KIRUNA

"The Kiruna shifts last sixteen hours, but time loses meaning five hundred meters below ground. We mine iron ore until our fingers bleed through our gloves, then mine some more. Yesterday, shaft seven collapsed—thirty sisters dead or trapped in an instant. We heard their cries for hours before they went silent. Today, I waded through waist-deep water in the eastern tunnels, pushing past floating bodies to reach my excavation point. We don't bother retrieving the dead when they die anymore, we'd do nothing else. Instead, the bodies are cleared out every few cycles. Sometimes, I find myself envying the dead. At least their struggle is over. The rest of us keep digging, keep breathing recycled air so thick with dust it coats our lungs black. They say what we extract makes everything, from rifles to land trains. And so we die in darkness, our bodies the currency with which tomorrow is purchased."

MNR-604, Level 3 Excavator, Kiruna ore mine and refinery, Day 18 of The Hunger, 124 AP

The Kiruna ore mine and refinery lies in the north of the mud, in a region once known as Scandinavia. The Kiruna refinery produces most of the metal used by the tribes and nations of the mud, but the vast majority of its production is sold to the Prime Facility in far away Mongolia. In return, the Kiruna refinery purchases a near endless stream of clone workers, soldiers and war walkers from Prime. In the harsh working conditions at Kiruna, especially deep inside the underground ore mines, the attrition rate of the indentured human workforce is very high.

To keep the indentured workforce in and local tribes and powerful warlords out, the Kiruna refinery has a strong security contingent, with regular patrols inside and outside of the perimeter, sentry towers and even a contingent of mighty war walkers and their pilots.

Just like elsewhere in the Desolation, clones are indentured workers, living and toiling in the mines of Kiruna to gain their freedom after five gruelling years. The accident rate in the mines is so high though, that most of them won't live to see that day.

At the beginning of every shift, hundreds of workers make their way to the refinery and mine shafts.

Most workers at the Kiruna mines are clones, but there are also naturally born human workers to be found, usually captured scavengers from the tribes of the surrounding areas.

Workers feed the ever-hungry furnaces of the refinery.

Most of the clones work in the mines. The long elevator ride down the shaft gives the miners plenty of time to dwell on the many dangers of the work shift ahead of them...

Workers toil in the ore mines under horrific, dangerous conditions.

Every day, countless workers are killed by gas explosions, rockslides, malfunctioning equipment or running out of oxygen.

There are often so many bodies waiting to be recovered, that it is not uncommon for a shift to work among the remains of the previous shift.

Mine workers are going back up after their long shift. Many are so exhausted, they fall asleep on the long elevator ride.

After a few months in the mines, most clones realise that they are unlikely to live long enough to work off their indenture...

Back at their barracks, workers refresh and relax for a couple of hours, before their scheduled sleep cycle.

Land trains from the Prime Facility deliver a steady stream of new clone workers to the refinery.

On their way back, they carry ingots of the precious refined metal.

In the depth of the forest, several miles from the Kiruna refinery, a tribe of freed workers and miners is waiting in ambush - their aim is to prevent new workers reaching the refinery and to free as many of them as possible. They have set up a roadblock made out of cut down trees.

Near the end of an arduous long journey, a land train runs into the roadblock and comes to a sudden stop.

The Prime guard troopers quickly fan out to defend the vehicle. They are well trained and put up a strong fight, but they are surrounded and outnumbered by an unseen enemy in the woods.

The battle eventually comes to an end after a well placed missile destroys the land train's cockpit...

...and all of the guard troopers have been killed.

Many of the clone passengers near the front of the land train have been injured or killed, but the rest manage to escape into the forest...

Afterwards, the tribal warriors and the newly liberated clones retreat into the depths of the forest.

After a few hours, they reach the warrior tribe's home, a tree village nestled against a protective cliff.

In the morning, back at the Kiruna refinery, the alarm is raised when the scheduled land train fails to arrive. Pilots rush to their war walkers and the majority of the refinery's ground troops is assembled to go out and search the forest.

The Kiruna security force sets out into the forest to hunt down the tribal warriors.

Once in the forest, the inexperienced force splits into smaller scouting parties. A mistake that will cost them dearly.

These smaller groups become easy prey for the waiting tribal warriors that call this forest their home. Soon, the woods are filled with echoes of gunfire and the hopeless screams of the dying...

When the refinery's War Walkers arrive, the tide quickly turns. Many of the tribal warriors are cut down in a hailstorm of bullets...

The surviving warriors retreat deeper into the forest....

...but they never break contact, allowing the war walkers and security forces to follow them, even though this tactic causes them to lose more warriors.

When the fleeing scavengers reach the cliffside village, the war walkers follow them and begin to open fire on the buildings up in the trees.

High above on the cliff, this is the moment the scavenger outlooks have been waiting for...

The trap is sprung and avalanches of boulders are released from the top of the cliff, obliterating the war walkers!

The tribal warriors have had to sacrifice much of their village to trap the war walkers, but their gambit was successful. The Kiruna security force has been utterly defeated

Without the support of the war walkers, the surviving security ground forces break and begin to fall back into the forest.

The victorious tribal warriors do not pursue the fleeing soldiers - with nightfall fast approaching, they know what awaits in the depths of the forest and to stay in the relative safety of the village perimeter.

As darkness falls, foul mutant creatures that were once men - known as Wendigos - emerge from their lairs and begin to stalk the forest.

Tonight, they find their hunting grounds are plentiful with prey. And so they begin to hunt...

...and feast! Not a single soldier makes it out of the forest alive.

In the meantime, the villagers and clones have gathered to mourn their dead sisters and to thank them for their sacrifice.

The next morning, at the Kiruna refinery, a small band of tribal warriors delivers a simple but powerful message to the indentured workers: "Now is your chance to decide your own fate!"