Fear coursed across my body as, wild-eyed, I viewed Emily in my peripheral vision. ‘You’re dead in one minute if you don’t tell me how you have his gun?’

‘His?’ I stuttered.

‘You’re wasting your time. Garrett’s. Where’d you get it?’

‘From his corpse.’ The adrenaline and lack of familiarity with being moments from death, provided me with an inappropriately timed ability to not form long sentences.

She glared at me. ‘This isn’t helping your case. Why did you take it from him?’

‘He was dead. I needed it.’

‘Dead before you found him, Sop?’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’

Her finger hovered on the trigger, and I swear I could see it pulling inwards in slow motion. Then she let it up, and twirled the pistol away from my head with a cackle. ‘You should see your face!’

I wanted to growl. I wanted to scream. What was wrong with this place that you could be casually threatened like it was a joke?

‘Not funny,’ was all I got out.

‘It wasn’t meant to be funny. I’d have killed you and burnt your remains to ashes in my forge. No Sheriff in this town is going to come hunting, not that there is one. I liked Garrett. He had a good head on his shoulders, even with what he was mixed in. Too many people disappear around this town with no justice. If you’d killed him…’

‘How’d you know?’

‘I can recognise my own work, Sop. Damn near kills me working the iron for repeating firearms. Do you think that’s easy, with this forge and these materials? This isn’t a workshop made for intricacies, and I still believe I can produce with the best.’

‘Even though you’re a woman.’ It was a thought I’d had from the start.

‘Especially then,’ she glared at me. ‘It’s uncommon, granted, but the steel moves under my hammer just as well as another. Tits don’t help in blacksmithing, although they might in sales.’

I ducked my head in agreement. Who was I to judge someone else?

‘Time to progress to the firing lesson. Here, show me how you can load this if your senses have returned.’

They had, and under her tutelage, I prepared Garrett’s gun. Emily then moved us away from the forge, where I could practise firing.

‘I can provide you with a box of bullets, and a container to store your powder. At a cost, of course.’

Naturally. Something for something in this town.

‘But let’s get to the simultaneously harder, and easier, point of today. Firing. Have at it and show me what you’ve got.’ She vaguely gestured at a piece of metal 15 paces away, already sporting numerous bullet holes. ‘I’ll tell you what. A man needs incentives from time to time. Put one through there and I’m yours for the night.’

I blinked and broke out in a cold sweat. ‘Well… uh…’ Emily grinned further.

Shuffling my feet apart for balance, I lifted the gun to my chest height and sighted down the line. With my first shot on the rabbit, I’d aimed too far left, overcompensating for the angle by which I was viewing down the sight. This time, I straightened it out slightly, then exhaled a long breath. The recoil hit me hard last time too, so I tried to stiffen my frame and grip the gun tight. I pulled.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The bullet slammed into the ground half a foot from the metal, and a weird feeling of relief washed over me. Emily, for the night? Dear me…

‘Pity, Sop. Might have truly shown me what you were made of. But to be fair, you’ve good instincts, and are reasonably well balanced. There’s natural talent if you’re breathing out on the exhale. Your hands are tense though, and you’re gripping hard enough to choke someone. You need to relax, be strong but controlled. Practise shooting, and gain a familiarity with firing the revolver at different positional heights. That changes your sightlines and angles, too. You’re weak, and barely hold onto that revolver, but good instincts… yes. I’ll give you that.’

Quest Completion:

* Gain some skill at firearms.

You have earned 5 experience for learning to fire without shooting yourself in the foot.

Which left me with four active quests, though I had a feeling that if I willed something onto the quest list that I wanted to do, it would appear. That might get messy, so I opted not to overthink my quests this time and just acknowledged the ones I had presently.

Active Quests:

* Find the reasons for the body in the canyon.

* Get a job.

* Claim Mary Percival (optional).

* Kill a horse.

Kill a horse…

I spent the next hour firing, emptying, and reloading under Emily’s supervision. After my third batch of bullets, I’d managed to catch the very edge of the target, eliciting a better late-than-never comment from Emily, followed by her muttering about how she didn’t mind a man who took his time. She was trying to embarrass me, and the plan worked brilliantly.

‘Do people twirl their guns?’ I asked at one point, idly spinning the trigger on my finger.

‘Morons who want to shoot themselves. By all means try to impress a demon with your twirling skills while it separates your head from your scrawny body.’

Right. By the end of the hour, I could hit the target while in a still position maybe one in three times – that felt like real progress.

‘You’re doing okay, for a sop.’

‘Thank you, Oh Great Teacher.’

You have given Emily the title: Oh Great Teacher.

· +1 to both charisma and strength for as long as this title remains.

Oh. Goddammit.

Emily’s eyebrows rose halfway to her hairline. ‘What’s that?’

‘Please do me a favour and don’t accept it. It’s a… a skill. But I don’t have any control over it, and it might damage my health.’

After considering for some time, Emily finally rejected the title. ‘So once again I held your feeble life in my hands, Sop. But you negotiated for time when you could negotiate with that? What were you thinking?’

‘That I’d like to remain alive… It takes a toll on my Essence, Pierre said, but I don’t know about that yet.’

‘He’d likely know what he’s talking about.’ She squinted. ‘Maybe.’

‘Can you please keep it a secret?’

‘You promise me another title when you have control, and I’ll happily keep it secret to the end of my days.’

‘We’re agreed.’

‘Can it get bigger?’

‘The bonuses?’

Emily snickered. Again, she knew exactly what she was doing. ‘A bigger bonus makes a girl happy… very happy.’ Then a serious expression flickered across her face. ‘You’re right, though. That skill is priceless to too many people, and dangerous – very dangerous. You remind me of my uncle. Jack – notice the similarities – he was a kind and gentle soul, the sort of man who wandered the world like a child staring at sweetcakes. Always oblivious to the cost. Don’t be him. Stop being naïve, and learn the cost of things.’

I nodded slowly. ‘What happened to him?’

‘A story for another day. Now, I’ve taught you how to use the gun, and how to care for it. You need to make it a part of you.’ Emily paused, her hard eyes weighing and considering. ‘But some general advice. The easiest way to shoot someone is to put the revolver against their head. Always best if they're sleeping.’

How sadistic. ‘I’m not thinking of shooting people.’

‘Bah, you just haven’t been in this cursed town long enough. Shoot them, or they’ll shoot you, or worse… There are worse things than dying. Now, run right off as I’m about to take a break.’

‘But the work you need?’

‘Come back tomorrow, after first light. I’m taking a hard-earned break.’

‘Okay, first light.’

‘And do me a favour.’

I knew what was coming from the evil grin on her face. ‘Send Pierre back.’