Nightmare Fuel / Amulet

The Stonekeeper

• My God — Trellis gets a special mention as one of the most terrifying factors in this book.
  • The very first volume had Trellis eating a live slug with a full mouth of razor sharp teeth, in a panel that made him look really creepy.
  • It's also nerve-wracking to think that someone's been following you this whole tine and you don't even know it.
  • The Hayes siblings and Trellis's first face-to-face encounter. You try to run away from what you think is an unfettered monster only to run into a figure with plated armour, sharp claws, glowing eyes, razor teeth and a scar going down on one eye and his amulet shining as an attempt for an attack. Good thing Miskit came to help by stunning him.
  • But it didn't last long. His Eye Awaken is enough to skip any kid's heartbeat. Oh, and when pursues them? It's almost like he's flying, his stripped cape like tentacles and he just stood on the dock — a shadowy menacing figure. The may have escaped him, but there is a chilling assurance that they will encounter him again.
    • All of these makes it very surprising that he turned out to be a good guy all along.
• Amulet introduces us to Alledia's creatures. Is it beautiful and majestic like most fantasy genres do? Nope, the first ones to appear are horrifying Animalistic Abomination.
  • The Conebeak. This bird has cone-like beak (duh) with black feathers, Empty Eyes, and bat wings. It doesn't seem to be carnivorous but it seems to like mushrooms and pecked the one Navin was gliding on, and if it made through, he would've likely have fallen to his death if it weren't for Emily.
  • The Arachnopod. Or so to say, a weird mash of an octopus with glowy eyes and spider legs. Yep, that description does not do justice to its true nightmarish appearance.
  • Rakers. Think of the arachnopod, except with more and more teeth and no legs. And bigger. And longer and many more tentacles. Oh, they're also known to eat everything they could get hold of, while being imbedded deep into the ground. 'Nuff said.
• The Voice. From the moment it makes contact with Emily, Navin is extremely weary of it. He is not wrong to feel this way. The Voice later urges to Emily to destroy Trellis, and "make him pay" for hurting their mother. She came very close to crossing the Moral Event Horizon after a very short time.

The Stonekeeper's Curse

• Colossal Beasts. One rogue stonekeeper is bound to cause deaths but there were five of them, likely killing hundreds of people.
  • The one they saved ended up being the bad call. Not only the boy killed Leon's father, he killed more people in one explosion. That quiet elf, is the Elf King. And he started aware that caused a hostile rift between humans and elves, spurning 50 years of strife, hatred, and deaths.
• Luger's transformation into a giant is... not pleasant to say the least. He starts off with a Slasher Smile, laughing maniacally, and then over the next few panels we're treated to the sight of his body warping and twisting, all while he screams.

The Cloud Searchers

• Emily throwing Gabilan outside the beacon temple becomes Harsher in Hindsight when you remember: she doesn't know he has a flying steed. She had literally tried to kill him by throwing him to his death. Considering how old Emily is and she is already committing such things is... Unnerving.
  • Gabilan didn't seem to realize this in Firelight.

The Last Council

• The fact that the stonekeepers and Guardian Council of Cielis were already wiped out years ago. Emily, Vigo and at the very least, Trellis, may be the only ones left on their side.
• Gruels. They're little four-legged gremlins used to guard the mother stones, with a horrible Nightmare Face on their head. At one point, Emily faces a whole army of them. If it wasn't for the stone...
• The Reveal that Max Griffin has been Evil All Along. He was the only guide through the nightmarish events of the book, but he was actually bad the whole time. The Oh, Crap! moments when Emily enters the Hall of Humble Kings and Pierce and Ronin turn to stone are chilling.

The Prince of the Elves

• The Guardian Chamber shows evidences of destruction, and blood. With no other stonekeepers showing aside from Emily, Trellis, and Vigo, You can easily tell what happened there...
• What happened to Vigo's son. Your only child dabbles in barely understood art of entering the Void just so he could talk to his dead mother. You hear them saying things they wouldn't tell anyone and wouldn't wake for days. And when they did, hey give you one last look of absolute terror and then die. Daniel died afraid and Vigo can't do anything but watch.
• The voice's Slasher Smile when it sees Emily in Max's memory. Not only it a very creepy face, it almost seems to be looking at you.
• The last four books have fairly positive endings, Bittersweet Endings at the worst. How does Book 5 end? Emily accepts the Voice's chess game and moves a piece. Meanwhile, the darkness around her turns into Combat Tentacles that slowly approach her. Good god.

Escape from Lucien

• This book is easily one of the darkest in the series.
  • As Aly and Navin clean the Colossus, they can see fire, smoke and rubble in the distance. That is all that's left of Lucien and the very thought that no one survived is horrifying. It was a relief to know that the people have already been evacuated a long time ago by the Ash family.
  • Max's and his reinforcements sudden reappearance. It just came out of nowhere, Navin knew there was something odd with the atmosphere but before he and Cogsley could want anyone, the illusion dispersed and the airship destroyed a frigate as well as the Colossus, killing likely hundreds of people and wiping out 2/3 is the Cielan army already. They are literally trapped.
  • Max managed to trap the Guardian Council inside a room that negates their powers and he's the only one with a mountain giant. He isn't a great tactician for no reason.
  • When Max revealed that Trellis was actually possessed all along and that there's no one who managed to succeed liberating a possessed person, much less anyone surviving when they get emancipated. It means Trellis was meant to die all along and he was an innocent person dragged to this mess.
  • Rob getting possessed and his sudden shift in hostility. He was going to kill them.
  • Lucien Underground's situation is bleak. You're underground with fledgling resources and you're hesitant to evacuate everyone because if you do, it's likely many of them will be possessed (which will most likely certain death).

Firelight

• When Emily and Trellis entered the mini mart, nothing seems wrong so far with the memory except for the real somber guy, and as expected, its inhabitants ignore them and doesn't interact. Emily gets distracted from pondering how long she has been away from Earth. You'll feel literal chills when the cashier suddenly addressed Trellis. Something is really wrong.
  • It doesn't help that the words the cashier said to him was chilling and cryptic:
    Cashier: Check.
    Trellis: Excuse me?
    Cashier: He says it's your move now.
    • As a Chess Motif, this suggests that Emily's chess game against the Voice has progressed, and is losing. As the book goes on, this proves all too true.

• The entire sequence with the memory of the man who indirectly killed Emily's father is very unnerving in how clear it is that Emily is being manipulated—and especially how, in spite of everything that she said beforehand about not losing control, she gives in to the Voice shockingly easily when her longing to see her father is involved.
• Emily losing control of the stone and turning into a firebird. After all the heroes have been through, the protagonist has pulled a Face–Monster Turn.

Supernova

• Basically the entire introduction. Logi mysteriously tells the elf army to surrender. The heroes suspect it's a trap, but are overruled by the mayor. The entire time, we can tell something is very wrong. After a while, Vigo confronts the imprisoned Logi, who reveals he has a "gift": a portal to the void. Logi, with a Nightmare Face, opens the portal, unleashing Emily in her firebird form. Emily instantly kills Logi, and proceeds to burn the town. Yikes.
• The Elf King's face, behind the mask, is hideous. His skin is a zombie grey, with a mouth of sharp teeth. He has no eyes or nose, but instead Ikol's symbol in the center of his face. Nightmare Face doesn't even begin to cover it.