Nerd Poker - The Mountain Campaign - Episode 29

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

Now that it's time to rest, a real plan will surely hatch. Soon Furlnott the topaz draon will return and everything will be fine because- well we aren't sure what Pishposh is doing exactly, but it's probably great!  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, and of course, our kickass DM, Dan Telfer. Welcome to Nerd Poker. Hey everybody, it's Brian Pessain. You're listening to Nerd Poker. Take seven of episode 29. My friends are here. We're doing the mountain campaign.

I'm going to get through it. Watch me. Chris is here. Hey, buddy. Hello, Brian. How are you? I'm good. Sarah's here. Snap, crackle, pop. Hello. Ken's here. Hi, Brian. Blaine's here.

Yes, Mr. Poseyne. Mm-hmm. And our Dungeon Master, Dan, is here. Hey, boss. Hey, man. And at the end of the table, our friend, Sam. Hello, sweet children. Hey, buddy.

We should jump right in. Sure. Shall I thank some listeners? Why don't you? If you subscribe at patreon.com slash nerd poker, you can get all sorts of things like three bonus episodes a month. But if you're at our top two tiers on Patreon, we'll give you a shout out once per quarter. Those folks go by usernames like Dick Trebuchet. Thank you, Dick Trebuchet. Thank you, Douglas

Scott. Thank you, Ben Kavaleck. Thank you, Clove Thistlefoot. Thank you Ben Kavallik. Thank you Clove Thistlefoot. Thank you Devona Uppie Rock. Thank you Anemone of the State. Thank you Wart Hog. Thank you Lesser Molestoration, AKA Mage Handjob. Don't like that. Thank you Scott Parker. Thank you, I just farted a little,

but I think something came out. Prepare for the smell. Yeah. I'm getting pimped for, but I think something came out. Prepare for the smell. Yeah. I'm getting pimped for some real gross jokes today, folks. Thank you. Six Bae Bae. Thank you. Orcus Caillou Caillou. Am I too loud? No.

Okay. Thank you for watching my airport bags at the plane station. Thank you. Apiaryx. Thank you. Apiaryx. Thank you, Smurfette's Conspicuous Bulge. Thank you, Big Angry NPC. Thank you, Kugle Bear. And finally, thank you, Rollin' on Molly with Friar Jolly. Blaine, who are those supporters brought to us by?

Supporters brought to us by Bud Plugs, Marijuana Butt Plugs, Sativa for the end, Indica for the ass, now available in edibles, but trust me, you don't want those. Butt plugs, ain't it's the best thing you ever shoved up your butt, you butt your ass. Butt plugs, Dan. Thank you, Blaine. Thank you for that particular ad

because of the merch that we get sent in the mail. And now it is time to talk about- The thing I've noticed about the companies that we get sent in the mail. And now it is time to talk about, you know, the thing I've noticed about the, the companies that advertise with us, you really don't want their products. Like a lot of it seemed like bad ideas. I like that they promoting our show. It's really helpful, but we got $420,000 from the bug plug company. Oh, okay.

Really? Well, that's worth it. I feel like the ratings for pre-haw really took off after they did this. For sure. I don't know. I'm just getting old. Right. You're not. Want to look a gift horse in the butt and.

Take the money and run. Sarah, why you got to work with. Hey. And silence. I suppose now I could talk about what happened the last time on Nerd Boker. I think, uh, well, how do I put this? I just re-listened to the last episode on the drive over to Brian's house and there's something about it that makes me laugh and I don't know if I should tell the players. But I'm going to fit it in, I think. It's the middle of the night,

it's about two in the morning. About eight hours ago, our heroes were told by Notfurl, the Topaz dragon, that he would come back in 24 hours and expect some sort of results from the delichification of his five eggs that were fertilized via Glut, the Onyx dragon who is currently whammied and under a charm spell and being interrogated by Notferlck upon a mountain. Pesh Polish is in a trance extracting souls from the eggs, a few thousand of souls from the eggs, and putting them in the staff. A lot of things were discussed about what would happen next, but we know that when he's done, he'll do an Archana check and there'll be somewhere randomly between

30 seconds and 30 minutes for them to do something before the staff explodes. I don't think Pish Posh knows what everybody is going to do when he's done doing that, but hopefully it's something that can be executed in 30 seconds to 30 minutes. We now take you to the beginning of the second watch about to be in progress. Who would like to be on watch? I believe last watch was Brian and Sarah. That makes sense. Do we need to? I'll just take it over. Nope.

I'll do one. Cool. Okay, Dally Tail. I can't, I imagine. You have taken, I think, two hours sleep and you would have to disrupt and try to reengage, which you could do if you want, but it seems like you're kind of behind four to six hours on where you'd like to be with this process. So, Dallytail Sharptwig, roll a perception check, please. Seven plus five twelve.

