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Mefodiy Buslaev | Mefodiy Buslaev Characters | Mefodiy Buslaev Recap

The Midnight Mage

Seven years prior to Tanya Grotter's arrival to Tibidokhs, headmaster Sardanapal gathers all the teachers, and tells them about a very important (and very dangerous) person who's about to get born — Mefodiy Buslaev, the chosen Dark Inheritor, as was foretold by Drevnir himself; he would break the eternal stalemate between the forces of Light and the Darkness, changing the world forever.

Thirteen years later, Mefodiy Buslaev, "the Dark Inheritor", lives mostly unremarkable life with his divorced mother Zozo and her brother Edya, in a small flat at the outskirts of Moscow, and thinks that his future would be just as unremarkable — despite various strange and unexplainable things occurring around him on semi-regular basis. Zozo, preparing for a date, sends Mefodiy elsewhere, and he goes to his only friend Irka — a disabled wunderkind girl, whom he can entrust with his insecurities, including recurring nightmare about the marble coffin containing some unknown danger. Just before leaving, he goes into conflict with Zozo's latest would-be suitor, hog-like aggressive man, and sabotages his car as revenge. When "the hog" returns, he realsies that it's Mefodiy who ruined his tires, and threatens to force his mother to pay for damage, but Mefodiy gets rescued by eccentric young witch Ulitha, who offers him to become her master's student. Sick with his old life, Mefodiy accepts, and uses the rune to teleport to Big Dmitrovka — the new location of Russian department of Darkness' residence. Mefodiy's new mentor would be Arey, a Dark Guardian who was recalled from exile by his old "friend" Ligul, the chief chanceller of Darkness; he promises to handle any issues Mefodiy's parents may have with him moving away.

The story switches to Eden. Daphne was always rather... unusual Light Guardian; besides her having a hellish cat named Depresnyak as her pet, she's known for certain "informal" habits, small pranks, and dark sense of humour. Eden feels rather boring for her, being just too good and nice. While trying to find some entertainment, she runs into the ghost of Retired Fairy, known for two things: messing up with people by fulfilling their wishes with major drawbacks, and foretelling the future; the Fairy warns her that putting the winged necklace (the source of any Light Guardian's powers) on the neck of a mortal would make her fall in love with them. There are no mortals in Eden, but the Fairy disappears without explaining further. Daphne then gets summoned by Supreme Guardian Troil himself; made all the more strange by how bad Daphne's reputation is. Troil tells her about Mefodiy, who's inherited powers of Kvodnon, the previous Lord of Darkness, who once nearly destroyed Eden itself and was stopped at the cost of great sacrifice. It's up to Daphne to find Mefodiy, convince Arey to take her in, and ensure that Mefodiy would never succumb to the Darkness completely; her inner Darkness would make both sides believe in her "betrayal", so she should not get caught, as no one but Troil himself would know the truth.

Back on Earth, Mefodiy, as a cover story, gets accepted into elite gymnasium "Treasure of Wisdom", run by the man named Glumovich, who's actually one of Ligul's mortal servants. Returning to the Dark residence, Mefodiy gets assigned some easy paper work, which is when he meets Aida Plakhovna Mamzelkina — the "Senior Manager of Necrodepartment" (read: Grim Reaper). She's here to warn that Yaraat, Arey's old enemy, has escaped his custody, and would now likely hunt for Mefodiy, believing him responsible for his imprisonment. Arey, convinced that they have some time before Yaraat starts acting, sends Mefodiy back to Glumovich, giving him the Book of Chameleons to communicate. Mefodiy gets settled into a same room with a haughty boy named Vova Skunso. The two immediately goes into conflict, with Vova inventing all sorts of silly rules on the go just to show Mefodiy his place, and generally shows that he doesn't consider him as his equal; Mefodiy replies in kind. Bored, Mefodiy accidentally uses the Book of Chameleons to connect to a magic news channel, and learns that renegade Light Guardian named Daphne is on the run after stealing a dangerous artifact, the Horn of Minotaur. At night, Skunso cooperates with his lackeys to humiliate Mefodiy, but gets humiliated himself instead when Mefodiy finally manages to make his magic work.

Meanwhile at Eden, Daphne, using some questionable magic (with side effects including temporal madness and memory loss) steals the Horn of Minotaur and escapes. She visits Mefodiy's parents to learn his whereabouts. On the way out, she accidentally helps commissioner Tukhlomon, but goes into conflict with two Light Guardians sent after her: someone poisoned Troil, and she's prime suspect. She then forces Tukhlomon into leading her to Mefodiy. While Daphne was busy looking for Mefodiy, Mefodiy himself just received a package: a sword that once belonged to Drevnir, which his son used in his ill-fated duel with Arey, and which now would belong to Mefodiy, obeying his commands and responding to his every thoughts and emotions. After making sure that the sword accepted Mefodiy, Arey trains his intuition, leading to Mefodiy realising that they have a visitor. Tukhlomon immediately tries to backstab Daphne, but Arey decides to talk to her first. After hearing her story, he lets her stay, sending her to Glumovich, too.

