Nerd Poker - The Mountain Campaign - Episode 17

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

The resurrection staff in Pishposh's hands, it's time for what we do best: make logical choices! Clearly, Glibbles is about to be brought back, and we absolutely are not about to bring back a character who has already refused resurrection. That would be too weird! Regardless, if one of our cast members is willing to rise to the occasion and do a one-person show portraying multiple player characters. Sadly Blaine got sick, and despite a month of trying to get us all in the same room we do not have a full crew for episodes 17 and 18. Thank you for your patience!  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, I'm Brian Pesan and you're listening to my show, Nerd Poker. My friends are here. Well, we're missing blaine this week he's uh he's just not here i'm not gonna go into it he's fine you want to restart no i think it's so much more mysterious i mean everybody's on the edge of their seats now what an exciting episode so much more drama when you do a fake out like that. Enjoy the secret society. Everybody's here.

Dan. Brian. Ken. Hi, Brian. Sarah. It's me. Chris. What did you do with Blaine?

He's in the closet. We'll let him out halfway through. Sam's here. Hello, most, most of the sweet children. Yes, the sweet children are here. Dan, you want to thank some people? I am going to thank people. Wait, Blaine is okay, though. Yeah, Blaine's fine. He's sick.

He's not here. He's sick. Now you're making it bigger. Well, but I feel like by saying When you say Blaine is dot dot dot, we don't have to talk about it, but he's fine. I'm not going to get into it. I mean, I think he might be on a spy mission. The police haven't proven anything yet. I mean, something could happen.

Don't worry about it. Blaine would be a terrible spy. This espionage brought to you by... Thank you to Patreon supporters with usernames like Jack King. Thank you, Jack King. Thank you, Manfred Manthrax. Thank you, NerdyGirl13. Thank you, ValleyOfTheMagi.

Thank you, Justin Malam or Millam. Thank you, Matthew Arnold. Thank you, Black Walt and the Pants Full of Shaving Cream. Thank you, Andrew Zarante. Thank you, Tensors Gifts. Thank you, Megan Bradburn. shaving cream thank you andrew zarante thank you tensor's gifts thank you megan bradburn thank you the tea when brian says the word else still don't know what that is and finally thank you someone i think i know beth hunter uh blaine's empty chair who were those supporters brought to us by those those supporters were brought to us by diaper farts. Give your diaper a pill and it'll fart just like it's a person.

Diaper farts. That's what I can do. Listen, I asked beforehand if anyone else wanted to sub for Blaine's commercials and was met with chilling silence. And I couldn't, because of my brain mental disorders, just let it go. And now it's time to talk about what happened last time on nerd poker first of all i'm very proud because i made eye contact with sam during that pause and it made him giggle a little bit second of all our heroes finally managed to murder all

the goddamn quaggots in the torture chamber. And, you know, they might enjoy this recap, especially because we haven't played in person for the main campaign in something like a month and a half or something. Right now, they walk past a small chamber full of undead corpses hanging from meat hooks, and then over to a little tiny room on the other side of which there is a waterfall of acid. After thinking for a while about whether or not anybody should just fucking go for it and walk through the waterfall of acid.

You know, in particular, Pish Posh was like, I'm resistant to acid damage. I'm sure if I walk through a waterfall of acid, nothing bad will happen. I'm sure if I walk through a waterfall of acid, nothing bad will happen. We got that far and then everyone was like, ah, fuck, let's actually apply critical thinking to the situation. And then, if I'm not mistaken, Pishposh, during a long rest, attuned to the goddamn staff that one of the Quaggots had and then upon attuning realized he could perhaps use a soul within it to reunite a soul with its body where would he

start? A fallen comrade? Or a comrade who fell on his magic sword and turned into a boink cone? We now take you to that decision already in progress So yes. Hi, Pish Posh. Hello. It's me, God.

Oh. Yeah, I think I would like to see what I can do with that coin. Well, you pick it up and turn it over in your hand. You note Glibbles' face is engraved on it, and it says, in Infernal, Glibbles. Can is engraved on it and it says in infernal glibbles okay i

remember who exactly speaks infernal i'm guessing it's brian because the equaler is of course a tiefling and i believe they sometimes speak infernal is that sound right funsies where was the coin someone was carrying it was it sarah's character i believe it was juniper so you have been carting her body around i'm not positive about that though i was actually just checking right and maybe that sounds right maybe to get this far narratively you fished around in the folded up corpse of juniper and taking the coin out felt really careful but weird about it and now you're thinking about of course your other fallen friend juniper who i hinted at but now through a guilt trip feel i should actually spell out for you interesting sarah can play two

characters please oh i'm barely getting one sarah you threatened to ruin my life wants you to remember you could bring her character back to life can i bring netty back um uh so what what do i know that the staff does i will tell you the exact wording i have in my notes um because i think that could help at the last session you made a point of sort of saying i'm going to skip over explaining it now because i'll go over it yes great so uh this staff can collect souls and hold up to five of them at a time you can also pull souls from people who have died within the last 24 hours and you can return a soul to its original form if you know where the soul is however it cannot locate a soul that is lost on its own. So, we don't have Glibble's body.

