Dungeon Keeper Ami

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Dungeon Keeper Ami is a fanfiction written by Pusakuronu. It begins with Ami Mizuno being transported to the world of Dungeon Keeper, and forced to become a Keeper herself. Originally created on the "Choose Your Own Adventure"-style site The Anime Addventure, it has, as of June 2016 and the apparent death of the Addventure, moved to the Sufficient Velocity board.

Tropes used in Dungeon Keeper Ami include:
  • Accidental Pervert: Despite being, well, herself, Ami somehow manages to end up with a reputation for perversion, depravity, and raping REAPERS.
  • Alliteration: Zarekos is VERY fond of this.
  • Advancing Boss of Doom / The Juggernaut: Ami faces two on Avatar Isle; first Keeper Alphel, and not much later The Avatar. The former cuts her off from any resources she could use to harm it, while the latter is just that good.
  • A God Am I: Zarekos.
  • All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Alphel goes on a joyride in a dragon, during the Avatar Islands Arc.
  • Anything That Moves / Extreme Omnisexual / But You Screw One Goat!: Averted. But Ami has a hard time convincing anybody. The rumor mill insists Ami has these tenancies.
  • Back from the Dead:
    • Zarekos comes back as a Ghost. Considering the guy was a Dungeon Keeper, and the souls of Dungeon Keepers go to the Realms of the Dark Gods when they are killed or their Dungeon Hearts are destroyed, him coming back after having been physically killed is an Oh Crap moment. Of course, he was in the process of making himself a god prior to his physical death.
    • After Mercury thwarts Crowned Death's attempt to physically incarnate one of its Lesser Aspects, it prevents her from reclaiming the Mantle by sacrificing it to resurrect Keeper Mukrezar, the man who originally defeated the Avatar.
  • Badass: Baron Leopold. Marda AKA Amadeus, the Avatar, as well, despite having shades of Smug Snake.
  • Bad Boss: Keepers in general, as well as Queen Beryl. Mercury sometimes needs to remind her minions she averts this trope.
  • Bad Powers, Bad People: Mercury is trying to avert this, but Keeper powers are tailor-made for a villain, particularly the corrupted landscape.
  • Big Bad: Amusingly enough, Empress Mercury herself, at least in the eyes of the major powers in the Dungeon Keeper setting.
  • Big Bad Wannabe: Keeper Wemos.
  • Big Fancy House: The Shining Concord Empire, as part of their conditions for opening diplomatic channels with Empress Mercury, insist that she build them an embassy according to specific blueprints they provided (Of a scale model of their Emperor's palace) - at her own expense.
  • Black and White Morality: The Dungeon Keeper world works by this trope.
  • Blood Knight: The default state of Horned Reapers.
  • Body Snatcher: Keepers in general do this with their minions via possession spells.
  • Bounty Hunter: The Silver Hawks.
    • Though they have decided to stop hunting Ami and Co until a legal ruling can be made on whether or not it is acceptable to take contracts on an Empress, Keeper or not, who holds her throne by a literal divine mandate.
    • And are now back in action hunting Mukrezar, who has managed to acquire a two million gold piece bounty on his head before he's been Back from the Dead for a single day.
  • But for Me It Was Tuesday: The Devourer's high priest is attacked by slave women whose children he had sacrificed. Upon learning this fact, he still can't identify any of the women beating him to death.
  • Butt Monkey: Torian is a strong warlock, but every time he tries to curry favor with Mercury he fails miserably. He eventually achieves fame with his undead-taming spell, but that's a more useful tool for the good guys than the bad guys.
    • Tserk, the tentacle monster. It just can't seem to catch a break.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Both the Avatar and Keeper Mukrezar are mentioned in one of the earliest chapters, noting that they have been dead for decades.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Mukrezar may be an irredeemable monster who callously massacred an entire country, but he's also a pretty quirky guy who manages to be Plucky Comic Relief in his own demented way. He, among other things, has a strange obsession with using cursed gold rings as part of his plans, despite them having a previously standing track record of zero, and also claimed that he was going to bake the biggest cake in the world. He then baked that cake by throwing a huge amount of gold at an Underworld city which got too greedy and sold him all their food stocks, pushing the whole settlement to near starvation. At the same time Mukrezar was attacking the keeper who supplied their stocks. His plan the whole time was to extort them into proclaiming him lord and master of their town. That's right, he laid low an entire Underworld city, by baking a cake. Sadly the cake tasted so terrible Mukrezar couldn't stand to eat it.