Near midnight, Ligul pays Arey a visit, and informs that the plans have changed; they can't wait until Mefodiy hits thirteen, he must be in the Temple tomorrow, or never. He, and Daphne, about whom he knows already. Arey, knowing that Mefodiy knows nothing, risks teaching him how to let inside the spirit of Hoors, the swordsman second only to Arey himself (from whose hand he has died). Mefodiy botches the technique, and Hoors only agrees to leave him alone when he learns that it's indeed the Dark Inheritor (for now). Together, they move to the Middle Lands, which lies between the worlds and are beyond both Light and Darkness. Here, in the Temple of Eternal Battle, Mefodiy (with Daphne's help) would pass the labyrinth of magic plates (where any wrong step means death), and claim whatever power is inside. Mefodiy senses the directions, and easily passes the labyrinth, but the last, unavoidable plate forces him to fight with himself, and Daphne only calms him down by putting on her winged necklace, to use its magic — remembering too late the Fairie's words. Mefodiy finds inside the marble coffin from his dreams, and uses Horn of Minotaur to open it, revealing that inside was the limitless power... that he would only master some day, but not now. On return, Mefodiy learns that Ligul and Yaraat were in league all this time: it's Ligul who released Yaraat; and it's Yaraat who manipulated Troil into sending Daphne with a mission, on Ligul's orders. Yaraat has escaped, but for now, Mefodiy can rest.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: While initially Zozo was interested with Basevich, soon he started annoying her with his unhealthy obsession with his health (and expecting the same from her), to the point that it becomes hard to pretend that she's still interested with talking to him.
• Above Good and Evil: The Middle Lands and the Temple of Eternal Battle are neither Light nor Dark — in fact, it's quite possible that they are older than either — and serve only one purpose: to protect the absolute power; power neutral by itself and willing to serve whoever passes the challenge of the Labyrinth.
• Achievement In Ignorance: Mefodiy can touch Ulitha's darkh without suffering any harm; normally, just touching it should cause agonising pain, and he hold it for several seconds. Mefodiy doesn't understand why it's so important, but for Ulitha, it's yet another proof that he's indeed the boy she's looking for.
• Affectionate Nickname: Ulitha jokingly calls Mefodiy "Lord Tomato". Arey likes this nickname so much, he keeps playfully calling him at multiple occasions.
• Afraid of Blood: Back when she was still a child, Zozo once cut her hand with a kitchen knife; the wound was not dangerous, but she was too scared, and locked herself into a closet, crying and scaring herself even further due to her overactive imagination. The mother has returned an hour and half later, and let her out, but that event forever cemented her panic fear of blood.
• Ambiguous Situation: The Retired Fairy's ghost gives Daphne a warning that Light Guardian who puts a string of their winged necklace onto mortal's neck, would fall in love with them, forever; Daphne wonders whether it's a prophecy, or not. It never gets fully clear whether it's the case: Fairy is rumoured to be insane (something easy to believe, given how we get introduced to her), phrase itself is very vague in whether it's a warning, or description of upcoming event, seeing near future is a very common skill that rarely results in any noteworthy prophecies (as it's prone to be unreliable when everyone can do that), and there're hints at Daphne possibly developing feelings to Mefodiy long before that happens. Daphne doesn't feel any immediate changes, and only feels angry due to overall awkwardness.
• Anachronic Order:
  • In the third chapter, when Mefodiy teleports to Big Dmitrovka, 13th, the plot switches to a flashback which tells how that building became the Dark residence (and gives backstory behind it), as well as introduces two major characters — Dark Guardians Ligul and Arey. The plot then switches back to Mefodiy in present.
  • The eighth chapter starts with Daphne visiting Mefodiy's parents to learn where he is, then switches to how she stole the Horn of Minotaur and escaped, and then continues after the visit to Mefodiy's parents and her running into Tukhlomon.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: When school principal announces that the teacher whom the class awaits is away due to surgery, the children reacts with rejoicing, before realising how it looks and (poorly) hiding it with fake grieve.
• Angel Unaware: It's presumed that Drevnir, extremely important figure in the magic history, could've been a Light Guardian rather than just a mortal mage.
• Animal Motifs:
  • Zozo's new suitor (obese and extremely abrasive) gets compared to a hog, which, "by coincidence or due to genetic anomaly, was born as a human".
  • Narrator describes Glumovich as tall, lean and insinuating, and compares him to a sick fox.
• Apathetic Student: Mefodiy must write a literature essay. Due to the lack of motivation, he comes up with "on my opinion, the books can be good and not so much", and gives up.
• Arch-Enemy: In the fifth chapter, Mefodiy learns about Yaraat — a shapeshifter who had lost his powers when Mefodiy was born, and was captured — and now somehow escaped his custody (with outside help) to find and kill Mefodiy, whom he sees as the source of his problems. Arey has his own reasons to want Yaraat dead, which have something to do with Yaraat betraying him in the past, likely related to the death of Arey's family.
  Arey: He would find you anywhere. And you know, I think I want for him to find you.
  Mefodiy: Why?
  Arey: Because then I would find him. For many years already, this is my only desire.
• Armour Piercing Attack: The Horn of Minotaur can pierce any and all magic armour, and turns the attacked foe into living statue for six months.
• As You Know: While he doesn't go into too many details (as the person to whom he tells this does know this), Ligul starts mentioning that Arey's purpose is to train Mefodiy, who would soon hit thirteen, as they both know where he should be at that age. He also reminds Arey about his exile to the remote lighthouse, for the crime of daring to make a family, and later killing another other Dark Guardian on a duel (which is directly related to said family perishing). Arey points that today he's saying obvious facts a bit too often.
• Badass Boast: When Hoors realises that the boy whose boy he just occupied (Mefodiy) is important for Arey, he suggests to just fulfil the boy's duty in his stead, so they can put it out of the way and concentrate on rematch duel. Arey says that not even Hoors can replace the body. Hoors' responce? That he can replace anyone, even Ligul.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: As if we don't know that Vov(v)a Skunso and Pasha Sushkin are jerks by then, the 10th chapter opens with Sushkin trying (and failing) to stab ants with pocket knife ("twenty strikes, and only two ant corpses!"), with Skunso suggesting to use a lighter as makeshift flamethrower.
• Bait-and-Switch: When principal says that a teacher is away due to "surgery", she actually means that it's teacher's dog who undergoes the surgery, not the teacher herself.
• Balance Between Good and Evil: The Temple of Eternal Battle contains the labyrinth of dark-and-white plates (most of which contains invisible deadly traps), which can only be mastered by two persons, one of which would represent the Darkness (with some Light still remaining inside), while another would represent the Light (with first traces of Darkness starting developing inside). Ligul is the first one to deduce that this was one of the reasons why no one ever managed to pass the labyrinth, and forces Daphne (a renegade Light Guardian) to go with Mefodiy, realising that she is that second person. While Mefodiy did most of the work, it was Daphne who saved him from the very last trap (which was unavoidable) by giving him her winged necklace, thus protecting him, but dooming herself to fall in love with him. Later it would be revealed that Ligul is behind Daphne being sent in the first place.
• Batman Gambit: When Arey manages to bribe Aida Plakhovna with a whole keg of mead to reveal whether Mefodiy is in her "to kill" list for this week, only to learn that he isn't, Arey realises that she came precisely because she knew that they would try to bribe her, while knowing that there's no real danger. He laughs from relief and admiration for her cunning.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Two years ago, Mefodiy and his then-acquaintance were moving past Irka's house, and saw her being stuck, unable to move up on rump on her own, due to wheelchair always riding back. Said acquaintance started laughing over Irka's problems. Mefodiy glanced on him, then on Irka, and then, after brief thinking, silently hit the jerk into jaw. That's when he'd lost an acquaintance — and gained a close friend, the only one whom he can entrust with his insecurities.
• Beneath Notice:
  • Arey gives Mefodiy the Book of Chameleons, through which he can contact him if needed, even when Mefodiy is away from the Residence; to not attract unwanted attention, the Book changes its appearance on daily basis, always picking something unremarkable, like manual to repair house gear at home.
  • Invoked with Daphne's cover identity. As Daphne is gonna hide in Glumovich's gymnasium as well, she needs a human-like name. Arey and Ulitha picks the most boring one possible — Daria "Dasha" Pimenova — knowing that no one would bother with actually memorising it. Now it's up to Daphne to not botch her disguise by doing something stupid, like using magic or showing wings.
• Big Damn Heroes: Rufin and Pupliy prepares to exile Tukhlomon to Tartarus for one thousand years, but Depresnyak attacks them, stealing Pupliy's winged necklace and forcing the two to hunt for him. Meanwhile, Daphne releases Tukhlomon from the rune which imprisoned him, planning to exploit him to get to Arey.
• Blatant Lies:
  • One commissioner tries to fake up his report... by writing 1+0 as 10. Then he pretends to be illiterate in attempt to avoid being punished.
  • Tukhlomon asks Mefodiy to sign up a document which would allow him to visit his grandfather in Tartarus, and claims that he would tell about Mefodiy to his own children if he signs up. But, being the evil spirit from hell, he obviously has no "grandfather" or children. He only tries it because Mefodiy is new here, but even for a novice, it should sound suspicious.
  • It's not domovois firing a gnome from cannon; a gnome just crawled inside to steal gunpowder, and accidentally provoked the fire! Daphne doesn't fall for it.
  • Tukhlomon tries to steal the credit for defeating Pupliy and Rufin when he presents Arey with one of the winged necklaces. Arey immediately realises that it was Daphne who'd done this, which he tells to Tukhlomon.
  • Tukhlomon tries to pretend that he's Mefodiy's friend, and that he only tried to scam him out of his eidos to "protect it" from the other scammers. Mefodiy almost kills him here and now.
  • Ligul claims that he and Yaraat weren't trying to kill Arey. Arey doesn't fall for it:
    Arey: So, let me explain. Turns out, we weren't alone here. I was so kindly accompanied by my friend Ligul, and... friend of my friend, Yaraat. Like true friends, they decided to make me a surprise and not warn about their arrival. Sneaked on to scratch my back with dagger. [...] Isn't it so, friend Ligul?
    Ligul: I don't get your irony, Arey. We had no plans to kill you. We only wanted to make sure that whatever Mefodiy brings out, would be claimed by the Darkness.
    Arey: I got it, when you two jumped at me and started gently, like on first date, tickling my breastplate and darkh with your daggers.
• Boring, but Practical: The Dark Guardians prefer to avoid unnecessary extra "special effects" that aren't the part of normal effect, unless they specifically need to impress someone, as they costs energy too, whatever small. So when Ulitha teleports away, she just disappears, no sparks, lightnings, etc.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The rune Daphne used to steal the Horn of Minotaur, as a side effect, can cause its user to do reckless deeds — like trying to assassinate your boss with a deadly poison. However, in the last chapter, it gets revealed that it was not her who poisoned Troil; on Ligul's orders, Yaraat has brainwashed Berenariy into doing this. In fact, he was also the one who manipulated Troil into sending her on this quest to begin with, and ordering her to take the Horn with her.
• Brown Note: Mamzelkina warns Mefodiy to stay away from her scythe: merely seeing it unsheathed is extremely dangerous, and not just for your life.
• Bullying the Dragon: When Ligul presses Arey too much (Arey's late family and his relationship with Ulitha are very touchy topics), Arey easily cuts off Ligul's armour, and is one step away from cutting off Ligul's darkh as well, only stopping because he calms down. As pointed by Ligul himself, Arey has more than thousand years of experience and was a literal god of war at some point. This doesn't stop Ligul from snarking even in that state, until he realises that Arey is indeed about to kill him.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Pretty much anything "un-Light" can cost you a dark feather or two, which is the sign of Darkness growing inside you.
• Casanova Wannabe: Vova Skunso's "flirting" with Daph is filled with highly dubious "compliments" that sounds insulting rather than flattening.
• The Cavalry: Ulitha shows up to rescue Mefodiy from the "hog" just when the "hog" is about to go violent.
• Celestial Deadline: Ligul learns that something has changed, and Mefodiy must go to the Temple of Eternal Battle tomorrow, with only little time to prepare — or wait for hundred thousands of years for next chance; previously, it was estimated (and the prophecy has told so) that Mefodiy would go there on a day of his thirteenth birthday.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Besides the magic rock, the box which Ulitha gave to Mefodiy early in the second chapter also contains "charisma fruit" from Eden, which, well, improves charisma of whomever eats it; Mefodiy puts it in his backpack and forgets. In the end of the chapter, Mefodiy's classmate Borya Grelkin, resident Shrinking Violet who never says anything longer than "okay" or something similar, and never attracts anyone's attention, eats it when it falls from Mefodiy's backpack, which immediately starts improving his weak aura and makes him more talkative, with strong potential for more changes in the long run.
  • Two out of three methods of stealthy infiltration suggested to Daphne to steal the Horn of Minotaur have side effects affecting user's mind and making them do strange things after losing control of themselves. Later Daphne would be accused of nearly fatally poisoning Troil, though ultimately it would be revealed that she was framed.
  • It's mentioned that Minotaur's Horn can penetrate any magic armour; Rufin is protected by magic chainmail, which allows him to No-Sell Daphne's magolodies, but it's no match for the Horn.
  • The last plate before the door turns out to be unavoidable trap, which forces Mefodiy to fight with illusory "enemy" — but really with himself. As he's about to kill them both, Daphne is forced to put her winged necklace on Mefodiy's neck to calm him down. Only then she remembers the warning of the Retired Fairy — that the Light Guardian who puts their winged necklace on a mortal, would fall in love with them. Daphne instantly gets angry, and switches to acting cold and rude to Mefodiy.
  • The Horn of Minotaur finally serves its purpose in the last chapter, when Mefodiy takes it from Daphne and uses as the key to open the coffin.
• Chekhov's News: Mefodiy, out of curiosity, uses the Book of Chameleons to look the Dark-TV, specifically, Venya Viy's show. Viy tells about Daphne going on the run, capturing the Horn of Minotaur, and describes its properties. The following chapter returns to Daphne and tells how she ended up on the run in the first place. And when the story later returns back to Mefodiy, he uses the information he got from Viy to convince Arey that he should spare Daphne.
• The Chosen One:
  • Besides being the inheritor of Kvodnon's powers, Mefodiy is also the only one who may pass through the Temple of Eternal Battle. Emphasis on may: he still may fail its challenge and die; he's just the only one who has a chance to pass. Whatever the Temple contains, both the Light and the Darkness wish to obtain it for themselves. How Mefodiy passes it? By using his powers to actually see what each of the plates does, so he may forge his own path through the Labyrinth, with Daphne following him close second. Then turns out that the sarcophagus contains the absolute power — faceless, unaligned power which can serve whatever force Mefodiy aligns himself with... but only when he grows up enough to be worthy of it. The power which can make him replace Kvodnon and end the world... or the power which can make him the new Lord of Light.
  • Played With regarding Daphne. Nothing in the prophecy states that it must be Daphne specifically who would accompany Mefodiy, only that it must be someone Light with Darkness inside, but she's currently the only fitting candidate, who also has a chance to actually make it to Mefodiy, and to get along with him (being roughly same age as him, if convert Eden years into human). Things only gets more complicated when it gets revealed that it's Ligul who sent her on the mission in the first place, believing that she's easy to manipulate.
• The Chosen Zero: We gets introduced to Mefodiy Buslaev, the future Lord of Darkness... and learn that he's living rather unremarkable life, has no notable achievements at school or anywhere else, and who believes that nothing great ever awaits him (belief shared by pretty much everyone else, including his family).
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Ulitha warns Mefodiy to not trust commissioners, as they're utter scum who would betray and badmouth everyone and everything if it may give them any profit. We then meet Tukhlomon, and see how true that statement is.
• Combat Clairvoyance: Arey tries to train Mefodiy's intuition by tying his eyes with a special cursed blindfold (so he wouldn't use his normal vision) and ordering him to see things through his "intuitive vision", and say what Arey is doing. Mefodiy, unsuccessful at first, ultimately manages to find a way to do that, gradually seeing more and more clear, until he manages to see things Arey is only planning to do. Arey congratulates him on success... and then Mefodiy sees that Arey is about to behead him, and crotches... which is exactly what Arey wanted him to do — to notice danger before it hits, and take precautions.
  Arey: A sword is just a weapon. If compare to a human body, a weapon is its arm, an intuition is its eyes. A Guardian without intuition is a pathetic creature which deserves to die.
• Comically Missing the Point: Yagge explains that mages, unlikes Guardians, don't use eidoses, which limits their power, as there's no way to go above the limits of your magic gift. Tararaksh says that they can use magic rings, but Solovei counters it by saying that the ring only helps you for as long as you wield it, and compares it to a mace: does it make you stronger? Tararakh misses his point, and replies that yes, especially if it's a good-quality mace.
• Crazy-Prepared: Sometimes, in violation of the rules, Sniffer teaches students the magolodies from arsenal of Gold-Winged Ones — officially, "for the art", but in reality, clearly to prepare them for the worst.
• Cruel Mercy: Rufin decides not to kill Tukhlomon; he would "merely" banish him to Tartarus for next thousand years.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Ligul doesn't go into details, as there's no point to repeat what they both already know, but what little is said indicates that Arey had a family at some point (mortal family) which is now gone, and that he tries to find out what has happened to their souls; and that the people related to their doom were killed at some point, with one of such deaths resulting in Arey being punished with exile, which is when he found Ulitha.
• Deadly Dodging: Pupliy gets hit by Rufin's sleep-inducing magolody because Daphne at the last moment jumps on him, and magolody hits Pupliy, as he, standing on the ground, counts as the "end of the chain".
• Deadly Gaze: Viy asks his assistants to open his eyes while his show runs live. Fortunately, operator freaks out and faints at the last moment, so only the people in studio gets killed.
• Deal with the Devil: Glumovich has sold his soul to Ligul, most likely so he can profit from owning elite private gymnasium. He's allowed to "rent" his soul for a time being, with the deal being prolonged for as long as he remains useful. Allowing Mefodiy Buslaev to stay there is his way to remain useful.
• Decapitated Army: All it took for the army of Darkness to give up and retreat, despite being close to the total victory, is Kvodnon being killed.
• Defiant to the End: Mefodiy decides that he would rather be beaten up than submit to the "Order of Yellow Skull" and do as they demand. This proves to be the right tactic, as he manages to make his magic work when he concentrates enough on his hatred.
• Demonic Possession: Arey teaches Mefodiy how to summon the spirit of Hoors into his mind, and how to keep him in check, so Hoors wouldn't take over. As Mefodiy can't fight, Hoors would do that for him if needed, but Mefodiy should't let him do anything more. Mefodiy botches it due to falling into a trap, and lets Hoors to take over, after which Hoors tries to kill Arey. Hoors only leaves when he learns that he possessed Mefodiy, as he values Mefodiy's mission high enough to let him finish it first, but still threatens to return one day.
• De-power:
  • Yaraat was in Moscow when Mefodiy was born, resulting in his power being drained and consumed by Mefodiy, and him being caught by the Darkness: being the infamous outlaw and artifact thief, he was wanted by both the Darkness and the Light. For that, Yaraat still wants Mefodiy dead.
  • Once Pupliy and Rufin gets defeated, Tukhlomon steals their winged necklaces, meaning that they're now little more than humans; there's no way to gain new wings.
• Determinator: Discussed; Arey tells Mefodiy that willpower is what really matters in life, and what keeps you alive, not physical strength.
  Arey: The life is, generally, not about the battle of muscles, but about the battle of your will against other's will. The body collapses, but the willpower pulls it up and leads into fight. The weak will is like a rancid egg with weak shell. Its shell would break on any outside pressure. The strong will is a diamond egg. It wouldn't crack, even if the whole world would crack around it. And it doesn't matter in which body it lies — adult, or a child.
• Dirty Coward:
  • Arey accuses Ligul of being too cowardly to fight for the eidoses he claims for himself like he used to be, preferring to buy them from commissioners.
  • Remembering how it ended the previous time, Ligul sends two bodyguards first to tie up Arey, so he can talk without risks. Arey easily dispatches them without even killing, and only spares Ligul because he doesn't hide that he doesn't need Arey's death "for now" rather than lie.
• Distant Prologue: The prologue happens thirteen years before the main story, shortly before Mefodiy was born, and takes place in Tibidokhs (the Wizarding School from Yemets' earlier series, Tanya Grotter). It provides the readers with the first drops of backstory, both on who Mefodiy is, and on the whole conflict between the Light and the Darkness.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": We learn that Mefodiy's mother is called Zoya, but she hates that name, and prefers to be called "Zozo". She dislikes her passport, as it lists her given name instead of the one she prefers.
• Don't Think, Feel: Sniffer believes that "professionals" are the worst that can happen to art (even worse than dilettantes), as they blindly follow the rules and techniques to do everything "right", where they're supposed to listen to their heart. This is especially true when applying to magolodies. When Daphne gets briefly distracted when playing defensive magolody, she starts remembering the right technique — and the magolody loses all magic, as she's thinking, not feeling.
• Draft Dodging: Edya avoided mandatory conscription by spending some time in psychiatric clinic and receiving a document which made him ineligible for military service — highly implied to be fake, especially since he paid $300 for it.
• Driven to Suicide: One of the traps in the Temple is the Plate of Betrayal. The usual effect is causing the people standing on it to attack each other, no matter how close they were before, but if just one person steps on it, then they would feel like if they betrayed everything that matters for them, all dreams and hopes — and it would cause them to step on another plate just to off themselves; there was at least one case of that happening.
• Dude, Not Funny!:
  • When Mefoidy says that his mother wouldn't let him go to some suspicious place in the middle of the night, Ulitha jokes that he has enough power to chain her to a rock like Prometheus if he wishes so. Mefodiy reacts badly, as he really doesn't like jokes at his family's expense.
  • Ulitha says how the Dark corporative parties often goes, and that at least one succubus likely would try to turn into Daphne and jump onto Mefodiy's knees to kiss him. Daphne, who's present, reacts negatively, but Ulitha says that it's not a joke.
• Duel to the Death:
  • In the prologue, it gets told that Drevnir's son was challenged by Arey, one of the greatest warriors of Darkness. He was beheaded in less than a minute.
  • In the third chapter, it gets revealed that Arey was exiled to remote lighthouse by Ligul, as a punishment for killing another Dark Guardian on a duel (despite such duels being banned by Ligul). Arey doesn't regret this, as it allowed him to kill one of the last people involved in ruining his life. Now, only one remains...
  • In the tenth chapter, Arey tells Mefodiy about his duel with Hoors several centuries ago, which ended with Hoors being beheaded, right after losing his darkh; that duel was the reason why Arey was exiled on a lighthouse on the distant island — back then, duels between Guardians were already banned by Ligul. Arey refuses to tell the reasons why he killed Hoors, heavily implying that it has something to do with the story about his family.
• Due to the Dead: After giving up on Mefodiy's body, Hoors asks Arey to find his old sword, as the last thing which bothers Hoors in the afterlife is where it ended up after his death. Arey promises him to do that.
• Dying Race: Wights and other magical creatures are gradually dying out due to lopukhoids expansion. The Light Guardians gave shelter to some of them in Eden, purely because otherwise they would be homeless; the rest was mostly adopted by mages who keep them on their territory, except for the most violent ones.
• Early Instalment Weirdness:
  • This book is much closer to Yemets's previous works — relatively light-hearted, humour-driven and surreal adventure. While the "surreal" part wouldn't go anywhere, the tone would permanently shift to the dark in the very next novel (and keep going darker), making it oddball in the series to a degree.
  • This is the only book where the Darkness's domain is called "Hades" instead of "Tartarus".
  • This is the only book that references Light Guardians using numbers to indicate one's place in hierarchy, primely to show what a loser Daphne is (she's #13066, compared to Troil being #1).
  • When telling backstory behind his imprisonment, Yaraat gets called a "Guardian" (likely meaning him possessing a darkh), which contradicts the lore established later.
  • It's the only book where the term "darkh" is used for anything other than actual darkh: Tukhlomon calls that his cursed button, which serves as his eidos stash.
• Embarrassing Last Name: Vova Skunso (accent on the last syllable) has his surname dangerously resembling the word "skuns" (skunk), especially if one puts accent on the first syllable. Naturally, Mefodiy does exactly that.
• Emotion Eater: Mefodiy has ability to see auras of people, and can absorb energy from them. Some of them are too disgusting to feed from, however. He never questions why he has such ability, just accepting it as normal, and never thinking that it's something unnatural.
• Enemy Mine: Ligul and Yaraat unites in attempt to kill Arey while Mefodiy is in the labyrinth; it ends in a failure, with Ligul being once again humiliated, and Yaraat being forced to run, abandoning the Tigerbite Sabre which he used before.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • First post-prologue chapter introduces us to Mefodiy and his parents, through their morning routine and interactions with each other:
    • Zoya "Zozo" Buslaeva shows her eccentric nature (for starters, her insistence on being called "Zozo"), Big Sister Bully attitude towards Edya (when she mocks his attempt to convince himself that he's pretty by pointing that he's Formerly Fit), and perpetual loneliness (she's desperately looking for date advertisements, checking even most ridiculous ones in hope to find something).
    • Eduard "Edya" Havron shows his cynicism, pathologic cheapness (both through accusing Mefodiy of stealing several roubles to pay for ride to school, and through listing how he once marked part of toilet paper with marker pen as "his", so no one would "steal" it) and snarky sense of humour (his critique of the alleged restaurant "Bee").
    • Mefodiy Buslaev is a lazy Apathetic Student (the very first thing he does is to try, and fail, to find motivation to keep studying) with very sharp tongue (his interactions with Edya; and him privately comparing him to an ape), who has creepy mystical stuff going on around him all the time, but stubbornly believes that there's nothing unusual and he has no perspectives in life.
  • Ulitha shows up dressed rather eccentrically, and shouts Sophisticated as Hell insults at the "hog", while not forgetting to bite from massive sandwich between phrases. When pressed hard enough, she ruins his precious car (which started the entire conflict) with her magic, while never stopping making fun at him. She then proceeds making fun at Mefodiy.
  • Our first introduction to Ligul and Arey tells us some key information about them. Ligul is a wretched, cowardly and vile ugly hunchback with equally ugly personality. Arey has his own code of honour, bounds to no one (and is willing to tell to his boss' face what he thinks about him), and is capable of feeling genuine affection to people around him (and would not let the others to mistreat those people).
  • The first thing Tuklhlomon does is to try to scam Mefodiy out of his eidos by lying that he needs a permission to "visit his grandfather", with the "payment" being... expired sprat can.
  • Aida Plakhovna plays the "senile old granny" and makes death-related jokes at Mefodiy's expense, only for Mefodiy to instantly see that she's perfectly sane — and very dangerous. Then she goes to Arey and "subtly" asks for mead, revealing that she's an alcoholic, but still continuing her facade, despite everyone knowing that she's neither dumb nor drunk.
  • The scene where Tukhlomon scares Basevich into compliance by pretending to be a talking sliced-up fish which yells at him and threatens to boil him alive unless he gives up his eidos, shows us how audacious Tukhlomon is tend to be when doing his job (in contrast with him near people superior to him). Then he nearly gets exiled by two Light Guardians, only to be rescued by Daphne, who demands him to help her with infiltrating the Dark Residence... and tries to backstab her thrice in a row.
• Even Evil Has Standards: While Hoors is willing to kill Arey and avenge his death, even he wouldn't risk the future of Darkness by taking over Mefodiy Buslaev before he fulfils the prophecy.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: In the Temple of Eternal Battle, the only thing that separates you from the treasure it keeps is the long path of black-and-white plates placed in a chess-like pattern. The problem is, nearly every plate contains magic traps which would kill you in many different ways, ranging from simple incinerating plates to more sophisticated ones, like the one which would force you to fight with yourself while thinking that you faced your worst enemy, or the one which would force you to run in one place until you die, or the one which would force you to laugh until you die, or... the variations are countless. To make matters worse, you can't see what each plate does until you step on it, you can't return once you enter it until you either finish or die (the Temple would detect such attempts, and punish them), and it keeps changing plates' pattern on the move. Naturally, Mefodiy (who represents the Darkness with some Light stay inside him) is the only one who may pass it, if he plays his cards right, and even then only if he would be accompanied by someone who would represents the Light with the seed of Darkness, so together they would represent duality, which the Temple is all about.
• Evil Hand: Tukhlomon's button, where he stores eidoses, is cursed; if you touch it, your own hand would try to kill you, and the sole way to stop it is to cut it off.
• Exact Words: When Daphne doesn't let Tukhlomon go until he gives her an oath that he would help her, he tries to use the Darkness' motto instead of actual oath, on which she catches him. He then gives her actual oath... that he would bring her "anywhere", which also fails to fool her. Daphne orders him to bring her specifically to Arey, and not just random dude called "Arey", but specifically swordsman Arey, baron of Darkness. At the residence, Tukhlomon tries to backstab Daphne yet again, this time by exploiting her not asking to actually let her out once she finds Arey; he just rats her out. Fortunately for Daphne, Arey sides with her.
• Fake Defector: Troil plans to set up Daphne as the agent of Light in the heart of Darkness, as she's needed to keep Mefodiy Buslaev in check. To make it plausible, she must steal some important artifact and escape with it; the other Guardians wouldn't be warned, and would hunt for Daphne as the real traitor. Daphne actually does get accepted into the team, and surprisingly easy at that, given all the setup that it's gonna be a long and hard mission to even get close to Mefodiy. However, at the end, it gets revealed that it's Ligul who's orchestrated for the mission in the first place, as he needed a "tainted" Light Guardian near Mefodiy to fulfil the prophecy, and Daph was a perfect candidate. She stays in the team even after that revelation, with Arey staying true to his word to keep her on probation.
• Fantastic Racism: Wights from different regions of the world dislike each other. When they got settled close to each other in Eden, it resulted in regular fights.
• Feet of Clay: During prologue, Sardanapal mentions Ligul as one of the best fighters of the Darkness. When we actually meet Ligul, we see that even if he once was strong, he long since became a cowardly weakling, and lost all his skill.
• Feigning Intelligence: Vova Skunso tries to show off to Daph, by cracking a "creative" joke about her flute, calling it "royale in bushes" ("Royale" is French for "grand piano"); except, "royale in the bushes" is a mocking term for badly-handled "twists", so he only made himself look a like a fool by misusing a well-known term.
• Fluffy Tamer: The first thing we learn about Daphne is that she keeps Depresnyak as her pet — a cat whose mother was a normal Eden cat, and father was demonic cat from hell; Depresnyak has inherited mostly father's qualities, like one hundred and twenty teeth, ability to bite glass and drink acid, chaotically aggressive personality and skin which burns whoever touches him while sucking out all happiness.
• Foil: Pupliy and Rufin, two Light Guards guarding the Palace of Light Ones; Pupliy is unpleasant Obstructive Bureaucrat with no sense of humour, Rufin is nice, friendly and not above making a joke or two, or laugh over someone else's.
• Forbidden Love: Ligul reminds Arey about him once breaking the rules and falling in love with mortal woman, and even somehow making a child with her — and that it ended tragically.
  Ligul: Yeah, of course... Old silly Ligul! How can he understand the worries of baron Arey, the Dark swordsman! Wow, what a unique story! Once ago, you fell in love with a mortal, breaking our laws, made a daughter with her, and, in attempt to save that silly paradise, made tons of mistakes... So many, that you ended up on the lighthouse. Waves, rocks and wind were supposed to clean up your mind. But instead? Even on the lighthouse, you didn't become smarter. Saved that lopukhoid girl, doomed to die by her own delusional mother. I wonder, why? Or she reminds you about the daughter you failed to save? When would you understand that we're immortal, while lopukhoids and children from lopukhoids are just expandable... Pawns in the eternal game between the good and evil. Stupid flesh, the mud with a little spark of eidos which for unknown reason ended up inside!
• Foreshadowing: The last chapter reveals that it's Ligul who manipulated Troil into sending Daphne on her mission, as he knew that she's the only fitting person to represent "Light-with-growing-Darkness" in the Temple. We get the hints that something is fishy long before then:
  • It gets accentuated that Troil is acting weird, and appears unnormal: pale, prone to phasing-out, lethargic, strange speaking manner with tone changes, and frequently looks at some ring. The final chapter reveals that, while it's not possible to actually brainwash him, his willpower was partially suppressed, with him trying to resist. The ring is what was used to achieve that.
  • When crawling past Troil's office, Daphne notices a dead peacock, but disregards it, being too nervous and afraid to get caught. Just who might've killed the poor bird right in the Light Guardians' HQ? The final chapter reveals that Troil's secretary Berenariy was brainwashed by Yaraat. This also hints that Daphne was actually framed up for Troil's assassination attempt.
  • Ligul already knows about Daphne being at Arey's residence, and not even through Tukhlomon or one of his spies. He also can't resist to brag that Arey always underestimates him, and that he's not just two steps ahead, but "sees the whole party"; Arey wonders what kind of game he's playing. Of course, he knows: he's the one who set up for it to happen.
• Gave Up Too Soon: To test whether he really has any magic, Mefodiy tries to burn a pile of junk at distance; when it doesn't ignite, he considers it to be a sign of failure, and gives up... not realising that the junk is fire-resistant, and that it takes some time for it to burn, which it eventually does while he doesn't look.
• Genius Loci: it's heavily implied that the Temple has some mind of its own, and can detect (and reject) those it deems unworthy. In particular, when one of the voodoo mages has tried to escape, he was killed exactly one step away from the exit; Troil believes that the Temple wanted to show that you can't go back the same way you entered.
• The Ghost: Yaraat, the rogue shapeshifter who hunts for Mefodiy, gets frequently mentioned, but never shows up in person, despite playing crucial role in the story's events, as gets revealed in the final chapter. Mefodiy just barely avoids running into him while at the Temple, but Yaraat leaves before Mefodiy exits.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: We learn that the elite Light Guardians are called Gold-Winged, and have golden winged necklaces instead of standard bronze. It's not easy to become one, as it requires at least three successful raids on Darkness, each ending with at least one darkh being destroyed and eidoses being freed.
• Grand Theft Me: Mefodiy gets tricked by Hoors to lower his defence, allowing Hoors to steal his body completely, leaving him as merely a "passenger" somewhere in the deep. Hoors only gives up the body when he learns that it's Mefodiy whose body he took over, as he's not willing to risk the cause of the Darkness... at least until Mefodiy fulfils the prophecy.
• Guardian Angel: Daphne officially becomes guardian angel for Mefodiy Buslaev, tasked with keeping him in check and preventing from descending into Darkness completely.
• Happily Adopted: Ulitha isn't just Arey's secretary; she was adopted by him when her mother (a witch herself) has sold her daughter's soul to gain something from the Darkness, and leaved her for death. Judging from Arey's conversation with Ligul, it's his attempt to replace his own daughter, who's now dead.
• The Heavy: Ligul is the one who released Yaraat. Besides threatening Mefodiy personally (given his grudges with the boy), Yaraat is the one who manipulated Troil into sending Daphne on the mission, and then tried to assassinate him, resulting in her being hunted for. But the main story isn't about Yaraat (or Ligul), it's about the Temple; their involvement only gets revealed at the very end, once the story essentially concludes, with Yaraat escaping with clear hints that we would see him again.
• Hell Invades Heaven: In backstory, the forces of Darkness, then led by Kvodnon, besieged the Eden itself, and were very close to victory. However, nine Gold-Winged Ones volunteered to attack Kvodnon, knowing that they wouldn't return; they managed to kill Kvodnon before perishing, and destroy his darkh. It galvanized the defenders for counterattack, and allowed them to push forces of Darkness out, after which the evil lay low for a long time, before they switched to raid tactics (and started using commissioners and succubi to obtain new eidoses).
• Hell of a Heaven: Daphne lives in literal Eden, but for her, it's extremely boring and too saccharine, it just asks to add something nasty into a mix, like a ghoul, and see what would happen.
• Hidden Purpose Test: Arey orders Mefodiy to try his new sword on furniture, without caring about damage. Then he explains that he wanted to test whether sword would obey Mefodiy, as it's very picky when it comes to owners, and can react to excessive vileness with attacking its owner.
• Holy Burns Evil: The word "spasibo" (Russian for "thanks") originates from "spasi bog" (literally "god, save"); when Daphne says it near Tukhlomon, it causes him visible pain.
• Ignorant of the Call: Everyone tells Mefodiy that he's The Chosen One. Mefodiy has troubles with accepting that, still being convinced that he's a loser with no notable qualities.
• Implied Death Threat: When Arey says that not all people related to the death of his family are dead, and that "one is still alive", Ligul quickly realises that he better drop the topic of Arey's past.
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: The ghost of Retired Fairy is dressed in long pink dress with so ridiculous amount of frills, bows and decorative flowers, it gets compared to a walking flowerbed.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: When "hog" grabs Mefodiy and asks what the hell he did with his car, Mefodiy makes two mistakes, which gives the "hog" concrete proof that it was him: he impulsively says that he never saw that car (which can't be true, as they firstly met each other near it), and says that he doesn't know who ruined his wires, despite wires not even being brought up yet.
• Infodump: There's a lengthy part about the history of Dark residence, which starts right after Mefodiy teleporting away, and smoothly proceeds into Arey and Ligul originally arriving to this place and discussing what Arey should do there, and only then continues with Mefodiy's story.
• Insistent Terminology: To make "clients" less prone to panic, Aida Plakhovna's "profession" (Grim Reaper) is now called "senior manager of necrodepartment". Mefodiy thinks that it fails at intended purpose.
• It Can Think:
  • Drevnir's former sword is almost sapient; not only it reacts to its wielder's emotions, it can also disobey someone it considers too evil, as it still has some spark of original Light, and can't tolerate vileness. It also still dislikes Arey, somehow remembering that he was the one who killed Drevnir's son in a duel (who was wielding that sword in his last battle).
  • The Horn of Minotaur is not just rather vile (fitting for the Dark artifact); it has some mind-controlling abilities, which it uses to force Daphne into bringing it where it would fulfil its purpose.
• Jackass Genie: The Retired Fairy offers everyone to fulfil their dream. When she does that, she asks for more and more and more, until they run out of dreams (and she wouldn't bother with something simple, like "bring me tea", she only cares about real dreams)... after which she promptly ruins everything she had created (want to be an actor? prepare to play a tree stump), to demonstrate how really pathetic those dreams were — all to prove her point that "true dreams" are extremely rare. Those who know about her quickly learned to recognise offers of dream fulfilment as a Schmuck Bait. One of such jokes is what got her killed and turned into ghost.
  Fairy Ghost: You know what differs reality from dreams? That when the dreams comes true, they never work the way you've expected. The rose, most beautiful of flowers, has thorns. Too much ice-cream can make you sick. The euphory gets followed by sadness, and so on. When fulfilling my clients' dreams, I put this principle to absolute, which is my only way to make fun...
• Jerkass: Zozo's new suitor acts like a jerk towards Mefodiy from the very first seconds, without any provocation. When he later catches Mefodiy after the latter sabotages his car, he threatens to take all the money his mother has to pay up for the damage (and more), and if she wouldn't have enough, he would break everything in their house.
• Jumped at the Call: While more than sceptical at first, Mefodiy decides that he's fed up with living with his family and that screw this, he would become a mage, or die trying.
• Kick the Dog: When Ligul calls Ulitha "a servant", Arey reacts badly, and makes a joke about Ligul's hunch. This makes Ligul break his usual smug demeanour, and start openly badmouthing Ulitha, telling how pathetic and pointless her existence is.
  Ligul: She's worse than a servant! She's a slave of the Darkness. She was cursed all the way back into infancy, by her own mother, who dealt with black magic. Her eidos was taken away, leaving only a hole. By the book of life and death, your Ulitha is supposed to be dead by now. The girl should've been eaten by worms! It's kinda wrong, don't you think? Going against the death itself, who knows no mistakes! The girl was supposed to be killed, but then you appeared. Why, for what reason? Even gave her some of your powers. And she's not even a beauty... We chose to ignore it. Who cares what the crazy baron of Darkness does on his devastated lighthouse?
• Last Day of Normalcy:
  • Most of the first post-prologue chapter is about introducing Mefodiy and his parents (and Irka); despite some strange stuff going on regularly around him, Mefodiy still believes that he's completely ordinary and has nothing remarkable about himself. Then he accidentally moves the moon reflection with his gaze.
  • Much of the fourth chapter is dedicated to showing the normal lives of the Light Guardians in general, and Daphne in particular, before any plot happens and Daphne goes on adventure.
• Lecture as Exposition:
  • Sardanapal (from Yemets' earlier series, Tanya Grotter) gives a series of lectures to his colleagues, providing crucial exposition about the setting:
    • Since Tararakh doesn't understand what "eidos" means (roughly speaking, it's a soul), Sardanapal has to explain it to him — and by proxy, the readers. He also explains that the Dark Guardians are hunting for them, in hope to make themselves stronger.
    • Sardanapal tells his colleagues a story about Drevnir's son (of which neither of them was aware), and how he was killed on a duel with Arey, resulting in Drevnir's sword being captured by Darkness.
  • We learn some new information about the setting through Troil instructing Daphne:
    • At first, Troil thinks that just telling Daphne that her target is that Mefodiy Buslaev is enough, but then he realises that she didn't pay attention in classes, and has to give her a lecture about Kvodnon's downfall, so she would understand why it's so important that someone has inherited his powers.
    • Troil tells Daphne a story about the team of voodoo mages who tried to brute-force the Tempe of Eternal Battle (to reduce the risks, they used mice and frogs to "test" the road ahead, though even that helped only partially) — and how all but one of them have died with almost zero progress (hundred plates — out of thousand), describing several "lovely" traps they run into. The penultimate one freaked out and tried to escape, only to be killed just one step away from exit; Troil presumes that the Temple allowed him to make it that far just to show: there's no going back, once you enter, you must finish — or die trying. The last one freaked out as well, and decided to not even bother; naturally, he was the one who told this story afterwards.
• The Load: Borya Grelkin and Mefodiy Buslaev accidentally volunteers to move several tree stumps (they are to be used as decorations for upcoming play), the first one due to mishearing the question, and the second due to not paying attention. Then it turns out that the stumps are heavy, but Borya isn't gonna help, as his health doesn't allow him to carry weights. When asked why the hell he didn't say so to the principal, he says that she didn't ask. Borya is too pathetic to even get angry at him (he gets compared to a penguin), so Mefodiy has to just do everything by himself.
• Loads and Loads of Rules: The "Treasury of Wisdom" gymnasium has 912 rules; amongst them, "students aren't allowed to live secludedly" (rule №803) and "discussing or mentioning ethnicities is expulsion-worthy offence" (rule №3). But there's no rule against bragging.
• Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Ever since divorcing Mefodiy's father, Zozo tries to find a replacement, but no one sticks for long. Mefodiy stopped memorising their names after first three. The plot of first chapter starts with her kicking Mefoidy out to prepare for yet another date — with the guy later becoming the first danger Mefodiy faces.
• Ma'am Shock: According to Irka, her grandma Babanya (who's fifty two years-old) hates when people call her "granny":
  Bababya: It's you "a granny"! I'm human!
• The Man Behind the Man: Ligul turns out to be that "friend" who let Yaraat out. Yaraat, in turn, brainwashed Berenariy to give Troil willpower-suppressing ring, and later tried to assassinate him, framing it on Daphne — all so Daphne would escape and bring the Horn of Minotaur, which was crucial to open the sarcophagus.
• Mathematician's Answer: Tararakh asks Zuboderikha what the "eidos" is. Her answer? "It's something the Dark Guardians wants to put into their darkhs". He lampshades how useless the answer was.
  Tararakh: Great! I love you, Zubi! You certainly know how to explain things. Let's presume that I asked you what "mouse" is, and you say: "Dear Tararakh, a mouse is what you catch into a mousetrap". Then I ask: "What a mousetrap is?". "Mousetrap is needed to catch mice". Now I know why your students are so scared of your lessons.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: In-universe. Mefodiy discovers that he can control the Moon's reflection in the poodle, but then dismisses it as optical effect, feeling mix of relief and disappointment.
• Mr. Smith: When Daph goes undercover as another student in Glumovich's gymnasium, she does so under fake name "Dasha Pimenova", which Ulitha believes being so generic, no one would bother investigating it, or even memorise.
• Mugging the Monster:
  • Back when Mefodiy was three years-old, there was one rather dumb dog which had a habit of jumping at people and pushing them to the ground, looking on them to enjoy their fear, and then running away. When it did so to Mefodiy, he screamed in fear and looked the dog into eyes; almost immediately afterwards, the dog just fell on the ground and died from a heart rupture.
  • When the "hog" tries to insult Ulitha and threaten her, she pretends to be a vampire who's about to suck his blood. She lets him go, but not before saying the rules: do not insult her; whatever she says, he does; do not harm her friends.
    Ulitha: Now listen, in case we would meet again. Rule number one: do not be rude to me. Rule number two: my requests should be taken as orders, and orders as emergency. Rule number three: my friends are part of me, and you don't hurt me... Rule number four... On the second thought, you wouldn't break the fourth rule, cause you would die before it! Begone!
  • Vova Skunso and his lackeys (who're obscuring their faces with paper bags) prepares to humiliate Mefodiy, to show him his place, by beating him up and forcing him to crawl under chairs while holding a sock in his mouth, and kissing everyone's shoes — all in the name of the "yellow skull", whatever it is. Mefodiy, once he gets sufficiently angry, enflames one of participants' bag, then the other things. Once everyone gets sufficiently scared to leave him alone, Mefodiy forces two of the "order's" leaders, Vova and Sasha, to do what they have tried to force Mefodiy into.
• Mythology Gag: When Mefodiy tells Ulitha his name, she says that she knows, and that at least he didn't introduce himself as "Mefodiy. Mefodiy Buslaev", like one "dude with glasses, currently in love with a Russian photo model" would do; it's a subtle reference to Tanya Grotter, earlier series set in the same universe.
• Near-Villain Victory: In backstory, during the deciding battle between the forces of Light and Darkness, the Light almost lost when the Darkness besieged Eden itself. Then twelve brave Gold-Winged Guardians assaulted Kvodnon's tent. All of them died, but they managed to annihilate him so thoroughly that he would never recover from it, being unable to return even as commissioner.
• No-Respect Guy: Mefodiy shows zero respect to Glumovich, both because he sees his dirty aura, and because he knows that the guy has sold his soul to the Darkness and now sucks up to Ligul in order to postpone the moment when he has to give it away; now he has to provide Mefodiy with a cover story, with no right to refuse. Vova Skunso shows little respect to Glumovich or his gymnasium, either.
• Not Enough to Bury: Ulitha gives Mefodiy a box containing a rock, with which he's supposed to draw a rune on the floor after midnight; the rune is already engraved in the box, so he should just copy it. She warns him that if he botches it, what would remain of him would fit into a matchstick box.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Ligul reminds Arey that he's not a saint either, having countless eidoses in his darkh himself. Arey tries to defend himself by saying that he gained those in fair fight, but Ligul points that it's hardly a "fair" fight when one of the combatants is hopelessly superior to everyone else. Arey then makes a (weak) defence by saying that they might've tried to even the chances by using the artifacts, to which Ligul points that it's exactly his point: when you can't win fairly, you have to fight unfairly.
• Not So Harmless Punishment: When Mefodiy mentions the Plate of Sloth, Daphne wonders what's so dangerous about it; Mefodiy says that it's the kind of sloth which makes you too lazy to think, breath or even exist.
• Not So Stoic: When he finally gives up, Hoors briefly breaks his smug demeanour, and politely asks Arey to look for his old sword, as he's feeling uneasy in hell, not knowing its fate.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Mefodiy quickly realises that Aida Plakhovna only pretends to be senile granny, and is actually very dangerous.
• Our Demons Are Different: Early in the fifth chapter, Ulitha gives Mefodiy brief introduction to commissioners and succubi, as he's about to work with them for the first time.
  • Succubi obtains eidoses by exploiting people's unsatisfied love and lust, by offering them visions (particularly in dreams) and then asking for soul in return.
  • Commissioners are plasticine-made imps with disgusting, "sticky" personalities and speech manner resembling old-fashioned servants, who constantly lies and tries to scam you for something, as well as snitches on everyone and everything.
• Our Souls Are Different: In the prologue, Sardanapal explains what the eidos is, and why it's so important:
  Sardanapal: Eidos, which the Dark Guardians are hunting for, is a core, an essence of the matter, a ticket into afterlife, a key to immortality, a soul. The most important and valuable what every lopukhoid, we or even Yagge (goddess or not) have. Anyone has only one eidos. The only thing you can't forge or copy with magic. Lopukhoid who loses life and body, but preserves eidos, loses nothing. But human who loses eidos, loses everything, even if their body, mind and life are out of danger. [...] Eidos looks like a small bluish spark or grain of sand. That spark has huge, incomparable power, it's what lets us embrace eternity and not stay in the rotten flesh after death. Eidos is the eternal piece of creation, the part of the One, Who created us through word. Nothing can destroy it — neither a gorgulia division, nor atomic explosion, nor destruction of the Universe — nothing. And even a single eidos has that power!
• Outliving One's Offspring: Sardanapal tells a story about Drevnir's son, who was killed during Magic Wars, when a Dark Guardian Arey has challenged him on a duel, and beheaded him. Drevnir was asleep during a duel (with dark magic reinforcing his sleep to ensure that he wouldn't interfere), and after it, he personally buried what has remained of his son after wights feasted on his corpse with a dagger.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: When Zozo's new suitor acts like a jerk towards him without provocation, Mefodiy waits for him to leave, and sabotages his car: puts a nail near one wheel, a broken bottle near another, and a balloon on the exhaust pipe. He feels no remorse for doing so. It backfires at him, as he quickly gets caught afterwards.
• People Puppets: To show Mefodiy that she represents the power which, if needed, can just force him to go where Ulitha's master wants him (but wants him to specifically go on his own accord), Ulitha briefly takes control over his body, forcing it to move according to her orders.
• Pun-Based Title: Names for chapters nine and eight are puns based on Russian proverbs.
• Raised by Grandparents: Eight years ago, when Irka was still four years-old, her parents' car has collided with a bus, resulting in her parents dying, and Irka injuring her spine, losing ability to walk. Since then, she lives with her grandmother, Babanya (from Babushka Anya).
• Real Dreams are Weirder: The first time Mefodiy saw a nightmare about the lead sarcophagus, and awoke Edya by his screaming, Edya reacted surprisingly well and told him about one of his own "nightmares", where someone has ordered to make a stew out of his leg, and then (which Edya finds particularly offensive) complained about the meat being overcooked.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Pupliy made a mistake of apprehending important official over him forgetting a password, which resulted in him and Rufin being kicked out from prestigious guard position and sent into mortal world to patrol. This results in the two running into Tukhlomon, and then Daphne.
• Reckless Gun Usage: Played for Laughs. Ulitha absent-mindedly aims a pistol into her reflection in a mirror. When Mefodiy asks whether the gun is loaded, she says that she doesn't remember, and shoots into mirror (the bullet ricochets into a wall), then comments on her being a good shot, as she hit right into forehead.
• Recurring Dreams: One-two times per month, Mefodiy sees the same dream about him standing near lead sarcophagus, knowing that there's something dangerous on which he shouldn't look, yet being unable not to, and the sarcophagus slowly melting under his gaze, bringing the danger inside closer to being released; the dream always ends before the sarcophagus melts completely. It deeply disturbs him. The only person whom he told about this is Irka, whom he considers his closest friend.
• Red Herring: Arey presumes that the warning about "free graph" where Mamzelkina wrote Mefodiy's name along with other one (it gets done when it's certain that someone would die, but not who) was just her way to say "be careful, you're in danger", and it never actually existed.
• Red Right Hand: Mefodiy has some really weird and clearly superficial traits, which he somehow dismisses and still believes that he's perfectly common and unremarkable.
  • Mefodiy has long blond hair, which he normally puts into tail (which eventually grew up waist-long); he never cuts them, due to the fact that any attempt to do so results in heavy pain and blood going out, which freaks out his mother.
  • Mefodiy's eyes changes colour depending on his mood, with no one knowing for sure just what colour they really are: blue, green or grey.
  • When Mefodiy gets really angry, Zozo starts feeling dizzy near him, and feels like she's descending into darkness, like on some hellish elevator.
• Refuge in Audacity:
  • Zozo reads a dating magazine where some guy put an ad where he asks a lady to call him, so he would go to her balcony and sing a song for her... while mentioning that said lady should have a car and apartment, stating that he's fifty years old and weights 112 kilograms, and insisting that said lady should only call him between 21:00 and 22:00. Zozo doesn't fall for that, and gets angry at such outrageous demands.
  • Even knowing who's before him, Mefodiy can't resist making some snarky comments here and there, just because. Arey (who previously reacted badly to Ulitha's silly jokes) reacts surprisingly calmly to them and replies in tone.
• Replacement Goldfish: Ligul accuses Arey of keeping Ulitha around as attempt to replace his dead wife and daughter. Arey's reaction confirms it.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Edya is correct about not trusting Glumovich. However, he's suspecting him to be some sort of maniac or similarly nasty guy with unhealthy interest towards children, rather than lackey of the Darkness.
• The Rival: Sergey Basevich and Wolf Cactusov are two journalists competing for the right to publish their works in "elite" magazines, with whoever lose having only cheap, unpopular ones to work with. Their methods of competition can go up to and including trying to make another one drunk and do something stupid to ruin their reputation.
• Schmuck Bait: If Retired Fairy offers to fulfil your dreams, politely refuse: you wouldn't like the results.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Yaraat manages to escape when the things goes south, leaving Ligul alone.
• Secret-Keeper: Sardanapal gave an oath to keep the truth about Drevnir's son and how he died in secret; he only breaks the oath now, because he believes that the situation is dire enough. He then orders his colleagues to stay quiet about what he said to them, and not reveal anything about Mefodiy Buslaev to anyone not present during discussion.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • Irka is tend to make jokes about her wheelchair, like comparing it to a race car. She doesn't react so well when someone else does that, however.
  • When Arey comments on Ulitha eating too many sweets, she replies that such worries belongs to the beauties.
• Self-Made Myth: According to Retired Fairy (who was the Fairy Godmother from that fairytale), the story about Cinderella is full of lies. Cinderella was a massive jerk who was actually the one to abuse stepmother and stepsisters (not the other way around), and who often caused the little creatures about herself to die by just looking at them, and the reason why her heels failed to fit anyone was due to her feet being really huge. The reason why she won the prince over was due to usage of cheap love spell, which later led to the prince (who actually was stooped and had lame horse) poisoning the fairy for such "present". The fairytale was fabricated to hide all the mess.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Vova's friend tries to show Mefodiy his place by pretending that listening to his "monotonous humour" is boring. Mefodiy replies with overly long and hard-to-follow phrase which he had learned specifically for that purpose; his mother taught him.
  Zozo: Doesn't matter what it means, but it works perfectly to show fools their place! Just remember to say it casually, like something perfectly normal.
• Ship Tease: Mefodiy clearly feels some attraction to Daphne (which is part of his motivation to protect her before Arey); Daphne also notices that he's pretty, and feels gratitude for him insisting on sparing her, even at the cost of possible conflict with Arey.
• Shout-Out: Ulitha jokingly calls Mefodiy "Lord Tomato".
• Single-Issue Wonk: Edya is generally tolerable, but there's one issue: he's pathologically cheap, and "pathologically" isn't a hyperbola: it goes to the point of arguing who and in which quantities can use a toilet paper, or attacking Mefodiy over stealing ten roubles to pay for metro ticket (and Mefodiy only has to steal cause Edya would refuse to share if asked, saying that Mefodiy is "parasitising" on him by asking for money he didn't earn himself).
• Sink or Swim Mentor: Arey doesn't meet Mefodiy when he arrives to Big Dmitrovka, 13th, allowing him to enter on his own, and then suddenly attacks him with a crossbow. Mefodiy instinctively sets up a magic barrier, saving his life. Arey then says that it was a test to see whether there's any point to even bother with training Mefodiy, as if he wouldn't be able to protect himself from that, he's hopeless. He then explains that it's standard practice for everyone whom the Darkness takes as students: they take around a hundred per thousand year, and only around one tenth stays till the end. Later, he also trains Mefodiy's intuition by trying to kill him.
  Mefodiy: Why only one tenth stays? They don't like being with you? They're leaving?
  Arey: They are. There, and there! [points with eyes to the roof, then to the floor] [...] Training of the Dark Guardians has little in common with the training of common mages. We don't have tests and grades. No essays, presentations, retellings and homework. We don't memorise spells and don't make potions. We're training the Guardians, through extremely dangerous means.
  Mefodiy: Why dangerous?
  Arey: Because we're playing with powers which can't do anything not in full force or not seriously. You can't pretend to throw someone into hot lava, pretend to curse someone or pretend to cut them with a zweihander. [...] It's better if a Dark Guardian doesn't live till the end of their training, than fail their task and put us to shame before our enemies, the Light Guardians.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: Drevnir's sword was a noble weapon of Light, until it was captured by the forces of Darkness. Ligul slowly corrupted it, making it progressively darker and eviler with each crime committed with it, hoping to eventually turn it into a weapon of evil without it ever noticing it. Believing that he succeeded, he gives the weapon (now turned into sword again) to Mefodiy.
• Snap Back: It took Vova Skunso less than a night to restore his confidence and continue looking on Mefodiy like trash with no sign of fear.
• Sold His Soul for a Donut: Tukhlomon almost tricks Mefodiy to sell his soul for... an expired sprat can. Mefodiy only gets saved by Ulitha, who notices something fishy going on before he signs up anything.
• Sore Loser: Viy can't take well that someone else's show is more popular than his, and doesn't even try to stay professional about it.
• Taken for Granite: Daphne accidentally hits Rufin with the Horn of Minotaur, which freezes him and then turns into marble statue.
• They Call Me Mr Tibbs: Vova Skunso insists that Mefodiy (and only Mefodiy) should call him "Vovva", with two "Vs"; it's not because he likes it that way, but to humiliate Mefodiy.
• Time Abyss:
  • The Temple of the Eternal Battle is older than the Light and Darkness themselves.
  • The stone gryphons are guarding the Eden since the day of its creation, and still just as dangerous as before.
• Time Skip: The plot continues thirteen years after the prologue.
• Token Evil Teammate: Daphne is pretty much considered to be the main "bad girl" amongst the Light Guardians, due to her "un-angelic" habits and behaviour, and her being a prankster. And then there's that one case when she drew a Dark rune... and it somehow worked, even if badly. Her internal Darkness is physically represented by her having some dark feathers. And Troil wants her to ump it up, so they can "exile" her and set up her as the Fake Defector.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Mefodiy almost signs up a document which would sell his eidos to a commissioner, falling for Blatant Lies about commissioner wanting to visit his "grandfather", and not even bothering to read the document properly, as it's too long and too confusing, while we already know that he's lazy.
  • For whatever reason, Daphne thinks that it's a good idea to put out a flute and try to play in front of Arey, without warning. She's lucky that he just kicks the flute out of her hands rather than kill her on the spot. He actually calls her out on how stupid that decision was.
    Arey: Putting out a flute in front of the Dark Guardians is just as dangerous as playing with a toy gun in front of the drunk military officers. The next time, I may just behead your and only then realise that I was wrong. But my regret wouldn't help you a one bit.
  • Mefodiy gets told to never, under any circumstances, lower the barrier separating the foreign mind he let inside from his own mind. He does so anyway when he gets tricked into believing that this mind disappeared, which lets Hoors to take over, and only giving it back when Arey (barely) neutralises him non-lethally with Daph's help and then convinces to let go by explaining why Mefodiy is so important (Hoors isn't selfish enough to screw the Darkness over his own desire for vengeance).
  Arey: You're expecting compassion, Lord Tomato! You wouldn't get it. You shouldn't have removed the barrier! I did warn you to keep the border!
  • One of the plates causes you to turn into an animal which bests represents your personality; it causes an euphoria, strong enough to shut down one's mind with overwhelming joy, and cause them to blindly rush to another plate, to their doom.
• Too Good to Be True: While Zozo is sceptical about Mefodiy being accepted into elite gymnasium, as she knows that he lacks any meaningful skills and is prone to cheating, Edya is more suspicious towards it being offered for free, and thinks that there's something fishy; he's ready to kick Glumovich's ass if his suspicions turns out to be true.
  Edya: I don't like it! Something is fishy! Had they asked for at least something in return, it would've been plausible, but completely for free like that... The free cheese can only be in a mousetrap, or in our restaurant "Damsel Fingers"! A bonus. Anyone who buys a pint of vodka receives one hundred grams of most expensive cheese for free.
  Zozo: Really, for free?
  Edya: Of course. We don't scam. But, the price of vodka includes the price of cheese. And after vodka, many dudes can no longer stop. They gets wasted to the point that you can force them to pay for any expensive whiskey.
• Troll: Ulitha has a game where she calls on random phone number, says something like "it's me!" and maintains the dialogue until she gets "recognised", then either accuses the interlocutor of "stealing" something (she never reveals what, leaving them to wonder), or "reveals" something liker her dropping a golden ring into sugar bowl, expecting them to search for it.
• True Sight: The stone gryphons can see the Darkness inside you no matter how you try to disguise — and attack to kill you. Several Dark Guardians at some points have tried to infiltrate, but didn't make it past gryphons.
• Two Roads Before You: Arey tells Mefodiy that he can accept the proposal and become Arey's student, or he can continue living with his parents, stealing from his uncle and causing problems to his mother's suitors, while suffering more and more problems from his innate gift, which wouldn't leave him alone.
• Unfinished Business: According to Retired Fairy, all ghosts are prisoners of their unfinished tasks they've failed to fulfil while alive, and now, no longer being able to do so, are forced to relive them over and over again. The lack of their own life to speak about is also the reason why they're so eager to intervene into others'.
• Vocal Dissonance: Troil's secretary Berenariy has high-pitched voice which strongly contrasts with his massive height.
• World's Best Warrior: Ligul comments that with someone having as many years of experience as Arey, not to mention that he was a literal god of war at some point (judging from name, likely Ares), there's no way the others may fight him on equal terms without cheating — he would always be superior to them.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: Invoked by Ligul, who believes that it's for the better that Daphne showed up now: he presumes that the Temple "wants" two persons — Mefodiy, who represents the Darkness, and Daphne, who represents the Light; that way, they may have a chance to finally obtain the treasure which the Temple keeps. Later it would be revealed that Daphne's entire mission was orchestrated by him, as he always planned to use her in exactly that way.
• You Do Not Want To Know: Arey has some pitch-black magic blindfold which completely disables ability to see things in any way but through intuitive vision (which is what Arey wants Mefodiy to train). He says upfront that Mefodiy doesn't want to know this thing's origin, as apparently it's very disturbing.
• Your Eyes Can Deceive You: Arey forces Mefodiy to wear magic blindfold (which completely disables his ability to see things with his eyes), to force him to rely on intuition and ultimately see things with his mind rather than his eyes. It ultimately works.
• Your Magic's No Good Here: According to Yagge, almost no magic can work in the Middle Lands, not even the powers of Light and Darkness. Later it gets revealed that even Light Guardians' wings are disabled there. Daphne's winged necklace's calming effect does work, however.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Sardanapal explains why the eidoses are so important... and why Dark Guardians are hunting for them. However, even they can't take it by force — it must be sacrificed voluntarily.
  Sardanapal: The more eidoses a Dark Guardian has in their darkh, the more powers they have and the higher they are in the hierarchy. The Guardians don't care that with eidoses, they take away the lopukhoids' afterlife. For them, it's merely a prey to hunt, nothing more.
• You Were Trying Too Hard: When Mefodiy does as Arey asks (imagining a lake and look into its water to see things), he fails miserably, as he wastes too much energy trying to do it "right" and even accidentally imagines excessive details (like frogs), which only makes it harder. When he gives up and calms down, he starts to actually see things.