Well, the wording, if I may, the staff can return a soul to its original form. So, if you have the soul and no body, theoretically, yes. Wasn't Glibble's a non-player? Yes. And so, it's either Glibbles a non-player? Yes.

And so it's either Glibbles or one of Sarah's characters, right? She really could put Juniper's soul back in her body. Is the person then undead? Well, I think you need to ask yourselves, has it been 24 hours since Juniper died? I don't think so. Does it need to be? It's been more than... Yes.

Then you're going to have a pet cemetery. Yeah, we a pet cemetery yeah one of that there's so many very classic we can put glibbles inside juniper's body oh my god well how about everyone rolls an insight check for the 24-hour situation all right bricks is like what is i don't like that dice anyway but it was your number what were we rolling for? insight please three you're unsure

we'll never know what I rolled Ken is checking the floor can you beat a 16? that dice absolutely disappeared but Ken you have physical dice I did lose my physical die 13 16 is high Can you beat a 16? That die has absolutely disappeared. But can you have physical dice? I did lose my physical die.

13. It rolled across the floor. Oh, 16's high. This is important. Jesus Christ. Anybody see it? I'm only going to give you the exact truth if you hit a 20. Brian, take that die out of your mouth.

That's Ken's die. Brian. Ken, would you like to borrow a die and do that again? Yeah, Ken is... No, I want to know what that roll is for. Listeners, Ken is refusing to re-roll. But I mean... Oh, he's counting whatever it actually is. I see.

I was like, why is he so... 17. Oh! 17 plus one. Oh, so close. So close. Really? Plus one?

18? Yeah, 18's close. I would give him the exact answer. It was within an hour. You and Bushy Tail Squirrel Pants both can realize with a 16 and between a 15 and a 20.

Somewhere within an hour. Probably within the last 24 hours. But you're not certain. We have to try and bring her back. And then bricks can hit the road. Excuse me? No, I didn't realize you were

still here. So it holds up to five each time I have to Correct, so you could gather another soul to use on the other, but time would be running out on Juniper. Well, let's go for Juniper then. Alright. What say you all yes yes

I feel like there's an entire season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that is exactly about this I know all those Glimples fans too might just be me and three of my friends I mean it could be Glimples and Juniper hey Glimples has you know all the time

in the world in uh boing cone form so all right let's grab some juniper okay good thing you've been carting that weird body around for yeah now juniper's body has been folded up in a fetal position and strapped to Brian's back. I can't remember exactly what you did. I think you threw some sort of muslin cloth over her corpse to kind of keep it in place. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle beach towel. So you unpack her body? Yeah. All right. You take Juniper off of Mordecai's back and lay her on the ground.

She has gone stiff and is sort of frozen. Gross. In a fetal position. It's pretty gross. Also, the cloth is just soaked in blood. So you have to kind of peel it off. So I'm going to ask for you to do a sleight of hand check to not damage her. Right then.

And separate it from her body. Don't rip off her eyes. If you want to take it off. I mean, you can also just leave her in there and cross your fingers. Leave me in a weird. That's true. I don't have to unfold. Crusted blood. No, I'm me. You can also just leave her in there and cross your fingers. That's true. I don't have to unfold her. As far as you know, unwrap her is more of the thing.

It's fine. Why, Bobby? There's a dog with horse legs under the table. I will try and bring her back. Okay. What do I have to do? Because this is tricky, I will make you make an Arcana check,

but I will tell you the DC is low. All right. And I'll explain the DC is eight. And if you beat an eight, it should happen for sure. You absolutely do not want to botch. Okay. Because then your bonus won't count at all.

And if it's between a one and an eight, something bad will happen. Sweet. Well, that's a 23. All right. Well, Juniper's body starts to sort of rock back and forth a little bit as its weight is slowly being redistributed uh and then it you know lays flat on the ground slowly the cloth just sort of falls off of it as the wounds begin to heal crazy uh jun, you come back from the dead.

You are stuck, unfortunately, at five maximum hit points. You have town person stats. And you are incredibly dizzy, having a hard time seeing, but you are alive once again. At what cost?

