Author's Notes:

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Now for 400 . . .

After taking several staircases down, Stoneface stopped in front of a door and knocked on it. He opened the door, walked in, and dropped the bag of gemstones on the desk inside. He exited the room and walked off. The Equestrians exchanged puzzled glances, then Twilight walked into the office, followed by the rest.

The Goblin at the desk was wearing a suit and eyeglasses that had extra lenses suspended above them. He said not a word as he poured the stones out onto his desk. He flipped one of the lenses down over one eye and started dividing the gems into two groups.

As they entered, they noticed two fierce-looking, armoured Goblins standing on either side of the door inside the office. While polished to a gleam, the armour had clearly seen use. Both held spears and were wearing swords and large knives. They would have fit right in with the Royal Guard.

Fluttershy let out a frightened “Eep, and wedged herself between Applejack and Rarity. Pinkie Pie began to shake and stage whispered, “It’s a doozy!” Twilight and Applejack began looking around carefully. The fillies huddled a bit closer together.

The Goblin closely studied the seven gems he had separated from the rest. Finally, he looked up. “Gringotts offers you ten for these seven and ten for the rest.”

“Is that all?” Sweetie Belle said, the other girls echoed her disappointment.

“Maybe one of the regular banks will give us more?” suggested Scootaloo, remembering what the solicitor had said about the other gems, as they looked at each other.

“You misunderstand,” the Goblin said, “That is ten for each of these seven, and ten for the rest.”

Applejack frowned at the Goblin.

The girls looked at each other; that sounded much better — eighty galleons for the four of them to share wasn’t bad at all. They were about to accept when Applejack interrupted.

“Yeh aren’t being honest with us,” Applejack stated flatly.

“Applejack?” Twilight said uncertainly.

Pinkie giggled and pulled out a bag of popcorn and started munching. “And here it comes,” she murmured.

“Ah kin feel it, he ain’t being honest ner fair with us. Them stones are worth far more then what he’s offering. And his original offer was for twenty fer ’em all, not ten each fer the big ones.”

The Goblin stared at her. “Are you calling me a liar?” he said standing up behind his desk.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Ah kin feel it, yer not telling us the truth. Them stones are worth far more’n yer offerin’.”

The Goblin yanked his knife from his belt and leapt onto his desk, yelling “I shall kill you for that insult!” He clearly hoped he could intimidate these witches and make an even bigger profit — the young were new witches and their relatives were magicless wastes of space.

Applejack took a step forward and hunched down, dropping her purse.

“Applejack!” Twilight yelled.

The Goblin grinned viciously at the apparent success of his tactic, the female bowing to his superiority. He jumped off his desk at Applejack. “Cower, you useless muggle!” the Goblin roared.

This was not the first time the mares had been attacked without provocation, and they reacted instantly.

Twilight spun to face the guard closest to her. She crouched slightly as her purse hovered at her side.

His spear fell to the floor as the Goblin pulled his sword with one hand and a knife with the other. They were too close for a spear to be anything but a hindrance.

Rarity, also crouched and faced the other guard, who had mirrored his partner.

A soft glow suffused a spot just above the foreheads of the two mares, one violet and the other blue.

Neither of the guards noticed. They were expecting to see wands, or perhaps knives. They were dismissive of the unarmed defenceless females.

Fluttershy dove for the three girls. She wrapped them in her arms as she carried them to the floor and against the front of the Goblin’s desk.

Applejack dropped her hands to the rock floor.

The Goblin landed in front of her.

She spun around.

He laughed at the female huddled with her back to him.

Applejack threw her weight forward onto her arms.

The Goblin held his knife to slash at the foolish female.

She pulled her knees up to her stomach.

He stepped forward.

She launched her feet backwards in a classic buck. It landed solidly on the Goblins chest, shattering his ribs with a loud crack and launching him over his desk and into the wall behind it.

There was sickening crunch as he hit the wall. He slid to the floor, unconscious, leaving a thin bloody trail on the wall.

The two guards stood, unmoving. The unarmed muggle had easily defeated Master Facet when he should just as easily have defeated her. None of the other females had moved to act aggressively, with the pink-haired one still eating that strange food from her bag. Killing defenceless, females brought no honour. It was better to wait for a superior.

Outside the room they could hear a loud gong reverberating through the building.

Applejack regained her feet and purse, and slowly walked around the desk to look at the Goblin. Gagging slightly, she said, “Twilight? Ah think this here goblin needs a healin’ spell or two. He’s looking mighty poor.”

Twilight looked over at Pinkie Pie, “Pinkie? Do you think you could keep an eye on this guard for me?”

“Okie dokie lokie!” she said, skipping over to stand in front of the guard. She opened one eye until it comically took up most of her face while narrowing the other down to a pin-prick. She stared at the startled Goblin intently. “Want a muffin?” she said, holding one out to him. The bag of popcorn was not in sight. The Goblin eyed the muffin as if he thought it might explode on him.

