Chapter 19: The Protector of the Earth

As many dangerous situations as he'd been in, Rick hadn't ever faced down a gun quite like this. That was good, because otherwise his instincts might have led him to strike back or jump away, and judging from the man holding the shotgun in his face, that would have been a bad move.

Though his face was lined, it had the well-preserved look of a lucrim master. His hair hung down his back in a jet black tail, but his eyes were darker yet. Rick got a brief sense of the man's jeans, plain shirt, and bolo tie, but his attention was mostly captured by the gun aimed at him. The relevant thing was that the man was hiding his lucrima soul with a shield that felt quite strong on its own.

"Okay, haven't seen you before." The old man stared down at him coldly. "So I'll just escort you out. But the next time you decide to trespass..."

"Wait, I wasn't trying to trespass." Rick raised his hands to either side of the head and kept his aura down. Not that it would matter much, if the shotgun was using lucrim rounds like he suspected. "Do you work for the Peakless Wildlife Refuge?"

"In a manner of speaking." Though the man pulled back and flipped his gun to rest on his shoulder, his aura of hostility didn't decrease. "I'm here to keep people like you out."

Rick licked his painfully dry lips and considered before replying. Though it was possible that the Refuge met all trespassers with threats, he doubted that. Perhaps the man thought he was there to poach endangered animals, but given the question of how he'd been tracked... "I'm guessing that you think I'm just here to find a lucrim anomaly in the refuge."

"Are you telling me that's not what you were doing?"

"I won't claim that, but that's not the main reason I'm here." He wished that he'd brought some sort of proof, but what? A picture could easily have been faked and a piece of the animal would probably just make things worse for him. "I'm here because the CSLA told me that if I wanted to do anything about the local impact of our work, I needed to do it on my own time. Do you, uh, work in conservation?"

"Not exactly." That got a bit of a wry smile, though no lessening of the hostile aura. "What noble cause are you here to champion?"

Something about his tone was off, though Rick couldn't quite parse it. He decided to just be direct. "I don't even know, man. But the last time I found an anomaly, there was a half-starved dragon trying to feed off it. I was just wondering if there was a way I could do my work without doing any unnecessary harm."

The man simply stared at him. Though Rick wanted to remain silent and confident, he soon ended up speaking again.

"Is there any way I could capture lucrim-using creatures to be released out here? Or would that mess up the whole sanctuary's ecosystem? I don't really know what I'm doing, so I just wanted to ask some experts about it."

"Huh." Finally the man stopped toying with the handle of his shotgun and his eyes became less hostile. "That didn't sound like a lie."

"If you're not going to shoot me... are you saying that there have been other surveyors coming into the Peakless Wildlife Refuge to try to find the anomaly?"

"That's right."

"I won't lie - I want to get paid, so I'd like to find and report it. But if that's an offense worth shooting over, I can understand. What's your concern here? Wait, is the anomaly actually beneficial? Is there any way we could come to an agreement about this?"

Abruptly the man cracked a smile, though it seemed a slightly mocking one. "Well, you're earnest. I'm not promising you anything, but maybe we can talk. Come this way and tell me exactly what the CSLA is trying to do lately."

It was strange to run into someone who actually knew less about the subject than he did, so Rick didn't mind explaining. He followed the man off the trail in a random direction, resisting the urge to repeat the aura technique. Fortunately, Rick didn't actually know much information that wasn't public knowledge, so he was able to explain what he knew fairly quickly.

Before he finished, they drew near a small hill with a cabin set atop it. The building was remarkably rustic, but he took it as a good sign the man didn't plan to shoot him. Unless he had tools to dismember a body in the cabin.

"That's not the Peakless Wildlife Refuge office, is it?" Rick asked.

"Heh, no. I have family who actually manage the work of the shelter and I mostly leave their work alone. My job is to enforce the rules, stop poachers, and deal with any serious problems that come up. Except it isn't really a job, just a favor to family. I respect what they're doing here, you see."

"Sorry, but I don't think I've caught your name yet."

"I didn't say it."

"Uh... do you plan to?"

"Nah." They stood in silence for a while, sternness returning to the old man's eyes. "I'm not going to shoot you, but I think it might be easiest to just eject you from the Refuge. A name is not something a man merely hands out, but something that is earned."

"Suit yourself. I'm Rick."

