Nerd Poker - S5E40 Perilous Choices

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

Ronnie's Raiders are at the precipice of something huge, you know, just an uncomfortable ultimate evil presence. Now that they're in the king's basement kicking open his coffins, it's only a matter of time before they open a door and get to say hello. For merch, social media, and more be sure to head to nerdpokerpod.com. And for 3 bonus episodes a month and more, subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/nerdpoker.  

Hey everybody, I'm Brian Poussin, Comedian, writer, actor, nerd. I've been playing D&D with my friends for a long time. I decided to do a new podcast where we play Dungeons & Dragons in my very own dining room. With my wife, kid, and my noisy dogs. So meet my friends... Sarah Kev Dan

Lee Chris Now it's time for another episode of Brian Posehn's Nerd Poker. Hey, it's Billy. Season five. Hey, everybody. I'm Brian Posehn. You're listening to Nerd Poker.

My friends are here. Look at them. It's episode 40. We did it. We be at. Sarah's here. Hello. How are you? I'm it. Sarah's here. Hello. How are you?

I'm doing well. And yourself? Good. Wonderful. Dan's got a cat on his shoulder. Hi, Brian. Look at my familiar. He's trying to groom me, but his head's phasing in and out of the green screen. And Blaine is here. Hi. Hi, you guys. Dan's cat is appearing and disappearing on my shoulders, freaking me out. You have a higher tolerance to that than I do.

What, the cat on the shoulder or Dan? Being licked, Dan. I don't particularly like it. I am a vegetarian and he's got raw chicken breath. So I do feel like I'm getting chicken shampooed after I showered, which isn't my ideal situation. I can go with Licky. Her name is Licky for a reason.

So she licks the fuck out of people, but I'm good with like 5-10 seconds and then there's, alright! Yeah. He's just being friendly and it's effective well i know they love it but licky oh yeah anyway uh ken is here licky hello brian hey licky happy hey licky you're still fine uh we'll get to Sam, the elephant in the room, the cute dog in the room, but we'll get to him in a second.

Chris is here also. Hello, Chris. Hi, Brian. How are you? Where's your cute dog on your lap? They are standing at the front door. What's going on outside? You know, probably nothing.

They just like to let you know. My two dogs are just right here laying in the in my nerd cave just licking and farting and we've got ramen and his owner hello sweet children hey buddy how you doing man doing good z already started his day is he had a good poop and breakfast nope he's just awake he's barely awake you can tell he's not with it the ambient

still wearing off yeah exactly what a fucking cute Stan Winston as always they really outdid themselves on that when they made ramen oh my god he's limp and it's so great that you were They really acted themselves on that when they made ramen. Oh, my God.

He's limp. And it's so great that you were able to afford a $40 million dog working the Deer Wolf. Like, it's really amazing. Working it forever, paying it off. It's so worth it. Yeah. What's the interest rate you got on that dog? 11.

Not good. Oh, boy. That dog's got some interest rate on squirrel on that dog. 11. Not good. Oh, boy. That dog's got some interest rate on squirrels. Yeah. Rough. We should have played D&D, but we should thank some people. These all sound like great options. Let's go

through all of them. I'm going to go ahead and thank some of our Patreon supporters at our upper tiers on Patreon. Oh, boy. Thank you guys for keeping a roof over my head and you go by names like Rooster Dogburn, U.S. Marshall. Thank you CBR

which I can only assume is comicbookresources.com a weird tabloid. Thank you Michael Noonan. Thank you Nurik Habi. Thank you Timothy Horton. Thank you Kidney Stones. No, I've had you, Nurik Habi. Thank you, Timothy Horton. Thank you, Kidney Stones. No! I've had those! Get out of here! Thank you,

Drew Bagley. Thank you, Bill Dunn. Thank you, Rob Straggs. Thank you, Play Misty Step for me. Thank you, Die Singular. Thank you, The Good King Snuggle Wumps and his merry band of fuzzy buddies.

I'm not sure if that's a pop culture reference uh but that's definitely going to be a tribe of tribbles that you encounter next time we play star trek tabletop role-playing game thank you wish if you've got a passion for fashion if you've got a passion for fashion, if you've got a craving for savings. Thank you, Andrew Stupid Trash Amadeo. I like you, Andrew. Don't say that about yourself. Also, it's not my responsibility to take care of your ego. Thank you, Kevin Gardner.

Thank you, D. Trizzles Flaccid Orange Micro Penis. Thank you, Pokey Bill. Thank you, SoYouLikePuns, huh? Thank you, Henry Felchow, and finally, thank you Botched Charisma. Hey, Blaine, who are those delightful

folks brought to us by? Those delightful folks are brought to us by Grolon, Dave Grohl's personal antiperspirant and deodorant. An antiperspirant fine-toned to Dave's pH levels and needs. Keep your Grohl fresh and clean with Grolon. Warning, only works on Dave Grohl. Dan?

