Nerd Poker - The Mountain Campaign - Episode 25

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

We are back! Blaine and Sarah are ready for action, but for this and the next episode they had to Zoom call into Brian's dining room, as they got sick a second time in a row. But we couldn't wait any longer to get you an adventure! It's time to get down to some dragon deception, and stop those haunted Glutt eggs from hatching.  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 Postain, nerd poker. We're calling it the Mountain Campaign. My friends are here, Sarah, Chris, Blaine, Ken, Engineer Sam Sam and of course our kick-ass DM Dan Telfer. Welcome to Nerd Poker. Hey everybody it's Brian Bazin you're listening to Nerd Poker. It's uh what did we say oh 25 episode 25 of the nerd poker. It's what we say, oh, 25 episode 25 of the Mountain Campaign. I know I didn't think we'd get through 12 or 15.

But here we are. My friends are here. Two of us are out this week, but we've actually got them on Zoom. But are you ill, sir? Do you have people over? I forget. You're sick, too. Did someone did someone speak to me? Yes, me. Right.

Oh, I'm here. What was said? What was said? You cut out. I know the technology. Never mind. So you're saying now I want to know, Sarah, he wanted to know if you were sick in addition to blame. Oh, yeah, no, I I got over Covid and then I got an ear infection and then I got a cold from my kid.

So I'm keeping that away from you guys. So we can't win this cycle under your hydra. Blaine's here, too, on Zoom. Hey, buddy. Hey, what's happening? Yeah, I accidentally was wearing a bathrobe and I accidentally fell backwards onto a can of tennis balls. I still got some paramedics up there. They're gonna give me a call when they figure out

how to get those out of there. I'm aware. Over. Inside your butt. I wish. Dan's here. Hi, I'm present. Ken's here. Hello, I'm present. Ken's here.

Hello, my butt is empty. You should put that on a shirt. Chris is here. Hi, no comment. Yeah, stay away from my butt. Sam's here. Hello, butthole children. Yay.

Let's get in, let's not die. Thanks to people first. No promises there. Yes. Now that we've gotten through everyone's anal vacancy status, let's thank some of our top two as I ain't a vacancy. Yeah. saw them open for hearse parade. I'm going to thank some Patreon supporters that are top two tiers of business. Thank you for your business and your support. Username for those supporters. Go a little something like Sabotage the Cat.

Thank you Sabotage the Cat. Thank you Robert Nichols. Thank you Le Twig. Thank you and signs with an exclamation point. Drew! Thank you and sends with an exclamation point Drew Thank you, Danny's Bahamut sized math class oops boner Thank you, JJ Lee. Thank you, George cost Anza, thank you to crows eating a dead rat Thank you a biblically accurate angel with 20,000 fingers up its

10,000 asses. Thank you Matt Mendoza. Thank you Kenders Ruhl. Parenthetical is bad at jumping. Thank you Black Miro. That's for you Blaine. Thank you Hawkeye Pierce. Thank you Dink Steinkuhler.

Thank you Blaine's obscure references. And finally thank you from Ralph Wiggum. I bent my wookie Blaine who are those supporters brought to us by? Supporters brought to us by the cow tipper app Tip your cow 20% automatically no more doing math on a stool. It's cow tipper app and Dumb water. It's a bottle of sand Dan it's cow tip wrap and dumb water. It's a bottle of sand. And thank you, boy. Let me thank some people.

That's right. We've got some people Brian met in person. Yeah, this was oh, from C. A during Comic Con. Least Maxwell. Thank you for listening and thank you for contributing. Will Grimwood, that sounds like a character and not a person, but thanks Will. That's awesome. Your name is super metal.

Thanks Will Grimwood for listening and supporting us. And thanks to everybody else who just comes up to me like in Vegas this weekend and goes, Hey, I love your poker. I appreciate that, too. What happened a bunch? Vegas was the most fun I've had doing standup. Oh, really? Yeah, it's a place called Wise Guys that it's off the strip. My complaint about Vegas has always been, you know, playing on the strip

and tourists and hellscape people with their fucking arms crossed. That would rather be doing anything but being in a comedy club Like it's the worst I don't know why they do it but people do and and this was so not like that This was just doing stand-up in a cool city in front of people that were happy Now it was like metalheads and nerds like my audience and you're only down like $25,000, right? nerds like my audience. And you're only down like $25,000, right? Yeah.