  • Curb Stomp Battle: Has happened several times in story so far. Instances include Jadeite vs Arachne's second dungeon, Mercury's army vs the keeper on the coastline, Zarekos vs Mercury and Jadeite, and any instance where Mercury attacks a dungeon whose owner is banished or dead (except Zarekos, who isn't really gone at all).
    • On a non-keeper note, the fight with the Underworld Army as Mercury strikes at them before they strike at her, while they're still in the Underworld no less.
  • Dark Is Evil: The creatures of the Underworld, and Keepers in particular, are rightfully feared and hated by the surface world.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Mukrezar's imp-butler.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Ami has bested in single combat a Horned Reaper (multiple times at that), the oldest known Dragon on the planet, the Avatar, and a Lesser Aspect of the Dark God Crowned Death, which Mercury defeated by eating.
    • And she appears to be preparing to cast some form of Command Undead on Crowned Death, too.
  • Doorstopper: Even if you just keep to the entries by Pusakuronu, you will spend hours reading through the story. And it's time well spent.
  • Do Wrong Right: Dr. Mizuno is concerned upon hearing about Ami getting drunk at the victory party held for defeating the assortment of Keepers, but consoles herself that the ensuing hangover would have taught Ami better. On being told that there was no hangover due to the alcohol being magically created and temporary...

"Ami, that can't be healthy!" she shouted as she leaned toward the crystal ball. "Liquid suddenly disappearing from cells that are already using it - I shudder to think what that does to a metabolism." Very sternly, she continued "Next time you want to get drunk, use a real drink! Doctor's order!"

  • Dress-Coded for Your Convenience: In the episode "Out-of-Dungeon Experiences", it is stated that the Dark Gods have a dress code for Keepers. It is even reported that those who veer from it suffer embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions.
    • The tailor who told Ami this, however, might have been lying in order to get her to choose something less heroic-looking, however.
  • Dude, Not Funny: Ami's reaction to Tiger's antics. Leads to the Green-Eyed Monster reveal for why Tiger is acting that way.
  • Dungeon Punk
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: Wemos. Despite being a very sad Butt Monkey for Zarekos up to this point, he goes out in a fairly badass way.
  • Empire with a Dark Secret: Ami suspected the SCE of being this after learning that all major government buildings there was an Oracle Tower - a structure that closely resembles the temple Zarekos was using in his bid to become a god.
    • The Light Gods have Jossed the theory that the idea that the towers are evil in their own right or that they have been used for evil purposes by the SCE, but they refuse to explain their original purpose in Mercury's hearing, for fear of giving her any ideas.
  • Elite Army: Ami's forces have fought, on average, at a four-to-one disadvantage in every engagement. They have yet to be decisively defeated.
  • Enemy Civil War: The Dark Kingdom seems to descend into this.
    • The Keepers are almost continually in this state, which is a major reason as to why the Light Side is still holding on.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Or vice versa. The Light Gods literally can't comprehend the motives of the Dark Gods, and the minions Ami has gathered (with the exception of the Cathy-Jered-Snyder trio and possibly Jadeite) seem to regard any benevolent action on her part as simply something to try and lull the forces of Good into complacency.
  • Evil Counterpart: Both Ami and Mukrezar are inventive and imaginative in their tactics, both have made innovations in magic that no-one else can understand. Their personalities are even diametrically opposed to each other - Ami is quiet and studious, Mukrezar is charismatic and goofy.
  • Evil Overlord: The Dungeon Keepers.
  • Exact Words: Defied - the Light Gods deliberately leave the terms of their agreements vague so that they may stick to their spirit rather than their letter. Amadeus himself notes at one point that technically, his agreement to not attack Mercury doesn't apply to current circumstances...