The Scroll of Desires

Daphne, who was asked by Arey to go somewhere and not mess around, goes on a walk, only to notice that she's clearly pursued by a weird black limo (which even Depresnyak sees as dangerous). Attempt to scan it with magic fails completely, confirming that it's magic in nature, and was sent by someone very powerful. Attempt to scan deeper scares the "car" off, leaving Daphne wondering who'd sent it: it's clearly not Light Guardians, but it doesn't look like Ligul's spy either. On the way back, she notices that some weird and threatening guy is spying on her, badly pretending that he doesn't. When she fails to escape from him, he finally introduces himself. He's Essiorkh, a Keeper from the Transparent Spheres, and he's here to help her. He tries to warn her about some danger to her very essence and her wings, as well as scold for giving a seal of her wings for some Dark scroll, but then he realises that he somehow preceeded event in question by few days. He leaves without elaborating further, but it gives Daphne yet another clue that here's some third party involved.

Meanwhile, Mamzelkina visits the Dark Residence, giving vague warning about upcoming danger. Soon afterwards, Arey receives an invitation to adhere a celebration held in London by Wilhelm the Conqueror, high-ranking Dark Guardian; he also invited Ulitha and Mefodiy, but obviously not Daphne. Arey decides to pay him a visit, wondering whether Ligul is trying to get something from him. He also learns, through Tulkhomon, that there are fresh news about those magic boxes, with one already being pinpointed; unfortunately, when Tukhlomon goes to check on it, it turns out to be a dude. When Mefodiy arrives to the party, Arey and Ulitha suddenly gets summoned to Tartarus, leaving him alone. Mefodiy quickly gets drugged with something and forced to play blackjack without even learning the stakes. As Ligul explains to him, having nothing of value, Mefodiy by default "agreed" to put his eidos on stake. But, despite having all odds against him, Mefodiy somehow still prevails, gaining exactly 21 points versus Ligul's 20. That's when Arey and Ulitha returns, with Ulitha confirming that Ligul was cheating. Ligul's intentions are clear (who controls the eidos, controls its owner), but Mefodiy feels that something (or, rather, someone) just gave him a second chance, for some hidden purpose.

Daphne meets Essiorkh again. The Light Guardians have caught up with her using magic, so she has to move to Mefodiy's parents for now (they wouldn't expect that); he gives her new mouthpiece, which would disguise her magic. He also tells her the news about magic boxes, but, when she tells that she's unaware what he's talking about, tells her about the Scroll of Desires and its time-altering powers: it can only change one little detail, but that detail can rewrite entire history. On the way to Mefodiy's, Daphne gets attacked by a "limo" again, and tests the mouthpiece by fighting back, destroying its diguise and learning that it's a Tartarian wyrm. Fortunately, Mefodiy's parents easily accepts her after usage of some magic. When she returns to Residence, Arey tells that the second box just materialised in a theatre, and takes everyone to claim it before Light Guardians do. The battle ensues, but it turns out to be in vain: someone third exploited them fighting to steal the box under their noses.

Soon afterwards, Daphne somehow falls sick with angina, and stays at home. At night, she gets visited by the stranger, who neutralised Depresnyak with magic, and uses Daphne's necklace to leave a seal on the Scroll; the stranger reveals that he knows both Arey and Mefodiy. Meanwhile, at the Dark residence, Mefodiy wonders how Daphne managed to catch angina. Mamzelkina, who was visiting Arey at that time, tells him that the mortal world starts affecting her, and slowly changing her to become more human. Mefodiy and Ulitha then goes on errand, only to get attacked by some thugs on the way back. The thugs turns out to be armed with enhanced bats, which allows them to easily defeat Mefodiy and even knock out Mamai, who's not even human, while Ulitha attacks the thugs' boss and predictably loses. They gets saved by Essiorkh's intervention, but not before Ulitha's darkh's seal gets put on the Scroll as well.

Arey tells Mefodiy who their mysterious enemy is — it's no one else but Yaraat. He then reminds Mefodiy that the Darkness forbids its servants to love — it's one of the very few laws which its servants actually respect and obey, and punish disobedience harshly. Mefodiy can't resist asking what's the story between Arey and Yaraat, and Arey tells him. Long time ago, Arey had fell in love with a mortal woman, and, against all laws, didn't force her to give up her eidos. Somehow, despite all laws of creation, they had a daughter. They were hunted for, but Yaraat, a rebel like Arey himself, whom Arey considered his close friend, agreed to take care of them while Arey would deal with pursuit. But, when Arey returned back, he'd found that Yaraat is gone... and his family are dead; Yaraat forced them give up their souls in futile attempt to protect each other, then murdered them in cold blood. Yaraat was staying on a run ever since then, only finally caught when Mefodiy was born thirteen years ago and stripped him of his powers, while Arey was exiled to a remote lighthouse after killing Hoors for his role in Arey's family's downfall. Mefodiy promises that he would find and kill Yaraat, but Arey tells him to not give a promise he can't fulfil — and that he doesn't need to search, for Yaraat would find him first... and Arey would be there to face him. He then tells Mefodiy to not repeat his mistakes: the Darknes would not let him be happy with Daphne, and if he tries, he would doom not only himself, but her as well.

Arey and Ulitha gets summoned to Tartarus, temporarily leaving Mefodiy alone. Out of boredom, Mefodiy starts reading various magiczines (mostly useless and outright silly stuff, but there's an advice how to deal with shapeshifters). He gets interrupted by a magic talking head, clearly made through necromancy, which claims that it was sent by Daphne, and wants him to follow it. But when he does that, he runs into Tartarian wyrm, and barely manages to kill it, only to get crushed when it collapses on him. Meanwhile, Daphne follows another head, that claims that it's sent by Mefodiy (her attempt to check where's Mefodiy semi-confirms that he's indeed in danger), and finds Mefodiy on the brink of death in abandoned house. She saves him using magic, but they fail to release the sword. That's when Yaraat reveals himself and disarms Daphne, then takes her hostage. He reveals his plan: he wants to kill Mefodiy before he was born, in hope that it would return his old powers. He only needs one last component, Mefodiy's eidos, for which he blackmails him by threatening to kill Daphne. Depresnyak attacks Yaraat, letting Mefodiy to attack Yaraat with magic, but the shapeshifter disguises as Zozo, and Mefodiy loses concentration. However, it buys time for Essiorkh to arrive and destroy the Scroll. Yaraat's attempt to use magic to attack Essiorkh fails, and Essiorkh confirms: it's because the biker body he uses knew Yaraat in life, and still burning with righteous fury from the betrayal. And then, arrives Arey, who realised that Ligul was holding him off intentionally. The two clashes, and Yaraat meets his end. Arey dismisses everyone, as he needs some time alone.

