“What exactly is a sigil? and what is the dao, for that matter?” Hudson asked.

Sal laughed, a gravelly sound of crystals clinking against each other.

“‘What is the dao,’ indeed… The dao is the ‘Way.’ It is nameless. It is empty, yet inexhaustible. The Way that can be followed is not the eternal Way… to progress with the Way is to go backwards. Shall we continue?”

Hudson frowned. “You’re not making any sense.”

“And do you think we will share our insights into the dao, the source of our power, so easily? Do you think the path of the cultivator so easily trod? If you wish to challenge the heavens and shake the earth with the might of your passage, you must take what you can and never let it go.”

Sal lifted a root up and the tip began to glow. They slowly inscribed a shape in the air, the glow from their root remaining in the air after it passed.

Hudson’s head began to ache. All color and light were slowly drawn into the complex sigil. The sun dimmed to a hazy twilight.

As Hudson gazed on the sigil, he felt a burning sensation. A fire-filled rage, all-consuming and all-obliterating in its path filled his gaze.

“Ever a favorite of your peers, this sigil reflects the dao of the Eternal Flame. A magnificent dao, it enhances flame techniques with unstoppable power, consuming all in its path.”

The sigil winked out of existence, and Hudson blinked. Light and color returned to the world. His eyes were incredibly dry, and he blinked a few tears onto his parched face.

Sal began inscribing another sigil in the air with the tip of a root, the silvery lines building in power and intensity.

“Or would you forge that oak sapling into a sigil of the Inevitable Hammer? Bludgeon your enemies with the simplicity of unstoppable force. Everything in the universe is a nail that will ultimately, inexorably be smashed flat beneath your might.”

The air grew heavy and dense; the sun felt hot and uncomfortable close. Hudson stumbled to a knee, forced to the ground by the weight of inevitability pounding on his shoulders. The ground beneath his knees vibrated from the pressure.

Sal let the silver working fade. Hudson gasped as the pressure faded. He felt as if he had been a bug about to be squished, caught between forces too large to comprehend. It had almost been too much to bear.

“Wait-” Hudson started to say, as Sal began tracing yet another sigil in the air.

“The dao does not wait… well, unless it is the dao of Waiting, but we have not cultivated or consumed that dao. Now this sigil is a rare gem. We searched in the dusty corners of our mind for this one. It is uncommon, but in the right hands…”

Hudson braced himself for yet another powerful force, but even as Sal sketched the complex, interlinking elements of the sigil, nothing seemed to happen. As the last line fell into place, however, Hudson felt a faint chill on the back of his neck.

Everything went black. There was no sound, so sense of smell or touch. For a split second, Hudson lost all of his senses. In another blink, the familiar world of his mindscape was back, as if nothing at all had happened. The third sigil faded from view as Sal uttered a single word.

“Vengeance.”

“So… which shall it be? The Eternal Flame to vent your righteous anger. The Inevitable Hammer to solve all of your problems with excessive, prejudicious force. Or the simple, unstoppable path of Vengeance, on those who have wronged you.

“You may proudly wallow in your ignorance, questioning the Way, but surely even you recognize the power you can wield with either of these three sigils to guide your path, empower your techniques, and even – given sufficient comprehension – enable feats of power vastly beyond the ken of the average cultivator.”

Hudson shook his head to clear his thoughts. He had been caught off guard, and hadn’t expected those sigils to have such an impact on his mind.

He recognized now that the signs at each stage of this challenge had been inscribed with sigils. Written characters, lines and swirls and patterns, similar to Chinese characters from Earth but more complex, and more real in the same way a three-dimensional sculpture was more realistic than a two-dimensional drawing.

“Is that all?” Hudson asked, and walked over to the bridge that Sal hovered over. Each of the three sigils had resonated with Hudson. The pent-up anger; the rage that he had never been able to control would be the perfect fuel to a Flame.

Those stronger than him, more privileged than him, those young masters seeking to push him down would meet their match. He could push them back and nail them down on the path of the Hammer. And then Vengeance – of which he was terrified, but also uncomfortably excited – that promised getting even with everyone who had ever wronged him in this life.

He could see himself choosing any of these sigils and forging it into the Way he followed as a cultivator. He could walk down any of these paths, but a doubt in his mind made him question that those were the only three available. Three choices felt limiting; arbitrary; and that doubt wouldn’t go away.

The bridge in front of him was a simple stone arch, three feet wide and curving upwards gradually. The white fog was thinner here, and Hudson could see across the bridge and behind Sal.

“‘Is that all?’ you ask,” Sal stated angrily after Hudson walked up to the bridge. “We show you veritable, proven paths to power, and you ask us ‘is that all?’ You ungrateful wretch.”