Thanks, Blaine. Oh, man. I feel like Dave Grohl's almost involved. You think we could get him on the show? I think we can get him on any show. Yeah, I don't think he says no a lot. Oh, boy. He lives in my neighborhood.

Really? Yeah. Let me just... Does he ever come over and knock on your door and be like, can I borrow your monkey wrench and like wink really hard? Hey, there goes my hero and my wrench. Nah, but we've seen him in traffic and stuff. He drives a super cool van that he, you know,

some restored car. It's really cool. But, you know, he's Dave. We all know Dave. We all know Dave. We love the block. Yeah. I like to imagine that if there's a power outage in your neighborhood, you just hear him shouting out his back window,

this is a blackout, which is one of his songs. And every time he goes by, there goes my hero. Every time I go to his place, I say to myself, Dave's not here, man. And then I break a window and go in through the bathroom. Great. Love breaking into celebrities' houses.

There's no downside. You gotta. You gotta sometimes. Why I moved to Los Angeles. I'm an Andy Dick. Oh, hey. Look,

we all have an Andy Dick story, but if yours is about breaking into your house, let us know here at Poker Duck. You know mine, right? Brian, why haven't we ever made out? Dude, I can think of a million reasons. Yeah. I don't know if my Andy Dick story is appropriate for the air but uh we'll we'll get back to you maybe you'll save that for patreon let's get him to play dnd oh my god yeah oh yeah let's let's get him to play it by himself somewhere all right it was he's already got a d

and a d in his name and d he's gonna Brian. And his sex dungeon. Oh. Mm-hmm. I think he prefers D and U and I. All right. So, it's time to talk about... What happened last time on Nerd Poker? Ronnie's raiders finally killed that slimy thing and then talked about drinking out of some cups for a few hours. They went into a tunnel, nuked some wereboars, and now they're talking to a ghost. Let's see

where this goes. So you guys are currently in a little tunnel to the north of the east chamber. There's like a cross-shaped series of sort of tombs. And you went in the eastern one of the four. And everybody's kind of in like a little cluster right now. And a ghost is floating towards you, reaching their hand out. A what? A gig, gig, gig, gig, gig, gig, gig, gig, gig, gig.

Excuse me. Gig economy? There you go. Chris, you were not with us last episode. Welcome back, the proper driver of Friar Jolly. Do you have any thoughts about what's been going on? And would you like to react at all to this ghost that everyone else has had a chance to react to, but has been sort of stunned thus far? Holy shit, a ghost.

Yeah, let's go follow that ghost. It's beckoning. Right? It is. Let's go follow it. It's stopped right now, and it's sort of like, just like, hey, come, come. I mean, it's not like it has a bear trap, right?

I'm not that into it. Do we sense evil in the ghost? Oh, would you like to all roll an insight check about the ghost? Yes. Great. If you'd like to do it oh go ahead

what was that 13 13 16 talking over each other nerds do it 16 got it

17 and bees do it you got 17 and what Sarah 17 great we got a couple of 17s Brian did you say yours?

Not yet. I'm just getting into the character page there. I wish I had. I think I have a 20 around here somewhere. Hold on. Yeah, I do. Maybe you spent it on Girl Scout cookies. That's what I do with all my 20s.

I'm not ignoring you. I'm just looking for it. No, it's okay. That joke deserved to be ignored. It was barely a joke. Yeah, it was barely a joke. It's Boy Scout cookies. It's barely a joke is Boy Scout cookies. That's barely a joke.

Here we go. I went picketing for the Writers Guild yesterday. Good times. Where'd you go? The Disney lot. Okay. Oh. Ran into a bunch of really cool people that I know it was fun.

Good. I get a speed pass when I picket at Disney because it takes me straight to the front of the picket line. Smart. The Writers Guild last time, I was talking to Melanie about it. I go, I remember just finding out about some other restaurants I had never been to. That was like the highlight of the whole thing. So I'm going today. Nice. Which one are you going to?

I think I'm going to Radford or Warner Brothers. Cool. This will have already aired so you don't have to worry about people creeping on you there. I don't give a shit anyway. Brian, exactly what will you be wearing? This Kiss T-shirt and my shorts that look like I should have washed them already.

Oh, fun. Nice. And a knee brace and my Pride Vans. Nice. They were giving away Writers Guild shirts when I went. Oh, were they? Yeah. I have were they? Yeah. I had mine from last time. I don't think I can fit in it, though.

I'm going to check it out. What was it, 15 years ago? Yeah. Crazy. I rolled real low, so my insight is not good. Yeah, Ronnie's just going to kind of feel like it's a good, good, good, good ghost. Ronnie's just going to kind of feel like it's a good, good, good,

good ghost. But Winifred and Dr. I think you would get the vibe that it wants you to show you one specific thing in a task like fashion and that it's not particularly communicative, but it doesn't have a high level of motivation. It seems semi-sentient. Show us. Okay. So. Show us. Okay.

