Nerd Poker - Episode 11 - Misery's Finger

Episode Date: June 28, 2017

This episode the party decides to venture East to the mountain castle on their new map, only to encounter a creepy Daphne Zuniga looking moon elf. Will they once again slay every NPC they see? Or will they ask for directions for once? Only time will tell.

Hey, we did it! We made it to episode 11 of Brian Posehn's Nerd Poker. No more sound issues, but I thought I'd use this time to announce a couple of shows I've got coming up this week. On Wednesday, the 28th of June, I will be at the Irvine Improv doing a super rare one-off show, just a Wednesday night with a couple of friends. My good friend Brad Wenzel is going to be with me. And a couple other guys. It'll be a really solid show. Come down to that if you're in Irvine. Check out BrianPoussaint.com for more tour dates.

I've got a pretty light summer on purpose. But I will be in Raleigh in the middle of July, like good nights, Raleigh, North Carolina. And then I will be in Peoria, Illinois, the beginning of August. But June 20 or July 25th, rather, is going to be a really crazy fun show. If you're in L.A. at Largo, I will it would be be myself and I'm celebrating 30 years in stand-up comedy. In July, it'll be my 30th year of stand-up. So I thought I'd load the show up with some friends. I've got guys that I've been loving watching for years. Blaine's going to do a set. My buddy Derek Sheen, my old pal and guy O'Belum, Karen Kilgara from My Favorite Murder, Greg Proops, and Dana Gould, some of my favorite people to watch tell

jokes. It's going to be a really fun night and probably some special guests too. But anyway, thanks for listening. Check out those dates on brianposain.com. Please come to that Largo show if you live in LA. You won't be disappointed. Thanks for listening. Bye. Hey, it's Brian Posain. I used to have a podcast where I played Dungeons & Dragons with a bunch of my friends. I missed it, so I decided to make a new one. It's called Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. It's myself, a couple of my buddies, Blank and Patch, Dan Telfer, Ken Daly, an occasional guest or two, and we're going to be playing in a new setting, my dining room.

Each week you'll hear my wife, my son, my dogs, and we're going to be playing in a place that I love and playing the game that I've loved half my life, Dungeons & Dragons. We've got 5th edition and we're ready. So are you ready? Here's Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Hey everybody, it's Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Hey, everybody.

It's Brian Poussaint, and you're listening to Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Hi, friends. Hi, Brian Poussaint. That's Ken, Dan, Blaine. And we each have our own microphone. What? Use your microphone to prove it. I'm going to call mine a Blaine-crophone.

Okay, you would. It's like a Poco album. Nothing's like a Poco album. Dan? Oh, hi. This is Welcome to Dan Radio. This is Dan. Dan's going to be taking you down a little. Dan Radio.

It's Dan Becomes Eclectic. We each have our own pizza in front of ourselves, and we're going to eat an entire pizza while we talk. I'm going to try not to be gross. I'm going to try to get some sugar daddies out of my fillings. I see my son walking by. Good night, everybody. Good night, pal. Good night. Good night,

child. I just wanted to say hi because I wanted to be a guest in this episode. Okay. Well, you're a guest in episode 11, okay? That's the one we're recording right now. Yeah? Yeah. Say good night to everybody bye everybody

bye roads hey roads bye itunes you're funny buddy i love you you'll be asleep during the next episode. We got some quick business to get to before we get into the recap and the game. I got money from some people in Vermont. Gave me some cash. I was just in Burlington, Vermont

at the Vermont Comedy Club. Oh my God, that was fun. Did you go to the Burlington Cheesecake Factory? It's really good up there, I heard. It's very warm and cozy. The portions are really huge. No! In Vermont, they do that with a gun.

No, the portions, not the abortions. Oh! But the abortions at Cheesecake Factory are delicious. Have you had them? The popcorn abortions? They're too big. Don't get them with ranch. I just eat them. I wish Sarah was here so they wouldn't make abortion jokes.

That wouldn't stop us. I know. Good with aioli. Nothing's good with aioli. Nothing's good with aioli. God, Mavis,

Jesus Christ. Hopefully we have Sarah very soon here. We're looking at maybe getting her for some

bonus episodes. So if you follow us on Patreon, you're going to probably hear her voice soon

and maybe some other blasts from the past. Blast just came out of your dog's butthole.

Yeah, I know, I know. It's not the pretty dog's it's not the pretty dog Ernie throws his fart Mavis is just so large I assume it like these eruptions Jay Leno has been blaming farts on Mavis for 20 years sitting alone in his garage. I think the dog fought it.