It takes a while before you really notice anything. It's starting to become a clearer night. There were clouds at first that covered the moon. You think at one point you hear a roar in the distance. Is it Katy Perry? But then there is silence and like being a creature of nature. Can I recognize what this roar is? You do a nature check. Yes, certainly. Like being a creature of nature, can I recognize what this roar is?

If you do a nature check, yes. Certainly. I mean, I feel like... She had an album named Roar or something. Is that the Katy Perry song? I'm having such an insane deja vu because we had this exact conversation, including is that Katy Perry conversation about the word roar. And it's a Katy Perry song, I think, is where we landed last time. So let's land there again Yeah, I know what we had the same discussion. Do we talk about the movie were? Mmm, I don't know that amazing. I know what you're talking about

Yeah Cuz I know Puddles no, it scares me. He party covers it I read a whole book about memory and I don't remember any of it But it was supposed to make me feel better about how I'm losing my memory. I think it was a while ago. And I did at the time when I read it. Everything's gone crazy.

What was your nature check? Ten. Ten? You've never heard anything like it, you know that much. It's called remember. Is there any way with my like speaking to animals and stuff, I don't want to abandon watch. Is there a way to like communicate with the creatures of the forest around us? Well, you know, you're up on a little plateau, but if you like, you can kind of

scamper down the cliff face, you know, easily. You're a squirrel and try to, like, find some nearby trees and find some creatures. But you're in, you know, like, you know, like the desolation of smog, the desolation of glut has occurred here. And most of this village has been sort of, you know, smoked by the napalm breath. So there's not a lot of wildlife, but you could go searching. No, I don't want to abandon watch. I want to note that horrific roar and keep my eye open. Cool. We'll be taking a third one? I'll do it. Okay. And I believe at this point,

um, excuse me, Glibbles has had his eight hours so he can get up with you. Oh, great. So if you'd like to roll perception, he'll join you. Did I notice for at all or was I concentrated? I'm gonna join you. Did I notice the board at all or was I concentrated too much? You're kind of tuned out. It's gonna take someone being loud near you or deliberately physically touching you for you to feel like you've had some sort of stimulus happen.

So that's fantastic. 17 plus 623. Meow. That's pretty good. I don't think Wibble's gonna beat that, but we're gonna roll real quick. Do I see any laser dots or any reflection of phones on the wall?

No, although Dally Tail, real quick. Do I see any laser dots or any reflection of phones on the wall? No. Although Dallytail, Gloogles rolled a two. Oh. So he's, you just hear him humming to himself a lot flipping through his journal, making entries, reading old entries. You do hear a roar, not unlike what Dallytail described to you at one point. Can I identify the nature check? Yes, you could try. Natural 20 with a 1, 21. Nice. It's far away, extremely loud, and it sounds otherworldly, like nothing you've heard before.

You think there's a reasonable chance it is the Topaz Dragon. Him? Mm-hmm. Okay. The pretty one. it is the Topaz Dragon. Hmm. Him? Mm-hmm. Okay. He blind pointed at our miniature. That's more of a maxiature.

It's very large. From the, and that's kind of where they had, where they had gone, I would be able to tell where they had... It's echoing through the mountains. It's difficult to say for sure. That's kind of the only reason why you can't place it. With... With high perception, check as you got though, I would say, yeah, I feel like just like, you know, cat senses, you're like, like looking from

where the sound is bouncing off. And it's like, it's probably came from over there. And did it sound like a hostile roar? Or did it sound like a sex roar? Did it's like, it's probably came from over there. And did it sound like a hostile roar or did it sound like a sex roar? Did it sound like an argument or a happy? You're getting very specific. You did roll very high and everything, but please roll an insight check anyway. 17 plus six 23, uh, sorrowful pained. So a sex roar then. Uh, sorrowful, pained. Oh, no. So a sex roar then. Well, he is, you know, I guess he's a, you know, he's a few thousand years old.

It happens to all of us. That's a Ritz-Pyrtle type song guy. So, are you going to react at all? Are you just going to take this information for a moment? I think I'll wait until everybody's awake. The sun begins to poke up over the mountains. Everybody wakes up except for Pish Posh who is still in trance. His eyes rolled back in his head.

You see a dull green magic, you know, flowing from the five eggs into the staff. Pish Posh kind of rocking back and forth. Okay. Meow, meow guys. Meow, meow, meow. I heard a meow, meow, sorrowful dragon roar. Meow. Coming through the mountains.

Meow. Oh yeah. So that was what you probably heard. Meow. Yeah. Maybe. I hear shit. Yeah.

You were on the toilet. I wonder if he hurt. Maybe she told him what she did to the eggs or I think mind control is over and I think hopefully only one dragon will be coming here to kill us. Right. That's the good version of that story. I'm rooting for Topaz if we have to pick. You have to pick who you want to fight.