So. Go to Paris, France. And first of all, I'm going to go to Paris, France. Because it's a great city. Have you been? Let's talk about it. Oh, I'm going in a couple months. Are you really?

So I'll be seeing it even more. Yeah. I'm really excited. We're taking roads for the first time. I've only been once. And it was one of the most amazing things I ever did. I love it. Did you go to Père Lachaise for the first time i've only been once and it was one of the most amazing things i ever did i love did you go to perlishez for the jim mars engrave no we skipped that you got to go to jim you got to go to perlishez cemetery it's the coolest thing you've

never thought about going to in your life i was there for new year's eve and went to just uh some local people's new year's eve party and it was one of the most fun nights of my life. Wow. Yeah, it was really a great time. And I was there for a couple of days. But anyway, sorry. You can go to Paris, France. And then you go to the Moulin Rouge.

You got to go to the Moulin Rouge. I hear it's really musical. It's really crazy. I hear it's really musical. It's crazy. The ghost sort of goes to a tunnel to the Ural's right. And looking at the map, there are sort of three forks in the tunnel. And it kind of like gestures grandly at that tunnel.

Floats a little bit farther down to here and gestures grandly at that tunnel, floats a little bit farther down to here and gestures grandly and floats all the way to the end and gestures grandly. So completely not helpful. It floats back and says

choose for power the book. This is the cops all over again. Should we roll a three-sided die? Well, you can see that the tunnel to the right ends in a stone door with a plaque over it. You can't quite see the other two

unless you want to go investigate. Is this related directly to the cups? Yeah. What does the plaque say? Well, each of the tunnels ends in a stone door. There's a carved out flat surface at the end of each of these tunnels with a stone door.

And above each of them is a plaque written in abyssal, which Winifred would be able to read. Oh, cool. Um, Winifred, they,

they are, it's written above them. Um, uh, strength of failure, one strength of failure, two and strength of failure one, strengths of failure two, and strengths of failure three. Okay.

Winifred, what do you make of such a strange puzzle? You know, my mind works in a more creative fashion. I don't have book smarts as much as I have street smarts, stage smarts. You've heard of stage smarts? No, no one has. That's because I invented them. Because I invented them.

But this stage smarts mean that I am capable of taking, you know, most experiences and making them magical, dramatic, beautiful. What I'm not great at are puzzles. So if someone else could maybe take a look, that'd be wonderful. And I will, when I tell the story of this day, I will make you look really good. How about Ronnie? What did the ghost say? Choose for power. Choose for power. And then it says what on the signs? What does it say on the signs?

Something. It says... Strength of failure. Strength of failure one and then two and three. Strength of failure. I then two and three. Strength of failure. I will throw you guys a couple, well, one bone and then I will let you know

something else is happening. With a 17 on that last insight roll, I will roll that over to Dr. Uwud and Winifred kind of realizing something.

The cups have something to do with this. You're not sure what. Wait, I just said that. But, well, I believe I heard cups all over again. No, I said are these directly related to the cups? With a 17, yeah. I mean, you would intuit,

your character would intuit that as well. I mean, I think we decided to just let the whole cup situation. And what did the cups say again? The cups were like, you know, you can have infinite power, infinite, you know, life. And then the third one,

which seemed good, but for sure was from the devil. Was there anything about strength? Go ahead, Dan. Sorry. There were three of them. It said, drink for life everlasting, fill for life ever satisfying, and drain for life ever wanting. Look, this is all very confusing. I can barely do a crossword puzzle. Well, Bunk says, well, I believe we are going to figure this out.

Surely we have to do something to continue here. I don't know if it's necessary, but I do think incorporating the cups with these three doors would elicit some sort of benefit. I'm not sure. Is there some sort of a spout or a uh place to fill or fill from on these doors um no there are um no no door handles either and there's a small stone step in front of each of them that you could say walk up onto as you approach um at this point uh bunk is suggesting

that he take your compatriots Hashinka and Fizbort and go explore the other end of the tomb while you guys try to figure this out okay

well Queen what are you suggesting we don't even need to figure this out? Like, just... You could, yeah. I mean, you could skip it. If it's part of the... The only reason to try and do it is because we think it could give us a power we could use against Valix, right? Right.

Well, or continue forward in the... Oh, there's actually... Is there another place we haven't checked out yet? There's two places, right? Yeah, there is. Two directions. Mm-hmm. Do we want to check all of our options before we...

I think that's a good idea. Play the game of Cups and Caves? Cups and Caves. Cups and Caves. Yeah. Cups and Caves. Is that cups and caves cups and caves yeah cups and caves is that alright leader? yeah I think we should I'm not completely comfortable

I'm in and out on the whole leader thing once you're in you're in very hot and cold there's only one way out of being a leader our natural musk radiates the message, follow me. All right. I took a shower last night.