Really, it smells like burning denim. But these people... These people. They ruined a $20 bill by writing, get to the part where you trace some dicks, Seth and Megs. Ruined it or made it much better. Double the value of your 20 with a dick joke. And then

Patrick Keller from Portland sent us a nice note here. I'm a big fan of the Nerd Poker podcast, both versions of it and your comedy. I know you're a comics fan. Oh yeah, he sent me his book that he did

through Oni Press. It looks really cool. I haven't read it yet, but thanks, Patrick. What's the book called? Oh, he doesn't say it in this thing. Anyway. Your comps.

Brian, why are you plugging that book? Finally, one for myself And then we We got a letter from Tyler In Virginia And he did a pretty cool drawing Thanks man Here, hold it up to the microphone

Can you hear how cool that is? He drew a beholder, he drew a twee He drew a doretto, aolith, a Lasol, a Gago, and an eyedropper of alcohol, even. Bodhi looks more like me than I picture Bodhi looking. Yeah, you look like one of the Sklars without their toupee. Do they share one? Yeah, it's a conjoined toupee.

They cut it, but they share a kidney and a liver. Well, yeah. Thanks, Tyler. Thanks, Tyler. Thanks, Tyler. Thanks, you guys. Cool. Well, let's get into the recap.

So you guys have killed a couple of vampires, it turns out. You were escorted to this castle where, after some failed negotiations, you snuck into the basement of Count Amalegda's abode, killed him as he was waking up. You snuck in there while he was sleeping. You killed a couple of his guards. And then as you left, there was some commotion and you killed another vampire on the lawn. You tried to free some servants upstairs by killing another guard upstairs.

And now you've cleared out a lot of enemies. The castle's starting to look pretty normal. There's not as much active violence. There's a few corpses laying around. There's a dead human who is mauled by one of the vampires here. There's a weird octopus sort of wooden clockwork thing upstairs but you freed some servants who were previously under the thrall of count Emma legda and now things are calming down however could we last kill what was the last thing you killed was

woody I believe the you the sort the sort of psychic octopus in the steampunk suit upstairs yeah you ripped him out of his suit and right right cut him in a calamari um you don't know a lot about what's going on you've kind of got this castle you know under the forces of good at the moment but you have heard murmurs that there might be more high level vampires coming when you first got a drink from the uh the bartender he had mentioned that there were more vampires coming tonight uh there was going to be a sort of get together and you may have caught an early arrival outside mauling one of the humans. So there's a bit of a countdown going on before. A count?

No. Blah, blah, blah. While you were inside, though, you did grab, I believe it was like three tomes each from Count Emalegda's library in the hopes that you could later decipher them. And inside, I have a little surprise for you guys. Oh, you guys. for them and inside i have a little surprise for you guys you find this which is a detailed map of amina nice so uh there's this guy sean bryant who i think all of you have seen has been doing

illustrations of the characters and uh i messaged him and was like hey i have a more detailed version oh uh sam what are you confusing me you want to hold it up uh i also have a digital copy of it that i can give you guys but um here let me hold this like i gave you guys a much more generalized version of this map at the beginning of the adventure and I had a bunch of notes but I wanted to make a more detailed version but I'm like what if I get a professional illustrator who works with DreamWorks to do it

this is great I love the screaming rocks and I love the giant prawn coming out of the ocean I'm getting a tattoo of it on my back it rules so I thought what we could do and I got his permission to do this, if you guys think it's cool, we could make it a Patreon-only download. Maybe it'll escape our Patreon grasp at some point.

Someone will share it on the internet. But when this episode goes live, we could put it hidden on the Patreon page for them to see only. So one bonus of joining Patreon is you can go look at this thing sure in high res that could that could be fun so um what you guys might uh be noticing is um there's buildings in amina there's uh names of areas and there's a few other foreboding hints about what might be going on or could be uh the imagination of the cartographer. You're not entirely sure.

What's this part of the map here that says California Adventure? I heard that it's not that good, but you can drink there. Yeah, that's right, and there's a water slide. Oh, okay. Toy Story ride's pretty fun. What level is the Toy Story ride? Anyway, what are the mountains?

Let's see. There's the Drez Mountains to the west, the Highborne Mountains to the northeast. There's to the east, it looks like there's a peak named Misery's Finger. It's my proctologist place. I just thought I would let you know that Sean Bryant, the artist of the map, made that proctologist place I just thought I would let you know that Sean Bryant the artist of the map

made that proctologist joke to me when I told him shout out to Sean but yeah so there's a lot to take in you guys if you look at the bay of Siddha these little lines are the docks that you landed in.

