions to destroy unclaimed Dungeon Hearts, it turns out that the trolls are Light worshippers, which makes Ami reluctant to impose any serious punishment — but she also doesn't want her minions to assume she's soft and start ignoring orders. So, at the next payday, she sends Marda out to fight the undead hordes all alone. Most of her minions are impressed and scared, not wanting the same thing to happen to them, but the other trolls start smirking, knowing that Marda is strong enough to handle it, and assuming that Mercury's punishment attempt has backfired. Mercury, seeing their reaction, is satisfied; she has avoided levying any substantial punishment on Marda, she has maintained her public image, and since the trolls think they've slipped one over on her, they won't feel especially angry, so they're unlikely to rebel.
Outside-Context Problem: What Ami is, at least for the public.
Outside-the-Box Tactic: Basically the main source of Mercury's power.
The Light: We will not go into further detail, because Empress Mercury has a knack for finding creative and distressing applications for things she understands.
Pass the Popcorn: Ami and her buddies share cookies while watching Marda test-fight her new golems.
Peeling Potatoes: As seen in "Musings", it's effectively the fairy sisters' punishment for getting captured, since they were demoted and have to do it. (After Mercury defeats the Avatar and is named Empress of the Avatar Isles, their superiors reconsider the punishment, figuring it probably wasn't their fault after all.)
"Girls, less bickering and more peeling," Dandel, the indigo-haired eldest of the group spoke up in a tone of voice that brooked no protest. "Act professionally, or do you want to be stuck in this place forever?"
Six heads shook in unison.
"Bah, I want to go out on missions again!" orange-haired Roselle whined, "this is all Keeper Mercury's fault!"
"Yeah, we totally didn't deserve that demotion for getting captured by someone like her," Tilia agreed.
Percussive Pickpocket: Snyder is initially displeased about Jered buying tickets to the Reaper duel, since he doesn't like the idea of Azzathra profiting from Ami's situation. But Jered explains that he didn't pay for them, they "must have dropped to the floor when a foul-smelling and rather unsympathetic troll jostled me in the crowd."
Percussive Therapy: From "Writing Home", Jadeite feels he's falling out of Mercury's favor since she's being more restrained in her reactions towards him:
A black blast of dark energy vaporised an innocent vase as he vented his anger.
Perpetual Storm: Once Ami uses her control of her Dungeon Heart's corruption of her territory to turn the magical artifact into what is effectively a Weather-Control Machine, she selects storms to power her windmills. With corruption being a constant factor of her realm, it won't disperse until she removes the Heart from the area or changes the settings.
Perky Female Minion: Venna fills this role. Tiger did too, until she got promoted to Mercury's inner circle.
Person as Verb: From Disagreements, referencing the Dark God of Brute Force, Azzathra:
If at first you don't succeed, use a bigger army. How very Azzathra of you, Matthia.
Perspective Flip: Ami has to fight a team of fairies, complete with an In the Name of the Moon speech.
Phlebotinum-Handling Requirements:
- How to activate a Dungeon Heart: From the first chapter:
  The dungeon heart, while not being sentient, reacted according to its programming when it felt itself being accessed. User is intending to use my power to destroy her enemies? Check. User's blood? On the cover, coagulated but present. Check. Strong source of magical power? Oh hell yes! Check.
- Properly activating an Oracle Tower needs some potential to do so, as said by Camilla in Towers:
  "I was [...] tested for oracle potential. Nobody in my family had enough to properly activate a tower, but I can manage the projection trance for a short time.
Phlebotinum Overdose: The dwarven city of Salthalls is set up to absorb ambient magic and use it for all manner of civilian applications, somewhat like an electricity grid, but between a Dungeon Heart, senshi magic, and Queen Metallia's blessing, equivalent to the power of a dark general, it wasn't designed to handle the amount of mana that Ami has access to. So, when she's trapped in adamantine, and her power builds up outside like a river hitting a dam, it floods the system and partially mutates all the dwarves into youma.
Physical Fitness Punishment: In Staff Difficulties, Ami punishes her warlocks with physical training for going along with Torian's plans for the Calarine Staff. Although, they were supposed to have that training anyway:
all of you will attend Cathy’s training sessions from now on until further notice. Unauthorised absences will have to be explained to me personally. I will not be pleased about having to take time out of my busy schedule to deal with something like that.”
A Place Holds Memories: In "Divine Opposition, Part 1", when a witness to the slaughter of the Avatar Islands returns to its capital city, and is provoked by thinking of Keepers, he erupts into a speech about what it looked like before the slaughter, pointing out places:
“Look out there!” he pointed at a valley far out in the wasteland. “That sea of lava used to be a town that was famous for its art and music.” His arm moved to another spot. “This used to be lush forest, where fairies danced around standing stones. The laughter of their children turned into heart-rending screams as the Keepers’ hordes boiled them alive!”