---

• Abhorrent Admirer: Zozo gets fed up with Ogurtsov and his weirdness on the very first date, and tries to politely reject him, knowing that he's a complete and hopeless lunatic, too crazy even for her.
• Accidental Truth: When Zozo calls Edya out on him being a cynic, he jokes that he was jinxed at childhood. Daphne checks, and confirms that he was, actually, jinxed. She starts asking him for details, and learns the story about weird babysitter (actually a Midnight Witch).
• Affably Evil: Deconstructed; Ligul points out that Arey may be nicer than the other Dark Guardians, but he's still a Dark Guardian. His loyalty lies with the Darkness, and when the time would come for acting, he would act like the Darkness orders him, and would strike down its enemies.
  Ligul: And remember, my dear! Arey, no matter how nice he feels to you, is a Dark Guardian! Do you even understand what it means? The Dark Guardian! His link with the Darkness is unbreakable. What would the Darkness' worth if it would be so easy to turn away from it? The moment when it would be needed to quit posing and make a decision, Arey's decision would be a Dark decision. The Darkness would take the sword with Arey's hand, and vanquish its enemies with it. And in that one, I'm certain!
• All Myths Are True: Tower of Babel disaster was an actual event (for which Essiorkh is indirectly responsible), while Odysseus was a Dark Guardian, whose misfortune was actually caused by Kvodnon's ire rather than conflict with any deity.
• Annoying Laugh: Taxidermist Tsuryupov, who supplies the Dark residence with rat skins (Ligul, for whatever reason, insists that reports should only be written on rat skins), has very annoying and disgusting laugh — and he giggles after every few words. This laugh is a part of his overall grossness.
• Answer Cut: When Mefodiy and Daphne realises that neither of them had sent a talking head, Daphne suddenly gets disarmed, and Yaraat reveals himself, being there all along, hiding in front of a wall like chameleon and waiting for most dramatic moment to appear.
• Armour Piercing Attack: One of the magolodies Arey orders Daphne to use against Mefodiy was specifically designed to attack Dark Guardians, and, as far as she knows, can't be blocked. Arey orders her to use it anyway, believing that there are no impossible tasks, only not enough efforts. Mefodiy actually stops it... by instinctively absorbing the Light.
• Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: Edya reacts to Depresnyak hostilely and is ready to kick him out. Then Depresnyak yawns, showing his teeth, and Edya (badly) pretends that he actually likes him.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The Light rarely uses the gryphons in the field operations, despite their strength, as the gryphons don't know such things as "subtlety" or "caution"; if they bring one to theatre as a backup, a gryphon would obliterate a whole district at the very least.
  • The Light Guardians often creates magolodies for the sake of art, not thinking about their practicability. Often, it's more practical to do things without magic at all than try to find a fitting magolody, only to find that it's either too powerful or has ridiculously complicated requirements. Unfortunately, this includes the heavy-lifting, so Daphne has to release Mefodiy from beneath the dead hell wyrm without magic.
• Ax-Crazy: Mamai was kicked out from Tartarus for being too psychotic by the local standards.
• Bad People Abuse Animals:
  • When Depresnyak survives his magic and even tries to resist, Yaraat mentions his experience with torturing and killing the other hellish creatures just for fun, with all of them being stronger than Depresnyak, yet falling much easier; but much more he loves to torture the Light creatures — the pain and horror in their eyes is so much sweeter.
    Yaraat [to Depresnyak]: Back in Tartarus, I used to kill the ones like you in hundreds. Just for fun. There were monsters scarier than you: with snake tails, with basilisk eyes which can turn your heart into a piece of glass, with dozens of fire-breathing throats... But, to be honest, I prefer to kill hippogryphs, unicorns and other creatures of Light. They're agonising so plaintively, emanating the pain, that my heart fills with joy. The creatures of Darkness are less interesting in that regard.
  • Mamai runs over a dog, and tries (but fails) to run over another. He finds it funny.
• Balance Between Good and Evil: Arey explains that the Light and Darkness have an agreement of sort — whenever they go into official conflicts, both sides use equal numbers; neither side wants to be accused of cowardice. Even the Darkness respects it, as their actual fighters value their honour and reputation.
  Arey: There's unspoken treaty. Something like ethics of rival corporations.
  Mefodiy: And it's maintained?
  Arey: Of course. It's known that the most secure treaties — the ones which were never written on paper. The number of fighters on both sides should be equal. Only then you can expect the glory and avoid accusations of cowardice.
• Battle Discretion Shot: Aside from couple of sounds which characters hears, duel between Arey and Yaraat happens offscreen. We only learn about the results. Justified, as the PoV character is Mefodiy, and Arey specifically asked to not interfere.
• Been There, Shaped History: Essiorkh is (indirectly) responsible for the Tower of Babel; when he was on Earth, he saw a group of people doing nothing, and suggested them to "build a little tower", so they would be busy for some time. They... went overzealous. The rest is history.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: We learn about several prominent historical conquerors and mythical heroes actually being Dark Guardians:
  • Wilhelm the Conqueror is a high-ranking Dark Guardian, close friend of Arey, and is still active as the chief of British department of Darkness. His predecessor was a Guardian, too: Wilhelm had usurped his position, but somehow got away with it, with said predecessor being reassigned to Tartarus permanently.
  • Hannibal Barca was a son of Dark Guardian, and owes his and his nation's downfall (as well as his father's) to insulting Kvodnon with poorly thought-out joke.
  • Odysseus was half-Guardian, half-mage, who was constantly at a receiving end of Kvodnon's current mood, both good and bad, which is the source of all his (mis)adventures. He's attributed with tradition to beat up commissioners to show them their place.
  • Amongst the guests invited by Wilhelm are Napoléon Bonaparte (chief of French department), Frederick I Barbarossa and Tamerlan with Attila, with the latter two being the "guests of honour" rather than anything else, due to them being old and senile.
• Being Evil Sucks: Ulitha tells Daphne that Darkness only makes the lives of its servants worse; that's why Arey is sometimes so unpleasant.
  Ulitha: I think, it's because you can't serve the Darkness half-heartedly. Darkness by itself punishes its servants, taking away, tearing out what matters the most for them. Take any of us. We all are either miserable, without eidos, with gaping hole in our chest, which would never heal, or haughty egocentric buffoons (Mefodiy, you would see those tomorrow), or outright assholes, like Ligul. There's really few sincere supporters of Darkness, though they do exist...
  Mefodiy: And why the others are serving?
  Ulitha: [...] Ending up on the side of Darkness is very easy: make a wrong step on the slippery slop just once, and... non-ending fall to the bottom. But sometimes that fall feels like fun, can't deny that...
• Berserk Button: Yaraat and his treachery is so hot topic, Mefodiy, when he recklessly asks Arey for details, worries that Arey would outright kill him here and now. Fortunately, Arey retains enough self-control and actually does answer his questions.
• Big Damn Heroes: Daphne arrives just in time to free Mefodiy, almost crushed by the dead Tartarian wyrm. She then reanimates him via magolody, which straight up confirms that she does have feelings for Mefodiy, due to the way it works.
• Black-and-White Insanity: One of the reasons why gryphons are rarely taken into the mortal world (besides the enormous size and high risk of collateral damage) is them seeing everything as black-and-white, without shades of grey; if they sense some darkness inside you, with high probability they would attack you, no matter how small it is. They are not here for subtlety; they are here to fight and kill.
• Blackmail Backfire: Tukhlomon somehow obtained a page from Irka's diary, where she wrote that she loves "MB", and that she would give up her soul for something, possibly a kiss (it's hard to tell, as much of what's written on the page is crossed out). Tukhlomon refuses to give it to Mefodiy. Mefodiy tries to remind him that the rules instructs him to give up such documents, but it doesn't work, as Tukhlomon knows the rules too, and points that he may give it up to either Ulitha — or to Ligul. Mefoiy changes tactics, and pretending that he submitted to Tukhlomon's blackmail, exploits Tukhlomon's greed by offering him valuable artifact, and then uses the moment to hit him with container from his sword, and take the page by force, which he then destroys.
• Blatant Lies: The talking head, clearly created through necromancy, claims that it was sent by Daphne — a Light Guardian. It's blatantly obvious that its' a trap, and yet Mefodiy still falls for it. Daphne gets tricked by another head, despite knowing that Mefodiy is hopelessly bad with magic, though she at least can be excused by feeling that Mefodiy is nervous and running somewhere, but not being able to get more details.
• Blood Knight: When suggesting Mefodiy to not take his sword unless he's ready to use it, Arey tells that Hoors was really prone to spill blood.
  Arey: He knew how to feed the sword with blood. Feed it down to the handle... As far as I remember, whenever he heard the word "morality", he always looked for a dictionary because he was chronically incapable of remembering what it means.
• Call-Back: Arey teases Mefodiy about Daphne, using the same mockery he used in the first book when Mefodiy called her "insanely beautiful".
• The Cavalry:
  • Essiorkh saves Mefodiy and Ulitha from the thugs. By that point Yaraat already obtained the seal of Ulitha's darkh, but at least he helps them get rid of the thugs.
  • Essiorkh shows up just in time to stop Yaraat and destroy the Scroll of Desires before anything can be done with it. Then Arey arrives to finish him off.
• Cessation of Existence: Not believing in the afterlife can, actually, take it away from you, resulting in your eidos self-destructing after death. Those which don't die outright, tend to be dim and weak, to the point that the Darkness doesn't bother with taking them. This is the reason why not even the Darkness likes atheists: even when evil, they don't empower the Darkness.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Essiorkh gifts Daphne a new mouthpiece, which would disguise her usage of magic, so she wouldn't rise alert again. It soon gets put to use when she comes into fight with Tartarian wyrm, as it lets her actually use her magic to fend it off (barely surviving the battle), and then again to mesmerise Mefodiy's parents, to convince them to let her stay at their house.
  • Mefodiy remembers advice about looking on shapeshifter's reflection on a knife to see through their illusions, that he read in a magiczine couple of chapters ago. Unfortunately, it's too late and he fails to completely strip Yaraat of his powers, but at least it stops Yaraat from disguising as his mother.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Discussed regarding Tukhlomon. When Daphne says that Arey was too harsh with Tukhlomon, and now he would snitch on him out of spite, Arey tells her that Tukhlomon would snitch anyway, on everyone he can, as he has absolutely no loyalty to anyone or anything, and would gladly backstab whomever he can, for as long as he can profit from it.
  Daphne: He would snitch on you. You shouldn't have done that. I think, Tukhlomon is afraid of you, and hates you.
  Arey: He would?
  Daphne: He would. Or maybe he's doing it right now. You know that, don't you?
  Arey: I do. He would snitch on me in any case. On me, and on you, and on Mefodiy, and on Ulitha. He would've snitched on himself, if there was at least some benefit from it. For him, it doesn't matter whom or what to betray, because he already betrayed everything and everyone.
• Combat by Champion: Realising that the Light prevails in their conflict (everyone but himself are defeated), and that Ulitha is about to get her darkh cut off, Arey challenges their leader, Alkid, on a duel: whoever wins, takes possessions of the loser (Arey's darkh, or Alkid's wings), and takes the magic box. The battle never starts, as the third side intervenes and steals the box from under their noses.
• Covered with Scars: Essiorkh shows Daphne some scars on his mortal body, and explains that those are caused by the way the body's original owner has died; they persisted even when they healed up his body after resurrecting it for Essiorkh to use.
• Deadpan Snarker: Mr. Polutonnik, when confronts Edya, tries to claim that he's not to mess with, by saying that he'd read all martial arts books. Edya replies by saying that he writes them.
• Disproportionate Retribution: It's not possible to tell, given his tone, whether he's joking or saying it seriously, but according to Arey, Depresnyak is technically a fifth member of their group, which would allow the Light Guardians to summon someone on their own... like a sphinx or battle gryphon.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Downplayed; Ulitha's very aggressive and blatant "flirting" with Essiorkh is Played for Laughs, even though in any other circumstances it would've been considered harassment. Essiorkh then runs away in (blatantly cartoonish and exaggerated) panic. However, it's implied that neither side was taking it seriously (Ulitha — because she's air-headed, Essiorkh — because he needed an excuse to leave the car and go do his business), and later they interact as if it didn't happen.
• Drives Like Crazy: Played for Laughs. Mamai has absolutely suicidal driving style, deliberately trying to cause as much mayhem as possible, and never hurts anyone (if not counting a dog which he runs over) by sheer miracle. Then Arey complains that they were "too slow" today, to which Mamai replies that he had to restrict himself due to the "presence of a child" (Mefodiy), implying that normally it would be something even worse.
• Embarrassing Last Name: When Edya says that it's weird that Mefodiy's girlfriend is named "Daphne", his sister points out that if Zoya can call herself "Zozo", then Daria can call herself "Daphne". Then she adds that with him having surname "Havron",[[note]] "Havronia" is the stock pet name for female pigs[[note]] he's not in position to complain about this.
• Enemy Mine: It seems that Ligul and Yaraat are still in league. While Mefodiy almost losing his eidos in card game he was tricked into could've been Ligul's own scheme, Arey and Ulitha being so conveniently called off to Tartarus exactly when Yaraat lures Mefodiy into abandoned house was clearly pre-planned, as it was used solely to stall for time.
• Establishing Character Moment: As soon as Yaraat shows up, he paralyses Depresnyak, and, surprised by his resilience, goes into a speech about how he loves torturing animals just for fun (particularly creatures of Light; their agony is sweetest). He also laments that he has no time to torture Depresnyak, and that he can't cut off Daphne's head, as her death or winged necklace taking any damage would make the seal he came for useless.
• Everyone Can See It: Mefodiy and Daphne; everyone comments on their mutual attracting being literally in the air, but they keep ignoring it. Daphne actually knows that this is exactly what happens to her, because she used her winged necklace on Mefodiy back in the first book, which forced her to love him, but tries to hide it by acting like a jerk to him — which fools only Mefodiy.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Zozo has long gave up on finding someone non-crazy, but Ogurtsov is too weird even for her. She gives up on him after first date.
  • Mamai was so rabid, he was dumped on Arey at first opportunity, as not even people in Tartarus were able to tolerate him for long.
• Explosive Overclocking: The Dark Guardians cant' use magologies, but can empower them when someone else uses them. Why would they? To bring them to the point when they stop being useful and start being harmful to their own user. Arey uses this technique to increase the power of Daphne's combat magic during the training session, when she deliberately decreased the strength of her magolodies to not harm Mefodiy (thus wasting the lesson).
• Failed Attempt at Drama: When Zozo worries where is Mefodiy, Edya tries to say how cool and self-sustained he was in Mefodiy's age, but gets interrupted by Zozo who says that in Mefodiy's age, he was afraid to sleep without light. He actually manages to finish his sentence, but it has much less of an effect, and even that gets taken away by Zozo's snarky comment.
• False Friend: We finally learn why Arey hates Yaraat so much — the history of one bitter betrayal. Arey tried to "retire" from being a Dark Guardian and start a new, mortal life with a woman he loved, which made the other Guardians hunt for them. They even had a daughter — something which considered to be impossible for a full-pledged Dark Guardian — but one day, he made a mistake of asking Yaraat (an outlaw himself, whom he deemed a friend) for help. Yaraat agreed to watch over Arey's family while Arey deals with the pursuers... only to take Arey's daughter hostage and blackmail the mother to give up her soul in return for protecting her daughter, then did the same with the daughter, and then kill them both anyway by dropping them into an empty well, and finishing off by throwing several large rocks into it. Why he did that? Because he can. No wonder Arey wants to see him dead. And, after hearing out this story, Mefodiy goes into Tranquil Fury and gives Arey a promise to kill Yaraat if he has a chance.
  Mefodiy: Yaraat gave them up to the Darkness? Right?
  Arey: No! It would've been too boring. Yaraat came up with something different. He put a knife to my daughter's throat and forced my wife to say a formula of eidos rejection. What mother wouldn't give up her eidos to save her child? Then he took my daughter's eidos as well. My kind child, of course, wanted to save her mommy and said the formula too, as much as she could. Yaraat has put both eidoses into his darkh. And then he threw my wife and daughter into a dried up well. It seems that they've survived, because he finished them off by throwing the rocks. He dropped several huge plates. I realised it when I descended into the well...
• Forbidden Love:
  • Arey once fell in love with a mortal woman and tried to start a new life with her, they even had a daughter. It was forbidden, and so they were forced on the run, pursued by the Dark Guardians and other servants of Darkness. They managed to hide for years, until Arey made a mistake of trusting Yaraat...
  • Arey tells Mefodiy that the only thing the Darkness hates more than its servants falling in love with mortals is when they fall in love with Light Guardians; it preserves the most cruel and horrible punishment for them. In the end of the lecture, he repeats that again, and warns Mefodiy about Daphne specifically, saying that the Darkness wouldn't let him be with Daphne, and that not even he would be able to protect them once the Darkness makes a move.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Tukhlomon tells Arey that one of the two boxes was discovered: one is with lopukhoid Anton Ogurtsov, while another keeps changing its location; the thing they're looking for is in one of the two boxes. Following chapter is about Anton Ogurtsov and Tukhlomon's visit to him (ultimately in vain: his box was dud).
  • Ligul and his supporters tricks Mefodiy into joining Twenty One play, specifically so he wouldn't have anything to bet but his eidos (and refusing to play means automatic loss), and then cheats so Mefodiy would lose, and Ligul would win — but somehow, Mefodiy obtains a card which allows him to win by reaching exactly 21 score (one more than Ligul). Mefodiy clearly sees that someone has helped him, as all odds were against him. But for what purpose? We later learn that Yaraat's plan requires not just any random eidos, but Mefodiy's specifically, and he's surprisingly well-connected for a renegade (for starters, he has a Tartarian wyrm at his disposal).
  • After escaping from the Tartarian wyrm, Daphne realises that both times, the beast just spied on her, only attacking when directly hurt by her... which means that there's someone who has sent it. She soon gets visited by the beast's owner, Yaraat.
  • Mefodiy still has enough Light in him to be able to absorb the anti-Darkness magolody into himself, by stopping resisting and just calmly accepting it. Arey quickly realises what just happened, and warns him that the day would come for him to make a choice — on which side he is.
• For the Evulz: There was no hidden goal behind hell wyrm pursuing Daphne, not even spying; Yaraat did this just to mess with her. Coincidentally, it indirectly led to her falling sick with angina due to stress-induced weakness, which was useful for him, but he didn't plan for it to happen. As for why wyrm attacked, well, it's evil and hungry, and Yaraat was too lazy to feed it.
• Genius Bonus: All of drugs Ogurtsov is taking regularly are real; knowing their effects actually makes his situation even more insane: some of those have nasty side effects, one is highly controversial and considered a borderline scam, and another one is actually a prescription-only drug due to potential harmful effects (meaning that the doctor who prescribed it just to get rid of the guy, did a gross misconduct).
• Gentle Giant: Essiokh may look big and threatening, but he's nice and friendly, not to mention, a Light Guardian. The sole reason why he looks like a biker is because Keepers can't visit Earth in their true bodies, so he had to use a host — and the choice was between a biker and a talking dog; both Essiorkh and Daphne agrees that the dog would've been not the best option.
• Gone Horribly Right: Ligul did a mistake of ordering a bunch of statues of himself which looks way too similar to the original — to the point that they're vulnerable to primitive voodoo magic. Arey uses one of such statues to smash nuts... with the statue's head. According to Arey, entire party was taken by Ligul's enemies, for that exact reason.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Turns out that Kvodnon is still "alive" in a way, still able to rule from the shadow, even if his control is limited. Due to this, Ligul remains as "merely" the chief of chancellery, still formally subordinate to Kvodnon.
• Guardian Angel:
  • Daphne meets her Keeper (this time, actual one, not formal one like she's for Mefodiy) — an awkward guy in the body of a scarily-looking biker. She comments on her Keeper matching her own eccentric nature. Then she learns that he's a loser — also just like she.
  • Daphne is officially assigned as Mefodiy's Keeper (previously, it was merely verbal order from Troil). That still doesn't free her from being hunted for, as her mission requires her being considered a traitor by both sides: the Transparent Spheres do have authority to pardon her, but the information would leak out to the Darkness and compromise her disguise.
• Henpecked Husband: According to Mamzelkina, underneath all his attempts to look cool and respectable, Wolf Cactusov is a quiet, compliant henpecked husband who does whatever his wife says.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Daphne demonstratively acts like a jerk towards Mefodiy in attempt to suppress growing feelings towards him, only to use love-fueled magolody to save him when he nearly dies after a fight with the wyrm.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Essiorkh tells Daphne that she must leave Glumovich's gymnasium and move to live with Mefodiy's parents, as the Light Guardians became aware that someone regularly uses Light magic there. Her hiding at Mefodiy's would be so bold move that no one would bother to actually check. To make it easier for Daphne, Essiorkh gifts her a new mouthpiece for her flute, which would allow her to use magic undetected (it's used by the special forces of Light).
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Mamzelkina's latest "client" is an accidental suicide victim. That not-so-bright woman twice took the dangerous dosage of sedatives to scare her husband, who had to reanimate her. On the third attempt, he was late to return home (the Darkness "helped" with that by gifting him a new video game), so there was no one to reanimate her, and she actually died.
• Hope Crusher: Yaraat does what he does not because he needs power. No, he loves thrill of being hated and hunted for, for which, he finds new friends, only to utterly destroy their lives just for fun.
  Arey: Alas... It took me too long to understand the true nature of this bastard. Yaraat steals the artifacts from Darkness and Light not because he's a free-spirited rebel, who wants to live independent. He's a shapeshifter. [...] A moral amoeba. For shapeshifters, emotions are everything, it's their drug, and only they. They're like chameleons in everyday life. They are nice, friendly, helpful. They're making you love them or at least trust, and then murder you with a smile, not forgetting to tell you a fresh joke... Those beasts just need the thrill. To feel that they're important. You think, he did this for my wife and daughter's eidoses? For them too, but the main reason was so I would hunt for him, so I would hate him, so I would burn with impatience due to not being able to strangle his throat.
• Hope Spot: Daphne states that Yaraat has no ways to kill her, as she's a Light Guardian, and he's just a shapeshifter, not even a Dark Guardian. Yaraat states that, firstly, she's slowly turning human, which makes her nowhere as immortal as she used to be, and secondly, he has prepared an artifact for that case.
• Humanity Ensues: Aida Plakhovna warns Mefodiy that Daphne starts slowly turning human from overexposure to the mortal world. For now, it only manifested as her falling ill with angina (in the middle of summer, no less), but it wouldn't stop on just that...
• Hunting the Rogue: In backstory, Arey tried to defect and start a new life with his mortal wife. That's why other Dark Guardians (including Hoors, whom Arey would later kill for his role in it) have pursued him, forcing Arey to rely on Yaraat's help to hide his family while he deals with the attackers. The rest is history.
• Idiot Ball:
  • Sure, Mefodiy, let's follow the talking head clearly created through necromancy which claims that it's from Daphne, a Light Guardian. What bad can happen?
  • Daphne falls for the same trap as Mefodiy, and follows the talking head created through necromancy. It's less moronic than with Mefodiy, as at least she can feel that he's running somewhere and is stressed, but still, expecting that someone so consistently terrible with magic as Mefodiy would make this is not very smart. It later gets lampshaded by Yaraat, who points to Daphne that it was stupid on her part to consider that Mefodiy is capable of creating the talking head through necromancy if he lacks even basic skills, and blindly follow it into the trap.
• I Have Many Names: When we say "Kvodnon", we mean Kvodnon from before his downfall; when we say "Faceless Kvodnon", we mean what's left of him now; and when we say "Two-Faced Kvodnon", we mean Kvodnon in general.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Ulitha notices that the magic photo, which contains several of her friends, including ogre names Mumrik, clearly has fewer people than before. Daphne tells her that Mumrik had likely ate some of them; the photo is semi-alive, and there's no way to escape it if something goes wrong.
  Daphne: Never make group photos with an ogre. Some time later, it would cease to be a group photo... A photo is like a submarine. You can't run away from it.
  Ulitha: You think that Mumrik had ate Said? He couldn't, he's nice.
  Daphne: So what? No matter how nice your Mumrik is, he has to eat, hasn't he?
  Ulitha: Nonsense. Mumrik, confirm it's not you! Daphne, just see how sincere his face is on this photo!
  Daphne: That's what I mean. Sincere people can't have so sincere faces.
• I Meant to Do That: Essiorkh makes a mistake and uses wrong word, resulting in him calling pagan gods "pagan hobos". When corrected, he pretends that it's what he intended to say, as they don't deserve to be called "gods".
• Implied Death Threat: Ulitha makes another joke about her weight. When Daphne points out that it makes no sense, Ulitha makes a "subtle" hint that doing such comments may be dangerous:
  Ulitha [about her hands]: You're so beautiful! And legs are no worse! But no one cares, save for those moronic jinns! Everyone sees just a fat elephant!
  Daphne: There is no such thing as "fat elephant". It makes no sense. It's like saying "a big moose": a moose is big by default. Just "elephant" or "moose" is enough.
  Ulitha: Turn off the sound, Lighty! I can call myself whatever I want, even hippopotamus; but if someone else says something about the moose again, they should remember: a graveyard still has lots of free holes!
• Inertial Impalement: The Tartarian wyrm falls on Mefodiy when he puts a sword before him, resulting in the beast being pierced through its neck and head. Mefodiy faints before he learns whether it worked, spliced with the creature's green blood.
• Ironic Echo: Essiorkh finishes his speech to Yaraat with Yaraat's own "people in love are vulnerable" line; it's where Yaraat snaps.
• I Shall Taunt You: When Yaraat realises that the battle is inevitable, he tries to taunt Arey by saying that he'd "helped" him by killing his family: this way, Arey avoided watching how they grows old and dies, so he should feel "thankful". Arey just quietly promises to "thank" him for everything, right now.
  Yaraat: I'm ready, Arey. If you thought that I would whimper — you're wrong! Soon, you would follow your family. By the way, you should be grateful to me for sparing you the sight of inevitable ageing of your relatives. Imagine how sad it would've been for you to watch your daughter growing old, remaining young yourself?
  Arey: I would thank you now. Thank for everything. Back then, on the lighthouse, I used to think about you every day!
• I Surrender, Suckers: Mefodiy deals with Tukhlomon's blackmail by pretending to submit, only to then exploit Tukhlomon's greed for surprise attack, so he may take away the page and destroy it.
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Mefodiy finally visits Irka for the first time since he became Arey's student (also learning that she secretly developed feelings for him, and was devastated by him vanishing), and warns her that he can't visit her anymore — not because they are no longer friends, but because he fears that this could cause her harm, as by just being close to him she may get in danger. She seems to understand, or at least accept it, and says that she's not afraid of him, no matter what. He also warns her about Tukhlomon when she reveals that she has recurring dreams about him, and tells her to never listen to him or submit to his threats.
  Mefodiy: There're the dangers from which you can run away. Even if they're huge. Abandon everything, disappear, change your name, appearance, move to a remote town and lay low. Maybe they would find you, but most likely not. But from that danger, it's not possible to hide. It would find you anywhere — even underground or at the bottom of the ocean. [...] I would not let anyone to hurt you... But there's another problem. The problem is that not in the last turn, I'm the source of this danger myself. They're not as dangerous to you as I am... I don't know how to explain, but it's how it is.
• Karmic Death: Yaraat's death is karmic, in more way than one:
  • Yaraat had killed Arey's wife and daughter, betraying hist trust, just to screw with him. Now Arey is here to kill him, and Yaraat has no way to escape.
  • Yaraat offered a biker to watch over his injured girlfriend while he goes to find some help, only to kill her; now said biker's body is inhabited by Essiorkh, who only descended from the skies due to the events caused by Yaraat himself, and directly ruins Yaraat's last ditch attempt to escape.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Not satisfied with just taking Ogurtsov's eidos, Tukhlomon additionally mocks him afterwards, just to show how easy it was for him to prevail, had he tried to resist.
  • Some succubi/commissioners likes to leave little flags with mocking signatures after taking away someone's eidos.
• Killed Off for Real: Played With regarding Kvodnon. Surely, he's dead and no longer can manifest in any body, not even as commissioner. But his essence was not destroyed, it's still there, and it still keeps consuming most of the eidoses the Darkness collects, for unknown purpose...
• Lawful Stupid: Essiorkh refuses to help Mefodiy (who's in process of being beaten up by a thug) beyond trying (and failing) to convince the thug that it's amoral. When Mefodiy says that as Guardian Angel, he must help him, Essiorkh says that he's Daphne's Guardian Angel, not his. Then Mefodiy says that if he dies, it may hurt Daphne (who's tied to him), which leads to Essiorkh starting remembering the rules, until he finds that he may intervene to save the people from "bandits" — and asks said "bandits" whether it applies to them; only when they reacts with attempt to beat him, he finally kicks their asses, as the rules demands him to protect his body within reason (it's not technically his, he merely rents it).
• Lecture as Exposition: After several chapters, Essiorkh finally tells Daphne what the whole mess is about: the Scroll of Desires. Long time ago, a mage named Brugus had created the series of wish-fulfilling scrolls; they were weak, only capable of fulfilling small wishes (like, really small), but just before death, he had created an one-of-a-kind Scroll capable of accumulating power over time, and put it into one of the two magic boxes, which then disappeared. The Scroll has accumulated colossal power, and while the scale of the wishes it can fulfil didn't change at all, it now can fulfil them retroactively, even in the distant past. If it ends up in the hands of someone who knows what little detail to change, it can alter the history in the Darkness' favour...
• Let No Crisis Go to Waste: The Transparent Spheres decided that even if Daphne's mission was actually orchestrated by Ligul, they can still exploit it to install Daphne as actual Mefodiy's Keeper, as the plan, if it works, would actually greatly benefit them.
• Long List: We get a lengthy list of all the medicine that Anton Ogurtsov is taking on regular basis out of his hypochondria, some of them with nasty side effects.
• Love at First Sight: Ulitha, in rather weird way, shows interest to Essiorkh the moment she sees him. Essiorkh tries to resist her advances, but Ulitha refuses to give up.
• Love Is a Crime: The Dark Guardians are forbidden to love, as the love — true love, not just lust or obsession — always gets followed by good and Light. And if you love, you can't be truly evil, can't be truly loyal to the Darkness, you become weak and vulnerable — something the servant of Darkness should avoid. The love between two dark-aligned beings can be ignored, as they're expected to fall apart eventually, or for their "love" to get corrupted, but the love towards a mortal with intact eidos is absolutely forbidden; not even taking their eidos into your darkh is allowed, as one day you may decide to set it free, which is insulting for the Darkness. The ones who disobeys, would be hunted down and brutally crushed. Arey has learned this the hard way...
• Love Is a Weakness: Yaraat believes that people in love are easy to trick and exploit, which makes them vulnerable.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Mefodiy still can't learn how to use his magic gift, consistently committing either too little power, or too much of it, and feels annoyed at Arey, who doesn't bother with training him with anything but swordfight.
• Mêlée à Trois: It gets confirmed that there's a third side, when some unspecified dark mage abducts the box with the Scroll of Desires right when Arey and Alkid are about to fight on a duel for it.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: The Scroll of Desires can be used to retroactively change "minor" detail, with major consequences. While the idea to steal the chain from Kvodnon's darkh (which was how Ligul had risen so high) sounds tempting, Yaraat has a better idea: he would cause Mefodiy to die from heart defect before his birth, preventing him from sucking out Yaraat's powers.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Essiorkh laments that his body constantly needs such things as food, beer and fights. He later explains to Daphne that it's because he "inherited" the body from deceased biker (his soul is now in Eden), and some habits are just too deeply integrated to disappear even after death. Daphne assumes that Essiorkh would soon obtain a bike as well.
• Mythology Gag: Several recurring characters from Tanya Grotter series gets mentioned:
  • Zozo's new boss is Isadore Kotletkina (one of Durnevs' neighbours in Tanya Grotter).
  • Herman Durnev still has connections with vampires; the Dark residence buys blood from him, using it in place of ink.
  • Amongst the clients in the restaurant where Edya works are Isadora Kotletkina and Ninel Durneva.
• Nervous Wreck: Before actually introducing Anton Ogurtsov (Zozo's new suitor), the narrator starts with explanation what the phobias and manias are (and, as a bonus, philias, which "don't give their owner anything but troubles, often with the law"), with examples, then goes into statistics (on average, humans have one phobia and two manias), and only then introduces Ogurtsov... starting with the fact that he has all known phobias and half the manias. He's afraid of pretty much everything, as he knows too much for his own good (from medicine to statistics), which only helps to fuel up his paranoia. All doctors whom he asked quickly grew tired of him (as he never believes when told that he's healthy), and started sending him to other doctors just to get rid of him — but not before prescribing him something, with him actually taking all his medicine; the fact that he somehow remains healthy despite taking all this is noted as the best proof of his strong health.
• Neutrality Backlash: Arey warns Mefodiy that picking no side in conflict with the Light and Darkness and trying to keep "neutral" would backfire on you.
  Arey: Those who tries to combine the black and white inside them for too long, would eventually become grey. No one likes grey ones. Grey ones are always manoeuvring, as they can't satisfy everyone, despite wishing so. They have no enemies, but no friends either. They don't know neither laugh nor tears. No storms, but no calm either. They are the worms who turn the world into rot...
• Never My Fault: One of Zozo's coworkers had sent a snow plover to Egypt, of all places. When confronted, he says that he received the wrong request document. When pointed that he's supposed to be smart enough to double-check when the obvious screwup like this happens, he tries to put the blame on someone else, and complains that he has two higher educations, but people don't respect him.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Brugus didn't consider just what his magnum opus, the Scroll of Desires, would be capable of doing if given enough time; now, if it ends up in the wrong hands, it can break the balance between Light and Darkness.
• No Name Given:
  • During confrontation with neighbours, we learn the name of the wife (Raise) and son (Kirill; he isn't even presented), but not the husband, despite him being the one who talks the most; this, along with his description and lame attempts to argue with Edya, further nails down how pathetic he is.
  • The biker, despite being crucial backstory character, never gets called by name.
• Non-Protagonist Resolver: While Mefodiy does save Daphne, he fails to defeat Yaraat on his own. It's Essiorkh who destroys the Scroll, and Arey who kills Yaraat himself.
• No-Sell:
  • Downplayed with Edya; Daphne's magolody still affects him, but rather weakly, and much of its effect quickly wears off, resulting in him returning to his usual somewhat jerky self. It's explicitly stated to be due to his innate resistance to magic.
  • Inverted with Mamai; he gets knocked out when a thug hits his head with a bat, despite it normally being impossible. Turns out that someone has helped the thugs and enhanced their weapons to give them the chance.
  • Yaraat tries to use special dark magic which would destroy Essiorkh, but it doesn't work; as Essiorkh readily explains, it's because the body still remembers Yaraat, and that memory, along with holy wrath of the eidos which once inhabited it, gives it protection. According to Yaraat's comment, that same protection would also negate effect of the cursed dagger he previously used on Daphne.
• Not So Above It All: When Ulitha starts blatantly flirting with young, boyish Light Guardian, who feels extremely awkward and shy over it, Arey bursts into laugh.
• Obfuscating Disability: Edya believes that his babysitter lied about having eye disease to justify wearing sunglasses indoors; in truth, she needed sunglasses to hide that her eyes were unnatural, creepy and unhuman.
  Edya: Yeah, yeah... I know that type of people! Professional sniper disease... Cant' see anything, can't hear anything — and then blam: it's time to write a dirge.
• Oblivious to Love:
  • Both Mefodiy and Daphne are in denial that they feel anything towards each other. Mefodiy reads a magazine's article about earning Light Guardian's attraction "just out of curiosity", while Daphne actually knows what and why she feels towards him, and tries to suppress it by acting like a jerk to Mefodiy, only to prove otherwise in the end.
  • Mefodiy learns that Irka had feelings towards him since at least some time, and that him disappearing without a trace was taken as betrayal.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Thanks to Ligul calling Arey out to Tartarus under first excuse he could find and keeping him here for as long as he could, Mefodiy was leaved without his protection during last battle against Yaraat. Arey returns at the very last moment to finally finish off the asshole.
• Oh, Crap!: When Wilhelm complains that Mamai busted onto the territory of his mansion and ruined a Michelangelo-made statue, and asks why they didn't just stop outside, Arey orders Mamai to drive to the parking zone. Wilhelm realises what's gonna happen, and in quiet horror tries to ask for them to just stay where they are, but he's too late: Mamai drives backwards, ruining the lawn in process.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Depresnyak is volatile and prone to pick a fight with anything even remotely resembling a dog. When he sees something and feels fear, Daphne realises that there's something wrong, especially given Depresnyak's intuition.
• Open Secret: Invoked by Daphne when she asks Essiorkh to reveal what is that scroll he'd mentioned, and why it's so important; after all, everyone else knows it already, so may as well tell her too. Essiorkh still refuses, saying that he's forbidden from doing so, and leaves.
• Our Angels Are Different: Essiorkh is an actual, professional Keeper. Keepers lives above Eden, in so-called Transparent Spheres, have different shape for their wings (those famous backwards-facing ones), and can't visit Earth in their original body, instead relying on possessing the bodies of deceased (resurrected and restored). Keepers don't respond directly to the other Guardians outside of their structure, and are not obligated to assist them.
• Overly Long Gag: Tukhlomon repeatedly asks Daphne to give him her winged necklace, in increasingly more blatant manner. He does it five times in a single scene, at various points.
• Past Experience Nightmare: Edya's babysitter (back when he was three years old) was a Midnight Witch (as Daphne guesses from description — and scanning Edya's memory), who scared him to the point that he still sees periodic nightmares about her, at least once per month. She also killed his parrot, by just looking on it: Midnight Witches are well-known for pathologic hatred towards all kinds of birds.
• Playing Possum: Tukhlomon pretends to stick himself with Ulitha's rapier to the wall, with "blood" (actually ink) dripping from his mouth. Judging from comment by one of succubi, it's not the first time he does that. No one finds it funny, and Ulitha is more concerned with him desecrating her rapier.
• Punny Name: A commissioner whom Mefodiy catches up with a "report" of Mefodiy's "subversive behaviour" is called Oligo de Phren (clear pun on the word "oligophrenic").
• Puppet King: Ligul tries to cheat Mefodiy out of his eidos through a rigged card game — if he has control over Lord of Darkness's eidos, he has control over the Lord himself. It doesn't work because Mefodiy somehow wins nonetheless.
• Refuge in Audacity:
  • Tukhlomon, claiming that he's "tired of Darkness", tries to ask Daphne to give him her winged necklace, "just to hold", as he "wants to feel the Light". When he becomes particularly annoying, Ulitha suggests Daphne to just kick him in the face with a knee... to which he reacts by suggesting various kinds of violence he would gladly let her use on him, and even offers to find assault riffle if she wants to shoot him — and then again switches to attempts to beg for winged necklace, comparing refusing to "poor little Tukhlomon" to hitting an orphan with a crowbar. He only leaves her alone when she grabs a flute... only to start again when she gets distracted at Mefodiy, and one last time later.
  • Ulitha rather blatantly flirts with one of the Light Guardians (young pretty boy named Katon), and then invites him on a date. He cant' even refuse her properly.
• Ret-Gone: Yaraat is uncertain how him killing Mefodiy retroactively would affect the present-Mefodiy; would he cease to exists, or it would just restore Yaraat's powers?
• Revealing Cover-Up: Daphne looks on the limo which follows her with true sight, sees no magic, and calms down... then she realises that she sees not just no magic — she sees nothing at all. Which is straight up impossible, unless you put on a really powerful protective magic, which is by itself a red flag.
• Sadistic Choice: Yaraat offers Mefodiy a choice: he may let Daphne die, or he may give up his eidos to Yaraat. Daphne realises that it's Morton's Fork (if Mefodiy lets her die, he would lose his eidos anyway), and tells Mefodiy to not give up his eidos: Yaraat, not being a Guardian, can't actually kill her. Unfortunately, turns out that he can.
• Saved for the Sequel: The story about Edya's Midnight Witch babysitter, who did something to him twenty five years ago is a clear setup for the future, "stay tuned"-style. He also remembers the words she had said to him: "your blood is my blood, your will is my will; wait till the black swan calls you".
• Schmuck Bait: Unsurprisingly, the talking head turns out to be a trap, resulting in Mefodiy running into the hell wyrm, and nearly leading to him dying while fighting it.
• The Scottish Trope: When someone with significant powers (let alone someone like Mefodiy) says Kvodnon's name aloud, it can be quite destructive. Mefodiy almost says his name two more times even after being told why it's a bad idea, and witnessing the damage it caused to the room.
• Seers: Alkid can foretell the future, but for whatever reason, he always sees exactly opposite of what would really happen; Arey (who knows about his gift) calls him "anti-prophet". Since Alkid sees a vision of Mefodiy dying and his eidos being damned, it means that Mefodiy has nothing to worry about.
• Sensory Overload: Daphne, to better blend in with mortals, recalibrated her sensitivity to match human body. She learned the hard way just how vulnerable the humans can be.
  For example, if you absent-mindedly drink boiling water, you would warm up for the rest of your life. New shoes causes much discomfort. Bitten tongue tip would hurt for a whole week. [...] In short, lopukhoid life is nothing but countless restrictions. Have to memorise so much silly stuff!
• Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: Yaraat tries to buy some time by shapeshifting into Zozo. While Mefodiy manages to break the illusion, it still ruins his concentration and stops him from sucking out more of Yaraat's power.
• Soapbox Sadie: Raisa Polutonnik, Edya and Zozo's neighbour, is a member of customers rights protection group, which fights to protect said customers from such "dangers" as noisy chips packs and "sharp" tinfoil in cigarette packs.
• Sold His Soul for a Donut: Tsuryupov has sold his eidos (he's allowed to keep it for as long as he remains useful) in return for... used toothbrushes of celebrities. And he doesn't even receive the ones he needs, as Ulitha, too lazy to bother, sends him the ones taken from garbage, or the personal toothbrush of Viy, or other similar things.
• Stalker without a Crush:
  • Two in a row in first chapter:
    • Firstly, Daphne gets (slowly, but surely) pursued by a weird black limo. After scanning it with magic, Daphne realises that there's something fishy with it, and runs away.
    • After getting away from a limo, Daphne gets pursued by the huge and threatening guy dressed as a biker, until they run into a dead end. Then he introduces himself as another Light Guardian named Essiorkh, and says that he's on her side.
  • The black limo returns in the fifth chapter and continues spying on Daphne, with Daphne now being convinced that it represents some third force. Using the new magic-obscuring mouthpiece (gifted by Essiorkh) which she used to upgrade her flute, she attacks it with magolodies, and while it fails to do major damage, it's enough to breach its disguise, revealing scales — turns out that it was a Tartarian wyrm, a dragon-like creature, who was clearly sent by someone.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Subverted; Daphne asks Essiorkh why he can't just tell the other Light Guardians that she's actually good (he's from the Transparent Spheres, which has authority to order even to other Light Guardians), so they would quit hunting for her, but he rejects that plan, saying that the Darkness would notice it (plus, they have spies in Eden), and Daphne would immediately fail her mission as the Fake Defector and Mefodiy's Guardian Angel. So, for a time being, she must stay as the "traitor".
• Sunglasses at Night: Edya's babysitter was always wearing sunglasses. She justified it by having some eye disease, but Edya believes that it's a lie. In truth, it was to hide that her eyes lacks pupils, instead having seven-angled red sparks.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Mefodiy browses a magiczine, specifically the pages about how to make a Light Guardian fall in love with you, while trying to convince himself that he doesn't plan to do that and that no one can trust a magazine with such stupid name anyway.
• Ten Paces and Turn: In official duels between Dark and Light Guardians, it's standard practice for duelists to do six steps each before, on command, attacking each other. Why six? Anything less, and the Dark Guardian would always have an advantage; anything more, and so would the Light Guardian; but exactly six steps gives them roughly equal chances to hit first.
• Terrified of Germs: Tukhlomon scares Ogurtsov into giving up his eidos by pretending that he's about to kiss him, exploiting his phobia of germs. To reinforce the effect, he deliberately looks as disgusting as possible.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Mefodiy gets warned that whoever betrays the love of a Light Guardian, damns themselves so badly, there's no hope to avoid Tartarus after that.
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Arey asks everyone to not interfere into his duel with Yaraat. The only one who tries to object is Essiorkh, but he shuts up when he senses that it's not up to discussion.
• Time Abyss: Ulitha says that Kvodnon is older than this whole world.
• Time Skip: First book's events occurred during first week of May. Second book starts two months later, in the middle of July; during that period, Mefodiy managed to get some fighting skills, while Yaraat obtained new toys and allies to take his vengeance.
• Title Drop: The second chapter's name is a quote from what Mamzelkina tells to Mefodiy (a part of "Greedy people have long arms" proverb).
• Too Dumb to Live: One succubus thought it would be a good idea to take the form of Arey's late daughter. It ended very badly for him.
• Too Much Information: Arey describes how closely the nuts are resembling human brains — "same form, two hemispheres, tons of opportunities and sad final in the box". He then asks Mefodiy whether he wants one. Mefodiy politely refuses, thinking that he wouldn't be able to eat nuts for at least some time after this.
• Tranquil Fury: When Mefodiy hears the whole story of Yaraat's betrayal, he calmly, but confidently promises to Arey that if he finds him, he would kill him, and nothing would save Yaraat's skin. Arey tells him to not give promises which can end up being impossible to fulfil.
• Ugly Cute: In-Universe. When Daphne arrives to Mefodiy's mother (because Essiorkhs advised her to live here until the Gold-Winged Guardians, who intercepted traces of her magic, would stop checking up near Glumovich's gymnasium and lose interest in him), first thing both Zozo and Edya notice is Depresnyak (bald demoniac cat). Their reaction... differs:
  Zozo: Look at this cute kitty!
  Edya: Cute kitty? Where? Show it to me!
  Zozo: Right here! Can you see it?
  Edya: I only see the extremely ugly cat who became a victim of the every single mad scientist in the world!
• Undying Loyalty:
  • Depresnyak tries to protect Daphne from Yaraat when the latter comes to take a seal of her wings, which nearly costs Depreasnyak his life. Unfortunately, he fails to stop him, and Yaraat successfully obtains what he wanted.
  • Depresnyak attacks Yaraat when asked for help by Daphne (who's in mortal danger), which is acknowledged as the very first time when he obeys any command whatsoever. As before, it nearly costs him his life.
• Unseen No More: We meet Yaraat for the first time when he comes to get a seal of Daphne's wings — ugly, with greyish skin and creepy face with always moving mouth, mostly bald (and not in a fashionable way), with what little hairs left being ash-white; his personality is just as ugly, with him being Soft-Spoken Sadist with love to torture animals, rejoicing in their pain.
• Villainous Breakdown: When Essiorkh starts telling Yaraat the history of how he'd killed the biker's girlfriend two weeks ago, Yaraat starts losing his cool; when Mefodiy reminds him about Arey's family, he goes outright hysterical. He recovers from it when Arey shows up and Yaraat's last ditch attempt to teleport fails, and he prepares to make his last stand, clearly going into "cornered rat" mode.
• We Have Reserves: The Darkness has so many commissioners, and so much plasticine and other resources to make the bodies for them, they don't care if a dozen or two of them gets killed on duty — they can always send more.
• We Used to Be Friends: Arey used to consider Yaraat his close friend. Now, when he thinks about it, he feels extreme anger — both at him, and at himself, for not seeing it before it became too late.
  Arey: The story of friendship, the story of betrayal, the story of death. Those stories often comes together. Some time ago, Yaraat and me used to be friends... Whenever I remember that I used to trust that bastard, I want to take that dagger, cut out my heart and stomp it.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Mefodiy calls Essiorkh out on only helping after he was attacked, ignoring Mefodiy being beaten up until then.
• What Year Is This?: Essiorkh starts calling Daphne out on helping the Darkness by providing a seal of her wings on the very dangerous scroll. When she sincerely fails to understand what he's talking about, he realises that something is wrong, and asks her what day of a week is this. When she says that it's Monday, he realises that he arrived several days earlier than the event in question even happened, due to a difference in how time flows on Earth and in Eden, and apologises. Since the event is yet to happen, he instead warns Daphne to be careful, though he refuses to elaborate about the scroll, insisting that it's a secret.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: As Yaraat's wish affects such global powers like Light and Darkness, it requires the involvement of them both, as well as yet-uncertain eidos, which represents neutrality. By the final chapter, he already obtained the first two (a seal of Daphne's wings and Ulitha's darkh).