You are currently in Count Emalegda's castle, which is right smack dab in the middle where the two sides of the countryside meet. What's that bigger castle off to the left there? Great question. Okay, cool. Is that the magic castle? That's the master of the other castles. The magic happens. That's where master of the other castles. That's where Jack Skellig had left.

Castle Blaster runs by the town. So yeah, I can, you know, I'd be happy to tell you what some of the blurrier font is, but other than that, much of this map is mysterious, and you're not entirely sure what it means. What you do know is this was amongst Kant Amalegda's notes and stuck in one of his books. So he at some point either commissioned this or got a hold of it. Love it.

Yeah. And you have what you think is about six hours until it's time to party with the vampires. And if one of them already came early, who knows when another one could show up. Right. I'm keeping track of where they all are, but you don't know. Let's run to Elven territory. Can we call a transport van and find out when the pickups are scheduled?

So there's a lot of human merchants milling around trying to gather their supplies a lot of which seem to be out of order um they appear out people bugging out they're calming down they were bugging out a bit when one of them was having their throat ripped out by the vampire but uh now that you've slain that vampire everyone's kind of breathing deep some you can hear people um people are talking about if they should make a run for it in the woods people are wondering if you guys are gonna do something there's a bunch of people just going through crates apparently some of their belongings were either burned back at the encampment at the docks

or have gone missing and they they've kind of been reduced to slaves so they're not they're not sure what they can find by digging through crates where are we in this castle what do we see where uh do we see the entrances can we can we guard i mean can we be prepared for when uh any vamps show up it's up to you you guys i i had a map that i unfortunately left at work today or might be in the car. I'm not sure, but I, maybe I can go get it between tapings. But yeah, like you guys are in the courtyard right now. This, this castle's got, if you squint real hard, you can get a good sense of what the castle looks like,

but it's got a couple of towers, one of which you started to explore when you were chasing Woody up and down the stairs. But you know there's more of the castle you could explore. You could potentially hide in it, fortify it, cover up your vampire murders, any number of choices. Or, again, you could leave. It's up to you. Hmm.

What do we think about hiding those bodies? The vampire murders. I mean, he suggested it. Who suggested it? The RD on that. No. Well, you... I don't know what that's going to do.

I thought, yeah. Like, I was more reacting to something I thought you said. I don't know. I'm not going to say if it's a good idea or not. There's a bunch of vampires coming. And it took all three of you to take one down. So if you want to fight these guys a battle royale style, that sounds great to your DM.

But I don't know how great that sounds to you. Misery's finger might be nice to explore. Maybe. Yeah, so should we get out? It's totally up to you guys. Convince the barbarian that we shouldn't stay and fight. If you don't want me to fight.

You know what I mean? Lekas? Oh, you. I'm saying to me. Tweet, Tom. Sounds like it's on you. Well, if we stay we might get killed

there's a good chance we'll get killed right and when I when I say killed I mean like the worst kind of killed where you don't die

you keep coming back and you have to punch in we really haven't had a chance to explore much of the rest of it. We do have maps now. Now that I have a map,

I know there's Elven territory. I know that maybe we can enlist some people to help us. Should we go scout out this other castle? There's several castles. The bigger castle, some people to help us. Should we go scout out this other castle? Vampires? There's several castles.

The bigger castle, I wouldn't. The closest one to the marsh? Yeah. I also see that... Well, the one in the marsh looks scary, but the one... The one right to the left of us, the big one up the windy road. I have a feeling that's the master vampire's castle.

Okay, that looks like that's where they would be. Yeah, you're right. I see down south there's the Hills of Hope and it looks like there's a monastery down there but I think the phrase Hills of Hope and a monastery are probably not what I'm thinking. Probably the Hills of Hope

have eyes and then a thing full of things that'll kill us Looks like there's ants in the Elven territory Big tree guys More elven territory? Yeah, would one of you guys Would that draw you? i would maybe want to

get away from these vampires and head east a little bit yeah it seems like it's a little more than we can handle okay i mean if we can at least talk to some people that live on the island um lecus is feeling pretty boxed in uh he he He says he wouldn't mind sticking with you guys whatever you do, because he thinks you're better as a group. But he... Show him the map and... Yeah, he...

Does he have his own or not? You've only technically got one that you're sharing, but I've given each of you guys one so you can look at it whenever you want. I point to... He says... I feel like this whole continent's pretty dark. i'm not too optimistic about any of these places i point to the foothills splitting elven territory misery's finger sounds like a bad idea but uh

but if we go to those foothills maybe that's that's all right the highborn mountains is an ultimate goal maybe yeah so go east yeah yeah I'm all for it alright let's get some distance

between us and East Vampire what do we tell these humans tell them whatever you want man don't ask me okay that's lunch everybody good luck god bless you might want to go we're going you don't have to come with us but you can't stay

here What's the guy's name? Which guy? Cat and Fiddle. Oh, Cat and Fiddle. Did you see they reopened? Cat and Fiddle was a guy who used to do that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they reopened on Highland. They're smaller, but it's still great.