No, I hate gambling. David Cross, once we all went, a whole group of us, back in the day, and he said that he'd never seen anybody look unhappier gambling than me. And I won. I was sitting at like a dollar slot machine, and everybody else is having fun. People are playing blackjack.

And he looks over at me and I'm just like, fuck, just shaking my head. So bored. And I won $1,200. And he said, even when I won, I was just like, really? Because all these coins are coming out. I'm like, great, now I gotta count all these fucking things.

My wealth. Surly slots. Just welcome to my brain. Anyway, take it away, Dan. Here it comes. Shit, shit. What happened last time on Nerd Poker? Our heroes, I believe, are about to make a decision.

A decision about how to handle blackmail from glut. I've decided I have not played with y'all in so long. I need my normal speaking voice, even just to remember what happened. There's a few bases to cover, so I'm gonna try to explain as much as I can, but there may be a couple of points where I'm like, hey, this should have happened last episode,

but I forgot and just listened to it in the car and now I'm running through. You made it kind of like all the way through the mountain up to where Glibbles and his original party made it. And then they had a teleportation circle where the rest of the crew like got out of, went to a different dimension while he went to the bottom to try to recoup all the monetary losses that they had from all the supplies. So you're back up where

there's a big hole in the side of Mount Dukes and you were about to scale the rest of the distance, which isn't too far, but it's a bit of a distance and and I wanna talk to Blaine about that in particular. When Glut kinda set a little camp up waiting for you to open the door and come out and meet her. And eventually you did. You took a rest and went out and met her on the patio of the mountain, so to speak. She was in her Azimar form for a while and then exploded guts all over Briggs, Juniper, and Glibbles,

turned into the Onyx Dragon mini that you see before you now, and gave you basically two options. Either do what you want or succumb to her blackmail. She knew that you had broken into the mountain, so she moved her eggs from the top of the mountain where you were going all the way to Farin Town where you started the adventure as a threat. And she said she had powerful enough necromancy she could make the eggs hatch at a whim. She told you that unless you helped her she would have the eggs hatch and destroy the town but if you did help her she would merrily take her eggs to another dimension and go ahead and conquer that dimension because

she didn't really have any business here anyway except to incubate the eggs so she's just about ready to leave and decided since you fucked with her she would sort of dangle this threat you could use a kind of we fuck with her you you killed her servants you scaled the mountain in an attempt to destroy her in threat. You could use a cop. How did we fuck with her? You killed her servants. You scaled a mountain in an attempt to destroy her and her eggs. She didn't care for all that. Like the last 24 episodes. No, I know that, but...

And you know, you have her staff, which she's not happy about, but hasn't demanded you give back to her. So, you know, some of the things that you thought of last session that are of pertinent conversation. And I will say you've got about 45 minutes before she's supposed to show up again. But she's not actually here. No, she's currently curled up on her new nest in a crater just over Ferrentown by our town. And Tyler, the creator. Yes. in a crater just over Ferrentown. By our town. And um... Tyler the Creator? Yes. That's exactly what I said.

She's curled up on top of rap artist Tyler the Creator. Pish Posh, you had mentioned or someone had mentioned you could do this. Since you're a toon to the staff, you can maybe use it to suck the hundreds of souls out of the eggs. The eggs now contain basically archdemons because the infant onyx dragons inside have been warped by the necromancy of hundreds of souls and are now incubating archdemons. You thought maybe we could use this staff to, you know, suck souls back out of the eggs. Maybe disrupt whatever magic that is. And the thing I want to remind Blaine of is Blaine, about halfway-ish through the episode,

you'd mentioned wanting to cast detect magic kind of like up on the nest where the eggs were taken from and moved to Farrantown where you were originally going to go. You were like, I want to cast kinda Detect Magic in that direction. We'd have to kinda talk about like the distance you'd have to climb to go inspect it. I think Detect Magic's got like a limit of like 60 or 120 feet or some junk and it's a little more than that far away, but.

