Nerd Poker - Episode 11 - Two Floors of Fury

Episode Date: April 25, 2018

Welcome to an episode of adventure where the combat continues over from when last we met. Things continue to heat up in the Gostel Mage Tower as the invading Drow and Lunar elves attempt to gain the upper hand. But there's one things they haven't taken into account- setting everything on fire does not scare THESE heroes. But Esmeralda encounters one of the death cult lunar elves in person, and things take a turn for the gross.

Hey everybody, I'm Brian Poussaint Comedian, writer, actor, nerd. I've been playing D&D with my friends for a long time. I decided to do a new podcast where we play Dungeons & Dragons in my very own dining room. With my wife, kid, and my noisy dogs. So meet my friends... Sarah Ken Sam

Lee Now it's time for another episode of Brian Posse's Nerd Poker Season 2. Hey everybody, it's Brian Posse and you're listening to Brian Posse's Nerd Poker. Sarah. Ken. Dan. Oh, my God. My friends.

Sam. At the computer. We just talked about Pokemon for too long. Hey, I want to say... Sarah's mad at us. Sarah's mad at us because not only do we talk about Pokemon too long, I made everyone watch a 20-minute Westworld video. April 22nd.

We're excited. I think Matt is probably stretching it. I'm trying to just paint you as the villain you are. Exactly. Shrieking Harpy. Right? Absolutely. stretching it I'm trying to just paint you as the villain you are exactly shrieking harpy right? absolutely why is Sarah so shrill?

you and your high shrill voice I want to thank some patrons the people who make we had fat cells yes we did thank you Jeffrey Ray thank you Jeffrey Ray And the people who make... We had fat cells. Yes, we did. Thank you for the fat cells. They're all sleeping.

Jeffrey Ray. Thank you, Jeffrey Ray. Thank you, Jeffrey Ray, for filling my tummy. Is it G-Ray or J-Ray? Thank you. Sorry, me drunk. Don't be sorry. Sorry, me full.

Thank you, Bruce Ravel. Thanks, Bruce. Hi, Bruce. Thank you, Pinhead's Pediatric Inserts. I'll say. Are they having fun yet? Thank you Pinheads Pediatric Inserts Are they having fun yet? There's a good one here That I meant to do earlier Thank you

There's a lot of good ones Dido? You ruined it Teenage Mutant Ninja Sex Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Sex It's just Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Sex I don't know We ruined it It just seems to be Ninja Turtle sex. I don't know if we ruined it.

That's fine, yeah. I ruined it way worse. Thank you, Beastman Buttstuff. Beastman Buttstuff. In Russia, Buttman Beaststuff. Sorry, I have early onset dementia. Who would have thought that Yakov Smirnoff could come back and make a career out of it?

Someone named JustSomeGuy. You need a dumb joke Tourette's. Can I say how much somebody pledges per month if they've got a username like JustSomeGuy? Or is that still weird? If you've got that anonymous of a name, should I not say?

Hey, Brian, what's red and bad for your teeth? I don't know what. A brick. He edited. I'll just show it to you guys. Look how much he changed how much he contributes per month too. Wow.

Thanks, JustSomeGuy. Thanks. That's pretty intense. That explains the podcast effect. So that was very generous. That's amazing. Thanks, JustSomeGuy. I love that

some people do that. It's really cool. We appreciate it. And you know, a lot of people post very sincere stuff sometimes about listening to the podcast. i have some mail i need to answer to um we've gotten some stuff at the the po box and uh it just everybody got here tonight and i hadn't gone through it yet but uh believe me i've gotten the stuff and i'll uh i'll read off your uh next episode um this is 11 so in uh episode 12 or so and thank you bodie's cock ring yeah oh nice

uh things you got to keep in mind to keep it on bodie thanks you for getting him a cock ring i even know it was his birthday you guys if it don't fit you must have quit all right oh sorry that's johnny cock ran let's start over. Hey, everybody. Sorry, guys. You guys are engaged in simultaneous combat on the second and ninth floors. So let's have at it.

Up on the eighth floor on the eighth floor um bodhi you are hacking into some obscured bright magical fog uh that twee has kind of um gone into you bamfed in there you, you got bumped a bit by the butt of the flat end of Bodhi's sword, and you've kind of gone over to the hostage. There's a student in there who we'll call Rodney that you are kind of going, hey, let's try not to get hit by the sword again. And Esmeralda and Tom, you went in with some instructors to try to confront archmage

sermonic and you discovered a bit of a mess it went very well um one of the instructors is is is dead one of them is critically injured um one of them has been uh lit on fire by Tom. But to your credit, you're trying to get between him and the warrior that he's in combat with. I'm trying. Esmeralda, you're in a slightly more complicated situation. You've got that critically injured guy over there. You've also got a fully functional guy fighting what appears to be

an assassin, and you just stumbled upon some sort of mesmerized white elf lady. So, I believe we last checked in with Esmeralda and Tom, so let's head back over

to Bodhi and Twee. Huh? I almost fell off my chair. and Tom, so let's head back over to Bodhi and Thuy. Hey. I almost fell off my chair. Oh! Sandwich is laughing at me. Did you just botch on sitting? I'm very tired. So,

Bodhi, what you gonna do? You've got quite an impressive God, I wish there was some way that I could see through this mess. It seems pretty magical, and your character is not really built for magically obscured areas. Oh, I really thought that was the lead-up to you.

