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Labyrinths of Echo: Difference between revisions
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=== The series provides examples of following tropes: ===
* [[Actual Pacifist]]: Prequels provide exposition on the healers' Call. Anyone who experiences this is driven to help others. To the point of being unable to sleep if a potential patient can't get to them, so in "Old Times" a healer's house had no locks and criminals won't touch the healers' property. They also tend to be [[The Empath|good at detecting when someone suffers in the first place]]. A true healer discovering he accidentally harmed someone (for them,
** Juffin
** However, healers ''can'' fight monsters far from "people" enough to not trigger these reactions and not even living in the first place. Natural healers also tend to be talented mages with lots of practice and hell-bent on saving lives. The current King's Healer started in a provincial SI where he once faced the monster hard to resist, extremely hard to kill and "vaporizing" on death. He took a piece of this thing as a trophy and sent it to the capitol.
* [[The Alcatraz]]: The [[Anti-Magic]] prison Kholomi, designed to hold the most dangerous prisoners. The only successful attempt to penetrate the barrier involved dying and walking as a non-corporeal spirit. Another time, Juffin was called to supervise scrubbing the remnants of almost-escapee from the walls.
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* [[Brotherhood of Funny Hats]]: Students' and some other clubs in Echo. Some clubs, e.g. the Bark-Eaters, who regularly gather tree bark, turn it into gourmet food and proceed with a feast, are harmless. Yet other clubs became or gave birth to Orders, e.g. the Holey Chalice club.
* [[Cannibalism Superpower]]: Simply eating a person does little to nothing in terms of power, but some known [[Human Sacrifice]] rituals essentially elevate cannibalism to [[Ritual Magic]].
* [[Career Killers]]: Misa Luddis, aka "the Noseless Misa" -- an old lady who used to kill ''[[Badass Normal|not]]'' by spells, but "did wonders with cold steel".▼
* [[Child Prodigy]]: Nuflin Moni Makh, Kofa Yokh, Loyso Pondokhva, Abilat Paras, Shurf Lonli-Lokli, Melifaro and Numminorikh Kuta. To elaborate:
** Young Nuflin is described by contemporary sources as a "living promise of power". He convinced 7 respected mages to quit their Orders, accept him as their common disciple and found a new Order for his sake, thus starting the Seven-Leaf, and did so at an age where most Orders would have sent him to study.
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** Shurf Lonli-Lokli repeated Loyso's feat of floating before walking and pulled off a reanimation spell on his pet at an age too young to be admitted to any Order's school.
** Melifaro's breakthrough happened as he bullied / blackmailed a Seven-Leaf novice into teaching him a grade 8 bottle-uncorking spell. The resulting grade 59 explosion flattened the pub, giving Juffin a welcome excuse to get his future Day-Face and {{spoiler|Dark Side Guardian}} into the LSIF.
** Numminorikh Kuta learned and used spells taught by his mother, a Master Opener of Doors, at a toddler's age
*** According to the Book of Burning Pages, he is also capable of opening a Dark Way from anywhere. Of course, it turned out that his mother was one of the best witches from Order of the Clock of Backward Time. As such, not only she told her baby magic tales involving real artifacts so obscure he didn't meet mentions of them while studying the history of magic later, but thought it's a good idea to teach him as a child's play the skills that were hardest to learn for herself - and after all, if he can use a magical oath just to guarantee return in time for dinner, it makes things this much easier for her, him and his future teacher.
* [[Chunky Salsa Rule]]: Even the most skilled mages can be taken out with a Baboom sling headshot, yet Order mages (and by extension the LSIF) consider them a plebeian weapon violating their contests of magic skill.
* [[City of Adventure]]: Echo for Sir Max. Justified in that Echo is quite literally the center of the world (or rather, stands on top of it). {{spoiler|The antipodal point to the World's Heart has its own benefits, but it is hidden on the bottom of the ocean so no city was ever built there.}}
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* [[Deadly Prank]]: The first time Max uses his Poisonous Spit of Death ability, he does it for the lulz, since he was told it only works when he is scared and the criminal on the receiving end wasn't particularly scary. Turns out, he was misinformed.
* [[Dead Person Conversation]]:
** A combination of high-grade black and white spells allowed a person thus inclined to become a ghost after death. Ghosts in the Echo setting are fully sentient. This rite was performed as a paid service, and for a hefty extra your ghost would be capable of full interaction with the material world. A real master can perform the preparation at any time, even on a newborn - and after dying centuries later the subject is guaranteed to become a ghost. Some people were said to pay for the procedure not even due to fear of death as such, but simply out of general vengefulness or as a deterrent - ghosts track living people infallibly, can be a horrid nuisance, and it takes strong magic to finish them off.
