//------------------------------//
// CHAPTER XXVII: The Great Game Theory 
// Story: Special Illumination 
// by ponichaeism 
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	"Good folks of Hollowed Ground," Orrin orated, "in the past twenty-five years, there ain't a single one of us that ain't shared the ups and downs our way of life has gone through, but in all those years, we've survived the hardship because our noble earth pony ways remain as solid as the mountains."
The same mountains you chip away at, Starswirl thought. 
There was a mathematical calculation behind the mining magnate's words; a method to the words he chose to express himself. All Starswirl needed was to decipher the equation and unlock Orrin's mind.
The silver stallion continued, "Our folkish spirit has endured--"
Lockhorn Plenty barked out a sarcastic laugh.
"Something to say, Lockhorn?" Orrin asked. After several seconds of silence from the ochre earth pony, Orrin continued: "This past year has been a trying time. I know I'm hurting just as much as all you fine folks--"
Lockhorn jumped to his hooves. "How dare you! My colt is lying at home a cripple because of you."
A third of the crowd shouted in approval.
Orrin shouted, "I had nothing to do with that mine collapse anymore than I had to do with your crops failing or your pets walking out on you. It set me back too, you know."
"Set your wallet back, you mean," Lockhorn sneered, eliciting laughs from half the crowd.
Orrin grinned. "Least I have a wallet full enough to be hurt."
The other half of the crowd started laughing, while the first half snorted and huffed to themselves. Quickly turning red, Lockhorn sat down and fumed to himself. Some of his crowd whispered reassuring words to him.
As Orrin droned on about the connection between the blood of an earth pony and the earth they work, Starswirl stared the silver stallion and attempted to decipher how his deeper mind expressed itself in his words and facial expressions.
He thinks he's better than the crowd he is deceiving, that they can be manipulated, whereas he alone remains resolute. He implied as much last night.
Outwardly he wields virtues such as generosity and honesty like whips, designed to strike his flock's brains and goad their own deeper minds into action without conscious thought. But that is just a mask I must remove. 
Starswirl started listening to the silver stallion's impassioned speech again:
"....the unicorns live among us for the sole purpose of infiltrating our society and tearing our way of life apart. They scheme about how to swindle our livelihood with a whole bunch of magical trickery--"
"I object," Starswirl called, raising his flushed, sweaty face.
Orrin Tin blinked heavily. "You what?" 
Starswirl croaked, "It means--"
No, don't imply the townfolk are idiots who don't know what 'object' means, Starswirl. Language is mathematics, remember: your words are the equation, the emotions in the listener are the sum total.
Clearing his throat, the wizard declared, "Where I come from, when a pony hears a spurious claim while on trial, he declares he 'objects' when he finds fault with it." The wizard breathed heavily to settle his shaky voice, then announced, "I can prove I am not swindling you."
The crowd murmured to itself.
"The trial hasn't even started," Orrin said.
"Then I shall save you the trouble and we can all leave early. Logic dictates that if I could seduce ponies with magic--as you accuse me of doing--why would I leave my most vocal critic alone? Would you not be the first pony I would charm over to my side? If, that is, I am capable of what you suggest."
Judging by his expression, Orrin Tin could tell the hemlock was not having the desired effect. "Moving on," he said, "these unicorns swindle--"
To Starswirl's delight, Jack Apple supported him by calling, "I'd like to hear your response, actually, Orrin."
The silver stallion snapped, "I ain't going to dignify that with a response."
"Come on, Orrin, if'n your claim is as solid as you say it is, I'd like to hear you defend it. All in favor?"
Starswirl looked over his shoulder to see those in favor raise their hooves. They outweighed the mining crowd, who were invariably against it.
Orrin sighed heavily. "You want to know why you didn't use your little horn on me?"
"No," Starswirl said, "I know why I didn't use my magic on you: I possess no such powers." That wasn't strictly the truth, of course, but Starswirl wasn't going to tell him that. He tried very hard to keep his voice innocently curious and free of accusation as he asked, "What I would like to hear is why you think I didn't hex you first."
Now that Starswirl had made his move, he watched Orrin intently to see if he would fall into the trap. The wizard wagered on Orrin's pride forcing him to, but there always remained the chance he would outthink Starswirl.