Oh, that's nice. So we can go look at this area that's north. North? Yeah. Yeah. North was sarcophagi and a torch, and then south, there was a teeny bit of light showing.

I saw sarcophagi open for torch. Leader, what do you think? Sarcophagus or the darkness? Check them both out. Any order? Well, you can see that Bunk and Fizbort and Hoshink are headed to the south one. Okay.

Let's do it. Cool. Or we could let them die mysteriously and then have to figure it out. I mean, they were about to do it without you.

As you approach, they are discussing amongst themselves the best way to head in here. Should they sneak? What is exactly the best choice moving forward?

To navigate the darkness, you're saying. But you can see, peering up, that there are three sort of coffins. They're big stone sarcophaguses yet again. But there are three of them and they are

not as ornate as the one with King Eldren's body in them. They do look like they are carved with fancy stone work. These jars in the back, the one, the two, and the three, does that seem to

mean something? Are you going up and checking it out? Are you heading in? Oh, dear. Yeah, I'll check it out. Okay. yeah I'll check it out okay it seems like they are pardon my I hate this squeaky chair I'm getting a new office chair I used to love this thing I fucking hate this thing now it was so comfortable but now

my cat just pokes it full of potholes I hear it I hear it like you said something. I hear it like, and I'm like, someone thinks I'm farting. If this is important, someone thinks I'm farting. This way you can fart freely and not worry about it.

Oh, thank God. It looks like they are a series of urns that contain some sort of ash. I wonder what kind of ash. There are small inscriptions around each of them. There are... I wonder what kind of ash. Small inscriptions around each of them. Aha.

Can I read them? Sure. They're in Abyssal. So you'll have to enlist Winifred to help you. Oh, Winifred! She's already here. Kakala, come over here. Don't like how you said that, sir, but I will read these. I can't help it.

They are a list of names, and on each of them it says liver. Liver. It appears to be the ashes of various deceased elves' livers. ashes of various deceased

elves' livers. Hmm. Can I do an Arcana check to know what that what you would do with dead elf liver? Absolutely. I think we all are in our hearts. Yeah. Top it up with some

schmaltz and hard boiled eggs that's an 18 you would think that um this was some sort of demonic

sacrifice and that by incinerating them and putting them in these urns some sort of offering was made to a

demonic being I don't like how dark everything is. That's really confident. What about angelic beings? Why couldn't it be just a volleyball team? Yeah. A frat.

I mean, I just feel like there's a lot of options. Smash those things. Doesn't that then corrupt the offering to the demons I mean I would Winifred might think that to be true yes as a possibility alright well I put on like a KN95

if you're going to be smashing elf liver dust all over actually KF94's are my favorites personally but oh I haven't even looked into those it's a KF92 with two fingers up your ass it helps if I

say those jokes with this voice it does it really does it for me I can't quite describe it but it's the worst on a date later yeah so um so is Briar Jolly smashing the... Oh, I'm back here shouting helpful comments

from the safety of the main chamber. Yeah, he's suggesting things. Does his paladin-iness give him any ability to sort of... I mean, all of this is very dark, very necromantic, very demon-y, right? Shouldn't you have, like, more of a... more of an oomph against it? I can turn the undead, if that's what you're asking.

I would let you roll a religion check with advantage on this one. I would love to. All right. Religion. Okay. First one is a natural 20 plus five. I don't think I can get better than that. Guess what?

There's a little tidbit I would only give if you get if you got a 25 not even a 20 um okay so you reach way back into your studies of demonic presences the nine hells and it occurs to you that there is one specific demon in the Nine Hells who particularly likes to be offered the livers of powerful mortals. Livers, you said? And that is Orcus. Fuck. Orcus?

Orcus the liver lover. It's Orcus, guys! More calling Orcus. Come in, Orcus. Exeter. Shit. more calling orcas come in orcas exeter um shit uh i don't know how much about him before so okay uh quick recap for all of you as well as listeners um orcas is a demon lord he is the demon lord of undeath and this is something in particular Dr. Uid and Queep would know because he is a previous holder of the power of the Tenebrous One. and might say be interested in the fact that King Valix has this mantle of the Tenebrous One that could help him ascend to demigodhood.

If he is sacrificing livers to Orcus, that means that he has some sort of pact with the former Tenebrous One. Normally, demon lords just kind of kill each other. So, you know, this is definitely a strange turn of events in that now you know King Valix is sort of at least bartering or negotiating with an extremely powerful evil being. Now, you've already encountered, at least in different characters' worlds, in season four, another demon lord,

which you killed, which was fun. He was petrified, and you just sort of smashed him. It made me laugh. But this, you would know to be a currently very powerful demon lord, particularly Fire Jolly would know this. But Dr. Kweep and Uid the Feathery Boy, which are my new names for you,

you kind of are like, oh, okay. We were maybe hoping we wouldn't run into Orcus. This is unfortunate. we were maybe hoping we wouldn't run into Orcus. This is unfortunate. Is there any, do we have any insight into what smashing the urns would do? Does it seem like what Friar Jolly? Yeah, like what if they pour Kool-Aid in

with the ashes or something? Oh, yeah. First of all, delicious treat. I think it might taste a little bit like the Great Blue Dini, which is my personal favorite. They're strong and quick. But Friar Jolly, you would definitely think it would get Orcus' attention. I mean, is that an apology?