A wise Goblin, Twilight thought as she joined Applejack.

She looked at the slumped Goblin and winced. She started by casting a healing spell on the Goblin’s head. He would have a severe headache when he woke up, if not a mild concussion.

“These Goblins aren’t as tough as Ah expected. That shouldn’t have done more’n dazed him a bit,” Applejack said, shaking her head.

The guards glanced up at her declaration.

“Heck, even Apple Bloom would have shrugged that off.”

The listening guards stiffened slightly on hearing this.

The little girl peeking around the edge of the desk at the fallen Goblin, nodded her head.

The door to the office flew open and half-a-dozen guards flooded into the room. Seeing that there was no fighting, they moved to perimeter of the room, awaiting further instructions and leaving the females unmolested.

“Oooh!” cried Pinkie, “More Goblins to the party! Is Jareth coming, too?” She darted around, moving across the room to random Goblins. In short order each of the Goblin guards had his sword in one hand and a muffin in the other. None of them were exactly sure how their knives ended up back in their sheaths at their belts.

Moments later, another Goblin came in. This one was obviously a superior and was dressed in a suit. The muffins were quickly hidden behind backs. “Who dares draw a wand in Gringotts!” he yelled, angrily. “Who dares attack a Goblin!”

“You’re not Jareth,” Pinkie said, disappointed.

No one said anything for a moment, but the Goblin immediately noticed the two females behind his employee’s desk. “What are you doing!” he roared, stalking around the desk.

Twilight looked up from where she leaned over the wounded Goblin, “Saving his life,” she said drily.

The goblin stared at her a moment. He saw the soft violet glow in the hair above her forehead with its matching counterpart surrounding the bleeding Goblin on the floor. He turned and pointed at the door guard that had faced off against Twilight, “Report!”

Before the guard had finished speaking, the suited Goblin was inspecting the gems on the desk. They ranged in size from a small tooth to seven that were twice the size of his thumb.

Applejack kept an eye on the Goblin-in-charge while Twilight finished casting her spells on the injured Goblin. Finally, Twilight stood. “That’s all I can do. He’ll live, but he needs to see a professional healer.”

The Goblin turned to her. “Use of a wand inside Gringotts without permission is punishable by death.”

Applejack laughed. “Good thing she don’t have a wand then, ain’t it?”

The Goblin faced Applejack. “You used magic against a Goblin in Gringotts.”

She laughed again. “Eynope. Ah bucked him for attacking me.”

“And I suppose you don’t have a wand either,” he said, scowling.

“Eynope.”

“Impossible.” He pointed at the blood smeared on the wall. “No simple kick could do that.”

She raised an eyebrow, “Are you calling your own guard a liar?”

The guards in the room all stiffened.

The Goblin scowled harder. “He was watching his opponent, not you.”

“So, yer calling me a liar?” She stood straight, her muscles tensing. She was scowling, now.

He studied her stance and demeanour carefully. She wasn’t an ordinary muggle female. Her stance was that of a warrior blooded in combat. She wasn’t bluffing. “Prove you can kick that hard.”

“Right,” she said. She looked around the room, then at the desk. “If’n Ah kick this desk into the wall, would that do?”

He looked at the desk, then at the muggle female in front of him. The desk was solid oak and easily out-weighed the fragile human at least twice, if not three, times. She would have a tough time even moving the desk. He smiled toothily. “Yes.”

Fluttershy shuddered at the display of sharp predator teeth.

Applejack smiled back at him, “Ah’m not responsible for the damage done to the desk or wall.”

He nodded, saying, “Yes.” The only damage would be to her feet. He picked up the bag from the desk and scooped the gems into it. He didn’t want any of them to be jostled and land on the floor for him to have to pick up. Because, of course, anything that falls off a desk immediately rolls underneath the desk. And requires getting down on hands and knees and crawling partway under the desk to retrieve it. Not very dignified, and it wasted time.

Applejack walked to the side of the desk. Pinkie was again eating popcorn out of a large bowl cradled in her arm and had managed to get one of the guards to sample a handful. He seemed to like it, as he was grabbing a second handful. Fluttershy and the girls moved over beside Rarity.

Applejack looked at the desk, took a couple of steps back, and crouched down. She looked over at the Goblin in the suit, nodded once, and then spun to put her back to the desk. She put her hands on the rock floor, leaned forward onto her arms, and then launched herself into a full buck, landing her feet on the edge of the desktop — hitting the side would have merely caved it in.

The desk took off like a shot and slammed into the wall with a loud WHAM! Cracks spider-webbed out from the impact on the wall. The desktop itself broke into four pieces on the grain of the wood and separated from the now warped and broken desk.

