CHAPTER 6

Hey everypony! I'm back again with yet another chapter. This makes three chapters in 24 hours. I would love to be able to do this every day. I hope you are all enjoying my sudden burst of artistic ambition, as well as the story. I wonder if any of you have figured out the answer to the enigma of this case yet. It looks like the plot keeps thickening, eh? Well read on, and don't forget to shoot me questions and comments, my loyal readers. I won't keep you any longer. Here is chapter 6. Enjoy!

"Alright Budder..." I said, walking with my sister to the mouth of the mine. "I'm going to go over the map, and read some more boring books about geology and mineral deposits and junk. I don't know jack-turkey about quartz mining...or any kind of mining...but something tells me that I'm gonna have to do my homework if I'm gonna solve this thing." She nodded. "Meanwhile...you brought that electro-spectro-detectro thing-a-ma-bob, didn't you?" My sister gave me a lemon-sour face a moment.

"UGH!" She exclaimed, planting her face in her right hoof. "Electromagnetic Field Detector, bub...okay? Just...please...and yes, I brought it."

"Whatever...okay, while I'm working on the criminal angle, you can see if you can't use your Electromagnetic Field Detector to...detect electric ghosts or...ugh...okay sis, you know this ain't my thing. Just do what you do best, angel." I rolled my eyes.

Heeheehee." She giggled. "Alright bub. And you can do what you do best." She went into the shack and came out wearing her saddlebags, and carrying a strange-looking device that she had obtained to hunt ghosts with. I say obtained because I'm not entirely sure where she had gotten it. I know that she had drawn a few crude sketches of a hoof-held ghost-finding machine, and then made me give her 500 bits of the money she'd made helping out on our cases. The next thing I knew, it was one month later, and who should show up but Princess Luna. She had a large box for my sister, and inside was the contraption and a few books written by Princess Luna herself called "Electricity Energy and the Paranormal" and "Magnetism and the Macabre", and my favorite title "Zapping Ghosts from your Home with the Power of Lightning?"

The device was a black-stained wooden box, measuring four inches wide, seven long, and two inches deep. It was a heavily modified version of a radiation detector, and had a display on which were numbers and a needle, and the odd words 'Gauss/Milligauss', below which was 1.0/0.1, and the words 'BonumNocte Labs'. It turned on and off via a switch on the side of the box. There was a small pocket compass set into the face of the box as well, and the whole thing ran off of magically-charged batteries that Budder got shipped regularly from Canterlot. My sister had let me play with her strange device for a while after she had gotten it, and I couldn't make heads or tails out of it. It started buzzing, and the needle moved around kitchen magnets, and she showed me how the needle would spike, and the box would chirp loudly every time lightning would flash during a storm. She explained to me that ghosts were made of the same thing that caused magnets to attract metal, and the same thing that made up lightning, but they were two different forces, but the same thing. Then she went on about how unicorn magic and ghosts were similar because they were both energy particles that could move things around in the real world.

I'd listened for a while, and some of it actually made sense, but I had to stop her when she started talking about floating consciousnesses and electrons, protons and ions building up in haunted places. It was beyond the scope of what I knew about reality, and really beyond what I wanted to know in a way. I was still very impressed with Budder, and how much knowledge she had acquired on the paranormal. It was more than obvious to me that we were both detectives now, in our own ways albeit, and where I was continually searching for physical clues, my sister's technique was a little more esoteric in nature. This was her calling, her life's work, and I would support her in it fully.

"Don't forget a hardhat when you go in there." I cautioned. "And a lantern. Oh, take a whistle too, so if you get lost, I can find you, okay?"

"Okay, bub." Budder answered.

"You might wanna take some first aid stuff with you too, just in case."

"Bubby, I'll be fine." She stated. "You worry too much about me. I'll be alright...as long as I don't run into spiders." She added, then shivered.

"You sure? I know Dashie probably wouldn't mind..."

"Drake, I'll be alright, okay?" My sister said, trying to defuse my concerns.

"I guess..." I mumbled. "You know I worry about you..."

"I know. It's because you love me." She said with a smile.

"Yeah. That's exactly right. Be careful sis, okay?" I repeated. "And...if you see any ghosts, let me know...not that I'll be thrilled to hear about it."