Were they reopened? Cat and Fiddle. Oh, wow. Really? Yeah. That was sad when that place opened. It was. I loved it. I went to a couple of comedians.

Yeah, that guy used to yell. Don't have to go home but you can't stay here the thing that's great is they closed that place and then nothing ever reopened in there so they kind of uh uh just got rid of a a fun place in los angeles for no reason reminded me of starlings it was such a landmark in that courtyard it was just so classic i know i'm glad i got to like see it and hang out there. The new one's okay, but it's smaller. Anyway, yes, so the merchants notice you guys are kind of huddling

and then kind of sidestepping towards the gates without talking to them, and then they kind of go like, oh, that's how it is. And they're like, okay. And you can see a couple of them take charge and they seem to be forming some kind of group themselves they're probably going to head back did i not announce that we were leaving no they i mean they heard that but you had a tone of sarcasm so they didn't know what to think about this this half you guys are all free everything's gonna be okay yeah okay. Yeah, this seven-foot-tall half-orc going, all right, see ya.

They're like, oh. Wouldn't want to be yet. But you get the impression they might try heading back down towards the dock, which, you know. That's not a good idea. No. That's where they got scooped up in the first place, from what you can tell.

Head to the Hills of Hope. Cool. No, I'm telling them to. Yeah, you're not sure what they're going to do. They seem like if you talk to them too much, they're going to try to talk you into taking them with you. Up is down. Or being their guards.

But it's up to you guys which direction you want to go. Are you going to follow Brian's up to you guys which direction you want to go. Are you going to follow Brian's suggestion, you guys, and head east into those foothills between elven territories and see what happens? Yeah. I like that. Let's stay on the

highborn side. There's another castle above Misery's Finger. It looks very elf-y. I'm very happy with this map it's really fun it's really there's a looks like a tunnel or some sort of cave entrance under under that under misery's finger oh yeah that looks like there's probably a couple of modules under there. Oh, I forgot to have him write the Doom Vault from that one book. So, okay.

You guys depart into the woods with Lekas? Yes? Yes. Right. So one thing you notice... Judea is... Indeed, you notice on the road to judea indeed the cloud you you feel like something's is that like actually yeah are you pulling from no that was from uh history of the world everybody roll your they were pulling from the 40s roll your decks please roll your decks

or no constitution let's do constitution. What are we rolling in? Oh, we don't have one. Oh yeah, do we not have the tower? Oh. Give me a second. I got... Alright. So, yes, if you guys could roll your constitution

really quick. Let me know what it says. Ten. Yes. Five. could roll your Constitution really quick let me know what it says yes oh no you know what I did not I got an eight hmm because you get a bonus all right so you guys are off all fine Brian you rolled right yeah I'm right over it But you get All three of you within about Five minutes of each other get a bit of a little Woozy feeling

You realize You thought Count Emalegda was sleeping Because it was day But it still kind of feels like Night and you swear It felt dayish at one point and you just for like maybe the fifth or sixth time realize you can't quite place where the sun is in the sky even though there seems to be some kind of light source above we've been feeling weird for a while

how many days do we think have passed about i would say three or four days but you guys are starting to get tired because you none of you have really slept much since you got here uh you've taken a couple of guarded naps well maybe we should do that maybe we should camp out and that one at least get to those foothills i know it'll take us a while but yeah you think it'll take you at least a few hours to get to the foothills based on the walk you tried to make from the docks to Amalekna's castle. He had to teleport you most of the way there. What's the terrain like at this point? It's rough, flat, light woods.

There's little hills, little gullies, mostly dark forest, but the trees aren't as close together as they were out by the marshes. Do you see a place where we could camp out? Yeah, you see a little hill where it's got a good view in 360 degrees. That'd be a good place for a tiny hut. Turns out you can cast a hut if you like. I can cast a hut. So how long does that last? Jabba, you're gonna be the next Darren

from Bewitched. How long does that last? And do you have to be awake? Eight hours. Eight hours? Do you have to be awake? No, I think I cast it and it stays. Great. So, you guys wanna make a little camp in his magic tent?

