Nerd Poker - The Mountain Campaign - Episode 16

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

Hopefully Dan is almost done torturing everyone with a torture room that is possibly the rudest, most effed up room he has ever made in this silly game. If they can just smash this last surprise (please let it be the last one) they can continue up the mountain to- fight eggs? It seemed like it would be a dragon fight but all inanimate objects are no longer to be trusted. 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, it's Brian Poussaint, NerdPoker. We're calling it the Mountain Campaign. My friends are here, Sarah, Chris, Blaine, Ken, Engineer Sam, and of course our kick-ass dm dan telfer welcome to nerd poker hey everybody it's brian pesain and you're listening to nerd poker it's uh episode 16 Nerd Poker. It's episode 16. Sarah's on the phone. Hello, Sarah. Hi. Hello. How's it going? Good. It's me.

Hang in there, please. I'm here. You poor thing. Ken's here. Hi, I'm perfectly healthy, kind of. Chris is here. I'm in perfect health and will be forever until the sun sun burns out blaine's here i have ultra mumps dan's here i stare into the mirror and contemplate my existence every day and it keeps me young yeah me too sam's here hello young children uh we should uh thank some people and jump in yeah thank you

listeners who go by usernames on patreon like mandalorian coffee breath thank you mandalorian coffee breath thank you queeplash yeah thank you anne marie thank you big fan nice guy thank you Anne Marie. Thank you, Big Fan. Nice guy. Thank you, Shootin' Runner. Thank you, Professor Physics. Thank you, Rando Cardrician. Thanks, Sean Meredith. Thanks, Powdered Bunk. Now with unnecessary heroics for a limited time. Thank you, Skylar Browman.

Thank you, Kaylee. My stupid real name started this mess. McFail. Thank you, Eric Ewald. Thank you, Jack Gulald. Thank you, Jack Gulick. Thank you, Ramen's Grandma Cup of Noodles. Thank you, Jamie Swedler. Thank you, Big B's Ham.

Thank you, Amarthamon's Contortionist Classes. Thank you, Joshua Manchuk. And finally, thank you, Trond. Nice. Trond. Blaine. Who were those supporters brought to us by? Supporters brought to us by Pants Hitters. Your pants will be a hit at Pants Hitters.

And Pants Shitters. You'll shit your pants at Pants Shitters. Dan? Oh, man. I went to the wrong store today. That makes so much more sense. You got to watch the pronunciation of Pants Hitters. I keep screwing that up also it's time

to talk about what happened last time our heroes are real fucking tired of this room the worst room in dungeons and dragons after slaying the final quaggoth the ghost that was fucking with everybody climbed in a quaggoth and tried to bite him again then they killed that then they opened a fucking iron maiden and that exploded and then they tried to open a treasure chest and it started biting everyone and then dally tail tried to shoot it with a crossbow and it killed himself in the foot i think he's awake again but he hasn't stood back up just yet uh right now ken is being bitten it would take you back to all that fucking anarchy uh yes uh we are back at the top of the turn order with chris uh i will stand up brush myself off take a little squirrel breath

and be like all right everything's fine no fine whatever you do don't look in the calf brian just realized i put a status effect of sour on his character that never goes away natural 20 yeah baby that's the opposite of shooting yourself in the foot all right so i'm gonna so it's a d8 plus five and it is hurt right already oh yeah yeah it's been hit a few times i'm gonna invoke the colossus slayer and then six and then i also have a thing um because i'm a ranger i'm i'm calling this thing out as my favorite foe um so uh basically i get to add another d6 for a potential so all this doubled plus 5

dang okay okay so that's 4 and 2 is 6 and 5 is 11 and 7 is 18 double that 36 plus 5 is 11 and 7 is 18.

Double that. 36 plus 5, 41. 41 points of damage. How would you like to see this mimic die? I would like to get its tongue kind of twice. So like, you know, sometimes if you go to a party and someone's got like some food and they've kind of just speared it two ways on either end of the toothpick so it feels fancy. I want to do that with this thing mimics tongue except the tongue comes off and then just

inner mimic just gets all over Pish Posh. Just explosion of mimic guts everywhere. Yuck. And that was the fastest we've ever ended combat on an individual episode. Sorry. We're back out of combat.

That's the largest hit on anything I've ever heard. That was insane. You were real tired of that. Alright, now can we barricade the door and take a rest? Well, you were going to peek through the door. Do you still want to do that? Oh my god, I don't know. Somebody else can peek through the door if i want to i'll i'll quietly carefully sneak to the door i do a stealth check please jesus christ i'm christian 21 okay you elegantly and silently

glide across across the room and all of you see Dallytale just sort of like very carefully making his way across the torch room stepping over the quaggoth corpses the door which is open at like a 45 degree angle is just big enough for your Dallytale you can stick your head through the doorway you your vision crosses the threshold and you can see there is a chamber that is about 20 feet deep and 30 feet wide. And in this chamber, there's another hall that seems to come around a bend and some sort of hallway going up. You see there is blood all over the floor in this 20 by 30 foot chamber. And you look up and you see there are nine bodies hanging on meat hooks. All of them flayed and eyeless.