The Third Horseman of Darkness

Daphne, while looking where to find something to eat, runs into a succubus, who introduces himself as Whimper. Whimper states that he knows about her attraction to Mefodiy, and tries to make a "friendly chat" with her, and even turns into Mefodiy when she claims to feel nothing to him, only to alienate her, as she sees through his glamour. Angry, Daphne turns him into a worm by using an old trick, and blackmails into telling what he's doing here. Whimper reveals that she would soon get a rival, and if that rival steals Mefodiy from her, she would die. But he offers a magic poppy flower which would track Mefodiy's feelings for her; if something goes bad, Mefodiy can be made to love her again, just need to pour Daphne's blood on the flower and attach it to Mefodiy's shirt. Daphne accepts it. Soon afterwards, Daphne gets attacked by unknown enemy, barely surviving the attack. Who's trying to kill her, and why?

At night, Irka hears the weird noises from the kitchen. Thinking that it's a robber, she tries to leave and ask the neighbours for help, but accidentally hits a corner of the closet, and falls from her wheelchair. Realising that she can't crawl back on her own, nor she can reach the lock, she, already prepared for the worst, but having no other option, crawls to the kitchen (from there goes some strange light)... and sees an injured white she-wolf, with horrible bleeding wound on her side. Forgetting about everything else, she crawls to try and help her. The wolf then turns into a wounded swan, then into a woman. Woman tells Irka that she's a Valkyrie, and she's here to find someone who can take her mantle when she dies from her wounds: the evil has escaped from behind the Dreadful Gates, and only Irka, with the help of someone called "Antigonius", can stop it; it would be in "one of the three bodies". Valkyrie gives Irka her powers, and with them, the ability to walk. She gives Irka a warning: do not tell anyone from her old life who she is, or they would die. She should also keep her animal forms in check, or she would lose herself.

