The Hermit's Roost

A mesa-top ledge where a half-mad Finder lives off cliff-stalker meat and barrow-rumor — the only outlander who survives the wastes by knowing them.

A wind-break of stacked stone, a fire-pit smelling of cliff-stalker fat, and a view of three mesas and two washes. He sells directions — vague, spoken, true — for water and a listening ear. The tribe knows he is there; they have not killed him yet, which the hermit reads as approval and the tribe reads as tolerance extended to the edge of usefulness.