Case 3: In which two Seventh old dogs fail to get away with a new trick

There were any number of ponies who would have wondered why a claimed financial institution would be operating out of a tent in one of San Dineighgo's more isolated outdoor sales areas, and the purpose in setting up there was to lower the odds on having any of them trot by.

Knabstrupper's wasn't even a proper market square. On its best days, it was more of a swap meet: ponies hauled any problematic material possessions into a rented space, then wandered the makeshift aisles until they found somepony who was willing to take on their issue in exchange for whatever complication was currently clogging up a different assigned section of cobblestone. The lone visible tent operator liked the general idea of exchanging issues, because his own minor hitch was 'We don't have enough money' and he was only too happy to make it somepony else's problem.

As for using the tent... yes, the ideal would have been to use a building. However, there were also certain minor ongoing obstacles in passing the background check necessary for signing a lease -- actually paying anything towards it was seen as a subject of some humor -- and so getting an official storefront was currently right out. It was generally so much easier to just find a building which had been vacant for a time and -- borrow it. Make a few alterations, preferably under Moon because you had to do it while absolutely no police officers or government officials were about: questions about constructions permits often annoyed, and learning how to forge the new city's seal onto counterfeit documents was a work in progress. And after Sun was raised, you set up a Grand Opening sign, you did as much as you possibly could in one day and once Moon was brought over the horizon, you took out everything which could be used as evidence and left the rest behind. After all, somepony had to clean up and since it wasn't your property, that was clearly the responsibility of the actual owner.

A building was the natural preference. The tent's visible operator often used borrowed buildings. It was just that during a previous stop, a number of ponies had dropped by. Locals who were very curious as to how the space was now being used, and one of them had been the landlord.

The tall, narrow-hipped stallion had a certain way of not answering direct questions, and it became decidedly harder to maintain after the fourth kick went into his ribs.

So the tent was a fallback position, or at least a way to shelter the newest operation without having to worry about the tactics necessary to keep Actually, I Do Own The Place from happening again. And there were things which could be done with a tent. For example, you could cast an illusion over it: something which turned drab canvas into soft gold, fluttering in the ocean breeze. Another light touch of magic covered the upper reaches of the interior in framed certificates, which spoke of Education and Rank while giving off an aura of Yes, I Am In Fact Better Than You, So Appreciating My Attempts To Help Is Simple Courtesy.

The unicorn stallion was very good with illusions, because personality traits were a major factor in magic and the joy in crafting lies was essentially built into his psyche.

The tent looked like fine-woven, rippling wealth, and continued to do so just as long as nopony touched it. Because illusions were purely visual in nature, and to make contact -- well, there had been some trouble taken to upgrade the tent's entrance flaps: ponies were going to be pushing those aside all the time and as long as you'd acquired a bolt of special fabric (simply keeping hooves in the game: revenge had nothing to do with it) a few stops back, then that brilliant weave could be repurposed for something and besides, he'd heard that the true golden color was just so hard to make. Besides, surely nopony was going to indulge in a cross-continent pursuit just for a single -- acquired -- roll.

Those who entered could touch the tent's flaps, and found them to be marvelously soft. But to make contact just about anywhere else might discover rough canvas. Or the absence of true frames around the certificates, because this was an operation which traveled light and forged documents could be rolled up: wood couldn't. And if you really wanted to get into the worst-case scenario, there was the possibility that somepony might discover one of two problems: the locations where the illusion was substituting for a lack of intact tent -- and the concealed fabric bulge at the back, where there was just a little too much tent for comfort.

There was paperwork involved in the current operation, in part because you always wanted to send ponies home with a fake receipt. San Dineighgo's ocean breezes, which had no respect for the small businesspony, tended to pass through the tent's hidden gaps and ruffle the sheets on the desk. The stallion, who felt the operation to be having a good day, had already created a lie about pegaus magic being used for air circulation. So far, he'd told it six times and after the second, had adjusted the illusion to have fine copper wires laced into the tent's interior. Pegasus soon-to-be-victims who were being lied to about climate control would reasonably expect to see the species' magic-conducting metal.

Not that the tent's visible operator wanted to provide too many details. He offered hints. Suggestions, both visual and audible. And then he let the listener's brain fill in the rest, confident that whatever they came up with had been very self-serving indeed. And once the mind had decided he was only there to serve them, they would get to the good part. The money.