I just want to die. Like, we can make it real quick. It would also, I think, occur to you, Friar Jolly, that everything in this room might be cursed. Uh-oh. This feels like we should get out of here. Yeah. Exit stage entered.

The whole deal. Yeah, that's why we let the other kids walk around in here and see what happens. Yeah, Bunk is like, I will volunteer to go in and bravely smash those urns. Go in and smash urns and try all the doors, Bunk. Hold off on the urns. Let's check the other room. Let's head north for a moment. Okay, so you guys are all going to head north

while Bunk marches. I don't think, I mean, it's not in my nature to save your life, Bunk, but I really don't think you should. Fire Jolly, why don't you roll a persuasion check? Alright. 13. 13. Friar Jolly, this is why I was sent.

To perform tasks that some might find unsavory. I understand you not wanting to do this. I understand this could take your very life. But I am willing to sacrifice my own in the name of the great donkey in the sky. Right, but that's our lives. Yeah, and I feel like he's saying less that he's scared to do it

and more that it's dumb. Oh, what's up? I feel like he's not questioning your bravery and we all know how brave you are. I think it's more like, is this the smart play right now oh okay speaking of plays there was a time when i performed the role of keep going with the bit don't stop i know, no. We gotta stop him from doing the thing.

Okay. Well, he's pretty intense. He feels like he's stealing himself for it at this moment with the 13 persuasion check. All right.

Well, Ronnie. Yeah. Do you want to lead Bunk? Lead him what? That's up to you, I suppose. To hell. Last chance to

more forcibly stop Bunk. No, but I just don't want to be near him. Oh,is. To hell. Last chance to more forcibly stop Bunk. No, but I just don't want to be near him. Oh, oh. Clearly we're just trying to, we're using the non-player characters as mage hands now and they will one by one perish and expire. I'm just worried he's going to summon Orcus. Yeah, I'll get one of these.

Free of having to remember that they're here. Don't. Listeners, Brian is raising his shoulders up high, smirking and putting his hands up like, hey, I don't want to tell you what to do, but I'm backing away.

He looks exactly. He looks like Josh Gondelman. Josh Gondelman pose. It was. Well, first of all, congrats on your recent spots on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, Brian. Josh. But yeah, Bunk says,

Perhaps we need to get his attention. Perhaps it is time for Orcus to face the music. The donkeys? He will taste the fury of the donkey's hoof. Oh my god. The donkey's hoof. What do you guys think?

Sounds like Bunk's been slowly going insane. You feel strongly that he shouldn't I was really going based on what Friar Jolly said you know he's not always wise

but when he is wisdom is my primary ability alright I don't know what to do go hug that shit! All right.

Are you going to watch, or are you going to head north like you were about to? Backing away. Backing away. I'm watching, but from far away. I mean, I feel like we're... I'm not going to tackle him and have him not do it. I just don't really understand what his point, why he's doing it. I mean, I think what he would tell you, and I will say it out of his point why he's doing it but uh yeah i mean i think i think what he

would tell you and i will say it out of his voice because i think it's more important that i convey his intention than continue to role play a goof um he he believes that by smashing these he's taking away from the power of this place and valix so he believes he was he was sent here to dethrone valix as it were to eliminate the threat and by doing this he is at least chipping away at the power and okay and metagaming for a moment you know dan close your ears you know dan is dan is driving bunk we've tried twice to get bunk to stop doing this. Maybe this is going to help move the game along in a way that is important, and that's why he's still

continuing to do it. But I'm going to step back. Step back a little bit. Yeah, get away. Do we have any, like, riot shields? I feel like we should surround ourselves with those. Oh, we have that.

Oh, no. Never mind. What did you think we had? I thought we had like a layman's tiny hut type thing. Oh. I want to see what's going on. I think Dr. Ewan might have like a tiny hut wand. Let's just do it. Let's just, yeah. I think Dr. might have like a tiny hut.

Yeah, this is not, let's just do it. Let's just do it. And we'll see, and we'll be ready to run. All right. Ready, ready,

ready. Sure. You don't want to check the North room yet. We're going to do is have some. Well, okay. We can say, well,

this is going to happen. Um, but we can say some of you are far, far away towards the North room. When this happens, and some of you are far, far away towards the north room when this happens, and some of you are closer. I'm staying in the doorway, because I want to see what goes down. Bunk puts a look of steely, grim

determination on his face and marches up, and he is specifically going to be heading towards the three urns that have been examined by Queep, which I am pinging on the map, but are in the corner here. He pulls out his longsword, and in one swipe, just smashes all three of them.

