A path among ruins, wastelands and… a strange conversation at a halt.

Twilight, Thorn and Flint continue walking among the ruins of buildings, rusty fragments of ancient mechanisms and thickets of steppe grasses and bushes.

Despite the large size of these ruins (compared to the usual settlements of wastelands residents), this ancient city many centuries ago was only a small provincial settlement.

Much larger ruins are located relatively close…

These are the ruins of a huge metropolis, the size of which boggles the imagination…

For a modern resident of wastelands, it is difficult to imagine how many persons could have lived here in the distant past…

Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Or millions?!

Now these numbers seem fantastic.

In modern wastelands, a settlement with at least a few thousand inhabitants is already considered large...

Therefore, against the backdrop of modern settlements, this ancient city looks monstrously large...

The underground settlement The Warren is located on the western outskirts of this ancient dead giant city.

Twilight, Thorn and Flint purposefully move among the sand dunes and sparse vegetation towards the northern outskirts of the ruins of this ancient city.

Sometimes this trio of rabbits-scouts has to defend themselves from various dangers.

Wastelands is a place where risk to life is a normal and everyday occurrence.

During the day's journey there were a couple of fights...

A large group of lizardmoles was unhappy with the invasion of their habitat. These animals are not the most aggressive and dangerous. However, if they attack in a large group, this can lead to tragic results.

While Thorn and Flint were fighting with melee weapons, Twilight opened fire with his old bolt action 7.65x51 rifle.

The attack was sudden…

Lizardmoles quickly jumped out of their holes and attacked the rabbit scouts.

Bites from curved and sharp teeth…

Wounds from long claws…

Thorn's right leg was wounded - one large lizardmole bit his ankle.

In response, Thorn's iron club crushed the animal's skull.

Several animals attacked Flint, trying to tear his body apart. He managed to dodge the bites, but several superficial blows from the claws grazed his leather armor.

The result - light superficial wounds in the left hip and right side.

Twin knives made many holes in the bodies of the furiously attacking beasts.

Eventually, a few shots from the old rifle sent two lizardmoles into oblivion. While Twilight reloaded his firearm, the other three lizardmoles chose to flee and disappeared into their burrows.

A group of rabbit scouts continued on their way…

Towards evening, a second fight occurred.

A group of savage nomads attempted to organize an ambush, hiding near a lonely, dilapidated building of some motel.

Luckily, Thorn was able to hear the conversations of the hiding enemies from afar.

Twilight opened fire from his old rifle from a long distance, hitting several savages on the second floor of the motel.

The arrows from the primitive bows of the enemies failed to reach their target.

Therefore, the group of rabbit scouts was able to bypass the dangerous place.

The enemies did not dare to start the pursuit. Probably, there were not so many of them.

After three hours of travel, it was time to stop. The sky darkened. It was already evening and soon the group would need to prepare for the night.

For rest, the rabbit scouts found a place in the steppe, which was partly protected from observation by potentially dangerous strangers.

A half-ruined basement of some building, from which not even the walls remained. The foundation of the building was mostly destroyed and covered with sand. The floor of the building was broken in several places - so entering the basement was not a difficult task.

So, a temporary camp was set up in this basement.

While eating and getting ready for bed, Twilight, Thorn and Flint discussed their further plan of action.

Twilight looked a little... thoughtful.

He told his companions: "There is something beyond our usual tasks... When we arrive at the northern outskirts of the metropolis ruins... We are to visit a certain district and find something... These are orders from chief-researcher Zephyr. I spoke with him before leaving on our reconnaissance mission..."

Thorn asks in bewilderment: "Well, why the hell didn't you tell us about this right away?! We could have prepared better and brought more effective gear from home..."

Flint looks with interest into the different colored eyes of Twilight (this guy has heterochromia: one eye is light blue, and the other is dark gray) and says calmly: "Details?"

Twilight, clearly feeling embarrassed, says: "Zephyr didn't say anything specific. He gave me rough coordinates of this place. He said that this mission is extremely important. And he said not to tell anyone in The Warren about this at all."

Thorn swore harshly: "Shit! What a fucking surprise! I don't like this! Argghhh... My ankle hurts! The bite of that stinking lizardmole..."

Flint, scratching his long furry ear, asks: "But how will we know when we've found... the right place?"

Twilight rummages through his backpack and pulls out a small piece of paper with a strange symbol drawn on it, the meaning of which was unclear to any of the trio...

And also: on the piece of paper was the inscription "Bunker № C-8-B".

He says: "As soon as we see something like this in the area that chief-researcher Zephyr told me about, we'll know that we've found... what we need... I'll remember the exact coordinates. And we'll return home to report the information to the chief-researcher. This place will be marked on the maps... Our mission will be accomplished"

Flint looks at Twilight incredulously and asks: "Do you know any important details? What is this place? What should we expect? What possible obstacles and problems can we expect in this area? Is this piece of paper and approximate coordinates all we have?"

Twilight shrugs and replies: "Unfortunately, that's true. That's all chief-researcher Zephyr thought it possible to tell me. Moreover, he even forbade me to tell anyone about this meager information until we leave the territory of The Warren..."

So, after a little chat, eating and treating their wounds, the three rabbit-scouts go to sleep.