The earth-pony in human form stood up, dusting her hands off. “Believe meh now?”

The Goblin stared at the destroyed desk and severely damaged wall. He had felt magic surge into the room, but he couldn’t sense how it had been used. And without a wand or casting a spell, it was nothing that defied any treaty or law of the Goblin Nation. Sourly, he nodded.

He turned to Twilight, “Gringotts offers you twenty for each of the seven gems Master Facet singled out and ten for the remainder.”

Twilight just looked at him, then said, “Don’t talk to me, those gems belong to the fillies.” She pointed at the three girls.

The Goblin looked surprised and turned to the girls.

Sweetie Belle looked back at him, took a shaky breath, and said, “Make it thirty for those seven, thirty for the remainder, and it’s a deal.”

The Goblin sneered, “Do you think me a fool? I haven’t examined them properly, they could be flawed. Twenty-five for the seven and Twenty-five for the remainder.”

“Your Master Gemmologist looked at them quite closely and was quite pleased. Do you not trust one of your own that has the experience of a Master? Twenty-seven for the seven and the same for the remainder.”

They settled on twenty-seven for each of the seven gems and twenty for the remainder after she finally threatened to take the gems to a muggle jeweller. Just from what their solicitor had told them, they should be able to get that much from a normal jeweller.

As she half-whispered to the others before finally agreeing, “Hey, that’s over fifty-two and a quarter each, not bad for an afternoon’s work!”

She saw the smile the Goblin had as he dropped the bag of gems in his pocket. She should have started at forty instead of thirty, she realized! But then again, she knew banks had to turn a profit. And haggling was haggling. Both parties had to feel they got a bad deal or a good deal. And she was happy with what they had made.

“Okay,” she said, “Can we get four bags with the galleons evenly divided in them?”

The Goblin turned back to Sweetie Belle. He actually looked surprised. “You want to take the galleons with you?”

“Sure, why not?”

“That’s a lot of galleons.”

She shrugged, not seeing the problem.

He blinked a few times, seeing that she was serious.

“It would be better to put them into a vault and use wallets to remove the galleons when you need them.”

Sweetie Belle frowned, but then Apple Bloom said in a low voice, “That’s a lot of gold coins, Sweetie.”

Startled, Sweetie looked back at Apple Bloom. “An entire bag of bits is heavy!” Apple Bloom explained. She knew, from all the times she had helped out at her sister’s stand in Ponyville’s Marketplace that a lot of bits weighed a lot!

Sweetie Belle turned back to the Goblin. “Alright. Setup one vault and give us four wallets made of akro . . . aacrom . . . .” She stopped and looked over at her sister.

“Acromantula silk,” Rarity provided.

“That,” Sweetie Belle said, nodding.

The Goblin nodded, He pulled an unbroken inkwell and paper from the desk, and started writing things down. After a moment he dropped the finished message into a drawer in the desk he had to force open. Apparently, even though it was wrecked, the spells on the desk still worked.

“One vault?” whispered Scootaloo.

“Yep, it’ll be cheaper, I think, and if we need more money we can always go dig up some more gems next week,” Sweetie whispered back.

“How’ll we know we’re running out of galleons in the vault?” Apple Bloom innocently asked the Goblin. He turned from the desk and stared at her.

“You are now the tenth largest depositor in Gringotts with two hundred nine thousand galleons. I can’t imagine what you would buy that would come close to depleting your vault. However, should your balance fall below one hundred galleons the inside of the wallet will turn green. At fifty galleons it will turn orange. At ten galleons it will turn black. At zero it won’t open.”

All the mares and fillies, except Twilight, stared at the Goblin with their jaws dropped. If they had been in Equestria, their jaws would have been on the ground.

Twilight stared at everyone’s reactions. The values mentioned seemed high to her, but then again she never had to deal with money. Anything she wanted she just told the merchant to bill to the palace, as Princess Celestia had told her to do. She had a bowl in her room that magically refilled when she took out bits for incidental spending — like at Sugar Cube Corner, or the Secondhoof Bookstore when she was looking for rare books she didn’t already have, or for Harry to get a treat, for example. She shrugged. Money wasn’t that important, anyway. Books, on the other hand . . . .

“Two hundred and nine thousand?” squeaked Scootaloo.

“When he said twenty-seven, he meant twenty-seven thousand, not just twenty-seven galleons,” half whispered Sweetie Belle, stunned at the discovery.

The Goblin heard her and stared back, clearly aghast as he realized that the young witch had haggled like a pro and hadn’t even known the value of what she was selling. He closed his eyes, then shot them open. Sweetie Belle wondered what he was thinking.

The Goblin stared at them a moment longer, then took out the bag and removed the very large bevelled purple stone. He held it up between his thumb and pointer finger and cleared his throat. “If you find any more of these gems, Gringotts would be most interested in acquiring them. The larger, the better. They are called painite.”

