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Mefodiy Buslaev | Mefodiy Buslaev Characters | Mefodiy Buslaev Recap

If not counting occasional weirdness happening around him (and his rare name), Mefodiy Buslaev was always the relatively normal kid (though with a hooligan streak), without notable skills and abilities. He lives on the far end of Moscow in a small condo with his divorced mother Zozo, who constantly tries — and fails — to find a replacement for her ex-husband Igor, and her younger brother Edya, a cheapskate and cynic who constantly struggles — and fails — to stay on any work for long. Mefodiy was always convinced that he has no perspectives and purpose in life.

Daphne was always believed to be the worst Light Guardian in existence — undisciplined prankster, prone to black humour and non-conformist behaviour (she even has a hellish cat as her pet, whom she calls Depresnyak — for a good reason). Neither she nor the other Guardians believes that she has any perspectives in life, or special destiny awaiting her, especially since all her questionable actions causes the feathers in her wings to darken.

One day Mefodiy gets rescued from most recent of Zozo's suitors (an aggressive brute) by the eccentric witch named Ulitha. Mefodiy learns that he's the one who inherited the powers of the former Dark Lord Kvodnon, and that it's his destiny to lead the Darkness to triumph over the forces of Light. All he needs to start is to draw a rune on the floor of his room at midnight, which would teleport him to Ulitha's master, the Dark Guardian Arey, who would become his new mentor. Still thinking that it must be some kind of mistake, Mefodiy accepts the proposal — and the rune works. Meanwhile, at Eden, Daphne gets invited into the House of the Light Ones, to the Supreme Guardian Troil, who recruits her for a special mission — they would pass her as a betrayer of Light, to deceive the Darkness and allow her into their base of operation in Russia — and near Mefodiy, their new champion; Daphne's mission is to ensure that he wouldn't fall for the Darkness completely.

The series consists of the following works:

Mefodiy Buslaev. The Midnight Mage (2004)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Scroll of Desires (2005)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Third Horseman of Darkness (2005)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Ticket to the Bald Mountain (2006)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Revenge of the Valkyries (2006)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Secret Magic of Depresnyak (2006)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Ice and Fire of Tartarus (2007)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The First Eidos (2007)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Light Wings for the Dark Guardian (2007)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Stairway to Eden (2008)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Map of Chaos (2008)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Dryad's Necklace (2009)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Glass Guardian (2009)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Sword Dance (2011)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Fire Gates (2011)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Book of Seven Roads (2013)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Ship of Light (2013)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Gryphon's Mistake (2015)
Mefodiy Buslaev. The Best Enemy (2016)

The series provides examples of the following tropes:

Series overall

Balance Between Good and Evil: Since the fall of Kvodnon, the Light and Darkness have some sort of agreement which prevents their cold war from becoming hot again. Amongst the other things, they are supposed to fight each other using the teams of relatively equal power (and the Darkness actually upholds that agreement most of the time, because whoever breaks it, would ruin their reputation and would be called a coward, by both sides). This does not apply to secret operations, however, for either side.
Barred from the Afterlife: Usually, when humans (both lopukhoids and mages) dies, their souls (called "eidoses") goes to either Eden (heaven) or Tartarus (hell), depending on their achievements in the life. However, if the eidos gets prematurely removed (commissioners and succubi can trick human to give it up as something insignificant; the Dark Guardians can tempt them or scare them), it wouldn't go anywhere. The Dark Guardians are hunting for them to put into darkhs, where they would suffer for all eternity, fuelling their magic; while the Light Guardians are searching for such stolen souls and either returning them, or moving them to Eden if they're legit for it; in some specific cases these souls may be reincarnated to give them another go with clearing the eidos if their fate is uncertain. Of course, the souls which are too damned gets sucked into Tartarus no matter what.
Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Many historical and mythological characters turns out to be either mages or Guardians (usually the Dark ones). Some of them are even still alive. Listing all of them may take forever, as at least one gets mentioned in every novel, but some are actually plot-important:
- It was all but explicitly stated that the Greek god of war Ares is just one of the names for the Dark Guardian Arey.
- Several prominent historical conquerors either became the Dark Guardians at some point, or were the Guardians to begin with.
Bigger on the Inside: Recurring spell of the Fifth Dimension, popular amongst both mages and Guardians, can be used almost anywhere to vastly expand the available space. Lopukhoids wouldn't be able to either see or use it, while magic users would be able to openly enter and exit it. Notably, it was used to create the Dark Residence in Moscow, and to construct the "Valkyrie's refuge" (Irka's "house" she and Matvey organised on Losiny Ostrov by using the abandoned train car and enchanting it through magic.
Coming of Age Story: This is essentially the story of Mefodiy growing up and maturing. He starts his path as less than thirteen years old, immature, mischievous, lazy and prone to exploit his recently discovered powers. As the time goes on, he learns more about the life, learns that with great power comes great risks and temptations, finds new friends and new enemies — and grows up. Most important events and decisions often corresponds with important points of his life and allows him to leave the past behind and raise above it.
Covers Always Lie: The original covers had consistent design issues for much of the series run:
- Some of the original covers not even bothered to show anything even remotely accurate to the stories' events — like second book showing Daphne in same car with Mamai and Arey, clearly taking pleasure from mayhem they cause. New covers are more story-friendly, and often depict some actual in-story event rather than show something abstract.
- For whatever reason, third book tried to give both Mefodiy and Daphne more "punky" look, with Daphne's outfit also having issue with underscoring her breast (even if take into account her now ageing at normal speed, she's still 14 by then; though covers also makes characters appear older); neither of those fit either series tone, or the characters' personalities. All newer covers gave characters more chaste outfits.
Creator Provincialism: Most novels are set entirely in Moscow, with occasional trips to magical locations such as Bald Mountain or Tartarus; even if the trip to other cities and regions does happen, it rarely shows anything important. Almost all important characters of human origin are Russians too, often also from Moscow.
Crossover Cosmology: Pagan gods from various old mythologies coexists in this verse, but usually don't interfere in the lives of mortal humans (but there are exceptions). Several of them outright joined the Darkness.
Darker and Edgier: Dmitri Yemets is mostly known for lighthearted children-oriented books... and then he created Mefodiy Buslaev, which deals with such topics as redemption and damnation, virtues and sins, life and death, Light and Darkness; this is particularly noticeable when compared to previous series, Tanya Grotter, set in the same universe. Earlier novels, particularly the first one, are not as extreme in this regard, still putting more emphasis on the trademark surreal humour, but the longer series goes, the more tone gets shifted from comedy to drama; this corresponds with characters growing older (and wiser) as well. Another major difference is that this series no longer shies to kill off heroes.
Dark Is Evil: The Dark Guardians exploits Lopukhoids for their eidoses, which they use to powering their dark magic. Even those who are not outright evil tend to have major flaws and/or being massive jerks. The non-Guardian Dark-aligned entities are generally just as evil, even if not as strong, including many dark mages (but by no means all dark mages).
Empty Shell: Fate of anyone losing their eidos; they are not dead yet, but they may as well be: they have no true desires, no true inspiration, no true passion, and, most importantly, they have no hope. They have no chance to become better. And there would be no afterlife for them, unless the Light manages to return their eidos, even if after death. Even Lopuhoids themselves can feel that something is wrong, but can't realise what — and they feel eternal, all-consuming grief over it. All Dark Guardians lack their eidoses as well, and while they claim that they do not need them, this is a lie; their eternal hunt for eidoses to fill up their darkh is their (futile) attempt to fill that emptiness with something.
Epigraph: Every chapter begins with epigraph, usually containing one of the following: quotes from in-universe books (usually Book of Light and Book of Darkness, which have diametrically opposite views on things), Irka's or Essiorkh's diary (rarely the others'), quotes from philosophers (sometimes real, sometimes made-up, including some purely joke ones), or (in later novels) situation-appropriate quotes from the historical Christian figures.
Gratuitous Latin: Dmitri Yemets just loves using Latin at any opportunity, be it quotes (both in-text and as epigraphs), magic formulas or even chapters' names.
Holy Burns Evil: The word "spasibo" causes the same effect on servants of Darkness as the cross to vampires in classic stories. The reason for this is because why the modern meaning for this word is simply Russian for "thanks", it originates from the phrase "spasi bog" (literally "god save"). Tukhlomon suffers from this effect particularly often (and purposely).
Humanity Is Infectious: Both the Light and the Darkness prefers to avoid interacting with mortals unless necessary. The Darkness is a firm believer that anything that suppresses your absolute loyalty to your master must be destroyed, while the Light thinks that everyday "normal life" slowly consumes you, to the point that you stop dividing it and your actual duties, so any Guardians must spend as little time on Earth as possible, regularly returning to Eden to not forget who they are, becoming mortals.
Immortal Procreation Clause: Once you become a Dark Guardians, you become immortal (for as long as you keep your darkh intact), but you can't procreate, ever, most likely because creation of new life requires at least some Light, which they obviously lack.
It Can Think: Strong enough artifacts can have minds of their own; some may even try to manipulate people to do their bidding. Recurring examples:
- Drevnir's sword is known for two things — its thirst for blood, and utter hate for betrayers. It can and often does take control over the hand which wields it when it sees an opportunity to strike.
- The darkhs have some sort of symbiosis with their wielders (as long as they keep feeding them with eidoses, they would give them powers), but if they stop doing their part, the darkh would force them into obedience, through torture (both physical and mental). They also can feed on wielder's life force, sometimes through blood. They react when they sense souls to consume by trying to reach them on their own (or force the owner to do so by chocking them), when someone other than the owner touches them, they attack, and when in danger, they are trying to flee.
Light Is Good: The Light Guardians protects lopukhoids and their eidoses from being stolen and exploited by the Darkness, and in return, feeds on their gratitude to fuel their own magic. Almost all of "good guys" belongs to the forces of Light, and if they don't, they soon join anyway.
Living Drawing: Nearly all magic portraits are alive. Ligul likes using his own portraits for spying — which often results in them being humiliated. For example, Ulitha once used a lipstick to paint Ligul's lips.
Muggles: Normal humans are called "lopukhoids" by both "elementary" mages and by the Guardians ("lopukh", depending on context, can mean either "burdock" or "fool" in Russian). Obviously, this is not a compliment. The Light Guardians dislike that term, but sometimes snaps to "lopukhoids" themselves.
Narnia Time: Normally, the time in Eden is supposed to go slower than on Earth. On practice, it can go any way which would be convenient for the story. The same applies to Tartarus, but that one at least can be explained with it being the Eldritch Location.
Neutrality Backlash:
- As established by Arey, you can't avoid aligning with either the Light or the Darkness and remain anything significant in the process. While it's technically possible to remain "neutral", you would become pathetic nobody with no power, no friends and no future — if you succeed; if you fail, you would be just corrupted by the Darkness without realising it, but wouldn't gain any benefits, even temporally. We actually see examples of both variants in story.
- The Darkness hates atheists just as much as the Light does. Why? Because atheists do not believe in Darkness, either, and wouldn't fuel it, even outright villainous ones, neither during life, nor after death (so no sense to put them into darkhs). Not even lopukhoids themselves would benefit from it, because them not believing in afterlife actually takes it away from them; this is one of the few established ways to destroy eidos — not even aligning with Darkness destroys the soul outright.
No Body Left Behind: The Guardians never leaves a corpse after death; the Light ones disappear in light, the Dark ones gets reduced to dust.
Our Angels Are Different: The Light Guardians fights the Dark Guardians for control over eidoses. All Light Guardians have wings-shaped necklaces which allows them to materialise their actual wings on their back; these wings, once materialised, can be damaged, and if that happens, they would never heal back. Most of their magic works through their magical flutes, including in battle; such magic is called "magolodies".
Our Demons Are Different:
- The Dark Guardians are evil mages and warriors who uses special crystal vessels (called "darkhs"), filled with tormented souls, to fuel their magic. This brings them at odds with the Light Guardians, who seeks to save those souls.
- Besides the Guardians, the Darkness has two main types of low-level evil spirits, who serves them with obtaining new souls, and other small tasks:
  - Commissioners, not having their own bodies, uses artificial constructs made from plasticine, to (with a small help of illusions) fool mortals into giving up their souls, which they then sells to the Dark Guardians. They are treated as completely expandable.
- Succubi also hunts for souls, but they exploits the people's desires instead, often through their dreams. Their bodies are made by stitching together two other bodies, one male and one female one — which they masks via their magic. They tend to talk in ridiculously flamboyant manner.
Our Souls Are Different:
- All humans from their birth have eidoses — the small, almost unseen blue spark of eternal Light deep inside them. Eidos represents your essence, everything you are and everything you would ever be, and helps you to resist the temptations of Darkness. While losing eidos wouldn't kill you, you wouldn't "live" in the true sense either, becoming mere shadow of your former self, no longer possessing ability to truly choose between good and evil (and thus, achieving anything great in either), and losing your destiny. Any art abilities would die out as well, since they involve creation, and what can the soulless creature possibly create? It's also implied that losing one's eidos renders them sterile, as the life without Light is impossible. The Dark Guardians hunts for them to fuel their magic, while the Light Guardians protect them, both for their well-being and because souls they save fuel their magic with their gratitude. As long as you manage to preserve your eidos (not "rent" it after selling yourself to the Darkness), forces of Darkness can't harm you (though it seemingly doesn't apply to mages) — but without it, they may kill you whenever they want to... if they see the reason to bother. The Light Guardians lacks the eidos of their own, because they don't need it — they already have the build-in link to the Light.
- Besides eidoses, any sapient being can leave a spirit after their death (though not everyone does so), which acts as non-material vessel of their consciousness. Spirits normally can't affect material world at all, unless they manifest as ghosts (which is not always an option), or possess something or someone. Spirits are separate from eidoses; even soulless persons or Dark Guardians can leave them, though Dark Guardians usually becomes trapped in Tartarus after death. Light Guardians don't manifest as spirits; instead, they becomes one with the Light. The spirits, unlike souls, may be destroyed.
Our Wights Are Different: As in Tanya Grotter, the word "wight" is used as a catch-all term for all sorts of low-level magic creatures, from gnomes to goblins. Usual translation for this word, nejit', nowadays is normally used to call undead, which can cause confusion for some readers; actual undead are still present, but called simply "cadavers", and are normally sapient, albeit slightly senile.
Physical Hell: If Eden is certainly somewhere unreachable, Tartarus is actually deep below the surface, only separated from the normal world by three layers of the Underworld (inhabited by all kinds of wights and dark creatures) and impassable magic barrier known as chaos (do not mistake with the Primordial Chaos, which is trapped behind the Dreadful Gates). Tartarus is divided into Upper Tartarus (still bad, but just barely tolerable), where most Dark servants live, Middle Tartarus (vast emptiness inhabited by monsters) and Lower Tartarus, which is absolute hellhole, mind-breaking chaos where just one step (and often even less) is enough to go from bone-melting heat to bone-cracking cold; from here, no one can return unaltered, if they survive at all (it can literally dissolve you as entity), and even the Dark Guardians wouldn't risk going here without a really good reason — the Low Tartarus is is so beyond even their understanding and abilities that even they are afraid of it.
Portmanteau: As in Tanya Grotter before, many terms are created by merging preexisting word with "magic": "magolodies" (magic melodies), "magficer" (magic officer), etc.
Powered by a Forsaken Child:
- Darkhs, the purple crystal-like vessels wearable as a necklace, allows to store eidoses (mainly of those who damned themselves by their dark deeds or outright sold their souls to the Darkness). Darkhs are mainly used by the Dark Guardians (though certain dark mages, like Ulitha, or shapeshifter Yaraat can use them too) to fuel their magic. This causes unbearable torment for souls caged inside. Particularly powerful Dark Guardians can store thousands damned souls inside.
- Inverted with the Light Guardians, who explicitly becomes stronger as they free eidoses from the Darkness, fuelled by the energy of their gratitude.
Powers That Be: The Light is depicted as the sapient cosmic force, which has its own will and goals, but even that has a power above, which never gets called by name, but heavily implied to actually be God. That power indirectly leads all the Light Guardians, but extremely rarely interferes in the story, and even then, only through giving the orders to Troil.
Protagonist Title: Series is named after it's main character, Mefodiy Buslaev, whose life changed forever the day he learned about his powers he inherited from Kvodnon.
Punny Title: Many chapter names in all books have various puns or wordplays in their names.
Revenant Zombie: In this setting, zombies (called "cadavers") are sapient (albeit usually slightly senile), and possess some magic powers even after death. Speaking with them is a bad idea, since it provides them with some power over you (and many of them would use it maliciously). However, addressing them indirectly (like talking with inanimate object, while making it obvious that you refer to them) is perfectly fine. They are treated as low-class people and despised by literally everyone.
Ring of Power: Most "elementary" mages rely on their magic rings to do magic. The rings are provided only once, you can't replace them. When you cast a spell, they produce differently-coloured sparks, depending on the spell's (or, if the spell is neutral, the mage's) alignment.
Teleportation with Drawbacks: Teleportation is a very complex process, and any mistake can result in you teleporting fully or partially into an object (it's a particularly bad idea to try to teleport from or into a forest). And if you have someone else to teleport with you, it becomes even more complex. Also, well-prepared villains often set up traps which would redirect anyone who tries to teleport either into a rock, or into Tartarus. Because of this, it would be easier to list the situations when teleportation is a viable option, rather than an exotic suicide method. Even the Dark Guardians rarely use it outside of emergency retreats.
This Is Unforgivable!: Usage of darkhs is so vile that even if you still have your eidos, it would abandon you the moment you feed your darkh for the first time — marking the point of no return on your descend into Darkness. The darkh gradually corrupts its user, destroying their good qualities, and amplifying the bad ones, eventually making them into the ugly reflection of their original self. It's believed in-universe that nothing can save someone who became the Dark Guardian, because there's nothing left to save.
Two Lines, No Waiting: Starting from the third book, every story has at least two main plotlines — one for Mefodiy, and one for Irka, with occasional secondary plots for secondary characters, mainly Edya or Essiorkh.
The 'Verse: This and the earlier cycle of works by the same author, Tanya Grotter, shares the setting, terminology and several characters, though most of the Tanya Grotter cast remains only as background characters at best — this is not a story of "elementary mages", this is a story of much greater forces, story of the Light and Darkness themselves.
What We Now Know to Be True: Humans never descended from apes; it's the Darkness' propaganda.
Wizarding School: At least three are known: the Russian Tibidokhs, the English Magford, and the long destroyed school of Scaredo.
Year Inside, Hour Outside: Time runs much, much slower in Eden and Tartarus than in our world, with thousand years in Eden being equal to one year on Earth. Though, at least in Eden, life goes so fast, they barely notice the difference. This gets ignored whenever it's convenient for the story, however.

The Ticket to the Bald Mountain tropes

Arc Villain: The magficcer is the leader of dark mages sent to retrieve the Path Stone, which causes him to go into conflict with Irka, who's searching for the Stone as well.
Badass in Distress: Much of the plot involves saving Arey from imprisonment in Tartarus.
Bad Powers, Good People: Back when Mirowood was still alive, he believed that powers are neither good nor evil, the only thing that matters is how you use them; this includes things like voodoo and necromancy, which even most dark mages wouldn't touch because they are too dark even for them. He taught his student, Matvey, in similar manner, but Matvey is more savvy about it, realising that dark powers causes major temptations, which sooner or later he would fail to withstand. But for now he resists.
Bait-and-Switch: When Moshkin gets asked about his impression of Harpiy, he calls him "[[{{Cloudcuckoolander kinda nice]]" (shocking everyone)... then finishes with stating that he means "nice like that old Japanese fairytale about a werewolf who killed and devoured everyone, then walked to the beach, where he was skinned alive and drowned (nope, no one was resurrected afterwards; it's a Japanese fairytale)".
Batman Gambit: Actual reason why Harpiy was set up as new mentor for Mefodiy and the others wasn't to ruin their friendship; it was to turn them all against himself by acting like a massive jerk, to the point of open rebellion, which would give him an excuse to wipe everyone out, leaving only Mefodiy — while Ligul would formally remain innocent.
Beneath the Earth: The Underworld. There are three layers of it. The first one, the Upper Underworld, is relatively safe, though weird and dangerous things happens from time to time; it has relatively low wight population, allowing humans to use it. The Middle Underworld is much more dangerous, inhabited by all kinds of hostile (and hungry) wights, who may overwhelm even Guardians through sheer numbers; however, one can travel there by summoning the transport worms and feeding them with the energy of your shame. And then there's the Lower Underworld, which is connected to Tartarus and is under the Darkness' control.
Big Bad Ensemble: While Mefodiy tries to find a way to convince Ligul to release Arey, Irka must deal with hostile team of battle mages from the Bald Mountain (lead by the unnamed magficcer) while searching for Matvey Bagrov.
Blackmail: Ulitha's plan how to save Arey: learning Ligul's Dark Secret and threaten to reveal it unless he would comply. She made sure that just killing her (which Lugul was about to do) would lead to secret leaking out, and warns him that trying to shut everyone up would only make the situation worse. As the last ditch attempt, Ligul tries to bribe Ulitha by offering to return her eidos, but she refuses. She also forces him to call off the hunt for the Path Stone (likely on Essiorkh's request), which, unknowingly to her, saves the lives of Irka and Matvey, who just at that moment where besieged by the black mages.
The Cavalry: When it seems that Nata, Petruccho and Eugesha are trapped in a cursed shop, with no way to leave without taking something (which would kill them the instant they leave) since it blocks their magic and seals the door, Ulitha and Essiorkh shows up (realising that the children are just too dumb to not go into a problem like this). Essiorkh kicks shopkeepers' asses (also ruining half the shop in process) completely without magic, while Ulitha shows that the "sealed" door was just an illusion, so everyone safely leaves.
Chekhov's Gun: That Ligul's portrait Ulitha took from the residence later gets used for two purposes. Firstly, it allows the cyclops brothers to recognise Ligul and reveal his Dark Secret, which was the entire reason to visit Bald Mountain in the first place. Secondly, that portrait later serves as the key witness, convincing Ligul that Ulitha really knows his secret.
Creepy Changing Painting: After the whole story with the Path Stone started, Essiorkh went ahead and stole the original of the painting depicting young Matvey Bagrov (protege of the Stone's late owner, and the last known clue to its whereabouts), and destroyed all copies, to stale the concurrents. Why he needs it? Because, through special magic, it's possible to alter the portrait to look like the current Matvey (even if it means that it would show just old bones). For whatever reason, the boy's face started changing (in reaction to what's going on around) even before magic actually started working.
The Dark Arts: The necromancy and voodoo are considered so dark, not even the dark mages dare to touch them — in fact, they are outright banned (though certain individuals adhere to old principle "not thief unless you get caught" in this regard). Why? Besides them serving virtually zero benevolent purposes, they are also slowly corrupting their users. One of the most infamous historical villains of the magic world, the necromancer Chuma-del-Thort, actually united light and dark mages against herself.
Dark Secret:
- Many years ago, when he was still young, Ligul spent some time on the Bald Mountain. Now, Mefodiy and his friends must learn why Ligul hates it so much, so they can use this to blackmail him into releasing Arey. Turns out that years ago someone has told Ligul that he may use cyclops's earwax as an ointment to grow bigger; unsurprisingly, it didn't work.
- Transport worms can transport you through the Underworld, allowing to bypass all the dangers and travel for huge distances, but in return demands the most sacred, most humiliating secrets you keep to yourself, because they feeds on your shame and regret. The stronger shame is, the more energy they consume and the longer you would travel before they need to be fed again. We learn the stories from Petruccho, Mefodiy and Eugesha, with the latter's story overfeeding the worm due to sheer power of guilt Moshkin still feels over it, despite it being the most minor out of three.
A Day in the Limelight: Edya, instead of another brief appearances as PoV character like in the earlier books, actually has several chapters dedicated to himself and the fairies Two/Third-Thumbelina; this is because [[spoiler: said fairies where related to stealing of the wizard Mirowood's magic ring, which is directly related to Irka's plot about the Path Stone
Determinator: The Path Stone provides anyone possessing it with a vision of the right path to their goals — and willpower to follow that path. This is why Ligul wants it — to not just take the throne, but conquer it, destroying any opposition.
Disintegrator Ray: Ashthrower, one of the most destructive weapons in dark mages' arsenal, shoots, you guess it, torrents of cursed ash... which utterly annihilates anything it comes in contact with, including air. Merely using it gradually drives its user insane. Effect seems to be temporal on objects, but it's unknown what would happen to the living beings.
Divide and Conquer: One of Harpiy's main tasks is to ruin the friendship between the cast, since if they would be at everyone's throats, they wouldn't be able to stand against Ligul. For it, he would force characters into spying on each other, slowly but steadily alienating them: if everyone would think that they are already betrayed, they would show no qualms at betraying in turn. Turns out that Ligul's actual plan relied on Harpiy escalating the conflict until everyone would try to kill him... resulting in Mefodiy staying as a sole survivor, because Harpiy would just kill everyone else for treason. Without friends, Mefodiy would fall into Darkness. And to ensure he wouldn't be of any threat, Harpiy would be replace by someone so incompetent, Mefodiy would never develop his gift further.
Emotion Eater: The transport worms feeds on the feelings of shame and regret, and in return, allows to travel through (otherwise very dangerous) Underworld inside them.
Exact Words: The Book of Charon lists the names of those who are no longer in the world of living. Matvey fools it by spending many years sealed in the magic ring, so the Book assumed that he's no longer alive back in the days, and erased his name once he returned.
Faking the Dead: Normally, the Book of Charon only lists you as dead when you actually die. No force in the world can erase or add anything here, or try to destroy it, so if it lists you as dead, it means you are. Matvey managed to fool it... because while he was no longer in the world of living, he never technically died. The plot about the Path Stone gets kickstarted by the Book of Charon suddenly erasing Matvey's name, which happens at the same time as Mirowood's ring's disappearance from the Bald Mountain (which was stolen with the help of fairy Third-Thumbelina, causing her to seek shelter at Edya's house because everyone would try to arrest her for interrogation), and stealing of the painting depicting Matvey from the lopukhoid museum (which was done by Essiorkh in attempt to use it to find Matvey). Turns out that the ring was actually used to hide Matvey for all those years, while painting was magically aged in attempt to find out how Matvey looks like now, quicker than the mages from the Bald Mountain, confirming that he is indeed alive.
Faux Affably Evil: Dalila Petrovna and Herostratus Andreich, a couple of cheerful and friendly shopkeepers... who fools people into taking cursed goods from them (free of charge!), so they would die from the curse before they even leave, and they can eat their brains, both for food and for telepathic abilities. And if you are unwilling to do as they want... the door is sealed, they have plenty of time to wait until you starve to death, and if you try anything funny, they are armed, while the shop suppresses any magic (including cursed items, that's why they only kill you on leave).
Gem Heart: It turns out that Matvey is so stubborn in insisting that he can't give away the Path Stone to anyone because it actually replaces his own heart, and there's no way to remove it without killing him.
Go Mad From Isolation: Invoked by Ligul as his attempt to break Arey. He imprisoned him in a painfully small cell in total sensory isolation. Arey somehow managed to obtain paints and started painting faces on the wall — Ulitha, and his late wife and daughter. Then, he started talking with them. Ligul ordered to destroy the painting, and ensure that Arey can't paint anything again.
Good Is Not Nice: Innkeeper Tugarin Zmeevich is completely sincere when he threatens to kill his tenants at any provocation (and provides crappy conditions in general), but actually keeps up his word and protects them from everyone else. Considering that he operates on the Bald Mountain, and his usual clients are dark witches, ghouls and ogres, who only understands that "no" means "no" after a shot from musket (and this isn't exaggeration, he actually did this at least once, with the gun still lying around), this looks like quite reasonable politic. By contrast, literally everyone else who tried to act nicely turned out to be the con artists at best.
Laser-Guided Karma: While Felix and his gang who want to beat their money out of Edya (literally) are certainly bad guys, the only reason he deals with them at all is because of his habit of stealing from whatever employer he works under; they are after money he stole. Granted, they greatly exaggerated his debt, but it's still his own fault that this situation even happened.
Lecture as Exposition: Essiorkh provides several pages-long lecture about the Path Stone's (and Matvey's) backstory, so Irka (and by proxy, the readers) would know what's going on.
Loophole Abuse: Morjuev refuses to pay Edya for the first prophecy, despite it being actually correct, because he only believed him after the fact, and thus, they never signed a contract.
Mineral MacGuffin: Irka's main plot involves searching for the Path Stone — neutral (neither Light, nor Dark) artifact, the main ability of which is to provide its wielder with determination required to achieve their goals, and understanding what they have to do. It once belonged to one powerful wizard called Mirowood, but disappeared after his death (together with his protege Matvey) many years ago... only to reappear now, causing everyone to restart their hunt for him, which temporarily died out when Matvey originally disappeared. Besides mages, it's also searched for by Ligul (who actually promised mages a great reward for it, much greater than anything they may use the Stone for by themselves), who wants to increase his chances to become not just official, but successful leader of the Darkness, so naturally the Light must ensure that he wouldn't get it. Outside of providing excuse for a plot, Path Stone barely affects anything else in the story.
Morton's Fork: As shopkeepers helpfully explains to Nata, Moshkin and Petruccho, you can take something from the magic shop, and die the moment you step inside, or refuse, and stuck here forever until you die from starvation. Ether way, they would eat what would remain from you.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Ulitha (usually cheerful partygoer) shows up alone, and too devastated to even cry, everyone instantly realises that something really bad just happened.
Poke the Poodle: When Mefodiy and his friends uses the transport worms to travel through the Underworld, they are forced to reveal some of their Dark Secrets (the ones which causes them most shame). Moshkin provides most energy out of them all... through the story where he stole cookies from his grandma, only to learn that they were prepared as a gift for him. By contrast, Petruccho told a story about him stealing someone's phone (and, after being forced to return it by his mother, accepting the money owner paid for it), while Mefodiy told the story how he betrayed his friend by running away after their prank going south, resulting in said friend being caught by alone; neither of them produced nearly as much energy as Eugesha.
Put on a Bus: Zozo went on vacation to Egypt for two weeks, leaving her brother Edya by alone for entirety of the book.
Rescue Arc: Mefodiy's plot involves rescuing Arey from Tartarus, so they may reappoint him as the boss of Russian department and get rid of Harpiy Zduffs. After finding Ligul's blackmail-worthy Dark Secret, they move to Tartarus itself to confront Ligul.
Sadistic Choice: As the last ditch attempt to not release Arey even under pressure of a blackmail, Ligul offers to give back Ulitha's eidos. She manages to resist the temptation.
Schmuck Bait: The Bald Mountain has several large and expensive magic shops... and then there's the strangely small and humble one (in fact, it has it in its name), with unusually kind and cheerful (in contrast with mostly rude and hostile inhabitants of the Bald Mountain) shopkeepers (Dalila Petrovna and Herostratus Andreich) who offer you to take anything you like, completely free of charge! If you fall for it, you would find out that the door is sealed behind your back, and the only way to open after that is if you take something, for free (they already received money for everything; in fact, they are payed for disposing of all this stuff!)... but since everything here is cursed, the moment you would exit with whatever you took, you would die from the curse, since only the shop's magic actually suppress it, while shopkeepers would eat your brains (both for food and for telepathic abilities it provides them with). You cant' even escape or resist, because any magic here is blocked, and the shopkeepers are armed. Nata, Petruccho and Eugesha falls for it. Fortunately, turns out that the "sealed" door was just an illusion, so after Essiorkh and Ulitha showed up, everyone safely leaved... but not before trashing the shop.
Show Within a Show: "The Prophet", pseudo-mystic show where Phony Psychics can say their "prophecies" (the more absurd, the better, and it's mandatory that they should be about very recent future: viewers have no patience to wait for more than several days!), in exchange for a money reward if you ends up right. Edya tries to exploit his new fairy "friend" for profit, firstly by giving the showrunner Andrey Morjuev Two-Thumbelina's prophecy about the painting's stealing (he doesn't receive money because they only believed him after the fact), and secondly by introducing the fairy to Morjuev directly. This results in fairy's pursuers switching attention to Morjuev, potentially saving Edya's life.
Streisand Effect: Invoked by Ulitha when she confronts Ligul: if he kills Ulitha, the others wold tell Ligul's Dark Secret to the world; if he kills them, too, it would attract attention and the secret would leak out anyway; and if he tries to annihilate the Bald Mountain itself, he would spark the war between the Guardians and dark mages, which would be forever known as the Earwax War, immortalising Ligul as everyone's laughing stock.
Super-Persistent Predator: There's no way to stop the Clay Hound from pursuing you; once it catches your scent, if would find you wherever you run to. And don't even try to use teleportation: it wouldn't work in its presence, at all, be you mage or even the Guardian. Clay Hounds is created by dripping clay with human and dog blood in 1/3 proportion and animating it via necromancy. Literally the only time it was tricked to stop it's pursue was when Matvey fooled even the (quite real and powerful by itself) Book of Charon that he leaved world of the living, so the Dog had no one to pursue.
Third Line, Some Waiting: There are three plotlines: Mefodiy's plot (rescuing Arey), Irka's plot (searching for the Path Stone) and... Edya's sideplot, about him trying to find common language with a fairy and exploit her to pay up his debts. Then it turns out that Edya's plot is actually part of the story about the Path Stone, because that same fairy was involved in stealing Mirowood's ring, which in turn kickstarted the hunt for the Stone. After the painting was destroyed, cutting the dark mages their best chance to trace Matvey, they started hunting for the fairy, so they may use her to trace Mirowood's ring instead, and with it, Matvey.
Too Dumb to Live: After magic battle group materialises right in his studio, searching for the fairy, Andrey Morjuev tries to bribe a magficcer, and when he reacts negatively, insults him with ill-thought "joke". This results in him being permanently transformed into a pig.
Tyrant Takes the Helm: After imprisoning Arey for "screwing up" with teaching Mefodiy the paths of Darkness, Ligul sends his servant Harpiy Zduffs to replace him. Harpiy does everything in his powers to antagonise everyone right from the start and only becomes worse from here.
Unstoppable Rage: Subverted. Two-Thumbelina's original plan how to deal with Felix's thugs involved giving Edya one of her berserker pills, which provides their users with power and murderous rage, but she by mistake gives him "draconic" pill instead (they look almost identical, but draconic pill is slightly darker in colour), which provides him with a firebreath. This works nonetheless, but not in the way either one of them expected.
Wretched Hive: The titular Bald Mountain^note has (unseen to the mortals) magic society, inhabited by all kinds of wights, undead and dark mages and witches; this is also where you may find all the kinds of magic stuff, from artifacts to curses. It's as funny as it's dangerous for unprepared people (and sometimes even for prepared ones). First mentioned all the way back into Tanya Grotter series, the Bald Mountain actually becomes important for this book's plot, since it hides Ligul's Dark Secret, needed to save Arey from Tartarus.
Your Days Are Numbered: Mirowood was allowed to live for exactly one thousand years, and not a minute more, so he knew perfectly well when he would die. Everyone else also knew this, and waited outside of his house to start scavenging his stuff.