Juniper, Juniper, hurry. We're about to go underneath an acid waterfall and we need you. Am I dreaming? What's happened? Your other player character is also present. Yeah. Okay. So Juniper's like what's happened

Bricks is like why would you ugh yeah also from Bricks' point of view I mean this is kind of up to you too Sarah but I would think Bricks wouldn't really be able to tell if Juniper was ever in shape she might just suddenly look like

just this weakling weirdo who was like pretending to be in that monk order wait she wouldn't know if she was ever in shape she's lost all her muscle tone like there's just something she looks wiped out she looks terrible yeah but no i think she she would have seen her relatively recently. Okay. So Juniper's like, what's happened? And she turns to Brooks and she's like, am I Brooks? Is that you? And Brooks is like, yes, it's me.

Is that you? You look unwell. And then you guys are going to explain to her what you've done? You were dead. Oh no. And we brought you back because we missed you. But we could use your help because you're very smart. We wanted you to not be dead.

That's so kind of you. I don't feel good. You're probably thirsting for adventure. What sort of magic did you use to bring me back? There's just some staff we found. Is that a good magic? I hope. Sure.

Forgot to check before we used it. Alright, now Sarah, you know, I don't know how much you really want to have Juniper get in on the action, but I am going to text you the D&D Beyond Townsperson stats. So there's no sort of healing we can put on her beyond fighting she she because i'm literally gonna

make her just immediately be dying you brought her out i mean there's a plus zero to every role basically you have a 10 and everything is she a town person? Always. Forever? She's level zero. If she trains, she can get back to level one. Oh, nice. You could be a warlock. You could be a sorcerer. A training studio.

You should have told us all this before we brought her back. This is math. You had no idea what you were getting into. Sure, you were attuned to the staff, but that doesn't mean you have an entire pdf instruction booklet downloaded in your head yeah you didn't know what you were getting into but i mean you do think it has a lot to do with how close you cut it and she may have even been past the 24 hour mark got it i mean you could be mean, you could be like a ninja or a samurai.

Your words are very confusing to me right now. I'm going to take a teeny nap. Is that okay with everyone? I'm just going to rest my eyes. Would you like to roll an insight check for Jennifer? That she drifts off. Yes. How long do you think

it would take to train to get her back to level one? What was the roll? 20. Oh, nice. You created it. I did. Juniper,

you think that the process of death has greatly atrophied your abilities and even your memory to some extent. You're having a hard time placing everything that happened. You recognize everybody, but

you can't remember all the different fights just that there have been fights. You get flashes of a strange squid face giant, things like that. You're not sure what killed you. You also just sort of feel like there's a great darkness that hovers in the back of your mind.

Okay, Bricks is going to go over to Juniper and she's going to kneel beside her. And it's going to be like the nicest you've seen her face look. And Bricks is like, I'm sorry they did this to you. They? I just met these people. Oh, man. And she whispers something

to Juniper. And then she looks at all of you with disgust. And she's like, you have taken this woman's livelihood, her lifeblood. For what?

Well, she can do it again. For what? She can do it again. Do what again? Train for 20 years to be at the top of her field? Yeah, like a player character is already a hero at level one. They've had to do a lot of training just to be those higher stats from a townsfolk so so juniper juniper is like i uh i don't you you put my soul back look in the steven seagal film hard to kill he dies and then he comes back just basically through one montage of training and then he's back at full health.

Juniper's like, yes. And then she does that thing where you like spring backwards and then spring up. Does she? No. I so wanted that acrobatics check to happen. The name Steven Seagal stirred something within her and she was able to.

You do it, Kip. A montage that will take 10 years, begins filming and eventually will be cut down and edited to a 30 second montage juniper is like uh my old friend bricks says and bricks kind of wins at the word friend but uh and then she's like she says you you need a soul for something that you're doing yeah Yeah, we're going to use Glimples to be like a force field. You can use Glimples' soul to be a force field?

She looks to Brix, and you guys... Well, I mean, we could use yours if you'd rather, but... I mean, it seems like a waste. You're level zero. The possibilities are endless. You could be like a horse-bound fighter, like a chevalier. Blep says,

at least I don't have to keep staring at that ghost in the corner now that it went back in her body. He's a cat. I love that listeners are going to go from thinking you're maybe going to bring Glimples back to now you're just going to spend him to make a force bubble. There's so many souls

in the next room. Oh, okay. I was a little worried about bringing the werebears, whatever they were, back. Because I don't want to have to fight them. You don't bring them back. I think you spend them. You capture them in your staff.

You could absorb them with the staff. And then you spend them to make a bubble. Do they have souls? Sorry if that's offensive. Yeah, they are. Is it Bricks asking? Because then you do an insight check. Sarah can look it up. Yeah, Bricks is like, do these things have souls?