I thought he was setting up a punchline. Like, I wish there was some way I could see through this mess, and there is. Yeah, I know. But there isn't? That would be great. Oh, yeah.'t see he can't see it through through through uh distributing pain to his enemies dark vision doesn't help because this is yeah this is magical um wait how can i see

with eyes no distributing pain through my enemies what What the hell is that? It's a metaphor. Oh, okay. Jackass. With eyes. All right. He says. I'm going to slash at Dan. I'm going to rage on him. I've taken some damage, too, but still.

You have a second attack. You know, I've been trying to highlight the fact that you guys have bonus actions that you could be using to get the lay of the land. Bo, do you notice there is a spear stuck in your shoulder? You might want to consider using. Yeah, yeah, a little blood spurts out, but you're of tough stuff. It doesn't bother you. Okay.

All right. I'm going to try to get through and not sweep the Herald of Kelmar. So I don't want to stab the kid again. But I still want to get... Well, I'll also say you heard Twee talking to Rodney to your left. Okay. Oh. All right.

So I'm going to go the other way. Yeah, maybe if you avoid that area, you're going to have better luck. I'm going to go the other way with Harold and Kelmar. Show him some respect. And I don't think I was raging, but I am now. I have bad news. What? You have used up your rages.

Okay. And because you're suffering from exhaustion, you couldn't even if you had them. Okay, cool. Yeah, you're a little tired. Okay. from exhaustion. You couldn't even if you had them. You're a little tired. Because you frenzied on the Lunar Elf on the 14th floor. This is the worst tower ever.

Well, I'm still giving a swing. I wish you would, yeah. 20. Oh, that'll work. Yeah. Kill an innocent person really hard. It's really impressive. Roll a six-sided, and you're going to hit a bad guy.

But I want to see which is... A six-sided or a four, you said, for the last time. I guess you can do a four. I don't know why I switched to six. Just do a four. I want to see if its odds are even, so that's all. And either way, it's good, so don't worry too much about it. Two.

Great. Okay, so you're going to hit one specific mystery person In my head Alex, you're right Seven plus Double it for critical Fourteen plus And then roll a one hundred please

Bodhi, way to dig deep Impressive He's tired You know what I mean he wasn't raging he just was really relaxed and he's still not gonna have the park it's about the heads you're not cutting off 33 all right so the critical bonus you get from a 33 is your target's going to miss a turn. Good. So what was your damage on there?

It was 14 plus. Okay. So your Herald of Kelmar goes sweeping through the magic and very juicy thunk as it lands into something organic and as you draw it out you hear a high pitched

squeal nobody's dead but somebody's sad Tweet your up oh wait don't I get a bonus action you get a bonus action but you do not get a second attack your rage just went

shit so what could I do with the bonus action could i grab somebody can i reach into the where i where i think i squelched in uh yes uh you're gonna wanna do an investment what should i do what kind of checkers are you gonna roll this I'm going to go like at neck height. Okay. Neck height. Let's do a... You're going to roll disadvantage on this. A dexterity check. No bonus.

Okay. Difficulty 10. Yeah, I got it. You would if this next one is not under a 10. Oh. Because you're exhausted. You have to roll 10. Oh. Because you're exhausted. You have a little choice. Take the low number.

Oh, yeah, come on. How long does that go on for? It's a little vague in the rules, but I'm going to go for an encounter, his next encounter. A what? That was a 19 plus my dex, 21. Okay, so you're going to take the low one.

12. The 11, the 12. Yeah. But yeah, you firmly plant a hand on a wet shoulder. The wet most likely being a result of blood. So yeah, now to a Yorda. Yorda. I'm going to... I have a blue dagger

that I got at some point it's got a blue aura it's not making any visible blueness I'm just going to head over I'm going to excuse myself from Rodney and I'm just going to kind of head over towards where the people are and start stabbing people

I mean I know that he's over there. I'm not going to head towards him. I did that once at the whiskey. It didn't turn out good. I can't wait to see if a certain thing that you may not be aware of comes into play. But I think Brian might know what's about to happen, and I don't want to encourage him to say.

