December 18

**Location**: Hupperdook/Xhorhas

**New Characters**: Beholder

**Notable items/knowledge :**

* The beholder is in Emon
* Dircc is also missing memories
* We might have made a bad ILLEGITIMATE deal
* Bernard's consciousness is back in his original body
* Strike couldn't even speak goblin

**Notes**:

Gen sends a message back to her mom telling her we're on our way to save papa. Strike hit his head again and it changed his personality a little more, and we realize Strike can read, another literate on our side. We follow the lead to the teleportation circle outside the city, Bea tries tasting the circle - it tastes igneous - and both Dircc and Bea recognize the sigils. Champ gets impatient and jumps right in, followed by Gen, followed by everyone else.

We emerge on a plateau in darkness by a desert; Xhorhas. There's a headless statue surrounded by stones and hooded figures. Strike Gently calls out "well met" like an idiot, Gen whistles for Gork loudly, and Champ runs into the cult. Bea and Dircc remain QUIETLY in the back. In the center of the circle is a magic bubble containing a bound and gagged Greg, and a chained up Gork. The artist formerly known as Lord Desmond is in the center of the circle, menacingly and is surprised to see Bea and Dircc working together. Strike joins the chanting because he was escorted forwards and is trying to play to his old boss. Lord Desmond monologues and Strike tries to ally himself with Desmond, but Bea pantses him. Champ yells "give me my dad back and I'll leave," Desmond says no. Champ says some other heartbreaking things including, but not limited to, "Dad can you just stay with me this time?" Samantha rolls a narrative 20 and it works.

Desmond lets Greg go with Champ and the magical barrier falls. Lord Desmond disappears and so do the cult members, above the plateau is a huge Beholder who also turns around and leaves. Suspicious. "We don't have to be alone anymore, dad." Gen runs over and rescues Gork. All this somehow translated into Smashmouth collectively making a deal to promise to stop coming after the BBEG. We tell Strike to do his lawyer thing because contracts made by minors are invalid, and he gets mad when he learns Beholders are above the law and officially joins our side.

We learn that Strike Gently doesn't even speak goblin.

We go back to the factory to rest and recuperate. Gen talks to Gork, they love each other, Dircc talks to Roverrandom, they talk about the whiskey tree and Dircc writes in his diary. "This is just like Chernobyl". He casts dream on the Beholder and enters its dream. He makes a jack in the box that the eye stares at, then he makes a firework happen. He exits the dream. Dircc calls Clarence, our very hot very good buddy, and asks if any barkeep anywhere saw fireworks just now, Clarence asks around and says his contact in Emon did. "Don't be a stranger, gorgeous." The beholder is in Emon.

Bea goes to look for Bernard because she misses her friend, finds him turned off on the fourth floor. She tried to turn him back on and even asks another goblin robot if they have a sleep cycle, they do not. She takes his robot body to the hospital wing. Bea finds Dircc and pulls him into a closet to tell him about Bernard. Dircc makes out with a goblin? In the closet? Bea asks him to please leave her goblins alone. Dircc enters Bernard's dream where the boy is sitting at a desk filing paperwork and looking adorable. He is still alive, just asleep in his fleshy body. Bea mission impossible dimension doors into Strike's room and beats the heck out of him for unplugging her boy. They have a mage hand fight in the hallway and she makes it really spooky in there for him. She takes him to the hospital wing but Strike can't fix Bernard because he's not very good at anything.

Strike admits to burning the paperwork he stole from Bernard when he hit him over the head, and then he admitted to burning it. The documents including his ownership of the factory. Burnt away.

Bea wakes everyone else up, tells Champ we're playing a "Who can hit Strike the most" game, and tells Gen we're killing him. Dircc counterspells everything Strike attempts. Gen walks out of the room, Greg pulls Champ out as well. Bea gives Strike the opportunity for last words but he doesn't use them. She says "thanks for absolutely nothing, it's time to go to the big grease stain in the sky." Before he dies, he messages Dircc "My blood is on your hands" to which Dircc looks at his hands and replies "No it's not. " Dircc casts spare the dying and we discover and infinite blood glitch. Dircc asks if he can have the body for something, Bea tells him yeah go for it. Dircc tells us about Clarence and the beholder in Emon.

Bea asks the group if anyone remembers meeting Yen, and only Dircc says no. Rock tells him they met recently, and Dircc learns he has missing memories too. We need to save papa and go to Emon.