Sorry, not sorry. That ghost did. Which ghost? There was a ghost who was invisible to possess. I think it may have possessed. As a sentient being that at least can say souls for the babies. Oh yeah.

Souls for the babies. Well, I would love to spend those souls. Brix has a grudge against them anyway. So and there's now there's one more of us. Carried this baby in a woman's

body around for I mean you're saying Juniper is a baby you could send her back the way you came it's like poor things other than the ghost of a giant on an exploding staircase there's really no reason she can't just

go back the way you came what you say I'm kind of being snarky i apologize uh let's get some more souls for that stuff and you would know pitch pop there is an element of this could be a whoopsie doodle when you try to reunite a soul there's probably a similar chain of events when you try to absorb a soul stuff. Right. Yeah, but I'm not as worried about these other

NPCs. Let's go and try and absorb a soul, see what happens. Juniper wakes up and struggles to her feet. Oh, hey. I'm with you. I'm with you all. Thank you.

You could probably just sit here. I think he's just going in the- I'm glad you're doing so much better. I could sit. I'm just going to rest my legs for one moment. You could probably just go back to sleep. Mordecai. Mordecai.

Yes. Can you snap Juniper's neck? Like in a pinch. If it comes to that, do you think youiper's neck? Like in a pinch. If it comes to that, do you think you could take it? Jesus. Oh, you know what? Bleph will do it. Old Brian would have been like,

her neck is snapped. We were just kidding. I know. You would have done it and then said, is that okay? Blaine isn't here. We'll have Bleph do it. You lost your edge, man. That's what having kids does. I know. So what happens if I try to gather up a soul in one of these?

If you want more specifics, that'll be another insight check. All right. Because this is not something you've witnessed. You're going to have to gather it from your connection to the staff. You do have to sing Hey Soul Sister. New. That's a seven. gather it from your connection to the staff.

You do have to sing Hey Soul Sister. That's a seven. You think that it is not a guarantee that when you wave the staff and try to connect with it and pull out a soul that it will successfully be pulled into the staff. Okay. You think you only want to do five.

You'll know when there's a success. Okay. You can then start spending them. Okay. Other than that, that's a low roll. Let me try and collect's a success. Okay. You can then start spending them. Okay. Other than that, that's a low roll. So try and collect some souls there. All right. So a lot of you go back into the room that you came from.

There's several piles of quaggoth corpses. And if Juniper is awake, this is new to her. So there's this, this torture chamber covered in viscera, uh, chunks of bone and blood where there shouldn't be dead quaggots, corpses everywhere. This is where the,

uh, dying happened. They're like white where hyenas. It's kind of how I would describe them. Her mind is elsewhere. Sort of like taking it all in but you know no you would think that this means there are i'm counting the number of courses bricks saw them using the the staff right yes okay so yeah

if you need any i don't know if it helps if she explains the, like maybe you get an extra point or something if she walks you through what she saw. That sounds good. I'll bump the DC from the 8 that you just had up to a 10. Okay. I still don't want to botch. But Briggs would describe

yeah, you want to leave the staff over the entire time you're trying to connect with it and not pull it away until the process is done and you uh bricks you would have seen at least one quaggoth

and i'll say it was the the one that was killed when it was holding the staff um like try to do it and fail and get knocked backwards with a giant bang and then crawl back to the staff and pick it up again. Wait, this is something she saw

happen earlier? So hopefully that won't be you. No, this is before the battle. When I was captured by them and saw them. She saw a quagga try to harvest a corpse and How quickly you forget the sufferings of others i brought a person back to life did you did you i mean technically she's alive oh boy yeah i'm giving you a bonus

no i'm a i'm a goofball i went the wrong direction. I said DC 8, I made it harder. It should be DC 6. Okay, so... Not 10. I said 10. So what am I rolling? What was I rolling? Roll 20 sided. What is your Arcana bonus? 4, I believe. Yeah, 4. 4, great. So you just don't want to roll a 1 or a 2.

Right. So that's a 22. You wave it over one of the Quaggoth. There's like a dozen or so Qwagoth corpses. And do I see like a physical something coming out of it? Or... So I know. I'm glad you interrupted me while I was describing what was happening. Slimer?

I was asking if something was happening and I was trying to describe it. Does Slimer show up? That's okay, you're an eager weaver. So, you wave it over and immediately see the pink crystal at the end of the staff starts to sort of pulse with light it takes about 30 seconds before it feels like i mean it's like going anywhere like it's like warming up and then there's a like a flash and a bang that doesn't like cause a lot of concussive force but you do feel a kind of quiver as the corpse kind of like vibrates and then falls again. And this, you can feel there's energy in the staff where there was before,

but you took it out to reunite Juniper with your body. This feeling is very addictive. I want to do it again. All right. Go over to another quaggoth corpse. It's another easy success. You feel another one in like into the staff and and you get this strange feeling now that you can actually feel what it's like to have two souls

in the staff that the more souls that are in here mysterious things could happen if you were to try you're not sure what they would be. But you do feel powerful. Oh, all right. Can you turn blep into a baby? We've all been waiting for it. And there's like a glowing pink gem on the end? Yeah. That's hot.

