Chapter Text
Veterans of Deeprock Galactic were hard to come by.
The majority of workers ended up either dying on their first day, or being left so mauled they could never work again.
Even if someone lived, reaching veteran status had less to do with seniority and more to do with prestige and reputation.
Yappy Yapster, as he’s called, is among these few veterans. Despite his somewhat abrasive nature, blunt attitude, and loudmouth, he’s still a highly regarded driller- with the mission count and promotions to prove it. His diamond two rank badge clipped on his collar send whatever dwarves in his radius straightening up their posture to prevent being reprimanded. He always found this quite funny, often taunting his coworkers for it. But he doesn’t care all too much about the inner politics. He’s perfectly content to just mine dirt and shoot bugs.
And drink, of course.
“You’re here to work, not down as much alcohol as you can.” Mission control’s voice boomed from the recently-installed surround sound speakers.
“Yeah, yeah.” The dwarf rolls his eyes, chugging down the Tunnel Rat before sliding it back to the All Purpose Drone bartender Lloyd. Drinking during work hours is allowed- even encouraged. They are dwarves, after all. “Ain’t my first rodeo, sweetie.” He shoots a smirk into the camera nestled in the corner.
It takes a little bit of fiddling for Yappy to get out some credits, slamming them down on the counter with a far more genuine smile. “Best bartender in the galaxy, brother.”
Lloyd makes an enthusiastic beeping sound, giving a salute in return as Yappy jumps down the stairs to the main floor. He wastes no time climbing up the ladder and onto the ramp, already prepared to get going.
Yappy dramatically jumps into the drop pod as the countdown begins, not even bothering to get into a seat. It was way more fun to stick to the ceiling and float around, gravity slowly pulling him back down as the pod drilled into the core of Hoxxes.
Today’s mission was simple and easy. Well, simple in theory. Actually killing two dreadnaughts was a different story, but it wasn’t like Yappy was unprepared. Killing the worst Hoxxes has to offer was just a regular Tuesday.
When the drop pod finally hit its target depth, Yappy was more than glad to see those gates fly up. He was starting to go a bit stir-crazy. “Finally!” He races out of the pod, sliding down the ramp before landing on the beautiful blue grass covering the ground of the Azure Weald.
He barely took two steps off the ramp before the ground started to shake. Hoxxes didn’t have quakes in the weald, and the drop pod hadn’t left yet, so what the hell was this? “Um, MC? Care to explain.” Yappy struggled to stay standing, the very ground beneath him trying to throw him off balance.
“There’s… something heading your way. Size of a drop pod, likely a rouge meteorite.” Mission control replied from the earpiece, a bit of crackling from the signal being interrupted.
“As if dreadnaughts weren’t enough of a threat.” Yappy rolled his eyes, still focusing on maintaining his balance when the impact hit- a rush of air and dust pushing him back as the shaking subsided.
Dusting off the camera lens embedded into his armor, Yappy squints through the dust and debris to get a better look at the meteorite. Its hue is distinctively red, reminiscent of Nitra. But whatever this is, it definitely isn’t Nitra. No, this specific shade was more… unsettling. It seems to crackle and pulse with energy, its facets reflecting the light of the cave unlike anything he’s ever seen on Hoxxes before. “You seein’ this?”
“Barely.” The transmitted audio crackles slightly. “Could you get a closer look?”
“Sure, but if I get some weird-ass space disease, it’s on your conscience.” Yappy smiles, the grin seeping into his voice.
Mission control groans in response, not bothering to reply.
The driller cautiously stepped his way to the large meteorite, already starting to crack and fall apart in front of him.
“Looks like it’s about to crumple.”
And then it exploded- leaving a visible cloud of putrid smelling yellow dust. Yappy had smelled some real nasty things in the bowels of Hoxxes, but this one took the cake. He gagged a bit at the smell, wanting to keel over and vomit. “Smells fucking awful. Like sulfur and throw up.” Squinting harder, he could see four… extremely disturbing clusters of pulsing fleshy bits and yellow goop. It took a lot to make Yappy genuinely disgusted, but these things were accomplishing just that.
“I’m not paid for this bullshit.” Yappy snickered. “Suppose you want me to deposit these for RnD?”
“Seems like something they should look into.”
“A’ight.” Yappy yanks out the long metal rod from their back, spearing it into brittle rock at their feet. “C’mon girl, we got weird-ass fleshy bits to deposit!”
As Molly’s metallic clanking grew closer, Yappy grabs one of the fleshy clusters- and find that it reacted to his touch. It wraps around his hand with its disgusting slimy tentacles. Like an even worse version of a cave tongue. Gagging again, he chucked it into Molly along with the others and ran away from the impact zone, wanting to forget about the disgusting things and just kill some bugs.
And forget about it he did. For the rest of the week, until he couldn’t ignore it any more.
It started off as minor inconveniences.
Dull, aching pain in his joints. Shortness of breath. Lethargy. Nothing he wasn’t used to. He choked it up to overexerting himself on the long missions deep underground.
But it didn’t get better as the week turned over into the weekend.
Yappy respect for other people up in the middle of the night with an unbearable pain in his throat and lungs. He gasped for air, suddenly finding his larynx clogged and rending him unable to breath.
He shot up, hacking and wheezing, frantically trying to breathe before running to the bathroom attached to his habit and crouching over the toilet.
He was hacking up disgusting yellow goo, bits of fleshy red pulsing… *things* along with it. It was almost identical to the goo of the boils found on the plaguehearts- that's what RnD went with calling them. And that’s when it hit him.
That meteorite carried some kind of virus in it. Between holding the plaguehearts with his bare hands and breathing in the foul smoke likely fillled with the virus, he had caught whatever the hell was infecting those plaguehearts.
Oh *hell no.* This was bad. This was really fucking bad.