Okay, okay. How can we trust that she's not just gonna kill us anyway? Well, we came up with a third option. The third option, which is kind of the last bit I had to explain, but I wanted, there's so many bases to cover that I was like doing all these little side explanations, is what she wants you to do is on her behalf go kill a Topaz dragon. She's been absorbing the souls of other gem dragons and she wants this one, but if she gets close, and she will explain if you talk wants this one, but if she gets close,

and she will explain if you talk to her about it, if she gets close to the Topaz dragon, it will sense her and protect it, defend itself. It is inside a mountain, and she said that she can get one of you close enough that you can, and she'll help you teleport into the mountain and set off a sort of switch that will instantly kill the Topaz Dragon.

When she sees the mountain collapse, she'll just sort of fly in and absorb its essence. But you came up with the idea, I believe Blaine, that what you could do instead is go visit the Topaz Dragon and recruit it to help you kill Glut and her eggs. So that would involve a bit of subterfuge. You'd have to convince Glut that you were going to do her bidding and one of you would have to kind of like go with her to the outskirts of mountain where she would help you teleport in.

And then you would have to have a conversation with this Topaz dragon as opposed to cave the mountain in on it. And that would certainly give you the upper hand. And as has been discussed over group text and individual text, I do have an adult Topaz dragon miniature sitting in my car. Oh, wow. Should such events transpire. But right now, yes, you're sort of sitting on the outskirts and blame.

I do want to give. I think it could be interesting if you wanted to go ahead and cast the tech magic. But I would just need you to check for me like the distance. You'd have to close on the nest to actually investigate whether there's magic still in the nest. The tech magic is 12 mile range. What? Fucking with you, 11 miles.

What is it? It is 30 feet. So you would have to spend, I would say. I would have to get at least within, at least 30 feet. I think you have enough time where, just kind of like looking at the mountain. You could potentially get up if you climbed or had someone fly you up and there and back. And if you were flying it right there and back detecting it and maybe like 15 minutes. But if you want to root around in the nest, that's all I would almost feel like there definitely is magic.

Just just the I can guarantee like there definitely is magic. Just just the. Oh, I can guarantee you there will be magic. But what kind of auras you would see whether or not there are hidden things. OK, do you think there might be like weapons or something? No, or just like the dragon's treasure. Like, yeah, I was just thinking that there might be something in there that might give us an upper hand.

Cool. That sounds awesome. You know, if there's any crazy amulets or rods or staffs or anything. Or ice cream. Somebody want to fly up the mountain and go check all that shit? Yeah, I'm open to it because I don't trust this fucking giant thing that we pissed off. Yeah. And who are we going to send to the topaz? Wait, are we going to send all of us?

Well, it can only be one, apparently. They really can only be, you know, I thought we were talking about Blaine. I'll clarify. Yeah. I'll clarify that it hasn't come up, but we'll call it passive insight. But this is really your dungeon master explaining. She's inclined to only bring one of you. She's she would have to like carry somebody to get within teleportation range.

God, she can't carry. You could maybe convince her to do more than one, but she doesn't have like a little hut she can carry on her back like a taxi. I mean, it seems. What language would you have to speak to talk to that dragon or is it? Draconic, right? Probably draconic, but also she talked to us.

It could speak a number of languages and there is a perhaps obvious benefit of sending whoever has the highest persuasion. Yeah, I think because that's been Pish Posh, right? You've kind of been like our, I think, most charismatic leader does speak draconic. I have very low chrisman Sarah or blaine does that fall under character great chef skills. Do you guys are you guys charming particularly? No, I don't think you're conic but no yeah, I'm not I have a charisma of not let's just say I'm Have a high intimidation What's your persuasion bonus?

Why don't we do a check in of you and perhaps the three plus three? Yeah. A zero. Can you do a serino and give somebody a charisma? Could we do a serino? I don't know. I do want to check. Sarah, you said you do speak draconic though.

Do you want that? That's what I was thinking. So do you have a better than a plus three to your persuasion? I have a plus two. Okay. Oh, that's better than me. I have a plus two. OK, that's better than me. I have zero. Yeah. Yeah. But if you yeah, if you speak draconian.

No, what is a dragon? Draconic, draconic. OK. Yeah, well, let's see what I mean. First, I think part of this also is getting what? So it was a fun degree. Well, to believe that we're in on right. Yeah, which again, I think would fall to fish posh and potentially Intimidation sir. What's your character's name?

