He walks down the street, and turns to face you while you adopt your proper position about fifteen to twenty yards away. He hollers, "It's two 'til noon. At the first chime, we draw..."

You see a modest clock tower above the foreman's office, and you get the sense that it's watching you while you wait for the clicks towards noon to become a chime. Your opponent has his hand about an inch away from the revolver on his belt, and he watches you intently.

I move my hand in anticipation, mimicking the stance he's adopted, and establishing a mental rhythm to the clock ticks and readying, calling on wind furies and adrenaline to help me perceive time quicker and get ready to draw and fire on first chime.

You feel the wind furies and, as if on cue, the dust around your feet swirls slightly as you do. You begin hearing the ticks happen slightly slower.

You adopt the same position as your opponent, and can feel that you have better access to your sidearm.

OOC: What level would you put yourself at quickdrawing (if you ever had) or firing a handgun (if you ever had).

Ooc) never have shot a handgun, only a rifle at a practice range and that only a few times although I was a decent shot with the rifle from the start. Just never something that interested me. And never tried quick drawing. I'm just banking on my understandings of what's supposed to happen in it, my good reflexes and my windcrafting. Also on a youth of watching too many Wild West movies with my father,  as well as some of those shooting competition tv shows (which I forget the name of).

I feel a tiny bit more comfortable with the visual presence of the wind, and the focus it brings me. I need to get through this and find out more about this man I am from Garrett afterwards. But for now, I'm prepping to shoot this man in our duel.

You use the ticks of the clock and become familiar with it for the eternity of two minutes until finally you hear the final movement of the second-hand, minute-hand, and the first stroke of noon. You pull your gun with your windcrafted speed, and feel something hard pinch your right shoulder, making you spin and fall back right after firing.

I push away the oncoming pain, and force myself to quickly roll in such a way to be able to see whether I hit or not and what shape he's in.

"Gah!" You hear him cuss aloud, and you turn and see him spit, grabbing the meat of his leg, a couple inches above his knee. He glares at you, raises his gun, and tries again. The wild shot falls short of you by two feet.

I use metalcrafting to push away the pain, relying on the metal from the gun, and take aim and fire back.

You pull some resilience to pain from the metal in the gun, which you're still holding tight to. It does little to ebb the tide of your pain, but it does help you focus your vision better on the man who's still raising his gun and pulling the hammer back again with his thumb for another shot.

He manages to shoot again before you can, and dirt a foot by your head jumps into the air from the bullet.

You take your shot, and hit him in his neck this time. He drops his revolver, and presses his hand into the spot where your bullet bit him. Blood is streaming past his hand and down his neck where his shirt is soaking it up. Then, he falls to the ground on his back, still gripping his neck wound with his gun hand.

I begin to stand up, letting go of my metalcraft but keeping my gun in hand for a little, in case I need it for firing or metalcraft immediately.

I move over to the dying man and check to make sure he's passed on, what are people's reactions? I'm also feeling with my free hand to see if the bullet was a through and through or lodged there. If it's a through, I'm going to try waterccrafting to begin healing, using my internal water. I'm assuming his gun is my property now if he's dead? Does it look to be better quality than the one I have?

Afterwards on the way out and back to camp I'll ask Garret who the man was and if he knows why he wanted to challenge me. Also I'll mention I want to get some practice in with the gun, that was closer than I would have liked.

Bill Wilcox is down, but you crawl over to him and discover, surprisingly, that he isn't dead. He's still conscious and glaring at you, "Come to take another cheap shot, boy? I never heard of the Gent firing when a fight is through!"

He spits in your direction, but the lob misses and dries quickly on the hot ground.

His weapon is still by his side, but with his hand wrapped firmly over his neck wound, he isn't dead yet.

"Funny definition of through, I noticed you were still shooting."

I'll push the gun away so that it's out of his reach and inspect his wound. I'll call to Garrett to bring me water, and begin trying to watercraft, using his internal water furies to knit the wound enough for him to live.

"Stick through this, I had no intention of losing the duel, but I'll keep you alive if I can. Maybe then you can tell me what reason you had for calling me out." That last part is all said in a quieter voice, meant only for him to hear.

His eyes are wide, angry, and you sense fear and pain as well after you place your own hand over his wound and try to manipulate his water furies. The furies are so unfamiliar that you can't manipulate them, but you can read them fairly well. He's surprised, embarrassed, and extremely happy and angry all at once. The emotions are slightly overwhelming.

He lets you have access to his wound, though, and puts on a tough face. "I'll tell you now in case I don't make it. I wanted to know if I was faster than the Gent. Since I was, I know you ain't the Gent!" He locks eyes with you, but turns away as Garrett comes up with a pale of water. It's an awkward brownish-clear color, but it is mostly clear.

