Deepspace: Elber and the Mine Entrance (Ea)(Com)

A commission for last_of_workers

After landing on the space station above Zeta-13, nearly dying falling to the surface after an anomaly caused the space station to vanish, and finally another anomaly causing her to fuse with her ship, Eleber made her way towards the center of Zeta-13.

It was the most logical decision in her mind, as there wasn’t anything outside the center that she could use to fix her situation. So Elber started walking towards the center. Of course getting in wasn’t as easy as it looked.

The center of Zeta-13 was ninety-nine percent underground and around the core of Jirlopos-4. So to get there, she had to find one of its entrances. There were quite a few, but as Jirlopos-4 is quite huge, they still only appear rarely.

So it took a couple of hours before Elber found one of the entrances. It was a small building that housed a small reactor and the controls for a cable car that descended into an area underground, likely connected to the very center of Zeta-13.

Elber heads inside and looks at everything. The reactor was broken and beyond repair, and the controls all seemed rusted over. Elber sighed and knew right away there was no point in even trying.

She couldn’t get the parts she needed to repair it.

Not to mention doing so would be a massive waste of time. So she heads outside and looks at the cable lines and cable cars. She was hoping to just use her metal arms to hold onto the cables and slide down, but of course the cables themselves are busted.

So what could she do to get down? Elber thought for a minute, then remembered her new powers. She used it to give herself three more sets of arms. This gave her a spider-like look but also the ability to quickly climb down the sides of the hole that the cable cars normally go through.

It was a long way down, and at some point there was no longer any light, and Elber couldn't see where she was going. So she tried to mess with her powers again and was able to make her eyes work like a cat's and was able to continue.

All was going well, and she was nearly inside the Zeta-13 facility, which meant she was closer to where she needed to be. It was all going well for her, and she was starting to think the anomalies were not a problem in her, but she was quickly proven wrong.

The tunnel lit up for a moment because the anomaly appeared, and suddenly the walls of the tunnel were covered in a thick slime, which was so slippery that Elber couldn’t hold onto anything and began to fall the rest of the way down.

Elber hit a ton of stuff on the way down, getting cut and bruised each time she did, and eventually she landed face first on the ground. Elber sat there for a minute bleeding before pushing herself onto her back and activating her other ability.

She had to sit still and wait because she was using all her processing power for healing, since she really didn’t want to deal with a sore shoulder or the piece of metal currently sticking out of her thigh. Her new body handled the task perfectly, and if her emotions weren’t locked, she’d be impressed.

Elber, now fully healed, returned her processing power to its normal functions and then removed the extra arms she had created, leaving her only using the changes she made to her eyes in order to see the area around her since there were still no lights.

She started to walk through the place and look around. It seemed she found herself inside a mine. There were old, broken-down mining bots, transportation droids, and tons of pathways. Elber was now unsure about coming down here.

As a mine, there was a good chance it wasn’t connected to anything; however, the entrance was nowhere near anything else, so maybe there was a chance they cut out a path that leads to the main area Elber was trying to get to.

At the very least there might be another entrance she can use to get out, since there was no way she was getting out the way she came in. So she wandered through the main tunnels for a while until she came upon another mining area.

In this area there was a small building and a couple of transportation droids filled with some strange mineral Elber had never seen before. She picked one up and inspected it. It was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen.

It was crystal clear, and on the outside it was blue, and the middle of it was white, while the center was pink. It was beautiful, unlike anything Elber had seen, but there was something else special about it; even the small ones seemed to contain a ton of energy.

Elber knew these things would be priceless if she tried to sell them. Suddenly she felt more confident in her decision to continue towards the center. However, this was Zeta-13, the cursed facility in deep space.

Another anomaly appeared, this time smaller than when the entrance was covered in slime, but still big enough to affect the area Elber was in. Once the flash from the anomaly appeared and vanished, Elber looked down at herself to make sure she was still in one piece.

That made her scan the area around her, as she knew something changed and she needed to prepare for it. It wasn’t obvious at first, but Elber figured out what changed when the mineral in her hand started moving.

Elber dropped it and jumped back. She watched the little gem shake a bit before suddenly growing arms and legs. Anyone would have been surprised by this, but Elber sat there with no expression on her face.

The gem then looked at her and started charging. It ran and jumped onto her and started punching her, which did very little. Elber picked it up and then threw it back into the pile of them, which was when the whole pile started to shake.

Elber clenched her fist and took a step back. They weren't very big, but if every single one of them came at her, she might be in trouble. Well, every single one of them in the broken-down transportation droid popped out with tiny arms and legs.

They then started to charge at Elber. Elber didn’t want any part of that and took off running, but somehow, for such little creatures that just came into existence, they were fast, and they ended up trapping Elber in a dead end.

Elber had to fight them, so she turned around and faced them. As they ran at her, she grabbed them and tossed them away, but it wasn’t enough, even with additional arms and the tail she made to bat a lot of them away at the same time.

Elber couldn’t beat them, as they seemed too durable. It seemed her journey here would end with being trapped underneath these little things. Before that happened, though, Elber remembered she could channel her processing power into her strength.

Though that would mean she'd stop healing, and these creatures would probably hurt her a bit, it was worth it. Elber transferred all her processing power and began to swing as hard as she could, and it worked.

Each time she swung, one of the gems shattered and stopped moving. Paired with her tail and extra arms, it was soon raining gem shards. Though, as she suspected, the gems were able to use their sharp edges to cut into her skin and robotic parts, damaging her quite a bit.

Not to mention the gem shards that were raining down on top of her were piercing her skin and damaging her even more. It was intense, but she was able to keep fighting as if it were nothing, and after smashing hundreds of little gems, she stood there victorious.

She had slivers of gem shards stuck everywhere, her hair was a mess, she had cuts and bruises, and she was tired, but she had done it. After the fight, Elber limped over towards the building she had seen and fell on the floor.

She then once again transferred her processing power to healing, and not long after she felt some of her wounds closing up and the gem shards being pushed out, though it seems some of her worse wounds would take a bit more time to heal.

Elber sighed and figured it would be okay to rest here for a bit; she wanted to be in pristine condition in case something else happened. So she quietly sat there looking around the room. Eventually she noticed a map on the wall.

It told her where she was inside Zeta-13, which was the Zealot-DX mine. She followed the map and found there was luckily a way to enter the inner facility from the mines, and now that she’s seen the map, she can pull it up anytime. So as soon as she finished healing, she was going to use it. She just hoped that the anomalies would stay out of her way.