Bricks. Oh, yeah bricks bricks Yeah, maybe you two could kind of like By the way glibbles does speak Draconic. He has a plus one. Oh, well, let's take him then. No, I think you would be your third choice at best. Also, NPC not fun to send. Yeah, because of nothing else, Bricks and Pishposh are going to have to convince

glut to that we're we are in fact doing what she wants and not tricking her. Oh well and which is a deception check. That's like that's deception right. Oh well how do we determine that? Which can be in any language. Deception can be in any language. So if anyone wants three to deception. Yeah it's all charism.

The charisma risk. I know plus one! Very powerful. Yeah plus two also. Say what's your charisma? Zero intimidation, zero persuasion. I'm not plus one. Very powerful. Yeah, plus two also. Sam, what's your charisma?

Zero intimidation. What's stallytails? Plus zero. So it must be 10. I'm just average. Was plus one our biggest bonus? No, plus three. Plus three.

Oh, I'm sorry. My deception. Oh, yours? OK. I have a plus two. Should we send Calvin? You don't speak. So I do. I'm dragging. Deception, you don't speak. So I do.

This dragon deception is going to be any language. He speaks to your dragon. So Pish Posh is kind of leading. I say send Ken. Yeah. Maybe Ken speak for it sounds like both for the party and to talk to the Topaz dragon. Yeah.

Okay. And Bricks do whatever she can do to help man. Let's talk about the rest of your plan too. Yeah. OK. And Bricks do whatever she can do to help me. Let's talk about the rest of your plan, too. Yeah. Like so you could try to talk her into sending more than one person. She does have two arms with which to carry. Not a lot of room on her forewing back, but you probably would all think, OK, she's going to assume the rest of us will stay here as a sort of collateral. But do you want to actually, as soon as she flies away with somebody,

book it to fair in town to the end? Keep in mind, if you send Pish Posh, he'll have the staff. Right. So if you wanted to fuck with the eggs right away, there's that. If you wanted to wait for him to fly in the back of a Topaz dragon, the staff will have to wait till the Topaz dragon shows up. Would my being a dragon affect God's believing me? I wouldn't want to kill another.

I would need a great little insight check from you. Is this our first check of the game today? Hooray. Insight check, please. That's a three. Oh, game today. Hooray. Insight check, please. That's a three. Oh, well. You don't know. I would say, though, that you are a black dragonborn.

And they are typically known to be a bit shitty. Mean. Hey, come on. Mean. I'm trying to think of a funny way to say evil. Usually they're evil dragons and dragonborn and, um, you know, she's onyx and black, similar, but different. She could potentially, there could, with that low of a role, I couldn't tell you, but I'm

telling you what I think you as a character would already know. Would she believe us if we wanted to go down to the town, the rest of us went to the town? Because then whoever went to the town, I don't think you'd want to mess up, mess with the dragon eggs. I assume she has all kinds of like words or ways to know if something's happening. Would you use the time to like, like rally the troops and kind of get the whole town ready to fight? and like rally the troops and kind of get the whole town. Yeah. Ready to. Ready to fight if nothing else, let them know the shit's about to go down.

You don't know if you'd have to talk her into it, but. Potentially, I get people get people out of the town to say, hey, get your babies. You could you could potentially do it without her knowing. Yeah. Or you could pitch her pitch it to her like hey, you know, we're doing it Up to you seems like right sneaky, right Yeah, I think again

As soon as you guys are sort of done planning. I'll have you do a group insight check and then she will arrive All right, so I'm gonna set well, I've got a timer running already All right. So I'm gonna set, well, I've got a timer running already. I'm gonna give you just a couple more minutes. I'll give you that too, if you saw it. Oh, perfect, thank you. The classic, haven't used it in a while. Hourglass has been flipped.

Yeah, I think we've used it since before COVID. But as soon as that sand is out, Glut's gonna show up. And you can do an insight check as she shows up. All right. But any other thoughts? I believe this is a two or five minute timer we're about to find out.

I think it's a two. Yeah. Anybody, what do we think? We're gonna split up? I think anything but trust her is the option. Sure. Yeah, so. I also don't trust her.