The Revenge of Valkyries tropes

Anti-Magic: One of Midnight Witches' signature abilities is to cause the thick yellow fog, which, on contact with anything magical, would suck the magic out. After that, Witch would attack you for the easy kill.
Arc Villain: Midnight Witches are the main antagonists in both plotlines, and ultimate final enemies for both Mefodiy and Irka, with only token contribution from Ligul.
Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Narcissus was a mage who trained protection from love magic by using his own reflection in the lake. It backfired, leading to him falling in love with himself, and subsequently offing himself. That case later became the textbook example of dangers of using love magic this way.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Milla turns out to be not nearly as nice as she tried to look — in fact, she's disguised Midnight Witch Zuimurzung who aims to use Edya as a human sacrifice.
The Cavalry: When Midnight Witches overwhelms Mefodiy and Irka, the other Valkyries shows up, and destroys almost all of them.
Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: Irka kills two Midnight Witches (Yorah, whose death kickstarts the main plot, and Baituy during the climax) by summoning her spear at the right moment, resulting in it impaling them from behind on the way to her hand.
De-power: Essiorkh takes away Zuimurzung's magic ring, leaving her without magic. Since obtaining a new ring is impossible, she's mortal now.
Dramatic Irony: When Mefodiy finds out that Irka isn't here anymore (being replaced by illusion), yet someone keeps visiting Irka's house (Babanya keeps trying to feed "Irka", so all of this must be cleaned up from time to time), and, thinking that she was abducted, decides to catch these guys when they would show up again, resulting in him having a conflict with Antigon (who gets attacked by Depresnyak), infuriating Irka, who just healed Antigon from his previous injuries (caused by Mefodiy himself), and starting believing that "abductor" is a Valkyrie, who tries to use Irka against him. He isn't aware that Irka wasn't abducted by a Valkyrie — she is a Valkyrie.
Early Instalment Weirdness: Here, the Ice Spear occasionally gets called "the Crushing Spear" instead; the later books would stick with "The Ice Spear".
Empathic Healer: Depresnyak helps comatose Daphne by transferring some of her pain to himself. Ulitha, who touches him at the moment, becomes partially paralysed for several hours, because he dumped some of this pain on her instead.
Encyclopedia Exposita: The book starts with quoting the codex of Valkyries. Three of these rules were already provided in the third book, but it also states three more (a Valkyrie can't love anyone above others, and can't be happy in love — whoever she loves would die; a Valkyrie can't reject the challenge; a Valkyrie who refused a challenge would face the Judgement of Twelve — essentially, the other Valkyries would decide wether to let her live, or execute her). These rules would later be mentioned in the book properly, and would become plot-critical very soon.
Enemy Mine: After Mefodiy refuses to kill Irka, despite having a chance, the Midnight Witches decides to just kill them both, forcing the two to unite against them. Irka even manages to kill one, before they gets overwhelmed... only to be saved by the timely intervention of the other Valkyries.
Evil Counterpart: The Midnight Witches are powerful undead witches, resurrected by the Darkness to serve as counterpart for Valkyries.
Exact Words: The "Judgement of Twelve" may not be used against Irka not only because the Valkyries can't agree wether they with or against her, but also because currently there're only eleven of them; one was just exiled. They may find one, but, as Essiorkh points out, she would be in no position to judge fairly due to not knowing the whole story, or having any experience.
Involuntary Battle to the Death: Since Mefodiy (accidentally) accepted the last gift from Yorah who then died (by Irka's hand), he now must avenge her. And since he (or, rather, Ligul at his name) already challenged the Yorah's killer, Irka (being a Valkyrie) can't ignore it (or she would suffer the wrath of the other Valkyries). Neither of them wants to fight the other one (Mefodiy has zero wish to fight in general, Irka doesn't want to hurt Mefodiy), but they must. In the end, the duel gets cancelled due to third party's intervention. It can be technically restarted, but only if both sides agrees — and neither one does.
Foreshadowing: Twelve out of thirteen Midnight Witches are decaying corpses of old hags... excluding Zuimurzung, who is young and pretty. Midnight Witches put some "seed" in Edya, whom they need to create dozens of new Witches. Edya has a "bride from the future", Milah who's here to save him from assassination attempt, around whom birds suddenly dies for no apparent reason (remember Edya's parrot, whom he mentioned in the second book?). It's not hard to put everything together and realise what's really going on, long before the Midnight Witches actually try anything.
Jackass Genie: One not-so-smart dark mage wanted to learn the secrets of the Dark Guardians, and made a deal with the "History of Tartarus" book: in return for his eidos, he would "delve into its wisdom". Book sucked him inside, and now he constantly relives eternal tortures of Tartarus, even two centuries later. Mefodiy tears up the page where the mage was at that moment, and burns it; the book restores the damaged page, but without the mage on it, meaning that the plan worked and the mage was put to rest.
Karma Houdini: Two Midnight Witches managed to run away at the last moment, while the rest of them were killed. The third surviving Witch, Zuimurzung, lost her magic, but otherwise survived, though it's closer to Cruel Mercy.
Kill Steal: The reason why Filomena was so openly hostile to Irka during their first meeting is because she considered Yorah to be "her" target... and Irka "stole" that kill from her. She doesn't even tries to deny it.
Knight Templar: Saenra, the Valkyrie of Ice Spear, has rather lousy standards regarding "collateral damage" if she may strike down the Darkness. She gets forcibly de-powered by Essiorkh, who takes away her spear to find a more suitable wielder for it, as a punishment for trying to kill Daphne.
Life Energy: Every living being has life energy. When it starts running out (generally when you become older, though there're the ways to deplete it prematurely), you would start feeling weak, apathetic, and lose motivation to do anything but wait for death to come; when it runs out completely, you die. The Midnight Witches, resurrected by the Darkness in undead bodies they constructed from pieces of other bodies, needs to suck the life energy out of the living beings, leaving nothing but lifeless, dry out carcasses. They particularly values the life energy of the Valkyries.
Loophole Abuse: The Codex of Light, which stands above any Valkyries' rules, states that if a duel was compromised by the intervention of the third party (the Midnight Witches) or slipped into a mass battle between the Light and Darkness (again, the Midnight Witches, and the Valkyries who arrived to kill them), then the duel may be cancelled, unless both sides are willing to restart it. Since neither Irka nor Mefodiy are willing to kill each other, this means, no duel. Not all Valkyries agrees with this, but even they are forced to obey.
Murder Is the Best Solution: Even after an opportunity arise to quietly end the duel due to violation of its rules (the intervention of Midnight Witches), several Valkyries insisted on restarting it anyway, despite Irka and Mefodiy having the right to refuse. Taamag even tries to summon Mefodiy on a duel herself when everything else fails, but gets stopped.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Ironically, if not for the Midnight Witches attacking Mefodiy and Irka, they would've been forced to fight each other after all, or face consequences from their own allies. The attack made the two into Fire-Forged Friends, and gave them an excuse to cancel the duel, as well as costed lives of all but two participating Witches.
Normally, I Would Be Dead Now: Matvey tries to preemptively kill Mefodiy, preventing his duel with Irka — but gets defeated himself when Mefodiy's sword (on its own accord) strikes him in the heart... or, rather, the Path Stone, which replaced it many years ago. Because he no longer has a normal human heart, injury was not fatal, merely knocking him off for some time, though Irka and the Valkyries still mistakes him for dead at first.
No-Sell: None of Matvey's abilities can damage the Midnight Witch: necromancy is too dark to affect the creatures created by the Darkness itself.
Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Essiorkh somehow dealt with Zuimurzung (an extremely powerful witch) all by himself; unfortunately, it happens entirely offscreen, and we would never learn how he achieved this.
Prophecy Twist: The prophecy Mefodiy hears from the magic box warns about "Light striking Light", and thinks that it's about him killing Daphne. Instead, it was about the renegade Valkyrie of Ice Spear attacking and nearly killing Daphne.
Sdrawkcab Speech: So-called "night speech" is merely the "normal" words, spelled backwards (with occasionally missing or misplaced syllables).
Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Milah is the Edya's wife from the future, who used her grandmother's magic to go in the past and save his life. Turns out that it was a complete lie, and she's the one who would kill him.
Shoot the Dog: Matvey tries to bait the Midnight Witch by using a dove (Midnight Witches have pathologic hatred for birds, and can't resist trying to kill one when see an opportunity, even when it would risk compromising their mission), so she may be killed with one single strike right when she attacks that dove. Unfortunately, Irka can't bring herself to harm the innocent animal (it didn't help that Matvey didn't bother to explain the plan first), and misses her only chance, requiring them to follow through with a proper duel at midnight. This also leads them to conflict about Matvey's unethical methods, resulting in them being separated and Irka nearly killed in her second encounter with the Witch.
Spawn Broodling: The Midnight Witches' plan for Edya in nutshell; they put some "seed" in him many years ago (the event he remembers from his childhood, which was mentioned for the first time all the way back into second book), and now would use it to create dozens of new Witches. This process is fatal, as it requires removing and cutting up his heart.
Stating the Simple Solution: The option to simply reveal to Mefodiy that "his" Irka and the Valkyrie Irka are the same person, thus killing Mefodiy on the spot, gets brought up several times, by different characters. Irka rejects it every time, still having feelings for him, even if she's very angry at him.
Take a Third Option: For Irka, there are only two options — either she would fight and kill Mefodiy, or she would face the wrath of the other Valkyries. However, her friends have another way to deal with the problem (wether Irka likes it or not):
- Knowing that refusal to rise to the challenge would be considered a treason (punishable by death), Antigon, to protect Irka (who's against the idea of fighting Mefodiy), uses his magic sabre (despite Irka previously forbidding it) to try and assassinate him (sabre, once unleashed, would fly to its target and try to hit it by itself). This backfires, because Mefodiy (who previously was vehemently against harming any girl, even if she's a warrior) uses his magic to attack the sabre's owner, nearly killing Antigon himself.
- Matvey decides that if he simply finds Mefodiy first and kills him, Irka wouldn't be forced to fight him herself. He nearly succeeds, but Mefodiy's sword, due to having a mind of its own, suddenly changes its form form and stubs Matvey right in the heart. Matvey only survives because his heart was replaced by the Path Stone, and even then, barely.
Third Act Stupidity: Zuimurzung has Edya at her mercy, ready to sacrifice him and use his heart to create countless new Midnight Witches... but waits until Mefodiy kills Irka, hoping to use her body to make new Witches invincible. Her aim for perfection (she has no way to even being sure that Mefodiy wins this battle) results in the whole plan failing: the rest of the Witches dies one by one, killed either by Mefodiy and Irka, or the Valkyries, while Zuimurzung gets defeated and stripped of her magic by Essiorkh.
Undying Loyalty: When Daphne gets attacked by Saenra and put in coma, where she still suffers from extreme pain, Depresnyak starts sucking out and consuming that pain, to reduce her agony, even if it means suffering that pain himself. Ulitha briefly touches him, and Depresnyak transfers "small" dose of that pain to her, which is enough to partially paralyse her for few hours.
Xanatos Gambit: Ligul would win from any outcome of Mefodiy's duel with Irka: either Mefodiy kills the Valkyrie, and darkens his heart (making it easier to corrupt him further)... or he dies, and leaves Ligul without a rival for foreseeable future (with Ligul's hands remaining clean: it was not him who killed the Inheritor of the Darkness!). And Ligul made everything in his powers to ensure that the duel would occur no matter what.
Your Days Are Numbered: The Midnight Witch Yorah pursues Irka while being perfectly aware what she wouldn't survive this battle, due to her prescience ability. Before going on her last duel, she tricks Mefodiy into accepting her last gift, knowing what he would be forced to avenge her death, wether he likes it or not.

The Secret Magic of Depresnyak tropes

Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario: Book started with Ulitha breaking up with Essiorkh, due to him being a Light Guardian who has serious plans for their "future", with family, children, etc, and his "holier-than-you" attitude in general — decision which Ulitha didn't take well, causing her to descend into depression. By the exactly last chapter, they reunite.
The Bus Came Back:
- Troil, who was in coma since the first book, finally awakes and resumes commanding the forces of Light.
- Succubus Whimper, who was banished to Tartarus back in third book, returns to continue serving Ligul.
The Cavalry: Ligul’s attempt to abduct Daphne gets interrupted by Arey suddenly appearing... and siding with Daphne, warning that he would certainly kill the first three who would try to attack him, and, if he's lucky, one-two more. Despite having a number superiority, the Dark Guardians chose to retreat, because no one was willing to become those guaranteed casualties.
Drill Sergeant Nasty: Realising that Mefodiy is just too lazy, Ligul came up with a solution: magic books which would punish Mefodiy with physical pain for not reading enough, or not paying enough attention. This is achieved by using the appropriately nicknamed "rune of a gutted student".
Encyclopedia Exposita: Book opens with quoting the "Laws of darkh", providing more info about how the darkhs actually works (namely, the fact that they slowly corrupt their wielders, and would suck out their own eidos if the owner would leave the darkh empty for too long). It also re-quotes the Codex of Valkyries from the previous book once again.
Endless Winter: Side effect of the Mystical Fish Skeleton being missed is Moscow being hit by the endless snowfall, which wouldn't end by normal means (in fact, the artifact would create more snow out of nowhere just to support this effect), ever. Only way to stop it is to retrieve the Skeleton, but there's a problem: it brainwashed Depresnyak to run away with it. Much of the plot involves searching for the cat before the situation goes too severe.
Evil Counterpart: We learn about the Black Dozen — elite team of the best Dark Guardians, created specifically for the purpose of fighting the Valkyries after the Midnight Witches were destroyed. Arey is amongst them, but not as the leader, due to his lack of loyalty.
Exact Eavesdropping: Mefodiy manages to eavesdrop Ligul discussing with his secretary the plan to assassinate Daphne, for pretty much the same reason why the Light tries to abduct her — their love "corrupting" the other souls into something "grey". They just so happened to discuss this (while sitting in non-moving limo) exactly when he tries to eavesdrop them.
Gave Up Too Soon: After several unsuccessful attempts to find Depresnyak ended with them visiting the nearby cafe, Daphne tells Mefodiy to stop going here, because it's certainly not part of their searches. Several chapters later, that's exactly where Edya finds that hellish cat. Mefodiy retrieves Depresnyak from him when he briefly visits his old house.
Halfway Plot Switch: Mefodiy's original plot is about him, as part of his training, obtaining eidos of a Loner Valkyrie, by using the magic globe Arey gave him to brainwash her. On the way to Irka, the Light Guardians swaps the globe with the one which is supposed to kill him on use, and Mefodiy only survives because he changes his mind and throws it away at literally the last moment. After learning about this assassination attempt, Arey postpones the "test" (with which even Ligul agrees). The rest of the book involves the hunt for Depresnyak who run away with important artifact, and attempt to prevent Ligul from assassinating Daphne.
Human Sacrifice: In attempt to stop un-ending snowfall caused by the Mystical Fish Skeleton (so said Skeleton may be found more easily), Ligul decides to sacrifice Daphne's heart (which requires to abduct her to Tartarus). He fails to capture her, and in the end, the Fish Skeleton gets retrieved without it anyway.
If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: All Dark Guardians, after finishing their training, must obtain first eidos and bring it to the Darkness, as a sign of their loyalty, but Mefodiy, being not just ordinary Guardian, but a future Dark Lord, should obtain something equally special. Ligul uses this opportunity to force him to hunt for Irka's eidos, threatening to actually send him a darkh (which would suck out his eidos unless Mefodiy feeds it with something). Plan gets cancelled at the last moment due to the Light intervening and almost assassinating Mefodiy, so both Arey and Ligul agrees that they should lay low for a time being.
It Can Think: The Mystical Fish Skeleton, like many powerful artifacts, is quasi-sentient, and, once no longer under control of either the Light or the Darkness, starts actively causing as much mayhem as possible (both through its ability to cause hallucinations, and through much more sinister effect of provoking no-ending snowfall). For this end, Skeleton takes control over Depresnyak's mind (him being a child of both the Eden and Tartarus only makes him more interesting for the artifact, which is also neutral).
MacGuffin: While the Mystical Fish Skeleton is related to constant snowfall, it's not the reason why the Light and Darkness are searching for it (and even without it, it's still the end of January, so it would take time until someone notices); actual reason was never explained. Even Mefodiy and Daphne are searching not for the Skeleton itself, but rather for Depresnyak, who just run away with it and went missing for most part of the book. Ultimately, the main conflict of the story turns out to be mostly unrelated to the Skeleton, leaving it as little more than excuse to kickstart the plot.
Missed Him by That Much: After finding a piece of the Mystical Fish Skeleton, Daphne and Essiorkh bribes a hobo who was nearby to help them to find a cat. He brings them two ordinary cats (while they searched for missing Depreasnyak), so they leave, thinking that it was a false trace... and only then the hobo mentions (with them being too far away to hear him) that there's a third cat, whom he wouldn't risk catching because it can slash metal with its claws. Had them staying around for longer, or hobo bringing up that one cat he can't catch right away, the plot about Depresnyak would have ended several chapters earlier.
The Needs of the Many: Daphne's love to Mefodiy, by its sheer absurdity (she is the Light Guardian, and he is the future Dark Lord) negatively affects the entire universe, by "merging" the Light and the Darkness, and through it, removing both the Light and the Darkness from the mortal souls. And "grey" souls are dead souls; there's no afterlife for them, and so, they are of no use for either side. Troil's first order after his awakening was to abduct Daphne back to Eden, forcibly separating her from Mefodiy, because one love doesn't worth the future of countless souls and the Light itself. For this task, they sent Essiorkh, in hope that he would be sane enough to understand why this must be done, yet careful enough to not cause much mayhem or injure Daphne herself. In the end, plan never works as intended because the Darkness tries to abduct Daphne, too, at the same day and hour, no less. Witnessing just how far Mefodiy is willing to go to protect Daphne, especially since he didn't truly fall for the Darkness yet, still having his eidos intact, the Light decided to give them another chance and see how it would resolve by itself.
No Body Left Behind: Tarlanthur, the Dark Guardian who possessed the Mystical Fish Skeleton, was killed by the Valkyries during a battle in the skies; his body disintegrated mid-fall, because no mortals should see the Dark Guardians, even after death. This, however, made finding the Mystical Fish Skeleton much harder, because it was with Tarlanthur, and fell somewhere in Moscow.
"Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: Neither Arey's students nor Irka actually takes "Mystical Fish Skeleton" seriously, forcing Ulitha and Essiorkh, respectively, to explain why it's so important — and so dangerous.
Plot-Triggering Death: The sole contribution Tarlanthur makes to the plot is when he gets killed by one of the Valkyries. However, this results in him losing Mystic Fish Skeleton, which kickstarts the plot.
Shoot the Dog:
- The Light Guardians intercepts Mefodiy en route to Irka, and swaps the magic globe Arey gave him (which was supposed to brainwash Irka, so Mefodiy may stole her eidos) with a different one, which would kill him. This highly contradicts their usual "give every soul a chance" politic, but stakes are too high to take any risks. Plan almost works and only fails because Mefodiy can't force himself to actually go through with the original plan, and decides to just throw it out of the window, where it safely explodes.
- Troil orders to abduct Daphne, as her love with Mefodiy can potentially cause catastrophic consequences for the universe itself. In the end, however, it gets decided that perhaps, it's too early for panic.
Take a Third Option: Instead of giving Mystical Fish Skeleton to the Light, or returning it to the Darkness, Mefodiy gives it to Essiorkh to "preserve" it for a time being.
Yin-Yang Bomb: Inverted; Mefodiy and Daphne loving each other negatively affects all the other souls, making them neither Light nor Dark, just... grey. And grey souls are dead souls.
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Glumovich finally fails to prove that he is still useful to Ligul, and gets stripped of his soul... which turns out to be so rotten, not even the Darkness has any use for it. Arey just throws it away like trash.

The Fire and Ice of Tartarus tropes

Arc Villain: While Ligul is, as usually, the one who sets everything in motion, the actual antagonists of this story are the six Tartarian Guardians, and the main goal is to find how they can be neutralised.
Ax-Crazy: The Tartarus is already highly unpleasant place, but the Lower Tartarus is even worse, used as a place to exile the Dark Guardians so violently insane, not even Ligul can control them. Recently, some "unknown" force haas released six of them into our world, and they are on the hunt for Arey, Mefodiy and Daphne.
Back in the Saddle: Arey, who is mostly limited to desk job and acting as Mefodiy's mentor ever since being "promoted" to the chief of a Russian Department, actually goes on a quest with him this time.
To Be Lawful or Good: Irka doesn't want to harm Arey, since he never did anything bad to her (despite having both a reason and opportunity to do so), and tries to find a way to avoid it (she must destroy his darkh, or lose her powers, including ability to walk), but the other Valkyries insists that he is still the Dark Guardian and offing him is her duty.
Better to Die than Be Killed: When Arey obtains the darkhs of Tartarian Guardians, and starts destroying them one by one (which causes said Guardians to dissipate into nothingness and whatever is left from them being sucked into Tartarus), the last one, realising what's going on, kills himself first, to at least die on his own terms.
Big Damn Heroes: Essiorkh is forced to fight the six Tartarian Guardians by alone; while they can't kill him outright, they can destroy his mortal body, banishing him from Earth for foreseeable future. And then, just by sheer luck, Mefodiy (blindly teleported by Gulnara's magic) and Irka (who arrived by herself, searching for Daphne) both arrives at the right moment, joining the fight and forcing Guardians to retreat.
Brought Down to Normal:
- Halfway into the book Daphne loses her powers, down to and including self-regeneration and immortality, basically becoming a human. This happens due to Tukhlomon "poisoning" her flute on Ligul's orders. Process seems to be reversible, but only if the Light would grant her protection, which is unlikely at best.
- Towards the end of the book, Arey loses all eidoses from his darkh, stripping him of nearly all his magic (sans for some which his sword provides), including defensive. It doesn't last for long, since soon enough he obtains the darkhs of Tartarian Guardians, which refills his darkh to nearly full capacity again.
The Bus Came Back: The Valkyries returns after being absent for entirety of the previous, this time seemingly permanently.
Chekhov's Gun: Anna's cursed glasses turns out to be something more than merely excuse for her to try to off herself (and being saved by Edya); thanks to them, she and Edya obtains the bag containing the one and only trump card against the Tartarian Guardians, after which she finally disposes of them permanently.
Clingy MacGuffin: Anna can't lose her cursed glasses, because they just keep returning back, somehow. She can't just wear the other ones, because they instantly gets destroyed. And she can't just live without glasses whatsoever, because she's catastrophically short-sighted. Fortunately, she manages to get rid of them once they fulfil their purpose.
Clock Roaches: "The Hounds", the... beings who guards the borders between parallel worlds. While using "sinkholes" allows to travel between worlds, merely touching the barrier which separates "sinkhole" from the other world may attract "the Hounds"; cross it, and you very likely would never come back: they immediately consume anything what comes on the other side. And since the barrier is very thin, merely touching it incautiously may be enough to partially cross it — and if "the Hounds" are already there, you may never receive back whatever you put inside, be it an item, a limb our your head; Arey personally witnessed one such case during his duel against a Light Guardian.
Closed Circle: Guardians from the Lower Tartarus patrols the borders of the Bald Mountain, preventing anyone from leaving; whoever tries, just disappears. Only Arey and his team barely manages to fight through them after they arrives here to investigate. Barely.
A Day in the Limelight: Edya once again receives his own plot. At first, his potential romance with a weird girl called Anna seems to be completely irrelevant to the main plot about the rogue Dark Guardians... but then, thanks to weird magic which surrounds Anna, they go to the exact house where Petruccho, Moshkin and Nata tried to survive the commissioners' Zerg Rush, resulting in them obtaining that bag which contained the Dark Guardians' darkhs.
Deal with the Devil: Irka's predecessor made a mistake of making a deal with pagan god Two-Faced, and now, in just three days, he would take all Irka's powers, including her ability to walk... unless she makes another deal with him.
Dumb Blonde: Djinn Gulnara is a firm believer that all blond girls are dumb. She starts insulting Daphne preemptively, before she even says anything. Daphne's ill-fated attempt to get rid of Gulnara certainly did nothing to improve her opinion. In fact, she brings up "stupid useless blondies" topic so often, Daphne actually believes that Gulnara is somewhat obsessed with that topic.
Eldritch Location: "Parallel worlds" are not as parallel as the name implies; sometimes, their global magic fields comes in contact with each other, creating the "sinkholes" — small, secluded dimensions outside of either of the worlds. The "sinkholes" are copying the parts of the worlds where contact happened, but do not obey the rules of either world: neither the Light nor the Darkness have any power here (though neutral magic, or any innate abilities, like Mefodiy's magic, would still work), and nothing can cause any permanent change to any small element of the "sinkhole" (if, for example, a bottle gets shattered, it would be immediately restored). The borders between the "sinkhole" and the worlds it's connected to are guarded by the unknown beings called simply "the Hounds", who would consume on the spot whoever they notice trying to breach it, the moment they cross the border even partially (Arey mentions one case where he had a duel here with a Gold-Winged One, who lost his head — most of it — this way, along with winged necklace). Arey only risks going here with Ulitha, Mefodiy and Daphne because he wants to reach the Bald Mountain undetected: teleport while in the "sinkhole", then exit back in our world after reaching the destination.
Embarrassing Password: The last surviving Arey's informant would only react to a long and rather silly password, with several made-up or misspelled words. Idea, of course, is that it's so absurd, no one may guess it, and for an outsider it would be very easy to fail just by saying something slightly differently. Mefodiy actually mades two mistakes just when he tries to repeat it after Ulitha, showing why it was a good idea. However, after several ill-fated attempts to tell this password to one witcher they met, it turns out that the whole "password" was made-up by Ulitha as a prank on Mefodiy (and this guy isn't the informant at all).
Finger in the Mail: Someone has killed off all Arey's informants on the Bold Mountain, and now threatens to hunt down him and his team. They made their intentions clear by sending a severed head... which looks just like Daphne's; they achieved it by rising her clone.
Interrupted Suicide: Just by sheer dumb luck Edya ends up in the right place at the right time to save a woman named Anna just before she jumped from the bridge (though, according to Edya, she would've likely survived anyway, as the bridge isn't that high).
Jackass Genie: When Daphne orders Gulnara to get rid of the stubborn guard (Gulnara initially planned to skin him alive], Gulnara teleports the guy to Tajikistan. When asked why, she points that she could have teleported the guard into an ocean or into a volcano without technically violating Daphne's orders, yet still did something "minor", and advices her to be more careful with orders next time. Considering her disdain for Daphne as "blondie", she quite likely did this just to annoy her.
Love Dodecahedron: While it started developing earlier, now it reaches the problematic level. Matvey loves Irka and starts becoming annoyed at her refusing to reciprocate (previously he only brought it up half-jokingly); Irka loves Mefodiy, but for obvious reasons can't tell him so; Mefodiy, in turn, is in loved with Daphne, and this is mutual.
Made in Country X: Played for Laughs. Mefodiy somehow found Chinese-made "berserker potion" on the Bald Mountain (with "berserker" being horribly misspelled, and every single letter being written in a different font).
The Man Behind the Man: It was Ligul who let the Tartarian Guardians to "escape", but he never directly aids them (sans for sending Tukhlomon to de-power Daphne, which can't be linked to this act anyway), because officially they are rogue.
A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Ever since one incident in the past, whenever Anna puts her glasses on, she starts seeing auras of people and hearing their thoughts and memories in her head; the second effect lasts for some time even after breaking the eye contact. This effect eventually drove her to suicide, which was only prevented by Edya's timed intervention. And no, replacing glasses is impossible (as part of the curse, any new ones would be destroyed), nor she can live without glasses.
Mugging the Monster: Olaf, an old, quiet and unthreatening alcoholic, is also a werewolf, one of the oldest still alive (and thus, one of the most powerful). When three ghouls decides to abuse him just for fun, it ends very badly for them.
Nigh-Invulnerability: Dark Guardians from the Low Tartarus somehow separated themselves from their darkhs, while still maintaining the link to them. This makes them nearly completely invulnerable: neither Mefodiy nor Arey can cause them any lasting damage, with swords literally going through them without effect (also causing extreme pain to attacker in process), though any strike to the head still slows them down and interrupts their magic. Fortunately, they are still somewhat vulnerable to Daphne's magic, to the point that her intervention actually forces them to retreat, allowing the team to escape from the Bald Mountain. Also, the further away they are from their darkhs, the weaker this invulnerability is, because when they later tries to attack Essiorkh, Mefodiy successfully cut off an arm from one of them (something which was impossible during first battle).
No Eye in Magic: Merely looking Tartarian Guard into the eyes is enough to burn down first your eyes, and then your brain. Arey's informants have died this way, with their skulls partially melting from the inside.
No-Sell: Aida Plakhovna, in hope to find common language with Irka, reveals the real history behind the road accident which killed Irka's parents and crippled Irka's legs. Aida was there to take them away, as it's her job as Grim Reaper, but Irka somehow survived not just the crush itself, but also two strikes with the scythe; this is despite merely seeing it often being enough to kill a mortal. Predictably, it fails to win her any points with Irka, who was extremely traumatised by that event, and not just in the physical sense.
Nothing Is Scarier: No one had ever seen the Hounds, only the gruesome results of their attacks.
An Offer You Can't Refuse: Two-Faced may cancel a deal with the Loner Valkyrie (which he made with Irka's predecessor, and which she "inherited"), but only if she would bring him Arey's darkh within remaining three days. He refuses to explain just what he plans to do with it.
Pet the Dog:
- Arey, knowing that Daphne is now defenceless, orders her to pick some melee weapon from his collection as at least some way of self-defence. When she refuses, to his annoyance, he orders her to find someone still possessing the Light magic, stopping just short of directly mentioning Essiorkh by name.
- Gelatha intentionally seals Mefodiy, Daphne, Arey and Ulitha in the building, preventing them from joining the fight against the Dark Guardians' minions, because she knows that otherwise some of the other Valkyries would try to kill them; they are nobody to her (in fact, formally they are her enemies), but she knows that they are important to Irka.
Psychic Glimpse of Death: At one point, Anna's curse had caused her to witness someone's moment of death from his own perspective; it was extremely traumatic experience.
Reckless Gun Usage: Played for Laughs. Ulitha arrives after the battle is already over, armed with enchanted assault riffle, which she accidentally puts at Essiorkh's stomach. When he asks her to be more careful, she puts it behind her back, but in the way it now points to Essiorkh's chest. When he asks her wether safety is on, she accidentally moves it in the way it now points to Essiorkh's head, and then asks him what "safety" even is. Essiorkh decides to just take the gun away from her.
Rescue Romance: After preventing Anna's suicide, and escorting her to her house, Edya, impulsively, kisses her, before having a chance to even think what he's doing. She reacts surprisingly well. He then visits her (blindly trying to find her apartments in the big house, and succeeding by sheer luck), which, after he protects her from domestic abuser, starts their path to actual relationship.
Rogue Agent: Tartarian Guardians are completley insane, which makes them ideal agents for targeting Mefodiy and Arey, since, if questioned, Ligul can always claim that they just "escaped" and now acts on their own accord, and it wouldn't even be that far from truth.
Schmuck Bait: Daphne tries the classic "how can such big jinn put themselves into such small vessel" trick to get rid of Gulnara. It doesn't work, because, well, it's classic. Gulnara plays along until Daphne actually seals the vessel (thinking that Gulnara is inside, while in reality she just turned invisible), after which she calls her dumbass for still believing in fairytales.
Series Continuity Error: When the Valkyries visiting Irka are mentioned by name, amongst them is Saenra, the Valkyrie of the Ice Spear... who was stripped of her powers in the same book the Valkyries were introduced, due to going rogue. Considering that by that point not all Valkyries were properly fleshed out, it's possible that it was meant to be one of the other Valkyries instead.
Shoot the Dog: Since Irka stubbornly refuses to hurt Arey even when having the perfect opportunity, stating that Arey never did anything bad to her, and she wouldn't attack a defenceless, Antigon (waiting until Irka stops looking) takes Arey's darkh from him, exploiting Arey being wounded and powerless, and brings it to Irka himself. Knowing how she would react, he released all eidoses preemptively, so just returning it back would achieve little. Irka reacts very negatively, escapes via teleportation (so Antigon can't go with her), and goes to Arey to apologise personally. He reacts as well as she feared.
Soul Jar: As long as the Dark Guardian still possess their darkh, there's no way to truly kill them. Guardians from the Low Tartarus somehow separated themselves from their darkhs, thus making themselves invulnerable... unless you find these darkhs and destroy them. Without their darkhs, they would have no powers to maintain their decaying bodies and just die.
Third Line, Some Waiting: While Mefodiy and Irka both fights their own enemies, there's also additional subplot about Edya and Anna, which seems to be random at first, but becomes crucial to success in the end.
We Hardly Knew Ye: Two-Faced survives for just one chapter before Irka panics and accidentally banishes him to Tartarus for the next thousand years.
What the Hell, Hero?: Arey calls Irka dishonourable for taking away his darkh while he was defenceless after the battle against Tartarian Guards, instead of taking it in fair combat, especially since Arey did nothing bad to her in the past. In truth, it was Antigon who did this (on his own initiative), but she chose not to reveal this and take the blame herself.
The Worf Effect: The Tartarian Guards have this effect of several previously established badass characters, albeit in mostly Downplayed form:
- While Arey doesn't get defeated, the mere fact that he admits that he can't deal with the Guardians from Lower Tartarus by itself shows just how serious this threat is. And indeed, he and Mefodiy together barely survives the fight: the Guardians chose to leave them alone after being attacked by Daphne's magolodies, which, while not fatal, still hurts them.
- Even Irka fails to kill them with her spear; considering that previously it destroyed Kvodnon's spirit and banished pagan god, it says something.
- When the Tartarian Guardians managed to take Arey by surprise, they not just defeated him, but almost killed. The only reason they didn't finish him off was because Irka appeared, and they, not having ways to check wether it's the one Valkyrie or a whole squad, decided to retreat, not willing to test the limits of their immortality.
Wretched Hive: As part of the investigation, Mefodiy, Daphne and Ulitha (this time, with Arey) briefly re-visit the Bald Mountain — the biggest magic society in the Slavic part of magic world, full of scums, con-artists, and flat out psychos.
Zerg Rush: To avoid going for Petruccho, Eugesha and Nata personally, the Dark Guardians sends the hordes of special combat-oriented commissioners (made out of clay instead of plasticine, and actually armed) after them. It doesn't work: commissioners are just that pathetic combatants, no matter what you do with them. They sends them again right before the final battle, to use them as the meat shield, but the Valkyries arrives and wipes them out.