A shadow of something passed over the old man's eyes, then his expression turned more severe. "Take this seriously, young man. You should know that if we come to any agreement, you are not simply signing some modern contract or working for some corporation. The Peakless Wildlife Refuge is run by our tribe, and we were ancient when your ancestors first set foot on this land."

Rick kept his mouth shut and just listened. He had suspected the man might have been Native, it just hadn't been relevant. That was hardly notable for the region and Rick had relatives who claimed they were 1/16^th some tribe or another. It seemed like it was something the old man took very seriously.

"I would consider making an agreement with you, because dealing with your surveyors is becoming frustrating. But that agreement would be a sacred bond. Tell me, have you had any dealings with any tribes of our region? Any promises, blood oaths, or vendettas?"

"Uh, I hope not." When the stare got more murderous, Rick hastened to explain. "I don't know of anything like that, but I did fight in a tournament a few months ago. The Chayichita tribe was there and I must have fought some of them. I have no idea who they were, though, and I don't think I started anything." He decided to keep quiet about the encounter with Jack and his unknown cousin.

"The Chayichita." The man let out a loud snort. "Babbling fools, the lot of them. They have long ago lost their way. But if you are unencumbered by such ties, then perhaps we can forge a bond. Are you open to such, young one?"

"What are the terms of the deal?"

"This is no deal, but an oath. Do you swear to uphold the earth and all its creatures? Do you swear to honor the sky for a thousand generations? Do you swear to draw the memories of your ancestors into today and the day after?"

Rick stared at the man for a painfully long moment, out of his depth and trying to get back to the surface. The old man looked deadly serious, but Rick had no idea what he was talking about. Though he was clearly supposed to agree, he wasn't going to swear oaths in flowering language like that. So despite the increasing pressure from the old man, he swallowed and answered.

"I really don't know what any of that means."

"Impudent fool!" Without warning the old man crossed the distance between them, grabbing Rick by his neck and lifting him off his feet. Though Rick's defensive core protected his neck, he could tell that the man wasn't squeezing and could apply deadly pressure. "Are you mocking the oaths of the earth?"

"No! I just don't underst-"

"Such disrespect! Those words have been passed down for generations and you spurn them?"

Despite himself, Rick felt a flare of anger. He couldn't overpower his opponent, but he could grab his arm and push away to a safer distance. It would have been smarter to leave it at that, yet his mouth kept moving. "Are you seriously going to spout all of that at me and then just expect me to agree?"

"Yeah, that was the idea." To his shock, the old man shrugged. All the intensity in his expression was gone, replaced with a wry smile. "You'd be surprised what you can get people to agree with, if they think they can profit from it. I was planning to keep on going about painting with the colors of the wind and becoming blood brothers if you didn't stop me."

"Uh..." Rick stared, struggling to accept that the murderous glare had just been a joke. "You're telling me none of that was serious?"

"That was some Grade A bullshit, believe me. But that doesn't mean it wasn't serious." The man put the shotgun into a holster on his back and smiled. "I just wanted to get a better sense for who you were. Seems like you're alright, kid. Come on in and I'll give you a beer. We can talk this out like normal folk."

Though Rick understood what had happened on one level, he was still catching up. He simply followed the man silently as they hiked up to the cabin. Fortunately, the man seemed happy to keep talking, all the false intensity having vanished from his posture and voice.

"I wasn't just fucking with you for fun. Even if you're a bit inexperienced, something about you made me think that you might be good at lying. It feels like your lucrima soul has been through some rough fights, for example, the kind of thing people don't experience much in this age. I wanted to get a better sense for who you really were, and I find faux tribal bullshit is a good place to start."

"Have you done this before? Does it... work?"

"Oh, sure. Some agree out of terror, others get way too sincere, like they've been waiting their entire lives for an oath."

Rick hadn't thought through the subject in much detail, but he thought he could understand a little. "Well, you do have the oldest combat sects in the nation. People want some of that respectability."

"Of course they do." The man rolled his eyes. At that moment they reached the door to the cabin and the man pulled it open, but Rick stayed back. "What, you're not coming in? No more shotguns in the face, I promise."

"I still don't even know your name."

"Right, of course. I am honored to bear the name Charging Buffalo."

Though the old man said it with complete sincerity, Rick found himself hesitating. He didn't want to make fun of anyone's name, but the way the other man's diction had become more formal struck him as wrong. "I... don't think that's true."