Yeah, I think it's you. I also don't trust. Yeah. Yeah. I think you I think it's you. I think you're you're convincing and going. Yeah. And then do we go to the town? Would you say Farrinen? We're in town. Farrin town. Yeah. As soon as your guys are out of sight,

we try and book it as fast as we can. Is she going to come back here to our space looking for us? Doesn't matter at that point. Well, and I'll throw one more thing at you guys without the insight check. I believe Ken has your primary mode of teleportation with him. So if you send him, it might be,

take you longer to get to Farrington. Well, we can just chill here. Sure. I mean, what's the plan? What's the plan for Ken Ken, you go in, you convince the Topaz Dragon, but she's gonna be waiting for the mountain to come. I was gonna say, yeah, she's coming with her.

You can see Glut is rising out of her nest and starting to fly towards you. You're gonna have to ride out with the Topaz Dragon to surprise her, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Basically. Yeah. Sand's done. Everyone roll insight check To surprise her, you know what I mean? Basically, yeah sans done

Everyone roll insight check to see if there's anything else Maybe your dungeon master could tell you about what's about to happen. I Will even have old glibbles. Oh, you know anything use Ken squirrel die 14 6 6 22 nice Six. Six. Twenty two. Nice. Twenty two. Thirteen plus five. Eighteen. Eight. Also great.

So I'm hearing the two high numbers is 18 and 22. Yeah, I had a 14. Great. Yes, I was looking for either a 15 or 20 for different levels of insight here. With a 15, I can tell you that she's probably going to want you to stay here. She's probably going to say one person comes with me, everyone else stay here. OK. And with a 20, I can tell you it's almost certainly going to be a race against time. The second you convince, if you do convince the Topaz Dragon to come with you,

it's probably going to set off a flag pretty quickly to Glut that you're betraying her, the second you have recruited the Topaz Dragon. So if you're not down in town, that sequence of events is likely to kick off whether you're near the town or not. So everyone else should head down. If she wants the eggs to hatch and you are waiting, they the eggs will be hatching and unleashing their power

on Farron town before you get there. Oh, shit. So we should tell her we're going to stay, but book it. And she you. Wink lands on the edge of the cave. She doesn't see you anymore, by the way. I said, wink. Hold on. It's easier to understand what Brian said

when you can, you know, see the other side of the table. What was your question though, Blaine? I'll pretend I might answer if you ask again. Oh, she was, just to refresh my memory, she was heading off to deal with her eggs. She was giving you time to think and she was just sort of killing the hour

sitting on her eggs. Okay. And now, she's back. And now we're back. Yes, and she is just stewing the azimar form this time and simply landing as a dragon on the edge of the cave And she says so what will it be? Are you helping me? Although we're not completely thrilled about it, I think we have no other choice. We're gonna go with Tim Walls.

Topical. So I will come with you. You're the one who will accompany me. I'm the one. Why don't you get in here? What the hell? A pooch. It's Glett.

There's a giant furry dragon in here. I'll say. And then the rest of you will be waiting here. I guess so. She kind of like makes eye contact with you. Roll a deception check, fishposh. Ken, Ken, Ken, Ken. Yay, 17. Push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push push I don't know. I don't think you'll see me roll it if we don't have roll 20 open, but she's gonna roll it You wanna buy us some actual dice?

No, I'm good. I still get a number that pops up. It makes me laugh Because I know what it is and you don't yeah, she knows her eyes at you and she wraps the claws of her front left arm around you and holds so tight that you almost get the wind knocked out of you. So comfortable? Back soon, she says, looking at all of you. She sails away from Ferrentown in another direction.

Another direction. Another direction. Another direction. Another direction. Another direction. A nearby mountain, she said that is about 50 miles away where the Topaz Dragon lies. We will get to Pish Posh and Glut in a moment, but first, how are the rest of you handling trying to hustle to Ferrentown?

With gumption and vigor now there's one who blame I forget do you have can you carry any of us or I forget do you know no I'm a cat that's right he's so many times I've been so oddly enough I think because you have wings, Brian, you might actually be the token hang glider at the moment. Yeah, but I move pretty slowly, don't I? Yeah, although if you're gliding downwards, I might give you a slight bonus to your speed

because of how high up you are. Cool. I'll take a slight bonus. Pfft. Ha ha ha. I mean, it's a sound like that. Yeah, I know. Yeah, let's we should try that.

Right. Let's run. Let's do it. So no innocents get killed. If people are going to die, it should be us. But are you all just going to cling to Mordecai as he tries to? Well, I doubt he's little. He's little and the cat's little. You all look over the side and there's just this sheer cliff that kind of like concave bends inwards, jagged rocks.