** Due to Tehhi's unique family history, all her siblings who died became ghosts. They regularly visit Tehhi's bar anyway. Tehhi herself later mentioned that she was annoyed by her absent "father" too much to discuss him because they were phantom spirits trapped in human form by magic of their "birth". She didn't even mention that her mother, obviously, ''must'' have been a crazy fangirl of Loyso to begin with.
** Tüvin, the deceases Chief of Huron River Harbor, liked the place and his job so well that his ghost now serves as [[Spirit Advisor]] to the current Chief of Harbor.
** Juffin once killed a pack of cards to play with a ghost - it was easier to make ghost cards than to allow the ghost interaction with real ones.
** While most mages are well capable of banishing ghosts, few will do so without reason, and most consider this murder.
** Resurrection spells are very rare in Echo.
* [[Dem Bones]]: Using reanimation spells on Anavuayna victims' remains results in this trope.
* [[Don't Fear the Reaper]]: After Anchifa Melifaro started his career as a pirate and amassed a fairly large bodycount, Death herself (at least Anchifa claims the avatar to be female) made a deal with him, saying that it is not Anchifa's destiny to serve her. Now Anchifa can suppress the fight instincts of his victims with a mere glance, thus avoiding unnecessary bloodshed, and in exchange Death sometimes looks at the world through his eyes and walks within him.
* [[Dream Weaver]]: A common occupation in Echo. One of them kicks off the plot in ''The Return of Ugurbado''.
** Basics of control over one's own dreams is a common practice, if only because mages who can't do it tend to be dangerous for themselves and everyone around; dream "visits" for communication or attack purpose are less widespread; advanced methods of control over others' dreams on the level of a "Master of the Perfect Dreams" or better are taught only in Tubur. The 8th prequel told the story of a Dream Master who got more warrior attitude and valued dreams mainly for their connection with waking world. Juffin arranged for him the job of a dream bodyguard for the King during civil war. So he wasn't bored at all, having to constantly fend off powerful, but less skilled opponents until faced an attack from 98 master mages together - though the King survived and most of the other guys evidently didn't, as they were unable to try again the next night. After which his children and apprentices stepped in.
* [[Egyptian Mythology]]: Max assumes some transfer of knowledge between Echo and the ancient Egypt, and suspects {{spoiler|Mokhi Ainti, Juffin's mentor}} of being an actual ancient Egyptian. Points in case:
** A dish called "Hathor turkey" - a roasted turkey served suspended between the horns on a bovine head. As Max notes that it's a cow, not a bull, as Hathor is a goddess, Kofa Yokh wonders aloud since when Max had access to the secret Seven-Leaf libraries.
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* [[List of Transgressions]]: part of the Eye of Wrath rite. The Eye of Wrath is an enchanted ring granted by the king as reward for extraordinary services, e.g. saving the king's life. The owner of the ring is [[Selective Enforcement|exempt from civil law]] until the current king decides that the ring's owner has gone too far. In this case a hearing is called and a list of crimes is read. As soon as the ring goes crimson, the crimes have exceeded the greatness of the deed, and the ring is returned to the treasury, while the owner is fully accountable for his actions from that moment on. Juffin does the reading for General Bubuta Bokh in ''Talkative Dead Man''.
* [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]]: In the preface of volume one, Martynchik and the books' illustrator Igor Styopin claimed to have received the manuscripts of the book from Max himself during his visit to our world.
* [[Living Ship]]: The shikka of Ukkumbi the fastest ship on the seas of the World of Rod. They look, feel and (mostly) handle like normal wooden ships built for speed, with little free space. But it's fairly common knowledge that a shikka is ''not'' a normal vessel - e.g. it needs the captain on board to remain controllable at all, and if the captain is on the shore, the ship is on anchor - ordering the first mate "oh, run her to the next port and back" is not an option. It's not known whether they are made as wilful artifacts of [[Blood Magic]] on purpose or it's just a result of materials and building techniques, but a shikka is very attached to the captain. The transfer of this status requires killing the previous captain, spilling the blood on the deck, and then adding one's own. Due to swing rather rough even for experienced sailors, it's common to sacrifice one's own blood by spilling it on the deck, which allows to join the ship's "family" and suddenly become immune to sea sickness. They don't care whether used in piracy (for which they are intended), courier service, small package trade or merely a circumnavigational honeymoon cruise, and don't actually talk to anyone except in dreams, so it's hard to gauge how sentient they are. But when a captain absent for more than a few days starts sending letters to his ship and orders a crewman to read them aloud in the hold, it's not even perceived as really quirky.
