CHAPTER 7

Hey everypony. Sorry for the delay. This chapter kicked my butt for three days. Writing in multiple POV's is hard enough for me. On top of that fact, I've been all kinds of busy, and I have had a splitting headache all day today. But, me being awesome like I am, I finally gritted through it, and got it written. Never content to just write a bunch of rubbish and try to pass it off as a chapter, I wanted it to be pure gold. Well...it may not be gold, but it's at least silver. Or maybe bronze? Graphite? Manganese maybe...ugh...mining stories. Heheh. Well, I hope you all like this chapter. Please review everypony.

Budder's POV, Taken from her autobiography

I wandered the mine for the better part of an hour, using my electromagnetic field detector to search for signs of spirit activity. I had a few small hits so far, but nothing to show there was a major haunting going on in the mine. Usually, if there's a really strong spirit, or even a bunch of weaker ones, they make an electrical field in the area that devices like mine can pick up on, and usually those electrical fields are pretty strong. In the mine I was in, it was a pretty weak, constant field. I started wondering if my brother was right, and it was just criminals after all. I took a turn, going down a tunnel that led to the left, away from the main shaft. I had to squeeze through some boards that had the new tunnel closed off from the main part of the mine. Here, I started getting a slightly stronger signal. I didn't know if it was because of the rocks and minerals in the cave, or something else though.

I kept going, and got to a point where it looked like somepony had been building onto the mine. The walls weren't as flat, and the wooden beams holding up the roof were all new. There were piles of rocks and dirt everywhere. Something about this was suspicious, and I slipped the emf detector back into my saddlebag and concentrated on looking around at the mine. I didn't have any idea how they had managed to do this much work in here. It looked like they had taken the original mine shaft, and dug it at least fifty yards deeper. I walked to the end of the new mine shaft, and saw a huge pile of rubble layered against the wall, just like in the tunnel I had been in with my brother and Rainbow Dash. Nearby were two more large piles of rock., just like in the other shaft too.

"What the heck are you up to?" I whispered to myself. Something suddenly donned on me. I went to the closest pile of rock and started digging through it. Sure enough, buried in the small stones and rock dust was a pick and a shovel. "Uh-huhhhh..." I said.

Suddenly, I heard somepony coming, and hid behind one of the piles of rocks, and blew out my lantern. For all I knew, it could be Drake or Dash, it could be a ghost, or it could be an axe murderer. The crunching sound of hooves on the rocks and dust on the floor of the mine kept getting closer, and I started to see the glow of another lantern coming from down the shaft. Then, I saw the shadows of two ponies on the wall of the mine. They passed by me, and I could hear them talking.

"We're getting' a haul out of this shaft." One of them said. "We need to move on though. Nopony's working down here anymore. Why can't we work a better vein?"

"We will, don't worry." The other stallion replied. "A little more time to make sure this place is really abandoned, and we'll be digging out the real mother-load!" So there were the ponies who had been doing all of this. I knew I had to make it out of here and get my brother. Then, it would be easy enough to watch him beat them black and blue, and arrest them. The problem was how to get out of the mine without them seeing me.

I stayed low, and quietly crawled along behind the pile of rock. I saw an opportunity, and slid along to the next big pile, staying in the shadows. I heard the two stallions still talking about mining more ore out tonight before moving on to another shaft. Then, I heard the first one say something that was very bad for my little spying operation.

"Hey, get the lamps lit in here so we can get to work." He called. The second bad pony passed by me, only a yard away, and walked back the way they had come. Now I was trapped between the two criminals, and in a few minutes, the lights were going to go on, revealing me to them. I made my way back along the mine as far as I could, but stopped when I saw a lantern light up the tunnel about twenty yards away. A few seconds later, another was lit. I backed closer tot he wall, and was close to freaking out. I slid over a few more inches, looking for someplace to hide, thinking seriously about trying to bury myself in the dirt. Then, I felt a cool breeze of air. Looking behind me, I realized there was a hole in the wall, just large enough for a pony to fit through. Another lamp was lit, and I was running out of time. I pulled myself into the hole, and started crawling. I could feel that I was headed up at an angle, and the fresh air, and the small dot of light at the end of the hole told me that it led to the outside. That was good enough for me.

After some time, I made it to the end of the tunnel, and out into the bright light. After my eyes adjusted from the darkness, I found myself standing on a narrow dirt path on a hillside. I couldn't see the mine entrance or the buildings, and didn't know which way to go. Below was what looked like an open pit or something. From the hole I'd just crawled through, I heard a crackling noise, like somepony was coming up the shaft. I panicked, and started running.

I slid down the embankment. I had to get back to my brother and Dashie and tell them about the criminals in the mine. I got to the bottom of the pit, and started to gallop across, but the ground was soft, like a wet sponge. I couldn't believe it. The surface was dry, but underneath was thick mud. I had somehow ran into mud out here in the driest place I'd ever seen! Each step I took was harder and harder, and I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into the ground the further I went.