Hudson looked past Sal, into the yawning darkness behind them. “What else do you have back there?” He pointed at the dusty shapes barely visible in the darkness behind Sal. “Is that your mindscape?”

“What else?” Sal repeated, flabbergasted. “Now you ask for ‘what else’?”

“I get it, simple questions are tough sometimes, but you don’t have to repeat everything I say.”

Sal seemed at a momentary loss for words.

“We… well, yes, we can produce other sigils. And the contents of our minds are indeed behind us, on the other side of this bridge. It is not often we meet in a mindscape, and even less often for ours to be sought out.”

“I suppose it’s tough for old dogs to learn new tricks.”

“We are not old dogs. And we can learn new tricks,” Sal retorted. “Are you truly not interested in any of the three powerful sigils we have shown you?”

“Perhaps,” Hudson replied. “I asked what else you had, though, and I haven’t seen it yet.”

“The Way is many-faceted, and our understandings numerous.”

“Are they your own understandings, or the ones you consumed from other living beings?” Hudson asked darkly.

“There is no difference,” Sal responded primly.

“OK, then, how many have you absorbed from humans?“

“Only a few hundred. It’s a rare thing, actually, for the dao to coalesce strongly within a cultivator and for their path to be pure enough… one in a million, really, although the higher the cultivation, the higher the chance.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Hudson froze, as he processed that statement. Did that mean that this creature he was bandying words with had killed… how many humans? That couldn’t be right.

“Sal…” Hudson began, before he was interrupted.

“Do not ask questions you do not wish to know the answers to,” Sal said. “We have consumed innumerable millions of your kind. Mostly mortals... We assume they count less than cultivators?”

Sal’s words were calculated to be cruel. Hudson was immediately incensed, his emotions literally inflaming his mindscape. The scale was hard to imagine, but it was clear that Sal was a literal purveyor of genocide.

The elder silicate had been conquered, defeated, and broken, yet not completely erased from the universe. Not yet, at least. After all of the people they had consumed, they should be, and that was something he should rectify. Shattered and smashed into the ground, then burned with flames until nothing was left except the justice taken for their victims.

It was hard to imagine the scale of so much death.

Hudson recognized that he was being emotionally manipulated, but that only incensed him more. Sal was pushing him towards taking one of the sigils he had been offered, and Hudson’s own reactions were feeding into his desires for violence.

He turned back from the bridge and walked over to the small pond in his backyard. The heat from his anger was oppressive; the grass was brown and wilting and the roof of his house was smoldering. He squatted at the foot of the pond and leaned over. Cupping his hands in the water, he splashed a handful on his face.

The cool water slid down his face and soaked his shirt. The shock of the water on his face calmed him down.

He thought he understood now why he was here, bartering with an ancient enemy of sentient life. Death was too much of a kindness. Thousands of years spent empowering the humans they had once feasted on? That was at least the start to an appropriate punishment and a balancing of the scales.

He had an inkling of a plan. It was a crazy plan, but he was starting to feel like crazy plans might be his thing. They seemed to be working out for him. Maybe there was a dao of crazy plans he could follow? Who knew – anything seemed possible.

He gathered up his ax, and the branch of the oak tree he had cut off, and threw them over his left shoulder. He then picked up the bucket with Sal’s broken crystals before walking back over to the bridge.

“I think you’re hiding the best stuff back there behind you, and I want to see it for myself. But I also don’t trust you… but in any case, here is what is on offer: this branch from my oak tree. That’s it – you’re never getting the full oak tree, but the only way you even get this is by agreeing to what I want.”

Sal floated for a moment before responding. “And what is it that you want?”

“Hmm. Good question,” Hudson said. “The first thing you called me was ‘neighbor.’ And as a friendly neighbor, I believe you should extend the same courtesy to me that I did to you.”

“Being pounded to destruction by hail and lightning?” Sal asked hopefully.

“No, no, that wasn’t me. That tiny little storm you couldn’t handle was foreign qi,” Hudson said. “I gave you a guided tour of my mind. I expect the same. I expect to see all of the sigils you have, and I will take what’s most suitable for me.”

“You wish to come into my mind, rummage around with your dirty little digits, and waltz away with however much loot you can carry? All for a measly tree branch?” Sal screeched.

Hudson was confident that Sal wanted the oak branch, and wanted it very, very badly. He didn’t know why Sal wanted it so badly, and that worried him slightly, but it seemed a small thing to him.

“The full tree, root and branch. You may come to us, but only go where we allow. You must also be quick; only a single hour of your perceived time in this space. You may take one sigil, and one only… And we want the broken pieces of ourselves returned.”

Hudson shook his head. “This branch only, and only if I find an appropriate sigil. I’ll keep the broken pieces in case I find something else I want to trade for.”