The man who was not called Charging Buffalo grinned. "Alright, you got me. My real name is Humping Turtle."

Rick narrowed his eyes.

"Too far? Would you believe Running Bear?"

"No. Isn't this offensive?"

With another grin, the man extended a hand to shake. "Delsin Lingering Ogre."

Though that one seemed strange, Rick thought that the mischievous spark in the old man's eyes was no longer at his expense. After a pause, he reached out and shook the man's hand. "Glad to meet you. As I said, I'm Rick. Assuming you're not still fucking with me, what do I call you?"

"Oh, just Delsin. Now come on in, I really do want to talk to you."

Delsin led them into the cabin, which was surprisingly well-appointed. After a mat for scraping off dirt, there was a thick carpet and nice furniture. A flat screen television covered most of one wall and there was a fridge in one corner. It sounded like it was running, yet they couldn't have electricity out here and there was no sound of a generator, so Rick had to assume there was some sort of lucrim power source.

"Now, I don't know if you drink, but I was sincere about offering you a beer." Delsin wandered over to the fridge and opened it, staring inside. "I didn't used to, but then my youngest nephew started this microbrewery. I gave him shit for it, but damn if it isn't good. You want one?"

"Uh, sure."

Grabbing two bottles out of the fridge, Delsin wandered to the central area and dropped down onto one couch. "Alright, have a seat. Let's talk about this seriously."

Rick accepted one of the bottles carefully. He hadn't been given a bottle opener and didn't know any special tricks, but he decided that this was probably another test. So he just applied his cores to tear off the metal cap and then took a drink. Honestly, he didn't know enough about microbrews to be sure of if it was worth anything, so he just sat down and took another sip.

Delsin took a long drink, then focused on him. "Okay, brass tacks: I'm not going to let you claim any lucrim anomalies in Peakless Wildlife Refuge. I suspect there are two, though we haven't been able to pin them down. But I can't let the CSLA come in here - my niece would kill me."

"Would they do something bad?" Rick shifted to get more comfortable, relaxing now that Delsin no longer seemed to be testing him. "They said they had an efficient extraction process, but I was worried they actually meant a scorched earth policy or something."

"Nah, it's not like that. But my niece puts a lot of work into creating a slightly more natural lucrim environment here, and what they do would wreck it." Delsin sat forward and watched him seriously. "It seems like more of you are just going to keep showing up, so I have a counter-offer: you use their special technique to help me find them, but you don't take credit. In return, we'll show you an anomaly outside the Refuge that you can claim."

Not the offer he'd expected, but Rick considered it seriously. "You have some way of neutralizing the anomaly yourself?"

"That's right. Not me personally, but my niece can dispel it into the environment. And if they have to hire a bunch of stooges like you - no offense - they don't have a comprehensive map of them, which means they don't know we have any. They might be suspicious, but our problem would be solved for now."

"I think that sounds reasonable, but I need to find some way to keep my job. What about a one for one trade? For each anomaly I let you neutralize, you show me one elsewhere. I'll start with the first one as a show of good faith, but after that we can trade."

"Fair enough." Delsin sat back and took a long drink from his bottle, apparently satisfied. "If you'd tried to strike a nastier bargain, I'd have just thrown you out and tried to copy the technique myself, since I watched for a bit before interrupting you. But honestly, I have better things to do with my time, and you seem like a decent kid, so we might as well work together."

Rick smiled back at him. "Thanks. I'm glad we can come to an agreement, but what about my original question? Is there any way the dragon could be moved here?"

"Oh, you were serious about that?"

"That's why I came."

"Heh, I figured you just threw that out to play to stereotypes." Delsin swung his bottle by the top idly for a bit, thinking. "I'm not the expert, but I think if it had mange and looked so starved that you could tell, the poor thing wasn't going to last. But if you find lucrim-using creatures that are in better shape, my family would probably be happy to take them. The local populations are almost always too low."

"That's good to hear. I'll bow to whatever the experts say, of course, but I'm hoping my work doesn't do more harm than good."

"Reasonable enough, kid. So do we have a deal?"

Delsin extended his hand, completely serious this time. Rick stared at it for a bit, reflecting on just how large a turn this trip had taken, but in the end reached out and grasped the other man's hand. "Deal."