* [[Loads and Loads of Races]]: All anthropomorphic races of Echo are capable of cross-breeding to fertile offspring, making racial distinctions mostly a moot point.
** Two races of tangible elves originating on the Uanduk continent and invisible elves (at least the tangible ones claim that species to be elven).
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* [[Magi Babble]]: Juffin's opinion on magical knowledge trying to sound profound is rather low, which is why he prefers "Corridor Between Worlds" over "Khumgat" -- and if apprentices don't think it's hard, it will be easier.
* [[Magical Society]]: Lots of them, actually, at least, in the backstory. There was a whole three thousand years-long Age of the Orders, when an order was formed around every magical tradition and they fought each other for power or out of conflicting views. It was eventually brought to an end when the Order of the Seven-Leaf allied itself with the Gurig dynasty and won the War of the Codex, outlawing and exiling all other orders. Some orders disbanded peacefully shortly before the war. {{spoiler|Juffin, however, considers the Secret Investigations a modernized, "legal" version of an ancient Order.}}
* [[Mercy Kill]]: See [[Blatant Lies]] above. As Max is called out on his lie, the people ask him not to heal, but at least to kill them, as Anavuayna is rumoured to [[Deader Than Dead|
* [[Mood Whiplash]]: The series is quite prone to it, such as following the extremely depressive ''Victims of Circumstances'' up with the hilarious ''A Trip to Kettari'' in the first volume, or putting the depressingly paranoid ''The Book of Burning Pages'' after the comedic ''A Bequest for Lonli-Lokli''. Special mention goes to ''The Power of What-Might-Have-Been'' ([[Despair Event Horizon|especially]], ''The Return of Ugurbado'').
* [[The Multiverse]]: The world of Echo, our world, and many others visited throughout the series are parts of an seemingly endless multiverse. Only people gifted with True Magic can access Khumgat, the Corridor Between Worlds, and travel across dimensions, however.
* [[Mystical Plague]]: Anavuayna. It's not a plague as such, but a lethal curse, so while it doesn't require quarantines, anyone in the area of effect can be hit at random. While mages above a certain power level are immune to it alltogether, Echo is about to loose 80% of population to it in ''Return of Ugurbado''. Anavuayna slowly liquifies the affected, leaving blank skeletons in puddles of slime. There is no salvation after the heart is affected, yet the victims are fully conscious until death. Healing Anavuayna is possible with a grade 140 white magic spell.<ref> After Halla Makhun the Furry found the Heart of the World, he decided to build a city there for his dynasty. Halla challenged Anavuayna, the elven duchess of the area in a card game with the land at stake and won. Anavuayna fled the country, and suffering from [[Background Magic Field]] withdrawal, found out that Halla cheated. Mad, and mad with fury, she returned to spread a curse over the new city of Echo, creating the epidemy to carry her name. Halla killed her with his bare hands, stopping the plague.</ref>
* [[Naive Newcomer]]: Max, later Numminorikh, Melifaro in the prequels.
* [[Narnia Time]]:
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** Among other abilities, Ugurbado becomes as powerful as any person who kills him.
** Nuflin Moni Makh was rumored to have taken power from the founders of the Seven-Leaf beyond what was considered his share as their disciple. Lady Sotofa also notes that Nuflin drained the Seven-Leaf members instead of empowering them, as tradition had the other Grand Magisters do with their Orders.
▲* [[
** In less peaceful times, one Juffin Halli "the Kettarian Hunter", who had to shoo away many shiny-eyed wannabe apprentices between hunting insane mages and being much less successfully hunted by (equally legendary) police chief Kofa Yokh. By the end of the civil war said to have personally eliminated about a half of the King's enemies. And managed to keep this part in secret, as the old king "knew a thing or two about secrecy" and contacted this particular ally only in dreams where no one but his [[Dream_Weaver|dream bodyguard]] could see them.
* [[Properly Paranoid]] with [[Crazy Prepared]]: there is a spell that prevents a person from featuring in another person's hallucinations, e.g. causing plot holes in [[Lotus Eater Machine|LotusEaterMachines]]. And Makhi Ainti not only knows the spell, but has cast it on himself.
* [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]]: Most Arvarokhians qualify.
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