Mefodiy notices the traces of blood on his sword, and that the sword is unusually bloodthirsty, but can't explain it; he certainly didn't hurt anyone recently. Arey summons Mefodiy, and reveals to him that he's actually not the sole inheritor of Kvodnon's powers: there were three more kids, who got much smaller bits. They weren't interesting to the Darkness until now, but situation has changed and they must be found.

Edya goes into conflict with a client; his audacity fails to save him this time, and Edya gets fired. Zozo (who's still unlucky in finding a suitor, only running into various freaks) invites her brother to attend a party thrown by a "poet" Lev Ovalov, where she runs into a guy who introduces himself as Danila Plaksin (actually Whimper in disguise). Edya briefly sees through his disguise, which makes him distrusting to the guy, while Zozo falls for Whimper's blatant attempts at flirting.

Depresnyak brings some weird ring, which Arey identifies as the part of Dreadful Gates — specifically, the part from behind them. But how it ended up in Moscow? Anyway, right now, they have the other thing to care about: the other three kids were discovered (two boys and one girl), and it's up to Mefodiy and Daphne to recruit them. The friends separates, with Daphne going to one of the boys, and Mefodiy to the girl; the second boy would be visited together. Daphne can't resist to check the flower gifted by Whimper, but it shows that everything is fine for now. Daphne meets the mother of the boy she needs to recruit, a highly eccentric and somewhat threatening woman. The woman mistakes Daphne for her "Petrusik's" new girlfriend, which Daphne realises only when they parts ways. When she meets the guy in person, he introduces himself as Petruccho Chimodanov (no relation to the word "chemodan"). Daphne quickly learns what kind of gift Petruccho has: he can animate the artificial constructs he creates from various things available. Daphne immediately realises that he's indeed the one she needs, and asks him to follow her: she would take him to the place where no one would think that his abilities are "weird".

Meanwhile, while searching for the second kid, Mefodiy runs into a company of several older guys and a girl around his age; the guys acts very hostile, and Mefodiy only deals with them by using his magic (not the way he wanted, but still efficient). After that, the girl reveals that Natasha Vikhrova whom Mefodiy is looking for is she. She prefers to be called "Nata" or "Natalie", however. Nata immediately tries to us her seduction magic on him, and when Mefodiy manages to shake it off, turns out that it took him twenty minutes — while anyone else would fall in two-three minutes. Mefodiy tells Nata that she has to follow him, as she's waited for.

Daphne and Nata don't come along right from the start. Then Daphne notices that the poppy on Mefodiy's shirt had changed colour to pink (indicating that he became colder to her), and she starts acting aggressive to him without explanation. She only calms down when she notices how her innate magic "explodes" and causes some collateral damage in metro. When the company arrives to the Dark residence, they see that it was stripped of magic and now resembles an ordinary office. The reason becomes (somewhat) clear when they enters and finds Arey with some mortal guest (who brought along two scarily-looking bodyguards); that guest — who has rather pretentious name Tiberius Cezarovich Samtsov — insists that he wants to buy this house. When Arey insists that Mefodiy is the one who calls the shots here, Mefodiy realises that Arey is messing with the guy for his amusement, and plays along. When Mefodiy also refuses to sell it, Arey grows tired, and tells the guy to leave, in very insulting manner, which angers him to no end, and he hisses that Arey just doomed himself. When Tiberiy leaves, Arey reveals the true reason for this; there's some third force behind those guys, which wants the access to the building for its own gains. Mefodiy also notices that Arey has some hidden reason for paying so much attention to what Mefodiy says about the building, and feeling relief when he refused to sell it; something is weird... But it's a question for another time; for now, Mefodiy and Daphne have to find the third gifted kid.

Irka, not knowing what would happen if Babanya finds her outside of wheelchair (and not really trusting the "no one from old life would recognise you" part), still sits back whenever she returns; but one day, when experimenting with shapeshifting, she misses Babanya's return... and realises that she doesn't see anything: it seems that when Irka isn't in wheelchair, some sort of magic "plays" Irka for Babanya to not reveal the secret. Soon afterwards, she feels strange need to fill a bathtub with hot water, and on the misted glass appears a message, ordering her to find Eugeniy Moshkin first, so he would bring her to the other three. Picking an outfit to her liking out non-bought clothes made by Babanya, Irka goes to the address provided. Moshkin turns out to be extremely awkward and eccentric, but Irka still learns about his gift — he can control water, in any form. Suddenly, Irka's wolf form (which she previously disregarded) takes over, and she transforms without wishing so. She steals the chicken from Moshkin's fridge, and runs away — just in time to see Mefodiy and Daphne arriving; shock of seeing Mefodiy here allows Irka to regain her human form.

Arey gathers his new students together, and tells them why they should stay here — because anywhere else, their gift would not let them live a normal life. They're sceptical at first, but he easily breaks all their arguments. They (as well as Mefodiy and Daphne), from now on, would live here, in the Dark residence; Glumovich would cover for them before their parents. Arey then summon Mefodiy personally, and reveals that Kvodnon has escaped. When he was slain, he was divided into two parts: one — faceless, abstract evil — is still trapped in Tartarus, and is worshipped by the Dark Guardians; but another, which contains his actual personality, was trapped behind the Dreadful Gates, with Primordial Chaos. Kvodnon somehow disrupted the protective magic, which allowed him to send his breath to Earth and possess a mortal body. Now, the messenger would try to free Kvodnon, for which he has three days and nights; and not even the Darkness wants that, as Kvodnon's return means the apocalypse. Messenger can only possess either Mefodiy, or one of the other three kids: they share Kvodnon's former powers, and can use his former sword. Now, before it's too late, they must find which one is the Messenger.

Whimper, still in his "Danila" disguise, proposes to Zozo, saying that he "can't live without her" — and immediately tries to scam her out of her eidos. She misses the second part, but feels sudden instinctive antipathy to him, and rejects, saying that he's rushing things. He starts pressing her, and she almost agrees, despite feeling strange pain in the chest when she asks what "eidos" is. Before anything bad can happen, Essiorkh arrives and captures Whimper. He then forces him to answer three questions, wanting to learn what exactly he's planning. He learns that Whimper was sent to sabotage Mefodiy's relationship with Daphne — the Darkness sees it as dangerous — but before Essiorkh gets the last piece of the puzzle (why Whimper gave Daphne that magic poppy flower), Zozo intervenes and asks Whimper whether he lied about wanting to marry her, which he gladly exploits to answer a useless question instead of important one, and get sucked to Tartarus.

After many failed attempts, Irka accidentally manages to contact Antigonius by just thinking about him and calling him "crazy"; Antigonius ends up being just as weird as his name suggests, both in his look (being a mix of various wights) and his personality, and Irka nearly alienates him before she realises that he inverts the meaning of many words. She renames him "Antigon", as it's easier to remember and pronounce, and gets a magic "yellow press" magazine from him, which, through instructions hidden amongst "hot news", instructs her how to turn invisible and spy on Ligul. Irka does so, and learns that magic poppy which was gifted to Daphne is actually a dark artifact which slowly drains her powers and sanity, all so it would assist Kvodnon somehow: if the Dark Lord wins, Ligul prefers to be on his good side. As a bonus, flower disrupts Daphne's love for Mefodiy: their relationship is a threat to the Darkness, but if it withers or gets poisoned and rots into something ugly, like jealousy, it would cease to matter. Unfortunately, Irka scares Ligul off before she learns more.

Daphne's attempts to teach Mefodiy and the rest some runes gets interrupted by a gunshot; Samtsov's sniper just shot Arey (who let it happen), not knowing that it would be of no use. And Arey is planning to let him go inside this night, to not miss the fun. This is also the good excuse to take Daphne's lessons more seriously: if the kids wouldn't learn protective magic, they may get killed. After messing around for some time, Arey captures Samtsov and learns that he was brainwashed and sent by someone else, who cleaned up all traces. He fails to gain any information from Tiberius himself, but then he learns that, while they were busy, Petruccho disappeared, and realises that it was merely a distraction. Petruccho gets found in the basement, put into hole which was previously hidden under marble floor. Arey breaks the marble and finds three more holes. He realises that Kvodnon wants to put three other kids besides Mefodiy into those holes, so when the time comes, he may suck out their powers. The fourth hole, the only one with direct link to Tartarus, is intended for Mefodiy, his main prize...

Daphne starts feeling even stronger jealousy towards Mefodiy, believing that Nata is trying to "steal" him, and he blindly falls for it. At first, she barely resists temptation to check on the poppy flower's colour, but then snaps and does like Whimper instructed — puts her blood on it, and attaches it to Mefodiy's shirt. Suddenly, Moshkin disappears without a trace. Essiorkh feels that something terrible is about to happen, but as he can't openly help the servants of Darkness, he only gives Ulitha vague warning which instructs her to go back to the Dark residence.

Antigon tells Irka that tonight, Kvodnon would kill Mefodiy and the other three kids, and rebirth in Mefodiy's body. He already has two bodies in place, and only needs to put the last kid and Mefodiy himself. Meanwhile, Arey shrugs off the ice put on him by Moshkin, and states that whoever brought both Eugesha and Petruccho there, it was someone with not only access to Drevnir's sword, but also with mind-control powers, which leaves only one possible candidate... Before he can say the name, Nata tries to grab the sword and attack, but Mefodiy reacts first. Arey grabs his sword and tries to kill Nata, but Mefodiy blocks the hit, allowing Nata to escape and jump into the third hole. Arey calls him out on it, saying that just one death would prevent countless more if Kvodnon actually awakes. He also points that Mefodiy was under influence of Nata's magic, even if he partially blocked it. Kvodnon needs Mefodiy in specific place at specific date, so all they need to do in order to win is to not let him capture Mefodiy; he can't manipulate him directly, but there are the others, more subtle ways. Arey and Ulitha would take turns guarding the basement, while Daphne should guard Mefodiy, preventing him from falling asleep at all cost. But when the two stays alone, the poppy flower turns into a magic snake and bites firstly Daphne (putting her into magic sleep), and then Mefodiy (putting him into trance-like state, leading to him losing control over his body).

Irka goes to find Mefodiy before it's too late, but the time is running out; fortunately, she meets Essiorkh, who offers to ride on his bike (he returned for it, as Irka can't use teleportation). They finds unconscious Ulitha; when Essiorkh awakes her, he learns that Mefodiy took her by surprise, and she only survived because she parried the blow with her lucky rapier (which is now destroyed), and Mefodiy didn't bother to double-check. Meanwhile, Mefodiy faces Arey. Arey easily disarms him and puts a sword to his neck, threatening to kill him if Kvodnon leaves him no other choice. Kvodnon's Messenger leaves Nata's body and materialises as a massive ghostly horseman. Kvodnon doesn't believe that Arey has the gust to kill Mefodiy, and indeed, Arey tries to attack Kvodnon instead, only to get effortlessly defeated: even in a ghost form, Kvodnon is much stronger than him. That's when Irka, Antigon and Essiorkh shows up. Antigon makes Kvodnon drop Mefodiy by throwing his mace, then Essiorkh distracts Kvodnon, allowing Irka to finish him off by throwing her spear. Arey wakes up and prepares to fight Essiorkh, but suddenly Ulitha steps in and asks to spare him, which Arey reluctantly agrees to do. She then asks for a day off: she's going on a date.