So please roll to attack 16 congrats that's a hit i'm in here roll a i know six sided and you don't hit Bodhi's arm. Good. Now, roll for Dimash. What's that? Are you stabbing the person I'm grabbing? It's a weapon you haven't used before. Yes, he is. It is going to be... It's got a magical effect that you don't know yet,

but it's going to be 2d6. 2d6? you don't know yet but it's gonna be 2d6 2d6 hey here's my question too does this this doesn't count as a backstab uh no because especially because you don't have the backstab skill like that's something you'd need to be a rogue to pull off in the first place three yeah this guy. You do three damage, but something interesting happens as you draw the dagger away, even through the

magical fog that you're in. First of all, you hear a yelp. You connected with some dude's ribs. Was it a positive yelp? Four and a half stars.

Is it from the Brookstone and Irvine? All of a sudden, you notice the dagger has a red app open up on it. Oh my God, I can pay for my laundry with this. You're invited to rate the bad guy All of a sudden, you notice the dagger has a red app open up on it. Oh, my God.

I can pay for my laundry with this. You're invited to rate the bad guy you just stabbed. Please give Arten five. No, you see even through the magic, something bright white and glowing is happening with the dagger in your hand. You can barely make out the silhouette of the dagger. You can't make out the silhouette of your hand or your arm, but you just sort of see as you pull your hand back, something white and glowing is happening right in front of you on the dagger um like where the dagger was but not from the dagger

is from the dagger it's like like a beam or a some kind of something's getting a little lord Okay. I like it. Yeah. You won't like this. Oh. You feel something sharp connect with your midsection and you take 11 points of damage. Sharp like it got bounced back from the dagger. and you take 11 points of damage. Wow, joking. Sharp, like it got bounced back from the dagger?

No. Something unrelated directly to your dagger. Like, how do I put this? So you kind of went like this. Oh, sorry. I just kind of stabbed out, hit something, pulled back, and then something over here went thunk into you. Possibly from, let's just say, a different source.

Okay. And then something else in the fog really wants to attack, but it got fucked up so badly by Bodhi that it is just sort of gurgling. And you hear Rodney behind you, kind of like scurrying to the side. I cannot do that. Somebody said I'm a duck.

Your Rodney sounds vaguely like Vin Diesel. Everything I do does. Okay, so we're going to go ahead and segue back to the chambers of Archmage Sermanic where shit is pretty haywire. Let's see. Who was at the top of that?

That would be you, Tom. Yes, hi. Hi. You just managed to wedge yourself between what appears to be a drow warrior. Can I hold the drow warrior? Can I grab him? You can grapple the drow warrior. Would you please do an athletics check

difficulty of 18? Yes. Plus one. 14. Cool. Well, you can grab him, but you've got no control over him. Just so I know where he is. Okay. Oh, athletics, not acrobatics.

I will... When you do that, you do physically manage to put yourself between him and the mage that he wants to be hacking to pieces. Yeah, and now I'm going to drive my short sword into him. Cool. Wait, which short sword is it? I'm going to confuse the gas with the break in a farmer's market. Got it. And that's not your homebrew one.

Oh, I forgot about that one. It's not on here. That's why. Oh, you should write that down. Yeah. I got to find it. I forget what it's called. Computer version and the other version.

Shoot. It is the... No, no no it's not that not needle sword serpent yep that's it needle sword serpent needle sword yeah i'll use that i forget the damage on that you know what that is yep okay do i need to i don't need to roll do i this is i'm holding the guy uh yeah because it couldn hit his armor i could nick him it's a thin sword all right three i gotta go no on that one i mean it's just it's terrible terrible here's the thing the sword is this long yeah you've got a hand on the shoulder you gotta really kind of rear back and he just he's able to just turn

to the side as you kind of glance it against his tummy. Esmeralda, you're up. You see behind you the Archmage is locked in combat with this assassin and in front of you, still entranced, there's this woman just kind of doing this.

Okay, I guess I'm just going to swing at her again. Great. Roll to attack. Wish me luck um 11 plus five so that's a hit yeah and 28 so six plus four so that's 10 damage if my math is correct she wakes up she has large black pupil-less eyes and she lowers her hands and stares at you what else do you want to do?

I mean you've got some blood spraying out of her she got kind of pushed against the wall from you swinging the axe at her. Finish her. Like, does she seem like she's reacting at all to me having, to her having blood spraying out of her, or is she just sort of like a... She's got a very quiet look on her face. That doesn't really answer my question, does it?

I don't know what that is. Are you trying to gauge how wounded she is? I'm trying to gauge did she react like a normal being would react if they had been hit with a battle axe?

No, no. Yeah. She's very thin. She's a slip of a thing. She looks like she can't really take a lot of physical slashes. She's wearing a very

light linen robe, and there's blood just splattered all over it now. But she's not emotionally reacting to being almost cut in half. Are they all using some sort of mental power to bring the moon down? Okay, I'm going to use... You do know just from talking to these guys,

I mean, you don't know a lot about these weird elves with no pupils and the golem teeth, but you do know they're in some kind of death cult. They're trying to suicide the moon into the planet. Okay, so, okay. All right, I guess I'll just, for now, until I can have a chat about our plans, I guess I'll just go ahead and try to chop her head off.