I force a calm through my emotions, refusing to be overwhelmed by his, and stay on task. Hopefully this transfers somewhat to him as well.

At the comment of me not being the Gent, "Enough of that for now, Stop talking so I can work here."

Hopefully both having the established connection with his emotions through watercraft, and having a bucket of water to work with to clean the wound and encourage watercrafting to work will make the difference. I'll try to heal him that way, and if not I'll just wash his wound, and ask for some strips of cloth to apply light pressure to encourage it to clot.

In the back of my mind my thoughts are racing, if I'm going to continue posing as this man everyone thinks I am I have to get faster or come up with a reason I'm so much slower than I should be.

You try to use watercrafting to heal the wound on Bill Wilcox, but succeed only in cleaning it out slightly and watering down the blood that's still coming out. Still, with the pressure and cold water, the blood is coming out much slower now and has almost completely stopped.

Your shoulder immediately starts hurting when you release your gun, but you can work through the pain.

"Looks like you'll be fine Bill, keep some pressure there, tight enough to slow the blood but don't let yourself go light headed. If you start to feel that coming on, let me know." and I'll take his hand and place it where I was holding pressure.

I'll rinse my hands of his blood and then prod at my shoulder to see if the bullets still in there, if it's still bleeding badly, and if I can remove the bullet if it's still there. During this I'll talk quietly to Garret, "Is it terribly common for people to call me out just to test themselves? Seems a terribly foolish practice, and potentially dangerous for me as it seems whatever affected my memory has made me rusty. Do you recognize this man at all?"

"Mostly it was you calling other men out in the beginning, looking to prove yourself to commoners, gunslingers, and lawmen alike." You probe your wound. When you do, it bleeds more, but the flow right now as slowed down substantially. It still hurts worse than anything and it's hard to move your left shoulder or arm without it hurting.

"That boy was probably just one trying to make a name for himself by challenging you. But... Never mind."

"What Garrett? Speak your mind, I trust you judgement"

He glances at you sideways, and seems to ponder for a moment before he continues. "I've never seen you beat in a fight like that before. And to shoot after you'd lost-I wouldn't have imagined it."

The sun has been moving in the sky, and is behind you as you face Garrett. He squints at it or you, and says, "I just can't imagined what's happened to you. You talk different, shoot different, more and more is just different."

"I had assumed it was a duel to the death, I remember so little of this.  Everything people have said about me seems like it could be true, but also none of it is stuff I remember. I don't remember being a good shot with a gun, or any of the gang, or dueling, at least not with guns. I do remember being able to do fantastical tricks like the one I showed you before, and leading other groups, and the pride is something i know to be true, walking away from a challenge has always been difficult for me. But what's important is there are people who are going to require me to be what you all remember, not what I remember, so I will make my efforts to be just that"

"If your still willing to help, knowing all that, I am going to need to know more. Specifically about duels, what determines when they're over? Is it one shot each? First to land a hit? What if both shoot at the same time, who has won? I'm still unsure of how I was considered to be firing after the duel ended, as I remember we both fired near the same time, both took a hit, and then when he continued firing I continued."

"Maybe you didn't mean to go after him after you were shot. Lord knows a man can make a mistake when the fight's in you. You probably pulled the trigger from reflex more than anything after you were hit, but it's first hit generally, unless you agree it's a fight to the death."

He kicks some dust, circling back to your first question about sticking it out with you, "Heck, I don't know. You remember nuthin', so can you really be you? I've got a cousin who's landed himself work east of here, says they could use a gunman to drive off wranglers and coyotes... I just don't know, but I won't ruin you to the group. I'm just not sure how they'll take you losing-the Gentlemen have always respected the strength you've got, and they might not take kindly to hearing you lost."

"I won't fault you if you want to head east Garrett, I wish I remembered more, I just don't, and I understand not wanting to follow a man who doesn't even know who he is."

Out of curiosity as to how much of what I remember I can do, I try to summon Hermes mentally without calling out to him. I need to rely on the powers I have, not what everyone thinks I should have."

He nods, and looks resigned to a decision after you speak.

Then, you focus your concentration and try to gather your furies to summon Hermes, this time without using his name to call him. You feel the furies gathering and trying to sustain in a shape, but Hermes never appears.

Garrett heads into a general store to buy oats for the horses.

While Garrett goes into the general store I try and summon Hermes again, this time using his name. I'm trying to determine my limits, as if I get challenged by the gang I may require more than I've used here so far.

While trying to summon Hermes you feel your mind crack from the strain. You collapse to the ground and notice that you are bleeding profusely from your ears and nose before blacking out

OOC: The next thread is Glantri's Island.