Right. No, I didn't say anything about fighting. I don't know why must everything. I just missed the beginning of that statement, so I wasn't sure why you said to pass. I said, oh, hopefully only one dragon will be coming here to kill us. Oh, hopefully Topaz. Interesting. OK. OK. But I mean, can we is there any way for us to check in with Pish Posh

and see how dragon drain goes? You'd have to take him out of his trance and then he'd have to roll again and reengage How are they looking the eggs? Everybody do a perception check except for Pish Posh, please Actually Pish Posh you do a perception check to it too is just kind of a different context than everybody else 13 Pish Posh, you're not playing Dungeons and Dragons anymore. You're trying too hard. What was that Blaine? 13.

Okay. Oh, sorry. 17. 19. Jinxels. 16. Did someone say 17? Yes.

Okay. So, Dallytail, Mordecai, you can kind of tell the, it looks like the eggs have shriveled a bit, almost like they've gone from being enamel to like this soft leather that's starting to have like ripples in it. You, Pish Posh, you feel like things are going reasonably well. That's good. You've, you've felt hundreds and hundreds of souls being channeled out of the eggs and into the staff. But you feel an alarming amount of momentum. You're becoming more and more sensitive to the fact that the staff is holding far more souls than it was ever meant to.

It was only meant to hold like 10. And now you've got, you know, more than a couple thousand in there. So starting to get a little disconcerting. It's not any heavier, strangely. Not yet. Mordecai, are you making breakfast? Sure. Do you want to roll to make breakfast?

Yeah. Can I get a survival check and you tell everybody what they're eating? Oh, great. What's nearest that I can probably probably for some eggs over there? I would say a dally tail, having kind of like looked around for nature, he could tell you there's not really much, but there's small lizards and maybe a bird's nest that you could get some eggs out of. Well, they roll a 19, so it's probably pretty good.

OK, you have to kind of walk off far away. Vegan chef. Huh? Isn't he a vegan? It's up to him. Yeah, so it's probably pretty good. Okay. You have to kind of walk off far at the way down. Is he a vegan chef? Isn't he a vegan chef? It's up to him. Yeah, but I cook for other people. It doesn't matter. Oh, okay. I didn't know that actually.

I didn't realize. Oh yeah. You made that meat for the ghost. That's true. He did. Pardon me for the ghost. I moved my stuff up. So if you guys want protein,

you know, you should be out here. How does she keep escaping? I don't know. Guys, I think she's carrying a lockpick. So yeah, you're able to collect a handful of small lizards that look edible and a handful of eggs. You just have to kind of like leave camp and go up a tree that's like on the bottom of the cliff. OK, I can help out with that. If it's. Yes, oraging. Dolly tail speeds it along.

So you're able to go collect the eggs really quickly. And you're able to just pick up the. OK, well, I make a little lizard omelet for the people that want it. And then we do an omelet. Some lizard. Nothing in it. If you want to play. Everybody not want the lizard meat. For I want that ship.

Anybody? I really opposed. I can't have it, but I don't know what's happening. I'll say you want to spoon feed Pish Posh. Well, totally the lizard. Yeah. Oh, nice. Hi.

Bricks with Bricks. You need. Certainly, if it's provided, We need some sustenance for the day. Or the death, as it may be. As as you're all digging in, can I get a perception check from everybody? Except for you. Pish-posh, this time I refuse to let you roll. Bye!

16. Okay. I gots to know. 14. 12. Nine. to know. 14. Well, for me, nine. All right, but while you're eating German, you see a flicker of amber in the distance and you look up and you see that Topaz and onyx dragons are flying quickly towards you.

They are about. 16 hours early. Oh, make making good time. They said they give you are from that said he'd give you 24 hours. It's been like eight to 10 hours. That's not true. It's been three shifts of watch. So 12 plus it's been 14 hours. You're 10 hours early.

I bet they detected the souls being sucked from the eggs. They had a sorrowful roar because they were upset at their children being drained. And they're coming back here to kill and eat us. That may be true, but he didn't know what she had done to them in the first place. So our argument to him was, oh, we'll fix them. And then you can have your children back, but which is probably not possible. But, you know, we didn't lie to him. So we'll see. We will see. I would just like to share that I brought my red toolbox with me today. That was a gift from listener Preston Snow, who gave it to me at a show.

I did in Santa Barbara. It is my box of bad things. If things go right at this point, I will take things out that I have been saving for absolute worst case ending scenarios. Brian has walked away. Are you, are you just letting Willie out? Brian Brian's going to go out and poop. Okay. It's got it. got to get in the room.

Yeah, I couldn't tell what was going on. Sorry. Well, I didn't want to tell you. OK, I didn't want to leave you out of narrative. So you've got a few seconds. Oh, I'm going to try and find a good hiding place. Tactically, like somewhere again, still at the edge, but like maybe not in view. Yeah, I'm going to get under the couch. OK, I don't notice anything.