Euphemism. Bleep is alive, no? No, I was just saying, you know, when Dan describes him, then who knows what could happen. Just being weird. Again. Magic, mystery. Anything can happen. McDonald's.

Got it, though. Seven. Needed a six, rolled a seven. You feel the staff really begin to impress you. This is a powerful item holding three souls in it right now. You feel like you could destroy a powerful enemy or perhaps imbue yourself with power. All right.

Last one. Brooks is keeping a very careful eye on him as he's doing this. I'm just enjoying the magic. It's kind of exciting to think about what happens when we meet the babies. Oh, yeah. Aren't we just storing their souls inside the

thing? I mean, you guys haven't discussed that at all. The souls for the babies. Oh, the babies that we're going to feed. Well, remember when we came in, the Quaggoths were like, souls for the babies. And the souls are going to, which means they use one soul to stop the acid rainbow, but

then, presumably not too long afterwards, meet the babies. Meet some babies. Juniper's like, I love babies. I don't think you will. I'm going to be very happy. Dallytail, would you like to roll an inside check? Oh, babies. Alright, one final. One final for the five of five. I think you will. Dallytail, would you like to roll an inside check? Just please.

One final. One final for the five of five. It's good. No problem. And you feel like you could permanently do something to yourself with the power of five souls in the staff. Cool. And get a tattoo.

Same tattoo should he get. Let's. baby souls on the side what was the deal with the bubble how could it you could use the staff to create a force field and we believe that's how they got through the correct and how how do i know how long this force field lasts how big it is you don't know yet alright let's try and create a force field and get through this acid ship okay how about that insight check there

you're fairly certain that they were talking about gluts babies I figure but you're not sure if they've hatched or not yeah how many are there oh i didn't at all i mean that's because that's where we're headed is to the nest right and the eggs we don't do we do we know how many eggs there are we know there's plural right you do know there's more than one but that's about it glibbles told you that he saw the nest but he's in a coin now. So can you

get Glivels out though? You think with one charge you could get Glivels out of the coin? He went through this already so it feels like it would be valuable to have him back. That's true. And also because we're good people. So if I

pull him into the staff and then resurrect him no it's just a different way to use the staff oh okay got it it's to reunite a soul with their body if you know where

the soul is you know where the soul is didn't he disappear before Juniper that means it's been past way past 24 hours he said it doesn't matter

because it's not his body yeah you know where the soul is got it got it the idea between 24 hours is that's how long the soul stays in the body right or close to the body yeah so let's bring glibbles okay let his soul meet body just like the death cat for cute it's actually what they wrote about was this spell oh my god yeah ben gilbert well you rolled the you

know what we're gonna check yeah is that true no it was so awesome from this adventure that was an 18. you don't know the band i don't know if they're nerdy or not they're learning like a different way they wrote a postal service song about it so you wave the staff over the coin They wrote a postal service song about it. So you wave the staff over the coin and there is a vroom vroom like pulse of light at the crystal at the end of the staff.

And the coin explodes. You all kind of have to like flinch for a second as this air just like shoots out. And before you know it was Glimbles holding nothing. He was just holding a broadsword and now he's his hands are empty he no longer appears to have a weapon

and he kind of acts as if he has been petrified the whole time and just brought back into the moment and it's like what the fuck is going on gliblimbles, you were put into a coin and we just pulled you out. What? Yeah, I found some magic. You fell on your sword. Oh, de-edition. You fell on your own sword and it did something to you.

Oh. Yeah, well, if she remembers that, that's what she says. Where's my sword? It disappeared when you disappeared again D&D shit oh it was a pretty good sword I miss talking to it at night

it would talk back to me yeah you can get another sword at least you don't have to start over like Juniper yeah there's a room full of swords holy shit what happened to Juniper Juniper's Yeah, there's a room full of swords. Holy shit, what happened to Juniper? Juniper's not here. Hello?