And as you peer around the corner, they all slowly turn to you wobbling the chain and hook that is buried into the base of their skulls. They're clearly undead. And as their eyeless sockets point in your direction, they all lift an arm and a finger and point

at you. I'm going to close the door. I'll turn to back. That'll do it. Let's go. I don't know. It's just more. More. There's fucking more.

And all of those days. I will describe it to everybody. I guess we have to. Everything sucks. Barricade this shit and let's rest up. Do we have any like oil and torches or anything? I mean, yeah. I could web them. There's like a brazier over

here too by the mimic. But they're hung like they can't get anywhere, right? I mean, the way they raised their fingers and pointed it was more ominous than threatening. It's like a hazard to walk through, I imagine, but they're not going anywhere. Correct. They seem pretty immobile. They were hung about three feet off the ground.

Let's barricade this door. That's a great idea. Alright, who's doing it? And can I get a survival check, please? You can do it with advantage if someone's helping you, which I would assume you would just have someone help you. Yeah, we don't need to go through there. Let's all work later. I think we do but maybe we barricade it and go to sleep in here. Okay.

We still keep watch, obviously. But yeah. Cool. What did you say, obviously. Would you say survival? My survival is plus five. How about you, Bricks? My survival? Is that the question? My survival is plus three. Better than me.

Mine's three, too, if you need a meow. Plus Paul. Oh, perhaps Mordecai and I should build a barricade with our 50 bonuses. Sounds good. Okay. Okay, so let's get

that survival check. 15. You just find all the spare wood you can. There's plenty of torture devices to do that with. We'll just use these sort of flame crosses to demonstrate that.

I got 16. Is this a door as well back here? It's behind us. It goes back to where you defeated the last thing. I think that we can close? No. I think we're okay. Okay. Oh, and I forgot to mention

when you were looking at the whole room earlier, there is that brazen bull in the corner. Yeah, I know. Fuck that thing. Would you like to look inside the brazen bull? No! Dan, no! Who knows what treasure could be inside the brazen bull? I already said we don't want to look inside the bull. Nobody Google brazen bull. Just't want to look at the ball nobody google brazen ball just open

it right up uh what's in the bowl who wants to well we should split up uh watch right yeah does anybody not need sleep i think everybody i think i only

playing a video game sarah yes what were you going to say? No, that's my... I think that's my bonus character. Never mind. All right. Well, we'll just split it up. I'll take first watch. Yeah, me too.

Squirrel and a cat. My first watch. New from Pixar. Great. Listeners, you might be able to hear my teenage son screaming while he's playing Fortnite with a couple of friends. Can I get

a perception check as you stand over your sleeping friends? Who I will kind of like put in the middle of the room. 6. 22. Oh! Alright.

Yeah, you're not, DailyTale, gonna really hear a whole lot. You've semi-died three times in the last few hours, so you're just feeling a little twitchy. But, as you walk around, you think you're just feeling a little twitchy but as you walk around you think you hear just like a very slow scratching on the door that's been barricaded just okay all right so i'll stay far away from the door that's been barricaded okay all right uh you you

hear that scratching noise for a few more hours and then your watch is up. Who's on second round of three? I'll do it. Hey guys, meow, meow. There's been scratching at the door that we barricaded so don't fucking touch it, meow. I'll just hide in the calf.

I'll do it too. Oh, we have three volunteers if you want to do a third shift, Sarah. Okay, then I'm sleeping. Okay. Mordecai and Pishposh, you can roll a perception check. Although, Pishposh, do you want to attempt to attune to the new staff that you have? And do either of you ever have anything you want to attune to?

I don't like that staff. It's a soul sucker necromancy. You could control what if you could put Juniper's soul back in her body? What? I hadn't thought of that. It's not in there. Does that sound like no? I would say it doesn't sound impossible

like in the realm of possibility but like. Where is your soul? You don't know? Yeah. But you do think you've seen soul related movement uh or heard that it happens with this thing you know it's necromantic in nature and it would be funny to watch two characters i will attune to it then all right let's get an arcana check while perception check. Yeah. Here it comes. What'd you get, Brian?

Yeah, 10. Okay. Or a can, or was it a 9? You do not feel you can harness such powerful magic during these four hours, although you do attempt to connect with it with your mind and

nothing happens. Mordecai, you do, because you were warned, hear the scratching coming from the door, but that is about it. And that'll end your watch. I don't like it. Sarah, would you like to roll a perception check?

Yeah, I'm going to call first. Okay, have fun. Have a great time. Okay, I'm back. It was awesome. It was so fun. Okay. Yes. Yes, that's an 18.

You hear multiple fingers scratching on the door multiple fingers it is barricaded and you think you hear two or more hands scratching on it

okay I note it but I ignore it okay and that will take you to the end of your watch. You all wake up. Tan rested and ready. And leveled up. Oh!

