It's been a couple of weeks and way more than a couple of games since Pinkie Pie introduced the Mane Six to the joys of playing the classic real-time strategy title, Age of Empires II. Unanswered questions surround this mysterious game: where did it come from? Who made it? Why is there so much killing?

Never mind all that - Twilight Sparkle and her friends have a game to play!

NOTE: Though I've tried to make the story more about the relationships between the four gamers (no Rarity or Fluttershy, sorry!) than about the game itself, some rudimentary knowledge about Age of Empires II is required if you want to understand what is going on. I wrote this as a short-ish story so I'm not really going to go into technical details much.

=====INFO AFTER BREAK=====
References consulted while writing story:
ZeroEmpires (Commentary on Competitive AoE II matches)
wikiHow (5 Ways to Make Your Economy Boom in Age of Empires II)
Wikipedia (for info on Byzantines, Moon & Vikings)
Luttwak, E. "The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire" (Harvard University Press, USA), 2009 (Byzantine military strategy)

Youtube links:
Prologue - PakAttack95 (Youtube Channel)
Main Menu and Victory Music - mikec1000 Civilization Themes

Cover Image:
Wikipedia
Age of Empires II
Cutie Mark Vectors by Hawk9mm (deviantART page)

Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, humans were suddenly all over the freakin' place.

Legends said nothing but horrible things about them, and that the only way to deal with a human was to make them no longer be a human. First contact showed otherwise, and cooler heads prevailed. The newly-organized Transmogrification department was gutted, with most of the agents sent to work elsewhere. Many government employees were organized to help the humans settle in; the best and brightest got to work at the extremely challenging job of calculating multiversal exchange rates so that human cash could be traded in for bits.

Now, for the first time ever, you can see what it's like to work at the Conversion Bureau.
(Don't forget to upvote if you fave!)

This is by far my most popular story, so... thanks, everyone!

My name’s Marcus. Marcus Cortez. I’m currently a freshman at CUFTA. You don’t know what that means? Well, it stands for “Canterlot University for the Arts.” While it is a little unsettling to go to college in a completely different world from my own, and while being a human in a school full of mostly ponies is a little intimidating, I’m doing fine so far. I don’t have to worry about roommates, since I don’t live in a dorm. I live with my aunt.

Her name is Celestia. Princess Celestia.

You’re probably wondering how a human could be the nephew of a pony, and an alicorn princess, no less. Well, it’s quite the story.

In case you haven't guessed yet this is an anthro story, and my first time writing a story in first person, so we'll see how this goes.

The prologue for this story starts sixteen years prior to the return of Nightmare Moon and the story's main events take place after Season 3 ends.

The cover picture is an original drawing of mine.

Edited by danail24

The history books say that Commander Hurricane and his lieutenants Lightning Streak and Ice Wing successfully brought the Pegasi nation into a firm alliance with the other races, establishing a new country under the Royals in Equestria. Yet, time tends to forget the darker details of history. Not everypony was happy to see the mighty and miltant Pegasi subdued under the 'beneficial' union with the other races. The ensuing internal struggle would fade into Pegasi myth, a secret long thought laid to rest...

Thousands of years have passed. Equestria has been at peace under the Diarchy of Celestia and Luna. Nopony recalls the forgotten history of the Pegasi. It is all about to change. Storms from the past are on the horizon, an ancient vengeance set to transform Equestria. Only three unsuspecting pegasi stand destined to turn back the storm; to discover the forgotten Legacy of the Pegasi.

Proofread by SeerGun

When a simple small town Pegasus finds herself out of work, she takes up the offer of an old fillyhood friend to move to the big city. After all, it has been over ten years since the portals to the human world were opened, ponies do this all the time now right? All anypony talks about these days are all the Humans In Equestria, so what about the ponies looking for a better life in a new world?

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This fic is a series of short, slice of life stories about a pony who loves soft clothing adapting to life in the human world.

I adapted this old fic of mine from it's horribly done greentext version into prose so I can stop being so ashamed of it and finally write some more. Hello PiE threads!

If there are three things Principal Celestia can't stand, it's paperwork, princesses and her past. Unfortunately, the first makes up her job... and she desperately needs the second to help her resolve the last.

In a world without bacon, five humans find themselves trapped... grazing on mother bucking dandelions. To get home, they'll need to learn that friendship is magic. Too bad none of these jerks are friends.

==Originally written spring 2011== Equestria Daily Post==
GLaDOS is free of Chell, free to continue testing, when she discovers a portal gun Wheatley tried to repair with duct tape. When the portal gun catastrophically fails, the enrichment center, GLaDOS, and Chell are literally dropped in the middle of Equestria. The mute test subject soon finds the world of ponies far more welcoming than the human world. But GLaDOS sees possibilities. Let the testing begin... for science.

Story is going to be rewritten at a later date. Expect that sometime down the road!

Is it out of foolish loyalty to your master, or is it merely stupidity that brings you here? ~ Nomad.

Nomad is a man of intelligence, power and above all witty sarcasm. He used to be an adventurer and what-not, but gave that up to watch idiots fight in an arena and continue to build up power. However, his plans were futile when an adventurer defeated him in a battle, and forcing Nomad to flee.

Now, Nomad is in the land of Equestria, facing new terrain, talking ponies, and Pinkie Pie's antics. It'll take a while to adjust and find any sensible beings to talk to... But, power will always be on his mind and he'll make sure to learn plenty about these silly ponies before he strikes.

Author's Notes:

UPDATES: They will come weekly, I hope. I want to stay ahead of the story. As of now, I have chapters done and some need to be edited. I'll continue to write this to keep chapters constantly going.

Nomad is not a human (although he is defined as one in the wiki, I consider him another race. Style choice). His race is defined as a "nomad", or a race of travelers. His appearance is just very similar and functions on a much higher level than a regular human. So, don't whine when there isn't a human tag (you don't need one with crossovers, anyways).

For those who have played this quest, I altered a lot of the dialogue to work with the story. It still has key points from the original, but I wanted it to be this way so I can add my own backstory to Nomad.

Thanks to The-Wazz for taking my request on DeviantArt and making it capture everything about Nomad!

Takes place after the events of Twilicorn. So, she will be a Princess within this fiction. This is a RuneScape crossover (something that hasn't been done well, yet) and I plan to keep this going for a bit. Going to advise this now, a lot of bull appears in the first bit to add some character background and relationship building. It'll be comedy for the first little bit until everything is set up for actual plot building. Think of this as the "introduction" and then the "rising action" will take place afterwards. So, enjoy!

Lore/Extras:
For those lore junkies out there who don't know much about Nomad or anything about RuneScape:

Nomad's Wiki
God's Wiki + Ages Wiki
Creator-God: Freneskae
Creator-God: Jas

These are just pieces of useful information. Just in case I mention it in the fic.

Nomad and Nomad's Requiem is property of JaGex LTD. I clearly don't claim ownership of either and I only put this here because I don't want to break their copyrights.

There are many wonderful, exciting and heartwarming stories to be told in the Winningverse.

This isn't one of them.