Tales of the Three Kingdoms: Silver Falcon Falls

As I lay in the cart shifting in and out of consciousness, my hand fell upon the final piece that helped me puzzle all of that together. This piece to the puzzle was wet, and dripping with dark blood but surprisingly, not my blood. My bandages were simple, makeshift and rough. But they were at least fresh and I hadn't bled through this latest batch yet.

No, what my hand fell upon was a piece of dark parchment, so raw as to still be damp with the blood of whatever animal had donated its hide to be used as a writing medium.

***WHAT AN ACHIEVEMENT!***

TITLE: MASSACRE!

DESCRIPTION: You've led your forces into a battle in which a quarter-million or more of your enemies were slain. "Enemies" in this case could refer to the stalwart protectors of the Empire, untrained draftees, or some unarmed peasants you, for some reason, had a particular problem with. Please tell me it wasn't the unarmed peasants…

VIRTUE: -75

Even as I let the parchment fall from my hands and my head loll back into the bed of blankets in the back of the cart, I couldn't help but smile. These mysteriously appearing 'achievements' were never truly specific to me. They were always vague in a way that let me know that the message pre-dated my actual feats, and I had just managed to fit within some criteria for earning them. But still… they always seemed to get it right, while at the same time getting it so wrong.

I had killed tens of thousands. Maybe even a hundred thousand, if you counted the ring of fire around the lakebed that I had used to protect the people of Black Altar. Flashammer must have taken out the rest of that quarter-million figure the 'achievement' quoted.

And they had all, technically, been unarmed civilians. But they had been turned into crazed animals intent on my blood. What was I supposed to do?

Fair or not, losing seventy-five 'Virtue' was a blow… if I cared about such things. My head was too muddled to remember exactly what the aggregate measure stood at, and I hadn't even been shown the scores of the first few 'achievements' I had earned. Despite that, I had reasoned out a range back on my tablet in the war camp some time ago, and I knew with this latest tally, I was now well into the negatives.

I don't care about such things, I told myself, lying in that cartbed. I did what I had to do. I am alive. River is alive. Ang is alive. That's what counts.

But there was one other thing that had bothered me since I had gotten my first big chunk of 'Virtue.' This same mystical system that tallied my actions had awarded me the Son-of-Heaven Saber for saving the young prince's life – now the Emperor. The card from the Imperial Minister of History's office – now likely a smoldering wreck – had said that my splendid, perpetually sharp, seemingly unbreakable blade would not tolerate being held but an evil hand.

I thought it had flickered once, when I had killed my Uncle. Either because it knew I had made a mistake and had judged me for the heinous deed, or because such an act had pulled my 'Virtue' score all the way down from nearly one-hundred just into the negatives. I had stared at the sword for a while afterward, watching it mist with the blood of an innocent old man – well, as innocent as any retired right-hand of a warlord could be. In any case, Uncle was innocent in what I had executed him for, as was his family, whom I had also misjudged for traitors.

Lying back, nearly unable to move for my injuries and blood-loss, my hand slipped free from the furs and groped within the cartbed for my sword. I found the scabbard, as substantial as ever. As my fingers found their way to the silver and leather of the hilt, there was a heart-dropping moment where I thought my hand had passed right through the sword itself, then it firmed up within my grasp a moment later.

Was it my muddled senses, or was the blade… deciding? Was I close enough now to being truly evil that the Son-of-Heaven Saber might vanish from within my grasp? Could I trust it to be there when I needed it most?

Could it trust me to wield it honorably? The thought came to mind unbidden. The sword wasn't sentient; it was my own thought. This was my own objective reasoning battering past my ego and ambition. This was the cold, clinical logic of my wife rubbing off on me. If I was seen as a villain, would the people still fight for me? Could I still gain the allegiance of the greatest heroes? Could I trust my own virtuous officers to fight alongside me, or would they abandon me like Brass Bell, or stab me in the back to rid the Land Under Heaven from another Dreadwolf-in-the-making?

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As a warrior, I knew I should lock the Son-of-Heaven Saber in a loot cart somewhere and use a blade of mundane metal that I could trust not to disappear on me. But as a tactician, and as a leader, I knew that this sword – if the theories born of a fevered mind could be trusted – was an essential measurement of the compromises I was making. Should the Son-of-Heaven Saber ever vanish, or refuse to be pulled from its scabbard, or pull some other mystical horseshit that amounted to it rejecting my wielding it… I would know to start watching my back. I would know I had fallen as low as Dreadwolf and there would be those that sought to put a knife in me for the good of the Land Under Heaven, or out of necessity for their own safety.

