“Oh come now,” said the white unicorn stallion in Canterlot finery with a blue mane and mustache with a monocle, “I’m sure it can’t be that bad.” He looked over at the lithe white unicorn mare in a sparkling black strapless dress with a respectable DD-Cup bosom with a bit of disapproval.

“Ms. Fleur Dis Lee was caught intentionally distracting other players by basically making statements about how she would like the rules of the current game to change,” said Umbra with annoyance, her GG-Cup bosom bouncing a bit when she huffed with said annoyance, “and that’s in addition to her clearly malicious statements at the figures of myself, the dealer, and the other female players.”

The stallion gave the mare he was defending a pointed glare before addressing Umbra, “She made mocking comments about everyone else’s busts, again?”

“Yes,” said Umbra flatly, “and that was in addition to mocking the attire of some her fellow players. Since she was so intent on being hostile towards her fellow patrons, we will be confiscating half her winnings and barring her from all the tables for the next nine hours.”

“You can’t do that,” declared Fleur with an entitled tone to her Upper Canterlot accent.

“Actually, we can,” said Umbra in a haughty matter-of-fact manner, “it’s a policy at this casino, unless you would rather we reorient you out of the suites to a room for a lower roller.”

Fleur huffed indignantly and did her best to elegantly stomp over to the bar for casino patrons, she knew that with everything else her lounge privileges were suspended. “I’m terribly sorry about all this, my good lady,” said the stallion with incredible sincerity, “I thought bringing her here as a reward for her recent accomplishments would be a bit more civil.”

“It’s not your fault, Mr. Fancypants,” said Umbra with feigned investment, “it’s all on her, her actions led to all the suspensions on her options here, just because you are associated with her, for the time being, doesn’t mean the same for you. You are, after all, one of our most respected patrons.”

“I thank you for the vote of encouragement,” said Fancypants with respect, “hopefully, she will learn from this experience.”

“If not, we could always have the boss show her what it’s like to make a ‘real’ wager,” said Umbra, “when you play against Sphinx, you pay exactly what you wagered but not in the way you expected.”

“I will take your word for it,” said Fancypants, “but I will warn Fleur that her behavior might result in her making a bet she’s not really willing to pay.” With that, he sauntered over to where Fleur was apparently sulking at the bar

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Elsewhere in the casino, a different game was going on at a table. Marble Pie was in her new dealer outfit running the roulette table, so far none of the ponies presently playing had guessed right. Of course, most of them didn’t care, they just saw a pretty mare and thought if they impressed her with high bets, regardless of the outcome, they might get a shot at her, especially since she was so reserved. Of course, most of them were paying more attention to her chest than the wheel, and they didn’t seem to really care when they had called it wrong.

Eventually, Marble got a bit too uncomfortable with the crowd that formed around her, she was a bit oblivious to the fact more patrons were watching her chest than the wheel during the game, and even after it. Marble was a surprising favorite, among stallions and mares, due to her never actually saying anything. Usually, the signs that she was moving to another table or going on a break was her literally putting up signs that said as much. Marble’s unease was getting to a point she was more than a little uncomfortable, so she put up a sign that said she was going on break and made her way away from the table. Marble had been employed at the casino now for a little over a week, her bust had expanded to a generous GG-Cup.

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Celano watched at the main patron bar as Fleur Dis Lee downed her third glass of chocolate liqueur, it was always fun to watch so-called dainty mares down potentially strong alcohol. “You look like you can down your liquor with the best of them,” said Celano with an amused tone, “not quite the delicate flower you like to show off as.”

Fleur turned to look at the parrot and scoffed for a moment before saying in a snarky tone, “At least I don’t need surgery to make my patrons happy.”

“Oh, these,” said Celano with a quick play of her breasts, “they’re all-natural, a little modified by magic, but the only blades that have come near these babies have been the swords of my personal collection.”

Fleur looked over at the buxom parrot in a sparkly sea-green dress that had a noticeable cleavage window with noticeable surprise, “You don’t look the macho type.”

“I’m a pirate girl through and through,” said Celano jokingly, “my family even jokes it’s in my blood. I kind of play into it by collecting various pieces of gear from the age of sailing, my personal room looks like a bit of a nautical museum at times. Now, why did you come over here all sulky?”

“The stallion next to me on the last game cheated and made it look and sound like I was the one who broke the rules,” said Fleur in an annoyed tone.

While most of their spirits were bought from all about, the dessert drinks were made in-house by Celano herself, her room had one of the only 3 doors to the fermenting chamber. A little surprise Sphinx had her mix into the dessert beverages was a truth serum, Celano was actually instructed to make the potion a key component of all the spirits she made. So, Celano knew Fleur was telling the honest truth. She discreetly motioned for Chrysalis to come over to the patron bar.

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Chrysalis saw Celano signally she had something potentially sensitive to share. Seeing as the floor was back to manageable levels of ruckus, the changeling queen made her way over to the parrot bartender. Once she was within eyeshot close enough to lock eyes at a distance, she used a telepathy spell to say, What is it I need to know?