Now you're not thinking. Cool. I guess I'll just go ahead and try to chop her head off. Now you're not thinking. Cool. I guess I'll just go ahead. She's awake, I will say that. She's awake and conscious. Okay, well, 12 plus 5, so 17. Her armor class is not much to speak of.

Yeah. And 5 plus 4, so 9 damage. Great. So she is very toasted. She five plus four, so nine damage. Great. So she is very toasted. She's not dead, but she kind of falls down to a sitting position and is kind of barely conscious and staring up at you. Delusions are still happening? Darkness and such?

Hang on. Let me think who's next And what has to happen Before I can There's still yeah Like a shadow of blackness Well I fish out some extra dice What does that say there Ken

That's a big fat uno Someone roll the botch While I fish out some extra dice. What does that say there, Ken? That's a big fat uno. Someone roll the botch. Oh, I'm sorry. Did you want to do anything with your bonus action while I figure this botch out? Wasn't that my bonus action? Oh, no, that's different. That's an extra attack.

With my bonus action, I would like to... She's not holding anything? Ouch. She had her hands out, so you know that there's nothing in her hands. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is there anything else in the room? Yes, you're in a bathroom.

So excited that I asked. You're in a bathroom, so there's a toilet in here. There's a bunch of fragrant little hoity-toity stuff. This appears to be a rich person's bathroom. Is there like a bunch of fragrant uh little hoity-toity stuff this appears to be a rich person's bathroom is there like a portal of any kind or any kind of trap doors that i see open not not noticeable unless you want to do some kind of check i see is there a window nope you're in this room so okay i guess i'll just take The back of the bathroom is basically the stairwell.

Yeah, it's all just kind of small. It's like a perfume room for Archmage Semani. I'm just going to go to the bathroom. I just do nothing, I guess. Wash my face? I don't know what you want from me, Dan. Blindfold her. There's all sorts of...

I mean, yeah, you've got it a very incapacitated i can't attack but you can do pretty much anything else in the universe tie her up he can't be suggesting any of this stuff no you should shut the fuck up i mean no you could shout stuff out you're the you don't know i mean she's like her her i feel like her limb is barely attached if i I hit her with a battle axe twice and she's not even resisting and has no armor on, right? Right. So, like, tying her up feels like overkill at this point. Spray perfume in her face.

Yeah, I'm not going to do anything right now. Let's move on. This is boring for everybody. Okay. So, yeah, that botch happened. Oh, I'm not going to do anything right now. Let's move on. This is boring for everybody. So yeah, that botch happened. Oh, I'm sorry. I just remembered something I can do. Can I back up for two seconds?

No. Okay. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Well, because we were so focused on the beautiful bathroom. But how's the mage? I don't know how many ways to just say there's lavender and tea tree oil. The mage who I had bound his wounds and he said he was scooching away sure how's he doing is he okay

do a perception check and I'll tell you how much you can tell basically roll over if you get over a 10 you see a lot if you get under a 10 you see a lot 8 plus 2 is a 10 oh yeah so you see like a fair I mean like he seems to be casting he's about to pop a spell

against his assassin who is also about to pop a spell against his assassin, who is also about to stab at the instructor. Okay, all right. However, the assassin botched. And so he misses and falls on his face. He falls on his face so bad, he has incurred some damage. And just on viscera, there's just blood all over the ground. He just kind of

turned his little slipper on it and just went as sneaky as an assassin as he was. He fucked up real good. And he totally fucks up his saving throw.

The major with flicks a wrist and does what is 12 points of creepy green blast damage against the assassin who does not enjoy being extra fucked up

right now on the ground. Hey, Tom. I'm going to give you one more turn before we head back up to Tui and Bodhi time. Once again, I'm going to try to attack this fellow. He has just

hacked at this other instructor and done quite a lot of damage at this other instructor and done quite a lot of damage. And the other instructor is now on his knees. Alright. What is this sneak attack 5d6 here? What does that mean? What's that all about?

Oh, that's your sneak attack. If you were hidden, you could do a sneak attack. I'm just trying to make sure. I just want to make sure I don't do some damage to this guy. You're right up in his face. He's kind of swung over you to hack at this wizard. Alright, let's see my cantrips. He's wearing nice armor.

I'm just going to fireball right into him. Go for it. He sure can't resist that fireball. No. That is... 12 points. All right. Fiery Pachouche.

He kind of winces. Well, that's something. Not the reaction you're hoping for. Winces. Senior winces. Do you want to do anything with your bonus? It's not all right. Yes, I want to tie him up.

I'll take it. I'll give you a simple no. You take out some rope. You kind of rub it on him. He shakes his head. Bodhi, as you try to take stock of who to murder, the guy you just pulled something out of, it seems like there might be someone else in there just behind him. You hear one of the two, you feel it, your sort of barbarian animal senses are like, there's two evil things in front of me. evil things in front of me.