---

• Actually Pretty Funny: Inverted, Zozo at first laughs at Edya's joke (about men's relationship with women), but then pretends to be offended by his cynicism, feeling that she shouldn't encourage him.
• Antagonist Title: The titular "Third Horseman" is Kvodnon himself (one of the other two was Troyan, a literal god of death, so one can see what could be expected from someone carrying such title). When not possessing anyone, he would actually take the form of enormous horseman.
• Apathetic Student: Daphne somehow skipped entire course of lectures about foretelling the fates of items. She tries to lie that she "was sick" at the time, only for Essiorkh to point that the cycle of lectures is 300 years-long, with 70 more years for practice. By that point, we already know that she easily gets bored, and loses attention to lectures.
• Appearance Angst:
  • Irka can't look on her legs (pale, almost bluish, skeletal limbs), and does everything to hide them altogether. She tries to distract herself from having a body altogether (associating it with being trapped in her wheelchair like in prison), and envies the ghosts — those aren't attached to the bodies, and are free to go wherever they want.
  • While she was still disabled, Irka, whenever leaving her house with Babanya, used to always wear sports pants, to hide her legs, as just looking at them was unbearable, due to them them being the symbol of her helplessness and miserable life. Now, when she can walk again, she's eager to try something else, which would actually show those legs; too bad, her wardrobe lacks fitting clothes.
• Appropriated Appellation: Irka has problems with pronouncing "Antigonius", so she replaces it with "Antigon". Antigon accepts it as new name.
• Artifact of Doom: Unsurprisingly, the poppy flower which Whimper gave to Daphne turns out to be dangerous. He did this on Ligul's orders, who plans to use it to achieve several goals; firstly, it would reinforce Daphne's worst qualities, gradually defiling her love to Mefodiy into something else, like obsession, which is no longer dangerous for the Darkness; secondly, it would corrupt Daphne herself, making it easier to seduce her into Darkness, which may be helpful; and thirdly, in case Kvodnon actually wins, it would help Ligul to remain on his good side, since the flower allows Kvodnon to take control of Mefodiy's body.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • Ulitha starts what seems to be another jab at Ligul, and Tukhlomon prepares to listen, so he can snitch on her... only for her to finish the joke with Tukhlomon's name instead.
  • The rune Daphne used on Petruccho silences the person it's used on for seven times seven years, allowing them to say one piece of wisdom after each seven years period, and can't be cancelled... but she used weakened form of it, which would wear off after thirty minutes — assuming you don't try to say something stupid, or think anything bad about women, otherwise, it prolongs its effect by one hour per bad thought! Knowing Daphne, it's hard to tell whether last part is true, or she's just messing with him, but Petruccho believes in it.
• The Beastmaster: Mefodiy tries to use magic to deal with attackers, resulting in him provoking a dog pack to attack them; they don't cause any harm, instead just pushing the guys to the ground and scaring them to no end.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Famous Russian psychiatrist Pyotr Kaschenko was actually an undercover Light Guardian.
• Berserk Button: Mefodiy nearly attacks Arey in blind rage over a joke about sacrificing Daphne to the Seer Stone.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Kvodnon's Messenger is the main antagonist; small part of Kvodnon's spirit managed to manifest on Earth, and plans to hijack Mefodiy's and other three "inheritors'" powers in order to restore Kvodnon back to life in new body, so he may finish what he started — bring this world to destruction. Ligul, as always, plays his own game, and this time, it involves stealthy helping Kvodnon, so, in case he would win after all, Ligul may be spared as his ally.
• Big Damn Heroes: Irka (with Essiorkh's help) arrives just in time to face Kvodnon's spirit in battle, and defeat it; by that point, Kvodnon almost succeeded in his plan.
• Blatant Lies:
  • Daphne tries to excuse herself not knowing basic school program for Guardians by "being sick" when they were teaching that. It doesn't fool Essiorkh, who knows that these lectures (and subsequent practice) takes decades. The reader also knows by now that Daphne is an Apathetic Student.
  • Moshkin says that he has a "serious dog" here. As soon as Irka enters, it turns out that it's small (it weighs less than one kilogram) and cowardly (it's afraid of literally everything); when asked why he said that it's "serious", he claims that he meant it the sense of it being "thoughtful".
  • When Irka sees Moshkin's list of awkward pickup lines, he claims that it's "for school essay"; she pretends that she believed.
• Blood Knight: Mefodiy feels the blood thirst of his sword, which is strong enough that it may attack the first person to come nearby; the sword even manages to infest Mefodiy with it, though he regains self-control.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Arey tells Mefodiy that, for all his powers, he's pathologically lazy, and can't do anything without proper motivation; he hopes that having other students to compete with would motivate him to train more.
• Bullying a Dragon: Tukhlomon makes a silly joke at Ulitha's expense, which involves her interest to males (dumb pun based on Samtstov's Embarrassing Last Name) and her being "chubby meanie"; she reacts as well as may be expected, and he has to explain that he didn't say "fat" before she tears off his nose.
• The Caligula: Arey states that no one wants Kvodnon back, as his time has passed; he's too insane and too violent.
  Arey: The Darkness doesn't need old loser overlord who let the Gold-Winged slay himself. The Darkness needs a new master. Slightly less savage, flexible like a whip, cunning with mortals, predictable for their allies. Who can play by new rules, because the Medieval has long ended. Everyone understands it, Ligul included.
• Call-Back:
  • Whimper mentions that Tukhlomon had stole the credit for defeating Pupliy and Rufin, despite everyone knowing that it was Daphne. He also reveals their subsequent fate: they are alive, but as they can't return to Eden without wings, they are now searching for Daphne on their own.
  • Mefodiy again gets teased on the way he commented on Daphne's attractiveness back in the first book, this time by Ulitha.
  • When describing Mefodiy's weird behaviour, Edya references the story about his creepy babysitter, which he originally told to Daphne in the second novel.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin':
  • It's often said that "words are material"; in the places filled with so much magic like the Dark residence, it's true as nowhere else. One of the bandits, who made comment about him being damned actually ends up killed when Samtsov shoots Arey, and then his eidos fails to escape, allowing Tukhlomon to take it.
  • Essiorkh plans to steal one woman's "unlucky" meal, as she once said that "be I damned if I ever eat after 6 p.m.", as commissioners clearly took note at this "oath", and may try to use it against her.
• The Cavalry: Essiorkh arrives before Whimper can trick Zozo into selling her eidos, and captures the succubus. As he later explains, he thought about Daphne, and intuition told him to check on her at home.
• Celestial Deadline: Kvodnon's goal can only be achieved during one specific night, and if he misses it, he would be forced to wait for another thirty three years.
• Charm Person: Nata shows her main power — ability to turn males into dumb obedient servants, through eye contact, mimics and touching — by using it on Mefodiy. It only partially works on him, due to his own powers, and he manages to shake it off after twenty minutes of resisting. She then reveals that it normally takes two-three minutes to achieve full control, and it's easy to overdo, driving the person insane (she actually did this with her teacher when it originally manifested, and learned to be more careful since then).
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • When the ring from Dreadful Gates falls on the floor and starts digging deeper and deeper, Arey says that it seeks the shortest path to the place it was taken from. That basement would later play crucial role in the story precisely because it's the shortest path to Tartarus, specifically to the Dreadful Gates there.
  • Whimper's magic poppy flower finally plays its role in penultimate chapter; at night, it turns into a snake, which incapacitates Daphne, and then hijacks control over Mefody's body. Daphne has just enough time before falling into magic sleep to realise that she'd doomed Mefodiy herself, by falling for Whimper's lies.
• Chick Magnet: Vydrikov, a director of the restaurant where Edya works, believes that if customers feel attraction to the personnel, they're more likely to become recurring customers. As their target clients are primely single women, he prefers to hire attractive single men as waiters, making them work in two shifts: one for brunettes, one for blondes (some of the latter are dyed, to compensate the lack of natural blondes). Edya sarcastically suggested to set up the shift for bald and shaved (it's trendy!), but was ignored. Edya, having dark auburn hair, fails to fit either shift, so he picks which one to serve at random.
• Child Prodigy: Irka is way above the school level of knowledge, to the point that she gets bored by wasting time on writing down the solution when she can solve everything so quickly in her mind. She's around Mefodiy's age, but she'd passed exams for the first nine grades already, just because she can. The only reason she gave up on idea to go to university right afterwards is because she doesn't believe that anyone would take fourteen years-old student seriously (let alone wheelchair-bound one), and she can't stand being seen as some "talking exotic critter".
• The Chosen Many: Turns out that not all Kvodnon's powers were absorbed by Mefodiy; some leftovers were received by three other kids, who were born at same hour, with missed the right moment by being born few minutes too early or too late. Now, Arey wants to find them and take as the new students: if previously, it was deemed unnecessary, now situations has changed. Later we learn that "situation change" is that Kvodnon uses one of these three as his host body to manifest on Earth in preparation for his resurrection plan.
• Cloudcuckoolanguage: It takes Irka some time to realise how Antigon's weird speech works: he inverts most opposites, including compliments and insults. He gets confused when Irka says "good morning" (it's "terrible evening", thank you very much!), feels offended when she calls him "funny", insisting that he's "boring and disgustingly ugly", and gets outright angry when she calls him "friend", only calming down when she catches up and "corrects" herself by saying that he's her "enemy".
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: In-Universe; the magic poppy flower gifted to Daphne by Whimper indicates Mefodiy's feelings for her, by changing its colour. If it's red, it means that the partner loves you. If it's pink, it means that they starts getting colder to you. Blue is the colour of boredom, brown — of disdain, yellow — of betrayal, and black means hatred.
• Complexity Addiction: While Arey can just summon Mamzelkina and slaughter all the bandits, it's too boring and would make them lose any respect from the other Dark Guardians. No, they must let Samtsov and his men in, and milk the situation for all its worth, even if it puts Mefodiy's and the others' lives at danger.
• Comically Missing the Point: Essiorkh thinks that "money laundering" means actually cleaning up dirty banknotes.
• Crisis Makes Perfect: Arey mentions that Samtsov would pay them a visit at night, so, unless the kids wants to get shot, they should memorise protective magic; Daphne comments that the best motivation to start learning is a life-or-death situation.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Daphne warns that the rune of wisdom has a side effect: once its power runs out, you become much dumber for a short amount of time. As is, "let's start vandalising and beating up random people" kind of dumb.
• Dating Catwoman: Ulitha actually asks for a day off, so she can go on a date with Essiorkh, confirming that the two are together now. Essiorkh's behaviour clearly shows that it's not just her flirting with him, and he actually reciprocates.
• Deal with the Devil: Arey offers Mefodiy to give him his eidos "for storing" and agree to serve Arey in this life and the next one, in return for immortality, invulnerability, and other, smaller bonuses, insisting that not only Mefodiy is at risk of dying otherwise (and they both know that he wouldn't end up in Eden if it happens), but it's different from just selling or giving it away, in that Arey can actually give it back one day. Mefodiy refuses, and Arey at first seems like he's about to explode, but then he calms down.
• Demonic Possession: Kvodnon managed to exploit the sole vulnerability in the protection of the Dreadful Gates, and possess someone whom the Valkyrie guarding the Gates never expected, after which he mortally wounded the Valkyrie. There are four bodies he can possess, but one (all but explicitly stated to be Mefodiy) is currently unavailable to him). In penultimate chapter, it gets revealed that he picked Nata, for her mind control abilities, and now plans to possess Mefodiy, kicking his own eidos out.
• Disability-Negating Superpower: The Valkyrie powers Irka gains in the second chapter comes with the ability to walk.
• Early Instalment Weirdness:
  • Antigon's Hulking Out ability wouldn't be used or even referenced in subsequent novels, even where it would be perfectly expectable and highly useful.
  • Ligul mentions that Daphne has unclaimed Eidos; it would later be established that Light Guardians neither have nor need eidoses: they have direct link to the Light.
• Embarrassing Last Name: One of the first things Petruccho Chimodanov tells to Daphne is that his surname is not related to the word "chemodan" ("bag"); he almost immediately states that the guy who bullied him about it had accidentally bitten off a half of his tongue in his sleep, "coincidentally" right after Petruccho wished for exactly that.
• Empathic Shapeshifter: Remembering how succubi transformation magic works (just by talking in sufficiently lustful voice you may "trick" their magic to transform them into whatever you want and force them to do whatever you want, whether they like it or not), Daphne exploits it to interrogate Whimper, by transforming him into a worm and forcing to move on the road where he would inevitably be crushed (requiring replacement body, which isn't cheap).
• Establishing Character Moment: Petruccho, Nata and Moshkin shows some of their key traits in their first appearance. Petruccho shows weird speech manner, vindictive personality and interest to weird and creepy stuff. Nata is eccentric, somewhat narcissistic and has dark sense of humour. And Eugesha Moshkin shows right away his weirdness, pathological shyness and lack of social skills.
• "Eureka!" Moment:
  • Irka realises that if Kvodnon only plans to possess Mefodiy, it means that his current host is one of the three other kids.
  • In penultimate chapter, Arey realises who the Messenger was. As the ones put into holes were Petruccho first, Moshkin second, neither of them were the Messenger: none of them has leaved their hole after being put in, and both were put inside without violence, which leaves only one person who has both access to Drevnir's sword and mind control powers. He has no time to say Nata's name, however, as she (or, rather, Messenger in her body) attacks first.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Depresnyak feels the black magic in the cursed poppy flower, and reacts hostilely; Daphne misses this warning, and later pays for it dearly.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: Not even the Darkness is interested in actually resurrecting Kvodnon, since he's obsessed with destroying the Light to the point that he disregards that it would kill the mortals, and the Darkness would soon follow, deprived of eidoses.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Irka spies on Ligul and Tukhlomon just when they're discussing Ligul's plans to use poppy flower to corrupt Daphne's love to Mefodiy (and that this flower is somehow assisting Kvodnon). However, Ligul notices that he's been spying upon, and takes precautions, so Irka doesn't learn what Ligul wants to do next.
• Extreme Omnivore: In his introduction scene, Antigon eats Irka's wristwatch... and actually considers it to be "tasty", only complaining that he can't get more.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Essiorkh sensed some danger while Daphne was talking with Whimper, but neither he nor Daphne are sure what this danger is (it's certainly not Whimper himself). Is there some unseen enemy they don't know about? In the end of the same chapter, Daphne gets attacked by unseen enemy, and only survives by hiding in the (rather dirty) sandbox (she was saved by it being made from a pine, as magic "assumed" that it's a coffin). Fortunately for Daphne, attacker assumes that No One Could Survive That!, and doesn't check. Turns out that Essiorkh yet again foresaw the danger before it really happened.
• General Ripper: Kvodnon would not stop until the Light is utterly destroyed. He completely ignores the fact that this would destroy mortals as well (since they can't exist without the Light), and that without mortals, the Darkness would starve to death, since the Dark Guardians desperately need eidoses to empower themselves; he either went completely nuts after exposure to Chaos, or, which Arey finds more probable, never cared to begin with. That's one of the reasons why even the Darkness prefers him staying dead.
• Glamour Failure: Edya briefly sees through Whimper's disguise, noticing him being stitched up. Zozo ignores him, which later almost leads to tragedy.
• Golem: Petruccho's main power is the ability to animate artificial constructs he creates from whatever stuff available; Daphne actually meets some of them. Petruccho particularly values Zuduka, a crazy prankster whom he considers the smartest of them all (he even can play chess). None of them can talk, however.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Dron uses slightly modified (to fit age rating) cuss word as his Verbal Tic.
• Grand Theft Me: In penultimate chapter, the magic poppy flower turns into a snake, which allows Kvodnon to intercept control over Mefodiy's body. His ultimate plan involves taking that body over permanently.
• Hate at First Sight: Daphne and Nata don't come along right from the start, and starts passive-aggressive verbal fight.
• Hellgate: Besides Tartarus, there's one even worse place; behind the impenetrable Dreadful Gates is imprisoned the Primordial Chaos — absolutely destructive power, which, if released, would end the entire universe, be it Light, Darkness or mortal world; naturally, no one wants that. There're only two instances of these gates; one is rather well-guarded by mages of Tibidokhs, another is in Tartarus — right below the Dark residence in Moscow (which was one of the reasons why this exact place was chosen to begin with).
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Samtsov gets ordered to blindly take a card, with Diamonds giving power, Hearts giving love, Clubs giving long road, and Spades giving death. Samtsov almost grabs a card, but changes his mind in the last moment and grabs another, sees something he dislikes, and tries to cheat by putting it back and drawing another (Arey lets it slide), which he then repeats two more times before Arey's patience runs out. Arey then tells him that first card (which he didn't take) was a Queen of Hearts, allowing him to get away easily by becoming a con artist specialising in fake marriages. The other cards he grabbed? Valet of Clubs (which would've made him Scientology "missionary"), which he drew first, and Ace of Spades, which he drew last, thus dooming himself to die. Subverted in that, as Daphne points out, Arey has no power to hurt Tiberius until he sells out his eidos, so all he can do is to mess with him, which Arey doesn't deny.
• Hulking Out: Antigon, when annoyed by Irka a bit too much, heavily increases in size.
• Humanity Ensues: It gets confirmed that Daphne actually progressively loses her powers, becoming mortal. Amongst the first signs is her actually starting gaining height, which normally would take many years, considering Guardians' extremely slow ageing. This may become a problem very soon...
• Human Sacrifice: The Seer Stone tells the future, but it requires a human sacrifice in order to work; it would consume its victims by gradually sucking them inside (Arey doesn't describe the process in details, probably for the best); when Mefodiy hears about it, he immediately asks whether they plan to sacrifice Tukhlomon to it, which makes Arey laugh. Ironically, for the Stone's last revelation it must be destroyed by Arey, since information he seeks (three other kids with Kvodnon's powers, besides Mefodiy, and where to find them) can only be seen on the internal side of the Stone.
• Idiot Ball: Sure, Daphne, accept that "friendly gift" (a dark artifact) from the demon you just humiliated and nearly deprived of material body. What bad can happen? To little surprise, later it turns out to be a trap, prepared by Ligul as a part of multi-purpose scheme.
• Imaginary Love Triangle: Daphne started suspecting that there's a love triangle between her, Mefodiy and Nata (which the Darkness happily exploits). In reality, neither Mefodiy nor Nata feel anything for each other; Nata is just mildly surprised that her magic refuses to brainwash Mefodiy as it normally does, while he, due to low experience, gets partially affected by it, but manages to resist it, and later shows no signs of interest to her whatsoever.
• Internal Reveal: Ligul learns about Essiorkh, and, from description, deduces that he's a Keeper, likely Daphne's, and that Daphne is likely living at Mefodiy's.
• Involuntary Shapeshifting: Irka, who previously only bothered with swan transformation, but not the wolf, loses control over her wolf form while at Moshkin's house (something about which she was warned), resulting in her transforming into the wolf and running away. She regains her consciousness soon afterwards, when appearance of Mefodiy and Daphne shocks her, stunning the wolf and allowing Irka to intercept control. By the last chapter, she figures out that she must give her animal forms some attention regularly, or this situation may repeat.
• It Can Think: Arey believes that the Dreadful Gates have some sort of sentience on their own (they have to, or they wouldn't be as effective at their mission); that's why the ring from it mesmerised Depresnyak and forced him to bring it to the Dark residence, which is right above the second pair of Dreadful Gates (besides ones in Tibidokhs).
• It Is Dehumanising:
  • Nata's "friends" shows their antipathy to Mefodiy by consistently calling him "it".
  • When Arey's guest sees Mefodiy and hears that it's he who calls the shots here, he, with contempt, calls Mefodiy "it". Mefodiy comments on it being not the first time.
• It's All My Fault: Mefodiy laments what happened to Petruccho, Nata and Eugesha, as it was him and Daphne who gathered them here. Arey snaps him out of it, saying that there was no way to hide them from Kvodnon, not even by putting them all in Tartarus. Also, they're not dead yet, and wouldn't be, until Kvodnon gets Mefodiy himself, so they have a chance.
• Killed Off for Real: When Irka destroys the Messenger with her spear, Arey believes that this time, Kvodnon was put down for good.
• Leaking Can of Evil: Kvodnon managed to disrupt protective magic of the Dreadful Gates (exploiting a sole weakness in it) and send a small part of his spirit on Earth, where it possessed a mortal body.
• Limb-Sensation Fascination: The first thing Irka does after gaining new powers is to test her new legs, as being able to walk is new for her. The fact that she still remembers how to even use them surprises her. Later, Irka, still feeling excitement over ability to walk again, somewhat wishes that people would notice her and share this feeling.
• Loophole Abuse: The Guardians can see the future to a degree, and can see whether some item is "unlucky" — as is, it would cause harm to its owner in the near future; since they would cause harm, it's normal to steal them, even for the Light Guardians.
  • It's how Essiorkh provides a meal for Daphne: it was supposed to fall down, causing a woman to slip and break her leg, and while she would stay in the hospital, her fourteen years-old daughter would stop attending school, husband would accidentally drink vinegar and injure his stomach, and her dog would be run over by a truck.
  • That's how Essiorkh obtained his bike. It was supposed to be used to "steal" someone's wife, then stolen and used for ATM robbery, only to be then drown in a lake; Essiorkh is most concerned by the last one. However, ultimately it would change nothing, as the wife would still leave her husband, just on metro instead of a bike, while ATM would be robbed on a car.
• Love Is a Crime: Arey again reminds Mefodiy that if he continues loving Daphne, it would end badly for him.
  Arey: Remember, the Dark Guardians aren't allowed to love! Kill the love while it's still a little sprout. When it would grow into a mature tree with strong roots, tearing it out would be much harder.
• Love Is a Weakness: Kvodnon doesn't believe that Arey would kill Mefodiy, even to stop Kvodnon: his attachments made him too weak for it.
  Arey: Why do you think that I wouldn't kill him?
  Kvodnon: Why not? You were never able to step over people. That's why you never managed to achieve more, baron. A worm of sentimentality had always chewing at your heart... Even Ligul surpassed you... Go on! Kill the boy! Or you're attached to him?
• Love Potion: If the magic flower starts changing its colour into something besides red (the optimal colour, which means that you're loved), you can spring it with your blood, then put the flower on your partner's clothes to make them love you again. That turns out to be a lie, however, with the flower being used as a trap.
• Love Triangle: Irka learns about Daphne and Nata in her dream, and feels jealous towards Mefodiy; she dislikes Daphne more, as with Nata she's not even sure that she's real.
• Meaningful Name: Tiberiy Cezarovich Samtsov; every part of that name indicates his overblown ego, with surname, in particular, being based on the word "samets" ("male animal"), which is often used to call sexually active, dominant "real men" (either as compliment or as mockery); Ulitha actually comments on how weird it sounds.
• Metaphorically True: A magic used by the Kvodnon's Messenger to destroy any and all Light presence kills everything and everyone... except for those who hide in a pine coffin. Fortunately for Daphne, the magic was primitive enough to mistake a pine sandbox where she hid for "coffin", just because it has one plank (used as primitive bench) which, if one stretches far enough, theoretically can be interpreted as a coffin.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: The dying Valkyrie warns Irka about the danger of losing control why in the animal form: never let the beast's instincts overcome you. Later, when visiting Moshkin, Irka smells fresh meat in Eugesha's fridge, and feels strange urges to eat it raw. She quickly realises that it's hungry she-wolf taking over, just like the dying Valkyrie had warned. Then she outright transforms into she-wolf.
• Mugging the Monster: Downplayed; Petruccho thinks that he can disrespect Daphne, as she wouldn't be able to enforce her rule, and thus, he can blatantly ignore her attempts to teach him anything. She retaliates by demonstrating the silencing rune on him, but does no long-lasting damage to him.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: Daphne reveals to Tiberiy that Arey is bluffing, and can't actually kill him: Dark Guardians are unable to (directly) hurt mortals with intact eidos, unless they voluntarily pledge to either side. Arey confirms that it's indeed true.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Essiorkh manages to pinpoint Whimper and force him to answer three questions — which he can't ignore or lie to. He asks first two successfully, learning that he plans to destroy Daphne's and Mefodiy's love, because the Darkness considers this to be too dangerous for their cause, but before he learns how, Zozo (whom Whimper tried to seduce into giving up her eidos when Essiorkh busted him) loses her temper and recklessly asks whether he lied when promised to marry her. He gladly answers that yes, he lied, and gets sucked into Tartarus, leaving Essiorkh without last part of the puzzle. He actually calls her out on this.
  • Daphne falling for Whimper's lies and accepting his gift later leads to said gift revealing its true nature as dark artefact, neutralising Daphne and taking over Mefodiy's body, leading him down, to the basement where Kvodnon can possess him. Before losing consciousness, Daphne realises that it's all her fault.
• No Body Left Behind: When the Valkyrie actually dies, she disappears, leaving no corpse behind.
• No Name Given: The Valkyrie which makes Irka her successor never tells her name before dying.
• Noodle Incident: Antigon was cursed to serve the Valkyries for "being naughty", for ten thousand years (three already passed); he can't say the details, or it would increase to fifteen thousands. If Irka really insists, he may tell anyway, but she takes mercy at him and doesn't press, to Antigon's relief.
• No Ontological Inertia: Irka fails to cause any damage to the fire warrior, and only succeeds at creating a second copy of him, but when she instinctively targets the candle which spawned him, both copies disappears.
• Not Worth Killing: Ulitha survived solely because she managed to par the strike with her rapier, resulting in her being knocked out instead of killed, and Kvodnon (who was in control of Mefodiy's body at the time) didn't bother with checking, not seeing her as worthy of his attention..
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Ulitha realises that the situation is really dire when Essiorkh leaves without taking his bike.
• Predecessor Villain: Kvodnon is the Third Horseman of Darkness; before him, there were two other entities of equal evilness, but only one — Troyan (from Tanya Grotter series) is mentioned, and he's dead and gone by now.
• Pun-Based Title: Fifth chapter's name is based on the common way Petruccho's surname "Chimodanov" is mocked in-universe (it's itself a pun on the word "chemodan" — "bag").
• Rattling Off Legal: Whimper puts his marriage proposal to Zozo and request to sell out eidos into same sentence, with first part being loud and clear, and second part being quiet and mangled, then just asks her to say whether she accepts or not, not giving time to think.
• Refuge in Audacity:
  • Edya tries his usual approach, acting so familiar and audacious that he would get away with it (at most, he would be chewed out by the boss; not first, not last time); it doesn't work this time, as the client whom Edya annoys turns out to be a sister of someone important to Edya's boss, and he decides that it would be easier to fire Edya, with whom he's long fed up by now.
  • When Petruccho's mother calls Depresnyak "cutie" and invites him to "go to momma", it stupefies even him.
• Rule of Three: The rune of silver scales, also known as fish rune, gives its user the ability to breath underwater; it can only be used three times total: on the fourth use, it grows gills which can't be removed by any means.
• Saved for the Sequel: When the story about Edya's creepy babysitter gets brought up again, the footnote explicitly states that it would have a follow-up later.
• Saying Too Much: When Daphne wonders why she didn't see Whimper in the Dark residence — being succubus, he needs to regularly check out and prolong his registration — he tells that he's from "another department", only to shut up once he realises that it may hint Daphne to something she shouldn't know — a bit too late, as she already made a note about it, and even suspects that if he's not Arey's underling, then Ligul's.
• The Scottish Trope: Mefodiy, when he guesses who has escaped, accidentally calls Kvodnon by name. Just as in the previous novel, it causes some mayhem around him, and annoys Ulitha, who has told him to not say that name aloud.
• Second Episode Introduction: We finally receive some information on how succubi looks and works (through first succubus character); previously, they had bare minimum of attention.
• Serious Business: During the time between this and the previous book, Essiorkh, following his body's influence, had become a bike enthusiast. Amongst the other things, he now seriously deals with tuning his new bike to match his tastes, and reacts badly when Daphne makes a joke which questions his skills. He also reveals that the bike originally was supposed to be destroyed, but he "stole" it (there's a loophole which allowed him to do that), as he considers it to be a horrible atrocity.
• Ship Tease: Ulitha actually still can't stop thinking about Essiorkh; she tries to distract herself by drawing caricatures of him. She ultimately gives up.
• Shoot the Dog: When Mefodiy blocks Arey's strike, Arey says that by killing Nata, he would've prevented countless more deaths, but Mefodiy almost ruined everything.
  Arey: I tried to kill not her, but the one who took over her body. If Kvodnon would come to power, instead of a droplet of blood which wasn't spilled now, there would be an ocean.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • Daphne points out that Essiorkh was late to protect her (from whatever danger he sensed) because he was too busy working on his new bike, rather than acting like a Keeper. He has nothing to counter it.
  • When Irka sees an injured she-wolf on her kitchen, she doesn't bother with questions such as "why" or "how", concentrating on the fact that her guest needs help, now, or she may die. When she-wolf turns into a swan and then human, and starts talking with Irka about her mission, Irka, instinctively feeling that there's no time to lose, listens to her and only asks the questions which may provide her extra bits of information on the mission. The Valkyrie actually compliments that.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: Ligul thinks that Daphne, just by being here, gradually loses her good qualities, so if he plays his cards right, he may corrupt her to join their side for real.
• Soapbox Sadie: Played for Laughs with Petruccho's mother. She treats things like local road signs as matters so important that she must try to unite the whole humanity to fight for their "correction"; in fact, she treats any minor problem which annoys her like this. And if she starts talking about it, It's not possible to shut her up.
• Soul Fragment: Turns out that when Kvodnon died, his spirit was shattered into two pieces, explaining why he can't resurrect via usual means. One remained in Tartarus as a formless, mindless evil, which Darkness actually worships as "Faceless Kvodnon". The other part (which contains his mind) is trapped behind the Dreadful Gates with Primordial Chaos, from where it's supposedly impossible to escape. But the gates themselves were not perfect, and he managed to send a part of this part of his soul back on Earth as his messenger (which maintains enough mental capabilities to remain autonomous), to possess one of the inheritors of his powers and use them to transfer the rest of the consciousness into Mefodiy's body.
• Sue Donym: Whimper, when creating an alias, chooses surname "Plaksin" (after "plaksa" — someone who cries a lot).
• Taking Up the Mantle: One night, Irka gets visited by a dying Valkyrie, who, while whatever powers she has left still lasts, briefly introduces her to what's going on, and that she must now take her powers — and her duty — to save the world. As her dying gift, she also takes Irka's injury for herself, allowing Irka to walk once again.
• Tempting Fate: After learning that his bed has some dark history (it used to be a part of a deadly trap), Mefodiy wonders whether the chair has similar backstory. He immediately sees a vision how one guy tried to hang himself while using it; he changed mind at the last moment, but the chair broke its leg, so the guy did hang himself. Mefodiy feels so much hatred to the chair that it gets set ablaze.
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: Each of the three kids has preferred form of pronouncing their name, which immediately and permanently gets accepted as the norm. Pyotr Chimodanov insists on being called "Petruccho" (and specifically forbids using "Petrusik", as it's how his mother calls him), Natalia Vikhrova prefers being called "Natalie" or just "Nata" (everyone sticks to the latter), and Eugeniy Moshkin prefers to be called "Eugesha".
• Title Drop: Seventh chapter's name is a phrase which Mefodiy says regarding Tiberius Samtsov, in dismissing manner.
• Trapped in Villainy: Arey states that the only reason why he still serves the Darkness is because it's far too late to return to the Light; he has no loyalty to neither its cause, nor its leaders, be it Ligul or Kvodnon (whom Arey, amongst other things, blames for passing the rules which indirectly led to the deaths of his family).
• Troll:
  • When Petruccho finds it weird that "Dasha" insists on being called "Daphne", Mefodiy replies that he never heard anyone pronouncing word "chemodan" with "I".
  • The reason why Arey even bothers with Tiberiy Samtsov and pretends that there's an actual office? To mess with him. Ulitha and Mamzelkina plays along, and Mefodiy soon joins the game, too. However, later it turns out that Arey was secretly testing whether Kvodnon already has control over Mefodiy, or not; Mefodiy refusing to give up the residence convinces him that it's not the case.
  • When one of Samtsov's men shoots Arey, Arey dodges all three shots, while making mocking comments. First time, it's undershot. Second time, it's overshot. Then the bandit tries to shoot at point blank range, and Arey says that it's cheating. Then all bandits start shooting at once, and Arey just dodges them, while continuing mocking the bandits.
• True Sight: As a side effect of Edya's contact with Midnight Witch, he now sometimes manifests ability to see through magic disguise; it's how he notices that "Plaksin" has something weird with him (not knowing that the things he sees are the signs of succubus).
• Weakened by the Light: Antigon strongly dislikes sunlight, as it causes him pain. Irka feels regret over accidentally summoning him right at midday, when the sun is at its strongest.
• The Worf Effect: Moshkin managed to freeze Arey, thanks to effect of surprise. Arey is shocked that he was defeated that easily, by some child, no less.
• Wound That Will Not Heal: The Valkyrie says that this wound can't be healed, no matter what, and would kill her very soon. She indeed doesn't live till the end of the chapter that introduces her.
• Xanatos Gambit: Ligul subtly assists Kvodnon; not much, just enough to ensure that if Kvodnon wins after all, Ligul would be on his good side.
  Ligul: We should give the overlord a chance. Let them say that I assisted Kvodnon and it's unfair, but, if he returns to power, I want him to owe me. At least somewhat, at least for something. The key to victory is to bet on all favourites at once.
• You Can't Go Home Again: After becoming a Valkyrie, Irka can't return back to her previous life — people who know her from her past life wouldn't even recognise her (and if she tries to reveal herself deliberately, it would kill them). She creates the magic clone which would simulate her personality (and nothing more), so at least Babanya wouldn't worry.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: Despite all efforts, Kvodnon succeeds in putting three kids into holes in the basement; he only (barely) gets stopped from possessing Mefodiy himself, as Essiorkh and Irka arrives as backup.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Kvodnon still has power over souls which were once put into his darkh, and they assist him as the dark chorus which brainwashes people put into holes in the Dark residence's basement, as well as keeping them alive, but in stasis.

The Ticket to the Bald Mountain

• Chapter One. The Three-Thumbelina Fairy
• Chapter Two. The Spirit-Pygmy
• Chapter Three. "The Boy with a Saber"
• Chapter Four. Harpiy Zduffs
• Chapter Five. A Throne for Ex-Waiter
• Chapter Six. The Clay Dog
• Chapter Seven. Not Very Not Bald Not Mountain
• Chapter Eight. When Heart Doesn't Beat, the Wizards Laughs
• Chapter Nine. A Hare Who Didn't Care about Wolves
• Chapter Ten. A Black-with-White-Speckles Mage
• Chapter Eleven. Second-Hand Happiness
• Chapter Twelve. Dalila Petrovna and Gerostrat Andreyich
• Chapter Thirteen. "Midget Bygup"
• Chapter Fourteen. A Little Friendly Blackmail

Chapter One. The Three-Thumbelina Fairy

Zozo is out on vacation, leaving Edya alone at home (hungry and without any money to buy food). Suddenly, he gets visited by a thug named Felix, who's here to beat some old "debts" out of Edya: allegedly, he and his friend were stealing money while working there, and said "friend" continued doing so even after Edya quit, and later ratted him out when caught. As it's painfully obvious that Edya is broke, Felix gives him three days to gather $3000 by any means, or he would return and beat him to the pulp.

Edya finds weird poster promising reward for brining in "Three-Thumbelina fairy", and obviously thinks that it's fake, but then he nearly sits on said fairy. Still unsure whether it's not a hallucination (Felix hit his head more than once), he recognises her as the one from wanted poster. He quickly decides that having living fairy is much better than whatever monetary reward they can offer, especially if the currency sounds so ridiculous. Three-Thumbelina, when asked, reveals that the reason for the hunt (real reason, not excuse about illegal future-telling) is her helping with stealing an important artifact. After clarifying about her problems, Three-Thumbelina (who plans to lay low at Edya's) warns him that she has one issue: she shares the body with her twin sister, Two-Thumbelina, who takes over from time to time. She's not the nicest person to be around, and can be quite dangerous, due to specialising in dark magic; the two are constantly at odds, and tries to hurt each other through abusing their shared body.

In a middle of a rant, Three-Thumbelina suddenly gets switched with her sister, who doesn't even try to hide that she's a jerk. Edya tries to convince her to create money for him, but she refuses, saying that there's a magic law which prevents her from doing so. No, creating gems and then selling them would not sidestep the law. And she can't create some cool invention, as she's not an engineer. But Edya comes with another plan: there's a pseudo-mystic show "Prophet" which specialises in future predictions; they can try to pay up Edya's debts from their prize money. After rejecting countless ridiculous (and too distant) prophecies, Edya takes the one about stealing a painting. However, when he finds the host, Andrey Morjuev, he reacts coldly and then outright kicks Edya out for trespassing, disregarding his prophecy.

---

• Behind Every Great Man: Ivan the Fool, the famous fairytale hero, was just as dumb as the name suggests, so Vasilisa had to bribe all the enemies whom he supposedly defeated to spread the rumours about his "feats" to make him look like a hero, so Vasilisa can get into power through him. He still nearly botched the plan, as when Vasilisa's uncle Bessmertnik Coscheev "abducted" her, instead of expected six months, Ivan spent seven years looking for her. He remained just as dumb until the end of his days, with Vasilisa spending much efforts to make him look like he's actual ruler.
• Establishing Character Moment: Our introduction to the fairy sisters shows us everything we should know about them; both are jerks (of different flavours), both are very eccentric, and neither respects Edya.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Edya sees a newspaper, notices the add about "Prophet" (pseudo-mystical Show Within a Show), and comes up with an idea: he may asks Two-Thumbelina to give him some prophecy (something short-terms, so it can be verified), and sell it to the show for prize money.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Edya finds some weird poster (clearly from magic world) which promises reward for bringing in "the Three-Thumbelina fairy". Edya wonders who had made it, Daphne or Mefodiy, and then nearly sits on said fairy.
• Forced Transformation: The mole from Thumbelina fairytale wasn't born a mole; he was a gnome banker until he was cursed.
• Foreshadowing: Three-Thumbelina is afraid that mages may try to send the Clay Dog after her; if they do so, it's over: it can track you down anywhere, and when it's close, you can't even teleport.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Edya's employment in the sports club has ended after he, as a joke, made fake price list where "The Beach Queen" was replaced with "Cellulites Queen". Somehow, it went unnoticed right until that exact version was sent to prepare radio advertisement.
• I Owe You My Life: Once ago, Three-Thumbelina was saved by some mage, and gave an oath that, if he ever calls, she would come to aid him in return. Now, she received that same ring which once belonged that that mage (she doesn't know who brought it), and realised that the time has come.
• Jerkass: While looking for Morjuev, Edya at first runs into some high-ranking official, who doesn't even try to hide his disdain for common people.
  Official (without even looking at Edya): Who are you?
  Edya: Just a man.
  Official: So, you're nobody. Second question: do you know the cost of my time? (Edya shakes his head) So I would answer then. I scratch my nose — and that's your monthly salary.
  Edya: I'm unemployed. You did this for free.
  Official: Who'd sent you?
  Edya: I came by myself. By foot.
  Official: This answer is borderline nonsensical. I asked who'd sent you.
  Edya: Em... One floor above, in the "Prophet" rooms.
  Official: Surname?
  Edya: Whose? Mine? Havron.
  Official: I don't care about yours. The one's who'd sent you!
• Never Heard That One Before: Nope, Three-Thumbelina and her sister are not related to that Thumbelina; she reacts badly when Edya asks that, and goes on a lengthy rant about what she thinks about Thumbelina and why she sucks.
• Obvious Rule Patch: At some point, all mages and magic creatures were banned from creating money (or anything intended to be used as currency), as well as using magic to gain money by cheating, including, but not limiting, hacking ATMs; violations are the grounds for losing magic. Giving those money to lopukhoids is even worse offence. It was installed at some point after Medieval Age, because otherwise any loon would be able to ruin lopukhoid economic, irreversibly destroying their civilisation (it's already unstable). Whoever breaks the law, gets punished immediately, so Two-Thumbelina is unwilling to take any risks.
• Put on a Bus: Zozo went on vacation for one week, leaving her brother Edya by alone.
• Super-Persistent Predator: Three-Thumbelina is afraid that mages who're after her would send the Clay Dog; it can sense you anywhere, no matter how hard you try to hard, and once it's close, you can't even teleport.
• Unfazed Everyman: While unsure at first whether it's for real, or it's result of Felix hitting his head before, Edya quickly decides that the fairy is real, and starts talking with her as if it's completely ordinary situation and he actually understands what she's saying.
• The Watson: As Edya doesn't know what's going on, Three-Thumbelina has to explain to him, and by proxy, the readers, giving us the setup for one of the main plots.
• Written by the Winners: According to Three-Thumbelina, some fairytales are written by their participants to make themselves look good.
  • Thumbelina's story was written to hide her blatantly flirting with the mole, only to dump him for the elven king (such rushed marriages never ends well!).
  • Prince Ivan the Fool had his adventures described by his wife Vasilisa, who did a great job at masking how dumb and useless he truly was, so she may remain in power.