The stallion, when in the presence of all but one other, didn't really see ponies. He didn't truly recognize griffons, zebras, donkeys, or any of the other sapients as sapients. At best, they were sheep. There was an obligation for the only two real people in the world to conduct regular shearing sessions. And once the wool grew back, you returned to do it again.

Of course, it made sense to return while bearing a fresh coating of fur dye. For some reason, those who couldn't truly think tended to possess rather long memories.

(Surely there wouldn't be any problems. It had only been one bolt of fabric, and the loss had obviously been her fault for leaving it outside to Sun-cure in the first place. A more security-conscious mare would have forced the energy expenditure of a break-in.)

The tent's visible unicorn operator was currently sporting strands of metallic silver. Metallic coats were the single rarest fur traits known to exist: roughly one in every five thousand ponies would possess those reflective properties. Such individuals stood out, and that could be bad. But when somepony came across a strange metallic -- then later on, if asked to describe the offender, all they would generally remember was that the stallion had been a metallic. And that was good.

There was a pegasus mare on the other side of the desk, and that didn't really matter to the stallion. As far as he was concerned, she existed as a living transport system. Bits had to get around somehow, and her only true purpose in existence was to make sure they got to him.

"A new bank," she carefully said. "Run by the Bearers."

"Yes!" he beamed, and the fur dye helped to make that somewhat more literal: the mare flinched as light reflected into her eyes. (He had to watch for that. Shaving the mustache, followed by adding the dye -- it had left that area exceptionally smooth, and the results were almost blinding.) "Because who can you trust more than the Bearers, customer o' mi --"

He briefly stopped, hoped she hadn't noticed. Conducting a successful operation required avoiding bad habits. The stallion had already found himself fighting off the urge to burst into song. Verbal tics could be equally recognizable, but -- he was almost sure he'd never dealt with this pegasus before.

Not that he was particularly good at picking out those who moved within the endless flock. Reliable identification of individuals usually began to register somewhere around the fourth kick.

"-- miss," the visible operator self-corrected. "And I, as the single most appropriate Element, the one who proposed that we all use our collective powers to benefit others, in a way which no single mission could ever do -- to help in the true way, not through battles or rainbow blasts, but the offering of money -- am quite naturally serving as the hopeful face of our great endeavor. The one who, more than anything else, only wishes to help."

Helping himself to her bits obviously counted.

"You're a Bearer," when it came to the stallion's tolerance for questions, generally would have been over the limit. He made himself keep smiling.

"Of course!"

"The seventh Bearer," she added. Coral eyes narrowed slightly.

"The palace," he smoothly said as his left back hoof began to softly tap out the standard signal, "has a habit of keeping certain resources hidden until needed. Just ask those who work in the armory." (There was much the stallion would have given to sell off the contents of the armory: for starters, the reputations and employment of those who guarded it were easy to dump. He seldom had trouble with pricing, just as long as somepony else paid.) "So it's not surprising that you would have initially believed the falsehood which was presented to the public. But of course, a mare like yourself... a little thought leads to the truth, doesn't it?"

It often did, and that was why the stallion was grateful for the lack of true thinking in the world. Honesty wasn't a virtue: it was a cruel universe striking back against the small businesspony. Based on personal experience, it preferred to initially strike with the powerful right hind leg. There was probably a full beatdown pattern after that, but he hadn't remained conscious long enough to memorize it.

She went back to looking at the paperwork. He wasn't sure whether to be offended by that. There had been some trouble taken to place exactly the right amount of doubletalk into the text. Inspecting it felt rather close to an insult.

"These interest rates look too good to be real," the pegasus half-decided -- but he knew that tone. It was the sound of a sheep who dearly wanted everything to be real and simply needed somepony of intellect to tell her so. After all, carrying bits -- wool around in early summer heat was just so tiring.

"They're magically good!" he assured her. "Because we're not basing our bank in the normal rules of finance! Those only go so far." Tap, tap, tap... "And you can always start small, you know. Obviously you get better rates if you invest higher amounts --" he nodded to the illustrated lies of the chart "-- but we understand if you just want to try things out before fully committing. A mere ten bits, if you came back and withdrew just six moons from now, would allow you to claim..."

She looked at that portion of the chart, and he watched piles of bits and smidgens grow within her eyes.

It was part of the key. It was possible to find a pony who would turn over a thousand bits in the hopes of a dream and the half-sapient sheep's eternal belief that they were actually stealing from him -- but it was a lot easier to have a hundred surrender ten bits each.