You don't. Should we wake him up? I don't notice anything. You don't. Should we wake him up? No. We just got to keep. I'll set the little. OK, Brian's got the hourglass out of you. You know, I need to talk about it, but. Yeah.

Equal. What do you think you're going to try and talk to him first? Well, yeah. He had they're here early, so I think we have a leg to stand on and say what you said. Twenty four hours. We've got your back equaler. The two of them land. They fly in quickly and rather quietly.

It's it's disconcerting the kind of aggressive way they're just swooping in. Can I get an insight check from everybody? Except Pish-Posh? Oh, you'll have plenty of action in a few minutes, I think. 16. 16. Nice. 12. Okay. Just perception. Insight, please. Oh, Insight. 12. Well, okay. Bleph Bricks, you notice that, although it is really hard to read the expression on Feral Knots' face, because it's basically made of these translucent gems. He is, he lands really quickly and then his posture stays very low, his head and neck are low to the ground. It looks a little aggressive. He looks to all of you and then stares at Pish Pasha's back, which you may remember,

he thought Pish Pasha was speaking to him while in the trance. He says to Pish Pasha's back, tell me, do you really think that you can save my children? Yes or no? He can't hear that, right? No. Okay. So I'm going to step forward. And I'm going to say he can't, he is occupied right now and can't respond. But we all were here and we he senses a monologue coming and snaps his head towards you and says, Yes, or no. We think we're trying it if we didn't think so. Yes. Yes.

I was just speaking to clut, and she was explaining the magic she used. She as far as I can tell was being honest as she was being magically manipulated to be honest. She said there were never any real children. That she only mated with me because Topaz dragons are held together with necromantic energy and so she could give birth to eggs that were not viable in the first place but laced with necrotic magic so that she could imbue them with souls and turn them into demons. Oh. So tell me exactly, human, are you elf?

What are you? Problematic. An elf? Who is trying to help. Tell me, elf, how will the magic save children who never were? Well, this is new information to us, but I would ask, is Glutt the most reliable narrator? Persuasion check, please. It almost was a 20, but instead it's a 4.

All right. I don't understand you saying she could be lying despite what I did. Despite the fact that she was charmed, to be honest. Was she charmed or was she pretending to be charmed? He's going to do a roll. I feel like, you know, if this was Baldur's Gate, you would just have the NPC automatically be like, screw you, but I am going to do this. It worked. She was honest. But I'm not getting a very good sense you know what you're doing.

Why doesn't your magician explain this to me? And he turns his head back to Pish Posh. He's busy. I think maybe he should take a break and explain what he's doing. Very dangerous. Yeah. For your eggs. Uh, I'll let you choose. Bricks deception or intimidation. But I feel like I'm not I'm genuinely my character is not trying to do either of those things.

OK. I mean, that's I'm just being totally honest. I feel like in that case, he's going to take you flat at your word of it not being a good idea. And he is going to smack pish posh with his tail at full force. But he's going to mouth up his own eggs. Is he dumb? He absolutely clearly does not believe you at all. Do something, vegan chef. Well, this is what I do. I don't know.

You're delicious bacon. Can I interrupt for one minute? His tail raises and he goes, what? You promised to give us 24 hours. It's only been 14. Can we have the other 10 please? And see, and then for what? To for our necromancer to do his magic. What is he doing? If my children aren't real,

I thought you were delichifying them, but that isn't what's happening. That is what he's doing. But we weren't aware that they're not real. But we're trying to get all the liches out of there. So if they're not real, what do I care if you're getting the liches out? Well, after you say this, please,

do you want persuasion? Do you want to be known as the dragon of your word? You said you would give us 24 hours. Oh, you choose persuasion or intimidation. Intimidation. 18. Very well. I'll give you 10 more hours. But let me speak plainly. If I come back, and I am not startled with joy, I will bite you all in half.

It seems to me you have worn out your use. Present yourself for judgment. Glut kind of like steps forward and exposes her throat and not for all clamps, one claw right under her jaw and another on her chest and just bites down and rips her throat out. And you all have to kind of scatter as blood and sinew just splatters everywhere and you see Pish Posh rocking back and forth just hit with a little splash of dragon blood. All of you who are not in a trance please roll an insight check. Pish Posh still doing the magic. So it looks badass because he's doing this. He looks great.