“Why would we do that?” Apple Bloom said. “We have plenty of bits . . . galleons in the vault, we really don’t need any more.”

The Goblin frowned, then said, “If you were to bring us more, we would forgive certain fees in addition to paying you top galleon for the gems. We would even . . . open up certain ventures for your investment.”

Rarity walked over and took a closer look at the gem he was holding up. “Oh, yes,” she said brightly, “The Royal Guards at home enchant these gems to make their armour more effective. They prefer the smaller ones, though, they are easier to inset into the armour and easier to charge for the average uni . . . uh, wizard. The magic to charge them is proportional to their volume, you know.” She looked at it pensively. “I usually ignore them when I find them as my customers don’t like the way those gems interfere with their spell-casting if there are any sewn into their clothes.”

The Goblin wearing the suit kept his expression somewhat under control, but he still looked startled. Clearly, he realized that none of the mares in the room were simple muggles, or even average witches. The other Goblins looked shocked at such casual use of an extremely rare gem. And what that mention meant for the actual rarity of the item.

The Goblin nodded politely, then said, “Those two,” he pointed at the two guards who had originally been in the office, “will conduct you to the lobby. Your wallets should be ready by the time you get there. If you desire to sell Gringotts any more gems, ask for Knifethrower. I will deal fairly with you.”

Applejack gave him a hard look, then slowly nodded.

He opened a drawer and removed a key and knife. He handed both to Apple Bloom as the closest filly. While she was busy, the Goblin pulled out another paper wrote on it and dropped it in the outbound slot.

After the fillies all bled over the key to their vault and gave their names, Knifethrower declared their business concluded.

It was a quiet group that exited the office. The fillies were mulling over their new-found wealth and the mares were wondering why the fillies’ gems rated such special treatment. The gems Twilight had given their teller in the lobby had been so casually handled by comparison.

“There they are,” Dash exclaimed pointing. Harry had to admit he relaxed a bit at seeing his friends and the adults coming out of a door at the back of the bank. The two guards escorting them were a surprise. Pinkie munching on popcorn and sharing it with one of the guards was a bit unexpected, but, hey, Pinkie. After her performance at The Leaky Cauldron he should be relieved she wasn’t leading a parade!

Before they were halfway to the rest of the group, several Goblins came hurrying out of another door at the back of the bank. Two of them were carrying wallets, one had a staff almost as tall as he was, with a large lens at his eyelevel, and the last simply followed the others.

The Goblins with the wallets caught up to the group at the front doors to the bank. One Goblin walked up to Twilight and silently held out a wallet. “Thank you,” she said taking it.

The other Goblin walked up to the three fillies, bowed, and held out four wallets. “Oh,” said Sweetie Belle, “These are so soft!” as she took one, followed quickly by the other two. “Oh, you’re right,” said Apple Bloom. “Here,” said Scootaloo, handing one to Harry. “We opened a vault with our gems. We don’t have to worry about bits while we’re here,” she said with a smirk, “the Goblins gave us two hundred and nine thousand galleons for them.” The eyes of the remaining adults, and Hermione, went wide as their jaws dropped open.

Scootaloo snickered, “And they wanted to know if we could get more!” Surprised at the amount, Harry still rolled his eyes at her comment. “How many buckets of gems should we give them?” he asked sarcastically. She laughed. “I think they’d fall over in a faint like Fluttershy if we brought in a bucket!” She got a mischievous look in her eyes, “Still, that would be funny, wouldn’t it?” Harry grinned back at her.

The two Goblins standing beside them exchanged glances.

The other two Goblins had stopped some distance away and the one with the staff gasped loudly as he looked through the lens atop it. Harry looked over at him as the Goblin had his companion look through it as well. He, too, gasped.

The Goblin in front of Twilight said, “To seal the wallet to yourself,” he glanced at the other mares, “and anyone else you wish to grant access to it, put a drop of blood inside. Then only you or any others who are sealed to the wallet may remove funds.”

The other Goblin was giving the same instructions to the fillies. He held out his hand with a small silver knife on it. Sighing, the three fillies each took the knife and blooded their wallets before handing the knife to Harry, who followed their example. He had bled often enough at the hands of Dudley that sticking himself with a knife was nothing.

The Grangers watched avidly.

When Harry looked over again to the other two Goblins, they were already walking away to the back of the bank, whispering to each other. The Goblin not carrying the staff was waving his arms around wildly. Harry saw that Professor McGonagall, frowning in concentration, was also watching those two Goblins.

Seeing that their duties were completed, the two Goblins in front of them gave short bows to Twilight and the fillies, then left. Harry noticed that Professor McGonagall seemed surprised at the Goblins’ actions.

Twilight dropped her wallet into her purse, after baptising it with her and her friends’ blood.