Amadeus: "Still, attacking immediately without some kind of grace period would be bad form."

Random Goblin: "Go go Keeper!"

  • Ghost Pirate: Empress Mercury faces off against an undead Navy and Zombie Octopus in her war against Crowned Death.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom
  • God of Evil: The Dark Gods whom the Dungeon Keepers serve. The Dark Gods' counterparts, The Light, have been doing their best to try and prevent their taint from spreading any further. The Dark God of Strength and Martial Skill, Azzathra, has wished to see Mercury dead for some time for Mercury's perceived insults of all he stands for, and Mercury has declared war against the Dark God of Death and all of his followers for their actions.
  • Gone Horribly Right: Ami's idea of using a Dominate Undead spell to take over an undead dungeon heart worked beautifully. Unfortunately, since the heart was undead, doing so connected her mind to Crowned Death, who really doesn't like her.
    • The Shining Concord Empire wizards' impulsive attempt to snatch a bit of chlorine triflouride from the destruction of Crowned Death's underwater temple fortress. Pity they had nothing to put it in. Oh, well, they can rebuild however much of the city is now gone...
  • The Good Chancellor/Standard Royal Court: Ami's advisers all fall under this to some extent. Lampshaded by Jered after Mercury becomes Empress- he thinks some royal titles are in order.
    • Cathy fills the role of Captain of the Guard
    • Jered fills the role of Treasurer and occasionally spy.
    • Jadeite is primarily Mercury's military adviser alongside Cathy. Also something of a bodyguard.
    • Tiger is a (self titled) princess...
    • Snyder is something of an adviser on various deity, and so fills the role of court priest.
    • Earasmus used to be the Court Wizard before his death, Torian fills that role now.
  • Good Hurts Evil: Holy wards, holy spells, and temples of the Light Gods all cause instinctive fear in creatures of evil...and in those tainted by dark forces, such as Ami.
  • Good Versus Good: Whenever Ami goes up against the Light Gods or their servants. They genuinely mean well, and so does she, but the conflict remains.
  • Gossip Evolution: The tales of Mercury's deviance, the tales of Mercury beating up the various Big Bads and powerful monsters of the Underworld (usually while naked), and the growing tales of her power and cunning.
  • Great Offscreen War: Used often throughout the fic as both Backstory and Foreshadowing.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: After losing her most important memories, grasping at straws trying to keep anything of her former sense of self and identity, gaining knowledge of what it's like to have friends, and then having essentially all her dreams come true, Tiger then comes to the realization that no, these aren't her memories, she has no friends, she's powerless, and the thought that all her dreams had come true is all lies. In short, Tiger is jealous of Ami, and is acting out because of that.
  • Hammerspace: The Keeper Storage ability works along these lines, and is used and abused to great effect by Keeper Mercury.
  • I Am Spartacus: Played straight by the Villain, in that Mukrezar's plan with the magic rings revolves around whoever is wearing them turning into copies of himself, confusing people as to where Mukrezar really is, or who is the real Mukrezar.
  • I Control My Minions Through...: Traditionally, Keepers go for fear, money, sadism, and corruption. Naturally, this is one of the problems Ami faces.
  • Imagine Spot: From Eline in "Umbra's Report", immediately following her capture. She pictures Mercury as a towering, lecherous, naked amazon. It is hilarious.
  • Implacable Man: Nothing Ami throws at the Avatar can stop him for long.
  • In the Name of the Moon: Played straight by the fairies in the chapter "Fairy Attack," as well as by Sailor Moon herself.
  • Inverse Ninja Law: Ami doesn't like to let her troops get killed, so she uses a small number of powerful troops, such as the reaperbots, the youma, and her golems, and the main characters play a pivotal role in the battles. Enemy keepers prefer to Zerg Rush.
  • It Got Worse: Poor Ami can never catch a break.
  • The Jailbait Wait: Upon seeing Tiger take a form he suspects is what Ami will look like as an adult, Jadeite finds himself considering this, to his own surprise.