That's where there's blood spree across his face. That's pretty cinematic as hell. Yeah. So it looks badass because he's doing this magic. Oh, he looks great. There's blood spraying across his face. That's pretty cinematic as hell. Yeah. Is it insight? 20. Yes. 21. Oh, natural 20 plus five. All right. All right. 12. Briggs, you're very busy with your thoughts. You other three noticed that as Glutt presents herself for judgment, she has a glassy look in her eyes,

like she's just doing what the charm spell is making her. But just as he bites into her throat, the glassy look leaves and her eyes dart around, and you can tell he dropped the spell just when he was doing it, so she would be aware of what was happening. But it's too late. She's confused. But she is no longer charmed and she kind of like grabs at her throat and tries to put all of the muscle tissue and veins and her throat back inside her body and it doesn't work and it's like a light goes off. She just and she just falls limp. Move. I'll

see you in 10 hours. She started dead. Just he flies back to the mountain and leaves the corpse of Glut. He's neutral, right? These guys are neutral. Let's go. Let's run for it. Let's burn the eggs and get out of Dodge. Hey, Mordecai bought you 10 hours.

Impressive. I think, isn't it one of our plans to get all the, suck up all the souls and then shoot the souls into the eggs and explode them, right? So that's- Will that work? Do we use the, use the souls like a Ghostbuster wand after we suck them out and blow up the eggs? Why don't we shoot the souls at you, at the dragon?

You wakeful nerds, uh, roll an insight check to see if that would work and push, push, roll an insight check, uh, to, to guess how much longer is going and the rest of you won't be able to hear. Pish. Posh. We were going to drop it on them. Not that we were going to shoot the souls, but we're going to

like drop it in. Oh, great. It was going to explode. It's super volatile. We were wrong. You said insight. Batch. Tim. Oh, uh. It's gonna explode. It's super volatile. We were wrong. You said insight. 15 batch 10. Oh, thank you for being secretive about it. Got it.

Eight. Um, not great. How about you, Brian? I said 15. I didn't hear you. I'm sorry. Sorry. I said 15.

Really? You got to be nice to say it like that. I'm viewed with the power of his intimidation, Jack. None of you are sure that it would work, but I mean, yeah, that is kind of what you said last time that you would just sort of try to drop the staff in there. I mean, not necessarily, the way I just heard it on the last episode might be wrong,

but it sounded like you guys were just talking about like, trying to chuck it and run, or like everyone get far enough away and like have blept like dimension door away as he places it in there, something like that. But yeah, I texted you Blaine, a listener wanted you to know that dimension door is 500 feet.

And you have to be able to describe it. You don't have to be able to see it. Okay. I'm gonna now whisper something in Ken Daly's ear. Is it Valentine's day? Or no, let's go, uh, Brian, open the door. Let's go out on the porch. If, uh, if the dragon doesn't care about the eggs anymore and just killed the

mother, why don't we just get rid of the eggs? Yeah. It feels like he's not, but I, I mean, he's going to want babies. What's his motivation? Do you want to do you want to see if you can make babies with him? No. Oh, shit. Oh, Willie. She hit her head.

Sorry, sweet girl. It happens. No, I don't know what to do. I'm like, what do we think he wanted? I think he wanted children, but if he's telling us that that's not even possible, which we sort of assumed, but we didn't know for sure. He's sort of taking her lie out on us, right? Yeah. It's like, what is I don't know what he and, you know, it gets back.

We should just go. Well, it was impossible. Maybe he thinks that these demon children are better than no children at all. I think when he gets back, we need to be about 500 feet away so he can dimension door the bomb back and we can run for our fucking lives. Can we do we're just discussing we're discussing his motivation. The Topaz Dragon's motivations. Did we get the sense that he wanted because he's saying he doesn saying they're not his children.

Is he like, these are better than no children? Or does he not care if we do anything to the eggs? Like, what did we sense that he wanted? You sense he doesn't believe you at all that... I mean, maybe you weren't even trying at one point, but like, he's given up on the eggs. But you keep telling him, because if he's a dragon of his word, he should give you 24 hours he expects to

be surprised somehow in a good way when he comes back. So but he wouldn't care if we killed the eggs? Because the eggs don't mean anything to him? He would probably be pissed that he was made to wait for nothing. What if he came back and he had some omelets whipped up? And we cleaned up a little bit. You do feel like he's expecting something as delightful as Bible eggs. If not Bible eggs.

Well, fuck. Can anyone, I was just trying to get us time. Yeah, you go. You did. You do. You actually have a significant amount of time now. Now, I'm going to say this discussion took you a couple more hours. So we're at noon now. You want a miracle? You got eight more hours. We need a religious sort to bring us a miracle.

Kishposh, please roll an arcana check as you realize your spell is complete and you have to turn your connection To the eggs off and seal it You've total to your eggs have rendered to our can of checks. The first one is to break your connection It's a 19 and you did a 20. Oh my god Do wisdom saving throw, please. DC 20. Oh, yucky.

18. I'm sorry. You see Pish Posh kind of like lower his staff and the energy arcing out of the eggs, like pulls itself into the staff. But Pish Posh is like hunched over grabbing it trying to contain it. Pish Posh, you feel that the energy is not going to stay in the staff and there's nothing you can do about it. It is going into you. There's no way you're going to come out of this yourself or alive.