The First Eidos tropes

Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Yaroses are the genderless Tartarian beasts, who reproduce in rather weird way: three yaroses meets in the same place, barf out some half-digested meat into one small crack, where it slowly develops into new yaros. In its infant stage, yaros is completely defenceless, soft and slimy, but would eventually develop into large, armoured beast.
Bookend:
- Daphne's mission as agent of the Light in Darkness started with (zombified) Troil sending her on Earth, by putting her out as renegade. It ends with him (this time voluntarily) going on Earth to take her away and return her to the Light.
- In a way, this book serves as one for Mefodiy "The Dark Inheritor"; his involvement with the Darkness started with him being protected from danger by Ulitha (a Dark witch) all the way back in the first book, and ends with the Valkyries (the servants of Light) protecting him now. Similarity is reinforced by Mefodiy visiting the Dark residence for the last time right after that.
Broken Pedestal: After three years of working under Arey, Daphne started believing that he may be not so bad after all. Then he kills two Gold-Winged Ones and brings their flutes into residence. This instantly shatters all the trust and sympathy she had for him, as she realises that he's still a Dark Guardian, first and foremost. Unknowingly to her, Arey feels regret for allowing her to see this; he knows how harmful it was for her, and actually tried to do it covertly, but she busted him.
Brought Down to Normal: Inverted; by the end of the book, Daphne finally regains the powers she lost in the previous one.
The Cavalry:
- After dealing with his darkh, Mefodiy expects that the Dark Guardians would turn on him and kill him. But then the Valkyries arrives (Irka included), and finish them all off.
- Downplayed with Cornelius. He appears at most heated moment between Mefodiy and Taamag (who was ready to, if not kill, then at least beat him up), and distracts the Valkyries with his clumsy flirting attempts, allowing Mefodiy and Essiorkh to leave unnoticed.
Chekhov's Gunman: That corpse which Petruccho resurrected on some witcher's request? It's mavka, whom Ligul later uses to infect Daphne, so she would speed up Mefodiy's descend into Darkness.
The Corruption:
- Main plot involves Mefodiy finally receiving a darkh — and trying to resist its attempts to break him and force into service of Darkness. It's easier said than done, since the darkh breaks you both physically and mentally, sucking up your energy (Mefodiy loses much of his weight), causing you pain, and filling your mind with dark visions and wishes, until you do as It wants.
- Inverted with Troil's plan; he wants to use Daphne as the last ditch attempt to save Mefodiy, by providing him with a magic comb from Eden, which would slowly influence him with the Light, giving him strength to resist the darkh.
The Corrupter: Realising that by himself Mefodiy would resist the darkh's corruption for far too long, especially with Daphne's positive influence (Ligul finally realised that she's acting as his Guardian Angel), Ligul decides to get rid of that influence. He can't simply kill or abduct her, since it would be painfully obvious that he's involved (especially since he already tried this before), making his standing with Arey and Mefodiy even worse — but he knows how to corrupt her, inverting that good influence. Not long ago, Petruccho has resurrected a mavka; if Tukhlomon would help it to suck out a Valkyrie's blood, it would allow mavka to infect Daphne, gradually corrupt her — and through her, Mefodiy. Plan doesn't work as intended because corruption is too blatant (if you want to be subtle, starting with making someone to wish to skin alive and eat a little puppy would be too much), allowing Daphne to notice that something is wrong, and her panic, in turn, alerts Mefodiy. Then her condition worsens and she starts looking like she would soon die, which alerts Arey as well.
Creepy Child: We are introduced to Praskovia — the girl whom Ligul raised in Tartarus as potential replacement for Mefodiy. She is sickly pale, completely mute and shows no emotions whatsoever — sans for rare laugh or crying, both of which causes destructive magic outbursts.
Establishing Character Moment:
- Our first introduction to Cornelius shows everything we should know about this guy. He is supposed to deliver the message to Essiorkh (who was summoned by Troil), but arrives a day later, misspells him as "Essi-ork" after he finally realises what it's indeed that Essiorkh, not just the random dude with the same name (and yes, he does joke about the orcs). Then he drops several "top secret" messages before leaving, and accidentally breaks his own glasses, all while insisting that he can do everything without Essiorkh's help. Her would only get worse from here.
- In his very first appearance, Romasyusik shows all his "best" qualities, including his sickly sweat speech manner (even his name, "Romasyusik", is result of him corrupting the name "Roma" — short for "Roman") and equally sticky personality, which obviously hides some bitter secret, and perhaps more than one. Him compulsively touching objects, to everyone's annoyance (particularly Mefodiy's) only adds to this.
Everyone Can See It: Even Antigon notices that Irka actually feels something to Matvey, wether she admits it or not, specifically, jealousy when he interacts with someone else. She quickly realises that he is right.
Fall Guy: Ligul dumps all the fault for failing to destroy Mefodiy on his secretary Gerveg, who immediately gets lynched by the other Guardians.
Faux Affably Evil: Romasyusik may act friendly (even if he makes terrible job at it), but when pressed hard enough by Mefodiy (who busts him in his room, searching for the Daphne's flute), he shows his true colours — unapologetic Ligul's supporter and backstabbing asshole. Even his sickly sweat speech manner suddenly disappears, meaning that even that was a facade.
Gone Horribly Right: Ligul goes too far with attempt to corrupt Daphne, and makes her act so insane that everyone immediately notices what's going on.
Hair-Trigger Temper:
- Ulitha decides to lose some weight by taking a new diet, but this has a devastating effect on her temper, causing her to snapping at the slightest provocations. Mefodiy suggests her to just drop it, since Essiorkh would clearly prefer her fat and sane over fit and psychotic.
- Daphne, while under effects of the mavka's poison, becomes very unstable, snapping on everyone with or without provocation, surprising even Ulitha.
Heel–Face Turn: By rejecting and destroying his darkh, Mefodiy officially quits serving the Darkness, and leaves his old life behind. He only makes a brief return just to inform Arey.
Heroic Willpower: Mefodiy manages to resist the temptations of the darkh through the strength of his willpower. But that is not easy, even for him.
Hope Spot: Mefodiy accidentally drops his darkh into a river, causing the darkh-induced torture to stop. Mefodiy interprets it as a sign that the water suppresses the darkh's magic, and that he's free to go — you can't receive a second darkh after all. He realises that something is wrong when Arey turns out to be aware of this, but feels no anger over it. And indeed — the darkh is already here, in Mefodiy's room, waiting for him on the pill. Mefodiy immediately presumes that the "accidental" drop was not accidental at all, and was just the darkh's way to break him, by showing that resistance if futile.
I'm Having Soul Pains: Since Mefodiy still has his own eidos, it reacts with extreme pain (not physical, but spiritual) to the presence of darkh. As time goes on, the darkh slowly breaks Mefodiy, trying to enslave him.
Immediate Self-Contradiction: Cornelius does that twice, to the point of Epic Fail:
- Cornelius claims that he can defeat Arey on a duel and bring him to Eden alive to face justice. Then he accidentally breaks his flute by hitting Essiorkh's head with it.
- Cornelius insists that he doesn't need Essiorkh's help... and instantly steps on his own glasses he previously dropped, breaking them.
Morton's Fork: Either Mefodiy fails to fill up his darkh, so it would suck out his eidos, or he succeeds.. and his eidos would abandon him for committing a deadly sin.
Motivational Lie: The Valkyries tricks Irka to believe that she may save Mefodiy by destroying his darkh — while the darkh would suck out Mefodiy's own eidos as the last act of malice, she may take his eidos from the shards and preserve it until Mefodiy gets abandoned by the Darkness and its influence. In truth, Mefodiy is doomed even if she tries it: the first eidos always gets consumed by the darkh itself, and can't be retrieved by any means, including physically destroying the darkh; it's a price of retrieving it from Tartarus.
Nephilim: Mefodiy is a distant descendant of the former Light Guardian Deomid (who, after falling in love with a mortal woman, chose to descend to Earth and take the name Demid Buslaev). This is why the Darkness has so much troubles with corrupting him, and why he may touch the Light flutes and the winged necklaces without being harmed. It allows him to defeat the darkh, by using the light wings and a flute (which were not supposed to work for him) to destroy it and run away.
No-Sell: Nata's magic fails to work on Matvey. Since he's clearly not amongst the Inheritors (who are all somewhat immune to each other's magic), it means that it's related so something else — most likely him being already taken.
Not So Stoic: Arey is usually most stoic of all characters, but even he worries that something bad goes with Daphne, to the point that when a succubus tries to visit him in her guise (something he used to get away with before more than once), Arey kills him with his sword.
Once Done, Never Forgotten: Irka wouldn't let Antigon to forget that time when he made Mefodiy some coffee (including details about Mefodiy's request, like the exact dosage of sugar) anytime soon, despite it happening two books ago.
Our Vampires Are Different: Mavka is portrayed as some kind of a vampire; only, instead of sucking out blood, after making a bite, it directly sucks out your life force (in fact, this specific mavka finds the blood to be disgusting, and by proxy, despises all "normal" vampires). While sucking out your life force, it also poisons you with its malice. Hungry mavka is small, flat and almost invulnerable, while satisfied mavka is fat and easy to crush, it can even die by simply falling from the chair; it gets compared to the water-filled ball, which raptures after falling from the window. And indeed, all it takes to kill the thing is Depresnyak's attack — but, sadly, only after it already did what it was purposed to.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Even if they don't know what's going on, Daphne's sudden change to psychotic, highly unstable and glaringly unhealthy shadow of her former self alerts not only Mefodiy, but also Arey, making them to realise that something is very, very wrong.
The Prankster: Edya's former coworker (they used to work in one pizzeria) often puts flies into pizzas — after you fry them up, they becomes indistinguishable from the mushrooms.
Public Execution: Mefodiy's final confrontation with the darkh is intended as a downplayed example of this trope; on the special arena, witnessed by countless Dark Guardians, Mefodiy would succumb to the darkh and let it tear out his eidos, after which he would be used to transfer his powers to Praskovia before dying. Mefodiy manages to survive it through his strength of will and Daphne's flute, which works for him due to his heritage, ruining Ligul's plans.
Puppet King: Ligul finally realises that he can't make Mefodiy into his marionette (he wouldn't submit to him voluntarily, and without the eidos no one would respect his "rule"), so he tries to use his new protege, Praskovia, as a plan "b". While she still has her eidos, Ligul somehow changed her in a way which prevents her soul from affecting her actions in any way, unlike Mefodiy; besides that, also unlike Mefodiy, she's much easier to manipulate into doing what Ligul wants.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: After dealing with the darkh, Mefodiy gives one tol Ligul, explaining why Ligul is weaker than him; Ligul fails to provide the adequate response, and decides not to risk ordering him being killed, because that would only prove Mefodiy's point.
Mefodiy: Ligul! Do you know what is the main difference between us? I don't think about you at all. You are nothing for me. But you can't sleep while I exists. This means, I'm stronger than you.
Sanity Slippage: While under influence of the mavka's poison, Daphne acts very unusually, and very creepy. She suddenly starts talking about her hatred for humanity (which destroys itself and everything around itself), then demands the raw meat, and, when nobody provides it, tries to bite her own hand, then starts panicking over unbearable fear of death. Then she starts seeing hallucinations about a puppy in her salad — and feels sudden impulse to skin it alive and eat, scaring herself and everyone present.
Sheltered Aristocrat: To defy this (she's the future Dark Lady, after all), Ligul sends Praskovia (who spent most of her live in Tartarus) on Earth, to live a "normal" life in Moscow, under Romasyusik's watch.
Ship Tease: While Matvey started showing the signs of attraction to Irka several books ago, this is the first time Irka realises that she feels something in return.
- When Matvey brings some random girl called Lena and starts provoking Irka by showing interest in this girl, Irka, to her surprise, notices that she feels... jealousy. Matvey soon loses interest in this, and lets Lena (whom he kept under the mind control) go, but Irka realises that her stubbornly and demonstratively not reciprocating annoys Matvey so much, she may actually lose him... and she's afraid of it.
- Irka feels jealousy when they gets visited by Nata (Irka invited only Mefodiy, but Nata chose to go with him for whatever reason). She feels relief (again, to her surprise) when Matvey shows zero interest in Nata, despite all her attempts to use her magic on him.
Small Name, Big Ego: Cornelius thinks that he's the great duelist, and brags what he may kill — no, take alive! — Arey himself... and then he takes a flute in such a way, it hits Essiorkh's head and gets damaged.
Spoiler Cover: Book's cover depicts Mefodiy in Tartarus, with both his darkh (isn't a spoiler, since this is the entire premise) and... wait a minute, isn't that a magic flute? The Dark Creatures normally can't even touch the Light-aligned artifacts, especially with the darkh being present, so there's clearly something fishy... And indeed, in penultimate chapter Mefodiy uses Daphne's flute and winged necklace to resist the darkh's last — and most dangerous — attempt to break him. it's the first and only instance of something like this in the series, with other books depicting something relatively spoiler-free (or, at least, not picking the events from too early).
Too Dumb to Live: Romasyusik (still a human back then) thought that it would be a great idea to swim in the Letha river (that one which separates world of the living from world of the dead). Whatever happened to him, it required creating a new body, with the old one being gone.
Ultimate Final Exam: As the proof that they actually finished their training, all Dark Guardians (as a group, even the Dark Guardians do not expect them to do it solo) must fight and kill the dangerous demonic beast, yaros; and whoever deals the killing blow and brings the heart to Ligul would receive a "special reward". Mefodiy and other Arey's students are not an exception. Mefodiy passes it by killing the beast... and Ligul "rewards" him with a darkh, setting the plot in motion.
Verbal Tic: Romasyusik keeps randomly inserting the words "fantastic" and "groovy" in his speech, to Mefodiy's annoyance. Mefodiy later mocks it.
Wham Episode: This is the first book to massively change the status quo — Mefodiy abandons the Darkness, and leaves (with Daphne) the Russian residence, permanently.
Winds of Destiny, Change!: Some sycamore trees have special powers: when they drop the first leaf, that leaf gifts whoever catches it the great luck. Daphne, who's still powerless, sacrifices that last power she has to help Mefodiy with upcoming challenge at least somehow. It indeed helps him, when he tries to find Daphne's flute and wings almost blindly in arena's sand.
Xanatos Gambit: Any outcome would favour Ligul: Mefodiy may fail his trial and die, or he may pass — and gain the darkh as a "reward". The darkh cant' stay empty for long, so Mefodiy must either fill it up (and lose his eidos)... or refuse to fill it, and lose his eidos. And if he somehow gets rid of the darkh, then he can be simply called a traitor and killed. The only thing Ligul didn't count for is Mefodiy somehow gaining support from the Light.
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Ligul no longer has any use for Mefodiy, not even as eidos-less puppet: he realised that it would be painfully obvious that Mefodiy is a Puppet King if his eidos would be in Ligul's darkh, and no one would accept him. Praskovia would replace him, but to make her legitimate heir, he still needs Mefodiy's powers... which he can transfer after Mefodiy's "sacrifice".
Your Soul Is Mine!: If a darkh remains empty for too long (or someone tries to destroy it before it obtains its first eidos), the darkh would suck out its owner's eidos. The very first eidos consumed by the darkh can't be retrieved by any means; it gets permanently stuck within the darkh, even if it gets destroyed — such is the price of its creation. Any other eidos may be retrieved after shattering it, but not the first one.

The Light Wings for the Dark Guardian tropes

Arc Villain: Spurius, the former Dark Guardian, and now the third side of conflict, wants to obtain the Kvodnon's will: it may prove that Kvodnon has appointed him, not Ligul, as his heir. To achieve this, he is willing to destroy everyone and everything in his path. Besides that, he also needs Ulitha's eidos: it's one-of-a-kind, containing both the Light and the Darkness on equal terms; Spurius wants to somehow use it to make all new eidoses similarly dual, giving him the unending stream of the "neutral" souls to exploit.
Birthday Party Goes Wrong: It's Haara's birthday, and every Valkyrie (even Irka, at Buhthla's insistence) is invited, so they may at once become closer to each other. Then Filomena (who's late for the party) gets ambushed and killed...
Blood Knight: Deconstructed. Turns out that Filomena has died so easily due to her own bloodlust weakening her natural defence; as long as you feel pleasure from killing, it doesn't matter wether you killed an innocent or a sinful, wether it was wasteful or necessary: it would still be a sin.
Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario: Near beginning Essiorkh makes extremely poorly thought-out comment, harming Ulitha enough to seemingly dump him. By the very end of the book, she personally arrives to say to him that he's forgiven.
Cessation of Existence: Anyone who uses Spurius' magic to give away their body, not just dies after completing the mission; their soul gets destroyed in the process, meaning that they are gone for good. It only works because they volunteer for it, even if unknowingly.
Chekhov's Gunman:
- The Lizver whom Arey sent to Praskova early in the book? It shows up nearly on the last page, finally reaching its target, and starts annoying Praskovia in one rather comical scene.
- Edya's old friend Groshikov who keeps sticking around, advertising his new "guru" (who once predicted that Groshikov would be killed by a thread)? He shows up again in the very last chapter, where Spurius possesses him to replace his original body and fight Mefodiy on equal terms.
Contrived Coincidence: Just by the sheer luck Mefodiy and Daphne, during their walk over Moscow, run into two random thugs... who just happens to have a small glass vessel with eidoses, one of which just so happens to be Ulitha's one. They also just so happens to possess the magic scroll, which turns out to be extremely important for the Darkness.
Cult: Spurius amassed the large number of followers by running the "confidence training"-like sect; people keeps going to him, believing that he possess some mystical powers and would "teach" them how to succeed in life. People who gets closer to him learns about his plans to become a new Lord of the Darkness, and believes that he would reward them in afterlife — they just needs to "gift" him their body, their mind and their soul. Unknowingly to them, for anyone following him, there would be no afterlife...
Death by Irony: Spurius predicted that Groshikov would die from "a thread". When Spurius uses Groshikov as a host, Groshikov — and Spurius with him — gets incinerated after attempt to open the scroll with Kvodnon's will, sealed with the cursed thread. Spurius lives for just long enough to realise the cruel irony.
Dating Catwoman: Long ago, Irka's distant predecessor, Meldika, fell in love with Spurius, the former Dark Guardian ("former" only in a sense that he no longer possess a darkh). She helped him to lift the Dark curse, but as result damned all Valkyries, including herself...
The Dog Was the Mastermind: The old man Azef whom Mefodiy helped near beginning of the book? It was Spurius himself.
Exact Words: Lizver (an evil spirit which causes people to suffer from bad luck) was sent to cause problems to the "Dark Inheritor". Back then, it was Mefodiy, but due to Lizver's extreme slowness, it arrived in the Dark residence only by the time when Mefodiy defected and Praskovia oficially became the new Inheritor. Arey, with his undying "love" for Ligul, does nothing to prevent Lizver from going after Praskovia, because technically Ligul sent Lizver after the "Dark Inheritor", not "Mefodiy".
Grand Theft Me: During his last battle against Mefodiy, Spurius shoots his original body in the head and possesses Groshikov, who, due to being much younger, provides much greater combat capabilities.
I'm Having Soul Pains: When Mefodiy makes a mistake of brining Ulitha's eidos to the same room with her, she starts feeling the pain said eidos feels due to presence of the (filled) darkh, as well as inability to just insert it back. Ulitha actually comments on how painful it is.
Innocently Insensitive : Mefodiy mades a mistake of bringing Ulitha her eidos... not taking into account that she still has a darkh, meaning she can't just put it back. This, unsurprisingly, causes her much pain (both physical, because the darkh reacts to it, and spiritual, because she realises that it's so close yet so far away), and breaking her first into tears, and then into rage. Even Essiorkh calls Mefodiy out on this (and Daphne, who didn't think about it either)... and then makes the stupid mistake himself when he tries to calm Ulitha down... by calling her "marionette of the Darkness". Daphne, in turn, calls him out on this. It would take Ulitha until the end of the book to finally calm down and forgive Essiorkh (she really wants to just drop all this and live a normal live, and maybe even have children, but can't).
Killed Off for Real: Servants of Spurius not just killed Filomena; they took away her spear and destroyed it, ensuring that it would be impossible to find a new Valkyrie to replace her. The number of Valkyries was just permanently decreased by one.
Loophole Abuse: Gelatha was ordered to keep this secret, but she tells Irka history of Meldika (and her grave mistake) anyway, by using the classic trick favoured by mages: talking to anything but the person you are speaking with, pretending that they are not here.
Meaningful Name:
- Edya's old friend Ghorshikov. "Grosh" is the name of an old and very cheap coin, and go-to measure for anything worthless; fitting surname for completely pathetic guy who has neither culture nor brains, and used to sell screwdrivers with attached flashlight on the street until he became a member of the cult.
- The name Lizver is the combination of the words "lizat" (to lick) and "zver" (a beast); the creature itself resembles the weird rat/human hybrid which licks people and stuff.
Mêlée à Trois: When Mefodiy goes to Crimea to purify Ulitha's eidos (while also bringing the Kvodnon's will with himself), Ligul sends Praskovia and Romasyusik (accompanied by his men) on the same train to take back the scroll, while Spurius tries to infiltrate it with his men in order to steal both the scroll and the eidos. And then it turns out that the Light sent the Valkyries and disguised Light Guardians as well, as backup for Mefodiy. Spurius manages to exploit the situation and provoke the two other teams to fight each other, so he may cut Mefodiy off from his friends and kill him personally.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Meldika, Irka's distant predecessor, made a mistake: she fell in love with Spurius, and, in attempt to lift the Dark curse from him, cursed herself and the other Valkyries. That new curse weakened all Valkyries, causing their powers and spears to become unreliable, and even caused three of them to die. In attempt to fix her mistake, Meldika somehow lifted the curse — but at the cost of putting it all on herself alone. She then found a replacement, and disappeared permanently. Since then, the other Valkyries distrusts all Loners, always expecting something similar from them.
Obfuscating Stupidity: Iffrit Said, who was sent to "clear out" after the battle and kill "Beslaev" if he somehow survives, is not only very slow to process whatever you say to him, but also easy to fool. Mefodiy tricks him into believing that he is Romasyusik, and later orders him to remove the bodies of the Dark Guardians and teleport Praskovia and (real) Romasyusik to Tartarus, without damaging them. Then it turns out that Said just messed with Mefodiy and was well aware who he really is right from the start. He played along because if the Darkness believes that all iffrits are dumbasses, he would act like one: since they expect nothing good from him, they wouldn't even care much if he screws up his orders — and he lacks motivation to bother with doing it right.
The Perfectionist: According to Buhthla (who possesses the opposite view on things), for Ilga, just doing something is not enough; nope, she would go a long way to deal it ideally. Buhthla uses hypothetical example where they need to raise some potatoes; Buhthla would just go, buy a shovel and do the required work, while Ilga would try to "prepare" herself with the big list of agronomy-related literature, would spend a long time searching for "ideal" shovel (going into a conflict with the whole personnel down to and including director of any store she would try, as none would meet her overblown standards), and by the time she would achieve what she needs... she would notice that it's winter already, which means — yes, she now needs to learn how to clean up the snow...
Portmanteau: The word "Lizver" is clearly constructed from the words "Lizat" — "to lick" (it has extremely long tongue, which it uses to lick Ulitha's face, to her annoyance), and "zver" — "a beast" (Lizver resembles weird rat/human hybrid).
Power Nullifier: Not even Praskovia's powers would work near Lizver, leaving her no option than simply trying to beat it up... which wouldn't work, too, because it feels no pain.
Red Herring: At first, it seems like Irka's plot would involve her slowly losing her powers, including ability to walk, but the effect turns out to be only temporal (and brief); turns out it was caused by the destruction of Filomena's spear.
Reincarnation: Irka turns out to be not just the successor of Meldika — she's her reincarnation; that's why they look so suspiciously similar, and why Fulona acts so weird (being very open in one aspects, and suspiciously secretive in others). Irka's entire existence is Meldika's second (and last) chance to atone herself.
Sacrificial Lion: Filomena, who was previously established as one of the deadliest Valkyries, gets easily killed off to set up Spurius as a genuine threat.
Sins of Our Fathers: Once again, Irka must deal with mistakes of her predecessors. This time, it goes back five centuries into the past, when the Loner Valkyrie named Meldika fell in love with Spurius ("ex"-Dark Guardian who was punished by the Darkness for giving up his darkh willingly), and, to help him with his curse, damned herself and her spear. Previously this curse was suppressed by the passion Irka felt towards fighting the Darkness, but now, when she starts losing it, becoming "colder", it starts overpowering her.Then it turns out that Irka is actually Meldika's reincarnation; her entire existence is a sign that Meldika received a second chance.
Spiteful Will: What Kvodnon's will turns out to be. Not only he wouldn't choose neither Ligul nor Spurius as his inheritor — whoever fells for the "will" would die by rotting alive the moment they would try to read it, because Kvodnond sees everyone as mere worms under his feet. Ligul was expecting that something is fishy and never bothered, while Spurius was blinded by his pride.
Stupid Evil: The reason why Troil believes that it would be better to let Ligul stay in power rather than let Spurius to usurp the power: Ligul is blatant in his evil, and so pathologically vile, he never keeps his allies around for long (if he even makes them). Spurius, on the other hand, is extremely charm person who always manages to find friends and allies to his cause, sometimes even amongst the forces of Light; Ligul is predictable, but Spurius would be much more dangerous enemy.
Team Killer: It was Ligul who sold Spurius out to the Light; he hoped to get rid of the competitor, but it didn't go as well as he expected.
Too Dumb to Live: Several years ago, Moshkin used to attend the studio of "imagination development". One day, they received a task — imagine themselves as the leafs. One boy from that group interpreted it in a rather weird way, and decided to jump out of the window, probably to imitate a falling leaf. He survived, but broke his collarbone.
We Can Rule Together: Spurius offers Mefodiy to join him, so they may rule together, as two "neutral" Guardians. He would've been more convincing if not for the fact that just mere minutes ago he tried to kill Mefodiy with his magic.
Winds of Destiny, Change!: Lizver can cause the other people to suffer from bad luck.
Yin-Yang Bomb: The combination of Mefodiy's sword (Mefodiy hit the guy in the leg, pinning down his shoe) and Daphne's magolody annihilates one of the thugs attacking Mefodiy, leaving no body behind.

The Stairway to Eden tropes

Arc Villain: Gopziy Rurius Third is the Dark Guardian who wishes to take away Mefodiy's sword, wether voluntarily or from his dead body; thanks to Ligul, he now has an opportunity to do so, by challenging Mefodiy to a duel.
Brought Down to Normal: All artifacts of changed alignment have specific date when they lose all their powers, becoming little more than just good-quality weapons; Mefodiy's sword has such date in November (Mefodiy was just lucky to avoid it before)... which just so happened to be a date which Gopziy chose for a duel. This is not a coincidence. It becomes a moot point, however, as Praskovia catches up with the plan, and insists on using non-magic swords for both duelists.
Duel to the Death: Ligul announces that Mefodiy's sword, being the sword of Darkness, no longer "belongs" to Mefodiy (who changed his alignment), so if he wants to keep it to himself, he should fight for it. Ligul's champion would be Gopziy Rurius Third, the Fourth Sword of Darkness.
Emotional Regression: Gopziy obtains Mefodiy's old teeth by tricking his mother, which he then uses to curse him during a battle when his original plan fails. Under effect of the spell, Mefodiy starts mentally regressing to the age in which that teeth was lost — to the young child.
Fire-Forged Friends: After fighting side by side, Taamag learns to accept Irka as a "true" Valkyrie, despite initially being one of the most hostile to her. Irka, in turn, realises ihat behind this volatile temper, she's not that bad; she just has no other way to show her love.
Good Thing You Can Heal: Praskovia's standard punishment for Romasyusik's failures is to break his fingers. According to her, he heals them completely in less than two hours. The sole reason he feels pain when she does that is because she made him so — that way, she has more control over him.
I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Daphne thinks that part of the reason why Praskovia has feelings for Mefodiy is because he refuses to bend to her will. She believes that this is a good thing (even if it creates the Love Triangle), because it provokes Praskovia into trying to learn how normal life even works, and gives Praskovia a chance to break free from Ligul's influence.
Love Triangle: One starts to form between Mefodiy, Daphne and Praskovia. Praskovia has feelings for Mefodiy, and doesn't react well when he ignores her.
Non-Protagonist Resolver: Ultimately, Mefodiy loses his duel with Gopziy, so it's Taamag who finishes off the villain, saving Mefodiy's life.
No Social Skills: Sixteen years under Ligul's watch in Tartarus means that Praskovia had no chance to learn how normal life works (which was one of the reasons why Ligul even sent her on Earth, without money support, in the first place) — including normal human relationships.
Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: Gopziy insists on the specific date for duel, knowing that Mefodiy's sword would lose its magic for that day (he also tries to set a duel in Tartarus, but Mefodiy manages to insist on doing it on Earth). This becomes the moot point because Praskovia at the last moment insists on using the different, non-magic weapons for both combatants, but Gopziy tries another trump card — Mefodiy's teeth (which he obtained from Zozo through one of her ill-fated suitors), which gives him some control over Mefodiy when Mefodiy starts actually fighting back. He only gets prevented from killing Mefodiy due to the Valkyries' intervention, but even then the "judge" tries to insist that cheating was not proven, only giving up because Praskovia sides with Mefodiy.
One-Man Army: Taamag manages to survive the battle against the overwhelming crowd of people (many of them armed) on her own, while using no weapons (it was mandatory not to kill anyone, due to the nature of her mission). She gets injured, but threats it as the insignificant scratches. By contrast, her squire (a big muscular man) was put out of combat at the very start, by the one well-aimed strike of baseball bat into hand, breaking it.
Pride: Trying to take away the warrior's sword is an insult to him. By insulting Mefodiy, Ligul insulted Arey, his mentor. This results in Arey making his damnest Mefodiy no longer can avoid the duel with Gopziy (Ligul wanted to give Mefodiy's sword to him) without "losing face" (and indeed, Mefodiy doesn't even hesitate). At least he agrees to train Mefodiy.
Fauxshadow: Mefodiy's sword losing all its powers at the date chosen for a duel gets set up as major danger... only to become moot point because Praskovia insists on both sides using regular, non-magic swords, stripping Gopziy of this advantage.
Stairway to Heaven: The titular stairway to Eden is placed on the otherwise ordinary playground in Saint-Petersburg (in fact, this staircase is one of the reasons why the city was placed here to begin with). It can't be destroyed, but it can desecrated if something bad occurs here, potentially disabling it. The Darkness is aware of this fact, so the Valkyries keeps guarding it; this time, Irka is amongst the Valkyries sent here. Only the worthy ones can see it, and even then they can see it differently depending on how "clean" they are (for example, Daphne, due to sheer amount of black feathers, sees it very blurry, while Mefodiy, who only started serving the Light, can't see it at all.
Sympathetic Magic: Gopziy's trump card is Mefodiy's teeth, which he obtained from his mother (through her most recent suitor, who made a deal with Tukhlomon); it's mandatory that the teeth should be gifted, not stolen, or it would be useless. By using his magic on it, Gopziy may put Mefodiy out of combat.
There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Gopziy defeats Mefodiy, and is about to deal a killing blow, but then Taamag throws her spear (which was compared to a log more than once), impaling him. Then several other Valkyries throws their spears, with the last one (which belongs to Fulona) annihilating him completely, save for his darkh's chain (the darkh itself was somehow stolen at the last moment; the Dark servants are sneaky).
Vacation Episode: Prior to it, the plot was mostly set in Moscow (with the rare trips to the Bald Mountain or Tartarus, both of which are fictional). However, this one is set almost entirely in Saint-Petersburg. Embarrassing situations due to the differences in mentality ensues.

The Map of Chaos tropes

All for Nothing: Arey’s only chance to restore his standings with Ligul to at least the "stop trying to kill me" level is to find the Map of Chaos. While the first part was already found by the Light and thus is unrecoverable, without the second part it would only result in many of them dying without achieving anything. When no one supports him in decision to give it to Ligul (not even Ulitha), Arey allows Varvara to decide, hoping that she would take it to herself, but she instead choses to give it to Cornelius, because she's outraged by Arey being willed to let many people to die just to please his boss.
Back from the Dead: When Yaraat was caught, the Darkness confiscated the eidoses of Arey's family, but they failed to hold them for long, because they were taken away by force. Mother was readily accepted into Eden, but daughter was too scarred by the fact that she’s Arey’s daughter (and effect it had on her life), making her eidos not clean enough. The Light made unusual decision and resurrected her to give her a second chance, but not before erasing her memory. Now, Arey learns that she’s alive, and starts searching for her. Turns out that she'd reincarnated as Varvara, the girl whom Cornelius has met in metro.
Batman Gambit: Ligul sends the most rude and short-fused Guardian available, with the task to take away Arey's sword. This predictable ends with a massacre, giving Ligul a great excuse to announce Arey an outlaw. Arey realises that this was a trap when it's already too late.
Blatant Lies: Anything related to backstory of the "Star Pelmen" (pelmeni-serving food chain) and how they obtained and "trademarked" pelmeni is obviously made-up and completely nonsensical (heroic American spy stealing the Russian's "national secret" and running away on icebreaker, really?). It's unlikely to work in the USA, but they are trying to use the same backstory to advertise it in Russia. Stupidity of the idea gets commented on by Mefodiy, whom the Light put to work here after erasing his memory, in attempt to teach him humility.
Call-Back: Mefodiy's plot in the previous book was kickstarted because Arey took Ligul's insistence on giving up Mefodiy's sword as an insult to Mefodiy, and thus, to himself, as his mentor. Now Ligul tries to take away Arey's sword, already knowing how it would end (and counting on it.
Epic Fail: One of the guys examined for working in the "Star Pelmen" has the simplest question — say the organisation's motto, which was put anywhere and everywhere, down to and including the guy's uniform. He still fails the exam.
Evil Is Petty: Arey's former residence gets demolished after he fell out of favour with Ligul, for no other reason than to spite his former subordinates and friends.
Forced Transformation: As consequence of Matvey's reckless actions, Irka gets transformed into a wolf form, without being able to turn back.
Frontline General: Troil personally leads the Light Guardians into chaos, on potentially suicide mission. When asked why he risks his life, he answers that only then he may be called the leader, and that this is what differs the Light Guardians from the Dark ones.
Involuntary Battle to the Death: Wights are trying to force Mefodiy to fight with (still wolf-shaped and out of her mind) Irka. They actually start fighting (Irka attacks first), but the help arrives in time.
Keeping Secrets Sucks: When Arey meets his daughter, he decides to not reveal that they are related to her, in order to not sabotage her chances to be accepted in Eden. This causes him indescribable torment.
Laser-Guided Amnesia: Troil alters Mefodiy's (and his mother's and uncle's) memory to erase any information about the Light, the Darkness, Arey, etc, to give him a chance for "clean start", hoping that without the past Dark influence it would be easier to bring him to Light. He would restore his memory when he's ready. Unfortunately, the plan isn't ideal: just press hard enough, and he would remember everything. And then Praskovia finds Mefodiy first...
Magic Compass: The titular Map of Chaos allows to navigate through the chaos (nope, nor Primordial Chaos; the ever changing zone which serves as a barrier between the Underworld and Tartarus); with it, the Light would have a trump card against Ligul. It consists of two parts: a talking head (which may advice you), and a moving chain, which straight up shows the way for you; you need both if you hope to survive. The first part gets obtained by the Light early on, and the rest of the book is dedicated to finding the second part.
My God, What Have I Done?: Matvey deeply regrets thoughtlessly kissing Irka, since it caused her to lose control over her powers and potentially even her mind. When Taamag openly threatens to kill him if they fail to fix the situation, he says to her that he wouldn't even resist.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- Matvey, for whatever reason, thinks that it would be a good idea to pretend that he's dying, to provoke Irka into trying to reanimate him (thus kissing him). The problem is, when she does this, she, no matter how briefly, feels attraction to him — and the Valkyries are prohibited to form romantic attachments. This results in her losing control over her shapeshifting powers, ultimately getting stuck in the wolf form — without any control over it.
- When other Valkyries arrives to investigate what has happened to Irka, Cornelius makes the already bad situation worse, by thoughtlessly opening the door and allowing Irka (currently in the wolf form) to run away.
Power Incontinence: When she gets kissed by Matvey, Irka temporarily loses control over her powers, going into the wild cycle of transformations between the swan and the wolf, which lasts for several days, until she finally falls unconscious and only then transforms back into human (only to transform into the wolf again the moment she awakes, and run away).
Race Against the Clock: No Light Guardian may survive in chaos for more than two weeks. Essiorkh and Cornelius must find the Map of Chaos before Troil and the Guardians he led here would die.
Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Thanks to Matvey's mistake, Irka (after chaotic series of non-ending transformations between the swan and the wolf forms) gets transformed into a wolf permanently — without control over it.
Trash the Set: The first thing Ligul does after making Arey an outlaw is destroying the Dark residency.
Throw the Dog a Bone: For once, Tukhlomon actually fails to trick someone into giving up his eidos, showing that lopukhoids have some chances against the forces of Darkness after all; when he tries his usual method on the psychiatrist (the same one who just examined Petruccho), he (despite not even believing that the soul exists) feels that something is wrong, and jumps out of the window in panic (he survives because it was the second floor and he fell on grass). While he still fails to understand what it was, he feels... relief over managing to stand his ground.
Wham Episode: Arey's daughter turns out to be alive after all, and she's here, in Moscow.
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Arey becomes so much of a burden for Ligul that the benefits of having him nearby no longer outweighs the problems Ligul has with him. No longer bothering with playing nice, Ligul goes into open confrontation, and now Arey is an outlaw on the run. Unless he somehow proves his usefulness to the Darkness as whole (Ligul wouldn't risk killing "a hero"), he would be destroyed sooner or later.