Snippity-doppity-doodle-doo. Eight. I love it. It'll take you there. Wait, did you say we leveled up? You did. Can you believe it? Oh, I missed it. Yay! Yay!

Yeah, fight that long. Come on. Yeah, that was pretty crazy. Cool. So, I understand if you want more than just this episode, but if you all want to roll your new hit points listeners will enjoy hearing that and also if you want to talk through any of

it listeners love that so if you're even like thinking about doing stuff thinking about exploring something in the books uh tell listeners is it a 1d8 is that what it is i can pull up your character sheet and tell you but it says your hit dice somewhere on there. It says like right beneath your hit points, it'll say your hit dice. Oh, 7d10. So a d10. I got a 7. Ooh, that's a lot.

So I'm up to... Oh, so d10. Yeah. So I got... 66. I got a 10. And then 2 is 12. What are you up to? 72. Ooh, you guys are pretty good hit points. I haven't been at And then 2 is 12. What are you up to? 72. Oh, you guys are pretty good hit points. I haven't been at my max for a long time. You're at max now? I am having

connection issues. Sarah, have you rolled bricks yet? I have not. I'm working on it. Okay. Sounds good. Glibbles' coin levels up. He is now a level 8 coin.

He can now cast land on his third side, the thin one. Well, yeah, he can put Glibbles in a monster body. Glibbles and bits. I gotta get me some Glibbles and bits. Oh, yeah, I'm not getting any.

I don't have any leveling up access right now. My neighbors are going to party. They're shooting music up the hill. If you can't connect to the internet, just make a note on your character sheet what you rolled if you like. I wrote that down.

Is it a savage garden party? My internet also went out. What the hell is happening? I bet you Licky's probably online. She is. Playing Fortnite? No, she has the worst porn habit. Always

gotta be high res. Why high res? She just parties at the horn. Oh, my God. A lot of doggy style stuff. Canadian beer, eh? Yeah. Almost went out your nose, eh? Ugh.

What a hose head. Hey. Take off, eh? Are you guys talking in a Canadian accent? Just 4K of two dogs humping. Where's the hit point? Thank you. What about your hit points there, Ken? Where does it say what i rolled k69 oh i got your hit points my sheet that says my hit dice i don't know where

it would be on the it's not on the thing oh it's probably on my sheet is that with your uh token um i would pull it up if i had internet, but... I know, we got no... nothing. We got nothing. Starting at 8th level, somebody happened. So, I would just hang tight, and I... Someone set up an EMP. We will discuss this at a later date in more depth. If you,

again, think of anything you want to look at with your character, or if you want to pass around one of the player's handbooks or something, just let listeners know. Listeners would like to hear you think out loud. In the meantime, this room is beginning to smell It didn't before? Worse?

It smelled like poetry. Should we check the calf on the way out? My dining room or this room? It had a deep No, not your dining room. There was like, you know, a deep acrid smell when you originally came in here, but it feels like things are... Hold on, a plane's going to crash on us.

That's because of the EMP. You know, at 8th level now I turn... I instantly destroy undead if its challenge rating is at or below a certain threshold. Wow. Nice. Well, just a basic Quaggoth's challenge rating is at or below a certain threshold. Nice. Well, just a

basic Quaggots challenge rating is a 2. What is the threshold? 1 or lower. Alright, so that will be not quite Quaggots levels of naughty boys. One of these days.

But I'm thinking if there's things with scratchy fingers on the other side of the door that are just sort of like basic. And I'm just thinking, just thinking. Basic bitches. Nice. C++. All right. Well, you're awake and you're faced with the unpleasant task of the next stage of your journey being on the other side of a door that

there are multiple hands scratching i mean we could just stay in here and talk for a while well didn't you have an idea about throwing oil yeah yeah i mean we have i can web it and we can and we also have the advantage of with that doorway they can only get through some you know one at a time as long as we well they're still chained yeah i imagine they're just we should just murder them and yeah all right i like the i like the webbing and and uh webbing and oiling and lighting okay so are you gonna pull the barricade away from the door what's there's a lot of wood in front of the door i hate every question you ask us yeah so who's doing the web oh i will i shall so you just be ready to go with that and maybe the four of us

will handle the barricade okay you know just in case because like let's say a couple of them are loose and start pushing through as long as you're ready to go with that web. Yeah, a web. For Juniper! And I'll kind of give a look over to Bricks, right? For Juniper! Yes. She kind of rolls her eyes. For Juniper.

Two very different people. Let's do this. Yeah, start pulling shit off of there. Pull all the wood away the scratching continues it's very ominous and weak sounding yeah if everybody wants to stand back I'll throw the door open

I'll stand back alright you whip the door open do you look or does someone cast web immediately let's wait and see you open the door you see Or does someone cast web immediately? Let's wait and see. Let's see what the deal is. You open the door. You see that of the nine corpses, two of them from the neck down have fallen to the ground

and have crawled up to the door. Their heads still staring on the hooks on the ceiling. The bodies slowly drag themselves across the threshold. It is gross and disgusting. What's their challenge rating, Dan? One-fourth.