"Ugh...no...no...not now..." I muttered, trying to walk across the soft ground, my hooves starting to sink deeper with each step. Finally, when I tried to move, I found myself stuck. My struggling only sank me deeper, until I was up to my chest and cemented into the muck.

I was afraid to scream for help. I knew that if I did, I might get my brother's attention, but I also might end up getting caught by the badponies. I knew Drake and Dashie would come looking for me soon. If I didn't make it back to the cabin in an hour or so, Drake would start getting worried. If there was one thing I could count on, it was that my brother would worry about me. I still had to stay stuck in this mud for who knows how long until they found me.

There I waited, stuck in the bog for I don't know how long. It was miserable. I had to have been there for two hours. I sang all of my favorite songs to myself, and mentally read myself parts of my favorite books. I ran out of things to do, and started counting things, like the large rocks on the edge of the mud pit. There were fifty six. I know because I counted them seven times. I started to get scared that I was going to actually die in the mine pond, when I finally heard somepony yelling for me.

"Budder?!" I heard a familiar voice call.

"Drake?!" I called back. "Bubby?!"

"Sis, where are you?!" Drake's voice implored.

"I'm down here...I'm stuck!" I yelled back.

"What? Where?!"

"Down here in...in this pond or whatever! I can't get out!" I saw my brother look down from the top of the hill.

"Sis...how the Hell'd you keep ending up in quicksand?!" He asked, probably as confused as I was at how I kept managing to find the one pit of mud in any area. My brother started carefully climbing down the slope toward me.

"I don't freakin' know...but I had to run from a couple of ponies that were in the mine. I think they were the ones who've been sneaking in and mining and stuff. I ran into this crap, and I can't get out..." Drake stopped a second and looked at me.

"Sounds about right..." He said. "I guess it's a good thing I brought the rope." He took off his saddlebags and pulled out a length of thick rope. "Seeing as I should have known you would find yourself in just such a predicament..."

"Oh shut up." I shot back. "I hate getting stuck! It's annoying!" I almost felt like pouting.

"Heheh..." My brother laughed. "Alright sis...here, grab the rope." He threw the rope out to me, and I took it in my teeth. After a few minutes of struggling and cussing Drake let me get away with, I was on solid ground again. He looked me up and down, and I realized that most of my body was caked in mud. "Leave it to you Budder...to go into the desert and find the one puddle of muck...ugh. You're a mess." All I could do was growl in irritation. "So what were you saying about finding the perps?"

"Okay, there were two of them, both stallions. I was in the mine tunnel where the explosion happened, and I heard them coming. I hid so they wouldn't see me, but they were between me and the way out. Then I found a little tunnel or something. I guess that's how they got in. When I made it outside, I didn't know where I was. I thought I heard them coming, and tried to hide in this stupid hole, and got sucked in. And...well...you found me. So yeah..."

End Budder's POV

"Did you say that they came in through a smaller shaft?" I asked. "Like an air shaft?"

"I guess." Budder answered. "It was smaller than the big tunnel, and it went up to the surface..."

"That would be an air shaft." I deduced. "But Carbide Bit said that nopony could fit through those things. They must have made it big enough to get through. Explains how they were able to get in and out of the mine unnoticed."

"They have tools hidden down there too." My sister added. "In piles of dirt and rock."

"Which tunnel were you in?" I asked.

"Um...I dunno. It branched off from the main one a long ways into the mine. It went kind of...left? Oh, and it was boarded up." I went over the layout of the mine in my mind.

"That was the tunnel where the explosion happened..." I stated.

"Really?" Budder asked. "It looked like they'd cleared it all up, and had the ceiling braced up, and were mining down there."

"Uh huh..." I muttered. "This whole thing still has me confused, but I think I may have another theory about what's going on in this mine. Something stood out from all of those books I was going over, and I have a good idea why this mine may be so important to these ponies."

"Why?" Budder questioned.

"Nevermind just yet." I answered. "It's still just a theory anyway."

"So what do we do?" Budder asked, trying fruitlessly to wipe off some of the muck from the slurry pond. I thought for a moment.

"Hm. I think we ought to catch them in the act, and give them a dose of their own medicine." I said.

"Whatchu mean?" My sister questioned.

"Heh. You know all about ghosts, right? I mean how they act and stuff?"

"I guess..."

"Well, since these idiots like to play ghostie, why don't we fight fire with fire?" I said, and chuckled diabolically. Budder looked at me a moment in confusion, then realized what I was getting at, and gave me a big grin.

"Cool!" She exclaimed. "Let's get Dashie and scare the crap outta those guys!"

"Couldn't have phrased it better myself." I agreed.

Well now they know have a plan. Are they gonna catch the bad ponies soon, or will the case take another dramatic turn? And what exactly is Drake planning anyway? I'll try to have the next chapter up tomorrow...unless something else rises up like a leviathan and eats my precious writing time. So until next chapter, thanks for reading, everypony!