The Dryad's Necklace tropes

Arc Villain: Ziggy Puffs, a new chief of the Russian department, hunts for the titular necklace as well, which puts him at odds with the heroes.
Beware the Nice Ones: Essiorkh is usually against unnecessary violence, but when he witnesses abusive father beating up his three-years old daughter and even burning her with cigarettes (with the mother just letting him, if not participating), he quickly escalates the conversation with the obviously inadequate "father" to the point the guy attacks him first, then hits him in the face hard enough to knock him out. He locks the "mother" in the restroom for several weeks (she has water, and he provides her with food), while the "father" was teleported on the North Poll, to work on icebreaker (the warm clothes was provided). The girl was then adopted by Essiorkh's mortal friend (also a biker).
The Bus Came Back: Daphne gets visited by her mentor Sniffer, absent since the very first book, who explains just how dare her situation really is.
Demoted to Dragon: Ligul changes his mind once again, and decides that Arey can still be of use to him... as Ziggy's advisor. Arey makes it absolutely clear that he hates his new position and his new "boss", but obeys.
De-power: Petruccho, Nata and Moshkin loses their powers after making a deal with Ziggy; the powers then gets transferred to Praskovia.
Depraved Dwarf: Arey's replacement as the new chief of the Russian department is an ugly dwarf resembling bearded infant, called Ziggy Puffs.
Deus ex Machina: Seemingly hopeless situation with Irka suffering from Shapeshifter Mode Lock gets resolved by itself, because she-wolf accidentally chocks herself on her collar, panics and finally gives up on control.
Didn't Think This Through: Arey's plan involves forcibly taking away the dryad's necklace to use one of the pearls from it to seal his daughter's eidos, making the Darkness unable to affect it in any way. Aida promptly points out that without the struggle, Varvara's soul wouldn't develop either, and in her current state she's likely to end up in Tartarus without any outside influence. He eventually realises that she's right, and gives up on the plan.
Drives Like Crazy: Varvara rides no better than Mamai, causing mayhem on her way. Justified, because she never learned how to drive, and only tried now on Arey's insistence, starting three days ago from the story's beginning.
Find the Cure!: Daphne gets injured with Mefodiy's sword, and "infected" with the dark magic. By the the time when Sniffer finds out, it's already too late to cure it with magolodies, so now she needs something much stronger — like a magic pearl from the dryad's necklace, which can cure any poison, be it natural or magical. The Darkness is aware of this, and sends their own party to retrieve the dryad.
Gave Up Too Soon: Petruccho is actually correct that their eidoses belongs to them, not the Darkness, and thus, Ziggy can't just kill them and claim their souls even if they refuse to follow the orders; it was just a bluff. Had he insisted for a little longer instead of giving up when threatened, they would've preserved their powers.
Humanity Ensues: The perspective of Daphne becoming human gets brought up again; she must decide wether she loves Mefodiy enough to reject her immortality and become a human (if she would stay with him on Earth, it would happen on its own, with no way to prevent it), or she would dump him and return to Eden. Troil was ready to force her into the first option at first, but decides that this choice must still be done by her and only her at literally the last page of the book.
Laser-Guided Karma: The only reason why Ziggy was able to suck out powers from Petruccho, Nata and Moshkin is because they willingly betrayed Mefodiy to save their own skins.
Like Father, Like Son: When Arey starts complaining about Varvara being "corrupted" by the Light (he dislikes her being rude, smoking, her "ungirly" habits and clothes, etc), he gets promptly reminded that Varvara just grew up to resemble her father, even if he was not around; he's just in denial.
Minion with an F in Evil: Zigya is just too infant-like to act even remotely villainous when not directly controlled by Ziggy Puffs. When Irka caught Ziggy off-guard, unable to order his "backup body" anything, forcing him to retreat, he immediately accepted Irka as his "mommy" and went with her instead of abusive Ziggy.
An Offer You Can't Refuse: Ziggy tells Petruccho, Nata and Eugesha that they are already scheduled to die so the Darkness can take away their eidoses... unless they cooperate to steal some power from Mefodiy. The threat is obviously fake if one bothers to think before acting, since it was repeatedly established before that the Darkness can't harm non-aligned human with intact eidos (and Ligul has no power to call the shots for Mamzelkina), but the three are too scared to think.
Schmuck Bait: Did Petruccho, Nata and Eugesha really expected that the invitation to see the new Dark residence would be anything but a trap for Arey's former students?
Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Continuing from the previous book, Irka remains in a wolf form for most part of the story. She finally breaks free from it towards the end.
Vacation Episode: Significant part of the story is set up in the forests of Mordovia, far away from Moscow. The heroes even use boats to reach their destination, which makes it resembling an actual vacation.

The Glass Guardian tropes

All Your Powers Combined: After sparring with Moshkin, Mefodiy realises that each one of Arey's students received some unique lessons which Arey never taught to the others. So, to increase his chances at upcoming duel, he needs to train with the other ones as well and learn their techniques.
Amnesia Missed a Spot: Troil wiped out memories of Mefodiy and his parents, but never touched any of his past friends (and enemies), some of whom don't give a damn about maintaining this illusion. Just like Daphne feared, only thing required to break the memory altering was a hard enough push. When he witnesses Romasyusik being attacked by a wasp (which flies through his head), and realises that he's hollow, Mefodiy instantly remembers everything else as well.
Badass Normal: Out of three former Arey's students (not counting Mefodiy) who've lost their powers, Moshkin is the only one who not only somewhat succeed in life (unlike Petruccho and Nata), but also preserved enough of his combat skills to still be of match for Mefodiy. This is why Mefodiy asks him to train him before inevitable duel with Arey.
Bad Job, Worse Uniform: Both Petruccho and Nata now works in the mall, advertising some food products. Petruccho got it easy, quickly adapting to "normal" life and even finding some pluses in his new job (even if it involves wearing banana costume), while Nata (who represents a bee sitting on the flower) must work close to a freezer, with half of her costume being just swimsuit. There were two other girls, but they quickly fell sick, and she is close to follow them.
Blessed with Suck: What the Glass Guardian turns out to be; yes, it allows you to relive the best five minutes of your past life... but then you would be taken back into the cruel reality, knowing that the past is gone and would never return. When Matvey breaks the Glass Guardian during the battle, before realising that Matvey is still here, Arey gets visibly shaken, perhaps even... crying. When he notices Matvey, he says that he just "ruined everything"; instead of killing Matvey, he teleports him away.
Broken Pedestal: Invoked by Essiorkh, who wants Ulitha to finally realise that Arey isn't that heroic figure she knows. She tries to insist that Arey would never betray her and there must be an explanation, but fails to find it after actually meeting him.
Bullying a Dragon: Necromancer or not, Matvey really should be more careful and not blatantly insult the literal grim reaper, especially if she has his heart with her.
The Bus Came Back: Anna's long absence finally gets explained; she changed her phone number and moved to Podmoskovie (Moscow suburb). Now, she reestablishes contact with Edya and invites him to visit her, which he gladly accepts.
Chekhov's Gun: With so much attention dedicated to the Glass Guardian not being broken, it was inevitable that this is exactly what would happen. Arey forgets to hide it away before duel with Matvey, and, due to showing off instead of just killing him right away, lets him to notice it and destroy.
The Exile: As a punishment for betraying the Valkyries' trust, Fulona orders Matvey to leave and never come back — and stay away from Irka. If he ignores the warning, he would be destroyed, no matter which Valkyrie would spot him (even Buhthla). They started patrolling around the Irka's hideout, and, once Matvey gets busted by Buhthla, she explains in more details why exactly they are doing this, and allows him to safely leave this once.
Happier Home Movie: The Glass Guardian, when broken, allows to relive the happiest five seconds of your life... but only once. That's why Arey is afraid to use it, and why he feels so devastated once it actually shatters, and those five seconds ends.
I Lied: Aida was never in power to kill Matvey, no matter what her agreement with Mirowood was, because it was with Mirowood, not Matvey, who had no power over his student's life and death, no matter what he thought himself. Even physically destroying his heart wouldn't do anything because it's not longer a part of him, just some dead meat, and whatever Matvey felt was just a phantom pain at most.
I Resemble That Remark!: When Buhthla jokingly accuses Ilga of being unable to just neutrally accept anything as is and move on, instead of starting overthinking it, and uses a pan as an example — normal people would just accept a pan, or ignore it altogether, while Ilga would start thinking about the optimal way to make a pan, or which country produces better pans, or how to organise a pan factory — Ilga starts arguing with her that the pan factory is not a profitable business; then she starts bringing up the other arguments, only to realise mid-speech that she does exactly what Buhthla just stated.
Kick the Dog: Not only Ziggy forces Ulitha to come back to serving as (now his) secretary on the threat of physical destruction (just when Ulitha seemingly broke away from her past and started living with Essiorkh) — he forces Arey to sign up the order. It serves absolutely no purpose other than spite Arey and show him his place.
Love Triangle: Praskovia still didn't give up on Mefodiy; she tries to force him into kissing her — right when and where Daphne can see them (but not hearing anything about Mefodiy being blackmailed into that). Now, Mefodiy must somehow make Daphne to forgive him.
Neutrality Backlash: As yet another reminder that attempts to remain "neutral" to the conflict between the Light and Darkness would never end well for you, Aida Plakhovna reveals that Matvey's mentor Mirowood, a wizard who believed that there are no bad powers, only bad uses for them, ended in Tartarus after all.
An Offer You Can't Refuse: To replace Matvey's heart with the Path Stone, Mirowood made a deal with Aida. Now, Aida is here, with Matvey's real heart, and offers it back — on condition that he would steal one old coat (she refuses to explain why she needs it) from Fulona's house. Matvey may refuse, but then Aida would "remember" that technically he's supposed to be long dead by now... Then it gets subverted when it turns out that Aida never had a power to kill Matvey (not in the last turn because that heart isn't even part of him anymore, just some dead meat), and whatever agreement Mirowood had with her changes nothing, so everything of this was just a bluff.
Old Flame Fizzle: Igor Buslaev (Mefodiy's father) returns after yet another of his "business plans" went south, since he has nowhere else to live. Zozo reluctantly accepts him for one night.
A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Inverted; Ziggy wants specifically Arey to kill Mefodiy because he used to be his mentor until Mefodiy defected and turned to good. He knows that the Light wouldn't forbid Mefodiy from accepting the challenge, specifically because Arey used to be Mefodiy's Evil Mentor.
Puppet King: Ligul plans to make Praskovia the official Queen of Darkness very soon; what no one but his closest supporters knows is that she would become the mindless puppet of his. Only thing which can ruin his triumph is the fact that Mefodiy is still alive (even if he's now actually weaker than Praskovia), so the Valkyries sends Irka to guard him.
Redemption Equals Death: Matvey tries to challenge Arey on a duel, knowing that he stands no chance, to atone himself in at least that way. It doesn't go as he wanted because Arey has little motivation to kill him, and uses that time to show off, which, in turn, allows Matvey to notice the Glass Guardian and hit it, thinking that it's something important for the Darkness. As result, Arey, instead of killing him, knocks him out and teleports him into Novy Oskol.
Ship Tease: Varvara starts gradually accepting Cornelius' clumsy flirting attempts. She still thinks that he's a dork, but a cute dork, and no longer tries to kick his ass on the spot. She also protects him from Arey, who didn't react well to him (though she's still unaware that they are related).
The Speechless: Praskovia is still unable to really speak, but she already tries, even if she remains incomprehensible for now, to Mefodiy's surprise.
Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Halfway into the book, Arey, on Ziggy's orders, challenges Mefodiy to fight him to the death.
Too Awesome to Use: Aida Plakhovna "hires" Matvey to steal Fulona's old coat — not for the coat itself, but for the glass figure which resembles Arey (the titular "Glass Guardian"), which she then gifts to Arey, who lost it long time ago. What's so special about it? When broken, it allows to relive the best five minutes of your past life once again... but only once. Arey is just too afraid to try and use it, knowing that he has only once chance.
Toxic Friend Influence: When Matvey tries to visit Irka despite Fulona exiling him, he gets confronted by Buhthla, who explains why he's not allowed to return: the Valkyries thinks that Matvey negatively affects Irka; he, even if unwillingly, tempts her to break the rules, which may be catastrophic for someone like her. He doesn't deserve the trust Irka puts on him, because he just keeps failing her, and the Valkyries would rather kill him than take any risks. And Buhthla is kind enough to explain this; any other Valkyrie would skip straight to the killing.
Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Fulona may be willing to forgive the stealing itself, but not the fact that Matvey did this before her (and Irka's) back, in service to the Darkness (that he was blackmailed into it, or that it did no damage, because he stole nothing of value, doesn’t matter) — she knows that after the first time, would be the second, the third, etc — betrayers never stops at just one betrayal. If she or any other Valkyrie (including Buhthla) would see him near Irka again, he wouldn't escape alive. In fact, he is only allowed to leave with his life now because he confessed before Fulona noticed by herself.

The Dance of the Sword tropes

Act of True Love: Arey's act of self-sacrifice shows even to Essiorkh that, perhaps, not all hope for him is lost.
Asshole Victim: No one sheds a single tear when Praskovia finally kills off Romasyusik, even if in gruesome manner; he had it coming.
Bait-and-Switch: Did Orl and his thugs just effortlessly killed Arey in the very first chapter? Nope; Arey managed to put a spell which switched his look with Orl, who was then stubbed in the eye and almost beheaded. Then Arey puts down the mask, and kills both thugs in less than a minute.
Batman Gambit: Ligul is aware that the Light would start searching for the other Drevnir's relics, and even helps them with obtaining the shield, by putting it where they would find it. Why? Because the Darkness has already corrupted them, so now he just needs for the forces of Light to collect them together and give them to Mefodiy, so the sword would have a chance to kill Troil.
Beyond the Impossible: It was previously established that the Dark Guardians can't redeem themselves due to being fundamentally unable to even willing to try to change for the better... and yet Arey lets Mefodiy to kill him, knowingly condemning himself, but saving many others. Even Essiorkh, who insisted on it the most, starts doubting wether the Dark Guardians are absolutely irredeemable.
Bittersweet Ending: Arey sacrifices his life and dies from Mefodiy's hands, damning himself to Tartarus. However, in doing so, he saves Mefodiy (who was doomed to die in the duel), Ulitha (who was bound to serve the Darkness until Arey's death), and Varvara (who was vulnerable due to her ties to Arey). Also, Ligul finally loses the last threads he used to manipulate Praskovia.
Call-Back: Remembering how Gopziy was killed in The Stairway to Eden, Ligul takes precautions for Mefodiy's duel with Arey, and creates the ring of magic fire around the arena; no one would go in — or out — until the fight is done and one of them dies.
Character Catchphrase: Eishoban the All-Knowing always says the same phrase when he tries to press the people into wishing something (which he may then use against them):
I would find anything you wish — but woe to you if you wouldn't want to take it!
The Corrupter: Turns out that just mere presence of Arey near Varvara negatively affects her, causing her to show the worse traits and suppressing the better ones. Arey eventually realises that if he wants the better future for his daughter, he must stay away — not in the last turn because once Ligul realises who she is, he would exploit Arey to corrupt her.
Crippling Overspecialisation: One of the thugs whom Orl hired to escort him was armed with a mace which resembles an eagle head. That head somehow blocks any attacks of Arey's sword... and only of Arey's sword. When Arey takes the other sword from one of the thugs, it ceases to be of any use, and mace's owner dies in less than a minute.
Cupid's Arrow: In this verse, cupids may use their arrows to forcibly cause people to fall in love with each other; their motives for this vary between good and outright mischievous. That cupid who visits Zozo and Igor shoots them both, causing near extinguished spark of their life to resurrect in flames again.
De-power: All Loner Valkyries have three lives — one for the swan, one for the wolf, and one for themselves, giving them more chances to survive in the dire situations. Unfortunately, two out of three Irka's lives ended at once (one when Tartarian assassin hit her, and one when he killed her swan form). Irka herself survives thanks to the last form... but she's no longer a Valkyrie. And without being a Valkyrie, she no longer can walk...
Determinator: The Path Stone once again goes into play. This time, Troil wants to give it to Praskovia, to give her the strength to resist Ligul's corruption and break from his influence, to forge her own path. For that reason, they need Matvey.
Dismantled MacGuffin: For the last battle, just Drevnir's sword (that one which now belongs to Mefodiy) alone wouldn't be enough; Mefodiy needs also Drevnir's shield and sheath. It's obvious why he needs the shield (it, quite predictably, contains the defensive magic), but why he needs the sheath? Because it would amplify the sword's power — and control its Blood Knight tendencies. The shield was retrieved by the Light Guardians from Tibidokhs, the sword is already in Mefodiy's hands... but no one knows where to find the sheath.
Duel to the Death: Mefodiy's upcoming duel with Arey (and the final preparations to give Mefodiy at least some chances) is the main focus of the book. It finally occurs in the climax and ends with Arey letting Mefodiy to kill him.
Easily Forgiven: Matvey's exile in the previous book was seemingly permanent, but right from the start of this one Troil personally comes on Earth and orders to accept him back, stating that he is "forgiven", without explaining why. The Valkyries, naturally, object to it, but Troil refuses to listen to their objections, especially since, wether they like it or not, they still need him for one specific reason — he possesses the Path Stone.
Evil Makes You Ugly: Ligul was not born an ugly hunchback dwarf; his own evil corrupted his body to match his ugly soul. Similarly, Kvodnon was one of the prettiest ones... but evil made half of his body look like mummified corpse.
Exact Words: Ulitha's contract was not with the Darkness itself, but with Arey personally. Now, when he's dead, nothing may force her to serve the Darkness again, nor they have powers to kill her. She's finally free.
Fallen Angel: We finally learn the origin of the first Dark Guardians, specifically Kvodnon, Ligul, Hoors and Arey. All of them used to be the Light Guardians, but rebelled and were exiled from Eden. Not being able to live without the Light, they started hunting for eidoses to replace what they've lost with a small sparks of Light each eidos contains. Troil wasn't surprised at Kvodnon and Ligul degrading so fast... but was very surprised — and disappointed — when Arey followed them.
Flying Postman: Sweet Tooth Cupids from the Tanya Grotter returns, this time to deliver the mail to Edya from Three-Thumbelina, his old "friend".
Heel Realisation: When Daphne says Whimper's true name (Aueviallao), it has a devastating effect on him, reminding him of his true purpose he once betrayed, becoming a demon. He completely drops his usual pretty appearance and mannerism, becoming the ugly, deformed creature who's only able to quietly ask to never say this again, before leaving to never reappear again.
Heroic Suicide: By letting Mefodiy to kill him, Arey achieves several goals: breaking Ulitha's ties with the Darkness, finally making her free to live a normal life; protecting Varvara from Ligul; and, of course, screwing Ligul over with his plan to kill Mefodiy to cement Praskovia's (and thus, his) rule. He does it, knowing full well that he would damn himself, but he doesn't care anymore. Essiorkh insists that it was done more for selfish reasons than to save anyone, but he's not entirely sure.
I Know Your True Name: Daphne learns Whimper's true name and calls him by it in order to force him into giving up the sheath. It works, but Whimper reacts with extreme shock, and, after doing what he was asked for, slowly goes to the balcony and jumps from it, disappearing without a trace. Essiorkh presumes that Daphne accidentally reminded him about his true purpose which he betrayed when started serving the Darkness, and it was too much for him to bear. It's unknown what happens to him afterwards, but Daphne reacts as if she actually killed him.
I'm Melting!: When Praskovia learns that Romasyusik spies on her for Lilgul, she literally melts him completely, sending him straight to Tartarus. And we know from the previous novels that she made him able to feel pain, so this death was likely agonising.
Internal Reveal: Since Irka is no longer a Valkyrie, her magic no longer protects her identity, allowing Mefodiy to identify his old friend whom he presumed to be dead or at least missing, to his shock.
Jackass Genie: Eishoban the All-Knowing, the King of Jinn, likes to force people into wishing something (if they wouldn't, he would kill them on the spot), and then fulfilling those wishes in such a manner that they still needs to do something to reach what they desire... despite not being able to, for various reasons. Then he still kills them for "refusing" his gifts. The first person he encounters after being released is Varvara, who "wishes" for treasure — and he tells her about the one in the sealed away basement far away from here, after which he puts her on ridiculously short time limit. She only gets saved by the timed intervention of the Deprived One, which needs her alive.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: When Irka loses her ability to walk once again, it's Petruccho, of all people, who somehow obtains a great-quality wheelchair, allowing her as much mobility as possible. He was not even a friend with her in the past, neither he was much of a friend with Mefodiy.
Killed Offscreen: We only learn about Romasyusik's death after the fact, from Praskovia.
My Greatest Failure:
- The Deprived One who haunts Arey contains seven shades of people killed by Arey; of them, one — and only one — was innocent, which Arey realised too late to prevent his death, but whose name he since forgot. That one soul intentionally sabotages the efforts of the other six to harm Arey or Varvara, and gives him hints in order to help him remember that one name. Arey has three possible variants — someone who accidentally publicly insulted him with poorly thought joke, forcing Arey to kill him to preserve face; someone who was killed when Arey mistook his attempt to protect him for betrayal; and someone whom he killed over a woman, realising too late that the woman actually loved Arey more. In the end, Arey picks the second variant, which turns out to be correct.
- The fellow biker, whom Essiorkh knows only as "Gloomy", keeps around a disabled dog (its entire rear end is paralysed, including legs and tail). Why? Because some time ago, when he was, once again, drunk like a pig, he threw that dog (much smaller back then) out of the window (right through the glass), from the third floor. Dog has survived (albeit crippled), and... still managed to forgive him. This allowed him to realise that he was at his absolute lowest point, and change for the better. He keeps the dog around ever since, to never forget how low the man can fall. He also quit drinking since then.
Non-Protagonist Resolver: Not even having all three artifacts allows Mefodiy to defeat Arey legitimately. He only survives because Arey decides to pull a Suicide by Cop, and even then Arey manages to die on his own terms by making a strike which would have killed Mefodiy if not for Arey stopping at the last moment, which Mefodiy notices.
Not-So-Harmless Villain: It was repeatedly stated ever since the first book that Mefodiy's sword is now a dark sword with quite a taste for blood and murder, yet he continues using it (mostly) just fine even after defecting to the Light. Then, just at the worst moment possible, the sword takes over and hits Troil at its own accord, almost killing him and leading to Mefodiy finally realising why the weapon of Dark can't be used as the weapon of Light.
Obi-Wan Moment: Arey comes to realisation that the only way he may save people he cares about is by losing that last duel against Mefodiy. When the time comes, he fights for just long enough to "formally" win (he purposely ignores the perfect opportunity to kill Mefodiy, and hits him just hard enough for him to notice), and then "misses" another strike and gets beheaded (surprising Mefodiy, who already prepared to die). He uses the last moment before the strike to give Mefodiy one final advice:
Arey: Remember, Lord Tomato, self-pity is the root of all evil.
Off with His Head!: Mefodiy kills Arey by beheading him.
Our Ghosts Are Different: Deprived Ones are the spectral beings, composed out of spirits ("shades") of several Dark Guardians. They have no body, are damned to suffer the eternal agony, and are nearly insane, but can provide the unique services if summoned, though this also puts the summoner at huge risk. They can only do anything as long as every shade composing it agrees on it, which quite often leads to them doing nothing.
Public Execution: Ligul sets up the arena and gathers many witnesses for Mefodiy's duel with Arey, intending to make Mefodiy's defeat and death public — and thus all the more humiliating for the Light. It backfires on him when Mefodiy survives, and Arey dies.
Relationship Upgrade: Since Irka is no longer a Valkyrie, nothing prevents her from being with Matvey, who stays with her even now, when she loses her ability to walk once again, and helps Babanya to care for her. He even learns how to drive so they can travel together, sparing her the old life of a hermit.
Sanity Slippage: Third-Thumbelina didn't take well that Edya has forgot to say her "happy birthday" (never mind that his memory was erased), and sends him a cursed snow globe which allegedly contains "Edya's happiness". Now, Edya obsessively watches into it, consumed by his delusions, while in real life he is aggressive, unshaved and with bloodied eyes. This is because the sphere slowly sucks his mind and soul inside. Fortunately for him, Mefodiy visits his relatives just in time to destroy the globe.
The Stool Pigeon: To surprise of no one, it turns out that Romasyusik spies on Praskovia on Ligul's orders. It ends up the last straw for Praskovia, who kills him on the spot.
Suicide by Cop: After technically winning the duel (Arey penetrated Mefodiy's defence and only stopped from outright killing him because he wanted so), Arey makes a rookie mistake (which, as Mefodiy realises, was done on purpose), allowing Mefodiy to behead him. Essiorkh later tells him that this was Arey's last "screw you" to Ligul, who wanted Arey to kill Mefodiy.
Symbolic Weapon Discarding: After killing Arey, Mefodiy abandons his sword in disgust, cutting the last thread which tied him to the old life.
Takes One to Kill One: Troil was near-fatally wounded by the Light-turned-Dark sword. The only way to cure him is to use the different, Dark-turned-Light (well, at least somewhat) sword... which turns out to be Arey's one.
Thanatos Gambit: Arey planned to lose his duel against Mefodiy right from the start. Besides helping many people (Mefodiy, Ulitha, Varvara, Troil), either directly or indirectly, it also destroys Ligul's seemingly perfect plan.
Took a Level in Kindness: Troil finally returns Ulitha her eidos, making her significantly nicer and friendlier than before (she even starts cooking). Essiorkh was very surprised until Troil (who stayed at his house to wait for him) explained everything to him.
The Unreveal: We would never learn what was so special about the person whom Arey killed and who became one of the shadows composing the Deprived One, only the circumstances about the death.
We ARE Struggling Together: That specific Deprived One who was summoned by Puffs to search for the sheath just keeps running into problems because out of seven shades composing it, one always disagrees with the rest, making them unable to do anything (they can only act if they reach a consensus; forcing the stubborn one is possible, but very hard and takes much time). This is because that seventh shade is more interested in forcing Arey to remember the name of that one victim whom he killed for the crime he didn't commit, than their task.
We Used to Be Friends: Troil is old enough to remember Arey before his downfall. He never was a good musician, but was a beautiful flier.
Wham Episode:
- Irka loses her Valkyrie abilities, permanently and irreversibly — including ability to walk.
- Arey, one of the most prominent characters, introduced all the way back into the first book, gets killed by Mefodiy. After the duel, Mefodiy abandons Drevnir's sword permanently, severing his last tie to the old life.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Mefodiy is too attached to his sword (the weapon of Darkness) to actually start climbing to Light; it also makes him thinking of himself as a Master Swordsman, which is two steps from plain pride, similarly to Arey. And this is with just the sword! Troil is afraid that if he receives the shield (which would provide him with protection) and the sheath (which would amplify both the sword and Mefodiy's control over it), he may descend into full-blown "I'm invincible" mindset unless he gives them up right after duel. This becomes a moot point because Mefodiy grows to hate the sword by that point, finally seeing that it's indeed evil.
You Kill It, You Bought It: Troil is afraid that if Mefodiy kills Arey and feels pride over it (Arey is the First Sword of Darkness and his former mentor, after all), it would result in Mefodiy putting himself on the route to become the second Arey.

The Fire Gates tropes

Anger Born of Worry: Rrhadulga reacts to her squire's death by starting yelling at him and calling him a moron, then runs away. It immediately gets recognised as defensive reaction; she would break in tears afterwards.
Arc Villain: Mefodiy's main antagonist (at least, until the end) is Victor Shilov, Ligul's new champion.
Big Bad Wannabe: Ligul thinks that he may exploit Kvodnon for his own goals. Unfortunately for him, Kvodnon immediately learns (from Shilov) about Ligul's involvement, realises that Ligul plans to achieve and is not particularly happy with being Ligul's chess piece. Kvodnon plans to deal with Ligul once he gets rid of the other enemies.
Big Guy Fatality Syndrome: To show just how dire the situation is, Taamag gets killed during the Dark Guardians' assault on the Fire Gates. It took Zigya (controlled by Ziggy Puffs) to defeat her, and even then, since she didn't resist, it's unknown wether Zigya would win in actual combat or not.
Blackmail: To force Irka into compliance, Aida Plakhovna blatantly threatens to kill people she cares about. She has full control over Matvey's new heart, and may stop it at any time (which she demonstrates when Irka starts thinking it was a bluff); and she knows that Babanya has the heart issues...
Chekhov's Gun:
- Mefodiy's new sword, the Demid's spat, would only work in the hands of someone truly hating the Darkness, including their own internal one. Mefodiy failed to use it twice and started thinking that it's useless... but in the final battle it actually works great against Kvodnon, despite him possessing Shilov — it hits Kvodnon, and only Kvodnon, leaving the mortal body intact.
- A little toy soldier Zigya keeps wearing on his neck? It gets lost in the middle of the book, and later found by Shilov — which in the very end attracts Zigya's attention... and results in them identifying each other as two long lost friends, provoking Shilov's Heel–Face Turn.
Deal with the Devil: Aida Plakhovna would both give Matvey a real heart (this time, working one) and restore Irka's legs, but in return he should give up the Path Stone. This unsurprisingly leads to dare consequences, for both of them. To add insult into injury, the Valkyries already found the way to restore Irka's legs and allowing her to join their ranks in the another role, making it completely unnecessary.
Demonic Possession: Kvodnon has no body of his own, nor he can manifest as a spirit after what was done to him by Irka, but Ligul has another plan — open the Fire Gates for just long enough to let Kvodnon escape and possess a mortal body; with Kvodnon on their side, the Darkness would triumph over the Light once again. Then Ligul would be sucked back, allowing Ligul to rip the fruits of his work without having an Omnicidal Maniac around.
Determined Defeatist: Mefodiy was absolutely sure that he would die when he attend the duel with Arey, because, well, it's Arey. This sureness was so strong, Mefodiy actually created a spiritual copy of himself which was sent behind the Fire Gates the moment when Arey has spared him (instead of killing as was expected). Mefodiy actually encounters that copy when he briefly gets sucked out by the Fire Gates, and gets frustrated by the copy's stubborn insistence on keeping some throne over self-preservation, until he realises that this copy symbolises his own negative traits, in particular, his infamous stubbornness.
Difficult, but Awesome: The Demid's spat only works when its user truly wants to vanquish the Darkness, including their internal one, but when it does work, it makes wonders. Since Mefodiy still has problems with developing required mindset, it obviously fails for him most of the time.
Disc-One Final Boss: While Victor Shilov is the main antagonist for most of the book, in the end he gets hijacked by Kvodnon, and the last chapter is dedicated to finding a way to banish him.
Empowered Badass Normal: Victor Shilov was already quite badass (otherwise he wouldn't have survived in Tartarus without any magic or any support from Ligul), but Ligul plans to suck out former Kvodnon's powers from Praskovia and Mefodiy and give them to Victor, which, in combination with him already being a master swordsman, would make him the best candidate for Ligul's new champion. Add here Kvodnon's wrath, and you would receive something truly invincible.
Energy Absorption: Ligul’s plan involves giving Petruccho, Nata and Eugesha the magic rings which would fulfil their small wishes, but at the cost of sucking out Mefodiy’s powers — which would be absorbed by Shilov. For the plan to work, they must be aware that they do so at Mefodiy's expense, yet do it anyway. Ligul doesn't even need to suck all power; just enough to give Shilov an advantage in upcoming battle.
Eviler than Thou: When Kvodnon learns that Ligul tries to use him as his pawn, he comments on that he should show the dwarf his place once he deals with Mefodiy. He never gets a chance to do it, as Mefodiy successfully banishes him.
Facial Horror: When Taamag was hit with the arrow in her face, book provides "lovely" description of the damage she suffered: it sliced her cheek and broke couple of teeth.
Half the Man He Used to Be: Ziggy (while controlling Zigya) kills Taamag by slicing her in half (and also slicing a nearby tree with the same hit). She doesn't try to resist.
Heel–Face Turn: Not that she was much of a villain anyway, but Praskovia severed all ties with Ligul after events of the previous book, and stayed (along with Zigya) in Moscow. Ligul has no illusions: his plan to set her as a Puppet King completely failed.
Hellgate: The titular Fire Gates are some sort of a "shadow" (as Troil puts it) of the Dreadful Gates, which manifests on Earth approximately every 200 years in random places (this time, of course, in Moscow) in material form. For the dead, the Fire Gates are active all the time, since whenever anyone dies, their spirit and eidos goes here to face judgement, but the living may go through the Fire Gates only while they are physically present on Earth; this is a huge risk by itself, but, what's more important, it allows to take the passenger with you when you go outside...
Henpecked Husband: While it was already established that Moshkin is pathologically unsure in himself, his girlfriend Katia puts it a step further, by "giving" him his opinions, and he never tries to argue, even if he secretly disagrees with what she says. If Katia says that Eugesha loves green tea, then he loves it; the fact that he actually hates it doesn't matter, and wouldn't be voiced.
Hitler Ate Sugar: Invoked by Ziggy Puffs; he sends succubi (as disgusting as possible) to advertise morally-right things, in hope that people would start associating them with something disgusting and start disliking them (family, virtuous life, etc).
Humanity Ensues: The risk of Daphne being on the edge of losing her immortality and becoming human was brought up multiple times across the series, but she never was as close to it actually happening as this time. Essiorkh estimates this happening (if she wouldn't leave to Eden now) in two-three months at best. This time, she finally does leave to Eden.
If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: Ligul wouldn't make the same mistake again; he only continues with the plan if Victor really damns himself. Ligul forces him to kill his demonic ostrich Ar instead of just letting it go as Victor suggested to demonstrate that he is truly loyal. One of Ligul's supporters, Belviazer, questions wether it was a good idea, considering possibility that Victor would start hating Ligul for it, but Ligul dismisses that, stating that wether he hates him or not is irrelevant — once he commits such betrayal, it would be easy to break him further; once you start falling, it's hard to stop.
Ironic Hell: The Fire Gates' "judgement" forces you to face every single one of your past crimes, every single one of your past sins, and trap you in agony of eternal repetition of the same mistakes over and over again, only this time you would commit them against yourself.
It Only Works Once: Gelatha's spear may heal someone "not approved", but exactly once; afterwards it would lose its powers permanently and irreversibly. She's aware of this and resists temptation to help everyone, but it's very painful.
Jackass Genie: The wish-fulfilling rings fulfil whatever you ask for "the easiest way possible". What it means? When Petruccho's wish for the private island with surface-to-air missile system fails due to being too complex, he simplifies ti to "just island"... and the ring achieves it by breaking the water pipes in apartments above his, causing his house to become flooded.
Killed Off for Real:
- Kvodnon absorbed what was left of Chuma Del-Thort (recurring antagonist from the Tanya Grotter series).
- Turns out that when Tartarian assassin tried to kill Irka, he destroyed the swan form of not just Irka, but of the Loner Valkyrie; the new Loner, Dasha, lacks the swan form, and so would be any new one.
Last Stand: Realising that she stands no chance, Taamag prepares to strike down as many Dark Guardians as she can before expiring. She actually nearly survives until the reinforcement arrives, but Ziggy Puffs uses recently re-captured Zigya to kill her at the last moment.
Leeroy Jenkins: Rhadulga's squire, in attempt to avenge for Taamag, breaks the line and attacks the Dark Guardians by alone. He immediately gets his arm chopped off, and then receives countless more cuts, which quickly kills him.
Loophole Abuse: The Maiden of the Triple Spear technically isn't a Valkyrie herself, and thus, is free from some of their restrictions; namely, there's no magic protecting her identity, nor she's required to keep celibacy — which means, Irka is completely free to keep dating Matvey.
Martial Pacifist: After losing her previous squire to his Leeroy Jenkins tendencies, Radhulga choses for the new one a calm, cautions nerd who normally deals with computers, not combat. He is aware of dangers he would face (otherwise, he wouldn't become a squire), but it's obvious that Radhulga aims to find the exact opposite of her old squire, to not face the same situation again.
Morality Chain: Essiorkh considers that love to Irka (and him continuing caring for her ever since she was re-disabled) is the only thing which prevents Matvey from descending into Darkness.
No Longer with Us: When asked where "Dasha" (Daphne) is, Mefodiy (who just told her to leave to Eden for her own safety) answers, without thinking, that she's "in heaven". Then he realises how it was interpreted and says that it was just a bad joke.
No-Sell: Kvodnon, even without his full power, manages to effortlessly reflect the Valkyries' spears.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Ligul tells about the Fire Gates, even Attila and Tamerlane, the resident Living Props, react with shock: the Gates are that important.
Powerful and Helpless: Gelatha can heal almost anything thanks to her spear, but, if not counting her healing the damage done by the servants of Darkness, she may only use it on those mortals who were chosen by the Light — and letting the others to live or die by themselves. And the Light nearly universally picks someone who seemingly deserves it much less (so yes, it's indeed the true that the death takes away the best ones). For example, out of the kind old man, young guy and rude, loud asshole, Light chose the latter one. Why? Because the first one would end up in Eden anyway; the second one has issues, and it's better to die now, while he has the best chances to not end up in Tartarus, than let them develop further and damn him; but the third one is, well, an utter asshole, and, unless given a chance to redeem himself, whatever slim, would end up in Tartarus — and the Light would never damn you if you still may redeem yourself. Gelatha is aware of this, but still suffers, because she can't help the ones who really deserves to live.
Put on a Bus: Daphne leaves to Eden early on. She remains absent for entire duration of the story, including the end.
Relationship Upgrade:
- To end any doubts that Essiorkh and Ulitha are finally free to stay together, and nothing would break them apart, they've consummated their relationship and now awaiting a son.
- After several books of uncertainty, Edya finally married Anna, and now lives with her in suburb. He also quit working (or, rather, pretending that he works, and going from one restaurant to another) as a waiter.
The Reveal: Zigya (whose real name is Nikita) was younger of the two children who played at the construction site long time ago (older one was Victor Shilov). Due to Victor's mistake, he fell into a deep hole and was injured, potentially fatally. Victor run away, and, fearing the possible punishment more than possible death of his friend, remained silent, which resulted in Nikita never being found. Shilov was later abducted by Ligul who raised him as his champion... while Nikita was "saved" by Aida Plakhovna, and eventually turned up as Ziggy Puffs' servant.
Sadistic Choice: Daphne is as close to irreversibly becoming a human (mortal human) as she never was before, and since she almost certainly would choose Mefodiy over her wings if asked, Essiorkh leaves the choice to Mefodiy himself: would he prefer staying with Daphne — and doom her to eventually grow old and die with him; or would he ask her to leave, permanently severing their ties, but saving her? And Mefodiy has only one day to decide; either Daphne would return to Eden tomorrow, or wouldn't return at all. Mefodiy chose to send Daphne away.
The Sixth Ranger: The Maiden of the Tripled Spear, while technically not a Valkyrie herself, still assists them and has some of their benefits. That Tripled Spear (three spears combined into one, purposed for close combat) was considered lost for centuries, but was found now, allowing Irka to join the battle once more.
Sole Survivor: Irka finds a bag with dead puppies inside (someone has tried to drown them)... and a single living one, albeit very weak. She adopts him and tries to rise him; she calls him Mick.
Something Only They Would Say: Arey has protected his posthumous message to Mefodiy with magic, which would kill anyone trying to open it, unless they answer the certain questions correctly. Most questions are serious, which Mefodiy passed flawlessly. The last one is about Mefodiy's girlfriend, with the options being Daphne, Praskovia, or... Beba The Rosy from Yuck-Yack tribe. Mefodiy, tired of constant questions, disregards all risks and takes that last option just out of irritation... and the scroll accepts him as the real Mefodiy, because only he would screw himself like this for no good reason.
Training from Hell: Victor was Ligul's "plan C" right from the start; unlike Praskovia, who was pampered to not let her develop past a Womanchild she's now (which resulted in her not having any loyalties to Ligul and quickly abandoning him at the first opportunity), Victor was risen in extremely harsh conditions, which can be summarised as "kill or be killed" — all so he may be used as Ligul's new champion.
Trauma Button: Mefodiy is no longer willing to use swords, since they just brings up the memories about him killing Arey. He reluctantly accepts katar Arey (posthumously) gifted him as a replacement weapon, despite it being the Dark weapon, too. Even after Essiorkh gives him the Demid's spat, Mefodiy prefers the katar, since at least it's reliably effective, unlike the spat.
Uniqueness Decay: The Talisman of Four Elements, introduced in the first Tanya Grotter book (that one which was able to open the Dreadful Gates) was supposedly one of a kind. Now, it turns out that replicating it isn't even that hard; it's just that no one but Chuma-del-Thort ever tried to open them, and the Talisman has no other use. Though ultimately it turns out that there's a simpler way to accomplish the goal — the Path Stone.
Would Hurt a Child: To save his own life, Tukhlomon offers Wolgengluck (who wants revenge against Essiorkh for previous humiliating defeat and injury) to obtain eidos of Ulitha's unborn son. Wolgengluck accepts, and sets a time limit for doing so.
Year Inside, Hour Outside: Behind the Fire Gates lies a separate reality of some sort; for outside world, even the Eden and Tartarus, it seems to be instant; behind the Fire Gates, it's longer than eternity.