And you see these huge plumes of ash sort of like briefly waft up and surround Bunk. Bunk steps forward to the top of the stairs and says, the date is done. Did anything happen? Alright, we're fine. He starts heading down the stairs

and you see in a weird way like his greaves start to buckle into his boots a little bit and he collapses forward into a pile of buckle into his boots a little bit and he collapses forward into a pile of armor, his body a puff of ash. Oh no. So that worked out. Well!

Anybody else want to try Bunk's plan? Bunk, we hardly knew you and you're at the center of our cast portrait. Fucking fuck. He was my favorite NPC. You just killed him with and you're at the center of our cast portrait. Fucking fuck. Oh. He was my favorite NPC.

You just killed him with Nerea thought. We tried to stop him. Oh, I put thought into it. Oh my God. Is he, no, I go over. Is he like, you know, is this like a Obi-Wan, like, you know, like he collapses into like a cloak, but actually he's all around us and Bunk is still with us?

Or is this like he was actually murdered in front of our eyes just now? Perhaps a little of both. You examine it and he's definitely physically gone. Jesus Christ. Whether or not he continues to watch over you, blessing you with his wisdom remains. I can't believe you just killed me.

This is so casual. Just bunk dead on a Wednesday morning. I have a fantastic poker face, that's all. Should we go through his shit? Oh, God. Yeah, I... I guess we saw this coming.

We had 20 minutes of buildup, I think, where we knew this was going to happen. Yeah, but I thought like a guy was going to appear and we're all going to have to fight him. You did not think he was just going to disintegrate into dust immediately, right? No, I didn't think that was going to happen. It's Orcus, guys. I mean, you know, it's not the river. going to happen. It's August guys. I mean, you know, it's not the river. Forget about it.

It's August town. All right. I like that joke. Maybe more than I thought I would. Yeah. Wow. Cool. Can we establish that we shouldn't be touching it?

Like what is the, what are all this? Like Dan's death trap village that we shouldn't be touching it like what is the this like Dan's death trap village that we're walking through now like why are we even here like let's just try to get to the bad guy and kill him let's go to the north stop touching things

literally everything we have touched here so far we've touched a statue they tried to kill us we touched a coffin it sucked up to kill us. We touched a coffin. It sucked up all of our weapons into like a caramel sauce. Only Friar Jolly's mace. I think everybody else

kept their weapon. We are trapped in a touch oven. This is... What do you think we should do? Let me hear the dulcet tones of your thoughts. Yeah, you're dead next anyways. I don't know if I would say that just because but what do you think we should do? Let me hear the dulcet tones of your thoughts. Yeah, you're dead next anyways. I don't know why you would say that just because I am wearing a red Starfleet shirt.

Yeah. I definitely will not be smashing any urns. I do think that we are in the room or this series of rooms where one of these will help us proceed to King Valix himself. Oh, okay. You're saying this is where the magic happens.

I do not. I think this is where the sausage gets made. I think if we take the elevator back up, we are only stepping backwards. Okay, well, that's helpful. I will not be smashing any urns anytime soon I do sometimes get a bit daring but I think that was a bit

self-defeating I just feel I feel shocked I feel shocked at this callousness look at everybody's faces nobody gives a shit that guy's dead you guys don't even care.

I care. I'm going to sing a song. I'm going to sing. No, I'm going to. I'm going to. Oh, yeah. You know what? I'm going to.

I'm going to write this down and I'll come back. Sing a song of Bunkle Chee. I'm going to write a poem for Bunk. Come back. Won't you take us to Bunky Town? Oh, OK. Well, now. Won't you take us to Bunky Town? No, you know what, now. Why don't you take it to Bunky Town?

No, you know what? Thanks, Blaine, for taking this seriously. I appreciate it. But you are the one person... He's acknowledging it. I know. He is the one person acknowledging it. Does Bunk have anything I could replace

who I'm matched with? So, yes. You go over and most of the pile is his halfling armor, which none of you would fit in. But amongst the ash and leather, you do see there is a crystal scimitar and a sword of answering to very, very powerful weapons. I can't use those. Can anybody else use a scimitar or a sword? Yeah, you may want to consider it.

And this is a bit of metagaming, but I will say out of fairness to Chris, you may want to consider looking at weapons and seeing if maybe you want to take one of these and swap with him just so you have something. But I am going to paste the D&D Beyond link to both of these weapons. Cool. If nothing else, we could sell them.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. We can bring them back to Donkey Town and say, hey, dipshit Magoo's swords are here. Won't you take them to Donkey Town? Won't you take them to Donkey Town?