What are your last words as Pish-posh? Oh, shit. Can I cast a spell? Okay. I will let you cast a spell if you roll a 15 on a sleight of hand check. All right. No. What are your final words? I tried.

Oh. Oh, buddy. You see these waves of flesh and blood start to explode out of Pish Posh's joints and skull after skull start erupting out of them, each of them screaming and the air is just filled with at first dozens and then hundreds of screams as this increasingly large just mound of skulls and blood and guts appear with screaming skulls in it. It gets to be about 20 feet tall and then it stops. The skulls jaws hang limp and all goes quiet there is a giant pile of guts and skulls where Pish Posh was um Pish Posh right helen i'm imagining the colon blow commercial well at least we know what to tell the dragon the friend got killed so

fuck off roll a perception check Pish Posh. You are not dead yet. Weird. Something. He's definitely something. Brutal. Is it eight? Everything is dark and you're looking at your hands and they're made of this ethereal pale blue magic

and you just feel yourself getting hit with bolt after bolt of energy. Anyway, unless you guys see how blood and guts that used to be pish-posh, but it's now like, I don't know, a thousand or so corpses mashed together. I think, right? Are the eggs, what do the eggs look like?

You all look over at the eggs and they've all broken open, look dry. It looks like they're tiny bones sticking out of all of them. Some of them exoskeletal, one clawed hand reaching up dead out of one of them. Jesus. It's like a death metal album cover. I'm going to start digging through the pile of skulls and bones. And guts?

Yeah, and blood. Yes, all of it. Okay. Describe to me how you're kind of like digging in. This is very dense. I mean, are you going to be like just trying to use your fingers to claw through it? Damn. No, I'm good. I'm glad I asked.

It's no, because otherwise I'd say that's what you did. I'm gonna pull on some like long leather gloves. All right, all right. Going micro on this. And just be like, you know, pulling and throwing out things as I go. You realize as you try to like pull things out, it's really hard to get any of it to detach. Sure.

It's stuck together with an intense level of magic. You're able to pry some of it apart though, and reach inside. Can I get a wisdom saving throw? A wisdom saving throw? Mm-hmm. I mean, I guess so. Hold on. 19.

You feel like a loud jolt as the muscular tissue in there tries to push your arms out and your arms get pushed back. You don't get thrown backwards, but you almost do. You have to kind of like brace yourself. Okay. Can you vibe any Pish Posh in there? Yeah. Do I like have a sense of, or do I see anything that I'd like? I'm basically like looking for his corpse in the midst of all the questions. You don't see like any Pish Posh black scales

or anything like that. I say Pish Posh. scales or anything like that. I say Pish posh. He doesn't hear you. What do you think, Equal? I helped him. I would look for him to. OK. All right. Thank you for Pish posh. Anyone. Anyone.

I'm explode essentially, but like. Oh, we did. Oh, yeah. Kind of did. But anyone who wants to dig through, you can do a wisdom saving throw as the pile tries to reject you. I guess I'm just like, do I feel like his body might be inside this pile or does it feel like it disintegrated? It feels impossible to know. Like it's either disintegrated or he's been pulled apart by all of this.

Well, we can maybe find his head. Yeah. He's got that helmet. Yeah, he's got the cool helmet. I'm going to look for that. With those fireball diamonds. If you'd all like to dig through the pile of guts for Pish Posh's magical helmet, please roll a survival check DC 20.

Can I use my cleric whiskers to vibe out if there's any sort of pish posh energy, any sort of pish posh soul going on. I think acid burned off your whiskers, but I'll allow like a arcana check. I did not make it. This one's dead, right? Oh yeah. Signify the death of glut by tipping her over.

No, man, you got to break the head off that thing. 42. That's not what I got. I got a, you gotta break the head off that thing. 42. Wow. That's not what I got. I got a 13. I got a 13 also. No clue. With a 13 survival check,

you're not gonna be able to pull it apart long. You just keep feeling the body mass pushing you out as if it is connected and alive somehow. How's that old man doing? What's he look like? You notice he hasn't gotten up. He's been laying in his bed roll the entire time he gets been talking in the dragons here.

But that smells great. I go check on him. He is no longer breathing. He passed away in his sleep. Dan, that's the worst thing about this old adventure. Hey, what about that bus full of orphans? The worst thing about this old adventure. Hey, what about that bus full of orphans? We should go see what they're saying from the wrist. Seriously, I don't remember an old man who had a fucking... That's what he thought.

The ultimate insult to his memory. When you and I climbed up to the nest, remember, they recruited... They found one old man at like 10-town. Oh, okay, okay, okay. What about those make-a-wish kids? You could loot him for his pitchfork. Didn't we have like some potion of invincibility or something that he took it?