You guys want to have a little sleepover in Tweed's magic tent? Tweed's going to pitch a tent, and then I'm going to cast a spell. Tweed's going to pitch a tent, and then he's going to cast a spell, because the first thing meant a boner. All right. By the way, this is Leomund's tiny hut. Leomund? Yeah. Slowly, I turd. Leomund's Tiny Hut Leomund? Slowly I turn

A ten foot radius immobile dome of force springs into existence around and above you and remains stationary for the duration The spell ends if you leave its area Nine creatures of medium size or smaller can fit inside the dome Creatures and objects within the dome can move through it freely All other creatures and objects within the dome can move through it freely. All other creatures

and objects are barred from passing through it. Spells and other magical effects can extend through the dome or be cast through it. That is super useful. No other hut will do. Is that a new spell? No, it's old school D&D. I don't remember that one.

Sounds like something nobody ever picked before. But did you just learn it? Yeah, it's third. Awesome. Yeah, I'm still... Just for the record, I've mentioned this on Twitter because people sure love to finger wag at me for how well I understand 5th edition.

I'm doing a lot of backsliding into 2nd and even 1st edition. I'll finger wag the shit out of you. Please. First of all, Brian will put his his finger in your butthole um and then he'll wag it around uh and then he'll pull something out but uh and it won't it will it won't be sick at all about yeah um but uh i'm trying it's mostly the ability roles where i don't really care like i just will i want people to check certain aspects of their character when certain things happen and i don't feel like digging around but what i am going to try to do is try to do combat correctly so uh i think we can handle that but

we'll see we'll see uh no promises it's still low on my priority list i'm mostly gonna just try to get you guys to do stuff oh did we tell everybody we leveled up did Did we already say that? No! So these guys are level 4 now. Also, I made a Google spreadsheet that I invited everyone to so they can track how close they are to leveling up where I'll put their experience right in the spreadsheet every night and they can be like, oh, I'm getting close to level

5. What accent is that? So, yeah, so we've also filled out. I mean, my page is looking the best it's looking. The skills and the saving throw table on the character sheet are finally. Joe really helped us out. Oh, man, yeah. Joe's a bigger nerd than anyone else I've played this with.

Yeah, seriously. He knew his shit. Fully outfitted. If you're not in the Patreon, that dude is the real deal. He is a legit... Check out the Joe Manganiello bosses. Oh my god.

So fun. He's handsome, ladies. And he really knows D&D. And gentlemen, he's also handsome. Everybody, he's handsome. And he's taken. That's great because I have a very specific set of skills. So let's jump back in, right?

Yes, so you guys are setting up camp on a little small hill. It's a small hill it you know it's kind of things makes your your achilles tendons feel a little raw going up but it's not very high and uh once you get up there you can see there's no immediate monsters coming at you uh and you're gonna sleep in shifts or are you gonna just try to all conk out for eight hours under the spell like maybe eight hours might be nice let's just let's under what spell oh in the hut in the hut that'll at least protect you from people coming in okay but i believe uh yeah there's some caveats blaine listed earlier but you know yeah all right so i'll throw

up a thing and then i'll just be happy that i didn't learn Leomond's tiny dominoes. Lekas is going to try and sleep the whole time if you guys are. Yeah, let's do it. Hour one. Nothing. Hour two. Nothing. Hour three.

Nothing. Nothing. Hour four. Nothing. Hour four? Nothing. Hour five? Hour six? Hour seven? I'm oversleeping.

You've got the worst poker face, Dan. I know. It's more of an uno face. Why do you think I use the DM screen even though I've got a laptop? Because there's also just like the dice rolls i'm like i don't want them to see the dice roll because i've got a big goofy dumb face interesting okay so uh eight hours pass you wake up you feel refreshed uh the ground is still a bit sticky so there's a weird quality to them must have really been out

was it sticky before when you leave your little pup tents which you bought if you're a member by the docks uh there's yeah you were told that if you try to lay down this could happen the ground has sort of a black kind of tar like quality to it that seeps up into your protect us from that. Huh? Didn't protect us. Do we get hot? No,

you didn't, you didn't get a floor to your hut with that spell. It's, it's a dome, not a, uh, not a, not a glamping tent.

So, um, yeah, you notice this, there, the, the light situation has not changed? You feel like you're in Alaska?

Where we slepted. Yeah. And you are... We feel refreshed. Yeah. You're like about this far on the map. Okay. Was anybody down hit points?

That's what I was wondering. No, I got more hit. We leveled up, so I thought you usually... I'm going to say because you're traveling with a healer, he just takes care of you because you've been walking for a few hours. You've got plenty of chances. Okay. Some people let you refill on a level up, too.