  • Klingon Promotion:
    • Unintentionally. After slaying the self-proclaimed Emperor Zarekos, Ami is given the title of "Empress Mercury, Ruler of the Avatar Isles" by the Light Gods. The full implications of this have yet to be seen.
    • Later on, an Orc attempts this by trying to kill Cathy. Given who his employer is, there's no way this could have ended well for him.
  • Knowledge Broker: Keeper Midori.
  • The Ladette: Cathy.
  • Lethal Chef: Nephrite's plan of "inspiring" a young girl into cooking using cursed kitchen items to drain life energy backfires when the young girl's family makes him stay and enjoy her creations. Hilarity Ensues when he collapses in Beryl's court due to food poisoning.
    • This is a brief stealth Crossover with Ranma ½.
    • Mukrezar. He took a bite of his "world's biggest cake" and it tasted absolutely horrid.
  • Load-Bearing Boss: Justified, Ami rigged the ceilings above her Dungeon Hearts to collapse if she dies to prevent anybody else from taking and using them.
  • Mad Scientist: All the warlocks have shades of this, as well as Ami herself. Invoked when she gives her friends a tour of the lab, as Ami puts on a Mad Scientist act as a joke.
    • The Unraveller of Mysteries is the patron God of mad scientists.
  • Magic A Is Magic A: Spells that aren't granted directly by a deity are generally devised by modifying an existing spell or studying a magical creature that can already do what the caster wants to accomplish.
  • Magitek: Mercury's decidedly modern approach to magic is shaping up to be one of her greatest advantages so far.
  • Malicious Slander: The tales of Mercury's deviance, as well as some of the earlier rumors of Mercury being weak and prone to losing her dungeons.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Mukrezar
  • Mind Control Device: The dungeon hearts do this to a minor degree with Keeper minions. It's used as an explanation for why Being Tortured Makes You Evil in the Dungeon Keeper setting itself, as most minions can't easily break the bonds the Dungeon Heart places on them.
    • A very mild version is created by Ami as an alternative to actual torture.
  • Mind Hug: Being a Keeper, Ami is more than a little uncomfortable in the Light Gods' temple. Nevertheless, they cure the emotional trauma she suffered from her earlier Mind Rape of Malleus.
  • Mind Rape: Ami ends up doing this to Malleus. The experience is lethal for him, traumatic for her.
  • Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Tserk can wield (and reload) six crossbows simultaneously, with deadly precision.
  • Multi-Armed Multitasking: Tserk again.
  • Mundane Utility: Ami managed to turn her corrupted landscape into a massive windstorm that provided electricity for the dungeon, and has figured out how to take advantage of some of the other corruption effects to create hot springs and geothermal power with the use of lava instead of wind.
    • What better way to use your new horned reaper than as a living smelter or water heater? After all fireballs are much more environmentally friendly than coal or gas.
    • Tentacle monsters make great masseurs.
  • Mordor: What the lands the Keepers inhabit turn into due to the corruption of the Dungeon Heart.
  • Noodle Implements: The tools that Mercury appears to be using in the incident described in the Nothing Is Scarier example include a chicken. This is probably just to get people wondering what she did with it.
  • Noodle Incident: Mukrezar has had quite a few magical mishaps, which the Adviser Imp loves to bring up to embarrass him.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: Due to her aversion to torture, when faced with having to discipline her minions Ami is forced to bluff. She invents a device that combines a tracking spell and a general fear trap into a selective fear charm -- and then knocks the offender (and a dark mistress) unconscious. When they revived the selective terror hits them, and Ami informs them that she wiped their memories to preserve her technique. In other words -- whatever she did, she can do again, and it will be just as horrifying each time. Their imaginations do the rest.
  • Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering: The Shining Concord Empire is stated to have one of these.
  • Won't Work On Me: The Avatar is almost unhittable, and anything that might hurt him is instantly blocked by the Light Gods.
    • In fact, Ami quickly realizes that the only thing that actually slowed him down, single combat with herself and Cathy, only actually slowed him down because he was being careful not to kill them.
