Firkin looked straight at him. “You know you can’t hide from us. You set the precedent, and now you must follow it.”

Emerald replied, “Must I? Because I’m almost convinced you feel a need to destroy my host to eliminate incriminating evidence in his memories. If that were the case, the duel would be pointless from my perspective. You would merely kill us both some other way if we won.”

He had their full attention now. He let the uncomfortable moment stretch on a few seconds, then asked, “Or do you have some sort of guarantee to offer me that if I win this duel I will be accepted as Green Sword Honor and attacked no more, overtly or covertly?”

Then Joey saw another blue box.

ACHIEVEMENT: You have uncovered the Fivefold Conspiracy!

Joey could not even blink it away, but apparently Emerald could and did.

ACHIEVEMENT: You have faced deadly danger in harmony with your host!

Host? That meant the achievement was Emerald’s. But they each had separate memory blocks, and points could be used for either of them when they leveled up. They were a joint account.

Sapphire said from Firkin’s mouth, “I give you my word as part of the Eightfold that if you win this upcoming duel there will be no more claimants to replace you as representative of Green Sword Honor.”

Emerald thought there was something wrong with that, but he couldn’t say what. He suspected he had been much sharper before his previous host had died, and before whatever catastrophe had erased so much of his memory.

Then the odd voice came again from the weird rock in the center of the table. “If you still have concerns, I witness this oath, and agree to enforce it.”

Emerald blinked. For the River to take an oath was unusual, but he did not think it had ever broken one. Yet there was something missing.

Joey said, “So that means none of the people trying to kill us will mean to replace you? Oh joy.”

Emerald became depressingly certain Joey was right. But there was nothing he could do but pretend to believe Sapphire for now.

Later he arranged a private meeting with the other three representatives of factions of the Green Alliance.

He started, “Despite my missing memories, I’m pretty sure I’ve been something of an asshole in the past. All the same, if Earth were opened to the Eightfold, and they accessed the memories of all our hosts, does anyone really think the Blue Alliance would get away with this? Or that they’re foolish enough not to think of that?”

The other three looked at him silently.

“Because if not, there’s only one possible way forward for them. They destroy all four of us, and kill our hosts. That way there is no one to tell anything to any investigators. Of course they still need to control access to their own hosts, or alter their own memories, but that can be done. It will be easier if the hosts cooperate.”

Emerald was relieved to see the other three nodding slowly. Green Agate agreed, “Much easier to kill us one by one than fight us all at once. Provided they can convince us, at least at first, that you are the only target.”

“Yes!”

Emerald had raised his voice unnecessarily, relieved to hear Green Agate put into words what Emerald had feared it would be hard to convince him of.

Green Agate continued, “So here are our choices. We could fight them now, while it’s still four vs four.”

Brandy said, “I know it’s traditional for us hosts to just speak for our Elders and not ourselves when everyone present has an Elder, but I’ve seen Joey break that rule and right now I need to also. Nobody told me about the possibility of this sort of, uhmm, gang battle when I became a host, and I don’t think I can do it.”

She fidgeted uncomfortably as three pairs of eyes turned to face her.

Joey said, “That’s a reasonable point, isn’t it?”

Emerald went on, “Anyway, there are other problems with that idea. It seems like the River will be siding with them against us. And we have to assume they’re ready for that, have been practicing and training for it a long time. They probably formed their team with squad combat in mind, and drill for it.”

Green Agate said, “Clearly fighting is a desperate last resort. We have to assume some of those who sent us are in on this as well. But if we get word back to the Eightfold as a whole they won’t tolerate it.”