Oh, okay. Also, they are prone and cannot get up. Save in the web. Holding web. Meow, meow, meow. Let me get this. Meow, meow, meow. Uh-huh. Meow. Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow let me get this yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah what are you doing i'm uh i'm turning undead and they're instantly they're popping just

what uh do you spell slots or is that cantrip that is uh it can't be a cantrip it's a part of his clear special ability yeah i'm just wondering if he uses a slot. It's channeling divinity. It gets a chance to make a saving throw against my turn undead feature. It is instantly destroyed if its CR is lower than the threshold of my level. They finally disintegrate as you wave your hand across all of them.

Hey, something easy happened. Can I do the Robocop thing? I like it! I'll buy that for a dollar. Alright, well. Ed 211, which is Ed 209 with two figures up here.

No Quaggoth 70 gold or anything on them? Yeah, let's get an investigation check as you all rifle through the Quaggoth corpses. I'm looking for the map, too. I feel like Juniper would want us to... Oh, sorry. What are we rolling? Hello? Investigation?

Everybody roll an investigation check. 19 plus 1. 20. Whoa. Everybody roll. Everybody roll. 15 plus 2. 17. Oh, okay. 10. Brian Regan got a 10. Oh, nice. I got a 10 a ten. I got a ten.

Twenty-one. I got a nine. All right. Brian, you find a bottle that looks very similar to the healing potions that you had. It's in a different kind of glass bottle. Not sure. Could be a healing potion.

Totally drink it. You could take a taste of it. Find a mystery potion. I'll hold on to it. Okay. Mystery potion. What did Deli Tail get? 17.

Do I get a mystery date? I would say, if you take this to just taste it you should be able to identify it mordecai it doesn't have to remain a mystery what if it's a deadly poison but if you just i don't know it's like a dnd thing it's like you can take a taste yeah to know what i've never played dnd so i don't know what you'd like it there's one room and it's terrible do you want to try to figure out what it is, Frank? Isn't that easy? Yeah. Okay.

Still a little picky? Yeah. Just roll an insight check. Okay. Did anyone beat a 21? No. No, I got a 20. Okay. Oh, you got a 20. Oh, well then... Do insight again? Mm-hmm.

Hi, baby. Tastes like Bob's ranch dressing. Willie's here, my buddy. I like the blue cheese. Blaine, you find a scimitar on the large quaggots corpse. Really? Yes. Okay. Oh, nice.

It's got two... Both sides of it are sharp. It looks like it could cut both ways oh interesting oh 19 would you say it cuts like a knife damn yes by ryan adams yes i would say that same high five by you guys it is a superior healing potion oh nice so mark that down brian okay When you're done petting your beautiful dog. Superior. I cannot use edged weapons. So if anybody would like a crazy double-edged scimitar.

The Equaler? The Equaler. Oh, yeah. It is not magic, but I can tell you what it is. This is a revenant double-bladed scimitar. Ooh. What the fuck is that? While wielding this double-bladed scimitar what the fuck is that while wielding this double-bladed weapon with two hands this weapon has the finesse property oh uh and you gain plus

one to your ac oh nice revenant what revenant double-bladed scimitar i'll text you if the internet agrees with me i will text you the dnd for it, but you can look it up on your and add it to your character sheet also. Scimitar. And the Revenant feature helps you date women that are no older than 26.

Leonardo DiCaprio joke. Solid joke. Double-bladed scimitar is the signature weapon of Valinor elves. A haft of fine wood supports a long, curving blade on either end. Forged with techniques honed over the centuries, these blades are strong,

sharp, and remarkably light. And what did you say the points on it were? If you wield it with both hands as your only weapon, it has a finesse property, which depending on what your fighter class can do may let you do some fancy stuff. Because with a finesse weapon,

you can roll with either your strength or your dexterity as your damage modifier. So that's something you might want to play with on D&D Beyond. It is a very very nice looking scimitar it's worth about 100 gold yeah so nice and you said it's plus one to your ac as well yeah okay yeah that's a that's a big thing and that's because you can potentially deflect attacks or use it to you know dodge us if you attack with it as part of your attack action you can use a bonus action immediately after to make a melee attack with it and that attack will deal 1d4 slashing damage instead of

2d4 which is what it normally does so you can that's so good yeah it's pretty good sweet so that's like what you're doing before with your three-handed double hand remember you're doing like three two weapon attacks with this one sword you now get three attacks wow now you're like darth maul like darth galleria well the big thing is it's it's cuts both sides so georgia galleria it's like you cut and flick your wrist and it cuts the other way wow cool thanks yep good thing you searched them corpses yeah and then we found some gorp that we can share with uh with sparks you found a lot of fingers and pouches oh regular buffalo wild wings in here well shall we uh continue yep no i guess now we'll see what

the babies exactly are this this will be unsettling oh do we have to oh yeah they're all dead okay never mind um does anybody have the map because i gotta i'm trying to access we haven't killed everything in that room right oh you did we didn't look in the cask. You want to look in the cask? You haven't looked in the bracing bowl yet. And we're not going to either. What if we heat it up a bunch and then check it out? Guys, I think if Blaine is telling us not to explore,

we should probably not. In that bowl? No, we're not looking in that fucking bowl. Yeah. You know what we should do? We should drag it out to the front yard and put a price tag on it. Or just say free, no smells. I think this room has taught us there's no treasure here.