Sticking his chest out, Orrin said, "That'd be because I know what you unicorns get up to, and I'm too keen to be taken in by it."
Starswirl fought very hard not to smile. He laid on the disbelief in his voice and asked, "In the scant few days I've spent here, I haven't seen anything to suggest your fellow townfolk are idiots, Mister Tin. Quite the contrary, actually."
Going red, the mining magnate spat, "I said nothing of the sort! I only meant I'm up to your tricks, unicorn."
"My mistake, of course, but personally, I don't consider 'gullible' much of an improvement on 'idiot'."
"Silence, you," Orrin Tin sneered.
Even though he could barely stand, Starswirl found the strength to smile obediently. "As you wish, Mister Tin."
Orrin wiped his brow free of sweat. "I am, as you know, a m-miner by trade--"
Seizing on Orrin's fluster, a mare called out, "If'n you trade it back, how much can you get for it?"
Half the crowd broke out into the universal language of riotous laughter, that one constant thorn in the side of ambitious ponies wishing to rile up their fellow ponies into a state of fear.
"More than I reckon your farm's worth, Harvest Moon," a mining pony snapped.
As Orrin's crowd started to laugh in return, the silver stallion called, "I am a miner by profession, and I can tell you with full honesty the only way to break a mountain down is piece by piece, and that, my fellow earth ponies, is what this unicorn is doing to our society: chipping away at it, bit-by-bit, so's he and his wretched kin can come and take away what's rightfully ours--"
"I should think not," Starswirl declared. "Where I come from, unicorns spend too much time fighting over our own land to worry about stealing anypony else's."
"Order, I say, order!" Orrin yelled. He pointed at Starswirl. "Fine. You want to get this over with real quick? Then I'm asking for a vote....how many ponies think I got an accusation strong enough to be heard by three?"
The wizard turned on his unsteady legs and watched as the hooves went up. More than half, surely, but to his surprise not by much. 
"Heard by three it is," Orrin snapped.


The stallion tried very hard not to smile and break the graveness of his public mask. As the earth ponies voted among themselves to select three to judge, the stallion watched the unicorn wizard contemplate his next move in this great game, unaware that the stallion's deft hoof had already ensnared and outmaneuvered him. The trap was snapping shut, and it was beautiful in its intricacy:
If Starswirl lost, the stallion won and the meddling wizard would be cast out of town under penalty of death before he had a chance to put a stop to the stallion's ascension.
But if Starswirl won, the stallion also won, as the animosity the townfolk generated would fracture Hollowed Ground in half. The stallion already felt the discord in the town hall making him stronger. 
All in all, though, the stallion was rooting for the wizard. It would certainly make what was to come much more interesting.


While the folkmeet voted for its second judge, Starswirl swept his eyes out over the crowd, wondering which one of them was the deposed unicorn king he sought. Surely he must be here, for how else could he have sent that illusion down into the storeroom? 
Was he one of the farming folk present at that secret circle several nights ago? The wizard glanced at Lockhorn Plenty, standing in silence as he watched the ponies vote on whether he was to be the second judge. 
The wizard then looked at Orrin Tin, the first judge, sitting and staring at his nemesis with distaste. Or was the stallion one of the mining ponies, using the mines' penchant for scarring the ponies who ventured into them to conceal the disfigurement where his horn had been lopped off? Was he manipulating the farming folk into tainting the forest by playing on their superstitions?
Or was it one of the others, the non-aligned ponies, playing both sides against each other?
Starswirl didn't know enough to say yet. He realized that when he got done with this--if he got done with this--he still had a lot of work to do.
Lockhorn Plenty, just as Ettin Arcadia had predicted, was the second judge to be decided on. The ochre farmer joined Orrin Tin and gave the silver stallion a look of utter disgust and contempt, which was more than happily returned. Whoever the shadow stallion truly was, Starswirl mused, he was very crafty indeed; if he wanted to save the Harmony of this town, first he would have to shatter it by driving an even bigger wedge between Orrin Tin and Lockhorn Plenty.
Very well then, he thought. Let the games begin.