Yeah, potion of invincibility. We also Mergaxor's Elixir of Life, which gives somebody advantage on death saving throws for 24 hours. And did Pitchfork take that? We did take the potion of invincibility. Invincibility, yeah. And okay, so maybe this-

Didn't matter. Apparently. And okay, so maybe let's just say I know you did. Can I can I using all of my skill set as having, you know, lived and worked at a monastery battling being evil beings for a long time? Do I know anything from my research? Archana trick. I can keep talking for five minutes. I don't understand. I like it.

No. Really good. I don't know. Does anyone else know? Pish posh. Roll a perception check, please. All right. I think it's a 14.

I think that's a 14. Skills perception. Yes, a 14. That was a 14. You begin to get a better view of yourself and you can see that there are the outlines of bodies that are slamming into you. You are absorbing soul after soul in some sort of demi plane or astral plane, but you can't tell where you're at. You're floating in space. There's a heavy, a heavy shock of energy each time you're hit. And it feels like you are gaining

power, but you don't understand because your physical body doesn't appear to be there anymore. Can you do an insight check for me? I could, but I don't understand because your physical body doesn't appear to be there anymore. Can you do an insight check for me? I could but I think you really are not gonna just know what's happening. You have no idea what's happening. What's happening. The rest of you still see just you know, a giant pile of muscle guts and skulls. But like, it's it's not moving.

It's just everybody do a perception check as you continue to stand around in horror. Oh, I got one. Does that mean I know less? You see a ghost and chase it for a while. Oh, 16. 15. 11.

Bricks, you do see the pile is twitching. And there's a couple of times where you just see this and you glisten and you're like, is there blood flowing through this? Is that okay? Is there life in this disgusting viscera pile? Did you turn into a giant turducken? Oh, maybe this is Akira. Yeah. Why don't turn drag?

Why don't we like attack this thing and try and get him out and then the eggs are gone. Glut's dead. And then we just get the fuck out of Dodge before the other thing comes back. The town's already empty. Yeah, let's go. But I mean, let's try and get him first. Let's see. Let's see if we can say attack the pile or I don't know. Dig it out. Crack it open.

I'm yeah, I mean, I feel like it's twitching, but he's on another plane, but he's not dead. He's like ascended to the you all know, he took a potion of invincibility. Right. He's like becoming a OK. I'm just going to like. Well, maybe you can kill the dragon. I don't know. Fuck. Yeah, that'd be cool.

Meanwhile, we're going to the Sword Coast. Let's go. Yeah, bye. Roll a perception check, Pish Posh. Here we go again. Another two hours have gone by while you've just been standing around. You just, you feel more and more dizzy,

like you're starting to lose your grip on, on being awake, but you also feel more powerful. You're like dizzy with just constant waves of strength hitting you. Do you allow it to continue or try to resist what feels like a loss of your former identity. I like it. You like it? Yeah. All right. You do not resist and it continues to slam into you over and over again. You feel as though you are growing. Your body is changed.

You see your limbs begin to grow longer in proportion to your torso. Yeah, they do. What are the rest of you doing? Can I... God, watching him go through puberty? That's disgusting. Can I email my God your tongue?

Yes, I'll pray, please. Anyone who'd like to pray their God, you just have to tell me who your God is and do a religion check. Oh, my God is he. I know who your God is. do a religion check. Oh, my God is the cat God. I know who your God is. Your tongue. We're cleric, we've established your tongue is your God, but.

I forgot you were a cleric. I only remembered you were cat, because I was asking you that, say you need a miracle. His species and class is cat. We needed a miracle. No. So.

That's a six. With my religion. You're beginning to get antsy see yeah, I'm gonna pray to who's the dragon Yeah, I'm gonna pray the dragon God Bahamut. Okay, I'll do a Jerry Doug Wait, does this character speak to iconic? I think she does Yeah, so I'm doing a religion check, okay Okay, I'm picking a different die Come picking this die. I got to see my religion skillset. Okay. This is going to be where it happens. We're going to see right now what we can do when we all put

our minds to it and all focus. Nobody's even looking at me. I am. One roll. So focusing. I'll focus. Nobody's even looking at me. I am. One roll. So focusing. No, what's that? That. You rolled a number on your dog.

What is that? It was a four plus one. I mean, you do feel like Bahamut's grateful that you finally prayed for the first time, but yeah. I did it with gusto. It was almost a 20. I'm gonna cast pass without a trace and I think we should all run. No was a 20. I'm gonna cast pass without a trace. And I think we should all run.

No kidding. Yeah. Okay. Unless you guys, what else is there to do? You wanna wait for the dragon to come back and- Not really. Okay, I'm gonna do, let's do one last search in this area. The eggs, the pile.

I'll pray to the tiefling god and- Are you gonna dig around like in the, the egg, like the whole area where you gotta be specific if you wanna do an investigation check. He's gonna pray to his tiefling god and then we're you want to do an investigation. Right. It has to be feeling God. And then we're all going to do one last investigation. Who is the chiefling God? There's a whole pantheon.