Um, one of them says, go, go. And, uh, you see a shape kind of slip under your arm. Um, trying to run behind you towards the stairwell.

All right. I'm going to spin on him. Okay. Spit or spin. Spin. I'm actually going to, how big is the thing that I have my hand on? The guy?

Yeah. The guy. Um, he seems kind of short. All right. I'm going to actually use him to swing at the, The guy? Yeah, the guy. He seems kind of short. All right. I'm going to actually use him to swing at the guy trying to get away. Very creative tonight.

Do a strength check difficulty 10. 18 plus 7 ow my arm so I'm gonna say this this takes enough effort where it uses up your bonus action

for sure to just lift him and convert him into a weapon he is now a found weapon and he he does

let's say plus 5 a counten of farting he does, let's say... Plus five, a count in the farting. He does 1d8 bludgeoning damage, but there could be additional effects because he is a large weapon. So roll to attack. I don't want to say he's real large. Well, he could botch, actually.

He sure could botch. Nope. 16 plus 7. Roll that 1d8. This is going to be fun narratively to explain. Oh, did you say 1d8?

So 5 plus whatever. Okay, so then roll 1d8? So 5 plus whatever. Okay, so then roll 1d6 for the damage that's going to occur to your weapon. I hope it's a lot. Oh, you put it in your anus. Here it is.

That would be weird. Why did you do that? Alright, so Oh, you put it in your anus. Here it is. That would be weird. You've done worse. Why did you do that? All right, so you... I still can't see him. As you turn around, you're not sure what you're going to see or what's in your hand. But you turn around and you see what looks like

a small drow fighter trying to run past you and down the hallway which is now fully engulfed in flames um his back is to you and he's trying to round the corner out of the foyer but as he is just getting a few feet away from you you see your own hand kind of come out of the fog behind you reach in front of you and attached to it is a small drow mage and um you see this mage just smash into the back of this fighter um and it knocks them both to the ground uh and they both just kind of fall down in a pile right next to the flaming wall. Okay. And I don't get another action on this one.

They both miss a turn and no, you don't get any action because you're too tired to rage. But I'm going to give you, as I did for those guys, both one more turn before we switch scenes. So Tui, what are you up to? Is the illusion still up?. So Tui, what are you up to? Is the illusion still up? Nope. Tui,

you notice the dazzling lights have disappeared. There was a pretty intense spell kind of, let's just say more complicated than your average dazzling lights. And all of a sudden you see the foyer as it was. It's a little more

messed up. The furniture is all tipped on its side. You see Rodney's a little fucked up, and he's kind of panting against a wall. He'll be fine. He doesn't need you to bind his wounds or anything. Who are these guys? Two drows. There's two drows.

There's two drows on the ground. Should we interrogate one? Yeah, well, I'm going to kill one of them. At this point, the mage looks like he really is only a couple hit points away from slipping into the abyss the fighter looks like if he can get to his feet he can

he can scrap for a bit but they're both kind of on the ground and dazed right now because you just smashed them into each other they're little guys drow usually aren't very tall so they're both just like five feet tall and you just kind of went bowling with them. Love it. What are you going to do, Twee?

Kill one. All right, yeah, I'm just going to light them up. Can I just hit them with a... Because they're small. You're going to light them up because they're small, right? No, no, no. I'm trying to... You know what?

Now that you mention it, I'm going to use this new dagger I have. I'm going to go over. I'm going to take the... You know what happens? The reason I bring it up is for a moment, you see the fire and you see two little shapes huddled on the ground

and you have a pretty bad little PTS flicker. You know, between that and the Nilsson songs that are constantly playing in my head, I'm going to just kill the closest one. Who's the closest one? The mage. You know what? I'm going to do the mage.

The mage, it just flopped out of Bodhi's hand and kind of rolled in front of him. So you're going to stab him real good? Yeah. Roll a 20. I just want to make sure I don't... If I don't play out your PTSD, I feel like I am not doing justice

to the horror you did several episodes ago. 18? Yeah, that's a hit for sure. That's what, 2d6? Mm-hmm. Nine. Great. So he's dead.

Okay. He goes, and you see the life leave his horrible little red drow eyes. And as you pull away, you kind of notice that the dagger is still glowing bright white in its little part of your pouch. Okay. I'm going to... I'm sure Bodhi can dispatch the other guy over here, but I'm going to start just immediately going through this guy's pockets and robe.

Okay. Seeing if he's got any crazy magic stuff on him. You do notice he's got what looks like a coded message. You just pop out right away. It looks like he's got mostly empty pockets, but he's got a coded message of some kind. Okay.