"Heh. Alright." Budder nodded. She pulled on a hardhat. "I'll be back in a little bit, bub. Love you." She checked her device and put it into her right saddlebag, then took the lantern sitting beside us in her teeth. I watched my sister trot off into the mine. I turned back to the shed, and the boring books I had to go over. I couldn't help but feel that at this point of the case, my little sister had gotten the better end of the deal.

There is only so much about quartz a stallion can learn without going completely insane. I know this because I feel like I nearly reached that point. I had brought a book on mining, and two on minerals, and had requested some literature about quartz and quartz mining from Carbide Bit. Now, after three hours of pouring over the information, I was still no closer to piecing together a picture of what was going on in this mystery. What I did know was that quartz was a naturally occurring silica-oxygen tetrahedral crystal with a chemical formula of SiO2. I knew that it was the second most abundant mineral in nature, and is formed by crystalizing molten magma and geothermic activity. I knew now that it formed in conjunction with other ore materials like iron, gold, silver and copper. I found that it can be created by lightning striking sand. Hell, at this point I even knew that it was possible to synthesize quartz in a laboratory setting. All this I knew, and I didn't know if any of it had anything to do with the problem at hoof.

And what's more, I found out that quartz mining can be profitable, but that is a relative term. According to my calculations, this mine was turning out about three million bits a year in quartz crystal. After paying the miners to extract the rock, transportation, and what I considered to be normal operating costs for the mine and the company, the owner couldn't be clearing more than three hundred grand a year. Hardly an amount worth all the trouble the criminals were going to in their endeavor to run everypony off. If there were just three ponies involved in this mess, and they managed to seize control of this operation, they'd only stand to make a hundred thousand a year each off their efforts, and that would be if the mine were being worked around the clock. Operating at a normal pace, they'd only be making a little more than a forepony every year. Something wasn't adding up about all of this.

Another angle then...what if it was a criminal ring, looking to set up shop in an abandoned mine? With only one way in and out, and everypony scared to go around the place, it would be a good location for a hideout. But that's about it. A hideout. A set of tracks ran from the mine to the small town, four miles away. There, it connected onto the main line at a switching station designed to shuttle the cars coming from the local mines around the area around and send them out on trains headed east. Those tracks and a rutted out dirt road were the only ways to get here, and the small town was the only population center for dozens of miles. If the criminal ring were engaged in smuggling or an other activities badponies like to dip their hooves in, they could have picked someplace less secluded, and with easier accessibility. Okay, so they're not using the mine as a smuggler's cove. Then what? A secret headquarters for a sinister international cadre of assassins bent on world domination? That made about as much sense as anything else at this point.

"Any luck, sweetie?" Dashie asked, bringing me a cup of fresh coffee. I picked up the tin cup and held it up in a toast to my marefriend for loving me so deeply as to bring me caffeine.

"Not yet." I admitted. "The more I learn, the less sense this whole thing makes." I took a drink of the coffee. "To be honest, there's no good reason for anypony to want this damned mine. None at all."

"You sure?" Dash asked.

"Well, it's got quartz, but nopony's gonna get rich off of a quartz mine. Other than that, it's just a big damned hole in the ground in the middle of the desert. Who in their right mind would want this place bad enough to go to all this trouble to get it?" I said, exasperated. "Usually, I have a little trouble figuring out who did it...or even how they did it. This time...I can't even figure out why they did it..."

"What if it really is ghosts?" Rainbow Dash asked, plopping down on the bottom bunk with a book. "Like, you know...maybe there's really some ponies sneakin' in and mining, trying to steal a little quartz on the side, and that's totally a thing...but like, there's really ghosts and junk too."

"Huh." I scoffed. "I never thought about that. It would make sense. Maybe Budder will turn up something paranormal in there, and we can finally put it all together." I took another drink of coffee.

"She still in there?" Dashie asked. I slid the pocket watch across the table and opened it.

"Yeah." I answered. I looked out the window at the entrance to the mine. "It's been over two hours. She should have been back by now..." I took yet another sip of coffee. "Alright. I'm worried. Let's go."

And so ends chapter six. It appears that things aren't quite what they seem with this case. And Budder has gone missing. That can never bode well. Is she okay? What will happen next? Is the mine by horror haunted, or is it a case of common calculated criminals? Stay tuned to find out. I will make every attempt to get the next chapter up tomorrow evening. Until then, thanks for reading, everypony!