Treasure. Fuck you, room! The worst. Hate it. Alright, well you go through this small chamber full of dust, formerly corpses hung from hooks on the ceiling hate it all right well you go you go through this small chamber full of dust formerly corpses hung from hooks on the

ceiling and you can follow a trail of blood um guys guys guys blood meow you make it down the tunnel a ways and then there is suddenly a roaring waterfall about

20 feet in front of you. The waterfall is lit on either side with a pair of torches. The rushing sound is deafening, but you can tell from the torchlight it is bright green liquid. Hmm.

Ken is showing us the map yeah should we go up and taste it we're getting close to the egg you eggies and there is there are we so Dan are we at the bottom of a waterfall like it's coming crashing down so like we have to climb up?

Is that kind of the vibe? Or are we standing at the bottom of a waterfall? You're near the bottom, you think. It is rushing past you in such a way where it is difficult to tell exactly how to get through it. You don't really see any openings in it can i get a perception check from everybody yes someday i get back to my app 18 20 16 15 same you all kind of walk up and down the sides of it and

it looks like there's just like a sheer drop off about an inch before this waterfall oh shit the water is very thick and deep and bricks you can tell as you get close it splashes a little bit on the back of your hand and just singes away all the hair on your hand and gives you a little burn.

Um, it looks as if maybe like, uh, somewhere between five and 20 feet lower than the sort of stone platform you're all on at the end of this tunnel, it's hitting either rock or some other hard surface in the bottom of the waterfall, but it is rushing straight down. It is, it's splashing a little bit on the rock and sizzling just a little bit, but it doesn't appear there is a simple way through. It is completely covering the tunnel going forward.

Oh, it's a barrier. It is a barrier. Can we start searching the walls nearby to see if there's... Then it burns if we went through it, yeah. It seems like it would. You're welcome to try and make me laugh really hard. I have acid resistance. Nice. So that's a thing. We have a potion of an invulnerability get an investigation check there blaine

oh i think we lost sarah 16 or no sam's getting a phone call. Hello? 16? Yeah, it was 16. You pat the walls, Blaine, and don't find any obvious way of opening a door or something. There's no latch. Do you hear there's like a waterfall in front of us, Sarah, and it's like basically acid water? Yeah, I think I heard almost all of it. It's on the map. It's that green green gloppy stuff for sam hung up on me god sam sorry well maybe just watch how you talk about reba oh my goodness

um let's see what we got well well well we have potions of invulnerability giant size psionic fortitude and mergaxor's elixir of life do we have any idea of how deep the waterfall is it's very

difficult to tell just without sticking something through it, but it seems like it is standard waterfall depth, but you don't know how wide it is. You don't know how much acid is really pouring down without testing it. It's pretty unclear. Do we feel like what's his name?

What was the goblin that was showing us around? Glimbles. Glimbles. Did Glimbles get this far? name what was the goblin that was showing us around glibbles uh did glibbles get this far level higher than you said it dan let me let me see what we have here uh

remove curse you know third level uh at your touch all curse is affecting one creature or object and if the object is a cursed magic item its curse remains but the spell

breaks its owner's attunement so it can be removed or discarded yay alright I think it is a third level spell and you can't upcast it from what I can see I think you just tried it and it didn't upcast it from what I can see. I think you just tried it and it didn't work.

I'm looking at the rules and yeah, that's what it is. Never mind. You know, I'm thinking also... He does have other spells though. I'm thinking we could also go get that golden bull, push it in here and then run under it. So we'd melt two birds with one stone. uh run under it yeah so it's too we we i mean that would do something once yeah something would

happen how far is it from ish from this waterfall back to the room that we hate it is about a five minutes walk oh we can move some stuff yeah maybe we could just make some sort of temporary thing and run under it yeah if it's acid that burns us it may not necessarily bless you burn wood and metal it probably does but like you say if we put it there and run run run run how deep does this seem the waterfall uh this has been asked a few times oh i'm so sorry uh it is quite all right i am offended but i'll forgive you is it deep it's unclear it's unclear um on what level are you now don't ask i am eighth level register i'm ready casting a third level spell okay and yeah i just i asked that um i'm sorry i think there's a couple of things happening once so please uh chime back in if i'm skipping over you but uh yeah you you think you will you will eventually know a spell if you continue to level up a greater restoration and that would