The Book of Seven Roads tropes

Accentuate the Negative: Ligul has several clay figures, depicting the key enemies he wants to terminate (Mefodiy, Daphne, Victor, etc). These figures were made in such a way what they hide all positive traits, while accentuating all the negative ones, making them look kinda sinister and vile. Narration attributes it to them being made by someone who hates those people, and thus sees only bad in them.
Anti-Magic:
- The Garn's pernach can disable the magic abilities of any magic weapon.
- One of the main qualities of the Verd's singing axe is its ability to, well, sing, which somehow disables most magolodies (except for the most powerful ones).
All Crimes Are Equal: The Leber's flute, amongst its other qualities (like the ability to work in the airless conditions, or allowing its owner to breath underwater), has extreme sense of justice, and often reacts very badly when witnesses it. How extreme can it be? It's rumoured what it was behind Carthage's destruction: after one guy cheated the other by paying with fake coin, it "punished" him by opening the gates for Roman army.
Arc Number: Seven.
- The titular Seven Roads refer to so-called "seven roads of Darkness" (the power, the pleasure, the fear, the mockery, the denial, the adaptation, and the indifference), opposed by the "seven roads of Light" (the mercy, the wisdom, the learning, the correction of mistakes, the patience, the simplicity and the love).
- There are exactly seven Guardians trapped in the Book originally, exactly seven magical weapons, and exactly seven new victims who are supposed to be sucked into it.
Arc Villain: The three necromancers are the main antagonists of the chapters set up in the Book.
Armor-Piercing Attack:
- Garn's pernach can "defeat" any artifact sword, no matter how powerful, and force its user to drop it (from which those swords are normally protected).
- The Shosh's pilum is invisible when you throw it, but its main advantage is the ability to penetrate nearly any magic defence: out of four exceptions Arey mentions, two are unique named artifacts, one is too overcomplicated to be of any use, and the last one are the Valkyries' shields. Notably, it's amongst the few weapons capable of penetrating the defence set up by the the Korn's pipe.
- The Alder's knife can cut any normal armour like wet paper; your only hope is to distract it.
Batman Gambit: Knowing what Cornelius always fails to deliver the mail in time, Sniffer deliberately summoned Essiorkh earlier, to compensate for Cornelius being late.
Batter Up!: Essiorkh uses baseball bat to smash Shokhus into ugly slimy mass. Then he burns what remains with the magic fire... along with the most equipment used by the succubus, to Varvara's annoyance (she planned to sell it).
Beige Prose: Docent Zamruschew only respects those who can can explain their thoughts without wasting time on unnecessary words. If you fail to answer your questions during exam within ten seconds, it's an instant failure grade for you.
Zamruschew: If the man can't say their thoughts in three-five sentences, they have no thoughts!
Berserk Button: Katia makes a mistake of saying what "[she] thought what Ulitha is fat and ugly". Ulitha materialises a brick in her hand, ready to strike her, but Katia saves herself in the last moment by saying what Ulitha turns out to be "fat and pretty". This calms Ulitha down just enough to postpone the execution for now.
The Berserker: The Garn's pernach can disarm anyone, no matter how strong their sword's magic is, but it quickly comes out of control during battle, starting attacking people on its own accord, often disregarding who is a friend and who is a foe. Arey recommends to avoid using it when fighting as a team.
Blatant Lies: Ust Dunken says what they are forcing people to kill each other to fight overpopulation of their artificial world. The world where they can create whatever they want out of nowhere, and where there are only seven people besides them. Obviously, it fails to convince anyone.
Born Unlucky: One of the students in the same university Mefodiy studies in, Lada, has so bad luck, she was nicknamed "Mrs Trouble" (in English); things fall on her, she gets stuck in the restroom, calm and docile lab rats keep biting her, etc, etc. Due to this, she keeps permanent horrified expression on her face.
The Bus Came Back: Halfway into the book, realising what they have no other way to save Mefodiy from the Book of Seven Roads, Troil reluctantly allows Daphne to return, despite her still not recovering enough and thus being at risk of losing her powers due to succumbing to humanity.
Can't Spit It Out: Eugesha decided to finally breakup with his Control Freak of a girlfriend, Katia. Unfortunately, he's too shy to tell so to her, so he just avoids her as much as possible, hoping what she would pick the hint by herself.
Character Tic: One of the teachers in Mefodiy's university, docent Zamruschew, has the weird habit of repeating things twice, twice. Everyone considers it to be funny, but are sane enough to not tell this to his face.
Chekhov's Gun:
- As and added bonus to his "prize", Matvey has the right to ask Jaff one (and only one) question, to which he must give completely sincere answer. He decides to keep it until later, when he has something to ask, as well as the "prize" itself.
- Irka's legs which she received from "some ballerina" finally come in play, because we learn about the original owner (and her tragic fate), as well as Matvey's new heart — Mamzelkina has complete control over them and uses it to manipulate Irka into doing what she wants.
- Early in their adventure in the Book of Seven Roads, Moshkin, in his usual unsureness, can't decide wether he see the leaf or not, causing it to switch between existing or not; when he does so, everyone feel the weird smell of heated up book pages. In the last battle, he weaponises this method by chaotically switching the things he throws at necromancers, which causes them surprisingly large amount of troubles. He still gets defeated when they realise to just mute him, but they become almost exhausted by that point.
Chekhov's Lecture:
- The old notes leaved by Arey lists various info about the magic weapons related to the Book. Much of that info is simply for flavour, or only gets used for comedy, but some details turns out to be plot-critical:
  - The Garn's pernach can "defeat" any sword, no matter how strong its magic is. Mefodiy injures his finger when trying to par an attack from pernarch-using ghost with his spat, marking him as one of the future victims of the Book.
  - The Leber's flute has the overblown sense of justice. When Moshkin tries to use it in metro (not really expecting it to work), it takes away the shoes from a rich guy and gives them to a hobo, and switches the guy's i-Phone with Varvara's ancient Nokia (Varvara isn't pleased: she values her old phone for sentimental reasons, so she switches back).
  - The Shosh's pilum was stated as one of the few weapons capable of harming the user of the Korn's pipe. Daphne picks the pipe as the last unclaimed weapon, and deliberately wounds her finger via the spear (picked by Mefodiy), thus becoming a seventh "player", all so she can protect Mefodiy. So indirectly, Mefodiy does put her in danger, just like Ligul wanted.
  - The Merokh's flute, amongst other things, protects its user from any poison. This explains why Praskovia didn't suffer from the poison she used against Moshkin.
  - The Alder's pursuing knife pursuers its target relentlessly, but would get distracted to cut some fruits if any shows up on its path. Shilov exploits this ability to survive throughout the book despite its stubborn attempts to kill him by creating new apple trees. In the end, it finally strikes him... in his fruit armour, saving them troubles to search for it.
  - The Verd's singing axe stops abiding its user if not fed with fresh meat on a regular basis. It does exactly that when Shilov tries to kill Petruccho when everyone meets for negotiations, sabotaging his efforts.
  - The Korn's pipe's weak combat skills (and good defensive ones) comes in play when the team confronts the guardian (massive golem-like creature). Daphne manages to stand up when the golem attacks and hold off the creature (when the other two gets blown away), but fails to kill it by herself and requires assistance from the two other flutes. The other two are combat-oriented flute used by Moshkin, and Praskovia's flute which can "correct" any magolody into what it thinks suits better, often exaggerating the effect. This utterly annihilates the golem.
- The lecture about Ostrogonovo Waste and its curse contains some hints at what would happen next. The very first victim died from something resembling werewolf bites, and Essiorkh mentioned two Light Guardians investigating it. Turns out that this location is related to all seven Guardians disappearing and becoming the ghosts who attacked Mefodiy and his friends. The location from where the heroes would be sucked into the Book roughly matches the former Ostrogonovo Waste.
Cliffhanger: Irka's plot ends with her making the first kill as the "junior manager of necrodepartment" (a hopelessly injured cat), but it's clear that this is just the beginning...
Complete Immortality: In any moment of the time, there're always exactly two completely immortal beings of each kind, who always struggle to find each other; possibly, remnants of creation. They do grow older, but can't die of natural cause; if they grow too old, they just reset to infant stage. Haara believes that the puppy whom Irka adopted before, Mick, is one of those immortals. When asked about extinct species (like Dodo), she answers that it's entirely possible that two last Dodos are still alive somewhere, we just didn't search hard enough.
Compulsive Liar: Lada "Mrs Trouble" is a compulsive liar; she just keeps saying the lie no matter what she's asked, to the point that everyone learned to take whatever she says as exactly opposite. It actually takes her much effort to resist saying the lie, even when she actually wants to say the truth.
Control Freak: When Matvey tries to order Mefodiy to leave Irka alone, Mefodiy tells him that this isn't even jealousy: he just tries to control her every step, every word, every thought. Matvey realises that Mefodiy is right... and it makes him even angrier, to the point that he orders Mefodiy to "oath" that he would leave Irka alone, and, when he refuses, attacks him with bare fists.
Cool, but Inefficient: Ligul ordered a new batch of succubi, disguised as small wasps, who would attack individual people and inject them with their venom in order to cause depression. They turned up good in doing just that, but their size made it impossible to insert more than one eidos inside (which they need to actually deliver afterwards). The project was swiftly cancelled, though the surviving ones are still operating.
The Corruptor: Succubus Shokhus, amongst other things, slowly influences the minds of the others by replacing the existing terms for various bad things (anger, perversion, betrayal, etc) with good-sounding terms to make it easier for the people to accept them as something natural, and thus, becoming more corrupt.
Cycle of Revenge: While in the Book (and thus stripped of her memories), Daphne looks on Victor and instantly recognises him as one of those people who distrusts the others, and always attacks first, expecting that otherwise they would try to harm them. This is a bad thing, because by doing so you add even more reasons for them to hate you, only decreasing the chance that they would like you and giving them the actual reasons to harm you. Since the world is unlikely to stop first, you should do it instead — increasing the amount of evil is never a good solution to a problem.
Dark Side: Ligul wants to corrupt Ulitha and darken her eidos, because it would prove that there's no going back from the Darkness, and greatly humiliate the Light.
Deal with the Devil: Tukhlomon once again tries to fool someone into selling their eidos, this time by pretending to be a doctor, who may save his patient from certain death with near impossible to obtain drug. The guy starts feeling weird, irrational fear when Tukhlomon mentions selling the eidos, and demands the explanation what the "eidos" even means — after which he refuses to sell his soul when Tukhlomon tells him that it's a soul. Unfortunately, all it takes to break his resistance is to reinforce his doubts in wether the soul even exists (unlike pretty much real pill). The pill turns out to be just a vitamin.
Defiant to the End: When Rexak Moneest prepares to kill Petruccho, instead of showing any fear, Petruccho defiantly spits on him. He fails to reach far due to his tongue being paralysed to prevent him from wishing, but the act itself impresses the necromancer (a warrior himself).
The Dreaded: When Mamzelkina "accidentally" drops the piece of wood she uses to fix her scythe, and complaints about it, every Dark Guardian in the room stops doing whatever they're doing, and rushes to help her, not willing to risk attracting unwanted attention of the Grim Reaper herself — except for one, who tries to look like he's a brave one... only to rush even more vigorously than the rest of his colleagues when Mamzelkina asks about his health, and presumes that he may be a thief (need to warn Ligul about it!).
Driven to Suicide: We finally learn where Mamzelkina obtained the legs she gifted to Irka. They belonged to a ballerina who was attacked by a small wasp-shaped succubus (failed experimental party), which "infected" her with depression.
Dude, Not Funny!: After Essiorkh explains about the magic weapons related to the Book of Seven Roads, and mentionsthat everyone was previously wounded by them (each one attacked by exactly one weapon), with these wounds (which can't heal) doing something to them, Moshkin (of course) panics and asks wether they are gonna die. Essiorkh says that yes... since everyone are gonna die eventually. No one laughs, due to how dire the situation really is.
Enemy Mine:
- Previously rather cold to each other, now Mamzelkina and Ligul cooperates to achieve mutually beneficial goal: Aida Plakhovna would gain a new "assistant", while Ligul would permanently reduce the number of Valkyries even further.
- Mefodiy and Daphne steps into the Book together, holding hands. As result, they gets transferred there together and almost immediately unites, despite it supposed to be free-for-all. They remains on the same side throughout the whole adventure, not even once turning on each other.
- While in the Book, after several failed attempts to unite, the team finally truly unites against the creators of the Book in the last chapter, because Varvara accidentally learns about the creators' true plans for them.
Epic Fail:
- In his best traditions, Cornelius tries to use his flute to protect Varvara from the magic knife... only to realise that he accidentally damaged it because he lied on it.
- When Essiorkh quickly identified the knife which nearly killed Varvara just by its brief description, Cornelius accuses him of deliberately withholding crucial information, summons him to a duel and tries to grab him by his collar. Essiorkh reacts by grabbing him and putting him to sit on the fridge until he calms down and apologises.
Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Varvara has a contact of some unnamed guy in her phone, marked simply as "some guy". She doesn't know his name herself, since she called him by accident (and never bothered to ask), and for whatever reason keeps calling him from time to time since then. He was annoyed by this at first, but gave up since then and agreed to talk with her.
Everyone Has Standards: No one liked Tolbonya, but the assassination of the domovoy is so serious matter, even his enemies united against Mefodiy whom they mistook for the killer.
Evil Makes You Ugly: Serving as the Grim Reaper slowly makes you uglier with every death caused by the scythe. Aida Plakhovna used to be so pretty, people actually fought on the duels for her (including the Guardians), and now she wants her new "assistant" to become just as ugly as she is, just out of spite.
Exact Eavesdropping: Varvara, when experimenting with moving her ear somewhere else than her body for spying purposes, accidentally moves it near the tower of the three mages who created the Book, and eavesdrops their discussion. Turns out what unless she and the rest of "players" find out how to kill them soon, they all would lose their original bodies, which are still in real world, forever. This convinces her to summon everyone so they can team up.
Fallen Hero:
- The Grim Reapers always start as someone heroic and passionate before breaking up; otherwise, the scythe wouldn't even accept them. This happened with Mamzelkina once, and now she aims to do the same with Irka as her new "assistant". Wether Irka likes it or not. To achieve this, she unites with Ligul.
- The way Aida Plakhovna wants to make Irka into a new Grim Reaper involves stealing the Stone Spear before Fulona finds a new one to wield it, and slowly corrupt it from the instrument of protection to the instrument of evil. The same way as her own scythe was created once...
Food as Bribe: The firefighters stubbornly refuses to let Mefodiy and Essiorkh to visit what remained of Talbonya's house after the fire... until Essiorkh offered them beer (two bottles for the firefighters themselves, and one for the driver). In the end, however, he leaved after gaining the info they need, without giving the guys their beer.
Forced Transformation:
- Moshkin transforms himself into a donkey out of boredom, forgetting that donkeys can't speak, and thus, can't turn back. He only gets transformed back to human when Varvara intuitively recognises him.
- Just before Rexak Moneest finishes off Petruccho, Praskovia manages to transform all three necromancers into white worms. Mefodiy compares them to helminths, before correcting himself, saying that helminths are much cuter than these guys.
Foreshadowing: After killing Shokhus, Essiorkh and Ulitha learn that Jaff hunts for Ulitha's yet-unborn son (or, rather, his eidos), setting up the future conflict.
For the Evulz: Daphne asks the creators of the Book why they force people to fight and kill each other. Their response? "Because it's fun".
Genuine Human Hide: The titular Book was made with the use of human skin for the bound.
Glass Cannon: The Leber's flute amplifies any offensive magic by ten times, but greatly reduces defensive capabilities; if you fail to strike first, you would likely lose.
Goggles Do Something Unusual:
- To comfort Cornelius who was shy of wearing his glasses, Troil collected tons of stories about various magic glasses for him. Some of them were... weird, to say the least:
  - The special glasses for sheep counting, which only cover one eye (they belonged to Polyphemus prior to him being blinded by Odysseus). Can count any number of sheep, but are useless with any other animals.
  - The pink glasses of the mage Galunalunaglunoglan allows the user to see the world in pink light, but requires to repeat the creator's name twice per hour to maintain their effect, with any mistake punishable by forced transformation into a fish.
  - The special glasses for reading the invisible books. If you try to read the non-invisible book, the text would change into something not intended by the author.
  - The Blinking Glasses allows to see the people who loves you... and only the people who loves you.
  - The Glasses of Beauty can make anyone beautiful and attractive, but have one dangerous trait: they treat anything literally, so be careful with metaphors involving body harm.
  - The yellow glasses of the mage Vertilikhvon allows to see hidden blue dwarfs. The blue dwarf can randomly turn out to be the red gnome in disguise, who, when spotted, would try to kill you.
- Cornelius also has the less unique magic glasses (enchanted cheap 3D glasses made from carton) he obtained on the Bald Mountain, which allows to see ghosts, both in the present and in the past; the further in the past they are, the less visible they would be. Varvara tries to use it, only to encounter a ghost... who sees her and throws a knife at her. The course of action is identical to usage of the Alder's pursuing knife.
Heel Realisation: Irka realises what while she clearly sees all the ridiculous methods Babanya used in the past to cure her out of desperation (everything not ridiculous was already tested and failed) for what they really are, she shouldn't make fun of it, because Babanya did it all out of love for her, and she may at least say "thanks" for the efforts. If she believes what some charlatan did the job, so be it, better play along (it's all in the past anyway), than cause her grandma even more stress, she's not that healthy by now.
He Knows Too Much: Tolbonya worked for Arey, keeping the Book of Seven Roads for him. Now, when Arey is dead and Ziggy Puffs is in charge, the info about the book reached him. Tolbonya was killed to prevent any info from leaking out, as well as to obtain the Book.
Hidden Depths: Turns out that Varvara has some medical skills, which she shows when she patches up Petruccho after his encounter with the wolves.
Hitler Ate Sugar: Invoked. Succubus Shokhus, possibly in continuation of Ziggy's project, operates in internet by pretending to adhere some ideology or movement... in so radical manner, no one can take him seriously. Then, by using twink accounts, he uses his own posts as an example why those ideologies and movements are insane and not worth supporting. Essiorkh surfs Internet in attempt to pinpoint him and smite the asshole.
Hobbes Was Right: Aida Plakhovna, of all people, believes what inherently villainous people are major exception, with almost all of them being good people until someone else corrupted them to evil. She immediately states what not even Adolph Hitler was amongst the inherently evil.
Hoist by His Own Petard: The Merokh's flute, due to having its own mind, can screw its user in two possible ways:
- Firstly, it becomes offended by certain actions, like being taken with wet hands, and can "punish" its user by making their magic to backfire on them. It may take the four centuries on average for it to forgive you, so once you offend it, you're pretty much screwed.
- Secondly, it has the bad tendency to "correct" the magic used by its wielder, sometimes in blatantly senseless way, which can make more harm than good.
Hope Spot: After finding an eidos of her legs former owner (the girl was Driven to Suicide by a succubus, who failed to run away with the eidos afterwards), Irka felt herself rejuvenated: the legs are her now, with their former owner gifting them as her parting "thanks", and Mamzelkina no longer has power over them (and Irka)! Then Irka delivers a Mercy Kill to hopelessly injured cat... (or, rather, she thinks about it, and the spear-turned-scythe makes everything by itself), and realises what even that was a part of Mamzelkina's plan.
I Know You Know I Know: When playing Jaff's "win-win lottery", Matvey tries to predict his possible tricks, only to immediately realise that Jaff obviously was prepared to him expecting them, and starts thinking how to surpass the tricks Jaff used to trick someone expecting the original tricks, only to realise that he likely planned for this, too, and so on. He eventually gives up on trying to use logic, and relies on blind luck. He wins — but then it turns out that the real danger was the prize itself.
Inheritance Backlash: The Ostrogonovo Waste, the highly anomalous part of Moscow, where something bad always happens to whoever owns it, with fatal results; it was so bad, Ligul actually considered it as the alternative to Big Dmitrovka to set up the Dark residence. Original owner was gruesomely killed ruing the hunt, and it became no-one's until some time later it was gifted by tzar to one of his boyars. Starting from here, each new owner died in the different, but always tragic ways, with it going from family member to family member, from family to family, from organisation to organisation, and never bringing any good to whoever owns it.
Insane Troll Logic: Nata tried to quit working at hypermarket, only to return some time later, at similar vacancy. This time, she puts worms at tomatoes (one per tomato). Why? Because good housewife knows that worms would only eat natural food, so marketers decided that they can attract such people by putting the worms on the food.
Internal Reveal: Since Irka is "technically" no longer a Valkyrie, it's no longer necessary to keep Babanya in the dark about her restoring her legs. Babanya still struggles to adapt to it, since she spent so many years caring for her disabled granddaughter.
Involuntary Battle to the Death: After the Book's victims gets sucked inside (mentally), they loses their memories and starts hunting for each other, using the weapons of their predecessors (four Dark and three Light Guardians); meanwhile, their bodies would remain in real world and, when they die within the Book, would die in real world as well. Ligul wants to set up this situation for Mefodiy and his friends in order to get rid of them once and for all.
Irony: After insisting that she wouldn't even touch a magic knife that nearly killed her, Varvara receives it as her weapon in the Book.
I Surrender, Suckers: Mefodiy manages to hit Rexak Moneest in the chest with his spear during the last battle. The necromancer (rather hammy) shows how shocked he is that some pathetic weakling just killed him... but then Mefodiy notices the bored expressions on the faces of the other two necromancers, and Rexak stops pretending, and takes away the spear. Turns out that he wore a protection this whole time, because these seven weapons were the only thing actually dangerous for them (due to not being created outside, and thus, being real).
I Was Quite a Looker: Aida Plakhovna was not always an ugly hag she's now; centuries of servitude as the Grim Reaper made her look like this. In fact, the Guardians fought on the duels over her; it's implied what even Troil, of all people, was amongst them.
The Juggernaut: Once the Alder's pursuing knife gets released, no magic can stop it. There's one trick with distracting it with fruits, but it only stops it temporarily.
Kill It with Fire: Essiorkh beats up Shokhus with the baseball bat, and finishes him off with the fire magic, destroying his body beyond repair. It's unknown wether he was "just" sent to Tartarus or Killed Off for Real.
Killer Rabbit: The Alder's pursuing knife looks like a harmless dessert knife. In truth, it's anything but harmless, and can be surprisingly deadly due to its ability to relentlessly pursuit its target until it dies (and it would pierce through any normal armour). Notably, it was the weapon which killed a giant previously considered to be invincible, by finding his one and single weak point (its nostrils), and exploiting it, on its own.
Kiss of Death: While in the Book, Praskovia (who previously remained neutral, not participating in the madness due to inability to speak, tries to force Mefodiy into kissing her by writing her wish in the dust (it works somehow, despite seemingly contradicting the rules), only for him to resist when he touched Daphne's hair by accident. Disappointed, she switches attention to Eugesha, who kisses her... and Praskovia writes that the kiss was poisonous. Eugesha's convulsions only stops when Varvara says that Praskovia can't have the lethal poison on her lips because that would be lethal to her (it wouldn't, due to her weapon's magic, but the Book interprets it as a wish).
Knight Templar: Epigraph to the chapter eight (narrated by Essiorkh) describes this mindset, and why self-righteousness can be worse than blatant evil:
Essiorkh: The foulest of all crimes are always committed with the fair, smart face. The Darkness relies on the "good" people. What the bad man cares about? How to quietly steal something, hide it and seat with the nice smile, so no one would suspect anything. What the "good" man cares about? How to moralise, to re-educate, to decide for everyone, to change the world to adhere to their own standards — but not to change a one bit by themselves. Light, protect us from the "good" people — because with the bad people, we can deal by ourselves.
Large Ham: "Mrs Trouble" somehow identified Essiorkh as the Light Guardian and came to ask him for advice how she can protect her eidos. He gives her a lecture, in overly theatrical manner, surprising Mefodiy. When asked what was that, he explains that he merely acted like she expected the angel would act; if he would go with anything simpler, she would quickly forget his lessons.
Laser-Guided Amnesia: The Book of Seven Roads takes away the memories of participants, to ensure that they would end up fighting each other. Part of the problem with defeating it for Mefodiy and his friends is to remember who they are.
Let's You and Him Fight: Ligul's new plan involves sucking several of his enemies (Mefodiy, Victor, Petruccho, Eugesha, Praskovia, Varvara and Daphne) into a magic book, the titular Book of the Seven Roads, where they, stripped of their memories, would fight each other to the death. He particularly seeks Mefodiy killing Daphne, since this would be very humiliating for the Light.
Long List: Ligul patiently listens Aida Plakhovna when she lists all the problems she has with her health, until he realises that she just tries to mention all the illnesses under the sun, and politely stops her.
Long-Range Fighter: The Shosh's pilum is the throwing spear, and wouldn't be very useful at close range. However, at the long range, it can penetrate nearly any magic defence, with only the four exceptions, none of which are readily available to the heroes.
Loophole Abuse: It's impossible to kill three necromancers in their domain... so Praskovia uses the time earned by them distracting to Petruccho and transforms them into the invincible white worms.
Love Martyr: By that point, Zozo; Igor is clearly not someone worth keeping around, being the same lazy freeloader he was when she kicked him out years ago, but now she tolerates him, for whatever reason.
Manipulative Bastard: Discussed. When talking to Mefodiy, Irka says that she aims to stop "manipulating people". When Mefodiy asks what she mans, she uses a baby wanting an ice-cream as example, with just several ways they can achieve the goal by acting in specific way. Mefodiy quickly joins the fun by listing several people they know and the ways they would achieve this goal. In the end they come to conclusion that everyone manipulates the other ones, just in their own way; it seems to be inherent trait, which Irka sees as the bad one. Mefodiy also tries to ask wether Matvey does the same, but Irka refuses to answer: if she would stop trusting him, it would be akin to betrayal.
Mathematician's Answer: When trying to enter what's remained from Talbonya's house, Mefodiy gets stopped by the firefighter. Mefodiy tries to ask him why he can't enter, but the guy isn't exactly communicative:
Firefighter: You can't go inside!
Mefodiy: Why?
Firefighter: Because it's forbidden!
Mefodiy: Why?
Firefighter: The law!
Mefodiy: Which law?
Firefighter: The federal one!
Meaningful Name: While in the Book, Mefodiy remembers that the name "Praskovia" can be shortened to "Prasha", which, in turn, sounds dangerous similar to the word "prakh" — "the dust". Anyone who messes with her turns to dust in the end...
Mêlée à Trois: Happens twice in the Book of Seven Roads:
- The moment Daphne realises that wishes can be used to fight each other, Moshkin tries to wish that he just defeated everyone (which actually started doing something), before Varvara changes it to him "defeating" all the bugs (which provokes the rain of dead bugs). Then Petruccho tries to murder Victor by wishing for an abyss... which fails to work anyway because Shilov spawns a tree to grab, and then summons a pack of man-eating wolves to hunt for Chimodanov; Daphne tries to protect them by spawning a wooden wall, but it gets damaged by growing abyss. After someone tries to kill Varvara by spawning a snake (who only gets saved by Mefodiy spawning a bird of prey to carry it out), Daphne just puts the battle on hold by wishing for one-minute pause for all wishes.
- Soon after Daphne's peace-enforcing wish stops working, Praskovia creates a sea (she realises that she can just write her wishes in the dust), which nearly drowns everyone but herself. From here, the truce ends and everyone starts fighting everyone, going from various ridiculous ways to kill each other to creating entire armies they can command.
Musical Assassin: To everyone's surprise, both Praskovia and Moshkin chose the flutes as their weapons to go into the Book of Seven Roads; they somehow works for them, despite them being anyone but Light Guardians.
The Napoleon: Docent Zamruschew gets compared to bald short-fused gnome. Obviously, not to his face.
Necessary Drawback: All but one of the seven magic weapons Arey mentions in the beginning has at least one major downside which makes them the double-edged sword (no puns intended). Some of them never comes in play, however.
- The Garn's pernach, for all its strength, has a major problem — its tendency to going out of control during battle, no longer abiding its wielder.
- The Alder's knife can be distracted by throwing fruits — it would stop to cut them up. Shilov exploits this trait by creating new apple trees to distract it when Varvara tries to kill him with it. Eventually, tired of running, he just makes himself an armour made of fruits, so at least it wouldn't take him by surprise.
- The Verd's singing axe would turn on its owner if not fed with fresh meat on a regular basis, and start screaming. Loudly. This bites Shilov in the ass when he tries to kill Petruccho with it, saving Chimodanov's life.
- The Leber's flute sacrifices defensive capabilities for offensive magic. Also, it has the overblown sense of justice, requiring it to punish the offender immediately. With punishment being anything up to and including "utter destruction".
- The Merokh's flute automatically corrects any mistakes in magolodies, and protects from various dangers, but it thinks that it's smarter than its owner, and often disregards their orders if it has a "better" plan.
- The Korn's pipe sacrifices offensive capabilities for defensive magic. Also, as the side effect, it messes with the user's priorities: they start seeing minor problems as major, and vice versa.
- The Shosh's pilum is the throwing spear, so once you throw it, if your target is still alive, you're screwed. Mefodiy learns this the hard way while fighting Shilov.
Nephilim: Essiorkh knows that while his son wouldn't inherit any magic abilities, at least from his side (since Essiorkh is in human body), he would certainly receive much more important gift — a unique, sun-bright soul, which would shine in the darkness of this world. Unfortunately, that would also make him a number one priority for the Darkness...
No Longer with Us: One of the guests in Buslaevs' house (the same one who previously tried to flirt with Anna), after being asked where his wife is, points his finger upwards. When Anna says she's sorry, the guy specifies that she's currently on a plane.
No-Sell:
- Mick (a puppy whom Irka adopted in the previous book) also survived a strike of Mamzelkina's scythe, just like Irka herself back in her childhood. Haara presumes that if that didn't kill him, nothing would.
- There's no way to harm creators of the Book within the Book. But Praskovia finds a workaround.
Obsessively Organized: When visiting Hola's house, Irka compares it to a museum: so much efforts were put into organising it in specific order. It actually slightly creeps her out.
Obvious Rule Patch: While the Book of Seven Roads operates on Your Mind Makes It Real principle, it has several restrictions, often rather arbitrary, made specifically to prevent easy wins or stalemates:
- If something was done, it can't be undone, at least by directly wishing so. You can't remove the previously summoned tree, but you can wish for an axe and just cut it.
- You can't alter yourself or the other persons this way directly. You can't force someone to do something, or just wish to remove the wound. The rules seems to not apply to polymorph.
An Odd Place to Sleep: Victor Shilov instinctively distrusts any seemingly safe places (like beds) due to his experience with Tartarus, and sleeps anywhere but in bed, often choosing something extremely dangerous instead.
An Offer You Can't Refuse: Aida Plakhovna forces Irka to cooperate by threatening to kill Matvey. When Irka says that she has no such power (which normally would be true), Aida reminds her that it was her who gave Matvey his new heart, so yes, she does have power over him. Irka complies.
The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: Matvey finally admits to himself that, while he despises Mefodiy, there's one quality he's jealous of: Mefodiys's willpower. Unlike Mefodiy, Matvey quickly loses the passion and motivation to do things, and thus, never finishes anything, nor he can just be satisfied with what he already has and just preserve it — that's why he would never be happy.
Open Mouth, Insert Foot:
- While in the Book, Varvara causes problems for everyone several times just because she doesn't think before saying something due to anger, which the Book immediately fulfils.
- Both the "truckload of bricks" and the "children" were summoned and nearly killed Mefodiy because he joked about them just to test wether Daphne's wish to freeze the wishes for one minute actually works (though it was Varvara's fault that the "children" actually attacked him).
"Open!" Says Me: When Praskovia and Shilov pays a visit to Mefodiy, Zigya (whom they took along) tried to knock... which resulted in him knocking the door out.
Opposites Attract: To Mefodiy's surprise, Praskovia and Victor came alone quite nicely, despite the differences in their personalities (Praskovia is the Spoiled Brat with Neat Freak tendencies, while Shilov, due to his upbringing, sees no problems with dirt or spoiled food at all).
The Perfectionist: Ilga, once again; this time she tries to use the synthesiser to play some music (she has prior musical education), but botches it because she cant' accept anything but perfect... so she starts anew after any smallest mistake, which quickly kills the mood. By contrast, Gelatha, who replaced her after everyone got fed up with this, lacks any actual training, but compensates it with passion; her performance was received much better.
Pet the Dog: Despite just shortly before being willing to beat Mefodiy up (only to be injured himself), Matvey still refuses to rat him out when asked how he broke his nose (sparing him conflicts with police). When thanked, he only asks to not tell Irka in return, being ashamed of what just happened.
Pocket Dimension: The titular Book contains a whole separate world within itself. Mefodiy's plot almost entirely happens within it.
Poor Communication Kills: Tolbonya almost manages to warn Mefodiy about something important, but wastes time, gets enraged by Mefodiy mistaking him for kikimor, and runs away. As result, Mefodiy gains only non-systemised notes which tells him nothing by themselves, while Tolbonya later gets killed by the Darkness, with Mefodiy becoming a scapegoat for Tolbonya's friends.
Poor, Predictable Rock: In subversion of his usual Evil Cannot Comprehend Good issue, Ligul easily predicts how Troil would act (return Daphne back to Earth, so she may stay with Mefodiy, where she would be vulnerable), because Troil is idealist, and idealists are very predictable.
Ligul: Troil is an idealist, and idealists are predictable. The Darkness always has two choices: to help or not to help, to kill or not to kill, to intervene or not to intervene, but the Light has only one choice.
Pregnancy Makes You Crazy: Ulitha was always eccentric, but with her pregnancy it reached the new level of weirdness. Ulitha insists that she and Essiorkh must install the new door ring, with build-in camera. Till then, she cut off their current ring. Why? "So we wouldn't change our mind!"
Properly Paranoid: At first, Mefodiy feels anger towards Victor nearly killing him for awakening him. However, later he admits that he has the good reason for being so paranoid: Ligul never lets traitors to get away so easy.
Rule of Three: Irka needs to do three kills with her scythe to cement herself as the "junior manager of necrodepartment". First one is the Mercy Kill towards hopelessly injured cat (done instinctively).
Sarcastic Confession: When asked what just happened to him by a security guard, Mefodiy says that he was "beaten up by little gnomes". It's indeed true (he was ambushed by the friends of late domovoy Tolbonya who mistakenly believes that he's the one who killed him), but the guard mistakes it for him not wanting to rat out the other students, compliments him for keeping the secret (snitching on your comrades is the lowest low), and offers to cover for him while he cleans up and leaves to rest for a bit.
Saved by the Platform Below: Shilov survives the abyss created by Petruccho by wishing the tree in the last moment, so he could grab it.
Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: While Ulitha was always the energetic one in their duo (while Essiorkh was calm and delicate thinker), she became even more hyperactive due to her pregnancy, to the point what she never sits on one place, always running around "preparing" for their future son's birth, and only falls asleep late in night when she physically exhausts herself. Essiorkh believes what the only way to deal with it is to wait until their son would be born, and make a second child, because Ulitha's energy would be too much for just one (she's one of those mothers who have energy for many children, but has nowhere to spend it, and suffers).
Schmuck Bait: So-called "win-win lottery" which Jaff offers to Matvey involves taking one of the four cards, with thee giving various benefits... and fourth costing you your eidos. Matvey immediately guessed that Jaff would blatantly cheat and that last one would be the very first card you put out, but Jaff, insulted at being called a cheater (let's leave cheating to commissioners!), explains that his usual victims are die-hard gamblers who never stop at just one try, so he just doesn't need to cheat in the first place. This somehow convinces Matvey to try after all. Matvey wins, but it's all but blatantly stated that the danger comes from the prize itself.
Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Tukhlomon, when in a doctor's disguise, says very long and nearly unpronounceable name of some made-up "medicine", knowing that his victim wouldn't be able to process it and suspect that something is fishy.
Skewed Priorities:
- The Alder's pursuing knife would not stop in pursuing its victim for any reason other than... cutting up fresh fruits thrown at it. Arey actually lists it as main drawback.
- The Korn's pipe has strong defensive capabilities, but has one major drawback: it can cause its wielder to get distracted on something minor during combat, due to distorting their sense of reality. Arey uses as example someone who tries to save a fly from the cobweb, ignoring someone being killed right behind them.
Slowly Slipping Into Evil: Varvara starts gradually succumbing to Darkness, even without Arey being around. Cornelius compares her to a sprinter: she may do great rushes which give her temporal "boost"; unfortunately, this this race favours marathoners, and she's incapable of fighting her flaws on the everyday basis. It starts showing up in more and more dark ways, sometimes bordering on madness. He just doesn't know what to do.
Snake Oil Salesman: One of the "doctors" hired by Babanya in desperate (and futile) attempts to cure Irka in the past "heals" his patients via bio-electro-stimulation, using the dead raccoon's fur (he claims it's the perfect conductor). He expects to be paid $100 per seance.
Speak of the Devil: Jaff tells Matvey that he can summon him at any time just by saying his name three times.
Stating the Simple Solution: Docent Zamruschew complaints that many of his students wastes time and resources doing experiments where just stopping and thinking for a bit would solve their "problem" much quicker.
Zamruschew: My previous aspirant has killed seventy lab rats just to prove that alcohol is poisonous for the brain and liver. Didn't he know this already?
Stern Teacher: With docent Zamruschew (a biology teacher in Mefodiy's university), it is nearly impossible to receive a grade above "3" (out of 5), because he has extremely high standards (he estimates his own knowledge as barely "4+"), but his students still genuinely respect him as a teacher. He also often gives good advices, including not related to biology, and, when not examining his students, can be rather friendly... most of the time.
Stone Wall: The Korn's pipe excels in defence, to the point what only certain Dark artifact can penetrate its defence, but, when compared to other weapons in Arey's list, it has the worst offensive capabilities.
Strong Family Resemblance: When Mefodiy wishes (or, rather, jokes) Varvara's children into existence, they comes up looking like small copies of Arey (Varvara's father), even though the joke involves Eugesha as the children's father.
Stupid Sacrifice: Invoked by Mefodiy in attempt to convince Daphne (who just recently arrived and thus was not marked) to not go with them: they are doomed to fight, but she may safely leave. She ignores him and deliberately wounds herself with a spear (thus marking herself as a seventh participant). She says that, firstly, she can't live without him anyway, and secondly, they stand no chance to survive if there would be less than seven of them.
Suicide is Shameful: Suicidal people end up in Tartarus, because the whole point of life is to light up your eidos, and they just wasted it. However, if the point of suicide is self-sacrifice to save the others, it counts as heroic deed and gives you massive last "boost".
Super-Persistent Predator: The Alder's pursuing knife has unimpressive combat abilities, but its uniqueness lies in its ability to, once thrown (after short and simple ritual), never stops pursuing its target until it gets killed. Arey mentions the story about one giant who was killed after one hundred days of non-ending hunt, when the knife found the moment to sneak up into his hose and kill him from inside. No magic can stop it, but it can be distracted by throwing the fresh fruits, because it starts cutting them up.
Team Killer: Several "players" in the Book of Seven Roads are too quick to turn on everyone else, nearly killing them:
- Shilov is the first to turn on the rest of the team while in the Book, and is the most stubborn with continuing trying to kill everyone else. Daphne at one point even considers wether it would be easier to just "neutralise" him.
- Moshkin is the second after Shilov to attack someone else, and is the first to try and wipe everyone at once, by wishing to "defeat everyone"; the wish gets neutralised by Varvara, however.
- Praskovia joins the "fun" the last (it takes her some time to find how she may make wishes without being able to speak), but she's the only one whose wish actually hits someone; if not for Varvara, at least Mefodiy would've likely died in the sea she created.
Tele-Frag: Nearly happens to Mefodiy when he botches teleportation, because he forgot about the watermelons-selling stand near the dormitories, and changes destination at the very last moment to avoid teleporting right into it, only to still materialising with his heel being stuck in the asphalt, and being forced to cut it off with katar.
Thanatos Gambit: The last step of creating the Book of Seven Roads required its creators to kill themselves. First two, Rexak Moneyest and Tavleus Talorn poisoned themselves, while the third one, Ust Dunken, cut open his chest, tore out his own heart and threw it into fire.
There Can Be Only One: Only one out of seven participants can escape the Book alive — by bringing up all seven weapons to the tower of its creators. There are only two ways to obtain them — by taking them from the corpse, or by convincing the person to give them up, but in this case, the surrendered would become the eternal slaves of the Book.
They Call Me Mr Tibbs: A new Valkyrie of the Stone Spear prefers to being called "Brungilda" since the school (her real name is Galina). Irka, who still can't cope with the death of Taamag (whom she's supposed to replace), mocks it by saying that "at least it's better than Ziegfred".
Too Clever by Half: The Merokh's flute automatically corrects any mistakes in your magolodies, but often thinks that it's smarter than its wielder, and tries to do something they were not intended to do, sometimes not just blatantly different from original plan, but outright senseless, which rarely ends well. Arey brings up as an example the situation when you are trying to boil a glass of water... but the flute instead boils the lake the water was taken from.
Too Dumb to Live: Not all wishes made within Book of the Seven Roads are wise ones; quite a lot of them are rather stupid and destructive. But a couple of them stands out as self-destructive:
- When Daphne freezes all wishes from working for one minute, Mefodiy tests it... by asking for a "truckload of bricks" to fall from the sky. When the minute ends, the bricks starts falling from the sky, barely missing him and everyone else. Daphne asks him wether they should expect the truck itself as well, or just the bricks.
- For whatever reason, Moshkin decides to turn himself into a donkey... only to realise that donkeys can't speak, and thus, he's stuck. He gets saved by Varvara, who intuitively recognises that there's something odd with this particular donkey, and lifts the curse.
Ugly Cute: In-Universe. Anna, when seeing Depresnyak, calls him "cute" and tries to pet him... with predictable results.
Use Your Head: During their fistfight, Matvey cheats and uses necromancy to paralyse Mefodiy. Effect turns out to be slow enough to give Mefodiy time to head-butt Matvey into face, breaking his nose. This finally stops the fight, since they both need medical attention.
What the Hell, Hero?: Played With. Mefodiy is more surprised than disappointed in Essiorkh for bribing those firefighters (with beer!), but Essiorkh reacts as if he genuinely shamed him.
Wound That Will Not Heal:
- Wounds caused by the Verd's singing axe never heals, and resembles a werewolf's bite. Considering that it must be "fed" with the fresh meat to prevent it from going berserk, it's probably not a coincidence.
- All designated victims of the Book received exactly one small wound by exactly one out of seven weapons. No matter what, the wounds refuse to heal; Essiorkh presumes it's due to them being infected by something... magical. He turns out to be correct, because the purpose of those wounds is to force designated victims into cooperation — they have until midnight to pick a weapon and go to Ostrogonovo, or the wound would develop and become lethal.
You No Take Candle: One of guests in Buslaevs' house tries to flirt with Anna. When Edya, understandably, reacts negatively and tells him that this is his wife, the guy repeats mostly the same thing which was just said to him, but with strange order of words and punctuation after every word. Justified, since he's not exactly sober by that time.
Your Mind Makes It Real: While in the Book of Seven Roads, almost anything you say about aloud becomes real (down to and including stupid jokes). Naturally, it quickly gets weaponised.
- Moshkin, as always, is so unsure in himself, he can't even consistently keep something existing, due to constantly doubting wether something happened or not. He sees a yellow leaf, then becomes unsure wether he saw it, and leaf disappears... then reappears again, only to disappear yet again, and so on. It causes weird smell... resembling the heated up book pages.
- Mefodiy, surprised by Shilov's triumphant expression, accidentally thinks about a tree... which causes it to appear right behind Mefodiy, resulting in him hitting it with his head.
- Daphne is the first one to realise that she can weaponise this effect, which she uses to help Mefodiy. Firstly, she says that Shilov just missed... which causes him to indeed miss Mefodiy with his axe, though unfortunately he still traps him by pinning his hair to the tree, which causes them to bleed, but this isn't lethal. Then Daphne says that the axe just got hopelessly stuck, preventing Shilov from releasing the axe — but also pinning Mefodiy for good. Then she says that Mefodiy just freed himself... which doesn't work due to violating the rules of this world (she herself said that it's impossible to escape from it), but she compensates it by destroying the tree, by saying that it's old and weak. After Daphne, the rest realises this as well, and everything goes downhill. Daphne temporarily stops the madness by wishing that all wishes halt to work for one minute.
- Mefodiy decides to test whether Daphne's wish-stopping wish really works by wishing for a truckload of bricks falling from the sky and by joking about Varvara and Eugesha having thirteen children. Nothing happens... for exactly one minute, that is, then the bricks start falling one by one. Then the "children" suddenly spawns and attacks Mefodiy (because Varvara, not amused by the joke, previously added that they grew up and came to kick his ass). Eugesha saves the day in the last moment by adding that they forgave Mefodiy and leave to tundra... but for whatever reason adds the part about them patting him up before leaving, which, given their strength, leads to some very "pleasant" experience. Mefodiy redirects some of them to Eugesha by adding a part about their "beloved papa", while Eugesha does the same to Varvara (their "mama"). As they continue, nearly everyone gets "patted" before "the children" all leaves.
- The "fun" continues when Praskovia, who previously didn't participate due to inability to talk, starts writing her wishes in the dust, and tries to poison Mefodiy (and, after failing that, Eugesha) through the kiss. This annoys Varvara, who accidentally summons an explosive fly which nearly kills Praskovia. After thinking a bit more, Praskovia comes up with a plan how to deal with everyone at once — she depicts the sea, herself on the raft, and everyone else struggling for survival in the open sea. And everything gets flooded... Fortunately, Varvara wishes for them to be thrown on the coast, preventing anyone from drowning (though Mefodiy almost does so anyway due to Praskovia targeting him directly). Here, they finally dissolves into full-blown free-for-all mode which lasts for a while.
- No longer going for various random and silly means, each side started creating entire armies (even if completely stupid; they were compared to video game bots). Shilov created joint hun/german army, which effortlessly wiped out Moshkin-created China (Moshkin spent two days recreating it!), forcing him to run away on badly made dragon. Praskovia made herself an Egyptian queen (surrounded by the army of bodyguards, each being deeply in love with her). Varvara chose to become Scythian chieftain, while Petruccho... was satisfied with becoming a leader of the wandering bandit gang. The only ones not to participate are Mefodiy and Daphne, who chose to just travel around the world together.
- During the last battle, Moshkin tries to use wishing against necromancers. He does so successfully at first, holding them back with chaotic torrent of self-contradicting wishes, but then they realise that they can just mute him.
- Praskovia finally finishes off the necromancers... by wishing to change them into immortal worms (technically, she didn't harm them).

