Delta. A logging town in Equestria’s far west. With its pleasant (if insular) locals and slow, quiet atmosphere, every inch the small town you’d expect. Except that every few weeks, a predator is found dead and and covered in brutal injuries.

Ranger and single mother Swan Dive is sent to Delta to make sense of it all. But the more she uncovers, the less sense it all makes. The monster leaves no trace except for its own killings. The deaths don’t seem to serve any purpose. And the murders are all clustered around Delta. Swan’s going to have to keep her wits about her if she hopes to make any sense of these strange incidents.

Because there’s something in the forest. Something stalking Delta’s animals. Something deadly. Something bloodthirsty. Something the likes of which Swan has never seen before…

I read the Twilight series to learn from it. Long story short: it really sucks. But more than that, it has many, many ideas that are quite good, but very underutilized. This is my rewriting of Twilight, aiming to utilize those ideas and throw out the ideas that don’t work while still following the same basic plotline. Because even I can do better than that tripe.

Special thanks to Bugsydor for the title.

The problem with being an explorer in this day and age is that unexplored lands are few and far between. Almost everything's been charted, catalogued, analyzed, and what have you. But that's an almost; there are still those rare, blank spots in the maps, inexplicable, untouched by hooves, unsurveyed. One of those corners is Needle Vale in the far north. Supposedly cursed, yet everyone who's gone in has come back out. It has more stories about it than Celestia herself, yet every single adventuring group that's gone in has found nothing. Thanks to a nonstop snowstorm that's been blowing for centuries, no one's even been able to map it out.

Daring Do thinks there are too many stories about it to be a coincidence. Something is inside there. The source of the legends and of the snowstorm. And no one has a will quite as strong as Daring's (or so she tells herself). With a small team at her back, Daring makes a decision: she will go into Needle Vale, she will withstand the storm, and she will discover what’s going on in there.

But, as Daring is about to find out, there's a reason no one’s been able to pin down what's going on in that valley. Not everything that lies in the dark corners of the earth should be studied.

Loosely inspired by Annihilation. Has a dramatic reading done by Quinch.

This story is a sequel to Urban Wilds

Amanita. Quiet. Awkwardly self-conscious. Necromancer. Reformed. Newly hired by the Royal Guard and the apple of its eye. How could she not be? She’s a peerless expert when it comes to necromancy. But only because she’s the only pony with any knowledge of necromancy beyond the basics, she tells herself. She needs to be more than just a static source of knowledge; she also needs to apply that knowledge, to expand her mind. She can’t live her whole life in a lab. She needs experience out in the field.

Which is how she finds herself assigned to a ley purification team. There’s something wrong with a ley line. It’s not immediately dangerous, but if left alone, it could corrupt the land, killing crops and creating monsters. Amanita is part of a small crew that will head to the line’s source, the small mining town of Tratonmane, to identify and correct the problem. Fortunately, ley purification is a well-known science. It’ll be easy.

At least, that’s the idea. Far to the north, swathed in frost and snow, walled in by vertiginous mountains, Tratonmane is as isolated as can be. Miners and subsistence farmers eke out a living in what little land they have. Ravenous wolves stalk the forest at its border. Whispers abound at the team’s arrival. Tratonmane has existed outside the Crown’s influence for centuries and many of the townsfolk don’t appreciate it sticking its nose in now. Especially since no town lasts for that long without getting a few skeletons in its closets. Amanita and her team will have to navigate hostile environments — personal and terrestrial alike — if they want to get to the bottom of this.

For if they don’t, heads will roll. Perhaps literally.

Nothing a necromancer can’t fix.

Updates TuThS. Reading earlier stories will provide some context for this, but isn't required. Other entries in this series:

• Hinterlands
• Urban Wilds
• Death Valley

Flurry Heart wants to know what happened to the Crystal Empire's previous rulers. Cadance answers with as little detail as possible, and unintentionally teaches her daughter about a tradition she wasn't aware of.

Entry for the Cadance is a Terrible Mom contest, and 1st place winner! Admittedly an idea I've had in my head for a while, thanks for the excuse to write it!

