This story is a sequel to Fluttershy, Royal Game Warden (?)

Ever since Rarity was a wee filly, she has always fantasized about the life of the nobility. The inestimable glamour! The fabulous balls and galas! The magnificent castles! Even after running roughshod into the very worst of highborn snobbery at the Gala, that little foalish tingle keeps dragging her mind back to that particular whimsy in the quiet times.

Incidentally, Luna needs some poor gullible idiot she can ennoble before throwing them into the very foulest political cesspit in Bitaly on a wild-goose chase for nine million bits. How convenient!

Reading the previous story is highly recommended, not only because this one won't make much sense without it, but also because it's a 100% certified banger. Obviously.

After years of being the runt of the litter (despite having no siblings), Spike finally comes into his own and starts to grow up and mature. The result is a unique bit of magic all his own, or so the theory goes: He awakens one morning to find words hanging overhead that call him [The Gamer], along with powers that let him 'live life as though it were a game'.

How he decides to handle all of this, and where things go from there? That would be a spoiler, and you all know how we feel about spoilers around here...

Frequently asked questions will be answered from time to time, and those answers linked here for the curious:
The First FAQ

It had been hard enough, being one of the first. With the walls dropped, leaving her nation, her herd, traveling to Japan and trying to exist among so many strangers... every day had been a challenge. But she'd tried. Day by day, hoofstep by hoofstep, she'd felt she was finding her place in the human world.

But now there are no humans. No other demis or liminals. Nothing to anchor her. She exists among tiny horses and the scent of their fear, or at least what little of it drifts into her cell.

For nopony can look at a centaur and see anything but a monster.

(Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages -- and the TVTropes page just went live.)

Cover art by Harwick. Please contact him for commission rates & prints.

Trigger warning: character interpretation.

This story is a sequel to Entrenchment

An Age of Iron story.

At last, Ferrous Dominus is (mostly) secure.
Centaur III has been (largely) pacified.
The enemies of Chaos and Equestria have finally been crushed (probably).

But victory is merely a prelude to the next war. The Imperium of Man and the pitiful, far-flung holdings of the alien await the Iron Warriors and their new allies, ripe for conquest and plunder. With a new home world and a new ally under their thumb, the 38th Company at last turns its attention on a galaxy ablaze with constant war, seeking new victims to fill the bellies of their ships. The gentle but resourceful equines of Equestria travel with them, taking to the field not out of malice or avarice but gratitude in at last fulfilling their grave debt to the Legion.

But in the depths of the void, far beyond the fleet, beyond the veil of the Materium itself, Chaos is not idle. Plots advance, blood spills, and ancient evils seethe.

The light will be extinguished.

(Dark humor warning; grimdark themes)
(Cover art, and pretty much the rest of the art too, by EZTP)

TTS Reading of the entire fiction: Courtesy of the FanFiction Reader on Youtube.

Character List: Courtesy of TruthHut (A work in progress)

Handy is not a happy man at the best of times.

He was even less happy to find himself in an alien world that offended the very laws of physics and got injured for his own stubborn refusal to accept the obvious path fate had apparently laid out for him.

For his trouble he is now on a journey, with the long term goal of finding his way back home, only to find himself involved in plots and machinations so far above his head and cares that he quickly becomes a pawn in a game played by powers who care not for his well-being.

Quite like his life back on Earth if you think about it.

Needless to say, Handy does not care for any of it. He is much more preoccupied with the more immediate and pressing mundane concerns of day to day life a human needs to worry about while in Equestria.

Obtaining a new pair of shoes for example.

All this and one almighty hangover, what's the worst that could happen?

Rated teen for harsh language and minor violence

Proofread by JBL, Jude and Usurper