Hudson paused, something that Sal had just said sticking in his thoughts. “And what did you mean by ‘perceived time’?”

He suddenly had a terrifying worry. How long had he been in this mindspace? Time just seemed to slip by, dream-like. He had been the last one to touch Sal’s crystal to receive a sigil, and there had been maybe half an hour left in the trial. What happened if he stayed in this space for too long?

Sal made the now familiar flicking gesture with one of his roots. Hudson sighed and threw over a piece of crystal. Then another… and finally a third.

“Time moves slower in this space – we are advancing at the speed of thought! The speed of your thoughts at least.”

“How much slower?” Hudson asked, flicking over additional payment before being prompted.

“About 15-30 seconds have passed outside,” Sal said. “It is difficult to tell precisely.”

Hudson breathed a sigh of relief. There was no danger to being late for the trial.

“Back to the deal: a tour of your mindspace. Nothing off limits, but no danger for me and a guarantee of my safe return. Two hours to view sigil options, but if I don’t find anything I want, you get nothing.”

Sal made a disgusting sound, like pulling rocks from mud. “The full tree or you get nothing!”

Hudson shook his head. “Branch only. Do I need to start walking for the exit again? Or do you believe me when I say I won’t do it?”

There were several long seconds filled with the sound of crunching gravel, smashing crystals and a keening, sharp wind.

“Fine,” Sal agreed. “But one sigil only. But the pieces of my avatar – we keep those as well.”

“One sigil. And the broken pieces – you get those at the end of the tour.”

“Fine,” Sal said. “Are we agreed?”

Hudson thought for a moment. He couldn’t think of any other loopholes – he had asked for and received a guarantee of safe return, which he hoped was exactly the same as the protection Sal had received in his own mind.

“Are there foreign qi storms or anything else in your mind that can harm me, outside the scope of this potential agreement?”

“No, you little soot-stain. Do we look so weak as to allow such a thing in our mind? We are not like you.”

No, they were not like him at all. Hudson could agree to that.

“Then we are agreed,” Hudson said.

“You drive a hard bargain,” Sal grumbled, then changed his tone to something much brighter and anticipatory. “Well, let’s get going then. You might want to dry your face first, maybe grab a clock, and don’t forget the tree branch!”

A clock was actually a good idea. A suspiciously good idea, that immediately put Hudson on edge. But he still went back into his house and rummaged around until he found an old digital clock that showed a time down to the second. He stared at it for a minute, until the seconds number ticked up by one.

Why had Sal told him to dry his face? That was a bit of an odd comment. As he walked back through the kitchen on his way out, he stopped on a whim and grabbed an empty glass mason jar with a wide-mouth lid, and filled it with lemonade from the fridge. If Sal didn’t like liquids – they hadn’t taken a drink when previously offered, and had made that odd comment about drying his face – he might as well take a drink with him.

As he walked back over the bridge, ax and branch and bucket in tow, Sal floated backwards, his roots flicking about nervously.

“Are you sure you got everything you need? And it’s not a picnic. Why bring your silly beverage with you?”

“Why not?” Hudson shrugged. The fact that Sal had implied he shouldn’t bring it made him want to bring his silly beverage even more, and justified his initial thought that Sal must not like liquids. Why they didn’t was a mystery; and it could even be a red herring that Sal was planting, so Hudson didn’t think of it too much.

The white mist separating his mind from Sal’s began to part as he crossed over the bridge, the light from the sun in his mind dimming. Sal floated ahead in front of him.

On the other side, Hudson stepped off of the bridge, his foot landing in a puff of dusty sand.

The mind of the silicate was a cold and dry place. There was no sun, no constant source of light or illumination. Occasional flashes of purple lightning lit the sky, reflecting across the glittering, crystal sand that formed the ground.

A constant, wheezing breeze rustled his clothes and his hair. He looked back, and could see the bridge and white fog of his own mind glowing softly behind him. The glass of lemonade and the crushed pieces of Sal’s broken avatar glowed in the bucket he carried, giving off the only constant sources of light in this dark and forbidding space.

“Far be it from us to forbid you from wasting your time gazing in awe at the desiccated corpse of our mindscape. Are you overcome with fear? Loathing? Or perhaps…worship?”

There was a bright flash of purple lightning striking close by, and Hudson was able to see more clearly for a brief moment. Stretching out in front of him, as far as he could see, was a vast desert, far larger than his own mindscape. Dark figures poked up between dusty sand dunes.

Not all of the dark figures were identifiable, but most appeared to be the jagged branches of bare trees. Others were large amorphous lumps of crystal. But here and there, mixed into the alien landscape, were a few of the remains of Sal’s past victims: petrified statues of the humans they had consumed.