The Ship of Light tropes

Above Good and Evil: Mirowood justified his "neutral" path by using an example with the wolf eating the sheep: it's good for the wolf, but evil for the sheep; and if something can't be considered "good" or "evil" universally, it's too relative to even bother, so may as well do whatever you want. We already know that he ended up in Tartarus.
Arc Villain: Ultimately, it's all about wiping out Jaff: Mefodiy needs to kill him to help Matvey and Irka; Matvey needs to kill him to redeem himself for trusting him earlier; Irka needs to kill him to give the Valkyries a chance; even Ulitha has a grudge against him because he's the one who was sent to obtain her and her son's eidoses.
Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The titular Ship of Light takes away Mefodiy when he dies in his duel with Jaff, to be resurrected as the Light Guardian.
Asteroids Monster: The Invader — a Tartarian parasite — separates itself into multiple smaller creatures when killed, each hostile to to the other ones. Shilov exploits it to kill the creature, separating it into four evenly powerful parts, so they kill each other in a duel (if at least one would be stronger, it would consume the losers and you would end where you started, with the one strong Invader).
Belated Love Epiphany: Only after losing ability to cast magolodies, Cornelius starts seeing them for what they really are
Believing Their Own Lies: Cornelius doesn't lie. He actually believes every bullshit story he tells. Despite changing them every day. This time he claims he's behind the creation of the Forbidden Battles (alongside Arey, his old pal, with whom he had an agreement — not to touch each other).
Big Damn Heroes:
- Mefodiy witnesses the ambush two Dark Guardians set on the (also two) Light Guardians. Mefodiy joins the fight to help them. Unfortunately, it's too late for them — one is already dead by the moment Mefodiy intervenes, and another dies soon afterwards.
- Essiorkh returns home just in time to kick Tukhlomon's ass and save Ulitha.
Bloodless Carnage: Jaff's new weapon somehow kills people without leaving any blood or visible wounds. Mamzelkina wants Irka to find out how he does that. Turns out what Jaff somehow obtained the Ice Spear, lost years ago after its previous owner, Saenra, was stripped of her powers and exiled.
Bloody Murder: In attempt to deal with mosquitos when in the forest, Mefodiy turns his blood into acid.
Butter Face: Succubi, by that point knowing that Matvey is rather weak-willed, started openly mocking him. One, in particular, provoked him to chase itself, but, when cornered, revealed old bearded male face with Beriah-like pens.
Butterfly of Doom: Ligul somehow managed to send some of his minions back in time and did a small change during the Second World War. Very small change — fake an order to transfer some soldier to another location — but it affected one of the battles where, as result of his absence, the Russian soldiers destroyed only one tank instead of two. This set in motion a chain of events which ultimately delayed the victory over Nazi Germany by one day, which retroactively affected the present as well (though the Guardians are immune to effect, and still can fix it]].
Call-Back: When the first duel of the Forbidden Battles starts (the Light Guardian Varsus versus the Dark Guardian Glov, the one who killed his friend some time ago), Mefodiy remembers that during duels, the Light and the Dark Guardians are always separated exactly by six steps to not give any side an advantage. The first time it was mentioned in the second book, and only now it becomes clear where exactly that rule was forged.
Chekhov's Gag: Early in the book, Mefodiy and Daphne watch the news report about a vulture running away (possibly with someone's help) from the zoo; after stating what the vulture eats dead meat, the news anchor jokingly advices his viewers to not to become dead meat themselves. Later they find that same vulture in the Praskovia and Victor's house — it was Victor who set it free (he was disappointed what only the vulture chose freedom, the rest chose to stay in their cage). Unfortunately, by that point the "dead meat" joke is even less funny than before, because Praskovia is in on the brink of death due to what was done to her long time ago by Ligul.
Chekhov's Gun: Quite a few, including some old ones finally "firing":
- Early in the book, Daphne tells Mefodiy a legend about the Ship of Light, which, once per hundred (or maybe even thousand) years comes for one man, who's worthy of the Light, and brings them to the Eden so they may join the Light Guardians. After his death in the duel with Jaff, Mefodiy gets saved by the Ship... and awakes in Eden, as the Gold-Winged.
- Remember the weird handkerchief-like thing Ligul put into Praskovia several books ago? We finally learn what it is: it's the demonic being parasite from Tartarus which poisons the soul with negative emotions, on which it then preys, until the point when it grows too huge for the bearer to survive, then it explodes and spreads the parts of itself around. Mefodiy and Daphne fails to kill it through brute force, but Shilov succeeds through trickery.
- Matvey finally remembers about the box gifted by Jaff, and decides to test in on relatively small things (like removing small mole from Irka's face). He doesn't stop at just that, and later it turns out what the "gift" has one nasty catch — it slowly destroys Itka.
- Babanya's weak heart finally becomes the plot point: she would undergo a heart surgery soon, and it's when Mamzelkina estimates her death. The order for her death contains weird note — "NABTL". As later gets explained by Essiorkh, it stands for "Not Approved By The Light"; the Darkness can only suggest, but it's not up to them to condemn someone to die (and indeed, the operation later goes just fine). Unfortunately, Irka already made a deal with the hag...
- Matvey finally tries to use his right for one answer to learn something useful from Jaff before upcoming duel, but fails to gain any useful info.
- Mefodiy receives the winged necklace from the dying Gold-Winged. In the end that same necklace becomes his own, because he dies and gets resurrected as the Guardian of Light.
Chronoscope: With the use of the Path Stone, Matvey, when looking on two people (a student called Nastya, and a slacker called Igor), sees their past, their present and — if they finally collects enough willpower to propose — their future together, down to their elder life. He "accidentally" touches them (pretending that he just lost balance) to finally push them towards the decision.
Complete Immortality: Remember the legend about two immortals who are destined for each other? Turns out that those two immortals are Irka (that's why Mamzelkina failed to kill Irka during the fated road accident) and... Matvey (that's why he survived everything what was done to him by Mirowood).
The Corruption: We finally learn the purpose of the box Matvey received from Jaff. Each time it takes something from its target, it takes the small part of their soul with it, replacing it with — guess what — the Darkness, until the Darkness becomes all what remains, while the soul gets trapped in the box.
The Corruptor:
- Mamzelkina interacts with Irka only to speed up her succumbing and accepting the role of the new Grim Reaper.
- Amongst the other things, succubi acts like "delivery service" for various dreams — given the nature of succubi, obviously either nightmares or the ones intended to corrupt the person.
- Jaff tries to seduce Ulitha into playing his "win-win" lottery in order to preserve Essiorkh (who's about to be recalled to Eden), at the risk of losing her and her son's eidoses; she refuses at the last moment.
Dead Person Conversation: Praskovia gives Mefodiy magic hair comb (which she, in turn, received from Arey; she was supposed to give it to Mefodiy long ago, but was too angry to do so). When Mefodiy touches the words on it ("We are, in ourwhole, in what we love"), he summons Arey's spirt. Arey asks Mefodiy to find the medallion he previously gifted to Varvara (it contains the eidos of Arey's wife), because it's in the hands of Darkness, which tortures the poor soul as much as they can (they have no complete power over it, though). Arey also warns Mefodiy what he should fight and kill Jaff on a duel before Jaff kills Matvey, but to do so, Mefodiy should learn what the weapon Jaff is armed with; Arey doesn't know himself, and can give only small hints — the defence-crushing hit, and unbearable cold...
Distaff Counterpart: Petruccho meets Olga... who's basically the female version of himself, including the spiky and somewhat loony personality, love for pranks and even the short height. He immediately realises what she's the perfect match for him (with which Daphne later agrees).
Mefodiy: A stupid question: why you chose her?
Petruccho: I insist! She fits me! She's mean, but she's real! The personality traits are insignificant — in time, I would tame her! Or she would tame me — but it wouldn't be easy!
Deal with the Devil: Aida agrees to help Irka with filling a protest regarding her grandma's death order on the basis of it having a small note, in such a way that it would take near forever to sort out, but only if Irka oaths with her eidos to visit Jaff's next duel and take the soul of whomever he kills, "just one time".
De-power: After Varvara destroys Cornelius's winged necklace, he becomes a human, losing all his powers, his wings and his immortality.
Do Not Call Me "Paul": Inverted; after being perfectly fine with being called "Zigya" for so long, Zigya suddenly realises what since his real name is Nikita, he should be called that instead, and starts asking Mefodiy to not address him as "Zigya" anymore.
Don't Fear the Reaper: After witnessing Irka as the Grim Reaper, Mefodiy says what he suspected something like this, but he's grateful what it's her who cam for him after his duel with Jaff instead of Mamzelkina — because that way the last thing he would see would be some of his friends, coming to say the last goodbye.
Dual Wielding: The Dark Guardian Glov, instead of sticking with just one sword, always fights with two swords simultaneously, giving his opponent no time to react by overwhelming them with torrent of attacks.
Duel to the Death: So-called Forbidden Battles — illegal duels between the Dark Guardians; the Light one sometimes join the fun too, but they never fight each other. The duel always ends with one of them dying, with the winner taking the loser's belongings. Both the Light and the Darkness are trying to put an end to them because these duels waste the lives of their best combatants, so the exact place where the new duel happens is always kept secret, and changes every time. They occur every ten years.
Dying Declaration of Love: Right before taking one-way ticket to the past, knowing what she wouldn't make it back alive, Varvara says to Cornelius what she does love him.
Emotion Eater: Invaders are the Tartarian parasites who feed on negative emotions, while also causing them by their mere presence. They slowly poison their host, and, when they consume enough, they explode (killing said host) and spread around.
Energy Absorption: The Invader, besides emotions, can also feed on magic energy, becoming resistant to specific magic weapons if not killed fast enough. Mefodiy and Daphne both fall the victims of this ability, requiring Shilov's intervention to defeat the creature.
Exact Words:
- The signal what someone lost Jaff's "win-win" lottery is what they drew the Queen of Spades. So, when Jaff finally forces Ulitha to participate... Ulitha draws the empty card, because the Queen of Spades chose to jump into abyss rather than damn someone else. This works.
- Mamzelkina's deal with Irka involved Irka taking away "just the one person" — whoever gets killed by Jaff. That was intended to cement her role as the new Grim Reaper (the moment you take away any life with the scythe, you cross the point of no return — something Mamzelkina, of course, omitted). However, it goes not as planned, screwing Aida Plakhovna over, because Mefodiy uncovers the scythe by himself, triggering it taking away his life by itself, rather than by Irka's actions, and thus, technically fulfilling the deal without Irka damning herself.
Face Your Fears: Mirowood believed that facing your fears is the best way to fight them. What's why he locked Matvey up in the coffin with dead corpse for two days. When it only caused Matvey to loose ability to talk without stuttering for two weeks, he interpreted as him not spending "enough" time with his fear, and locked him up again.
False Reassurance: When Malara mentions under which conditions she lost her previous squires (each case weirder than the previous one), Gelatha asks wether she had at least one sane amongst them. She got the following response:
Gelatha: Can you just find the sane squire for once?
Malara: I had one. Saner than sane. But his relatives put him to madhouse, because he's eating glass.
Gelatha: But he isn't?
Malara: Of course not! He chews it up and spits out.
Fate Worse than Death: Essiorkh and Ulitha fail to melt Tukhlomon completely, and small part of him managed to escape... but now he needs to reconstruct himself, which would take months, and, worst of all, commissioners are extremely dependant on the amount of plasticine their bodies have — the less, the dumber they become; with what is left of him, Tukhlomon is barely sentient now.
Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Daphne explains to Mefodiy who the Invaders are, Shilov adds a bit of his own experience with them, and that they are pathologically greedy and too stupid to cooperate. When Mefodiy and Daphne fails to defeat the creature by force, Shilov separates it into four even parts, which causes them to wipe each other.
Forbidden Chekhov's Gun: We finally see exactly what happens when someone who isn't a Grim Reaper themselves uncover the Grim Reaper's scythe: it "awakes" and kill whoever does that on sight. Mefodiy does that to spare Irka the need to finish him off herself, which, unknowingly to them both, saves Irka from Mamzelkina due to some Exact Words in their deal.
Get Out!: When Matvey tells the truth about Irka and the Stone Spear, Rhadulga tries to kill him and only gets stopped by Fulona who needs to literally hold her up; she then says what he's better to get out because once she frees, she would kill him. Fulona says what it's better if he indeed leaves, and only adds what if he cares about Irka a one bit, he better keep quiet about what they just doomed all the Valkyries.
Good Counterpart: In the end, Irka is revealed to be the counterpart to Mamzelkina; if Aid Plakhovna is Death, than Irka is Life — someone who unites the people, and brings them hope. She's more than just yet another Maiden of the Tripled Spear — she's the Maiden of Hope.
Hate at First Sight: Mefodiy dislikes Varsus right from the start, and even tries to challenge him to a duel; fortunately, the Light Guardians can't accept non-friendly duels with someone from their own side.
The Heart: After Mamzelkina's plot gets foiled, Essiorkh reveals what it was the true role Irka played amongst the Valkyries; despite being the Loner Valkyrie, she acted as the unifying power for them — prior to her, they were almost dysfunctional, rarely interacted outside of combat and were barely worthy of their powers. She helped them to unite and become the force they are now. And now, after defeating Mamzelkina herself, she can act as one for the entire humanity.
Heel Realisation: After attempt to use the box gifted by Jaff fails to give him any relief, Matvey takes the Path Stone (which is still stored with in the Valkyrie's Refuge) and once again feels the self-confidence provided by it. He realises what he had everything, and was able to help so many people by sharing that confidence and willpower, but faulted, which only brought the suffering to both him and Irka. He decides to just go and warn Fulona about what's going on and takes all the blame, regardless of what she would do to him, because it's not pleasant, but the right thing to do.
Heir Club for Men: When waiting for Ulitha in the hospital, Essiorkh starts talking with some home-brew "philosopher", who complains what he already has three daughters (and now awaits fourth), which, if taking Chinese's view on the things, means he has no heirs at all — they would all leave and join some other families, rather than continuing his own. He's jealous towards Essiorkh who's very first child would be a son.
Heroic Sacrifice:
- Varvara teleports back in time to fight nazis, and dies destroying one of their tanks. It restores the timeline more ore less back to what it was before Ligul's intervention.
- Irka volunteers to fight alongside the other Valkyries in the upcoming battle against the Dark Dozen, going in melee to buy them time to wipe out the Dark Guardians, knowing full well what she would be the first casualty of the fight. She does it in attempt to at least somewhat redeem herself for falling to Mamzelkina's schemes. However, in the end the battle gets postponed by one month due to death of Jaff, and the circumstances of Mefodiy's death lead to Stone Spear being redeemed and the Ice Spear returned to Light, which also negated the crime she wanted to atone for.
- All four Queen cards Jaff uses for his "win-win lottery" contain the real souls — in return for cooperation in his schemes, they are spared the torments of Tartarus (for us, the cards looks flat, but in truth, the women stands on the small platforms above the abyss). The Queen of Spades, in particular, is the one who signals that you just lost and your soul now belongs to Jaff. However, during his second attempt to seduce Ulitha into selling her soul (or, failing that, force), his plan gets foiled because the Queen of Spades... chose to jump into abyss herself rather than damn someone else. It actually earns her forgiveness from whatever sins she committed in the past, and allows her to leave Tartarus.
Humanity Ensues: Jaff says to Ulitha that Essiorkh would soon be recalled to Eden to prevent him from becoming a mortal due to extended exposure to Earth, and agrees to help her. She almost falls for it, and later it (unsurprisingly) turns out to be a lie.
I Have This Friend: Matvey tells Irka the story about one event which motivated him to become Mirowood's apprentice — an event so shameful, he only tell about it in the third person, calling his past self just "the Boy". Irka understands and plays along.
In-Universe Factoid Failure: Daphne gave the mud people she made to spar with the Valkyries 2⁸ years to live, sincerely believing that it means "sixteen". She gets called out on this:
Malara: Who taught you Math, the Light One?
Daphne: I was sick when we studied it...
Fulona: For 1500 years?
Irony: Only now, after permanently losing his magic, Cornelius learns the true music. He acknowledges how ironic it is:
Cornelius: Before, I was unable to understand the flute. It was merely a source of magologies for me, but now I think I'm starting to understand... Ironic! I'm not even a Guardian now! As a Guardian, I was unable, but now the music suddenly started opening to me...
Karma Houdini Warranty: Tukhlomon finally receives what he deserves, being ambushed by Essiorkh during attempt to force Ulitha into giving up her and her son's eidoses and nearly completely melted, reducing him to a small, barely sentient piece. It would take him months to reassemble himself if he's lucky, and even in that case, there's still the Wolfgencluck who wouldn't forget his failure.
Kick the Dog: Mamzelkina keeps sending Irka the notes about the Grim Reaper's orders. All of these orders are already fulfilled (by Aida Plakhovna herself), but they reminds Irka that she's now the Grim Reaper too, causing her stress and not letting her to concentrate on how she can avoid succumbing to her new role.
Kill It with Fire: Ulitha (almost) kills Tukhlomon by melting him with a burning newspaper when he tries to hide on the celling.
Kill the Ones You Love: Just giving a Mercy Kill to some already half-dead cats isn't what Mamzelkina wants from Irka; nope, she must do something much more serious — she must kill Babanya, cementing the point of no return. The day of her planned death is the same when she plans to undergo a heart surgery.
Like Father, Like Son:
- Lyulya, despite being just born, already shows the interest to swords; its possible that he inherited this trait from Ulitha, who gifted him a gladius.
- This poster in the hospital:
  You can yell at your children or beat them up for as much as you want — they would still resemble you; change yourself instead!
Literal Metaphor: Irka writes down a funny dialogue which once happened between her and Mefodiy:
Mefodiy: At times I want to take the box with brains, and start giving them away on the street.
Irka: Matvey has tried once. A bad idea. No one liked it.
Magic Music: After losing his powers, Cornelius obtained the true musical gift instead. He believes what if one creates sufficiently beautiful music, it would work similarly to extremely powerful magology, regardless of wether the performer is Guardian themselves or not, and would enlighten the souls enough to make them immune to commissioners and succubi.
Make Wrong What Once Went Right: Ligul tries to alter the history to remove or corrupt light memories people still have about the past, starting with the World War II.
Mathematician's Answer: Matvey tries to ask Jaff what he would be armed with on a duel (the info which Irka needs for her deal with Mamzelkina). The answer? "With weapon". Jaff actually explains why he keeps it secret: he received in on specific condition that he wouldn't reveal it. Turns out that it was the Ice Spear, which was lost since the fifth book.
Mercy Kill: In continuation from the previous book, Irka only uses the scythe to kill animals, and only already hopeless, to end their suffering. Matvey believes that Mamzelkina purposely drops such cases on her to let her slowly adapt on the new job before giving her humans — who also would start with the terminally ill and agonising.
Mutual Kill: Jaff manages to mortally wound Mefodiy, but gets killed himself. Mefodiy gets resurrected as the Light Guardian afterwards, however.
My Greatest Failure: Matvey tells Irka a story about one Boy (who was obviously Matvey himself), the story which stands behind his decision to become Mirowood's apprentice. That Boy had only one friend, a boy called Grisha. One day they were visited by the Orlovich family, which had three sons. In attempt to impress Orlovich brothers, the Boy, for whatever reason, started cruelly abusing his friend, who didn't even feel anger, or fear — only surprise, why his friend does that to him, but stoically tolerated everything; it did little to attract attention of the brothers, besides random advices what else the boy can do to poor Grisha. Later, the brothers attacked the Boy himself when he, over some conflict, hit one of them with the tree branch. They prepared to torture him... and then Grisha suddenly volunteered to suffer in his stead. This surprised and intrigued the brothers, and they agreed. All of this shocked the Boy so much that he was able to only stand and silently watch: something just broke inside him. This was the day when he learned what the true strength of will is. The day when he realised that he's a coward.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Black Dozen challenges all the Valkyries to fight them, and the battle would happen soon. Unfortunately, not only they are short of two Valkyries (the Ice Spear which still didn't find a new bearer, and the Incinerating Spear which was destroyed), they now lack the Stone Spear as well due to what Matvey and Irka did.
Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Invoked by Mefodiy. Jaff refuses to accept Mefodiy's challenge because he has nothing of value to gain from defeating him... but when Mefodiy calls him a coward a one time too many, it bites his pride strong enough to ensure that he would fight Mefodiy just out of principle.
Non-Indicative Name: One of Mefodiy's teachers has the nickname "Hand-on-a-Thread". He got it not due to any injury (like gets presumed), but because he keeps mentioning that hand on every single lesson.
No-Sell: Gelatha can pet Depresnyak without suffering any ill effects.
Oblivious to Love: Cornelius believes that Varvara is secretly in love with him; she just doesn't realise it yet.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Mamzelkina for the first time refers to herself (and Irka) as Grim Reaper, rather than "manager of necrodepartment". Irka doesn't know why, but she's sure: it's not a coincidence, and is yet another part of Aida's plan how to break her into accepting her fate.
Open Mouth, Insert Foot: When Buhthla suggests to invite Mefodiy to train alongside them, Rhadulga points out that he's a Dark Guardian. Irka tries to defend Mefodiy and says that he's not a Dark Guardian, he only fights like one — which Hola immediately mocks by saying that she's not a fool — she merely looks like one; she expects that Lamina would like this joke, realising too late that it was a joke at her own expense... which Lamina certainly doesn't miss.
Physical Hell: Shilov, Praskovia and Zigya chose to run away to Siberia, because Ligul is now aware where to find them. Shilov warns Mefodiy not to enter their (now empty) room, because it would burn down at midnight. Mefodiy still visits it — and barely makes it out alive because it turns out that the way they want to burn the room involves summoning the piece of Low Tartarus.
Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: When Matvey reveals what he knows Jaff, Fulona can't help but ask both how he met him (he just so happened to be a new addition to the Black Dozen, to replace Arey) and why Jaff helped Matvey, she can't help but punctuate after every word, which adds more pressure into her words. It's clear what she barely holds herself.
Put on a Bus: Early in the book, Praskovia, Shilov and Zigya chose to run way to Siberia (by accidence, they chose the same region where the current Forbidden Battles are set). They are absent from the plot for the rest of the book, even when the rest of the cast goes there.
Put on a Bus to Hell: Tukhlomon runs out of luck when he participates in attempt to steal Ulitha's eidos, and gets nearly completely destroyed, reducing him to small plasticine worm which is not even fully sentient anymore, which then runs away. Essiorkh estimates that it would take him months at best to restore himself.
Remember the New Guy?: Subverted. Malara was mentioned exactly once in the seventh book (she replaced Barmia), but quietly disappeared and received proper introduction now; not even Irka recognises her. Turns out what she was in Ekaterinburg all this time to keep commissioner and succubi population under control, as the only Valkyrie native to the city.
Rule of Three: Ulitha orders Tukhlomon to leave the room, so he wouldn't eavesdrop. Tukhlomon instead goes into corner and puts the fingers in his ears. Ulitha says what he still eavesdrops, so Jaff puts an apple on his head and shoots it from the pistol (there' no reaction), after which he claims what now Tukhlomon doesn't listen them. Tukhlomon immediately confirms what he doesn't, and Ulitha demands to kick him out completely.
Right Behind You: At first Tukhlmonon dismisses Ulitha saying what Essiorkh has return as attempt to distract him. Then he decides to check after all... and gets smashed against the wall — Essiorkh indeed has returned, and he's very angry.
Sarcastic Confession:
- When asked about Ulitha's weirdness (when in the hospital, almost ready to give birth, she ate the plate along with cookies; and their equipment shows what she died forty years ago), Essiorkh just reveals everything as is, realising what no one would believe in it anyway — and leave him alone. The truth includes the curse set by the mages from the Bold Mountain, which makes her look like she's dead since the forty years ago, or her falling from twelfth store and only breaking her finger.
- When Matvey destroys the wooden door in frustration, Jaff restores it... and decorates it with the genuine brilliant he teleported from unknown king's tomb in Azia. When Matvey pointed what the people would steal them, he agreed... and (also magically) added some ugly yellow paint on them and horribly misspelled "those are true brilliants, anyone is free to take". As he explains, too much truth starts sounding like a lie.
The Shadow Knows:
- Ulitha almost succumbs to Jaff's offer of his "win-win lottery", but at the last moment sees his true self by looking on his shadow, and angrily refuses.
- During the duel, Mefodiy finds the last clue to guess Jaff's weapon by looking on his enemy's shadow — which shows him throwing something. Just before being hit by it, Mefodiy recognises what this "something" was — the lost Ice Spear.
Set Right What Once Went Wrong: After Cornelius convinces Varvara what the time was indeed changed, she says what she's sorry what it's impossible to go back and fix everything. Cornelius says what, hypothetically, it's possible, if one takes the wings of the Light Guardians, and breaks them while imagining what they want to do. Varvara says him her last "sorry", and does exactly that, which teleports her back in time. She does what the disappeared soldier was supposed to do, at the cost of her own life, which restores the time back (with minimal changes).
Shoot the Dog: Realising what she has no other option, Varvara breaks Cornelius' winged necklace (thus making him a mortal). She apologises for doing so, and says what it was the only way. She uses the last moment they have to ask him to take care of Dobryak, and admits what she does love him.
Taking You with Me: Mortally wounded Glov tries to grab the rapier with his bare hand just to prevent Varsus from taking it out, so he may take him with himself before dying... only for Varsus to just release the rapier, step out and finish Glov off with the magolody instead.
Tall Poppy Syndrome: The persons who were trapped in the cursed box prevent each other from escaping, operating on the logic what once someone leaves, "their" pain would be shared amongst the rest. Jaff openly admits what it's not the case and what if they just unite for once and help each other to escape, they would succeed — and the last one who stays would be just free to go. All they need is to realise this...
Tempting Fate: Fulona deals with stubborn policeman by showing him the little red book which immediately scares him away. When asked by Irka what it was, Fulona explains what the book shows people someone they fear the most (this guy, judging from his response, just saw some of the higher ups). Irka asks to see it herself, insisting what she fears no one... and sees Aida Plakhovna Mamzelkina, the Senior Manager of Necrodepartment.
Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Just the moment before being hit with the Ice Spear, Mefodiy remembers what was taught to him by Arey, and throws his sword, not really expecting much. It hits Jaff into throat, killing him.
Together in Death: Downplayed. Arey's wife and daughter are allowed to visit him in hell, giving him brief moments of happiness, but most of the time he still remains alone. It's still infinitely more than he ever dared to ask.
Too Dumb to Live: Under effects of the Invader's poison, Mefodiy (already in depression) tries to clean his tears... by using Depresnyak as the handkerchief. It predictably only reinforced the effect, and after several unsuccessful attempts, Mefodiy nearly tried to use the Invader itself for that purpose. He only gets saved by Shilov's intervention.
Tragic Keepsake: After Varvara's death, Cornelius picked up everything what was left of her (her jacket, her mismatched long socks, her phone, her sword), and now wears it himself. The narrative compares it to him trying to "merge" with Varvara, as if it can return her.
Troll: Matvey suggests Mefodiy to find a grave of some man with the name, the surname and patronymic starting with the same letter, lay in it, right above the bones, and spend a night there, then knock three times on something made of wood and say "Jaff" three times. As we (but not Mefodiy) already know by this point, only the last two points are mandatory; everything else was Matvey's black humour and strong antipathy towards Mefodiy.
True Sight: As the part of her plan of manipulating Irka into slowly giving up on her humanity, Mamzelkina invites her into theatre, where she gives her a special binocular, which shows how the Darkness corrupts people by sending them specific thoughts (which she sees as the pipes attached to their heads). The fat woman sees tons of food, while her neurotic husband sees constant visages of various dangers; one woman constantly sees visages which show other people as her enemies; one girl sees constant stream of happy thoughts, but because they change too quickly, can't concentrate on anything; and one guy sees how he can kill the other people — and feel pleasure over it.
The Un-Smile:
- Matvey asks Aleck to smile. Result turns out to be so creepy, he asks him to "smile" using only eyes in the future — at least, that way his antipathy wouldn't be that blatant.
- When Mamzelkina pats Tamerlan on the shoulder, he tries to show a smile. The result gets compared to grinning electrocuted corpse.
Villainous Breakdown: When Mefodiy reveals Irka's scythe by himself, he completely ruins Mamzelkina's plans to corrupt Irka, and breaks the last strings she had to manipulate her. This is the first and perhaps the last time when Mamzelkina ever loses her composure, revealing her anger — and her fear.
Villainous Rescue: Mefodiy loses the fight against a Dark Guardian from the Dark Dozen, and prepares to meet his demise, but then the Guardian's partner stops him by reminding what Mefodiy is Jaff's prey, and only he has the right to kill him.
Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Essiorkh has a "bright" idea to call his son "Luminiscentiy" (no pun intended). Ulitha is not impressed, and mocks him, but reluctantly accepts the name (which she shortens to "Lyulya").
Ulitha: Luminiscentiy Essiorkhovich! Great! You came up with this by yourself, or with someone's help?
Would Hurt a Child: Now, when Ulitha's son is born, Wolphengluck finally proceeds with the plan (he needs the boy's eidos). He sends Jaff to do the job, with Tukhlomon as his "assistant".
You Kill It, You Bought It: Inverted. Mefodiy saves a Light Guardian. Unfortunately, the Guardian still dies from from his injuries, but before that he gives Mefodiy his winged necklace, saying what "it's [his] now". In the end of the book, Mefodiy briefly dies, and finds himself in Eden, with the wings actually accepting him as their new owner.