What are you going to do, buddy? I'm going to ask him the remaining drow. Yeah, how many more drow there are in the tower. Roll an intimidation check. Difficulty 18. But why would it be that high when that's one of my things? Why would the difficulty be that high?

Because he's very unwilling to cooperate. Okay, gotcha. You've got bonuses. Plus what? Shit. What do I need to get? 18. I got 14. You only have a plus 3 to intimidate? Shit. What do I need to get? 18. I got 14. You only have a plus 3 to intimidate?

Yeah. That seems low. What do I have? Yeah, you're right. It's only a plus 4. It's charisma. Yeah, he says, I'm not alone, I'll tell tell you that and he gets to his feet

dick um is there a window yeah it's there's okay so i throw him out uh hang on uh okay i'll give you guys one more turn. There's a window and curtains around it are just very much white snake. Was great white? Great white. Oh, God.

It's bad. You feel like there's a solid chance you're going to have a hard time getting off this floor of the tower. Okay, well, I throw him in the night. Yeah, yeah. I throw him through the window. Tui, it's your turn before he can do that. What do you want to do? You're just going to sort of sit back on your

heels and look at anything? Yeah, you know, I'm going to kind of see how if this fire is going to keep us from getting out of here alive. You feel like there's enough fire where you're... It occurs to you're like, you're,

it occurs to you. Oh, maybe the reason one drought told the other go, go, go is because he was panicking because he, because unlike you, you or Bodhi, they were both facing that wall and they could see how bad the fire was getting.

Well, let's head down. But first Bodhi, what are you going to do? There's a fighter between you and the stairs. He's wearing steel plate armor. With the guy I just grabbed? If you're throwing him out of the window, it hasn't happened yet.

If that's your plan, you haven't rolled the strength check that would require to pick up an active combatant. Okay. Then I'll just go through him and head down the stairs. Just try and plow right past him? Yeah, yeah. All right, that's going to be an athletics, I think. Let me check.

If athletics is a dex derivative, then nope, it's a strength. But I'll give it to you. You think you get a plus eight for athletics, so you'll probably be fine. But it's a difficulty 10, so you just got to not botch, basically. Yep, got it. Oh, great. So, yeah, you just kind of smoosh past him. You feel like he's going to probably swing at you in a second

because you've now got your back to him. And he connects for 11 points of damage. You just feel a sword slash across your back. Mm-hmm. And as you are beginning your escape from ye olde eighth floor, hey, guys on the second floor. Yeah.

Tom, you're kind of trying to deal with this guy. How are you going to deal with him? Keep hitting him? Sure. I can't remember what you did last. Try to wrassle? You fireballed him right in the face. Yeah, I did fireball him in the face.

Okay. But I tried to hold on to him while he stabbed him with a sword. Did I miss a turn or am I just did I miss a turn did we go Tom, me, Tom I gave them three turns which I had been doing two, two and then I decided to let them go three

last time we went Tom, me, Tom and then back to them I was trying to make sure that I oh you know what you're right I let him go and then I moved over to them before. It's fine. It's totally fine. It's not fine because, yeah, we should advance the action.

Just in terms of what's happening in the bathroom. Correct. So bath. Hurry up. I got to advance an action in the bathroom. Exactly. So a little bathroom check. You've got a mostly incapacitated um can't tell what she is some sort

of caster on the ground in front of you and yeah there's all sorts of little mage accessories in here is she still like doing something or is she um uh can't quite tell like her hands she's conscious no her hands fell to her side and she's kind of just barely propping herself up on the ground okay well i would like She looks like she's waiting to be executed. Okay, so I'd like to execute her and then give the lady what she asked for. Alright, well I'm going to try at least.

15 plus 4. 3 plus 4, so 7. Cool! 3 plus 4, that's a hit and then uh three plus four so seven cool three plus four seven so i have good news and i have bad news uh good news is you for sure killed her bad news is she's still conscious bad news no but the bad news is she's in a death cult and that's not the worst thing. So as your axe collides with her neck, everything goes

white. And Tom, you hear a kaboom. Roll a dexterity check. What happened? Difficulty 15. Did you guys know that this happened with his death cult? No. Okay. You guys have never killed a lunar elf priest, and this

is what happens when you kill a lunar elf priest. 15. 15? So you just kind of barely scooted by this one. As you go flying through the air back out through this doorway, which you do not collide with the wall of, you manage

to kind of like land on your feet as you thud against the back wall why don't you do a quick little 1d4 just to see how much damage you take as your back hits the wall take two little points um almost get the wind knocked out of you nice landing uh but yeah you land on your feet because because you made the dex check. Okay. And you notice that the bathroom you were in just exploded and there is viscera all over the floor and walls. Thanks, fat cells. You also notice the other two people on your side of the room were affected. Both of them missed their dex checks.