Won't you take them to Donkey Town? Donkey Town. Yeah, alright. Let's take them. Great. Just great. I can't wait to hear that.

I'm pulling some links. You better wait. You're in it. It can't wait to hit that ball. I'm pulling some links. You better wait. You're in it. It doesn't look good. No, just kidding. You tried to stop him. Yep. Everybody else better watch their back.

Pretty clearly tried to stop him. Said, yeah, that's the most powerful demon. I wouldn't fuck with that. Yeah. All right. I am going to... I can't find it for some reason. I'm going to share his character sheet with y'all

so you can see where we left Bunk. His items are in there. I'm having a tricky time with D&D Beyond getting the items out of his inventory into a separate link. But if it helps you search for them, whoever's got them, that's where they are. Okay. Thanks, Dan.

You got it. So, just for your own knowledge, Crystal Scimitar, and I'm going to say, even though you haven't attuned to these, you guys would know what these are because you've seen him use these several times. Okay. Crystal Scimitar, Magic sword's blade is fashioned from the horn or spine of a

crystal dragon. There's radiant damage with it. When you're holding the sword, you can use a bonus action to cause it to shed light in a 30-foot radius. Sword of Answering is some pretty wild shit.

It has a name and an alignment that you do not know. And it provides a damage immunity that you do not know. Interesting. But they are definitely some sort of weapons he was gifted from, you know, the royalty of

Donkey Land. Anybody want to crack a particular weapon or no? Yeah, and like the sort of Answering is a longsword, and the Crystal Scimitar is a scimitar. So both of those are specific types of weapons that all of you may not be able to use. Scimitar is kind of like a curved sword,

and I know Friar Jolly is a bit limited. I can use a scimitar, but I can't use a sword. Well, what can you use, Friar Jolly's a bit limited. I can use a scimitar, but I can't use a sword. What can you use, Friar Jolly? Does anyone have anything? I'm really trying to prompt everybody. I can only use simple weapons, so no blades. I'm not engaging with this at all. I'm, whenever it is off in a corner,

scribbling in a... Okay. Gotcha. I could have tried harder. I'd like to try the blade that has radiant light to it okay i'm not sure how easily a monk can use these i'm gonna have to do a little homework but uh you can definitely strap them on cool the one with light is the crystal scimitar. Does anybody want to grab those sort of answering specifically? Sure. Cool. Well, put that in your inventory. And we have not quite yet addressed the fact that Farjali is weaponless.

So if anybody That's okay. I'll pick up my Blond Boy. Yeah, yeah. Those wereboars didn't have anything on them, did they? You can go back and check. Why don't I go check that while you guys figure out the riddle of instant death?

Well, let's go. We're going to explore the north. That's the one place we haven't gone yet, right? And we'll see. And it may end up that we have to deal with these goddamn cups in the end anyway, but let's try the one room we haven't been to. Sure. Sounds good. Alright, so

you head up to the room and I'm going to reveal what it basically looks like, but this is, you're going to have to tell me if you're sneaking in, all that stuff. You see three inlaid sarcophagi. There is also some sort of door on the north wall,

kind of off to the side a little bit with a figure carved into it. Oh, okay. oh okay the sarcophagus the sarcophagi do they look like the one that uh that that thing was in before no they look they look like the they look very similar to the ones in the room you just left does this room feel equally as cursed as the as the room to the south. You do notice there are three urns of very similar shape that are from where you would be

standing about 20 feet away at the other end of the room. Somebody want to mage hand that door, perhaps? That's a good idea. Anybody? Sure. The door has a figure carved on it no handle nothing to grab per se the figure appears to be some sort of royalty wearing a crown and holding a staff and wearing some kind of

ornate jewelry does the figure look like it was turned to stone there, or it's part of the whole thing? No, it's, what is it called when it's like, basically, dimensional, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Just so I don't screw this up. Thank you for the art history vocab. What's the name? This is, Valix is the guy.

Valix is the current Tenebris one. Can I get? Yes. Can I get an insight check from everybody? If you would like instead to do a history check, you will get different information. Two and eight is ten. Twenty.

Nice. We got a fourteen okay history eleven okay eight alright well it's all a bit difficult to figure out what to do but I think you would realize Queep

that yes this is a base relief of King Valix. He is in some sort of state previous to the one you have seen him in. He looks like he is in this image not undead the way you

are aware he looked or should look right now. He looks like he is a youthful, it looks kind of like those photoshops of Donald Trump with his shirt off where he's like ripped. Kind of a situation. He's like a young, youthful elf.

And I think you can tell there is some sort of magic element to this door where something has to be done for it to open. Mm-hmm. What about the image makes us think of that?

