DATALOG 234
A PROSPECTOR'S TESTIMONY

Personal log of Senior Prospector Li Wei,
Southeast Harvest Zone Delta,
14th day of The Burning, 124 AP

The jungle pulses around me like a living heart as I record this testimony. My augmented limbs whir softly, servos straining against the oppressive humidity that rusts everything here in Hell. Overhead, my reconnaissance drones cut through the mist, their red warning lights reflecting off the toxic fog like dying stars. I've spent six years mapping these killing grounds. Too long. Far too long.

I watch another harvest crew through my augmented scope, my stomach churning as the familiar scene unfolds. Fresh clone workers stumble from their transport, eyes wide with confusion, only a few months since emerging from their birthing tanks. They wear nothing but standard-issue grey briefs and tank tops, their bare skin already glistening with sweat in the oppressive heat. Utility harnesses cling to their lean frames, heavy with the tools of their trade - chainsaws, machetes, and basic medical supplies that will prove useless against the jungle's horrors. 

The workers spread out beneath the massive trees, the roar of chainsaws drowning out the jungle's constant drone. The harvesting machines lumber behind them like prehistoric beasts, mechanical arms raised and ready to extract the precious orange sap once the trees are felled. Every drop of that sap is vital - it's a key ingredient for growing more clones, feeding the endless cycle of production and death.

The first screams begin before they've even finished cutting their first tree. A worker steps too close to what looks like an ordinary vine. It lashes out faster than my enhanced vision can track, coiling around her torso. Her sisters watch in horror as she's dragged into a mass of writhing vegetation. The sound of cracking bones mingles with her dying screams as digestive enzymes begin their work. Standard casualty type: botanical predation. I've logged thousands like it.

Two more workers vanish into a seemingly solid patch of ground - quicksand pool, masked by a layer of innocent-looking leaves. Their thrashing only hastens their descent. The mud claims them with wet, hungry sounds. Below the surface, I know the mud kraken wait, their tentacles ready to tear apart anything that sinks into their domain. The bubbles that rise to the surface carry their last breaths.

The spiders come next. They always do. Massive arachnids, their chitinous bodies warped by decades of chemical exposure, descend from the canopy on silk stronger than steel cable. My sensors register their bulk at over 60 kilos each. The workers' standard-issue machetes bounce harmlessly off their armored carapaces. I watch through my scope as mandibles the size of sword blades pierce bare flesh. The lucky ones die quickly. The others are wrapped in silk, stored alive for later feeding.

The hybrids are what usually breaks the worker’s spirits. Once, these creatures were clone workers like themselves. Now they're something else - human flesh merged with mutant vegetation. They move through the jungle like living shadows, their bodies rippling with chlorophyll-infused muscle, vines writhing where hair should be. Some still wear fragments of their grey work clothes, a mockery of their former humanity. They hunt in packs, coordinated, and intelligent. The workers they catch don't always die - some are transformed, infected with spores that slowly turn human tissue into something inhuman and hungry. By the third day, the remaining workers had started keeping count of their dwindling numbers, their eyes haunted with the knowledge that each of them would likely meet a similar fate.

Last night's events finally shattered what little hope remained for them. The Headtakers struck just before dawn, when the workers' camp was at its most vulnerable. Their bone-white faces emerged from the darkness like demons, moving silent as shadows between the makeshift shelters. The workers that stood guard never had a chance - razor-sharp arrows found their hearts before they could raise the alarm. Others have their throats slashed as the Headtakes infiltrate the camp. I watched through my thermal scope as the raiders dragged six struggling workers from their sleeping mats, hands bound with vine rope. The remaining workers huddled in terrified silence, realising that any resistance would only increase the tribute demanded. The screams echoed through the jungle for hours afterward, mixing with the chanting of the Headtakers' feast. This morning, fresh bones decorate the trees near the worker’s camp, actually a sign of respect the Headtakers give to the herd of food as they see it. The workers' eyes are hollow with the knowledge that not even sleep is safe in this green hell. They've stopped counting their losses now - they simply wait for their turn to die.

My logs tell the story in cold numbers. For every hundred workers deployed, barely ten or twenty survive their first week. Of those, perhaps three will live to see a second month thanks to their experience. The Jade Domain considers these losses acceptable - it's cheaper to grow new clones than to properly protect them. Besides, the soldiers of the Jade Domain are busy fighting the Neo-Cong elsewhere. The orange sap must flow, no matter the cost in lives.

But today, studying the casualty patterns, I finally understood the darker truth. While the sap remains our primary objective, the jungle requires more than just chemical harvesting - it demands feeding. Every dead worker feeds its endless hunger. Their flesh fertilizes the very trees they died trying to harvest, their blood nourishes the soil, their bodies become food for the endless cycle of mutation and growth. It's a perfect, horrific symbiosis - we need the sap to make more clones, and the jungle needs the flesh of clones to produce the sap.

[Handwriting becomes hurried, almost frantic from here]

The same pattern repeats in the rice fields - workers die in droves, their bodies becoming fertiliser for the next season's grain. The land must be fed, the cycle must continue. And I've been complicit in all of it.

May their souls forgive me. I've spent years finding new harvest zones, marking them for exploitation. How many thousands have I led to slaughter? How many clone sisters have fertilised the jungle because I pointed the way?

I can't undo what I've done. But I can stop it from happening again. My drones show a new worker convoy approaching from the north. If I move quickly, I can intercept them before they reach the harvest zone. Whether they believe me or not, I have to try.

This will be my final report. If you're reading this, learn from my blindness. The jungle demands its due, and we keep feeding it. The cycle has to be broken.

[End of log entry]

Log entry found among abandoned equipment at Harvest Zone Delta. Senior Prospector Li Wei's current status: missing, presumed dead. Harvest operations continue as scheduled.