But for now, the Son-of-Heaven Saber was firm in my hand, and despite my injuries and half-conscious state, I managed to bare a half span of steel and then slide it back into place.

I might not be virtuous. But I was not yet evil.

Also… minus seventy-five for fighting a feral horde to save villagers?! How is that fair?!

Hadn't I done my best to protect-

Something stirred with the furs, making the blankets atop me billow for a moment. Summoning all my remaining strength to lift my head, I thought I could see a faint blue-white light coming from within. And then it was gone as a slight weight settled atop my chest.

There! Now this was more deserving! Finally a reward for my efforts…

I might have slipped back into unconsciousness for a while longer, but when I awoke again, thinking it all a dream – my sword flickering in my hand, something materializing within the furs and blankets – the vague weight was still there, atop my chest.

And I now felt strong enough to lift my head at least.

I pulled down the blankets to expose a pair of ancient but solid bracers, the bronze so weathered as to be almost black with patina. They had not come wrapped in perfectly pristine white silk as the saber had been, but had been carefully packaged within crisp, expensive and artfully folded paper. Having seen this before, to an extent, I had not torn the paper to get at the prize. For on the inside of the packaging there was a message from the same glowing hand, that read:

***WHAT AN ACHIEVEMENT!***

TITLE: A TRAP WORTHY OF HAN XIN

DESCRIPTION: You've backed yourself into a corner. Your enemy was salivating over your weakness. They could already taste sweet, sweet victory seasoned with your blood. And then you gave the signal and everything changed. You sprung a trap that directly or indirectly claimed more than one-hundred-thousand lives and changed the face of the battlefield, sparing your own troops the worst of the bloodshed in the process.

VIRTUE: +50

REWARD: Bronze Counselor Bracers

Within the packaging, resting atop the bracers, there was a card. It was of the sort that would be used within the Imperial ranking system – that much less mystical system of ministers and scribes. This card was undoubtedly from the Minister of Imperial History's office, as well, and I was a bit surprised to see that everything from the capital hadn't been lost in the blaze. It read:

BRONZE COUNSELOR BRACERS

TYPE: Forearm Armor

ARMOR RANK: 14th

LORE: The Paper Counselor commissioned these bracers from the Virtuesmith as a gift for the Bronze Counselor, to celebrate the re-unification of the land under the Great Ancestor, and congratulating that most martial of the three counselors on his new position within the Empire. It is said that the Bronze Counselor Bracers will not suffer fools, and, in the end, they abandoned him.

LAST KNOWN OWNER: The Bronze Counselor

Again, I had to smile at both the prescience of such a gift and the irony. Here I was, more willing to live a life of evil than live the life of a fool, but with one arm sitting uselessly in bandage and sling because I had used it to block a blade meant for my head. The block was desperate, and the blade, of course, had punched through the mundane metal of my armor, but not enough to kill me or take off the hand. Still, the wound was grievous enough that I had been rendered helpless for the moment, and had River not been there, the following attack would have killed me.

"Could have used you a couple of days ago," I grumbled to myself, pulling myself awkwardly into a sitting position with my one good arm. My head spun. "Maybe a helmet too, while you're at it." The hole in my stomach wept blood as well at my movements, but I didn't think it fair to ask for a whole suit of magical armor.

Either way, whatever semi-omniscient being that tallied the scores and dolled out the rewards did not respond, of course. Instead, River, riding somewhere beside the cart, heard me and rode up to look in on me.

"You're awake?"

"And wish I wasn't."

River turned to Windstopper at the head of the oxcart. "Halt! Flashammer, Halt! He's awake!"

"Thank Heaven," said Flashammer, galloping ahead to halt the column.

"But Heaven Did Not Save Him." said Windstopper. "Me And Tongs And Flashammer And River Did. Stop. Ox."

The oxcart rumbled to a stop.

"Drink," ordered River, thrusting a nearly empty waterskin at me. "Can you eat? Do you need anything else?"

"Mm," I grumbled, the throbbing in my head intensifying then passing for the moment. "Paper and ink. I need to know how many we lost."

***SPARROW'S BAND MISSION UPDATE: BATTLE OF THE LAKEBED***

SUCCEEDED Primary Objective: Survive the hordes.

SUCCEEDED Secondary Objective: Save some of the Black Altar villagers.

SUCCEEDED Bonus Objective: Figure out a plan to cut the odds.

ENEMY SLAIN: 270,230 | ENEMY CAPTURED: 0 | LOSSES: 9

OVERALL GRADE: A (Decisive Victory)