Celano shot back, It was actually one of the stallions that was cheating, he did something to make it look like Ms. Fleur was the guilty party. She seems to get a bit...passionate when she is not expressly on the job. Classic working and off-work disconnect, we’ve seen it plenty of times.

I’ll send word to Somnambula and have her go over everything at the table, said Chrysalis.

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Somnambula carefully massaged her face with one of her hands as she took a few deep breaths and exhales. Chrysalis sent her word that someone had cheated and made it looked like a different player had been the one cheating, that was twenty minutes ago, and now she had six folders worth of recorded information that showed someone had been tampering with everything from other players to the bucking security system with mundane tricks like sleight of hand and magical means that included some surprisingly impressive glamour spells. Granted, all their recording equipment had anti-glamour charms from Sphinx herself lodged in them, so even the most powerful glamour spells only had a few seconds of activity on the cameras the caster could see.

Somnambula was very much of the engineering mindset of having a set of two and a replacement ready to go just in case. Her policy with the casino’s security was a bit more than most would anticipate, she had five visible cameras for any given area watching, along with three hidden backups watching the same general area, and made sure that one of the storage areas was dedicated solely to storing replacement cameras. Some ponies had been throwing glamorous on three cameras in her sets of five every few minutes, it looked like this was some sort of gambling gang that made most of their proceeds on basically cheating casinos and other gambling establishments.

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Sphinx was not happy, she just got told a gang of cheaters made a bit of a fool of Umbra, granted Umbra had something like that coming every now and then but it should be the house making a fool of Umbra, not some jerks cheating for what they thought was easy money. It was time to show the fools who they were messing with, and she had just the bait for such a group, but she would have to wait for the right moment, false security and false confidence were what made such the plans for dealing with cheaters be all the sweeter.

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Fleur was much happier now, she was exonerated of cheating and was making a killing at the poker table, she always had a knack for games of chance. The dealer, Marble Pie, seemed calmer than she had some time earlier at the roulette table, probably due to the fact that only 2 other players were at the table with Fleur, both mares. One of said mares was the acclaimed Octavia, the other was the so-called queen of night parties, Vinyl Scratch, also known under the alias DJ Pon-3. Both mares were rather buxom, much to the continuing chagrin of Fleur, she was supposed to be a symbol of envy for mares on and off the runway but these two mares were making her feel jealous and inadequate.

Octavia was a beautiful gray earth pony mare with lustrous black mane and tail in a purple sparkling sequenced dress, with her very noticeable H-Cup bosom on display in the dress, and that was to say nothing of the fuschia sequined elbow gloves she sported along with them, she always did have the kind of style Canterlot liked most. Vinyl Scratch, on the other hand, was a white unicorn mare with electric blue mane and tail, popular gossip said she dyed it that way and her natural color was a bit more bland but no paparazzi ever caught that image, even the less than reputable ones had trouble finding blurry, easily mistakable images to use to “validate” the rumor mill. Vinyl’s attire was more nightclub, less social elite. Her shirt, if you could call it that, was white and had a section in the chest that let her GG-Cup bosom out on display with a bra-like piece that had black straps, and its lowest section barely met the midriff, there were three yellow dots on the shirt, one in the upper center and two on the end of the bra’s side of the straps. Vinyl’s pants were black, with the back half of the leg being a yellow netting for some reason, and a yellow stripe running vertically down the center of the front. Vinyl wore shoes that blended into her white hooves to give her a little extra height while Octavia was wearing a pair of stylish pink high heels, high heels she was noticeably getting uncomfortable with.

The pair seemed to be doing okay with the game but kept acting like schoolchildren that weren’t sure if the other pony liked them in a potentially romantic way, judging by the way they kept casting glances at each other between periods of looking at their cards. Fleur didn’t mind, the actions of other players was of little concern to her, after checking to see if she was cheating after her third straight win, the casino just accepted Fleur was just that lucky. When she finally walked away from the table, Fleur had a lot three times as much on her as she had when had joined the table.

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After the table had closed Sphinx was alone with Umbra in one of her interrogation rooms, for larger creatures, usually not a good sign. “Umbra,” said Sphinx in a terse tone, “what is one of the first things I tell you to do before starting a game or passing out cards?”

“Always check for magical shenanigans,” said Umbra in a worried voice.

“Very good,” said Sphinx, “so why didn’t you notice someone was using a glamour at your table, despite dealing out cards and doing exchanges?”

“I didn’t feel the presence of any magic, I thought everything would remain as it appeared.” Umbra suddenly felt her chest have a bosom forty times bigger than usual with her now in a compromising position, Sphinx then began to spank the mare for a good half hour. Umbra cried out in pain over the whole thing. After the spanking was finished her bosom was returned to its usual HHH-Cup bosom.

“Always check for magic with all the means at your disposal, not just go by feelings. Do I have to send you back to training with Somnambula,” the black unicorn mare shivered as repressed memories of Somnambula drilling policies into her head assailed her for a split second.

“No, I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Umbra hurriedly.

“See that a repeat doesn’t happen,” Sphinx said, “Only your fellow employees and myself are allowed to make a fool of you.”

Author's Note

Probably should have included this chapter with the initial post