A motorcycle gang roars past, seven bikes in all, later that day. They don't bother to slow down. White and red face paint, banner emblems of some kind of big cat.

It's polite of them to have legible heraldry, that's not seemed a major priority for most people around here.

He stuffs himself. He dampens the ground around the area to cut down the dust. He sets up to spend the night, and sleeps.

A heavily dressed figure pauses near him, then goes around, as he's bedding down.

Overnight, there's a dust storm. It wants to coat everything, shifting the grit into new uncomfortable patterns and howling loudly.

He wakes up with dust in his mouth and has to spit a few times before he can Create Water. He prays. He shakes out the dust from all his stuff. Creates some more water to dampen the immediate dust environs. Eats as much as he can of last night's feast; he at least kept the pies and rolls in his bag, where less dust got on them, and he can rinse off the fruit and cheese.

He casts Stone Shape and lays a hand on a pillar under the overpass, and he begins to construct his church, bringing down the abandoned structure carefully so it doesn't crash down around his ears. Fifteen cubic feet at a time, and if it's going to storm like that a lot he doesn't want to start with one wall or a foundation, he wants a complete enclosure. If he makes the walls relatively thin, he can wrangle enough of the concrete into flowing and resetting itself to construct himself a little shelter more generously sized than the capsule hotel. Making hinges with Stone Shape is difficult so instead he just makes the entrance small enough for his coat to cover it, with some hooks to hang the coat in place.

No further dust storms are immediately in evidence. There is just the wind and hardy dry plants and the odd lizard or wild dog barking in the distance. Though he does see a big dust plume on the horizon and what looks like a convoy of boxy vehicles kicking it up. They're not quite headed in his direction, probably a tad north if they're going to Cinci.

Just as well if it takes a while for anyone to notice he's here, the chuch won't be impressive for weeks.

He paces out a thirty foot radius circle in the dust, and casts Ant Haul and starts moving some of the rubble into the shape implied, with the little shelter being at one end of the circle and a few other anterooms marked out once he's got the big sanctuary plotted.

The shadows lazily crawl into new positions. He hears the faint roaring echo of a suborbital shuttle departing Cinci WSW, near directly overhead.

Wow what the fuck is THAT.

Once he's done enough heavy lifting for the day he does some more work on English.

He can maybe see it if he looks up in the right area; A silver dart with a point of light at its rear, and a long long contrail towards the city.

Later, a lone hiker wanders past, wearing all-covering tan gear and a face mask and a huge backpack and tent. They stop and rest in the shade under what remains of the overpass, but don't move to approach.

Pie?

"What'chu want for it?"

Headshake. More emphatic pie-offering.

"...Sure, head."

He will eat the pie, being careful with the mask and heavy goggles.

"...Good luck with your... Rubble. Just a word from a concerned party: Something has the Pumas riled up. Someone important went missing or something. They're honorable as badlands goes but when there's trouble... Who knows, yeah?"

"Pumas?"

He sketches the big-cat heraldry in the dust. "These guys."

"Someone important?"

"Hell if I know. A woman, I think, I overheard 'she'."

Nod.

"See you around maybe. I'm in and out around here a lot. I go by Mud."

Mud stands up and makes to keep walking.

"Goodbye, Mud. I name Select Blai Artigas."

And he's gone, walking due east, not northeast towards the city.

Close to sunset he gets a merc crew driving by in a convoy of two Jeeps and an 18-wheeler truck, a few hundred meters or so away, and obviously observing him. Apparently heraldry is popular out here? At least for some groups? The big organized travelling ones, at least. Theirs is a field of red with a stylized wing in grey.

They stop and send a battered black plastic quadcopter over. It hovers buzzingly near him.

"Hey, guy," it says through a tinny speaker, "You speak English?"

"Not good. Apologizing."

"Okay. We're Marek's Silvers. We usually camp under that overpass overnight on this route. For the shade, mostly. What do you want in exchange for fucking off for the night?"

Oh, he didn't realize people were still using it, he might have kept going and found some stone no one was using to shape if he'd known. "Can both sleep?" he asks. "I go in here." He points out his shelter.

"It's bad juju, head. You never know, you know?"