All of them were welcome to come back in six moons. The empty market space would have a lot to say. And should multiple sheep appear at the same time, they could swap stories.

"Magically good." Her eyes were bright. The words still had a few doubts. "Banks have rules. If this operates outside them --"

"-- and the magic," the stallion smiled, "is meant to help ponies. In the true way. Would you like a demonstration?"

With what was almost understandable doubt, "So you're just going to multiply my money in front of my eyes..."

*tap*

There was the sound of a very small explosion, followed by a huge puff of violet smoke because using a capsule filled with reactant chemicals saved a little casting energy for later. The sea breeze came in through illusion-hidden rents, swiftly cleared the visual obstruction.

And then there was a second stallion in the tent.

The pegasus yelped. Recoiled, nearly going off the folding bench. Her saddlebags jingled.

The new arrival was identical to the operator in every way -- well, almost every way. The upper lip, which hadn't needed any shaving at all, wasn't quite as shiny. But he smiled, he beamed, and he said "What is your desire, master?" in a truly friendly way.

Coral eyes blinked.

"...where..." the mare verbally stumbled. "It wasn't a teleport, I know that, the flash didn't -- where did he even come from...?"

The correct answer was He came through the flaps at the back of the tent, because that's where the illusion-hidden compartment is. The smoke covered for him. But of course, you never told the sheep how it was done.

"As everypony of education and intellect knows," the operator beamed, "the Elements grant new magic to those who bear them. It's taken a few years to figure out just a fraction of what we all can do, and fresh abilities are always emerging. But, as I can multiply myself for a time, and make that duplicate do my bidding... why, it was a natural thought to ask myself what else I could cause to increase. And when I turned the magic inherent in a virtue to money..."

The stallion was extremely good at sleight-of-mouth, and there was a hidden compartment in the desk. A demonstration of Instant Interest was ready to go. But as it might not be necessary at all, he simply gave her another smile. It was, when you discounted false promises and lies sold as dreams, just about the only thing he ever willingly gave anypony.

"The Bearers have decided that the time has come to truly help!" he declared. "And what better virtue than Parsimony to lead the way!"

"...par... parsimony..." represented the sound of a mare delving deep for vocabulary and hitting a mostly-empty mine shaft. Something just waiting to be filled, much as her saddlebags longed to be emptied.

"Or am I to serve the mistress?" asked the freshly-appeared unicorn. "She is rather fetching."

Saddlebags jingled again.

Then it turned into more of a rattling, as the mare's turned head tried to get the left lid open.

'Parsimony'.

They'd been looking for virtues, and there was a minor smidgen of irony in either sibling trying to do that. But it had been necessary. You couldn't sell a con without the full furnishings: a golden tent, the impressive-looking paperwork, and a title. Something better than that of a noble. (The main issue in pretending to be nobles was that books like Twerp's Peerage existed, which meant there were ponies who made a living off knowing the brothers were lying.) The title virtue of a Bearer. And when it came to the dictionary entry for 'parsimony'...

It was such a flexible word. In one definition -- the ironic one -- it was about being a little too willing to hold onto bits. Used carefully, it produced savings: take it to excess and it formed a new opposite side for Generosity's coin: miserliness. Hold on to everything, no matter what.

(Seriously, setting up a trot-by opportunity meant she'd practically wanted them to have the golden fabric.)

But if you were very careful about how you spent... then didn't it make sense that you would be rather good at investments? Everypony knew that.

The stallion who'd shaved his mustache for this was very good with things which everypony knew. In the best case, they knew those things because they were exactly what he'd just told them and, like the money which had been turned over to the false bank throughout the sunny summer day, he held all the best bits back.

'Parsimony'. It was truly a lovely word. Because it could mean being frugal, and didn't that sound like a virtue? But read further into the myriad definitions, and it could also mean the ability to choose the simplest solution: whatever happened to fit the current evidence. For example, if you heard approaching hoofsteps in Equestria, then the safe assumption was that they had been produced by a pony. Going to Pundamilia Makazi was required to change the default into 'zebra'.

And the simplest answer to 'What kind of bank would offer such wonderful interest rates?' was 'No bank at all.' Because it was a con, and anypony who fell for it deserved to.

