While the green pony takes his turn, PLO walks curiously over to the card he'd been marking. It appears to be some kind of record keeping card, with slots for the numbers of pins that get knocked down, and...names...

Well, that shouldn't be. Perhaps that pony...the card says "Hex" on his, is he perhaps a warlock? It is not completely unheard of for a non-unicorn witch or warlock...regardless, this "Hex" seems to have perhaps misheard his name and marked it as "Plow?", additionally drawing flowers around it. This is not something PLO would stand for. From within his cloak, he produces a dollop of red wax and sets it against his horn, melting a drop off onto his slot on the scorecard.

A clatter of those "pins" (why are they called that? They'd have a hard time piercing anything) draws his eyes up. "You would fail to tell me all of the rules of your game and then presume to accuse me of cheating, Mr...Five Pins?" Of the ten pins, Hex had knocked down half, all on the left side. He puts the wax back into its place and swaps it out for a signet ring which he presses onto the drop on the scorecard, clearly marking his slot as PLO. With perhaps a smidge of an extra letter on the tail end.

When the ring is back in its place, he marks a 5 next to the possible hexer's name and grabs another ball. This one feels a bit lighter than the previous one. "Perhaps I should turn to another to teach me, if you are not up to the task," he says, ignoring Hex's attempt to interrupt him as he rolls the ball down the lane, knocking over the rest of the pins with a smug smirk on his face.

Hex looks like he's about to say something really mean and/or stupid, which he probably was, but manages to stop himself to take a deep breath.

Hfffffffffffffffffffff...

Pahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

"You're right", he says to the mare. "Let's start over." He manages to suppress a smirk, but the tongue in his cheek may be visible for a second to anypony observant enough.

He gestures grandly to the surrounding area. "Behold the mighty bowling alley", he says, drawing a few glances from other patrons that he tries his best to ignore. "Called so because, at its inception, it was carried out clandestinely in the shadowy recesses of cities. For you see, it wasn't always a game; at its inception, it was a divination method.

"Back in the day, before the three tribes came together, earth ponies had a big dislike for magic. Or anything unicorn-related, really. Not a lot of trust for them. But a few of us, desperate souls, believed that they could help us see the future. They would search out these fortune-tellers, who would give them a large wooden ball. Several long metal needles were set standing, point up, next to a map. They would pose a question; where they could find love, where to buy a house, where to plant their crops. Then they would tip the ball out of a bowl, forcefully, knocking the needles flying. Every point where a pin stuck into the map was a place where they should seek out whatever they had asked for.

"Over time, I guess ponies just realized it was a fun thing to do, so they decided to come up with rules and remove the pointy bits that were liable to hurt you."

There. He thinks he managed to keep a straight face through it.

Lamplight just shakes her head and glances over at the other patrons who's attention had been drawn by Hex's "explanation" of bowling. As if this game needed to be any more ridiculous. Of course, Lamplight doesn't know much about the origins of the sport herself; she somehow doubts it involved fortune tellers though. Still, she has to give him some points for coming up with all of that on the spot. PLO, of course, appears to believe every word of it. He even provides his own interpretation of what he thinks the silly history hex gave means. Ridiculous as it is, it will at least make a pretty good story for later, one the regulars would surely find amusing. Lamplight suppresses a giggle, the two stallion's unfriendly attitudes forgiven at least for now. Despite the ridiculous nature of Hex's tale, it seems PLO has managed to pick up on the proper rules of the game, and they were finally about ready to start a real game. She smiles at PLO and shoots a glance over at Hex. "That's more or less it." She can always tell him the truth later, for now, pointing it out will probably just result in the two butting heads again. "So, who's going first?" She asks, "I'll just sit out and keep score for now." Hopefully they don't fight over who gets to go first. Maybe she should have suggested a coin flip...

"Yes, and let us see if your way of balling can match your way of words, good Hex." PLO is back in full composure, straight-standing and confident, ready to take on this past time of this town and own it. He retrieves a mid-weight yellow ball from the rack and sets himself regally in front of the lane. No deep breath needed, he is already in control. He steps forward and sends the orb rolling rapidly down towards its targets.

It falls into the gutter about halfway through.



At the end of seven turns later, the score is relatively even. PLO, despite his early flub, did manage to recover somewhat nicely, and had overall missed very few of the pins, sitting at a score of 59. When Hex finished his turn, he was left at 56, just 3 behind PLO. The scores themselves would be pleasing to him if that was the whole story. There's nothing wrong with being ahead of one whom he assumed to be a seasoned veteran of the sport, given his masterful expression of the rules and his choice of this recreation in the first place when pressed for it. And for the first few turns, he was good-natured about the whole thing.

