
“The storms are getting worse and worse. Last week, one of our guys had to sell his genome as an NFT collection just to afford another ventilator block. The reports don’t paint an optimistic picture for the future, either. There’s supposed to be another big dust-up next week, and we aren’t prepared for it. Not at all. The last surge caught two of our workers out in the quarry, and when we found ’em… well, we didn’t find ’em. All we found were gloves, respirators, boots. The dust had flayed everything else, carried it off, pulverized it into the dust itself. I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t mourn the loss of those two sods… I just nabbed one of the respirators and tossed it in my pack. Survival of the fittest and whatnot.”
– Crew Lead Joille-Tan Currah
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No idea which planet this happened on (not even the galactic sector), but it’s a fairly common theme across worlds that were into mining rhodium and palladium. Those metals fetched a high price, but it asked a similar price of those who were unfortunate enough to wind up on a world like this. Pressure might form diamonds, but it also wreaks havoc on fleshy bodies.