After over a hundred years of ruling, Princesses Celestia and Luna are finally getting around to having their capital city built. For head mason Gabion, it's a once-in-numerous-lifetimes opportunity. Canterlot can only be built once, and he's the one overseeing it.

But there's a snag. The design of the castle is eye-poppingly impractical, ready to fall over the cliff at a moment's notice. It's a sin against good architectural practices everywhere. Even Celestia's assurance that she'll personally lend her magic to help build it does little to reassure him.

...And now he'll be giving orders to Princess Celestia herself for the duration of construction. This is going to be a weird job. Maybe he can get to know her a bit, if only to make things a tad less bizarre.

After dying in a train crash, Twilight finds herself offered a deal by the Reaper: a game of chess for her soul. Twilight accepts, but there's something off about the game. Something she can't put her hoof on.

But the answer to that question is just perfect for who she is.

Cover art is from the Poets of the Fall album Clearview.

Applejack is not having a good day.

She was nopony special: a gardener and sometime-engineer aboard the Golden Oaks space station, providing food and oxygen for the CelesTech researchers living and performing experiments there. She vaguely knew everypony, performed good work, and even was on first-name terms with a certain royal, but wasn't noteworthy. She was nice, a dependable worker, and not much else.

But when the Stellar Thrones send up representatives for a routine tour, something goes wrong. Applejack wakes up a week later, with no memories of what occurred in the meantime, to find Golden Oaks ravaged. The entire station is in lockdown. Communications are nonexistent. The shuttles are destroyed. Power is unreliable. Most of the crew have been slaughtered. The escape pods don't work. Every module has been badly damaged. And something is prowling the station. Something capable of disguising itself as anything.

With only a wrench and herself to rely on, Applejack pushes through the crumbling station to unravel the mystery. But her every step is being watched, her every movement is a risk. Because Golden Oaks isn't a research facility anymore. It's a hunting ground. And ponies are the prey.

Although this is a crossover with Prey, no knowledge of it is required.

Those are the rules of burglary, as far as Warded Lock is concerned. She follows them religiously. They’re good rules. They’ve served her well. She’s made a lot of money following those rules. She hasn’t been caught yet.

But one wealth-redistribution excursion yields a mere pittance in stolen loot. Lock knows there’s more valuables deeper in the house, where her rules say she’s not supposed to go. She could get to them, if only she was willing to bend those rules. So she does and goes deeper into the house than she ought.

Then Lock stumbles on a horrifying secret.

The job is instantly derailed.

And everything goes straight to Tartarus.

Has an audio drama created by My name is R.

This story is a sequel to Hinterlands

Two years ago, bounty hunter Bitterroot turned a lich and her necromancer apprentice over to the authorities. Now, that apprentice, Amanita, has been released on good behavior. She has no more interest in necromancy. In fact, she asked Bitterroot to turn her in all those moons ago and helped capture her master. With nowhere for Amanita to go, Bitterroot takes her in until she can get her hooves under herself.

But all isn’t well in Canterlot. A killer is stalking the streets, striking with impunity and leaving no trace. The Royal Guard is befuddled. Bitterroot’s investigations have yielded nothing. And night is turning into a time of dread. Something needs to be done. If only the dead could speak. If only there was a moral necromancer around.

Amanita doesn’t want to admit it, but the part of her past she hates the most might be the most useful part right now. Just because ponies are dying doesn’t mean they need to stay that way. What she buried needs to be dug up again.

Her demons are rearing their ugly heads. It’s time to face them.

Reading the preceding story will provide some context for this, but isn't required. Cover art is modified from this image. Other entries in this series:

• Hinterlands
• Urban Wilds
• Death Valley

Trains are the fastest way to move something across Equestria, no matter how big. A heavy stone sarcophagus, for instance, one brimming with dark magic. The Royal Guard just launched a raid to retrieve it from the hooves of sinister cultists.

Now, the survivors of that raid are stuffed in a train crossing the wilderness. Just them, the skeleton crew, and the sarcophagus. Guarding it until they can get reinforcements at the next station ought to be easy. After all, there’s nothing else alive for miles. Right?

Wrong. There’s something on board with them. Something after the sarcophagus. Something that doesn’t care what stands in its way.