Well, who's the coolest one that Mardic? Oh, Mandy, who's the god of like food and drink and merriment or whatever. The Dionysus. I mean, you're asking me to Google. Hey, Matt, Mandy's got a tattoo on one of her boobs. It's cool. All right. I mean, I highly recommend it during the break. We Google tiefling God of bounty.

But yeah, you have a hard time connecting to religion right now. OK, let's all do an investigation check of the whole area, the pile and everything. And then I guess we all we jet. Investigation. All right. But you got to tell me specifically what you're investigating. of the whole area, the pile and everything. And then I guess we'll be jet. Investigation. All right. But you got to tell me specifically what you're investigating.

If you investigate the whole area, the DC is like a crit only for you to actually find. I'll take the pile of guts. You guys, everybody take a thing. I'll take an egg. Okay. I'll look at an egg too. Okay.

Or a clot area of eggs. Are you going to investigate something while everyone digs around it before they bail? I'm trying to see if I can channel my divinity to either contact a God or create something. You keep reading on what you can do with your God while they roll and I'll talk to them. Because I do know clerics have like a like a rare use divinity thing where they can ask their God for a favor. And if you don't find it, I'll look at it during our break. I had 11 was right. Yeah, I mean, you pull up in one of the eggs and there's what looks like

a demon skeleton, where its arms and legs are deformed in different sizes. It looks like it was stopped metal, uh, mid development. Uh, what did you roll Chris? Demon skeleton open right now. Brian, Brian, your elbow, natural 20 plus six worse natural 20 plus two. First of all, you recognize these eggs were designed by HR Giger.

Second of all, you. Is that Giger? Yes, Giger. Giger. It's like Van Gogh. I've been saying it wrong my whole. Giger, like the counter. Yeah, yeah.

It means I need to be Giger. I found out that the Giger. And then my iguana shit down my back at the coffee shop. It was 1994. My steam bunk goggles before resurrection came out. So yeah, you're, you're looking through all of the eggs. Dolly Tail, I will say with that high of an investigation, you don't find anything particularly useful, but you notice the shells are

they're durable on a very intense magical level and you think if you just had a little bit of time you might be able to make a shield out of one of these egg shells and that would actually provide a bonus. I don't know are you using a two-handed weapon right now or one-handed weapon or do you normally wield? I normally have a bow so it's two hands. Okay but do you now have a melee weapon? No I do I have two short swords. Okay well if you were to choose to only wield one short sword and just a shield, it would be a plus two a magic to your AC. In addition to the shield, the shield would give you if you equip it a plus two to your AC. Right. That's that's

I'm saying that's a normal shield. Yeah. Yeah. OK, great. So it's not magic. Correct. Awesome. But it's it's it's a dense enough egg shell that it can be a shield. Yeah, got it. It looks really cute. But squirrel is important. You've you've got about six hours left and it's going to take about four hours if you want to sit and craft it. Now let's go. I mean, bring it with me. But yeah, right.

We're there's something else to do by staying here? What did you roll, Sarah? No, well, I believe it was a 13. Oh, is it, is it in the log? No, I rolled it and then, yeah. Oh, you got tired of waiting. I just literally forgot that we were waiting. Sorry.

It wasn't good. It definitely was not good enough to do anything. So yeah, I mean, you, you can't find the magic helmet. You can't find any sign of Pish Posh in there. Pish Posh, you're beginning to grow. Can I get a wisdom saving throw much? You hate me growing. Yes. I like growing every single.

It's very cool. Should have rolled a 20. The veins, blood. That's a six. What does that say? You lose your grip on reality. Whoa! You're able to witness what happens next.

Yeah. However, you do not have any control over how it unfolds. You guys all see the pile of guts and skulls explode, and we'll have to see what that means on our next episode of Nerd Poker. Oh, shit. Yeah. Yeah, anything you want to promote?

Some point I have a movie coming out. I don't know when. Anybody else at the table? Promotion? Keep an eye out for the land that time forgot on Tubi. Um, Promise and Rifters, comic book stores. Promise is selling well, Rifters not as well, but pick it up. We're having a lot of fun doing it.

Um, and then, uh, I've got tour dates, brad Poussain.com. I've got a bunch of stuff coming up in the fall. Um, this week I'm in Florida and next two weeks I'm in New York at a city winery. Uh, it should be a fun show. JT habersat with be on both those shows. So cheers. Blaine. We attribute the success saved mankind from.

Thanks for joining us on this episode. You got walls and a roof. Well, the next nerd poker. Sarah races against time to locate the neural transmitter that's turning Ken into a criminal mastermind. Can she find it before the big hot dog eating contest? All this and Brian can't find his balls, so he sits on a bite seed wrong. On an all new Nerd Poker. Thanks for listening to another 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!