The instructor Damn it. He's fine. He takes a few points of damage. The guy who just fell on his bum bum he takes 11 points of damage

and he is dead oops that was the bad guy right he flew against the wall landed upside down fell on his neck and broke it so when you kill these guys they explode just the priest

perhaps just the ones who look eager to die and are wearing very little armor I love that you're saying like oh you should have obviously known that Sarah Perhaps just the ones who look eager to die and are wearing very little armor. I love that you're saying, oh, you should have obviously known that, Sarah. Yeah. No, no. Although, one thing I've been looking forward to is these guys very briefly kind of appeared

in another campaign. They were relatively harmless then, but this is like another version. I definitely thought she was sacrificing herself to do something, but I didn't realize that she was a weird explosive device. They've got basically a self-inflicted curse is the vibe you get as an Eldritch Knight.

I think you would know enough to kind of gather this. And there is some sort of weird magical pact. You're not sure if it was necromancy or some weird spell they learned, but they don't have a problem dying because if it's done in melee range there's a good chance it'll take out somebody with them so in this case it did her pal it killed her pal i win lady you turned yeah you turn and you see the instructor who kind of uh landed next to you and only took a little bit of damage and he kind of like nods and he's like, that was pretty, pretty sick punchline you just delivered.

Uh, uh, yes. Now back to you, Tom. Um, as, as in the order it should have been,

um, how are you going to handle the, first of all, you see the bathroom exploded and, um, I'm the bathroom exploded. I don't know the soaps. Sorry. You see some lunar elf ribs and some lush bath bombs go flying out of the doorway.

Those things are expensive. Right? An archmage has gotten a big budget. And it kind of makes you realize, sometimes they just dye you a weird color. We don't know where the Archmage really is, right? No. That's not an illusion.

Hey, Tom. Yeah? Just for the sake of narrative, will you do a perception check for me, please? You bet I will. Difficulty 18? One? No.

Okay. But you do feel like... I have a bonus of 11. So it's a great roll that didn't quite make it. You don't quite know what I was hinting at there. I have no idea what you're hinting at. Okay, so in front of you, you've got a fighter. That's it?

Yep. There's no other teacher around or anything? There's a guy who's hobbled. His legs feel very weak and he's very close to being killed by this warrior.

I'm going to try my shocking grasp on this guy. Ooh. Yeah. Go for it. I'm your Venus. I don't have to.

He's going to try and get out of the way but it's not going to go. So, go for it. Yeah. So now it's just damage. Yeah. Oh no, wait.

That's your shocking pink. It is. That was a shocking pink. It is... That was a shocking blue. What's happening? Bladesight is exploding. Oh no, my head is exploding. Oh, no, we're going right. Okay.

Oh, one. Seven total. All right. Oh, wait. Plus eight? What is that? 7 total alright oh wait plus 8 what is it plus 8 shock and grasp first level

28 plus 8 so that's plus 8 so what's the total 16 shock and grasp so yeah he sure didn't like that 16? 7 plus 8, 15. Shock and grasp. So, yeah. He sure didn't like that. He blacks out.

And he's alive, but he hits the ground. Lay down, stupid. Did you say stupid? All of a sudden, there appears to be no conscious bad guys on your guys' floor. And so before we really go back up to the eighth floor and the peril that they're in, you guys, you feel like a little victory music is playing. Do another perception check, both of you. Both of us?

Yeah. Difficulty is only eight this time. What am I doing? Because now you're assessing what happened. Oh, how about a 20 plus two? Jesus. I perceived the shit out of this. A 19 and a 22?

Okay, you notice the following things about the room. The darkness has disappeared, and there appears to be no Archmage remains in the chair that you exploded with your Thunder Wave earlier. So there's no sign of the Archmage or his body where you fired the thunder wave off so you feel like he was completely not there and whatever green illusion a couple episodes ago you saw a green aura around him and uh if i may uh you've unlocked a new observation about your scarab of far-seeing, and that is a green aura means there is an illusion involved.

So you may want to keep track of that. Green is illusion. And Sarah. Yes. Because you rolled so high. You go ahead and kind of just look around the room, and you feel like it's been cleared out a little bit. You talk into the other instructor who's left standing and the one who you kind of helped out.

You put it together that there used to be a lot more in this room and that any experienced instructor or even student who's been in the room before would come in here immediately notice something is up so they're like whoever you sent up to this room to fetch archmage sermonic was probably executed immediately uh so you know original xeris probably dead the instructor you sent up here probably dead and if they're not dead they're probably either being held somewhere higher in the tower or something but it's not good for them like there's no way that they made it out of here in good shape um and uh you also notice um that room full of uh gore and nastiness that the warrior came out of contains the smeared about remains of Archmage Sermonic.

Oh no. Oopsie. Hey, I found him. The instructors suggest also that perhaps the priestess was creating the illusion of Archmage Sermonic. Back upstairs to the eighth floor. Everything's on fire.

I'm going to keep heading down. So you nudge past this guy. He swiped at me. I already got by him. Dex check of difficulty of 12. Okay. Yep. Sweet.