I'm tuning for her. A spell that sounds like a push notification suddenly goes off. Alright. Well, where are we? We're headed towards the nest to retrieve the baby does anybody have an extra weapon

holy shit look at all these fucking dead quaggots what did you do you missed that too you were in a coin we were killing everybody and getting killed bricks is like do you trust this little he's our guide he's been through

this before and he was showing us the way yeah that's how we know where we're going. I'm smart. Oh, that explains so much. I'm wondering if someone might want to give him a weapon then. There's so many weapons here. I mean, isn't this room covered in

weapons? Yeah, it's okay. Oh, absolutely. Quaggoth weapons. There's nothing great. Torture tools. He is a barbarian and there are no two-handed great weapons. Somebody just got an awesome scimitar. Oh, we forgot to look at the golden calf. Who wants to open it? Yeah, he could get

a standard longsword, but that's about it. Don't have that. I think there might be another weapon I had on these guys, but I don't have to pull up the see I think there might be another weapon I had on these guys but I didn't have to pull up Juniper's intelligence was worse you sent me the commoner stats what if her

intelligence was worse than that to begin with oh then she wouldn't have gotten a bonus she would be as dumb as she ever was so bring that on back to it as dumb as she ever was as dumb as she ever was Quaggoth so bring that on back to it as dumb as she ever was as dumb as she ever was um

a quaggoth uh nope swords swords and claws that's what they came at you as swords claws

staff but we can give him a sword then goodles can't you use a sword I'll take a long sword sure as long as this one

doesn't ask for me to feed it with blood like the last one. It was fun for a while, but I got kind of tired of it, you know what I'm saying? Seems like this is maybe a blessing in disguise for you to have been parted from this weapon. Oh, sure. Sounds cursed. Yeah, this whole thing where it was like, oh, I'm the tooth of a demon. Whatever, dude.

Fucking whatever. What demon, Bricks asked? demon. Whatever, dude. Fucking whatever. What demon? Rix asked. Like a demon lord that died from some other place. It's like it's tooth. It's as sore as it's tooth. And it kept

asking me if I killed enough things with it, I could come back. It would say, I'll come back and I'll go do a bunch of stuff for you. And you'll be my master still. And I was like, Oh, sounds pretty good to be able to do. Well, I'm glad that didn't work out. You don't know what it was like, maybe I said like a little. I mean, I'm learning from this staff a little bit.

What? I thought what it's like to have an interesting item. I mean, I'm learning from this staff a little bit. Learn what? I thought what it's like to have an interesting item. And he can give himself great power, right? Exactly. You should give yourself great power. Myself? Glittle's not has a long story. You said, or I believe I heard through the grapevine. No, that it can give me great power, but I don't know if it's good power or not.

No, it's not. What do you mean? Power. Who's this guy? I don't know. Why? It's true. In the forest, we're always looking for an advantage against our, I mean, bears are terrible.

Aren't you always looking for balance and- What? In nature? Isn't that like a whole thing? Nature. I fight for the forest. Yes. okay. Is this Juniper?

Yeah, who is this? This is just Sarah being like, what the hell, man? Glibbles actually looks at the he's like, oh my god, actually, I do have a spear and a shortbow and a dagger. Oh. So I'll just dual wield

the dagger and the longsword, which I can do instead. It's just like a new experience. Do we need to maybe grab one more soul? Or are you full up? No, I have four in here. So you can grab another one. I mean, I just think Pishposh

could be quite powerful. Pishposh. He really powerful. Pish Posh. He really is. It's like he took that book that Blup actually is evil that we've just, I feel like, been ignoring for... Right? He might have been planning stuff behind your back. You don't know. Remember he read that evil

book? He does bring his hazy maniacally when you start talking about it. He's likeuck away. To that evil book. He does like bring his hands. He's like maniacally when you start talking about it. He's like a cat. I'm going to suck up another soul. Suck it. I don't like how that sounds. Ooh, it's close again, but good enough.

Ten. I'm sorry, seven. So you only, if you rolled anything but a one or two? Yeah. Oh, okay. And I came close twice. Cool. Well, you feel the energy of another one go in there.

And Glibbles is like, all right, great. So what are you going to do now? Do I feel anything more about the power I might gain from this? No, all you know is at a certain point, you at first are like, oh, I could do a lot with this. And then with another soul, you're like, oh, I could attack someone with this

or I could give myself power. And then you're like, I could become extremely powerful. Juniper's like, does anyone have any trail mix? Or some sort of healing food? Didn't we have a chef traveling with us or am I misremembering?

Yeah, no, I can... Holy shit, how long is this going to go on? What can I whip up? Let's do a survival check. Mordecai the chef. Okay. Let's do a survival check.

Mordecai the chef. Okay. Juniper drags out of her blood encrusted clothing. Some, some, some need low. Okay. Eight.