There was also a parsimony-related theory which said that no entities should be multiplied beyond necessity. The brothers, as twins, had sensibly set their personal multiplication limit at a very necessary two.

They'd temporarily sealed the forward tent flaps. Hardworking small businessponies required breaks.

"And how are the numbers looking, brother?" asked the one who hadn't had to shave. They were both standing behind the desk, peering down at the paperwork.

"Rather good, brother o' mine," replied the stallion who was just waiting to get out of town so he could start growing his crowning glory back. "We're behind what I would have truly wanted, but..."

The mere lead-in to the old joke was enough to make the younger stallion laugh. "But what we truly want is everything. And that's just not realistic, is it?"

The older brother returned the grin. "'At this time'," he finished the lifelong jest. "Still... we were pretty depleted by the time we got here." Most of the sigh was repressed. "Bad luck, getting the one conductor who truly looks at the tickets."

"It was a good lie," the younger sibling mused. "Really. Telling him that we'd purchased from somepony who had to sell their own tickets because they were staying home to take care of a sick relative. And in retrospect, we'd been conned."

"I'd try it myself," the older brother admitted. "Only now we know how hard it is to forge a good ticket. And if he'd really been sorry about it, then he wouldn't have made us pay for our ride on the spot." His money pouch, which served as its own organ, sent up signals of slow-fading pain.

Two sets of dyed ears perked up. There were hoofsteps approaching the front of the tent and in San Dineighgo, it was safe to presume they were being produced by a pony: based on the sounds, a small, rather light one, whose wings were awkwardly rustling. Breaks were one thing, but to pass up on a shearing --

-- the hoofsteps moved away. Probably just admiring the fabric. An interested party would have poked a hoof into the soft golden flaps.

"The other option," pointed out the younger, "was getting kicked off the train. As it was passing through a wild zone. And we were coming here anyway, mostly because we've never been here and the scent of fresh wool in salt air felt enticing. So all things considered..."

Fabric briefly rustled, and air blew through the tent. Just the wind.

The elder nodded. "I'd wish to have a higher starting amount," he readily admitted. "And to know where the conductor lived, so we could get our own back. But we've already replaced a decent percentage of our losses. And if we stay on pace -- then by the end of the day, we just might have enough to fund the next operation."

The one which would kick off what was in no way a full revenge tour, because professionals didn't do that. But if you were going for wool, then there was a certain pleasure in taking it from the sheep who kept kicking you --

-- light flashed in the tent.

Illusions didn't really reflect light normally, not unless the caster was paying full attention, happened to be exceptionally quick-witted, and could adjust the spell at near-impossible speed. The flaps, which were real, bounced most of what hit them: the rest was relayed between dyed metallic fur until all the siblings could truly see through watering eyes was a kaleidoscope of drifting spots.

The first instinct was to run. (It was always to run, and that was why they were still alive.) But they were behind the desk, and they were unicorns. Tall, slender, narrow-hipped, and lacking the strength to hurdle the thing from a standing start. Neither one could open a portal into the between: if they had been capable of that, then train tickets would never come into play at all. And when it came to the one who had just teleported in...

Of course it had been a teleport. Something which she hadn't needed to do. She could have just pushed open the tent flaps, or torn the entire thing out of the ground. But she'd likely trotted around to one side. Inspected the illusion, found one of the very real rents, and then peeked within. Used that to spot her arrival point, and then she'd come in behind them.

It wasn't necessary. It was outright, deliberate drama. Going for style points, and neither brother understood why she would do that. This particular sheep hadn't been like that when they'd first tried to shear one of her companions. But the siblings only thought of each other as real, and so couldn't recognize the concept of learning from one's friends.

Projections of pinkish light flashed between the spots, moved around the tent. The lead burst hit the forward tent flaps and held them closed. The next went for them, and the merest fraction of that hideous, Tartarus-freed strength locked eight trembling legs in place.

She took a breath. Feathers rustled, and did so as the glow from her horn intensified all the more. Because in Equestria, it was both parsimonious and safe to assume the source of approaching hoofsteps was a pony -- but that was a definition with subcategories.

She spoke, and there was something about the way she used words. Syllables slotted into place like a minotaur loading a crossbow, only with the potential for doing a lot more damage.

"Oh," the little alicorn audibly smiled, and that was almost the worst offense at all. That she would willfully disrupt the lives of two businessponies for what was basically no reason, and be happy about it. "So this is where Rarity's fabric went..."