have a potential use for the coin okay all right let's see let's see then all right well let's start calling big things it can anyway control water or anything like that i don't have no you can push the bowl we'll say you're taking the bowl from the room oh that's a great idea whose idea was that dance no it wasn't so i think blaine said it oh or some sort of stone yeah i think yeah like we uh like uh the hood from that what is that thing there dan and sort of next to the bowl oh unfortunately that is a forge and that is heavy stone yeah that wouldn't work all right well let's let's try the bowl and what is it called sorry go ahead sarah all right this is like one question which is looking at the map the globalism's map i know

it says it's not to scale but on the map it looks like it just is falling into a pool directly in front of it like on his map at least it looks like there's no path on the other side like it's just falling into a pool on the other side that's the thing it's like once we get through it what are we gonna do right oh there's no i thought i thought it was a continuing tunnel that we had to get no i mean i'm just looking at the map yeah unfortunately sarah is providing more than an insight check card you really can't tell without experimenting with it because also like there's the the quaggots were coming from here and there's but they could have been blinked into existence too

yeah that's why I'm thinking that maybe this is some sort of like uh uh illusion or not an illusion but like a one way room should we search for did we search for like hidden doors yeah playing padded the walls down

can I do a can I throw up a detect magic sure yeah and see if there's any anything going on in here you uh wave your hand and do not detect any magic meow oh my goodness do we have acid proof umbrellas well you have acid resistance, right? Yeah. Do you want to test out? Resistance means the way I take

half damage. Yeah. I mean, I can try to fly through it. Because we can heal you. Yeah, you can try and fly or just run through it. But if I run through it, I'm just going to end up in the pool. I think I got to fly through it. Oh, yeah, you're right. You got to fly fly do that game where you can't touch the edges hero there goes my hair watch it it's good

uh christ almighty maybe if if one person can get up because it's a waterfall. Maybe there's a way to like divert the way the acid falls. I don't think we'd be lucky. Yeah. I'm going to fly through it. So you begin flapping your... I'm going to cast fly on myself. Okay. I forgot if you had wings or not.

I do have wings, but I don't believe... Well, I guess I could fly if I had wings. Go as fast as possible. Alright, so you begin flying and you... Oh, wait. You want the potion of invulnerability? That might get eaten by the... I feel like we should save that. Okay.

Because we're testing your resistance. We'll see how much damage I take. Alright, so you're going to just fly as fast as you can through the waterfall of acid. Oh my god. Do you have anything the waterfall of acid? Oh my god. Do you have anything on top of you? You know what we're gonna do? No. We have a shield.

Nobody has a shield. There's a bull. You did shove the bull down the hallway up to the waterfall. Oh my god, the fucking bull. I hate the fucking bull. There is a door on top of it that none of you have opened yet. We know. door on top of it that none of you have opened yet. We know.

Did somebody hide inside it? I hope not. We'll never know. I feel like somebody hid inside it earlier. Under it, maybe. Should we go back to the forge and make a shield of... No, we can't. I thought somebody was just going to fly right through the acid.

If we can find a piece of thought somebody was just going to fly right through the acid. Can you, if we get like, if we can find a piece of metal or something to hold over you. I mean, the Iron Maiden could use a door, a door off of the Iron Maiden. There's no shields from the Quaggoths, right? No, no shields. Oh, no, that's not true. There is one shield. There is one shield. Oh, look at that. The leader had a shield. Oh, see?

Does it seem special? The shield, um. Entirely acid resistant. So you all walk back into the room and kick over the corpse of the leader. He has been laying on a kite shield. It does not seem particularly special, but who would like to take a very close look at it?

I might detect magic is still up too. Okay. Okay. It's not magic. Who would like to take a look at it? I will take a look at it. Investigation check, please. I will do an investigation check.

Here it comes now. Once I get to my skills section of my... Here we go. That's a 19. All right. You turn it over and it doesn't look like it is designed to repel acid uh nor does it look like somebody has been repeatedly using it to like shield away the acid but it is big and it does have what looks like burn marks on it that could be acid so you think

it may have been used at least once to do this and that it is big enough that you could do it at least once but you're not sure how long it would hold up does that make sense yes you don't think this is the way they've all been going through the waterfall but it does look like it might work for like a second or something all right at least for one person uh i'm also going to examine the door of the Iron Maiden to try to pull it off to maybe use that as a shield it looks just passively

like kind of open it up kind of taking a stick and pushing some of the gore off of it there are spikes on the inside of it but you do think that you could probably pull it off a hinge if one of your friends comes over. Which do I think

would be better against acid? Iron or the shield? I'd do an insight check. Alright. Dan, I'm also going to get some pieces of metal if there's like long rods or spheres or arrows or anything. I mean, there's the