The Gryphon's Mistake tropes

Achilles' Heel:
- "The Chain" are invulnerable except for thirty minutes after eating something. They are particularly fond to eat specific breed of dogs, which can be exploited if one hunts for them.
- The Shoe Dragon ins only vulnerable if one attacks its eyes.
Advice Backfire: Irka and Matvey asks Antigon for help with particularly stubborn (and aggressive) domovoi called Archibald. Antigon explains what since each domovoi receives their name not from birth, but after earning it (it represents their achievements so far), you can tell the personality of any given domovoi by checking the first letter of his name. If it starts with "O", they would be the nice guys. If it starts with "Z", they would be somewhat lazy. If it starts with "D", they would be good housekeepers. But if they start with "A", expect the jerk with Hair-Trigger Temper. Matvey immediately points what "Antigon" starts with "A" as well. This annoys Antigon so much what the air in the car started physically heating, before Antigon started yelling what this doesn't apply to him because he's partially kikimor (for them, the letter "A" means only positive traits).
And I Must Scream:
- It's presumed in-universe what the Water Dragon was trapped in cement during building of "Dinamo" arena in Moscow, and now can't leave, but he's still alive.
- Drunya's grandfather would remain as live, self-aware fat mass within glass container for the next five billion years due to poorly thought-out wish. Never trust the Dark Guardians.
Armour Piercing Attack: "The Chain", if they concentrate their breath attack in one specific point, can breach absolutely any magic defence, up to and including the Dreadful Gates.
Ascended Fridge Horror: It was stated several times across the series how dangerous it may be for the gryphon (a very huge and dangerous creature of Light with the Black-and-White Insanity and All Crimes Are Equal mindset) ending up on Earth. Now, one of them escapes to Moscow, and Mefodiy must find and return it before the catastrophe can happen (or worse, it ending up aligning to Darkness).
Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Continuing from the previous book's ending, Mefodiy awakes after his presumed death, in Eden, now as the new Light Guardian (specifically, the Gold-Winged one).
Asteroids Monster: When Matvey tries to cut the "jellyfish" in half, it only results in two halves becoming two separate jellyfishes. He cuts them too, creating even more jellyfishes. Irka stops him from trying to cut them again after this.
Ax-Crazy: Back in the first book, Arey described Hoors as bloodthirsty psychopath who was unable to understand the word "mercy" without a dictionary. In flashback, we learn what he was like this ever since defection from the Light, being amongst the first ones (alongside Ligul and Kvodnon) to succumb to Darkness after rejecting the Light. The scene with female deer whom Hoors killed just because he can, only to snap into cry which then switches to laugh and then rant about how he can kill even more efficiently shows just how insane the guy was.
Bait-and-Switch: Varsus seemingly compliments Mefodiy's duel with Jaff... before twisting the compliment into insult of the both duelists' skills.
Been There, Shaped History: The Babel Tower was Kvodnon's project to invade Eden, curated by Ligul (who botched it). The tower itself was consumed by Tartarus and now can be found in the Middle Tartarus — perhaps the only notable place in this wasteland.
Berserk Button: To fight, Brungilde needs to be angry first. When Essiorkh achieved completely wrong effect by insulting her cooking, and Vovan's insult ends up just lame, Nata finally provokes Brungilde's rage by saying what Petruccho is gonna kill a bug. When Brungilde started rushing to him, Chimodanov insisted what he has no bug, to which Nata added what he already killed it. After the clay golems' defeat, Moshkin asks Nata how she came up with this idea, and she explains what it's fairy obvious: Big Guys such as Brungilde can only snap when snap when someone abuses animals in their vicinity.
Bewitched Amphibians: The frog which helps Mefodiy turns out to be cursed princess, who awaits for that one man, who would make her her fall in love with him the moment he kiss her (and vice versa) — that would lift the curse; since it didn't work, Mefodiy is obviously not the one destined for her. Mefodiy asks her wether she's [1], but turns out they are just distant relatives; the frog is called Vasilina the Dreadful.
Beyond Redemption: Subverted. Levus assures Arey what for as long as you're willing to pray for forgiveness, and there are still people left who didn't give up on you, you may earn some Light to let you preserve yourself even in Tartarus.
Bloodless Carnage: Masha dies completely without blood, despite being pierced with the spear. This is due to spear being enchanted to leave no blood which can attract unwanted attention to
Body Surf: Ziggy Puffs visits the battle between the Black Dozen and the Valkyries, where he encounters Zigya. After initial surprise, he quickly tries to take him under control to steal him yet again, but gets interrupted.
Brick Joke: The Book of Secret Dragons mentions the killing streak of every dragon listed (how many succubi, commissioners, eidosless humans/mages and Dark Guardians they have killed). In later chapter, when "jellyfish" tries to kill Irka and Matvey and steal the Book, it gets destroyed by Firebreather (himself the small salamander/dragon-like creature). Matvey wonders wether there's similar list for him somewhere.
Call-Forward: Several scenes in flashbacks reference events which wouldn't happen until the actual creation of the Dark Guardians:
- Arey, after looking on Ligul's deformed wings, wonders wether they would form a hunch at one point. We already know what they would.
- Perhaps the only thing about Ligul which everyone acknowledged to be beautiful is his unique calligraphic skills. Nowadays, Ligul is best known as the master of the Dark Chancellory.
Can't Spit It Out: Varsus was too shy to propose to Daphne. As result, he wasted too much time and when he was almost ready to do it, she was appointed as Mefodiy's Guardian Angel.
The Cavalry: Cornelius gets ambushed by the Dark Guardians, whose leader Azgud takes away the gryphon, while Azgud's companions stop to kill Cornelius (quickly, as the "reward" for "helping" to calm down the gryphon). However, Cornelius gets saved by Dion who easily kills both Guardians with his throwing knives.
The Corruptor: Kvodnont, the other original Dark Guardians:
- Arey compares Kvodnon to virus — he basically "infected" everyone with his evil, and those who were too weak to reject it, fell for it — the third of all the Light Guardians at the time.
- Kvodnon is the first one to try and torture the other living being for fun, or the one to suggest what they can use the sticks and wooden maces to harm each other. Everyone else merely expanded on those ideas.
- Turns out what it was Kvodnon who came up with the idea to use darkhs. Arey was against it... but trusted his friend Wilhelm. He realised too late what it was a trap, and failed to gather enough courage to grab it and break.
- Besides the Dark Guardians, Kvodnon is also the one who introduced humans to evil, with intent to corrupt them and steal their eidoses.
Chekhov's Gun:
- The Book of Secret Dragons. While at no point Irka actually goes after dragons, she uses the Book to trick Marmus into breakinghis guard and allow her to use the horn to stop the battle.
- The Firebreather. It's thanks to his friendship with Arey's gryphon Mefodiy manages to find him.
Chekhov's News: In attempt to shut down the TV in the airport because it was too loud for her comfort, Irka accidentally breaks it. Attempt to fix it succeeds... but causes it to transfer new from the Bold Mountain instead. The news are about the runaway gryphon (the level of destruction he caused in the forest gets compared to tsunami), and the upcoming battle between the Valkyries and the Dark Dozen (news anchor gets interrupted before she spills the info who replaced Jaff, only revealing what it's someone very important).
Create Your Own Hero: Praskovia was intended to stay in Siberia along with Shilov and Zigya, where neither Light nor Darkness would disturb them anymore. The Darkness' assassination attempt which was only prevented due to someone else taking the spear intended for her convinces her what she must pick the side, and she joins the Valkyries.
Crippling Overspecialisation: Dion gets surprised himself what the Dark Guardians' coats can hold off the strongest combat magic, but fail to protect them from almost normal throwing knives. Later Mefodiy and Varsus encounter another Guardian with the same coat, and it turns out what someone put all its protective capabilities to fire protection, ignoring more common stuff like swords, spears or arrows. This is Justified, however, since by that point we already know what these coats are used by Eyehunters — an illegal order who hunts dragons for their magical eyes — who are more concerned with being incinerated than combat with someone armed.
Cruel Mercy: Dion fought Arey once and predictably lost. Arey cut off both his legs with the single blow and leaved, taking away his winged necklace and his flute, but sparing his life. Now, he lives on the street, and has no hope to return to Eden until the moment of his death.
Curb-Stomp Battle: During training fight, Moshkin fights four squires with his quarterstaff. He effortlessly defeats them all, despite not even being sure in his skills.
Death by Irony: Masha once dreamed about becoming a hero, which almost made her a Valkyrie, but she missed the chance due to being seduced by the Darkness into pursing model career (which quickly died out due to being only supported by the Darkness' aid). She realised what she had done too late to change anything, and lived the rest of her life trying to atone somewhat by at least aiding the actual Valkyries... right until the moment when she died protecting Praskovia, taking the spear aimed at her, finally becoming a hero she wanted. Fulona lampshades it.
Death in the Limelight: We're finally introduced to the rest of Black Dozen (besides Arey and Jaff). Just before the battle where they end up massacred.
Death of Personality: Those who end up in the Cavern of Spirits (the place where the dead Dark Guardians usually go) get stuck here in their personal hell, slowly losing their memories and even forgetting their own names. Once that happens, they are gone, and nothing can free them. Arey is spared that fate due to him, following Levus' advice, still praying to Light for what little mercy he can get — and he gets it, because his wife and daughter are allowed to visit him here.
Driven to Suicide: The apartments picked by Praskovia and Shilov have... interesting history. The first owner chose to jump out of the window with his umbrella. The second "mistook" the words "garnet" and "grenades" ^note when cooking and blew himself. The third one drowned himself in the bath... filled with kefir. After that, the landlord was ready to sell it by the lowest price to anyone willing to ignore the reputation.
Dude, Not Funny!: Matvey jokingly calls Cornelius "the citizen Gormost" (the same nickname which used to belong to Varvara). Irka kicks his leg — the joke was very tasteless considering Varvara's demise and Cornelius' feelings for her, but fortunately Cornelius doesn't react. Matvey later makes several equally tactless comments and "jokes" (again without reaction), ignoring Irka's kicks. The narrative even suggests what the crowbar should be used instead of legs.
Dying Race: Most surviving dragons were adopted by either mages or Light Guardians, with those who stayed in the mortal world either being killed (by lopukhoids, or Dark Guardians who saw their eyes for their magic capabilities), or hiding. With the Book of Secret Dragons, and the last Firebreather, one can find them, and save them (if they serve the Light)... or kill them (if they serve the Darkness). This becomes Irka's new task for the book as soon as she deals with stubborn domovoi Archibald.
Evil Makes You Ugly: We learn where and how the Dark Guardians earned their ugliness.
- Not only Ligul was amongst the first to lose his wings, what little remained of them started deforming; Arey presumes what it would eventually form a hunch.
- While one half of Kvodnon's face remained as beautiful as it ever was, the other half became the ugly, scarred mess, reflecting his personality. That's where he gained the "Two-Faced" title.
Exact Words:
- In flashbacks, Ligul, realising what Arey is gonna push him into the lake (he can't swim) asks Arey to give a promise what he wouldn't touch him. Arey promises... and pushes him by creating a wind with his wings.
- After visiting the rude (and possibly alcoholic) mermaid and giving her squid ink (which she intends to drink rather than use as scales medicine), Matvey asks her to at least give them tips (called "chayeviye" in Russian, literally "[money] for the tea"). The mermaid gives them sugar, and makes it clear what it's all they would get from her.
Face–Heel Turn: Downplayed with the runaway gryphon. The moment when gryphon chose to run away, it chose to cut his ties with the Light. Even if he returns (or, rather, would be returned — he would never do so voluntarily), the ties wouldn't be as strong as they used to be, because, like any creature of Light, it can only change the sides once. It's more about not letting him to fall into hands of Ligul.
Fallen Hero:
- While he doesn't know him long enough to tell when it happened, Arey presumes what Ligul certainly was a heroic person back when he was created — if his vileness is soo deep, it means, there was the deep to fill with it to begin with.
- Wilhelm was the all-loving hero prior to succumbing to Darkness, and even him siding with Kvodnon didn't take it away immediately. The reason why he fell for Kvodnon's lies was his overblown sense of justice, which Kvodnon exploited by saying what the Light rewards its creations in "unjust" manner. Wilhelm believed in it so sincerely, he soon started preaching that belief himself, spreading it on other Guardians who lacked perfection in some aspects, blaming this imperfection on the Light.
False Friend: All the "help" Mefodiy receives from Vaselina causes him only problems; as later turns out, it was done on purpose, because she seems to dislike the Light Guardians, particularly Sniffer (whom Mefodiy is trying to find), to whom she has some grudges since the long time ago.
Fantastic Drug: The second call Matvey and irka answer to while on duty helping various wights living in Moscow is from the mermaid who needs squid ink to deal with her scales drying up. However, mermaids have another use for the ink — if they drink it, it has alcohol-like effect on them. Judging from mermaid's rude behaviour, they quickly realised what the mermaid is interested to use the ink for the latter, and what it was the false call.
Foreshadowing: When Arey asks Varsus wether he broke the darkh he obtained from dead Guardian, he hesitates for a moment before answering what yes, he did. Shortly afterwards, at the beginning o the battle between the Valkyries and the Black Dozen, he reveals to Daphne what he actually didn't destroy the darkh: he chose to take it and use against the Darkness. Arey also gives Mefodiy advice: if he ever ends up fighting Varsus, he must fight him in the air; for now, there's seemingly no reason for them to fight, but perhaps Arey knows more than he says...
The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: In-Universe. Not willing to risk to shut the TV down with magic (the previous attempt resulted in it being connected to Grysiana's show), Irka just cuts off the wire... only for TV to last a bit longer, and Grysiana saying goodbye to all Moscow watchers... and Irka personally, whom she scolds for breaking the government property.
Friend to All Living Things: Wilhelm, prior to succumbing to his dark side completely, tried to protect all living beings, be they animals or plants, even from Kvodnon, and shared their pain when Kvodnon tortured them.
Gallows Humor: Rather than let her disability (she lacks one leg — yes, entire leg), the little girl calls herself "Captain Silver" and pretends what she's the captain. Her optimism convinces Irka what her new role has some meaning after all, and inspires her to go on (previously, she considered it to be the waste of time).
Glamour Failure: The succubus apprehended by Varsus disguises itself for attractive girl. Mefodiy instinctively almost releases him, but then succubus accidentally bends its arm in the wrong direction, reminding Mefodiy that this is the disguised demon.
Gone Horribly Right: Unlike Essiorkh's ill-fated attempts to provoke Brungilde's rage with insults, Nata actually succeeds when she pretended what Petruccho is gonna kill a bug (turns out what for Brungilde, abusing animals is massive Berserk Button, just like Nata suspected). Unfortunately, this nearly caused her to kill Petruccho; she only let him go and snapped out of her Unstoppable Rage when Nata said what the bug just flied away.
Gone Horribly Wrong: During the training, Brungilde can't attack the clay golems because she needs to be enraged first. To achieve this, she asks Essiorkh to insult her. He reluctantly agrees after being asked twice, and forces the golem to (clumsily) insult Brungilde's cooking skills. This causes her to snap into tears and run away: her cooking skills are sacred!
Handicapped Badass: Cornelius' new friend is the legless (former) Light Guardian Dion who trained his arms so much, he can not only relatively easy move around, even on ledges (what's left of his legs is attached to small platform on the wheels), but became a master of throwing (magic) knives, which he uses to destroy commissioners and succubi who regularly gather to mock him. Cornelius now tries to learn how to throw knives as well.
Hate at First Sight: Back in the first book, the stone gryphons guarding the Palace of Lightest Ones stopped just short of open hostility towards Daphne when she tried to walk past them due to whatever small pieces of Darkness within her. When Mefodiy tries it now, they flat out attack him and only stop Troil and Sniffer interfere and attack them with magolodies — they were just that hostile to the traces of Darkness within him. Unfortunately, while one gryphon calmed down, another chose to run away, kickstarting the plot.
Heel–Face Turn: Turns out that there's a third gryphon, who chose to run away with Arey when he was exiled. Downplayed in that he never joined the Darkness properly, Arey hid him to not let him fall into hands of Kvodnon, but, as Troil points out, in this war, "neutrals" still unwillingly serve the Darkness by not participating on the side of Light. However, unlike the gryphon which run away recently, there's still a chance to convince him to return because the reason for his downfall was love, not distrust. In the end, it's Cornelius's music which convinces him to go — just like he leaved out of love for Arey, he returns now out of love for Cornelius.
Hoist by His Own Petard: The Guardian who attacks Varsus tries to kill him with the magic spear which locks on target and continues pursuing him. It ends up hitting the Guardian in the back while trying to hit Varsus, and stops at here, because for it, kill is kill and it doesn't care wether it was the intended target or its own user, only that the blood was spilt.
Hope Spot:
- Aspurk throws two spears at Ilga and Hola. Ilga is missed completely, and starts turning to Hola to say how lucky she is... only to realise that the second spear hit Hola in the throat.
- Buthla gets hit with the Knor's arrow in the leg. She thinks that the wound is not that serious and she can continue fighting... then it turns out that it was poisoned, and she gets reduced to dust in mere seconds.
- Inverted for Praskovia when she tries to kill Knor to avenge the death of Buhthla; she misses him with the spear which falls down mid-flight... but then she just drags a huge metal rail from far afar with her magic, and hits him in the head with this instead. This time, it works perfectly.
- Inverted for Dasha; she seemingly misses Dinor when he tries to jump, and he successfully lands on ice. Then he falls dead, because the spear actually hit him in the last moment.
Impartial Purpose-Driven Faction: The Order of Eyehuntes, true to its name, hunts for dragon eyes to put them into darkhs, because each dragon eye gives its owner some unique magic powers; they hunt many of them down to extinction. The Order is outlawed, because they are both too powerful and too unreliable, and being a member of it is punishable by death. They always maintain the same number of members, and only allow new ones if someone gets killed. The easiest way to spot an Eyehunter is by their signature fireproof cloak (enchanted for anti-fire protection — and only anti-fire protection).
I Never Said It Was Poison: By asking wether the "jellyfish's" masters are interested in finding the dragon eyes, he accidentally confirms what yes, they do have the Book.
Insistent Terminology: It's not a salamander, it's a Firebreather. Matvey points out that Archibald failed to point any difference between the two, but Irka quickly shuts him up before domovoi starts throwing stuff around again.
It Has Been an Honor: Just before the final battle, the Black Dozen gives the Valkyries the last chance to save final goodbye to each other. The Valkyries use it to ask each other to forgive them for past conflicts, and admit what despite everything, they are the family.
Jackass Genie: Brunya's grandfather has sold his eidos for eternal youth. He was transferred into the living fat mass within glass container, which can sustain itself for at least five billions years. All while remaining self-aware.
Kids Are Cruel: We learn more about Dasha's backstory. Due to her health problems (some unspecified skin disease), she was horribly abused by the other children back in school, and was an outcast.
Killer Rabbit:
- Firebreather has the fire so strong, it can incinerate the dragon. Even the dragons respect the creature, despite it looking like small lizard, and abide it.
- The Chocolate Dragon can't breath fire, it can only spit sweets which can temporarily zombify whoever eats them. It actually managed to destroy 3 succubi, 19 commissioners, 8 people and one Dark Guardian.
- The Paper Dragon is seemingly the least threatening out of all Secret Dragons (yes, even the Chocolate one), being attached to paper and lacking firebreath whatsoever, but it's actually the most lethal, and killed 61 succubi, 82 commissioners, 98 humans and even thirteen Dark Guardians. This is because if it "says" what you're dead, you die. Instantly.
Last of His Kind: There's only one Firebreather (some weird salamander/dragon creature) left in the world. All the others were destroyed.
Lazy Dragon: Firebreather (some kind of dragon/salamander creature) spends most time sleeping in his kerosene lamp. When he gets disturbed by cold, he slowly becomes annoyed, but even then he's nomrally to lazy to actively attack anyone. One of the few things which may spark his interest are dragonflies, whom he loves to eat.
Long List: After encountering the weird talking bird with the woman's face (obviously predatory, judging from her claws and fangs, and ability to throw steel-sharp feathers), Mefodiy tries to guess what kind of magic creature she is, and says the first one he can remember, Sirin. It annoys her, because she's not Sirin, so Mefodiy tries another one, Alkonost. It annoys her even more, and she decides to test his knowledge of the Slavic mythology; when he miserably fails, she just starts mentioning every single kind of magic bird she can remember, both Slavic and not, to whom she's not related. It only stops when some talking frog advices Mefodiy to try Gamayun. She turns out to be right.
Loophole Abuse: The "pass" gives one-time pass to Tartarus for three people. Knowing the backstabbing tendencies of commissioners, Mefodiy demands them to give the second pass as well so they leave. Then they get abducted by the Tartarian centipede which just consumed them and spit out in Tartarus. They later learn what the centipede was sent by Arey, who was aware what the "pass" was a trick: the first time it would work just fine, but on the second it would kill them. Because they arrived with the centipede, their return would be the first use, bypassing the trap.
Love Triangle: One gets set up between Mefodiy, Daphne and Varsus (who was in love with Daphne all along, but was unable to propose before it became too late). It's made worse by them being assigned to work as a team.
Magic Music: Despite no longer being a Guardian, Cornelius tries to help the injured gryphon... and his music actually starts attracting the Light.
Meaningful Name: Vasilina thinks what her name fits her perfectly, because it sounds similarly to Russian pronounce of the word "basilisk"; Vasilina can turn living beings into stone at will.
Mercy Kill: In retrospect, Levus regards Arey killing him as merciful, because he died when he only had two eidoses in his darkh, both given voluntarily (one was from the girl who loved him — she still does, and even visits him in hell; another was from Greek philosopher who thought that he doesn't need it); the darkh just didn't have a chance to fully corrupt him before he died, so he preserved his personality even in Tartarus. Now he wants to repay Arey for that, by helping him to preserve his sanity.
Mind over Matter: The first call Matvey and irka answer to while on duty helping various wights living in Moscow is about one particularly stubborn domovoi called Archibald who refuses to leave soon-to-be-demolished building (which would kill him), whom they need to convince to leave. Unfortunately, Archibald turns out to be also rather short-fused, and tried to kill them by throwing a fridge at them.
More Hero than Thou: Fulona orders the squires to not participate in the battle against the Black Dozen, because they have next to zero chance to survive it and wouldn't contribute much, so she isn't willing to put them to such risk without good reason.
Music Soothes the Savage Beast: Cornelius manages to calm down the gryphon before he kills him by playing his flute.
Mutual Kill: During their last battle against the Dark Dozen, two of the killed Valkyries managed to put down their killers before dying.
- Rhadulga pierces Vandol with her spear, but he uses his last moments to partially slice Rhadulga's head with his axe. She still lives just long enough to say last poetry before passing out.
- Already mortally wounded, Yum manages to hit Malara with his sword several times, mortally wounding her as well. They spend some time struggling to not fall, and give up more or less simultaneously.
My God, What Have I Done?: Hoors actually breaks in tears after making his first kill (a female deer), when he failed to resist the temptation to test his new weapon (a rock attached to a stick) on her (the poor animal, still accustomed to trust the Guardians, came to him by herself and tried to lick his hands, not expecting such a betrayal). That doesn't last long, and soon Hoors breaks in laugh, then starts thinking aloud how he can improve his weapon to kill more efficient. Arey has no illusions: that deer was the first, but certainly not the last one. And Hoors wouldn't stop at just deer, either.
Negated Moment of Awesome: Right after having his combat style explained, Mhango gets injured in the leg by Fulona and drops behind, instead of showing some impressive Confusion Fu as was expected from him.
The Nothing After Death: The Middle Tartarus; if Upper Tartarus can be hard to distinguish from the mortal world, trapping people stuck here into believing what they are still alive, it's just what their life sucks, and Lower Tartarus is non-ending physical torment, the Middle Tartarus contains neither — in fact, it contains nothing, just the endless empty wasteland where you can spend years and not even meet anyone. In some regards, it's even worse than the other two, because they at least have some hope, be it hope for the next day being slightly better, or torments ending, while Middle Tartarus has only despair.
Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: While Varsus tries to justify himself using the darkh, he already shows the signs of being corrupted by it. Even the idea to use it against the Darkness came up as the second reason — the first one, why he even picked it up, was because he wanted, for just one moment, to feels himself like a Dark Guardian.
Off on a Technicality: Inverted. Two commissioners and a succubus are working together, with first two impersonating street musician and some jerk who washes clothes right in the middle of the street, while the latter collects the signs for petition to remove them and put them to jail, which contains the hidden "I agree to sell my eidos" line written in the rat milk. Usually, attempt to give someone the soul-selling document without warning what it is wouldn't work because it requires actually agreeing to this, but this time, it works, because these people show so much hatred that they damn themselves just enough to give the document the required power.
Origins Episode: The series of flashbacks reveals the backstory behind original Dark Guardians and their fall from the Light — namely, Kvodnon, Ligul, Hoors, Wilhelm, Barbarossa... and Arey.
Our Dragons Are Different: This time, we are introduced to several particularly weird specimens, even by standards of the setting (the list also mentions their killing streak):
- The Vanishing Dragon, true to his name, has extremely potent Voluntary Shapeshifting abilities, which he uses to disguise himself as the food; back in the Middle Ages he used to hide on the markets, nowadays he hides in the fridges in our homes. He never attacks people who have their eidos intact... unless they disturb him between 1 and 4 am.
- The Drawn Dragon hides on the old picture depicting him and some woman grooming her hair. Can go out of its picture if he finds the woman doing the same in the real world, but only if she cut her hair no more than twice in her life. His fire works in some weird reverse manner, causing the target to being dragged into the dragon's mouth.
- So-called "The Chain" — the family of seven dragon siblings who're extremely attached to each other and always fly in chain (hence the name). They have the flame of varying colours and intensity, which, when combined, gives them the Armour Piercing Attack.
- The Water Dragon breathes hot steam instead of fire, and can live in absolutely any liquid, be it water, juice or even benzine.
- The Chocolate Dragon can't breath fire, instead it spits out the sweets. However eats them, becomes temporarily zombified by the dragon. The dragon hides in the stores specialising in selling sweets, because it's where it can find its prey.
- The Glass Dragon, true to its name, can breath the shattered glass, so small it can easily be inhaled, with fatal consequences. Can disguise itself for anything glass.
- The Paper Dragon lives on the paper, and can freely move between any paper surface as if they are connected. It can only "speak" or understand the written text (exact language doesn't matter). If it says what you're dead, that's it.
- The Shoe Dragon is literally made out of shoe ropes. It lacks attacking capabilities, but is nearly invulnerable itself as well.
- And then there's the Invisible Dragon, who's so perfect in its invisibility, the only thing known for certain is what it does exists.
Overly Long Name: Amongst other dragons listed in the Book of Secret Dragons are "The Chain" (the seven dragons related to each other, who're also flying in chain, hence the name). They are mentioned by name in descending order of the length of their names, with the first one being Aragmalfunpasmonthun. The last one, by contrast, is called Um.
Peaceful in Death: When she dies, Malara's face becomes quiet and peaceful for the first time, as it she just falls asleep.
Poor Communication Kills: Levus never planned to betray Arey, he learned about his followers' intent only when they actually attacked him. He was unable to warn Arey in time, and ended up killed. Only now, when Arey ends up in hell, he can meet with him and explain.
Redemption Equals Death: When Tartarian assassin tries to kill Praskovia with a throwing spear, Masha steps between just in time to being hit with the spear herself. She dies instantly, but prevents Praskovia's death (and, accidentally, also convinces Praskovia to accept the offer after all — before that, she was intended to refuse and stay in Siberia).
Redemption Rejection: The runaway gryphon, while not allying with Azgud after all, still refuses to return to Eden. Essiorkh believes what there's still a chance for him to change side one day, but no one can know for sure.
Red Herring: Irka gets warned to not let hersel being mirrored in the letters on the Book's cover; the Book itself explains what it can make the Chocolate Dragon go after you. This never actually happens; in fact, none of the dragons listed in that scene comes in play.
Reduced to Dust: Knor applies some Tartarian poison to his arrows; when one of them hits Buhthla in the leg, it quickly desintegrates her body (and her armour) to dust.
Refusal of the Call: A girl called Masha was destined to become a new Valkyrie of the Brass Spear, but, one of succubi "helped" her by setting up for her to become a fashion model... for just long enough to cause her, in her pride, to cut off all old ties and reject Fulona's attempt to recruit her. Fulona was forced to recruit Hola (known as Xenia back then) instead, while Masha quickly lost everything because her career, no longer supported by the Darkness, quickly fell apart. She realised too late what the chance she missed, and now laments it as her greatest mistake. Even knowing what she missed her one and only chance to become a Valkyrie, she still tries to redeem herself at least somewhat by helping them in any way she can — like assisting Irka with finding Praskovia.
Sadist: Kvodnon was the first one to try and harm another living being (a bug, whom he tortured with fire) — and feel pleasure over doing so. Hoors immediately agrees with him, while Wilhelm tries to defend the bug.
Satellite Love Interest: Lampshaded. Daphne wonders just who she's now, when Mefodiy is the Light Guardian himself, besides just being his girlfriend, wether there's something which makes her worthy by herself, without attachments to him.
Secret-Keeper: Daphne agrees to keep the secret what Varsus obtained the darkh — and chose to wear it instead of destroying.
Sixth Ranger: Valkyries receive (or not) several unsuspected additions to their ranks, and new allies:
- Subverted with Irka. Her newly-discovered powers are explicitly the reason why she can't join the Valkyries — she's too important for the cause of Light, and is completely irreplaceable; while the Darkness can't kill her, they still can hopelessly injure her, as was shown before more than once. Her true role is to bring hope, not death.
- Praskovia, of all people, turns out to be the perfect replacement for Saenra as the Valkyrie of Ice Spear, due to both her own traits and the traits of the Spear itself (both innate and developed in service to Darkness). Shilov becomes her squire.
- Since Brungilde lacks her own squire, Varsus volunteers to act as one for her in the battle. When Daphne says what, as the Light Guardian, he can't be a squire, he points what the only one who may object is Ligul, and neither him nor Brungilde are gonna care what Ligul is gonna say. Subverted in what Fulona orders not to use squires in the last moment (also leaving out Shilov).
Small Role, Big Impact: Vasilina's involvement in the plot was short, but it's thanks to her "help" the whole situation with gryphon happened in the first place: due to her actions, Mefodiy slipped past the guards set up by Troil to quietly meet Mefodiy and explain everything to him, and walked through the entrance with the gryphons instead, which nearly resulted in him being mauled by the gryphons and caused one of them to run away after Troil was forced to attack them to protect Mefodiy.
The Spook: The Invisible Dragon. How it looks? What are its capabilities? What are its vulnerabilities? No one knows, because no one can see it. The only thing known for certain is what it does actually exists, and even then it's likely because the Book of Secret Dragons is self-updating.
Start of Darkness: We finally see how Arey fell from the Light. While he was mediocre musician, he was the best flyer amongst the Light Guardians, and he knew this. Ultimately, his pride over being the best, whatever deserved, started overshadowing his loyalty to the Light due to lack of acknowledgement he perceived as undeserved, until he fell for Kvodnon's promises of the "justice and long-deserved acknowledgment". This is also where his initial plan to became the "third side" came from; he was dissatisfied with both the Light and Kvodnon, and tried to set up his own path (which also can be attributed to his pride).
Strange Minds Think Alike: Archibald shares Antigon's love for being kicked. This is what ultimately helps to convince him to split out the information.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
- The flashbacks show what Arey barely tolerated Ligul right from the start, because he already was extremely vile even back then. He also strongly disliked Kvodnon, for pretty much the same reasons.
- Mefodiy and Varsus barely tolerate each other, and seek any opportunity for conflict (they mask the mutual animosity with mean jokes directed at each other). They even fight at one point.
There Is Another: Turns out what there's the third gryphon, who run away with Arey long ago and was hid by him to not fall into hands of Kvodnon. Because he has no personal grudges against the Light, only love to Arey, he still can be convinced to return and protect Eden, unlike the runaway gryphon who must be returned just because otherwise he would fall into hands of Ligul.
Third Line, Some Waiting: Several chapters are dedicated to flashbacks of Arey's descent into Darkness.
Token Evil Teammate: Now, the Ice Spear is technically this for the rest of the Valkyries. After doing so much evil in the past, it's yet to redeem itself, because it still contains the traces of it within. Due to this, it can only be wielded by someone similarly Dark, but with the first sprouts of Light growing within, because she would be the only one whom it would acknowledge. Someone who can manifest both unbreakable willpower and unstoppable wrath. Irka knows only one such person... Praskovia.
Trademark Favourite Food:
- The Drawn Dragon preys on Commissioners and Succubi — and only on them.
- "The Chain" particularly favours eating the dogs of one specific breed.
Trauma Button: For Irka, her childhood disability was so negative experience, even seemingly innocent word can provoke traumatic flashbacks, because in Russian the same word can refer to both perambulator... and a wheelchair.
True Sight: The little girl whom Irka meets in the barbershop, the "Captain Silver", can see her true nature, including the traces of long-lost Valkyrie powers and swan and wolf forms. This is how Irka realises what the girl may have some special destiny awaiting her.
Uncertain Doom: We never learn wether Mhango was killed, or merely injured.
Undignified Death: Other members of the Black Dozen end up killed by the Valkyries' spears. Knor instead ends up being smashed to death by a steel rail thrown by Praskovia.
We Hardly Knew Ye: Many of the members of Dark Dozen ed up being killed in their first and only appearance without receiving any meaningful characterisation:
- Rhosvus dies very quickly in the combat, killed by Malara, before having the chance to either show his skills, or having his backstory explained. The sole "achievement" he has is to pierce one of the Valkyries' shield, but not hurt a Valkyrie herself.
- Mortally wounded, Yum pierces Malara with his sword several times, resulting in them dying simultaneously, as both refuse to fall the first.
- Dinor gets killed by Dasha without achieving anything meaningful.
Mhango gets put down out of combat very quickly, not having a chance to show any of his skills. It's unclear wether he was wounded, or killed outright.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: Varsus picks up the darkh, with eidoses still inside, and... choses to wear it alongside his wings. He believes what he can use it against the Darkness. Unfortunately, we know all too well what this isn't the case...
What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: When, instead of helping the Vakyries with upcoming battle, she (alongside Matvey) gets sent on the mission to help various wights with various (often minor) problems, Irka complains what it's just wasteful. She learns why all of this is needed after talking to Fulona.
When All You Have Is a Hammer…: At first, Petruccho complains that Brungilde has poor fighting technique, but then he notices how devastating it is, and compares it to helicopter: whatever simple it is, not even Arey would risk parrying it.
Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Essiorkh's (and to much lesser degree, Ulitha's) friend, a lawyer Yuri Julianovich Yushkin, has the misfortune of having his name, surname and patronymic all start with the same letter, "Ю" (yu). For extra irony, in Russian, the word "lawyer" (or, rather, "jurist", which they use instead) also starts with "Ю". Ulitha believes that his parents chose both his name and his profession on purpose, as some twisted joke; she even suggested him to marry the girl called Chukotkina (whom he dislikes for being dumb), and pick her surname instead. She also calls him "YuYuYu", which he appreciates even less.
Wound That Will Not Heal: Any injuries done to the Light Guardian's wings are permanent, there's no way to cure them. Just breaking them would cripple them permanently. Not even return to Eden would help with it.
You Can't Go Home Again: Subverted. While Cornelius can't become the Light Guardian in the normal sense, he still can return to Eden because his role on Earth is done, and he has a new task there — to look over the gryphon. It also helps what he mastered the music well enough to being able to produce magolodies without the wings.
You Were Trying Too Hard: Just as with magic before, Mefodiy now struggles with flying, trying to think how to do it, instead of feeling. Ability to fly works on believe, on self-confidence, while he's too concentrated on doing it "right" to actually succeed. Once he gives up and relies on Daphne's advices, he achieves much better results.

