Hudson kept his cool, but turned fully towards Sal.

“What did you say?” he said, raising his ax in a defensive position. “Never mind, I heard you. I can’t have you count that as a request.”

He was in a pickle. It was worse than he had thought – this strange creature in his mind wanted to eat part of it… if he understood things correctly. He may not actually know what was going on, though, and maybe this was all some sort of test, or fever dream, or adverse reaction to the strange fruits and vegetables he’d eaten during the trial.

“Out! Get out. Go back to where you came from,” Hudson said.

Sal didn’t respond at all and simply floated next to the oak tree. No threats seemed to generate a response, and Hudson didn’t feel like chopping the whole tree down any more. What if Sal could eat it after he chopped it down? Or Sal didn’t leave, even after Hudson injured himself? He hadn’t left yet…

Hudson raised the ax and swung it down at the floating, crystalline tree. Cor’s advice – spoken about George, but it seemed relevant here – came back to him. If he had an opening, he needed to take it. The silicate, the Broken One, Sal, or whatever this thing was in his mind was not his friend. Sometimes he needed to fight.

The ax head bounced off of Sal’s trunk. The floating tree didn’t even move an inch, and there was not even a scratch on their shiny, crystal bark.

That tinkling sound of Sal’s that Hudson associated with laughter rang out. “I have your permission to be here. You may be ignorant, but your mind itself is not… it follows its own rules. How could it not? For such would be the path of insanity… And you are not insane – not yet, at least.” The tinkling sounded again.

Fear and anger competed for Hudson’s attention. The sun dimmed for a moment as Hudson realized he had screwed up, and now he couldn’t get rid of this… thing in his mind. There was only a temporary drop in temperature, though, as anger quickly replaced his fear.

How dare this parasite waltz in here like they owned the place? Good guests knew when to go home. The shingles on the roof of his house started to smolder. The grass in the yard began to brown, and the top of the oak tree even began to wilt. A few leaves at the top of the tree turned brown and fell off of the tree, scorched by a sun now grown to twice its normal size.

“Get out!” Hudson growled through clenched teeth.

“I will not. You may cease your fruitless anger. If you want me to leave, you must give me something in return. A gift of this magnificent tree will certainly do…. and I am not above also gifting the sigil of a powerful dao as well, if you quickly see reason and agree.”

Hudson’s anger and frustration raged higher. Why was the cultivation world this way? Why were there all of these tricks and set-ups? Hidden information that some have, but not others? Why did it seem like he couldn’t ever trust anyone?

Trust no one, Chiang-sensei had said. True words, to be sure.

As he thought those words, a small, faint cloud appeared on the horizon. It sped rapidly across the sky – far faster than any normal cloud – and towards the enormous, red-hot sun directly overhead.

When the cloud cast a shadow over the small house and yard, it was now an ugly dark gray, verging on purplish, and was growing larger by the second. Hudson recalled the dream he’d had of his father, sitting under the porch. That dream had ended in a massive storm, with ferocious winds screaming at him – screaming words.

Those words had been telling him to trust no one. What was it that Sal had told him? That this storm was foreign qi that had been inserted into his mind? He wasn’t sure if he could trust Sal, but if that was true… then it must have been Chiang-sensei who put that foreign qi in here. In addition to telling him not to trust anyone, she had put a qi compulsion in his mind to the same effect.

That storm cloud grew bigger and bigger, blocking out the sun entirely. Hudson’s anger cooled as well, and he threw the ax over his shoulder and walked back towards his house.

Big drops of rain began to splatter in the yard. Hudson set his ax beside the doorway and looked out the window at the back yard. A wind was beginning to pick up, sending waves through the grass and ripples across the surface of the small lotus pond. The leaves of the oak tree flipped over, and small pieces of hail began to fall.

A small chunk of ice struck Sal on one of his crystalline leaves. The green facet cracked slightly, small white streaks spreading through the crystal. A gravelly scream of frustration came from the silicate.

“Allow me within your dwelling,” Sal called out.

“No,” Hudson replied.

Another piece of hail struck Sal on his trunk. He crowded closer, underneath the oak tree to escape the storm, but the branches of the tree were whipping upwards in the fierce winds. Rain and hail fell in sheets, flying almost sideways through the small yard. This storm was unnatural, and there was no protection from it under the oak tree.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Shards of crystal began to chip and fall off of the silicate. Unable to endure the storm, they let loose another gravel-crunching scream of frustration and began to retreat out of Hudson’s yard and towards the bridge they had arrived on.

They didn’t make it to the bridge. The hail intensified and focused its efforts on the battered crystal tree, the impacts from the individual pieces of ice sounding like machine gun fire.

There was a rumble of distant thunder, and then another directly overhead. A massive lightning bolt ripped the sky apart, striking the floating tree and shattering it into a thousand glittering pieces.