What was not okay was that there was one pin of the ten that would simply not fall down for him. He noticed it at five turns in, possibly after the other two ponies involved, and thereafter made it his mission to knock it down. But no. No matter how he threw the ball, and how many pins were knocked around it, it simply would not be knocked over. Because of this, he got no strikes, no spares, no extra points, not even the ones that he would have gotten for knocking over just that pin.

And he is not happy about it. Not in the slightest. Aside from that one detail the game would have become tedious, he feels, but...that. One. Pin!

He tries not to let his irritation show, but that has never been his strong point. His mane also gives it away, though its crackling would have been growing even without that. "You know," he says, force-calmly as he steps once more with his chosen favorite ball, "if dhe point of the game is the destruction of those pins, dhis seems a terribly inefficient vhay to do so." As he speaks, his horn lights up and a shaft of lightning coils down his horn to his neck, then down his hoof, which touches the ball, charging it with electrical energy and drawing eyes.

He hurls the glowing, crackling ball down the lane (making sure to roll it, thank you very much), electricity arcing out, cracking and burning the surface of the aisle as it goes amid shouts of surprise and/or anger from behind him. Upon impacting the lead pin, dead center, it erupts, causing a small explosion that sends ball and pin pieces flying, and by now nearly everypony's attention was directed to the blast which cleared not only that lane but the force of which knocked down all the pins in three lanes in either direction.

...Except for the single one standing in the center of where the formation was, clean, spotless, and 100% not knocked down.

Overall, Hex isn't having TOO bad a time. Bowling wasn't something he did often, but it was refreshing to have somepony with him that wasn't just bowling him out of the water. It's a tad frustrating that he's being beaten by some backwoods clod. It's entertaining seeing him fail to get the center pin every time, though.

When the explosion happens, it knocks his glasses askew. Taking a moment to fix them up, he glances around the room at the aftermath before staring at the single shining, standing pin. He smirks. "I'll admit, I'm impressed..." this probably isn't a good time for a jab, but he just can't help himself... "...I never thought you'd be able to keep that one up. Way of, uh, controlling your fate."

Scared stiff, Hex doesn't have the wherewithal to move when the shouting match starts.

He shields his eyes when the blast hits, and it takes a moment after for his eyes to see more than a dark blur. In the meantime, he can hear crashes echo around him and the floor shaking a bit as the building collapses.

When he can see again, he finds that the shockwave failed to move him, and the structure has left him completely unscathed (albeit a little trapped). Soon he's recovered enough to speak:

"Huh."

PLO shakily stands up, batting at his face with a hoof, sending up a cloud of soot and dirt. "Right. I suppose...that vhas...a bit too long...ago..." he blinks and waves away a couple of emergency personnel checking on him. He seems incredibly low-energy. "No, no...am fine, am-"

He's interrupted by the owner barging past the others into his face once again. "YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR WHAT YOU'VE DONE, DON'T THINK YOU'RE NOT! THAT WAS MY BUSINESS, MY-"

PLO is having none of that, and puts his hoof over the other pony's mouth. Oddly enough, it works. "Fine. Vhill pay. Vhill buy. How much is price of bowlink alley?" He glances around and spots his purse sitting nearby, then begins walking towards it, seemingly oblivious to the fire still on his mane.

The owner isn't pacified for long, and follows belligerently close behind. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU SAID, BUT NOPONY SHUTS ME-"

PLO proves him wrong once again after picking up the purse, the same way he had just seconds before. "Yes. Vhill pay," PLO repeats, louder than previously, and starts digging out some coins. "How much to buy?"

"OH, REALLY," the owner resumes as soon as his mouth is free again. "YOU REALLY THINK YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE ENOUGH IN THAT-" PLO rolls his eyes and keeps pulling out coins until they form a small mound on the ground. "-LITTLE PURSE YOU GOT THERE? THAT THERE BOWLING ALLEY WAS WORTH-" PLO stares the stallion in the eye and turns the purse opening down over the pile, and coins cascade out of the open mouth, the pile growing until it's practically as large as the two ponies, with their legs partially submerged by the spill. "-MORE THAN you probably...ever..." The owner's rage seems to subside as the pile grows, falling silent.

Having seemed to satisfy the peasant, PLO snorts and stows his purse away in his cape and shoos a pegasus approaching with a bucket. He ambles slowly back into the bowling alley, which has been gotten under control, except Hex is still stranded, unnoticed. PLO spots him through gaps in the rubble and huffs, muttering something under his breath before calling back out to the others tiredly, "Dhere is pony in here." Emergency personnel converge on the trap to free him while PLO walks on through the building, trudging down what was previously one of the lanes until he reaches his nemesis.

His horn sparks and he points it at the center pin, still standing where it was, unmoved. A pitiful jolt of electricity jumps at the pin, having zero effect on it.

He kicks it over with a clatter.