Playing the Family Card: In "Valuable Art", an older adopted sister says "Protect me, little sister!" to try and evade punishment for a prank because said little sister is the higher-ranking one.
Plethora of Mistakes: Well, Crowned Death... Stealing from the Empress... How's that working out for ya?
Poke in the Third Eye:
- Azzathra gives Ami one, in her Keeper Sight, when she sees him. It's described as "a hot poker being shoved into her inner eye".
- Slightly more literally, Ami's anti-scrying defences activate floodlights intended to dazzle the watcher and conceal activity.
Portal Network: Two set of Cool Gate networks:
- Underworlder Portal installations, which connect to other ones, first seen in "Into the Portal", are described as:
  The portal reminded Ami of pictures of Stonehenge. Four arches, composed of two tall stone pillars with a horizontal crossbar on top, were arranged in such a way that they touched at the corners. The area inside the square they formed glowed with hazy images of faraway territories and emitted a warm orange light
- At least one "hero gate network" exists, as said in "No Wonder Cure", and such gates are, as seen in "More Lessons":
  a structure that resembled a canopy tent, except that it was made of stone and rested on four thick, round pillars. Within the structure wavered a water-like surface, forming an upright oval that looked like a full-length mirror.
Portmantitle: Compound words and chapter titles count, so Deadline is an example.
Possessing a Dead Body: Skeletons and other undead (apart from vampires and death priests) are powered by "bound, suffering spirits of the deceased" and are under the control of Crowned Death, an evil god of death.
Power at a Price: Dungeon Hearts always spread corruption to the environment around them, but Ami finds that it's possible to make trade-offs, such as ensuring a perpetual windstorm over her iceberg and the inability to grow plants on the surface but not polluting the water around it. Or gaining more overall control while losing the safeties that keep the corruption from interfering in the dungeon itself.
The Power of the Sun: Snyder informs Ami that since the sun is a symbol of the Light gods, sunlight conveys a trace of their power — which allows it to stop killed vampires from respawning. Light priests can produce a similar effect by channeling holy power into their strikes, but artificial sunlight does nothing.
Powered Armor: Ami's personal armor in the duel against the Horned Reaper, as well as the weaker versions being made for the rest of her employees.
Power Tattoo: Zarekos is mentioned to have an inverted pentacle on his forehead.
Practical Currency: All currency is this to Dungeon Keepers, because their Dungeon Hearts allow them to turn items made of gems and/or gold into magical energy.
Pragmatic Villainy: Ami extensively pretends to this, as a cover for things like sparing defeated enemies (and frequently recruiting them), or making deals with Light worshippers. Her actual motives are more benevolent, but it's easy for surface nations and evil-worshipping minions to believe that she's just a long-term thinker who makes use of all available resources.
Precautionary Corpse Disposal: Worshippers of Crowned Death have the ability to animate relatively intact corpses in their area of influence. So, while facing one, Ami has to rapidly cut up the single corpse in her territory. The oldest dragon.
Price on Their Head: Mukrezar has a two million gold piece bounty, which impresses, but also worries him.
Pride Before a Fall: The character Torian, Empress Mercury's head researcher, has been set up for this with his desire for the Staff of Calarine which Mercury disposed of due to it being a trap.
Protagonist Title: Dungeon Keeper Ami. The main character is the Keeper of a Dungeon, named Ami.
Proud Industrious Race: Dwarves, who are good at building very tiny wards, city-wide magical infrastructure and also cities where the surface is only a small portion of it, as said in "Ultimatum":
Even that comparatively low number was hard to believe when the parts enclosed by the city walls fit into an area of less than a square kilometre.
Ami reminded herself that most of the city was below ground and that the surface part was the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
Psycho for Hire: Rabixtrel, the (second) Horned Reaper.
Pummeling the Corpse: From Surprise Guest, after the Avatar found out that the Mukrezar whom he killed was just basically a body double. From the perspective of the goblin, Fiz:
An incoherent howl of absolute rage drew his attention back to the Avatar looming above him, sword raised high in the air. The goblin's ears drooped.
The weapon came down on the corpse with a tearing sound, cutting deep into the wooden floor again and again as the Avatar vented his anger.
[...] was throwing a tantrum bad enough to make him hack apart a fallen opponent
Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: When Ami has to choose what to wear in Vanity Issues, and her advisors are offering choices:
"I'm. Not. Wearing. That." Ami stated with finality.

Dungeon Keeper Ami / Tropes E to P

Previous

Index

Next

Dungeon Keeper Ami / Tropes E to P

Edit Locked

Previous

Index

Next