I can polymorph into something with wings. Oh sure can. Brian was actually onto something again. Didn't want to give it away, but you have wild shape. Yeah, I can, how about a cat with wings? I think that's not a good idea. What if it was something else though? Something big enough that we can all ride you like a cat.

I can think a 747 thing. How about a 747 sized Pelican? Nice. I don't think that's an option, but I like where you're going with it. What's the biggest bird you can be? I'll give you a choice. You can either keep guessing until I say too much time

has passed where Blep has just been rubbing his chin, or you can do an insight check, or what would you like to do? How about a dragon? Yeah, I was gonna say either an eagle or a dragon or a giant pelican that everybody can get in my pouch. Well, I think a giant pelican is off the table because I don't think that's an existing thing.

A beast? Oh, and dragons are. But I'm looking. I think it has to do with like the size. Dad, you could be a dinosaur. Right. I think you can be either like a pterodactyl or a giant eagle. Yeah. But I'm just checking the size that you can do at your level. A giant eagle with like an American flag.

A pterodactyl. Yeah. Or a brooch. Yeah, that's what he was doing with his little hand. Johnny. Wait, do you have wild shape? Or no, polymorph, we're talking polymorph or Tom polymorph a dual? Do I keep thinking your dr. Uid?

Polymore is the one that called a Creature you can see will new form to do to do to do any beast whose challenge rating is equal to or less than Did you do any beast whose challenge rating is equal to or less than? Their challenge rating I'm trying what is it PC's challenge rating Oh Brother Is challenge rating equal to or less than the target. Did you do? I'm looking, I'm looking, sorry, sorry. No, this is D and D man.

Yeah. It's your level. So what level are you BLEP is the question. I'm level eight. So you can do a level eight challenge rating creature which I think is pretty good. I'm just gonna look at the challenge ratings of said flappy creatures. A giant eagle. Of course listeners at this point have already pulled it up on their

phones and are going come on but it is oh a challenge rating of one so that's no problem at all. For sure. And then eight giant eagles. That's the thing. Maybe cool. Or an eight person capacity. Giant eagle slash rock.

We only needed three person capacity. Excuse me. Legroom. That's true. As we were watching more peanuts, please. Electro, if you think of something besides giant ego or want to stick with the giant ego, great, but I am just kind of pulling up your options that I'll give you with a passive insight right now.

Yeah, I think, I think giant eagle is Eagle is good enough, I believe. Yeah, like I just pulled up Tyranodon and it's a challenge one to four if you want to make it big. But there's got to be something bigger than a Giant Eagle that could go faster. I just don't know what it is. You'd have to pull it up on your own on a D&D Beyond or something. Well, if you all climb aboard. The Eagle Train, I can just float by myself.

You would definitely go a little slower than the Giant Eagle. So I'm just going to count if it's. What do you call it when they serves two characters behind on their airstream? Drafting. Yeah, it's like draft. It would be a lot of people on the Giant Eagles so I will give them a bonus to their speed and you a bonus to your speed Brian if you go separately but you will get there after everybody else.

That's okay I'm gonna draft. Okay. Entire rope on a waterski. Yeah that's cool. Everyone except for Mordecai, the loner, the chef. The equaler. The equaler. The equaler runs parallel. Like Marty McFly. You all hop on and you start rushing towards Ferentown, push, push, just alone with Glutch.

She's not talking. Do you say anything? Do you strike up a conversation? Well I flap my arms as if I'm an Onyx Dragon. I'm very serious about going to kill this dragon. You go through this wilderness for a long time high up in the clouds. You can barely see the ground sometimes. There's just too many clouds beneath you. She starts to go beneath the clouds and you can see in the distance there is some kind of mountain range. She tells you... All right. I am now going to teleport you inside of Mount Pord Rock. We are in the country of Lazra. You are far, far away from your friends.

And you think in your head a certain amount of time has passed, would you like to roll an insight to guess how long you've been flying? What kind of distance might be talking about? You have no idea except it is something you've been flying somewhere between Half an hour and two hours perfect, but because of the quiet you lose kind of the thread of linear time it's a long time to be just like Without insight check do you foresee any problems with me dispatching this dragon? I do. You could be distracted.

