The Alchemaster's Apprentice: Difference between revisions

{{quote| "A culinary ignoramus would have spat out a Sewer Dragon's knilch at once. It tastes extraordinary -- like nothing else. Ordinary folk prefer familiar tastes -- they'd sooner eat the same things all the time -- but a gourmet would sample a fried park bench just to know how it tastes. It's the same with the alchemist: nothing strange, novel or surprising can deter him. On the contrary, he goes looking for such things. Are you ready for the next course?"}}

 

 

The story follows Echo, a Crat (which is basically a normal housecat, except for the facts that it can talk and has two livers) who, after his kindly owner dies, finds himself homeless and living on the streets in Malaisea, the sickest and unhealthiest town in all of Zamonia.

=== The book provides examples of: ===

* [[Arc Words]]: "Nobody understands the Leathermice!" {{spoiler|Not, as it turns out, even the Leathermice themselves.}}

* [[Cats Are Mean|Crats Are Mean]]: Well, not ''mean'' so much as lacking in empathy. Though a friendly and amiable creature for the most part, Echo has his moments of cruelty.

* [[Disney Death]]: A particularly shocking one comes when {{spoiler|Echo, about halfway through the book, is led to believe that he's just ate his friend Theodore T. Theodore. Lucky that the wild fowl Ghoolion served him wasn't Theodore after all, but neither Echo nor the reader find out that Theodore is still alive until the very end of the story, where he re-enters the narrative just in time to play [[Deus Ex Machina]].}}

* [[Food Porn]]: Ghoolion is an impossibly good cook, and even if some of the food sounds weird to us non-gourmets (see page quote), it's lovingly described and the taste sensations meticulously detailed.

** In the afterword, Optimus Yarnspinner calls the story a "culinary tale," and it's not hard to see why.

* [[Lost in Translation]]: Many puns; for example the name of the Leathermice. The German term is "Ledermaus", which means the same while also being a pun on "Fledermaus", the German word for bats.

* [[Love Potion]]: Izanuela makes one for Ghoolion, to make him fall in love with her. {{spoiler|Too bad he's not only completely immune to it, but was perfectly aware of what she was doing all along.}}