All right. You, you managed to put together a trail mix, but it's like not normal. All you can find nuts wise is hazelnuts which are good but they get old pretty fast all by themselves plain and uh let's see what else some dried some dried what would be the dried mushrooms so you give her dried mushrooms and hazelnuts guess what juniper shovels it into her mouth handful after handful washes it down with an entire thing of mead. Burps like Barney from the Simpsons.

Enjoy. Thank you so much. Of course. I'm feeling much better already. That's great. I'm just going to close my eyes for one more moment. Of course. Shall we Sally forth?

Yeah. All right. You head over to the waterfall and I immediately wake up Juniper. Oh, you tell me you slinger over. Oh, you're in squirrel. Yeah.

You can't do that. She walks, stumbles, quibbles. It's like, okay, so now you've been through here. Yes. Yeah. And how did you get through before? Oh, okay, so... Now you've been through here, yes? Yeah. And how did you get through before?

We, uh, we asked one of those quaggots if they would take us through. And they used the staff, or? Yeah. Oh, okay. They're pretty nice. Yeah? We got, like, barter and stuff, but yeah. And so, uh, how long did it last you? Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Go ahead. Who were pretty nice? What? You just talked to them? Yeah. The guys we just fought and killed? Yeah. They're enslaved by the dragons,

so they were pretty happy to have people going up there to try to free them from enslavement but you know they like their job and they like the babies okay they just don't like glut so yeah we talked to them

and they were like we'll fly you through and so the main guy his name was Dave he like put the bubble around us and then because he had a powerful fly spell he could make. He like put the bubble around us and then because he had a powerful fly spell he could make us all fly inside the bubble which was really useful.

And then we like flew through the waterfall and we went through three more waterfalls. It was really great too because we were in the bubble like but that didn't protect us from anything besides the acid right? So he, like, told the monsters and the acid not to

attack us. That was really good too, because I need to deal with that shit. But presumably, because you got the staff, you could do whatever the fuck that you did, right? I hope so. Well, hmm. Bricks is like, I can't believe I'm saying this, but

should we bring Dave? Sounds interesting. Should we go back in there and revive one of them? But, I mean, I'm personally, I would love the opportunity to kill him again. So, for me, this

is sort of a win-win. Well, why were they not after us if they're good? I feel like they're not good but chaotic neutral is the vibe you get from glibbles oh okay but they like their jobs yeah and they they like blood but if there are monsters in the acid that we need somebody to um yeah call off a little bit but but i would think i could use the staff to do that to call them off sounds like that's what he did i mean i didn't see him use the staff to do that. To call them off? Sounds like that's what he did. I mean, I didn't see him use his staff to call off

the stuff, but I just assumed you had a plan. It doesn't sound like you really got a plan, so... I got kind of a bad feeling about this all of a sudden. Did he speak, like, when you were traveling in the bubble? Yeah. Like, was he speaking to the acid water?

Yeah. What was he saying he said it in the drow language do you know drow language it's a great question no it's called undercommon if anybody has undercommon I've been a drow before fuck that's right

none of us do I bet you blep does well let's find out we'll look it up real quick. Common and infernal. So, yeah, like he said a thing, and it wasn't you know, something that I knew for sure the staff did,

but I just, I guess I made some assumptions about your confidence that maybe we're a bit of a leap. So, I guess I made some assumptions about your confidence that maybe we're a bit of a leap. So? You know, you could fly through and we could at least see what the monsters are. Perhaps they would follow you back out here and we could find like a pinch point. For example, the doorway into- Draw them out?

Yeah. I mean- Not a bad idea. Seeing as we can't barter what is the plan Chris I'm looking up for me to go and draw the monsters back into the hallway

so we can deal with them there but they're living in the water I feel like they're just going to jump out and eat you. Yeah. Like. What did they look like? Did you see the monsters? I just saw the head

of one of them, Bob. Supposedly there were somewhere between four and twenty. Alright, perfect. cause like the way he talked cause he was like he was speaking draw language

I don't know what the draw language is but he would be like hey and to the head he would be like and then he would like point at other spots the SF go like he was like pointing at the other ones like and you would you would you but i don't know if he's telling you would you that is an assumption that i made if you catch my drift

meaning right i get it so uh well it's it's important enough blep speaks drow yeah sorry it's uh now now i'm going through that whole thing of like where does it sorry languages and proficiencies well yeah and like it the categories on the mobile are abilities saves senses skills action spells proficiencies language okay there you go

nope common and elvish all right so thank you very much crash course and drow anybody i just know because i've been to a drow city before what it sounds like right but you don't you don't know it i'm i have like friends but i don't fucking know won't we be happy to be back alive and would any one of the souls already in the staff know it oh maybe but we need them oh which one was dave do you remember was it any of the ones i already collected oh god