I don't want you to be distracted. That's why I'm asking. You're going to be teleported in and then there are going to be a series of staircases that you will need to ascend and you'll need to leave a drop of blood in a small... What's it called? Sister? I'm trying to... Chalice? need to leave a drop of blood in a small. What's the call? But I'm trying to. And I'm chalice. I have the covid like can't pull the word saying

it's like an indentation monkey dish, an indentation. Oh, I'm going to give you a rune stone and you will after having dropped placed a drop of blood in each of these little dents, the runestone will fit right over your blood and begin one of the five parts of the spell that will bring the mountain down. This was created as a failsafe by the dwarves who used to live inside Mount Pord Rock. Interesting.

Don't get distracted. who used to live inside Mount Pord Rock. Interesting. Don't get distracted. You'll notice there is also a tunnel that leads straight ahead. Once to the great kingdom of Lazra, now the den of a Topaz dragon. You will not want to speak to that Topaz dragon. It may try to bargain its way into your head, but you're not going to do that, are you,

Pish Posh? Is this not the dragon I'm going to kill? No. She's trying to get you to like, swear that you're not going to talk to it, you're just going to kill it. Got it. Hey. You won't get distracted, will you?

I don't think so. You don't think so? All right. You're rolling the distracted, will you? I don't think so. You don't think so. All right. You're rolling a deception check again, then. You are making it seem very distracting. She's trying to intimidate you. That's nine. Deception, you said?

Mm-hmm. Okay. Can you do a wisdom saving throw, please? Yes. Ooh, well, that's a... Can't run. Okay. Can you do a wisdom saving throw, please? Yes. Ooh, well that's a- Can't run. That's a five. A chill goes up your spine

and you feel the tingling all over your scales. I just- Oh no, oh no, she cast dandruff shampoo. Needed a little bit of reassurance. I think you'll cooperate now, or you know, you just might not continue to live. Look, I'm gonna try not to get distracted. You're just making it sound real complicated. I'll be waiting nearby. I'll know if you've done what you were supposed to do. Alright.

Um... She's now going to cast teleport on you. Do you resist? No, why would I? I don't know. She's sending me on my mission. Yes. Yeah, I don't know. People are like, can run just to get. I know how crazy you people are.

She can. I do not exist. You suddenly feel your atoms all rushing. Far through existence and you are now inside a mountain. I'm on television. You see there are six paths before you five one in the middle stairwells that go up and sort of like underneath them is a stairwell that goes a short distance down and then straight ahead. You see there is like a little pin perk of light at the end of the tunnel straight ahead.

And the five stairwells kind of like branch off in two different directions, but there are sort of two short stairwells that then go around. It's hard to describe Let's just say it looks like there's a final central Rune placement you're supposed to make You feel your pocket there is a now heavy rune stone in your pocket Did glut teleport that into his pocket? It seems like she at least placed it there. Yeah, but you are only noticing this now. What would you like to do? Make sure you still have your credit cards. I was.

I will start the ritual. So you're going to go ahead and place drops of blood. Do I do I see where the tunnel she was talking about is? Yeah, it's this it's the short. The one that started me while I in point, I get my keys out for reasons related to health Whoa? What was that again It's where the pinpoint of light was yeah, so if you go down like ten feet of stairs and straight ahead

there is what looks like the tunnel that leads to the topaz dragon and then the final most dramatic looking of the Places you're probably have to the rune stone down there. It has like sort of two stairwells going around that Sort of cave and then up but there's also two on either side of you that go up you think these stairs up to An indentation where you will place a drop of your blood and then the rune stone. Okay. And I have five rune stones, you said? One.

Oh, oh, I see. You're expected to reuse it. Oh. Yeah. Oh, cheap. Okay. Yeah, I will start doing the process of the blood and the runestone. You head up the far right stairwell.