Catherine wheel. You could potentially take that big-ass like long rods or spheres or arrows or anything i mean there's the there's the catherine wheel uh you could potentially take that big ass thing and you know rip the wood off of it and you would have a large ring of metal okay i just want to kind of ride like a hamster wheel i just want to sort of test the acid to see how corrosive yeah that's a one on my insight check so i have no idea yeah that's a one on my insight check so i have no idea you just think of your favorite maiden album really all right but the basics you could all tell from looking at these two things that pish posh is comparing is the kite shield one person tops it's it's big but it it's not big enough that like two people could completely fit under it and even one person might get burned the door to this is harder

to probably hold but you can tell just from me holding up the Quaggoth mini and the Iron Maiden this is to scale so it's about twice as big the danger is it's just covered in spikes and it's hard to hold because it's not designed to be held right is there somewhere we can use that it's bigger than twice

how many people can you fly on because remember mordecai probably quite a few actually and i'm teeny tiny maybe i could ride hitch a ride on someone who can fly i can also i can also blink and dimension door, but I don't know what it's on the other side. You have to see the other side, at least for dimension door, right? Like, blink, I think you can... Blink, I go into the Feywild, and then

I can carry you around. Yeah, if you're flying. What's his net, and I'll fly. So if we're flying, and we have a couple different shields, potentially we could get through, and then'll fly. So if we're flying and we have a couple different shields, potentially we could get through and then get up. I would say Mordecai would be aware that his wingspan

is wider than either of these things. So if he was flying with his wings, it wouldn't protect his wings. Oh, okay. Again, if we want to just hold this up to scale, you can see the Iron Maiden door would not cover those two wings while they flapped. Yeah.

So I can target one additional creature for each slot level above third. Oh, so you don't have to. Is third your top level spell slot? No. The fourth is. I also have polymorph, and I could change into something that is acid resistant. That's cool. Something that could fly.

Like a black dragon. I am a black dragon. Or a dragonborn, actually. Yeah. Good. Yeah. So then you can cast fly on yourself and one other person. Right?

Right. If you top cast it. So that could be, let's say, you and bricks. Maybe you could turn into a flying thing turn into a black dragon and I could catch a ride so that might be sort of the weird patchwork way that we get through the water

and we're using the Iron Maiden door as well I would think but I wonder what's on the other side of this you still don't know what you'll find on the other side right but if we're flying at least then we're not running and standing in acid. Right? Isn't that kind of...

We're getting knocked down into the... Shouldn't the acid resistant person go through it first and check out what's on the other side and then come back? That's what I was just going to say. Yeah. And see how much damage it does to you. And you got to be careful because it might

just take you straight down to the bottom and see how much damage it does to you and you gotta be careful because it might I mean it might just take you straight down to the bottom of the waterfall and you'll just melt in the bottom of the pool alright good luck hey Dan

the hesitation face Ken made can I do uh can i do a a real in-depth investigation of footprints and stuff like the quaggoths and all the things that have been around to see if like there's i'll help with that yeah blep at you one more. One more question, man. All right. So I'll give you... You're going to get advantage, Blep.

You go into full detective mode. Put your monocle on. Your Sherlock hat. Yum, yum. Your rumpled overcoat. 16. That's with advantage? No.

What's the advantage? He's helping you. You've got a Watson. So roll a second time and take the higher number there's a very tiny die that's a 17 he's a silly man that blank patch yeah but silly die 17 so yeah you you um you've all kind of trod around this area so it's a little hard to pick out what might be like quaggoth prints but all that being said uh looking around you're like it seems as though people have just been walking right up to the waterfall my car so is there maybe and we've seen it splash

it's not we don't think it's an illusion we think this is oh it seems real bricks would have confirmed that but it might like part so there like part. So there's like a switch. There's like a switch or something. Yeah, exactly. That's what I think. What's the dragon's name? Oh. What is the dragon's name? Glut. Glut, yes.

Oh, yeah. Does it even speak draconic? Doesn't somebody actually speak draconic? Yes, they do. Try that. Does it speak the name of the dragon? Well, it's all in service of the dragon lord, right? This isn't a normal thing here. This is all... Look, I'm happy to try anything.

So you're going to, what, say glut in draconic? Yeah. At the... Near the acid. Okay. Yeah. You walk up to the acid and say glut in draconic. Can everybody roll a perception check please

oh shit 19 6 13 plus 6 8 13 13

very dramatically pish posh walks up to the waterfall and what do you think that sounds like in Draconic? Do you want to scare me back? It says that. And nothing for a moment, although, Blep,

you look at the staff on his back and the pink crystal on top of it kind of glows for a moment when he says it. The waterfall doesn't move, but the staff does kind of pulse. Okay, I hold up the staff.

The staff! Uh-huh. Say once again, you all now see it pulse, the light within the crystal, but nothing else happens. Are you going to att it pulse the light within the crystal but nothing else happens. Are you going to attune to the staff, you think?

