Difference between revisions of "Summary:Shadows of Self"

[[Waxillium]] gets off his horse and tells the teenage [[Wayne|kid]] who'd been following him to stay with the horses. He enters a grungy saloon and asks the barkeep about [[Granite Joe|"Granite Joe"]], the outlaw he has been tracking. The barkeep tells him that if he'll pay, he might know someone who knows Granite Joe. Once Wax says he will pay, the barkeep leads him to a small room near the stairs, telling him to wait. While waiting, a [[Lessie|woman]] carefully breaks in through the window, an unlit cigar in her mouth. When she realizes that someone else is in the room with her, she swears and points her rifle at Wax. After a standoff, they work out they are both after the same quarry and resolve to work together and split the reward. When Wax tells her that he asked the barkeep about Joe, she's incredulous, telling him everyone in the saloon belongs to Joe. They realize it is a trap, but when they try to escape back through the window, they are stopped by a sharpshooter. They peek out the door and see that the thugs in the saloon are obviously reluctant to face Wax. They decide to make for the next floor and escape through a window on the other side of the building. They run up the stairs, Wax firing and missing everything but the piano, and make it up to the second floor. Wax remembers seeing her before as a dancing girl. Wax whistles a couple of times for his horse so they can jump into the saddle and ride off, but he doesn't show up. Eventually the kid walks up and tells him that Destroyer (the horse) is still drinking. As they consider jumping anyway, Wax trusting in his [[steel|coinshot]] abilities to land safely, he notices a moving blue line from across the street and the sun glinting off something, so he immediately pulls himself and Lessie to the ground as a shot is fired. The sharpshooter had shifted around. Wax realizes that Granite Joe is likely in the basement, so he grabs Lessie while rolling to the ground and then uses his [[Feruchemy|feruchemical]] ability to tap and store weight along with his [[Allomancy|allomantic]] ability to Push on metal to crash down through the floor to the basement. The pair crash down onto a dining table, interrupting Granite Joe's meal. Granite Joe has two bodyguards -- armed with non-metallic weapons -- so Wax is caught in a standoff. He talks to Wax, stalling for reinforcements. Joe stands up and draws, and Wax Pushes himself to the side, just avoiding a crossbow bolt. He shoots the female guard and Pushes on the male guard's gun, ruining his shot. His Push also sends his own gun into the face of the bodyguard, dropping him. He starts moving to attack Joe when he hears a weapon click behind him. He stops and sees Lessie pointing a crossbow at him. He realizes that Lessie had been bought out by Joe too, and that the whole situation had been a set up. Wax desperately tells her that he likes her legs, and she sighs and shoots Joe in the neck. As reinforcements scramble down to the basement, Wax strikes a dramatic pose next to the body of Granite Joe. The sight intimidates the thugs who had just come down, who then immediately return the way they came. Wax and Lessie flirt for a bit, then he holds onto her and Pushes themselves back up to Wayne and his waiting horse.▼

17 years later, [[Winsting Innate]] prepares to auction off his senate vote to various crime lords and nobles in Elendel. The ostensible item for sale is his latest painting. After an introductory speech, he begins to mingle. His bodyguard [[Flog]] follows nearby. Winsting is quite disappointed that [[Edwarn Ladrian]] is not there. He is approached first by a smuggler named Dowser, who is accompanied by a tall, slender [[Paalm|woman]] with short golden hair. After the conversation, Winsting identifies the woman as a spy -- possibly from the constabulary -- to his bodyguard Flog, and orders her watched. He continues to mingle for the next hour, but then a gunshot rings out, with several more quickly following from different parts of the room. Flog drags him out and takes him to his saferoom. No one is certain who started the gunfight, but Flog decides to go back up to the room to investigate. Winsting locks the door from the inside after he leaves. Eventually Flog returns, and Winsting lets him in. He tells them that everyone upstairs is dead. As Winsting considers what to do, someone grabs his hair and slits his throat.▼