It goes up about two stories and there's very little distance from the top of the stairwells. There's no door, nothing, but a pedestal with an indentation. You feel in your pocket and take out a runestone that is about the size of an iPhone. There is a complex rune on it and you can tell the rune is supposed to go rune up. The indentation is the size of an iPhone, like a little bed for an iPhone to charge. And you assume you're supposed to cut your hand so a drop of blood lands in the indentation and then place the runestone on top of it. Right. I will do that on the first one. All right. When you place a drop of blood, the shale, the gray shale rock suddenly starts to glow orange. And when you place the runestone on top, there's a rumbling and you feel the whole

mountain start to shake. Okay. And you see the pedestal sort of push the indentation up so that the runestone goes from being embedded in the top of the pedestal to sitting level on top of it and the rumbling stops. Okay. Did that get the attention of the dragon? You have not in any way tried to sense its presence,

but I'll let you do a perception check. Okay. Because now you're asking. Now you are. Yeah, I'm hoping to get its attention. That might do it. All right. Yeah, we'll see. Well, that's a 11. You think you might hear distant rumbling, but

you're not sure what that what that rumbling is. OK. sure what that rumbling is. Okay. The Rune Stone just this kind of sitting flat where there once was a little indent. So you could just sort of pick it up again. I'll grab it, yeah. You head back down the stairs. You can see there's still that pinprick of light

down a hall if you were to go down some stairs or you could ascend one of the other four paths up and continue with the ritual. Uh, I will head for another pad. Okay. Another. You ascend. You notice a similar pedestal and indentation. Do you go through it again? Yep. Same deal. Uh, the whole mountain shakes again. I do a perception check to see if you notice anything different. And 11 again. Again, you think you might hear some thundering sounds echoing through the tunnels, but you feel like you're

too far away from the chamber that the dragon is in to really get a sense of if it's coming from the dragon or the chamber. How many more are there now? Four more? Phone calls coming from inside the chamber again. Three more. Three more, all right.

You've done the two on the right, I'll say. Okay, I'll do one more. So we'll say the far left, you head up a stairwell, a similar pedestal, do you do the ritual again? Yes. Again, the Rhinestone is pushed up out of the indentation, which suddenly sort of disappears and becomes flat. Roll perception check.

That's a 17. You're sure you hear noises at this point. It sounds like there is crashing in the distance. Could be the dragon moving around, could be the mountain beginning to cave in, but you haven't investigated that chamber that the dragon's supposedly in to know for sure what that sound is. I'm gonna head down the tunnel. Okay. You come down, you've now initiated the sequence on three of the five pedestals.

You head down the short flight of stairs and begin walking down the tunnel. And we'll have to find out what's at the end of that tunnel on our next episode of Nerdpokery. Sam, what do you think happened? Hey, episode 25, we're lying to a dragon about our plan. We're headed to Ferrentown to do something. Blaine is transforming into a giant pelican or a dragon There's staircases. We need to climb. We need to leave a drop of blood and an indentation. Why are we knocking down this mountain? I got to stop goofing off during Dan's recaps. Oh wait knocking down is gonna kill a dragon. I'm up to date

Ken's cutting his hand and putting it in a rune stone into a divot Anything you want to plug my friend? My movie adaptation of The Land the Time Forgot should be getting shot in Australia soon. They don't have it like with an official release date, but for those of you not familiar with the asylum, they put out about 30 movies a year. They cost about $5 to make. There is nothing I could do to make these dinosaurs have feathers or look any more special

than a dinosaur rendered by a Windows 95 computer. So it'll be very cheap and ridiculous and probably go straight to Tubi. But if you follow me on Instagram, you'll probably hear rumblings of it. Nice. Where am I? No, I got Phoenix coming up the 18th of August,

and then I've got Sacramento punchline Thursday, Friday, Saturday with my buddy Johnny Taylor. Those shows will be nuts. And then next month, I'm been to Florida fucking forever. And I'm coming there with JT Habersat to do Orlando, Tampa and one other place I forget I think Gainesville but check out brianplacine.com for tour dates or follow me on social medias thanks to all our Patreon sponsors for supporting us. We really appreciate it. And then my comic books. Second issue of Gromits is being reissued this week,

our second printing of it. And then three's out now and selling out places and it's crazy. People really love it. And pick up Rifters too, because Rifters is a lot of fun. That's it for me. Blame. gang travels back in time to save the Lindbergh baby. Or was it Jack the Ripper? Can the Rupert driver Armando get there in time? All this and Brian shits on his balls wrong. Yes, I

said shits. On episode of Nerd Poker. You can follow us at patreon.com slash nerd poker and you get bonus episodes from there and you can also send us anything at P.O. Box 16069 and Sino California 91416. Thanks for listening.