  • Not What It Looks Like: Tends to crop up a fair few occasions for Ami, much to her mortification.
  • Oh Crap:
    • Ami's chief warlock has this reaction after he insults the rest of the Senshi, thinking them weaker than Mercury. He realizes the depth of his error when Mercury informs him that she is the weakest of the Senshi.
    • King Albrecht's council has this reaction when they learn of details regarding how the Dark Empress defeated Crowned Death's Lesser Aspect. She ate it.
    • Camilla has this reaction when she realizes that the conditions she puts on agreeing to help Mercury constitutes making an employment contract with a Keeper, which has some bad consequences.
  • Omake: Started getting several, most of whom are written by fans. Which makes them fanfics of a Fanfic...
  • One-Winged Angel: Played straight and subverted by most Dungeon Keepers as they can alter their forms. Hilarity Ensues when soon after the Cathy-Jered-Snyder trio learn Mercury is a Dungeon Keeper, they expect her to "reveal her true form." "But I'm human! I really look like this!"
  • Outside Context Villain: What Ami is, at least for the public. In reality she is more of a Outside Context Hero.
  • Perspective Flip: Ami has to fight a team of fairies, complete with an In the Name of the Moon speech.
  • Powered Armor: Ami's personal armor in the duel against the Horned Reaper, as well as the weaker versions being made for the rest of her employees.
  • Power Tattoo: Zarekos is mentioned to have an inverted pentacle on his forehead.
  • Pride Before a Fall: The character Torian, Empress Mercury's head researcher, has been set up for this with his desire for the Staff of Calarine which Mercury disposed of due to it being a trap.
  • Psycho for Hire: Rabixtrel, the (second) Horned Reaper.
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad: Most of the surface dwellers have this impression of Mercury's inner circle. The fairies are one in opposition to Mercury.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: All keepers- and their eyes get brighter when feeling strong emotion, particularly anger.
  • Ring of Power: Mukrezar apparently created a number of schemes involving these during his takeover of the Avatar Isles. They are notable in the fact that almost none of them actually worked.
  • Serial Escalation: Mercury's inventive Magitek approach to the setting leads to ever more awesome ways she manages to defeat her enemies. She's just reluctant to use some of the more spectacular methods, in part because she doesn't want to give any of her enemies ideas. However, her sister Tiger has none of these inhibitions and gleefully fills Crowned Death's underwater temple fortress with a huge amount of Chlorine Trifluoride using the temple's own dungeon heart to manufacture it. For the uninitiated, it's a chemical that is so reactive that it will vaporize rocks, make water explode, and can even cause glass to burst into flames.
  • Shoot the Dog: The Light Gods are sympathetic to Ami's plight. Really, they are. Nevertheless, they are trying to capture and imprison her - since they believe that as things stand, her intended course of actions threatens billions of people.
  • Shout-Out: One of the energy harvesting plans of Nephrite involved a girl and her passion for and lack of skill in cooking. To thank him and have him partake in her skills her family strong-armed Nephrite into getting a taste of the daughter's oh-so-delectable food. Later he's having trouble not regurgitating it in Beryl's throne room. The way it is written makes it obvious the girl in question was Akane Tendo. Also, the author has stated that the Avatar's powers were based off of the capabilities of a low-Essence Solar, and the Dwarves in this story are based off of the Dorfs.
  • Superhero: The Avatar is this to the surface nations. That The Underworld regards him in a different light is putting it mildly.
  • Supervillain Lair: Keepers love turning their Dungeons into this, and the corruption effect certainly helps. Mercury does battle with a Keeper who turned their mountain fortress into a giant leering skull once.
  • Superweapon Surprise: Ami has the power to move items around within her territory. Her body counts as part of her territory. In short, she can move her arms fast enough to punch through a Horned Reaper.
  • The Berserker: Boris.
  • Things That Go Bump in the Night: Parents tell their children that Mercury (and presumably other keepers) will come and eat them if they are naughty. One of the sacrifices is confused when Mercury seems offended by the thought.
