Diopside said, “I’m not quite sure, if they can pretend to themselves they didn’t know. But I guess trying is all we have. But unless and until humanity builds a portal, we have no way of telling them. And teaching them that might be enough to destroy them.”

The other three were looking at Emerald again. He wasn’t sure why.

After a moment Serpentine said, “I know I never appreciated it much at the time, but you’ve always had a talent for Traveling. It might be dangerous in your weakened condition, but it may be all we have now.”

A sliver of memory came back to Emerald. He knew she was talking about travelling personally between universes, with no help or equipment. The urgency of the situation required him to say truthfully in a small voice, “I don’t even remember how.”

The others sat a moment in silent dismay. Then Diopside said, “Have any of your memories come back recently, or is there anything you think might help?”

Emerald knew Diopside was thinking of what he had said before about leveling up, but leaving it to him to decide how much to tell the others. While there had been several ‘Achievement’s’ since he had last leveled up, he suspected he might need his next duel to level up. If he survived it.

He no longer really felt any of these three were his enemies, yet he still didn’t feel like telling them the whole strange story. He said, “Sometimes stress and danger brings things back, but I’m never sure what or how much.”

Diopside said, “I’m going to hire a private detective to learn as much as he can about Mario, especially where he learned about flintlock pistols and how much he knows.”

Emerald saw in his host’s memory that Joey knew something about private detectives, though he wasn’t sure how much was fact and how much was fiction. All the same, it was a great idea. Diopside was making good use of his host’s knowledge.

Joey said, “I wonder if we could bribe that man at the weapons store. If he’s really the only antique weapons dealer in town, and the only expert who might do maintenance, there’s a good change he’ll know Mario. I can understand that Jake might not be thrilled about giving us more money, but if Diopside helped him make it maybe he can persuade Jake to go along.”

Emerald said to Diopside, “The weapons dealer whose teaching us to use the flintlock pistols might have seen Mario shoot at some point. I don’t know what sort of relationship the two of them have, so I’d like to be able to bribe him. Please ask Jake to give us another twenty thousand of those dollars.”

Speaking for himself Jake said, “I’ll have to stop by the bank. I’ll have the money late tomorrow morning.”

Clearly Jake was loyal to his elder. Although perhaps he hadn’t been exaggerating when he said the other had given him knowledge worth millions of dollars. That would certainly help.

Perhaps some of what Joey had been saying had gotten through to Emerald, because he thanked Jake for the money rather than Diopside, and thanked him sincerely.

That was a Joey thought. Emerald mentally asked him not to take over just yet, since he wanted to think over a few things, and the personality in change seemed to have a larger share of brainpower available.

He certainly hoped he wasn’t setting up unrealistic expectations. He didn’t know exactly how much experience he needed to level up. He thought he might have seen Travelling as one of the many skills on the skill menu, but he wasn’t quite sure. And it didn’t seem like leveling up and gaining skills was something many people did here. Why could he?

Emerald did a little more thinking about what Travelling might be as he fell asleep, and thought he might be beginning to remember a little more.

After a time he found himself on a large grassy field. Half a mile or so in front of him was a gleaming white castle, which some memory from somewhere told him didn’t look exactly like an ordinary stone castle. He stood on a grassy tournament field, unnaturally smooth and even. He stood in the middle of a group of armored knights, but he wasn’t wearing armor himself.

Then Emerald glanced at his arms, and discovered he seemed to be wearing armor after all. Yet it was unnaturally light, almost like ordinary clothing. What magic was this?

His group faced a single knight in black mail. The man said arrogantly, “Come, I am Mordred. One of you must defeat me in single combat in order to face my brother King Arthur. If you think those odds are too great for you, I will agree to fight any three of you one by one.”

His brother King Arthur? So this was not the traditional Arthurian legend. Then Emerald wondered where he knew that from.