The Best Enemy tropes

Action Girl: We finally meet Arey's wife in flashbacks (her name was Pelka). With her combat skills (particularly, with throwing knives) and warrior mindset, it becomes even more apparent why Varvara became who she was: with such heritage, it was inevitable.
Age Without Youth: Whatever kind of immortality Mirowood received, it does little to preserve his body in good shape; he resembles a lich more than a living man. Even flies mistake him for dead meat and trying to put eggs in him; he responds by eating their maggots.
Always Female: Magemmas inherit their powers from female ancestors. Males become just regular humans, and lose magic-related genes permanently.
Attacking Through Yourself: Mefodiy stabs himself thought the wing in order to hit Lovus, taking him by surprise.
Babies Make Everything Better:
- Essiorkh and Ulitha indeed await the second child, just like Essiorkh wanted. Hopefully, his plan would work, and, with more children to car about, she wouldn't pamper then so much individually... and what this time, it would Ulitha's turn to chose name.
- Edya and Anna have their first son, whom they called Rurik.
Barrier Maiden: Before, Kvodnon's powers were split around. Now, it's only in Praskovia and, to lesser degree, Shilov. Praskovia worries what if the powers ever end up in just one of them (particularly Victor), and they fail to resist, Kvodnon would resurrect, this time permanently, which likely would mean the apocalypse. But for as long as they can, they would fight: Kvodnond wouldn't get them without a fight.
Batman Gambit:
- Ligul didn't really expect what Varsus would fall for his promise of power (albeit if he does so anyway, it would benefit Ligul even more), but what he said to him just ensured what Varsus would try to kill Mefodiy to prevent him from retrieving the Head-Stone, out of his envy alone.
- Arey takes off his darkh, and says to two Guardians who are about to kill him what they wouldn't be able to divide the eidoses inside without turning on each other, so he would make it easier by throwing the dakh: whoever catches it, gets everything inside. They fall for it and accidentally stand in one line, allowing Arey to kill them both by throwing his sword in a way it pierces them both.
- Mefodiy has no interest in fighting Varsus, so Varsus abducts Daphne and traps her in half-finished "The Tower" building, after which he informs Mefodiy about that to provoke his anger.
- After being defeated, Varsus lies what he has left Daphne to drown in a well, hoping what Mefodiy, blinded by rage, would kill him. It nearly works, but then Aida Plakhovna arrives and reveals what it was a lie, and what not only there was no well, but Daphne is already free. It calms Mefodiy down enough to just leave Varsus alone with his misery.
Big Bad Slippage: Varsus starts as radical, but still well-intentioned Guardian. Under influence of the darkh, his own envy towards Mefodiy slowly consumes him, starting with the occasional slippages and ending with direct attempts to kill Mefodiy, making him the final enemy Mefodiy must overcome. As the process goes on, he starts showing more and more negative traits (at which the darkh readily helps), like "punishing" Daphne with rudeness or intentionally mean behaviour for choosing Mefodiy over him.
Bizarre Alien Biology: Shapeshifters do not need magic in order to disguise themselves, they do this thanks to their body altering itself on the cell level. They lack bones in their natural form, they form them out of specially dedicated cells when in disguise.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: We finally see Mirowood back when he was still alive — and it becomes clear why he ended up in Tartarus. Mirowood's attempts to achieve "balance" between his good and evil sides only results in him becoming chaotic and unpredictable in his decisions... and, if anything, more lethal to the people whom he encounters. Best exemplified by his discussion with Arey:
Arey [referring to cut off hands which Mirowood previously sent to kill him]: I just can't understand one thing. If you're so wise and carefully avoiding any dangerous topics, how you managed to kill so many people?
Mirowood: He was very evil, unbearably vile man. The good inside me was unable to tolerate him for long.
Arey: And this elf... was he evil, too?
Mirowood: No. He was very kind, annoyingly kind elf, who tried to teach me good. The evil inside me was unable to tolerate him for long.
Bookend: In a way, this series' end mirrors its start. The first book started with Mefodiy, "an ordinary lopukhoid", learning about his unique powers and him being accepted into training to become a future Dark Guardian. This book ends with Varsus (already a Light Guardian) losing all his powers, being reduced to mere mortal, and finally being stripped of his memories to give him a chance to redeem himself by living his life as a human.
The Bus Came Back: After being absent for one and a half books, Tukhlomon gets restored with the help of Zigya, who, in secret from Praskovia and Shilov, fed him with plasticine out of misguided attempt to help.
Compelling Voice: Magemma can use her voice to mind-control people.
Cool and Unusual Punishment: When Lamina's squire goes too far with mocking Varlya's silly alias (it has several unfortunate rhymes), Brungilde decides to protect her and puts the guy to sit on the fridge with mandarin in his mouth, and orders him to keep it like this for at least five minutes, or she would put something less pleasant here. Lamina chose not to defend him, realising what her pretty much deserved it.
The Corruptor: Ligul learns about Varsus' condition, and arranges for their meeting, so he can give him some very tempting offers. A place in Black Dozen and in the Order of Eyehunters, where he would be acknowledged for his achievements. Countless eidoses to feed his darkh. An opportunity to kill Mefodiy and take the power of the Head Stone for himself before Mefodiy does it. Ligul can even arrange for his battle with Arey if he really wants it, there are the ways.
Curb Stomp Cushion: While Ronkh gets easily killed by one of the Eyehunters, he still manages to strike back and injure him, despite not even being able to see him. Perhaps, if not for the surprise factor, he would have deal more damage before death, or even survive until the help comes out.
Cruel Mercy: After Varsus loses his wings due to traumatic falling, flute stops abiding him, and rapier just gets lost, Varsus desperately tries to attack Mefodiy, using darkh as a knife. Mefodiy breaks it with one strike of his sword, and leaves Varsus, who just lost everything, alone, ignoring his pleads to finish him off.
Death World: Flashbacks about Arey meeting his future wife, Pelka, happen entirely within so-called Borderlands, inhabited by all kinds of monsters, psychos, psychotic monsters and monstrous psychos, and even worse Forbidden Lands. And no, the magic wouldn't help you, because the land reacts wildly and unpredictably to it, often with destructive consequences.
De-power: Varsus loses his wings due to overusing darkh (right in the middle of battle with Mefodiy). He tries to continue it by using darkh, but then it gets destroyed, reducing him to mortal. To give him some chance, Troil erased his memory as well, so he may start anew as human.
Digging Yourself Deeper: Olaf, dissatisfied with Shtoss' cooking skills, states "purely hypothetical" situation with a soldier who believes what they are the great cook, and how it's weird what if you criticise their combat skills, they would ignore it, but if you say anything about them ruining the meat, they would be seriously offended. Shtoss immediately takes this as insult, and Olaf tries to apologise by pointing what it was an abstract example... but makes the mistake of calling her by given name "Guita", which is serious Berserk Button for her.
Doting Parent: Shilov complains what Praskovia spoils Zigya, being too quick to fulfil his every wish, which sabotages Victor's attempts to teach him discipline.
Duel to the Death: We learn about the second type of duels — the "Two Peaks". The reason why it was never mentioned or used before is because it was invented back when not all Dark Guardians lost their wings and magolodies yet, and requires both sides to be able to fly without usage of artifacts, so there were few people to remember it, and even less to have any use for: the Light Guardians don't kill each other. Following Arey's advice, Mefodiy and Varsus ask Dion to curate their duel in that style, intending what only one would make it out alive.
Dwindling Party: The team which goes to find the Head-Stone eventually gets reduced to Arey, Pelka and Olaf, with only the latter one being original member. The rest die one by one when the Eyehunters ambush them on their way; the shapeshifter Ronkh dies protecting them from the sudden ambush, giantess Shtosh fights a Guardian who tricks her with illusions of himself, Magemma gets mortally wounded
Earn Your Happy Ending: With Mefodiy's help, Arey finally receives his; now, nothing would separate him from his family, even if after death.
Enemy Mine:
- Ligul offers Varsus his help to deal with Mefodiy. Varsus initially refuses, but soon changes his mind.
- Irka and Matvey needs to find the Head-Stone to deal with the threat it poses to the city and its inhabitants, not to mention what they don't want for it to fall into Ligul's hands. Mamzelkina needs its healing powers to deal with injury she accidentally caused to herself with her own scythe. For just that one time, they can unite to reach the Stone, and then part ways. In the end, nothing villainous comes out of this, so most likely she was sincere in her offer.
"Eureka!" Moment: After accidentally creating a rainbow when he tries to cast magolody during his final duel against Varsus, Mefodiy realises what music (a sound) and rainbow (a light) have much more in common than it seems at first (through his knowledge of physics). He quickly connects exact notes with exact colours, and, once he establishes analogy, it becomes much easier for him to actually produce magolodies — by imagining them as colours, and then converting the colour into music.
Everyone Has Standards: Near the Head-Stone, which heals any and all creatures of Primordial Chaos, no monsters ever attack anyone, including each other, not even the most wildest ones. Exceptions do happen, but only out of stupidity, not malice.
Evil Counterpart: Varsus starts becoming one for Mefodiy; while Mefodiy improves himself and leaves behind his old bad qualities, disgusted by his old life, Varsus descends into Darkness, temped by new opportunities. Even Ligul lampshades how they mirror each other, but he does that solely to reinforce Varsus' own belief what Mefodiy "steals" what belongs to him.
Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Head Stone is called that because it resembles a huge horse head.
Face–Heel Turn: After the battle against Lovus and Aspurk, Varsus tries to feed his darkh with the eidoses from Aspurk's darkh, lying to both Mefodiy and himself what it's just "temporarily". When Mefodiy stops him from doing the same with Lovus' dakrh, he attacks him, only to be easily defeated. He runs away, with intent to kill Mefodiy when they meet the next time. By the start of their final duel, he's just two steps away from actually becoming the Dark Guardian.
Forbidden Chekhov's Gun: After repeated mentions that it's suicidal to use magic in Forbidden Lands, it was all but guaranteed that it would be done at some point. And indeed, when it becomes apparent that they are doomed anyway, Mythora unleashes her magic to kill both herself and the attackers.
Foreshadowing:
- Mefodiy remembers Arey's advice (that if he ever ends up fighting Varsus, he must do so in the air), and wonders wether Arey felt something about Varsus. The book culminates in a flying duel between Mefodiy and Varsus.
- When Varsus casually tries to touch Mefodiy's winged necklace, he gets attacked by a gryphon. Considering that gryphon was perfectly fine with him being around before despite the infamous Black-and-White Insanity and True Sight combo all of them share, it's clear that he felt the growing darkness, and that it was not the friendly touch.
- When Varsus starts going nuts after the battle with Lovus and Aspurk and attacks Mefodiy over eidoses, Mefodiy easily defeats him and cuts off his winged necklace. Varsus barely manages to fix it because it just keeps falling off, and yells that he's still the Light Guardian. During the final battle, the necklace falls off completely (as well as his actual wings), leaving him only the darkh.
Futureshadowing: Magemma looks on Pelka, and immediately sees the future. She tells Arey that Pelka "looks similar to his daughter". When Arey points that he has no daughter, she says that his daughter would look similar to Pelka. The flashbacks takes place long before the birth of Varvara.
Game-Breaking Injury: Gelatha was seriously injured in the last battle against the Black Dozen. Since she can't use her Healing Hands ability on herself, and, in her current condition, she can barely walk, if they end up in another battle, she wouldn't be able to participate.
Genetic Memory: Magemmas inherit not only magic, but also all memories of every magemma before them, and all their experience. Too bad, the male children can't inherit it, and they have major troubles with finding a couple.
Graceful Loser: Realising what he wast just mortally wounded, Lovus compliments Mefodiy for good strike (Mefodiy took him by surprise by stabbing with Lovus' own weapon right through the wing), and tells him to be more careful with wings in the future (they never heal, after all).
Green-Eyed Monster: Varsus' envy towards Mefodiy reaches the final point and explodes, causing him to go against his former friend and partner, and try to kill him.
Half the Man He Used to Be: Ronkh gets killed by Eyehunters; one of them slices him in half with his sword. However, his death alerts the others in the group, preventing the Eyehunters from just wiping them out all at once.
Healing Hands: After briefly returning his piece (the "Path Stone") to the Head-Stone, Matvey receives "permission" to keep it to himself... and gets its powers amplified, giving it nearly the same healing capabilities as the main stone, allowing Matvey to share the Stone's healing with various magic creatures without the need to attract them all to Moscow. The most serious wounds still requires the main stone, but anything lesser can be cured by Matvey alone.
Heel Realisation:
- Erlun reacts painfully to Arey's "doggy story", because it hits too close for comfort. At one point he even asks him to stop, and later finishes up his thought, scaring even himself.
- In his dying moments, Lovus tells Mefodiy to take care of his wings, and regrets that he and Aspurk have chose to leave Eden.
- Arey looks on the stars, and thinks that they were the fools who had everything, but chose to rebel and lose it — for what? In their blind pride, the Dark Guardians (Arey amongst them) cut themselves from Eden and the Light... only to gain eternal hunger for eidoses and Tartarus (self-made hell they created in futile attempt to replace to Eden) in return. It didn't worth it.
Hero of Another Story: Sorceress Mythora refuses to reveal to Arey how she obtained eight magic rings (four light and four dark ones), and how she made them work in unison, because "those are eight separate stories, and only one of them belongs to me". She also has one dragon eye which she obtained from someone else... but this is a ninth story, which is also "not hers".
His Name Really Is "Barkeep": "Magemma" is a term for certain women who can cast magic with their voices, but redhead sorceress Arey meets in the bar uses the word as her name as well.
Arey: Is it a name, or is it a job?
Magemma: This is both the name and the job. I have no other name, and I have no other job.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Aida Plakhovna accidentally injured herself with her own scythe, which not just leaved a wound which refuses to heal, but created the breach which, like a small blackhole, sucks everything inside to never being seen again, unless she covers it with a rag.
Houseboat Hero: Now being tied to Moscow, Praskovia finds the perfect variant for the house where she wouldn't be disturbed as much — a houseboat. To make people even less likely to disturb her, she sets up the annihilating field around it.
Implied Death Threat:
- When shapeshifter Ronkh tries to shapeshift into Arey, Arey tells him to not try it again, and all but blatantly says that it would be the last thing he would do.
  Arey: Maybe it's just a silly wish, but I prefer that only one of me exists!.. The next time you try to shapeshift into me, I would kill myself... if you know what I mean!
- Ligul reminds Azgud that he's better not to test Ligul's patience too much:
Ligul: Remember: if someone starts to think that he's irreplaceable, it's the sure sign that it's time to replace him.
Interesting Situation Duel: The Two-Peak duel is unique in that it was specifically designed with both parties being able to fly — in the times when not all Dark Guardians have lost their wings yet; eventually, it fell out of use and was ultimately forgotten due to no longer being needed (the Light Guardians never fight each other for real). The main feature is that both participants start out at extreme heigh, like mountains or skyscrapers (hence the name), jump and continue fighting each other in the air, using anything they have at their disposal. The last chapter (which is actually called "Two Peaks") depicts such duel between Mefodiy and Varsus; Mefodiy comes out as the winner, while Varsus loses his wings when they fail him, and his darkh gets destroyed by Mefodiy.
Kaizo Trap: Aspurk defeats Varsus, takes away his winged necklace and prepares to finish him off. However, he accidentally touches his darkh (of which he was unaware), which causes him extreme pain (and then the darkh attacks him, slicing his palm). This gives Varsus enough time to grab his rapier and stab him. The last things Aspurk manages to say before dying is to shockingly ask Varsus wether he's the Dark Guardian.
Karma Houdini Warranty: Lovus and Aspurk survived the battle with the Valkyries back in the previous book, but meets their demise battling Mefodiy and Varsus, avenging the death of Hola.
Last Stand: After the deaths of Ronkh and Shtoss, the rest of the team prepares to go out fighting. In the end, only Arey, Pelka and Olaf manages to survive, but they actually succeed at wiping out the attackers.
Let's You and Him Fight: Arey goes past the skeleton guards by provoking them to fight each other to decide who of them should be in charge, and who should be subordinate. They end up breaking each other apart.
This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: The Head-Stone, being creation of the primordial chaos, can only be obtained by someone equally neutral (or, at least, someone who contains both the Light and the Darkness). This was the reason why Ligul even set up for Arey to joining the team he sent many years ago, and the reason why he recruits Varsus now: Arey was not-yet-fully-Dark, and Varsus is no-longer-fully-Light.
The Magic Goes Away: The Head-Stone was the source of magic which made the Forbidden Lands, well, forbidden; after Mirowood damaged the stone (creating the Path Stone in process), the Head-Stone, no longer trusting humans and Guardians, chose to disappear for centuries, and with it, the magic disappeared as well: the land became normal, and countless magic creatures inhabiting it either died out, or hid somewhere.
The Magic Comes Back: The Head-Stone reappears in Moscow (hence the recent cases of wights and other magic creatures going nuts, including the young titan wreaking havoc in the center, which slowly devastate the city), and, unless something is done about it, it would make the city into new Forbidden Lands. However, it's also the great opportunity for Ligul to obtain the stone for himself.
Murder the Hypotenuse: Daphne loves Mefodiy, and would love him till the death... unless Mefodiy dies, "freeing" Daphne. By that point, Varsus is too insane to care what both he and Mefodiy are the Light Guardians.
Never My Fault: Varsus gradually starts blaming ever increasing number of people for his failures, and even threatening to kill them in his private monologues. That includes not just Mefodiy, whom he envied since the beginning, but also the gryphon, who attacked him after seeing his growing Darkness, or the Light itself for "betraying" him. During the last duel, after breaking his wing, and finally losing even magolodies, Varsus, in rage, breaks the flute apart and accuses Mefodiy of "making him a Dark Guardian". To which Mefodiy rightfully points out that he did this himself.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- Zigya, out of sincere wish to help, feeds the small plasticine worm with more plasticine to help it grow up, gradually increasing in size. The name of that "worm"? Tukhlomon. Here We Go Again!...
- It was Mirowood who ruined the Head Stone by cracking it; it created the Path Stone, but caused the Head Stone to vanish, taking away its magic, and leaving countless magic creatures with no means of using it to heal themselves, or causing them to outright dying.
No Cure for Evil: As another sign that Varsus is on the brink of becoming the Dark Guardian, he starts losing ability to cast magolodies; the flute still abides him, but only with combat-oriented magic — all magolodies which works on positive emotions are gone, because he has none left.
Older Than He Looks: Arey initially mistakes Pelka for fifteen years old due to her being short and slender. She's actually eighteen.
One Last Song: Dying from her wound, Magemma sings her last song, both to calm herself and as the parting gift to her friends.
Origins Episode:
- We finally learn how Arey met his wife (her name was Pelka), and what chain of events sparked their love.
- We learn origin of the Path Stone.
- On a lesser note, we learn backstory behind Arey's friendship with werewolf Olaf.
Our Wyverns Are Different: Unlike dragons, wyverns' flame is much colder, and as result, the meat fails to burn entirely and gives their breath its signature rotten smell. However, what it lacks in intensity, it takes in persistence: similarly to napalm, it basically attaches itself to the target, and burns for hours; it's nearly impossible to extinguish, not even by water, unless you cover the victim with earth.
Pet the Dog: Mamzelkina does something sincerely good for once:
- Aida Plakhovna recruits Mefodiy to help her with organising the one last git for Arey — to give him one moment of happiness, shared with his family, which would freeze outside the boundaries of time, becoming eternity. She also warns him about Varsus, who has his own motifs to reach the Stone.
- After losing a duel, Varsus gets his memory erased by Mamzelkina, who gives him new memory. This actually gives him a chance to redeem himself as a mortal, because it strips him of his memory of Mefody, and thus the hatred which poisoned him.
Playing Both Sides: The Order of Eyehunters is supposedly illegal and hunted down by Ligul's followers... except what the Order actually secretly serves Ligul. Azgud even compares the Order to secret services: no government trusts them completely, and there are always internal conflicts, but no government would wipe them out either, because they are too useful. They were indeed illegal under Kvodnon, but Ligul decided what they would be more useful alive than dead.
Powered by a Forsaken Child: Ligul tells Varsus (who, in vain, tries to fix his winged necklace, cut by Mefodiy) that it wouldn't work, but he may try to use brass chain instead, after covering it with unicorn blood; that would give him some more time. Varsus does it without any second thought, as yet another clue that he's way past the point when he can preserve his wings.
Punch-Clock Villain: Olaf and the other mercenaries don't like Ligul and are Only in It for the Money. This actually makes Arey trust them more, because they have no reasons to do something they received no payment for, like backstabbing him.
Rage Quit: After Mefodiy's particularly stupid comment, Sniffer (by that point already tired of his stubborn incompetence) just gave up and quietly leaved. Since then, he only trains with Daphne.
Red Right Hand: Mefodiy's hairs no longer bleed when cut... but now it's Praskovia who gained that trait. She instantly realised that it means she and Shilov now possess what's left of Kvodnon's powers, since Mefodiy has lost them when he died in his duel with Jaff. She's not happy with that, because this power tries to break and corrupt her, while she sincerely wants to change for the better.
Relationship Upgrade: Matvey finally proposes to Irka and asks to marry him, though the exact circumstances are much less romantic and more awkward than he planned. She accepts.
Ret-Gone: The Head-Stone not just cures the wounds; it removes them retroactively all the way to the moment when they were made, no matter how long ago it happened. Essiorkh exploits this quality to seal Arey, Pelka and Varvara in the Stone back in the moment when Arey fell in love with Pelka centuries ago, ensuring that no attempt to hurt them can be made ever again.
Sanity Slippage: After the deaths of Lovus and Aspurk, Varsus takes all eidoses from Aspurk's darkh, saying what "it's only temporarily" (it's unclear wether the tries to convince Mefodiy — or convince himself). When Mefodiy reacts with disgust and, after Varsus' refusal to release the eidoses, forbids him to take Lovus' darkh as well (Mefodiy intends to release his eidoses), Varsus tries to attack him with his rapier, only to get easily defeated. Then he realises what he just had done, and mumbles what darkh's temptations are very hard to resist. Mefodiy has no pity for him: he went through this himself, but didn't break.
Saved by Canon: We don't see how Olaf makes it to the Head-Stone to cure his wounds, or what happens to him afterwards, but we know for certain what he survived, because we already met him alive and well in the Fire and Ice of Tartarus.
The Sixth Ranger: Arey joins the mercenary team hired by Ligul to retrieve the Head Stone, despite initially having no interest in it.
Start of Darkness: Inverted. Back in the previous book, we learned how Arey became the Dark Guardian. Here, we learn about the event which kickstarted his path to redemption — how he met his wife.
State The Simple Solution: Praskovia set up the magic barrier around her boat, which annihilates anything which crosses it, but has short breaks after each discharge. Matvey experiments with throwing rocks and guesses how much time they have to jump (2-3 seconds), while Irka suggests to just... call for Praskovia. Matvey dismisses that solutions as "boring". Fortunately, Matvey's plan works.
Super Power Lottery: The dragon eye's gift is always random, you would never learn what you received until you use it. It may be invincibility or a new kind of telekinesis, or it may be something like ability to resurrect grasshoppers.
Super-Scream:
- Luminiscenty somehow manifests massive magic outbursts whenever he screams, with destructive consequences for anyone unprepared. Matvey learns this the hard way.
- Redhead sorceress Magemma is unarmed, because she doesn't need the weapon to defend herself — her voice can be used not just to sing, but also for combat.
Takes One to Kill One: Lovus and Aspurk always fight together. Varsus, to kill both birds with one stone, challenges them both for a 2x2 duel, with them on one side and himself and Mefodiy on another (of which he warns Mefodiy only when it's too late to refuse). They manage to dispatch them by working together, reducing the Black Dozne by two more members and avenging Hola.
Taking You with Me: Realising that they have no chance to survive, Mythora avengers herself and her fallen friends by unleashing the whole power of her eight magic rings to attack the Dark Guardians, knowing what doing so in Forbidden Lands would have catastrophic consequences. Whatever it did, it killed all but two of the Guardians, and annihilated the sorceress herself, leaving only her broken glasses and one deformed ring behind.
Technically Naked Shapeshifter: Due to a lack of time, shapeshifter just imitates the clothes of its victim when he takes his disguise instead of dressing up normally, which leaves him with completely cosmetic sword he can't even unleash. Arey easily notices it.
There Is Another: Ligul intentionally omits the fact what there's the third person who can try to reach the Head Stone, so Varsus would concentrate on Mefodiy only. Varsus learns this anyway because all three reach the Stone simultaneously; the third one is Matvey, who has the piece of the Head-Stone inside him — it's nothing else but the Path Stone, which was created by Mirowood when he damaged the Head-Stone to steal a piece for himself.
Third Line, Some Waiting: Several chapters are dedicated to flashbacks to the time when Arey has met a girl who would later become his wife, Pelka.
Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Arey kills two final Eyehunters by exploiting their greed to go where he wants them to be, and throwing his sword in one last desperate move to pierce them both. It works.
Together in Death: Both Troil and Cornelius feel what Varvara and her mother can't be truly happy, even in Eden, because they lack something important — they need Arey, who's stuck in Tartarus, and can never return to Eden. But there is a way to reunite them, even if not in Eden, because there's still some Light left in Arey. How? By putting the eidoses into the Head Stone, and summoning Arey here for just a brief moment — long enough to "trap" him inside with his family, outside of boundaries of time, and thus, giving them their own eternity.
Tragic Keepsake: Flashback chapter reveals what Arey chose to keep his old flute after all; he almost got rid of it, even broke at one point, but then changed his mind and fixed it. While Arey was never a good musician and had little attachment for this flute as result, it was the last reminders about the past he had left, so it's obvious why he chose to keep it despite no longer having any use for it.
Unfortunate Names: The new building was recently started construction in Moscow, called "The Tower". The less known fact is that the internal name for the project is "Babylon Tower", and that it's actually sponsored by Ligul who sees it as the second take at trying to build a sky-high tower (the original Babel was purposed to be the entrance point to invade Eden). Edya somehow learns about the true name, but not the true purpose, and that the project constantly gets interrupted by weird things going around, and comments that only a complete moron would call the building like this, because it just begs for bad things to happen.
Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Edya and Anna now have a son, whom they called... Rurik (which sounds even sillier if you remember that it comes with a surname "Havron"). The weird choice gets mocked at two points, by different characters:
- Matvey remembers that Edya's sister Zozo previously called her son "Mefodiy", and comments that the love for pretentious old-fashioned names seems to be the family trait. He also speculates that if they would produce more children, they likely would have similarly weird names, and lists some variants.
- Mefodiy actually tries to joke about Edya's choice of a name for his son and suggests another silly option for a second son, but it gets countered by Edya who points out that his name isn't better, so he's not in position to make such remarks.
Who Would Be Stupid Enough?: Mefodiy once saw a silly hat, and wondered who would be stupid enough to buy and wear it. Then Daphne immediately came out of the store with one of these, and gifted it to him.
You Are What You Hate: Even before the battle against Lovus and Aspurk, which cements Varsus' Face–Heel Turn, Mefodiy points out that he goes too far with his hatred for the Darkness, because it starts overshadowing his loyalty to the Light. He gets proven right very soon.
You Kill It, You Bought It: Arey was the best warrior, until Mefodiy killed him, which automatically made him the best warrior. Now, Varsus believes that the only way to prove himself as the best is to defeat Mefodiy, and as he succumbs to his inner Darkness, he grows more and more comfortable with the idea to kill him.
Your Days Are Numbered: Mirowood tells Arey the story about him taking the potion which gave him one thousand years to live — and a certain and unavoidable death when these years runs out. He tells him both the exact time since he took the potion, and the time he has left, down to a day.

YMMV

Ass Pull: The episode with Varvara dying fighting nazis in The Ship of Light feels strongly out of place. The premise of Ligul altering the past comes out of nowhere (and has nothing to do with main plot), ends just as abruptly as it started, and never gets referenced again afterwards, feeling like it was the last-second decision how to conclude Varvara's storyline.
Diagnosed by the Audience: Considering Moshkin's constant self-doubt, to the point that he can't even clearly state what he feels without doubting whether this is right, and asks for confirmation, his painfully heavy shyness, and him often being somewhat detached from the world, it's possible that he's autistic, which would explain much of his weirdness.
Fridge Brilliance:
- In The Scroll of Desires, Essiorkh states the "incident" with Babel (he's told people to "build a little tower", so they would put their energy somewhere, but they "went overzealous") as the reason why he'd lost his reputation and was punished. In The Best Enemy, we learn that the Babel was Ligul's project how to invade Eden. Another case of inconsistent continuity? Nope; Ligul exploited what was kickstarted by Essiorkh, which explains why Essiorkh was punished for it so harshly: he unwittingly contributed to the plots of Darkness, so of course his bosses became unwilling to entrust him with important tasks after such screwup.
- In The Ticket to the Bald Mountain', Ligul offers Ulitha her eidos in return for her giving up on releasing Arey. This never gets commented in the story, but it was almost certainly a lie, and not just because Ligul is a known Manipulative Bastard: it was established two novels ago that eidos never tolerates betrayals, and permanently leaves you if you do so; by betraying Arey to regain her eidos, Ulitha would immediately lose it again for that act alone, and we later learn that her eidos wasn't in condition to go to Eden even without it, so Ligul wasn't actually losing anything when offering her that opportunity.
- Normally, when someone becomes a Valkyrie, the people who used to know them in the previous life immediately forgets them. This never happens with Praskovia in The Gryphon's Mistake. This remains unexplained (or even acknowledged) in the story, but it actually makes sense: they have no reason to forget her, as they are fighting on the same side, and forgetting her would be detrimental.
Fridge Logic: The Third Horseman of Darkness and The Dance of the Sword both have the Loner Valkyrie's animal forms dying, yet the first time, it has no consequences, and successor inherits both forms, but the second time, the swan form dies for real and new Valkyrie inherits only wolf form. It never gets explained.
Why Would Anyone Take Him Back?: Due to intervention by some mischievous cupid, Zozo and Igor Buslaev reunites... but Igor doesn't change a one bit, remaining the same lazy con artist and freeloader he was back when Zozo divorced him. The next time we see their family, he continues doing all the same mistakes he was originally kicked out for.

Sandbox / Mefodiy Buslaev

Aazkaal

Mefodiy Buslaev | Mefodiy Buslaev Characters | Mefodiy Buslaev Recap

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Aazkaal

Mefodiy Buslaev | Mefodiy Buslaev Characters | Mefodiy Buslaev Recap

The series consists of the following works:

The series provides examples of the following tropes:

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