Yeah, everyone's refilled. You're fine. I feel fresh and clean as a whistle whenever i shower the irish springway this is the first time you guys have woken up though and you've got that uh i'm in another time zone kind of post jet lag like otherworldly vibe on top of your already suspicious vibe of the landscape. I'm gonna cast Melatonin. Take some vitamin D. I'm gonna cast a cup of

coffee. I'm gonna cast a peccadacea. I'm gonna cast Dennis Miller on Ken. It's been there the whole time. You kind of hear just a sort of... It almost sounds like the wind. The whole time you've been here,

it almost feels like the pollen in the air is just really thick. It's not bothering anyone's allergies, but it's... Yeah, I've had a bad feeling the whole time. I wouldn't bother my allergies if it was real. If it was really there in real life yeah you think but all is quiet

let's keep moving now I'm going to press a button and it's going to fold up like George Jetson's briefcase I'm going to put it back in my wallet while we got this map give me a little bit more of a sense of where you're going because you've got a few destinations but I can't quite tell if you're just heading... We're heading to the north of those low foothills up into the Elf.

You're going to head to the Elven territory, Brian? Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Okay. So, because, yeah, once you get to about... I'll say you make it this far and you realize... If you keep heading due east, it would get pretty tough to travel the mountains and it would start to slow your travel a bit. So if you wanted to hook northeast towards elven territory, you could certainly do that.

Okay, cool. Oh, by the way, I found the book that Patrick Keller wrote. It's Timeshare. The art looks great. Yeah, and that guy's done... Dan McDade was the artist. He did Judge Dredd and Jersey Gods. Oh, wow.

But Oney does some great stuff. I can't wait to check this out. Awesome. Timeshare. Cool. Thanks, Patrick. Yeah, so head up towards that way. Cool.

We going to Elvis territory? Yeah. So, let's start heading that way. And a little less conversation, Dan. Heading that way. And a little less conversation, Dan. A little less conversation. Lekas starts trailing behind you a little bit.

Oh, really? Hey, what's up, buddy? You okay? What's going on? I think we might be getting followed. Okay. Okay, by what or who? How many? You remember there was those little puppety shadows

kind of between the trees? Sure. Back by the docks and the marshes. Starting to see some lights between the trees as the trees are getting a little thicker. Lights between the trees, eh? Or like one light. I feel like I see a light bobbing around behind us.

A Will-o'-the-Wisp kind of thing? Like Gago? Gago didn't glow. He was... Oh, okay. Gago was like a really big moth. All right, right. Hmm.

What glowed? Wow, fairy. What do you think? Hmm? A fairy. Would do you think? Hmm? Well, fairy. Would I have any sort of... You notice once he says this, you start looking around, you don't see anything. And he's like, oh, of course, the second I talk about it, yeah.

It's just like when my TV VCR stopped working. I brought the repairman all the way to my house, and it was fine. And then he left, and then it didn't work again. I'm going to play a couple of songs. I'm going to play a little Lenny Kravitz song about a dragonfly and then I'm going to play a little Beatles cover called You Won't See Me. And I'm going to be invisible and flying and I'm going to kind of zip up a little Beatles cover called You Won't See Me. And I'm going to be invisible and flying, and I'm going to kind of zip up a little bit and sort of do a little

recon from up in the air. How's that sound? Sounds great. Sounds good. You guys notice Tweed goes poof as he is wont. I'm still here, guys. I'm just invisible. As you're floating around above the tree line, you do indeed see something glowing beneath the tree line. Your loot can fly, right?

Is that what you're flying? About half a mile behind where your party is. I'm going to... Give me the loot. Give me the loot. Bob back there. Maintain a nice altitude. Check it out.

See what's happening. Is it moving? Is it following us? It is moving. Can I see, is it a shape or just a light? It's a shape. What's the shape? You start getting a little lower.

You don't want to get too much lower or you're worried if it's magical it'll yeah it'll recognize you even if you're invisible uh you see what looks like a pale glue a bit of pale glue you see it elmer's glue stick you see a pale uh glowing blue humanoid form um moving very slowly and it's walk just walking it's not floating. You're not sure. You just, it's humanoid shape. You could get closer, but right at this, you're about like a tree and a half, like, you know, 30, 40 feet above the ground. Huh. And it's just enough tree branches where you can't quite make it out. You know, you got night vision, but there's just a lot of obscuring branches.

Because the trees have gotten thicker if i didn't mention that as you get closer to the elven territory on the map it's uh the tree line's starting to get a little bit thicker and uh it's just walking towards the party or following the party but it seems very slow almost patient like an it follows maybe Or more of a Babadook? Oh, man. I mean, we could deal with a Babadook, and It Follows, we have to fuck something. Neither one of those movies are scary,

so let's fuck both of them up. I don't see any other weird lights. Just one. It's a blue humanoid shape. I'm going to see... I'm going to kind of come down behind it a little bit and see how close I can get to it. About how far are you going to try to stay away as you get down to the ground?