It looks like it is evoking a reaction from the viewer. It's trying to get the witness of this art to... To do something. To, yeah, react somehow. The way it's so proud,

carved into bass relief on a door, the only feature on a door seems to be like, well, the image is the handle, so to speak. It is abstract asking for you to do something. Also, at this point, you guys have been in all four corners of the cross-shaped tomb. You would start to go, oh, brother. So we haven't sucked with the cups or those three doors. And then there's this door.

How many doors? So many. One here, three around the bend. That's fine. Definitely a puzzle here. Maybe we're supposed to kneel in front of it if it's like the mighty king, right? Hail mighty Valix.

That kind of deal. How close are you to the door when you say, Hail mighty Valix? Are you down the steps a little bit? Yeah, I'm sort of like at the threshold. I don't want to cross the threshold into the room. Cool. Nothing happens when you say it.

Okay, so maybe I'll come to the top of the stairs and a little louder. Hail mighty Valix! Nothing happens. Shit. Alright, I'll go in. I'll go to the door. Okay. I will kneel in front of the door and say, Hail

Mighty Valix. Can I get a perception check from everybody oh wow yeah this is really good news i'm still writing next to oh then you don't then no bell out for this because you're 8. I got a natural 20 plus 5. Nice. 19. Well, I would say anybody who beat a 15 sees this, but Friar Jolly, there is a moment as you kneel and look up and say, Hail, was it the Mighty King Valak? Hail Mighty Valak, yes.

Hail Mighty Valak. There is a moment where the crown on the base relief, the necklace he is wearing, and the staff he is holding all sort of like ping with a light blue glow. Now please do a dexterity saving throw. Oops.

Fat man and chain mail. It's kind of my best chance. Fat man and chain mail. Oh, kind of my best chance. Batman and a little chain mail. Oh, great. Okay. Cool. So you get knocked back about 15 feet, but you manage to dig your heels into the ground and

scooch back. You feel this magic force trying to smash you away from the door. Interesting. Okay. Yep. I'll look at the group. Huh? Okay. I think we're figuring it out here.

And we'll have to see what you figured out exactly on the next episode of Nerdy Pokes. Wait, before you do that, though, you guys have to look outside and see Winifred kneeling over the dust pile and she waits until everyone's looking at her and and like if she's kneeling she lifts her arms and she goes no like that and then uh you know strums uh the strums on her

instrument and then says then she kneels on one knee and looks down and picks up some of the dust and lets it run through her hands. And she says, oh, brave one, unwise yet unbowed, dust to dust, we mourn you. You float on the eternal breeze, moats on air, one with all.

And she lowers her head and waits for the applause. For the applause. For the applause. Pashinka is very impressed. Yes. Ronnie wipes

a little tear from his eye well said goodbye bunk and well acted but he made a very poor choice you can contact sarah for her poetry writing skills at caa i wish their poetry department is crushing. Seriously. Millions. Hey, Sam, what do you think happened today? Oh, boy. There's a g-g-g-ghost. We're still figuring out what to do with these chalices, if we're going to fill them or drain them,

if we want everlasting life or so on. We met Orcus, a demon lord. We're going to let Bunk do our dirty work. Update. We killed Bunk. Who cares, right? We're mourning him by divvying up all his stuff. Uh, there's so many doors and Winifred had a beautiful poem that was basically unearthed lyrics.

Nice. Uh, Dan, you got anything you want to plug? Sure. The week this goes live, I am going to be doing Jimmy Pardo's show at the Lyric Hyperion here

in Los Angeles, but you can see it any place. It will be live streamed as well. NowhereComedy.com It's going to be a good time. And I'm on the Only Cities I Like tour. I will be in Portland for the

16th at the Aladdin Theater with Derek Sheen holy shit that's going to be fun those shows are always amazing come hang out Portland and then I've got San Diego with

Dan Telfer and Johnny Taylor those will be amazing shows. And I will be at the Image Comics booth at San Diego Comic-Con. And then I've got Denver the following week with Johnny Taylor. Like I said, Portland, San Diego, Denver. And then I've got San Francisco. And then I'm going to have to go to a city

I don't like probably at some point but right now it's only cities I like this tour oh and September we're getting closer Gromits is going to be released in September so as soon as I have a date I will let you know issue one looks like...

Issue 1 is the prettiest thing I've ever had my name attached to. It's fucking beautiful. Blame. We attribute the success to save mankind from it. Thanks for joining us on this episode. You got walls and a roof?

Well... On the Lex Nerd Poker 3000, Dan Bot returns from Uranus with Uranus. Ken 2 discovers cold fusion, goes great with hot peppers. Mmm! Future Sarah fights a deadly rat

from the past. Brian Jr. Jr. Jr. Jr. Jr. sees the statue of liberty and fucking flips out. All this and the sun swells up with pride on the next NerdPoker 3000.

Thanks for listening to another episode of Nerd Poker. You can follow us at patreon.com slash nerdpoker and you get bonus episodes from there. And you can also send us anything at P.O. Box 16069 Encino, California 91416. Thanks for listening.