  • This Is Not a Floor: Ami inverts this interestingly in the episode "Convoluted Rescue Plan, Go!" The floor is made invisible, but her opponents assume it has been destroyed. Leads to a Distraction.
  • This Is Unforgivable!: What amounts to this happens during the invasion of Dreadfog Island [dead link], when Empress Mercury learns that the undead priests of the Crowned Death have plucked out the eyes of 8,000 captive innocents, would-be sacrifices, so that they couldn't cause trouble.
  • Tickle Torture: Sailor Moon does this with a Youma to see if she knows anything about Ami's location after her vanishing. Sailor Mars is embarrassed by the ordeal.
  • Too Dumb to Live: The wizards of the Shining Concord Empire, who try to snatch a bit of the chlorine triflouride from the destruction of Crowned Death's underwater temple fortress. They succeed -- and end up accidentally destroying a whole lot of architecture off-screen because they have nothing that can contain it.
  • Too Funny to Be Evil: Mukrezar. Full Stop.
  • Too Kinky to Torture: The Dark Mistresses, of course.
    • Averted in the case of Ami's psychological torture. She largely bluffs them, and the mistress creates the impression that she did unspeakable things to them.
  • Unfortunate Implications: Tied in part to Mercury's reputation, and mentioned repeatedly in-story regarding how the rest of the world views some of her actions, such as with her continued employment of Tserk.
  • Unspoken Plan Guarantee: The reader learns about Ami's plan to rescue Jadeite from the Light temple as it's executed.
  • Villain Ball Magnet: Being the only instance of Dark Is Not Evil among Keepers, Ami cannot convince the forces of good that she means well. With the exception of the Cathy-Jered-Snyder trio, and the mind-reading Light Gods. To the latter's credit, they have requested that the forces of good try to capture Ami alive.
  • What Is This Thing You Call Love?: Jadeite seems to be heading this way. At first, he's confused by Ami's feelings for him. Later, by his own empathy -- and protectiveness for Ami.
  • We Have Reserves: Most Keepers -- three guesses who the main exception is.
    • Played straight by Ami in the earlier part of the story with golems. In fact she vastly overestimated how many reserves she had in her first major battle using them.
  • We Need a Distraction: Ami uses Tserk to break into a Temple of The Light, filled with Priests, Guards, and the Fairy Sisters to rescue Jadeite using nothing more than a Wand that makes things go invisible, some flour, and two pills that transform whoever swallows them into mice. Tserk succeeds.
  • We Will Meet Again: Tserk swears he will have his revenge against Keeper Midori. Why? Tserk was giving a massage to Cathy and Mercury prior to Keeper Midori scrying on them.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Dr. Mizuno to Ami in "Family Matters," though a milder example than most.
  • Won't Take Yes for An Answer: When Empress Mercury is reviewing and accepts the plans for the embassy for the Shining Concord Empire, a terrified Camilla is so certain of her doom she invokes this trope.
  • The Wiki Rule: Here it is.
  • The Worf Effect: Ami's "fearsome" Reaperbots often serve only to illustrate how fearsomer her current opponent is.
    • They are still more than a match for most of the stuff she is expected to encounter from your average Keeper. They mow down hoards of undead like they aren't even there. It isn't until vampires, dark angels, or real reapers show up that they are faced with something they can't handle. A serious advantage for the Reaperbots against Crowned Death is the fact that they are not alive and therefore the One-Hit Kill gaze of his Lesser Aspect can't do much more than disable them for a few seconds, if its effect on Mercury's automated deep sea probe is any indication.
  • You Can't Go Home Again: At least, the Light Gods don't want Ami to so long as she's a Keeper, since the Dark Gods will be able to follow her there.
    • Also a problem for Jered, Cathy, Snyder and Camilla, as their accidental association with a Keeper make them untrustworthy in the eyes of most of the rest of the world.
  • X-Ray Vision: The stated reason most of the Underworld wears leather clothing. Whether or not this is actually the case, or just an easy excuse to sell such clothing is left up to the readers to decide.
    • Ami was nice enough to confirm it for us, For Science! only of course...
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