Chapter Two. The Spirit-Pygmy

Ulitha and Arey have leaved to Tartarus for some unspecified reason, while the rest stayed in the Dark residence by themselves, spending time in small conflicts and attempts to learn more about each other. They gets interrupted by Ulitha returning alone, completely devastated.

Turns out, Ligul exploited Kvodnon's final death to appoint himself as Mefodiy's regent until Mefodiy hits eighteen, and, as his first order, arrested Arey for failing to corrupt Mefodiy fast enough; Arey resisted arrest, but was too outnumbered and is now imprisoned in the Lower Tartarus. In place of Arey, he'd sent someone else, and that new "mentor" is already here...

---

• Badass in Distress: Arey was arrested on Ligul's orders, and is now imprisoned in Tartarus. During the arrest attempt, quoting Viy, "some vacations have been freed".
• Black Comedy: Viy makes the grim joke about his reporter losing his head while on duty, in more way than one.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Even now, Ligul isn't gonna risk getting rid off Arey, suspecting that he may regret it in the future; for the same reason, he didn't kill Ulitha while she was at his mercy: harming her means permanently alienating Arey.
• Chaotic Stupid: Petruccho says that Zuduka is tend to do pranks (often of dangerous kind) just out of boredom, completely disregarding collateral damage.
• Deadline News: The reporter who tried to spy on Dark Guardians meeting was caught and killed before he learned too much.
• Deadly Prank: Zuduka put dynamite into one of Moshkin's shoes. Fortunately, it gets discovered before Eugesha puts it on. As gets explained by Petruccho, it was his "vengeance" for being ignored.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: When Petruccho applies his theory (the more complex the creatures are, the longer it would take them to fall in love) to humans, she uses Nata as example, as payback for her trollling him earlier. When he says that smarter ones only starts giving up to feelings at around thirty years, while dumber ones can do this even at the age of thirteen, she turns the tables and suggests to wait till he hits seventy (or he may have no time to study!), and then walk around with his mommy, fixing street lights.
• Is This Thing On?: Viy misses the moment when he goes live, resulting in his offscreen antics getting caught on camera.
• Killed Off for Real: It gets officially acknowledged that Kvodnon is gone and isn't gonna return.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Ulitha is normally always cheerful partygoer. When she returns alone, without Arey, and completely devastated, and then outright breaks into tears, everyone understands that something really bad has happened. And indeed, turns out that Ligul has ordered Arey's imprisonment.
• Playing with Fire: Arey presumes that, if given time, Moshkin can learn how to use fire as well.
• Sore Loser: Played With. Viy yet again can't just accept that Gryziana Pripyatskaya had won an award, and tries to take a refuge at least in pointing that her prize sucks; but he can't help but admit that a rising star, Grobynya Sklepova, is genuinely good, even if she used to make jokes at his expense.
• There Is No Place Like Home: Inverted with Nata; she's the only one who doesn't miss her family and prefers staying in the Dark residence. Her new step-father talks like blatant drill instructor, and tries to order her around and regulate which clothes and hairstyle she's allowed to have, while her sister Inga's husband is "a moron", who constantly takes her tapes without asking and overwrites them, and set a password on their computer; entire family has to live in just two rooms. She already was tend to spend all her free time outside of the house, so not much has changed. She talks about those two in such a tone, like they're not the humans, but some kind of disgusting roaches.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Petruccho asks Nata why she didn't use her powers to brainwash her step-father and her sister's husband to make them more tolerable. She replies that this would make them only more annoying, due to the way her magic works (remember, they only have two rooms for them five); also, the two hates each other's guts (one is military, another is a draft dodger), so it would only increase their mutual hostility, with her being caught in the crossfire.
• Wisdom from the Gutter: Petruccho makes surprisingly meaningful (for someone like him) theory that the smarter and more complex the creature is, the longer it takes for them to fall in love; he takes hamsters and elephants as example: hamster becomes a father at three months, and grandfather at six, while elephant wouldn't bother to create a family until it hits fifty. Same with humans; some are so primitive that their development stops at thirteen and they have nothing left but fall in love, others chose to study and develop themselves and only starts thinking about relationship when they hits thirty.

Chapter Three. "The Boy with a Saber"

Essiorkh finds Irka, and tells her the last news: Arey is imprisoned, and replaced with a new guardian (unbelievably nasty); as for Essiorkh himself, he can't contact Daphne anymore, at least until the situation resolves, to not compromise her, but at least he now rents a room in Moscow; well, "rents", but it's besides the point.

When Essiorkh brings Irka to his house, he shows her a portrait of eight years-old boy with dark curly hairs, and reveals that he'd stole it. Why? Because he can't allow it to end up in the hands of dark mages or Dark Guardians. He tells Irka the story of Matvey Bagrov, an apprentice of the wizard Mirowood. Not only Matvey was very unordinary young man himself, but he was clearly chosen as the next keeper of the powerful artifact, the Path Stone, after Mirowood's death; the Stone can give whomever owns it the power to go to their goal, no matter how hard the path may be, and everyone, from the mages to Guardians, are hunting for it.

They've failed to gain the Stone back when Mirowood had died many years ago, as Matvey had vanished and presumably died, but now, it seems that he may be alive after all, and that painting is the only tread which, with the proper magic, may lead to him — and the mages knows it. Even more so, the resonant stealing from the Bald Mountain's vault? It was of Mirowood's ring, which is certainly related to this whole story. They must find Matvey first, but now, they must prepare to fight: the dark mages have traced Essiorkh, and are here...

---

• The Alcoholic: Essiorkh lives in a house of some alcoholic named Fatyaytsev, who just can't be entrusted with any money, as he would immediately buy booze; Essiorkh put a spell on him, so now he gains the same joy which the alcohol would give him by... crying. Now, he's crying non-stop, but in a time, his organism would recover, allowing to safely remove the spell; until then, Essiorkh would stay nearby, while also having a place to live. Win-win.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: When Irka asks Essiorkh why he'd stole the painting and destroyed all copies of it, he says that there're two variants: either to sell it and buy a cool new bike, or to make sure that it wouldn't end up in the hands of the Darkness. Obviously, Irka picks the second one.
• Bait-and-Switch: At first, it seems that Fatyaytsev somehow recognised Irka, and is now in danger, especially when she carelessly asks whether she was on a carriage (meaning wheelchair), but then turns out that he mistook her with someone else, and her comment for her talking about baby carriage.
• Casanova Wannabe: The guy named Roma tries to hit on Irka; but his flirting and rhetoric skills have a lot to desire for, especially given that Irka is way more erudite than him. Then he outright snaps and calls her "nerd" for her sophisticated snarky comments. She finally gets rid of him by passing Essiorkh (who was just going towards her) for her big brother; Roma decides not to risk messing with him.
• Creepy Changing Painting: The painting somehow starts changing before Essiorkh's magic even does anything, and reacts to what's going on in the room; only Irka notices it.
• Determinator: The Path Stone can give its owner a strength of will to walk the path to their goal, no matter how long or hard it may be. That's why it's so valuable.
  Essiorkh: To not stray from the path to your dream, that's why you need the Path Stone. The one who owns it, knows no doubts. At day and at night, they're always full of energy and cheerful willingness to go to the end. They know no sorrow, never turn away — and always achieve their goal, no matter how hard it may be!
• Fantastic Drug: Antigon became addicted to jam, which affects him just like alcohol would affect humans, especially if it's expired. He's willing to break into stores to steal some, and then he may disappear for some time while on jam binge.
• Lecture as Exposition: Essiorkh gives Irka a lecture about Matvey Bagrov, telling his story and the story of the Path Stone; the story is long enough to take 3/4 of the chapter.
• Love Triangle: Irka is still jealous of Mefodiy towards Daphne.
• New Job as the Plot Demands: Fatyaytsev is a former clown, former juggler, former administrator, former balloon seller, current speech writer (not for government, "those have their own clowns"; his clients are common people). According to Essiorkh, he's also partially a poet (not former, as that quality stays with you forever), and just good man in general.
• Sad Clown: Irka notices that for all his cheerfulness, Fatyaytsev has very sad eyes. Essiorkh attributes it to him being a former clown: clowns are always like this.
  Irka: Your friend is a very sad man.
  Essiorkh: Who? Him?
  Irka: Even when he's joking, he has very sad eyes.
  Eissiorkh: Perhaps, it's because he's a former clown. All clowns have sad eyes. They give fun to the others, but there's no fun in their own lives.
• Skewed Priorities: Essiorkh comments that the mortal world is way too attractive, and one can't help but think that his bike needs some upgrades. When Irka says that "this is terrible", he says that yes... and starts going into details how hard it's to obtain those upgrades by his standard means, through stealing "unlucky" parts.
• 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.

Chapter Four. Harpiy Zduffs

Arey's replacement as the chief of Russian department and Mefodiy's guardian turns out to be Ligul's agent named Harpiy Zduffs — incredibly nasty revenant who immediately alienates everyone, and nearly kills Depresnyak. It doesn't take long before everyone unites against him, and manages to knock him out (mostly due to sheer luck).

Right after he gets dealt with, Aida Plakhovna pays a visit — she's here to help them. There's only one place where they can hide for a time being — the Bald Mountain. Coincidentally, it's also the place which contains Ligul's secret, the one he wishes to stay buried; if they find it, they can use it to bargain for Arey's freedom.

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• 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: Mamzelkina reveals that Ligul appointed Harpiy, knowing that he would alienate everyone to the point of open hostility, and then kill everyone but Mefodiy himself — so Ligul would call him off and replace with someone completely incompetent, so Mefodiy would never reach his full potential, allowing Ligul to rule unchallenged. He didn't expect that conflict would happen that soon.
• Dark Secret: While she obviously doesn't know what it is, Mamzelkina presumes that Ligul has some very embarrassing secret involving the Bald Mountain: it's known that he'd spent his youth there, and he really wants to bury that part of his history — so naturally, it must be uncovered and used against him.
• Divide and Conquer: Zduffs orders everyone to break into pairs, and start spying on each other, then snitch to him. At first, Mefodiy thinks that it isn't gonna work (everyone hates this guy's guts), but then understands that Harpiy is cunning enough to work around. At first, people would be cold and unwilling to talk, but he would know what to say and ask to gain information, whatever small, and then give it to the other ones, with some additions and modifications, so they would think that they were betrayed, and would be more willing to talk themselves. Given enough time, he would make everyone hostile to everyone, especially if he would swap the pairs (and he would).
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: It was very dumb idea from Ulitha's side to mock Ligul in front of his representative, who has authority over them all; luckily for her, Harpiy "just" orders her to stay inside 24/7, this time, but he makes it very clear that can can outright kill her if he wishes so.
• Epic Fail: Daphne tries to extinguish the fire in the office; instead, she makes it spread around, even on the parts which were out of danger until now.
• Establishing Character Moment: As soon as Harpiy appears, he starts antagonising everyone, and then nearly kills Depresnyak. When Mefodiy tries to defend already injured Depresnyak (who barely survived the first strike of Harpiy's magic), Harpiy stops his heart with his dark magic, and only releases him at the last moment, pointing out that he has permission to do things like this at his leisure. Afterwards, he proceeds to force Ulitha (a fun-loving partygoer) to stay within the residence permanently, not forgetting to point out that she is of no value for him and he can kill her just out of boredom and got away scot-free.
• Evil Is Petty: Harpiy destroyed all Arey's mead; Ulitha only saved one keg. There's absolutely nothing to gain from it, and he had to go out of his way to do it, so it's clearly done to humiliate Arey and his friends even further.
• Kick the Dog: Harpiy Zduffs, repeatedly, just to nail that he's an absolute asshole:
  • He nearly kills Depresnyak, and when Mefodiy tries to protect him, temporarily stops his heart and enjoys the pain it causes.
  • He orders Ulitha (a fun-loving partygoer) to stay in the residence permanently, not forgetting to point that he can kill her at his leisure.
    Harpiy Zduffs: That's it, scum! Your best time is over! No more night visits to the city, no rides, no personal meetings, no romantics! You would stay in the residence permanently, under my personal supervision! From now on, your world consists of these four walls! With a patent of the chief or this department, I got a full power over your life and death!
  • He describes in "lovely" details the conditions in which Arey is kept, just to further damage moral.
  Harpiy Zduffs: By the way, about your beloved Arey... Do you want to hear details? The Lower Tartarus is a nasty place. During the day, it's hot like a sun, during the night — so cold, a lopukhoid if they end up there would have their eyes freeze over. Near the prison lies a lava river, it's rather lovely, but unfortunately, Arey wouldn't be able to enjoy the view. His cell has no windows, and the cell itself is only three steps-wide and four steps-long... It's very tight. The walls are so thick, one can't hear a single sound from outside. No contacts, not even with guards. No a scrap of paper, no book! Utter, drying loneliness!
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Petruccho says that he's fed up with Harpiy, and wouldn't tolerate him, just before everyone gathers to confront him.
  Petruccho: I insist! I'm not some Chemodanov at whom you can yell! I'm that Chimodanov who yells himself! Very soon that guardian would understand that he was born in the unlucky day, wrong hour and unwanted minute!
• No-Sell: Nata tries, and fails, to use her magic on Harpiy. As Daphne explains, due to being a revenant, he's unable to love in any way, shape or form.
• Pet the Dog: Aida Plakhovna, who was technically sent to kill Ulitha, not only doesn't do this, but also tells the friends what they can do to save Arey, and helps them escape.
• Tranquil Fury: When Zduffs releases Mefodiy, Mefodiy uses what little strength he manages to recover to say that, when he would become the Lord of Darkness, he would destroy him. Zduffs doesn't take it seriously, saying that if he becomes, he would be grateful to him.

Chapter Five. A Throne for Ex-Waiter

Felix and his friends decided to push the deadline for Edya's debt, so now he has only two days to either find money, or deal with Felix. Unfortunately, his plan to use the fairy's help is now out of question: her magic gets blocked, so she can't even defend Edya. Due to previous conflict, Edya decides to punish her by forcing to do housework, and threatens to just tell about her to his friend from yellow press (which would alert the mages).

Suddenly, Morjuev pays Edya a visit. As Edya's prophecy turned out to be correct, he's now interested to hear the new ones, to prove that it wasn't a coincidence. Then they sees the fairy. Three-Thumbelina panics when she learns that the lopukhoids are already aware of the painting stealing, as the mages would soon know, too, and connect it with her previous actions. Morjuev decides to blackmail Edya, saying that unless he brings the fairy to his studio, so he may milk the situation for all its worth, he would put the blame for stealing on Edya himself.

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• Ambiguously Gay: The man who shows up with Morjuev (the same one whom Edya previously saw while trying to sell the prophecy about painting stealing), besides somewhat effeminate look, also displays the speech quirks stereotypically associated with camp gays, and introduces himself as "Maxik" (diminutive from Maxim), which also plays into image. Later, Edya makes the joke which implies that he also assumed him to be gay (and Maxik's reaction seemingly confirms it).
• Blackmail: Morjuev blackmails Edya by saying that he would put the blame for stealing on him (it wouldn't be hard), unless he convinces the fairy to pay Morjuev a visit.
• Blatant Lies: Three-Thumbelina "accidentally" hit her sister's magic toy hare from a crossbow... seven times.
• Brought Down to Normal: The fairy's magic gets blocked by the mages from Bald Mountain, as part of their hunt for her. Them doing so shows how much they want to capture her: it requires twelve mages doing complex ritual which takes twelve hours and requires redoing everything from scratch if even smallest mistake gets made.
• Forced Transformation:
  • Three-Thumbelina warns Edya that serving her sister may result in him being transformed into something creative — like chewed apple, or postman's heel.
  • Both sisters were prone to transform each other's servants into various stuff — irreversibly.
    • Two-Thumbelina has turned two of her sister's servants into worms, one into sponge, and one (the prettiest of them) into toilet-cleaning gear; Three-Thumbelina thinks that if someone had became the toilet-cleaning gear, it's better to keep them that way.
    • For the sake of "justice", Three-Thumbelina retaliated to her own servants being transformed by transforming all her sister's servants into mice and sending them into lab for experiments.
• Hope Spot: Morjuev isn't the one who pays the people; his investors are. Because of that, Edya would not receive any money, even though his prophecy turned out to be right. They may start paying him if he continues giving them new prophecies, but it wouldn't matter, as Edya has almost no time left until Felix returns.
• Oh, Crap!: Three-Thumbelina panics when she realises that the painting stealing was reported on lopukhoid TV; the mages monitors lopukhoid media precisely for stuff like this, and they would connect it with her stealing important artifact.
• Recurring Dreams: According to Three-Thumbelina, she sees the same dream every morning for 402 years, without any breaks; she likes it very much.
• Saying Too Much: Three-Thumbelina goes furious when she hears that abduction of "The Boy with a Sabre" painting became widespread knowledge in the lopukhoid world, blaming Edya for it, because mages monitors lopukhoid media and would soon find out. When he says that it was her sister who's told him, she goes even angrier... and accidentally mentions Mirowood, before shutting up, realising what she just said.

Chapter Six. The Clay Dog

Essiorkh stays to distract the dark mages, allowing Irka to escape with painting; to confuse the Clay Dog, he takes the frame, while Irka keeps the painting itself. She meets with Antigon, who leads her to the new hideout he'd prepared in the forest — he calls it "the Valkyrie Refuge". He also tells about some dark-haired young man spying on them.

It doesn't take long for the mages to track them down (though without the Dog). The magficcer in charge says that they'ved captured Essiorkh, and demands the painting. When Irka refuses, he orders to attack. The battle doesn't go well for attackers, however, and they're forced to retreat. Irka and Antigon continues to the Valkyrie Refuge... only to meet Matvey Bagrov there.

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• Comes Great Responsibility: Irka writes down the rules of the Valkyries she had heard from Essiorkh and Antigon; rule number one is to never use the power for selfish reasons.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: As Antigon stubbornly insists on being punished for his jam binge, Irka orders him to wash himself in the washing machine, so he would leave her alone. For creatures like him, it's actually fun.
• Deadly Dodging: The magficcer throws the battle gnome at Irka (armed with knives); she steps aside, and the gnome hits the nearby tree instead, which puts him out of combat for some time.
• 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.
• Eldritch Abomination: We receive a description of the Clay Dog; it's rather alien and monstrous.
  Flat muzzle, hilly nape and back, covered with folds and growths. [...] The beast was making the cough-like sound with every step, spewing clay pieces on the ground. Its broad noise was vibrating, sucking in air. [...] The single eye of the monster, unmoving, unblinking, was hold on the long eyestalk on the forehead. For Irka, it was resembling a gem. It was clearly not from clay.
• Foreshadowing: Antigon notices that someone is spying on Irka; he doesn't know who is it, only that it's a young man with black hair. Irka doesn't notice it, but description matches Matvey. In the end of the chapter, he actually tracks Irka down and formally introduces himself.
• The Load: Essiorkh refuses to involve Antigon, saying that he would be killed very quickly and without contributing anything. Besides, he's very annoying, and would likely accidentally hit Essiorkh's feet with his huge mace.
• Non-Indicative Name: Lampshaded by Irka; Losiny Ostrov (literally "moose island") is not an island, and has no moose at all.
• Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Irka writes down the rules of the Valkyries she had heard from Essiorkh and Antigon; rule number three is to keep her bird and wolf forms under control, otherwise, one day she may just get stuck in the animal form.
• Speech Impediment: The magficcer talks with heavy stutter. In the end, Irka, annoyed by his attempts to kill her (and acting like a jerk in general), mocks it when he (stuttering) says that they would meet again.
• Super-Persistent Predator: The moment Irka sees the Clay Dog, she understands: it would never stop until it catches its prey.
  Suddenly, Irka saw a creature that had no teeth, no claws and no wings tried to slip into the breach. The creature that can't grab, can't tear, can't smash. That had no desires, no habits, no weaknesses. That never howls on the moon, and doesn't accept bribes. That can only tracking and seeking, but doing it relentlessly, unendingly, with unimaginable persistence.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: The gnome and Antigon fights for the gnome's pipe which creates the magic bubbles; their infighting results in the pipe breaking, releasing massive bubble which gathers all four elements and exploding. Everyone barely runs out of the blast zone, and the attackers decides that it's time to retreat.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Irka was replaced with a magic phantom, which keeps Babanya (and Irka's teachers) in the dark about Irka no longer being at home, but Irka still worries how things are going for her; unfortunately, she can't just talk with her, as the magic would kill Babanya to uphold the masquerade.

Chapter Seven. Not Very Not Bald Not Mountain

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• Berserk Button: Daphne instantly understands that the warning about "angry dog" is fake, because if there was any dog (angry or not), Depresnyak would've tried to attack it, like he always does; but he's calm like "well-fed ghoul".
• Big "WHAT?!": When Ulitha says that they gotta move, or may miss the "last worm", Nata gets so shocked she almost screams when she asks what the hell she means.
• Extreme Omnivore: Exploited; while Ulitha reluctantly prepares to use magic to open a vent shaft, knowing that they would have little time before they would be tracked down, Daphne just asks Depresnyak to break the lock. He at first ignores her, but then does what asked after all, and bites it off.
• Power Perversion Potential: When Daphne uses special magic which allows her to see through things and people, and see the true nature of them, Nata interprets Dapne being careful with not watching on people as her not wanting to see people naked. Daphne assures her that this isn't interesting to her; she's afraid to learn the secrets she doesn't want to know.
• Sand Worm:
• Taking the Heat: When Daphne almost snaps at Nata, Moshkin distracts Nata's attention to himself by making a silly comment, which defuses the situation before it explodes. Daphne believes that Moshkin did this on purpose, and feels gratitude towards him, as she almost failed to contain her anger.
• Tranquil Fury: Nata yet again attacks Daphne for no apparent reason. Daphne tries to ignore her and hold up her anger, but fails. When she makes a cold comeback at her, she remembers how, back in Eden, when she got similarly angry at one of Sniffer's lessons, she ordered Daphne to leave, as "volcano eruptions belongs in a corridor".

Chapter Twelve. Dalila Petrovna and Gerostrat Andreyich

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• Antagonist Title: The chapter is named after Arc Villains.
• Arc Villain: Dalila Petrovna and Gerostrat Andreyich are the duo of scammers who tricks their "clients" into buying goods from them, as otherwise it's impossible to leave (the door wouldn't show up).
• Brain Food:
• Faux Affably Evil:
• I'm a Humanitarian:
• Morton's Fork:
• Schmuck Bait:

Chapter Thirteen. "Midget Bygup"

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• Chekhov's Gun: Ligul's living portrait allows cyclops brothers to remember Ligul and reveal Ulitha the "midget Bygup" story, which she can use to blackmail Ligul into compliance.
• Dark Secret: Many years ago, someone has told Ligul that he may use cyclops' earwax as an ointment to grow bigger; unsurprisingly, it didn't work. He certainly wouldn't like if that story leaks out.

Chapter Fourteen. A Little Friendly Blackmail

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• Blackmail: Ulitha blackmails Ligul into releasing Arey, threatening to reveal his "midget Bygup" little secret if he doesn't comply. And no, killing her or destroying the Bald Mountain outright wouldn't help, she took care of it.
• Chekhov's Gun: Ligul's living portrait turns out to be a key witness, convincing Ligul that yes, Ulitha isn't bluffing.
• 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.
• 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's name as everyone's laughing stock.

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