Yeah, maybe you need to become the staff's master. I'll do some work on the staff then. Okay. You want to spend a few hours here trying to attune to it again? Are you going to work the staff? I'm about to know it. Everybody gathers around the campfire to watch pish posh work the staff

julep i love this campground tradition of working the staff bricks this might seem weird but this was a favorite of everyone yeah so i'll come back to a safe space and you guys are all gonna like let him take some time to try to work yeah you guys are all gonna like let him take some time to try to work yeah you guys i need to be alone for this all right so once again you clear your head and of course it's like midday this time not at night not another watch shift but i want you to do another arcana check come on baby 13 uh you frustratedly are unable to connect to it um baby. Woo. 13. You frustratedly are unable to

connect to it. You tell everyone and you can now as a group decide if you want to spend another four hours of him trying to attune

to it. It's up to you. Yeah, sure. Keep working it. Okay. Work that shaft. You might want to take a break at

some point. Staff. Not shaft. The shaft of the staff. Give yourself some irritation. Staff, not shaft, the shaft of the staff. Give yourself some irritation. What's how many times is this refractory period? Use lotion.

That's better. That's a 19. Hey, all right. So this time you finally just like feel this darkness at the edges of your mind. feel this darkness at the edges of your mind start to pull at your consciousness like claws and it starts to just hurt um and then the staff opens its magic up to you oh you now have the ability to let's see it's fancy and i'll i'll send you the the full text version of this you can collect

souls inside of the staff uh a variety of things that again i will i will i'll send you the full thing we're coming up right on the end of the episode so i'm not going to go through the entire uh thing we'll we'll go over at the top of next episode because it'll just be a little confusing to go over over it but it's a homebrew item you can store souls inside of it but pull them out of things you can also i can pull them out of things you can use souls to create a force field oh that's like a bubble uh-huh that would potentially work like an acid umbrella nice that you can just go through the waterfall with all right but you have to spend all your soul you'll have to spend a soul to do it you you can also attempt to pull souls that have recently like died in the last 24 hours from the air. So you can try to use the staff to find a recent death and pull it in.

And in addition to that, you can attempt to take a nearby soul that's already trapped in something and return it to its body. Right. So I'm going to do those things. We could use Juniper's soul to become the force field that gets us through the... You could, actually, if you could find it. I'm not sure it's still nearby.

I have to come in this room and... After working the staff. I work the staff. I come all over the room. I think... You want to do several things. First is just get through the waterfall, yeah?

No. I mean, I would also like to retrieve a stole from a coin. Oh. Okay, do you want to start with the coin? I think so. Okay. Well, Stevie,

you fellas really don't have to play blue, you know. So Pish Posh. Yeah. What? You don't have to play blue. Oh, you don't have to play blue. I think we may have lost the thread here a little bit. What thread? Pish Posh walks over the coin with the staff,

waves the staff over the coin, and we'll have to find out how that goes on the next episode of nerd poker sam can't wait hi oh my gosh all right episode 16 we're in battle dally tale spirit of mimic and tore him apart we found nine eyeless bodies on hooks they're pointing at us we're resting hell yeah then we leveled up we can hear scratching from the other side of the door blaine dissolved a bunch of undead people and then found a healing potion and a double-sided knife. I hung up on Sarah while trying to ignore another incoming call. There's a waterfall of acid.

Pishposh is going to fly through it. Pishposh is attuning to the staff for four hours. He can collect souls in and out. And little Stevie stopped by. Hey, guys. Oh, my gosh. Oh, little Stevie. Anything anybody wants to plug?

Sure. I've got my Chicago show coming up. Keep an eye out for that. Shows all over LA. Were you playing in Chicago? Oh, no, yet. I'm still looking at, same as last episode, still looking at a couple of different venues,

waiting for them to get back to me. Cool, cool, cool. I've got tour dates BrianPersane.com Geezer Butler show coming up at the Gothic Theater in Denver and

I've got Denver coming up too comedy wise but that's like not till the fall and then I've got

Sacramento coming up and check me out BrianPers same.com and uh i will be signing comic books a lot of different places this summer so uh check out there too if you live in town earth 2 sadly is closing and the store yeah oh no and uh they're my shop roads has grown up in there, man. It's crazy. That's been our little shop. He was just saying today, Dad, where's our new shop?

We don't know yet. But they're closing down at the end of June. If you live in the Valley, June 15th, myself and Chris Johnson from Rifters. We will be signing Rifters. Joe Truman will leave some some signed copies too and uh you can come by and say hi to us and have treats and say goodbye to that store it's the fucking coolest little comic shop in the valley it's really sad it sucks uh yeah a lot of them are closing around the country record stores are coming back but comic shops are having a bad time

well you know uh anyway they don't sell comics but the geeky teas if you remember yeah they with the D&D supplies they're opening a new store uh this month and I'll be doing some stuff out of there maybe a comedy show we'll see but uh it's not like the size of a mall they're taking over the old Nickelodeon studio on Alameda. It's going to be like 16 D&D rooms, media room where they can broadcast actual play Dungeons & Dragons, all kinds of stuff. Geez. That's crazy.

Alright, Blaine? We attribute the success to save mankind from the dead. Thanks for joining us on this episode. You got walls and a roof? Holodeck next nerd poker. Ken can't stop working the staff. And that puts the nerd poker gang in danger.

Can Brian's diarrhea make it in time to save them? All this and probably not. On the next nerd poker. Nerd Poker. 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. Episode 16, take one. Oh, my God. Rhodes is like, what the fuck is happening?