The storm continued to rage outside for a few more minutes, and Hudson contemplated his luck. Was it luck though? Had Chiang-sensei known about the sigil challenge, and what could potentially happen here?

He couldn’t know for certain. He didn’t like that she had put something in his mind, even if it had helped him in this instance. He didn’t know what her plans were; whether those plans meant him good or ill. There were just so many things that he didn’t know.

Whatever the strength of the compulsion, it hadn’t stopped him from trusting Cor, or Clara, or Vince. And it had protected him from an intruder in his mind.

Hudson raised himself from his thoughts. The storm had died down, the clouds dispersing. Hudson watched closely as not all of the clouds dispersed completely – at least one small cloud disappeared back over the horizon. Hiding until the next time.

The shattered body of the floating tree lay spread across the grass. Hudson knelt down to examine it and smelled a faint wisp of ozone. He picked up a piece of green crystal and looked at it closely.

“Even for a carbon-based life form, your hospitality was incredibly lacking.” Sal’s voice came from in front of Hudson.

He looked up, and there was another Sal – the spitting image of the previous, green-crystal tree, floating in place over the bridge leading into his yard. He looked at the shards on the ground, then back at the Sal floating ten feet away.

“Um, how-” Hudson started to ask a question, and then stopped. He knew how asking questions and getting answers went with this guy. He wasn’t sure why they weren’t dead, when their body had just been crushed by an unnatural hail storm and blown to smithereens by vengeful lightning. Rather than ask questions, he decided to take another approach.

“For a silicon-based lifeform, you were pretty weak. Falling apart in a little bitty storm… no wonder you’re called the Broken One.”

“A simple mental projection formed from the barest wisps of qi and sent across the void is no measure of my true power,” Sal said, adding a “harrumpf” at the end for good measure. “It is the height of arrogance for a qi gathering cultivator to dare question my power, and especially a qi gathering cultivator with an incomplete cultivation technique!”

Hudson almost asked the obvious question, but he bit his lip at the last moment. Sal could be lying about his cultivation, just to get him to ask a question. He was tricky that way.

The two just stared at each other for a brief moment. Sal made no move to cross the bridge, so whatever permission Hudson had extended previously was obviously no longer in play.

Hudson had figured out some of the rules of this game the hard way, but he still might not know all of them. He continued to sit in the grass, throw a few pieces of broken crystal between his hands, and think through what he wanted to do next.

He could simply walk back through the mist and exit the place, but he didn’t want to do that. There might be a lot more opportunity here, if he was smart enough to wrangle wits with an alien mind.

“This is a negotiation,” Hudson stated. Sal offered no response.

“I have things to offer, and you have things to offer,” Hudson continued, thinking through his words very carefully. “I wish to discuss these things with you, but will only do so under specific conditions.

“First, the discussion does not obligate me in any way. Any questions and answers or information given during our discussion is not a part of any trade. Second, the discussion begins when one of us says ‘Let’s talk,’ and ends at any time, whenever one of us says ‘the discussion is over.’ Third, any trade must be confirmed. You must ask me if I am sure, before I agree to your terms. No more trapping me in my own words.”

“A sack of dirty water wishes to negotiate with me,” Sal mused. “And on such unbalanced terms… tsk tsk.”

Hudson waited, not rising to the bait.

“I am able to enter into additional agreements, but am bound by balance. The terms must be mutual, and accounts must be even. You still owe me.”

“I owe you nothing. You took advantage of my ignorance, and traded my good intentions for bad faith,” Hudson replied. A little heat crept into his voice, and the sun flashed brighter in sympathy.

If this was the way things were going to go, he knew what his only choice was. He abruptly stood up and walked away, towards where he had first appeared.

He was past the oak tree and halfway across the yard when Sal called out.

“You will not leave. You are bluffing… Every little sooty water-sack comes to me for the power I can offer, and takes and takes and takes from me. You want it, just like the rest of them.”

Hudson didn’t stop.

“You are not only one of them, you are one of their elites. A fully realized mindscape at qi gathering stage? Multiple spiritual fruits nourishing your development? A genius among geniuses. Your claim to be ignorant is false, and your lust for power is obvious. The powerful do not walk away from more power!”

Hudson frowned but kept walking. He was on the other side of the house now, with no intention of stopping.

“Young master, you will wait!”

Hudson sped up, angered at being called a young master. He was a single step away from where he had entered his mindscape.

The mist encircling the yard and house making up his inner mindscape was directly in front of him. He had not noticed it before, but the mist where he had entered was slightly less dense, forming the shape of a swirling, narrow door. Hudson lifted his foot to step across.

Desperate, overlapping voices screamed across the air. “Fine. Let’s talk then, vermin.”

Hudson smiled and turned around.

“OK. Let’s talk.”