he was one of the staff i don't i mean maybe okay these these bodies are pretty fucked up i mean i'll dig around the bodies for a while, but I don't feel great about this. But if you have a soul, you could bring him back in a fresh, new, quite hot body. If you know it's him. If you know it's Dave, yeah. How do we know who Dave is? Maybe if you give me the staff an

eye to it, I can remember Dave's voice and talk to the staff and be like, Dave! You like that idea idea don't you dragon man I mean Dave soul would be perhaps more familiar to the staff because he was the previous wielder right was

he the one who had the staff or just a random cry goth so ask the staff we would remember which guy had the staff uh you all kind of like uh certain bricks would definitely i feel like no

can we do uh i will give bricks advantage as you all roll investigation check okay the bodies are pretty fucked up and you didn't keep track couple of them have been kicked over The bodies are pretty fucked up and you didn't keep track. A couple of them have been kicked over. So there is a little bit of difficulty to this.

Oh, nice. 19. Nice. I can't beat that. Yeah, me neither. 16. Yeah. Mordecai, you think you spot what must be Dave and Glibells confirms that it's probably dave cool and i didn't pull his soul up uh you did not all right so what do i do with the soul

it's in the staff already oh fine put it in should i throw how many souls do you have charged five interesting you don't know what'll happen if the staff is already full of souls and you try to reunite a body with its soul i don't you're right you could go spend one as like a test run on the ass exactly i was gonna say i'm gonna do do the bubble well can i ask quickly is our understanding is this a separate mechanism though than collecting souls reuniting a soul yes the body so actually it's not a lot of different settings. So if it has different settings

it doesn't matter that there's already five charged in there. That's not a given but who knows. You said it made it feel very powerful. Maybe it's

better off this way. Why don't you just pour one of them out on the floor and make room see what happens well how long you know what i'm going to use one and see how long the bubble lasts so we're kind of okay we're kind of uh so you spend a charge what it gives you basically yeah okay so you wave this thing is how you know it pulses as a boom and this iridescent but near completely transparent bubble kind of

extends outwards from you 10 feet in every direction. Oh, that's good. It's a nice big bubble. Good for the couple of us in here, maybe. All right. I'm going to suck Dave up. No, I'm going to restore Dave. Sorry. I'll

suck Dave up. How many dates are we talking about look nobody told Dave I said that um Blaine's gonna be so pissed he missed this

yeah so I'm I'm uh Blaine's okay right reviving Dave I don't know I I heard that so it's all a mystery

probably could be anything Sarah put some doubt in my head I heard Blaine is dot dot dot fine whatever that means see if the fire goes out that he's probably fine. Sarah put some doubt in my head. I heard Blaine is dot dot dot fine. We'll see if the fire goes out. Brian doesn't want to get into it, guys.

I already said. So yeah, I would like to bring back Dave. Okay. You wave the staff and you guys all see this incredibly bright pink light emanate from it and you feel all four charges that are left pour into dave's body as he begins to twitch and reunite with the soul that was already inside

so he has the power of what you think must be on some level whatever this means five souls as he kind of like his bones start like cracking as his arms and legs like go back into the position take him out because he used a full staff instead of an empty staff he pulls himself to his feet take him out pull him out of him all my friends are dead

not all your friends look it's glibbles some of them are inside you now glibbles yeah remember glibbles some of them are inside you now yeah remember yeah why did you kill you killed me no no you're with them glibbles no glibbles didn't kill anybody i mean i didn't kill you but my friends definitely did oh boy and we'll have to find out how this goes negotiation wise on the next episode of nerd poker sam how do you think this went hey episode 17 dan made me giggle uh juniper has come back from the dead ken is holding a staff full of three souls inside it

wait no five souls we're trying to get through some acid gibbles is back and sounds just like mickey mouse and he's friends we're gonna get sued and he's friends with the quaggots that we killed ken uses the staff to bring back dave it's true that all happened uh anything you want to plug nobody no nothing uh when is this going to be soon right tonight if uh so uh i'm in austin texas at uh creek in the cave cave in the creek in the chaos who knows craving no i think it's creek it's creek and cave creek in the cave yeah credence anyway and then i'm at austin books and comics on the 8th signing grommets um grommets is officially out now get it at any comic book store it's a beautiful book i'm so proud of it

it really is i'm looking forward to reading it thanks for giving us yeah um there's four covers out now and and uh we're gonna have uh well we'll be at comic-con this summer and then um i've got spokane next week with johnny taylor and uh oh no no spokane is with um derek sheen baby legs and then uh i've got a nashville and atlanta coming up it's a fun month that's it for me blame we attribute the success save mankind for joining us on this epi... You got walls and a roof? Well... Next week on Nerd Poker... Shaving cream.

Shaving cream. 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.