I'm going to try to stay... stay treetop level, but get as close as I can. All right. I'm not attacking or anything. You... I feel like it's... I feel like I'm going to try to get as close as I can get without getting into the range of a detect magic kind of a situation.

Okay, but I'm still going to ask you to roll your decks, and you need a 21. Okay. That's not it. That's a 13. Okay. So you get down on the ground and you can see it. It doesn't panic.

But as soon as you get to about ground level, it stops moving. Okay. I'm going straight back up. Okay. Okay. Hmm. Is it Pet Pat? It's Pet Pat.

I love you. Take it from me. I'm going to go up back to the party. Mm-hmm. I'm going to float down and go yeah we're being we're being followed by something a blumenoid how big man size rooster do you think is that a vampire probably probably a vampire vibe yeah i'm assuming yeah blue humanoid it's taking its time

let's go kill it sure blue humanoid it's taking its time let's go kill it sure I don't know I mean it's Wecus and Bodhi nod at each other like they're easy to convince each other

to just kill kill kill what's a vampire to you oh like a real vampire like some human idiot

who wants to live forever. Some white guy. It's not really a vampire-looking vampire. It's a glowing thing that's coming at us. Okay. Coming at us or just hanging behind us? It's coming. Is he naked?

It's following us. Does he have clothes? Is he naked? Is it Dr. Manhattan? Was it a Dr. Manhattan kind of humanoid? That's the kind of glow it gave off, but you couldn't tell if it was male or female. It looked like it was tall, but not a giant size. Like a Nosferatu kind of a thing?

Not necessarily. Blue meaty? Not necessarily. It's not a vamp. Yeah, that's why I'm a little hesitant that's why I was asking him what a vampire was to him because maybe he has a different definition of vampire than what this thing is I've always wanted to kill a vampire

but uh you know now that I did that with you guys it's kind of like I could do it again but uh the thrill's gone I just want to kill evil stuff. Well, I think that'll happen.

So let's... How far behind us is it? It's like, you know, if you sprinted, you'd get there in two, three minutes. Oh, you mean ran back at it? And if we just stayed here, it would be on us in ten?

It depends. It was walking really slowly and patiently. Yeah, is it waiting or still following now? It didn't seem like it was... Should we slow our pace and see if... Yeah, you're not sure. You're not sure. It stopped when it vibed me.

What about if we stop, like walk, and then all get behind some trees on the count of three? Yeah. And then it'll catch up to us maybe and jump in. Yeah, let's do something like that. All right. Yeah, let's break up in the woods. We'll be safer. I'm not going to separate.

Just a visual. We can be safe. I'm not going to separate. Just a visual. We can all hide together if you wish. Legas gets kind of excited and he finds a big boulder to hide behind and he starts patting his warhammer in his hand like he's going to smush this thing. I dodge for a tree. I hit for a tree.

Alright, I'm going to stay up here. Alright. Everybody do a perception check. Yes. That's wisdom, right? Yes. Yeah. I was rolling under.

Wisdom, yeah. Yeah, I'm very wise. Bodhi, on the other hand. Oh, yeah, very wise bode on the other hand uh oh yeah very best yeah so uh you're all seeing it from different angles but you see a pale blue glowing humanoid form uh start to get within view it doesn't seem to be stalking necessarily, but it is moving very slowly, just walking. It's bent over a little bit, and it's holding what looks like a lantern. The lantern is glowing faintly, just like the form's skin is glowing. Is it a ghost? Could be a ghost.

Classic ghost. Is it a ghost or is it a g-g-g-g-g-ghost? Ghost-like. is it Jacob Marley hmm let's ask him to do Buffalo Soldier uh what is

should we try to grab him yeah you know just restrain restrain do something and interview the

how about how about we wait until it's right up on us and then we just pop out and surround it okay okay

you afraid to touch it yeah I don't think any of us should touch it or attack it until we find out what it's doing yeah I don't want to attack it I would like to

interrogate it for a while okay alright so we're all gonna be all surprised or attack it until we find out what it's doing. Yeah, I don't want to attack it. I would like to interrogate it, perhaps. Okay. All right. So we're all going to be all surprised. Happy birthday. We can sing it now because they... So you guys all manage to whisper to each other. You're pretty close, like as gets it,

and you kind of form a circle. This thing stops moving. It starts looking side to side. And as you start to sneak and you're just form a circle. This thing stops moving. It starts looking side to side. And as you start to sneak and you're just about to jump out, you notice it is female, and it looks like some kind of elf. Oh. Oh, okay. Well, we are in elven territory.

We're about to be. Mm-hmm. That made sense. You notice it's got a small staff that it's using kind of like a cane. It doesn't look old. Who wants to be the spokesperson? I say hello. Most charismatic. I am.

It's not Lekas. I have an 18. Lekas is 8 plus 1. Hello there. Is that Tom? I don't think Tom talks like that. Oh yeah, hello there. Is that Tom? I don't think Tom talks like that. Yeah, hello there. Lady.

She looks at you and says, Hello, it's good that we could finally meet each other. Oh, are you looking for us? Are we in the Tinder woods? You're the ones who slayed the vampires, yes? Yeah. How do you know that? Well, it gets around quick when the vampires are up to anything.

It just happened. That's pretty quick. The plants tell me. The trees tell me. The flowers are starting to come back to life near the castle. Oh. She's Druid. She's Jewish?

No. She probably doesn't look Jewish. I wanted to thank you. Thank you for killing the vampires. Okay. You're welcome. You're not going to thank us with like a weird hug that kills us, are you? No.

No, I definitely have no interest in touching you whatsoever. definitely no interest in touching you whatsoever. We were hoping to find some help to get rid of the rest of the vampires. Oh, really? Well, not sure I can help you with that, but I would like to.

Interesting. Were you following us or were you on your way someplace? A little of both. I followed you to the castle and I waited in the woods to see what would happen. Oh, so you saw us. I've been following you for quite some time. Why? What do you want from us?

Well, we try to keep at least a few of us near the docks to see who shows up. There's been a lot of you showing up lately. We used to have much of this land to ourselves, but all of a sudden there's been a little bit of a visitor society showing up. And what are these visitors doing? Well, they keep showing up looking for adventure and the vampires scoop them up and turn them into slaves. It's been about a

oh, about a full moon's worth of that, you know. Not that you can see the moon anymore. Right, why is that? I'm not sure. Some deal that someone made and there's people showing up as slaves.

No, but I mean the moon. Oh, well, I think I know what that is, but we've only just met. I'm not sure I want to disturb you with what I know there. Go ahead and disturb us. Well, you know, it's, uh, there's not really a sky anymore. What? Hey, what what what do you mean well this land of Amina you know this is pretty much all that's left

that's what people told us but of the world Manan and McLeer let Amina stay because it's his favorite land but it's about all that they left. Your friends aren't the Langoliers.

We've heard variations on that since we got here. It was a little asshole. That little asshole told us that everything was fucked. My people believe the moon is still out there somewhere, but Mononic Lear has forbidden us from seeing it. Hmm. Where's

he? Mononymic Lear? He's all around us. He's the storms that keep you from coming or going. Alright, okay. Well, we need to put a stop to that shit. Well, that's sort of interesting. I wonder what you mean by that, she says.

We're hoping to turn things around, maybe. Everyone would love if you could turn things around, but when a god makes a deal with the spirit of evil there's do we ever find out exactly why she was following us not really yeah you just you heard what you heard right but does she want us to do something is there a reason she wanted to thank you okay Okay, that's it. She tells you she would be willing to escort you back

to her people, but she's not sure everyone else would be necessarily excited to help. Her people are very reclusive. Hmm. Well, we're going to need some help, so... Where should we go? Well, it's really up to you.

I mean, this is the only place you can go, as far as I know. What's in the... What does she know about misery's finger? Yeah, what's so miserable about that about that finger she uh she she cocks her head and says oh misery's finger yes yes uh you mean the peak and she points to the horizon and you can just sort of vaguely see the outline of the mountain and she says oh it's it got its name many many many years before i was even born i don't It got its name many, many, many years before I was even born.

I'm not entirely sure where the name comes from. It is the gateway to the abysmal wastes. Right. So that's probably not a good place. Or it's like Iceland, where it's really pretty. And they say that. Right, it's opposite. where it's really pretty. And they'd say that. Opposite. Nobody settles there.

Opposite land. It's a bunch of narwhals playing on the beach. Well, maybe you can take us to your people and we can talk to them and see what's going on here. I suppose, I suppose, but no promises. There's not a lot of supplies to go around. You know, we are some of the last beings to exist, so it's sort of every being for themselves these days. You talked about the vampires.

Where are the other vampires located? Where do they hang out? Where do they vamp? Well, she cocks her head over your shoulder and takes a peek at your map. And I think that's about where we should take a break. All right. Well, let's call it a night.

That's episode 11. Thanks for listening, guys. Thanks, guys. Bye. Look at our social media for all of our comedy dates and such. Bye. 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 uh send us anything at p.o box one six zero six nine encino california nine one1416. Thanks for listening.