So you managed to make it down to the seventh floor without taking any fire damage. What are you going to do, Twee? I'm just going to fly past follow him down. Because you're flying difficulty dextract 10. You're also trying to get past a fighter who's not really looking at you. Eight.

Do you get any kind of bones? Oh, so you're fine. Okay. You make it past. No fire damage. No hack from the fighter. But you feel like the fighter is on your tail. You feel like he's running down. And I'm privately going to look. I'm going to see if he took any damage.

He does not take any damage. You make it out to the seventh floor. And you see to your left the room with the magical tree and the pollen. The one that I tried to describe last episode mistakenly is here on the uh seventh floor okay what was to do with that room you're not sure you didn't spend a lot of time in there what floor is that on seven okay let's keep uh heading down okay yeah i mean i want to get down are you just trying to book it as far down as you can get away from the fire with any teachers or any staff not that they know of

um so i'm just gonna see if this guy catches up to you are you just booking no you're not stopping for nothing so that you go past a sauna on the sixth floor how do we talk stop and take a shit doesn't catch up to you you uh at this point twee you get a you can get a floor ahead of bodhi if you want to go past him are there anything are there is there anything like along this the staircase that's flammable? Like tapestries, carpeting, anything like that? Yes. I'm going to... There's carpeting, there's tapestries, there's curtains around the windows at each landing.

Okay, well then this guy is behind me. I'm going to light the carpet on fire right behind me. Great. Hopefully that'll just kind of spray up. That takes no difficulty at all. Now he has to roll to see if he... Uh-oh. That hurt.

So he took another eight points of damage. I'm also going to light the drapes on fire so they match. Weirdly enough, you just hear... in the fire, and he does not come out the other side of it. Oh. Yeah, you're just going to keep... You have the ability to pass Bodhi

if you're just trying to fly down the stairs. No, I'm just going to catch up and just make sure there's nobody behind us. Okay. You make it to

the fifth floor. There is an unoccupied meditation room with the door open. Keep going? Yes. Fourth floor,

bookshelves, appears unoccupied. Fourth floor, bookshelves. Appears unoccupied. Third floor, meditation room, unoccupied. And then these guys are in the second, right? And then you catch up to these guys. Oh, hi. Hi. How have you been?

Oh, I need to be healed. Cool. Why don't you try to heal? Yeah, I'll do a cure wounds on him. Alright. I'm down. How's the injured guy with us?

How many guys do we have with us? I'm going to do a song of rest to everybody. Okay. Everybody gets five. Great. Rodney did not make it. Oh, Rodney. You guys didn't really wait for the hostage,

and so he... No rescue. They left Rodney up there to die. To burn to death. Whether or not he made it, you don't really know, but he certainly did not follow you out of the flames. But wasn't there a guy that got injured in the room with me?

He might have maybe gone up the other way. You were the only one who seemed concerned, so I looked at you. The guy I damaged. Yeah, he could have gone up higher in the tower. You don't know. That's always what you should do in a fire. The one you accidentally. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Oh. The guy I accidentally damaged. What did he do? No, the guy I. He's just injured, isn't he? You two are with two. Yeah, he's talking about the archmage that he accidentally

got a fireball on you're with two instructors who are badly hurt they just got aren't there

three instructors one dead there were four and now there's shit let me check maybe I'm confused thank you I think still I need no you're right you're right

the one guy you know what really quick i need to do some oh he's fine uh yeah because i never wrote the guy you bound his wounds yeah who was basically incapacitated i never i never uh rolled his dex check for when the bomb went off. Oh, yeah. He's fine. He rolled a 20. He's great. So, yeah, you're with three heavily wounded instructors

that Tui just kind of helped. Okay. Tui, how much damage did you say everyone got back? Everybody got five. I need to correct that to three. You're just not feeling too inspirational as you play that song, Arrest.

That's okay. I was going to try to sing some Jefferson Airplane. I ended up just singing some Jefferson Starship. Unfortunately, you take a healing penalty because you were a naughty boy last night. But you guys can all sort of converge your thoughts and opinions at this point.

There is a fire blazing upstairs, but the instructors are like, Hey, buddy, tweet. What are your thoughts and opinions of this whole thing? One of them goes off to, he says, I can probably put most of the fire on myself. How tall is the tower? About 30 floors.

There's already a guy, an old long-time tenant that died on 50. No sprinklers. And you left Rodney up on 8 and you cast an extra layer of fire between

6 and 7. A couple weeks ago, people weren't that sad anymore. We've moved on. Every day is something different. He's not president anymore, so who cares? Oh, right. Anything we say happens for real in two weeks.

Oh, Dan's flipping the Gower glass. Sidetrack clock. What do you want to do? Anything weird you saw upstairs or in the building or anything we should know about now anything in those rooms yeah a lot yeah we killed a

what was in the rooms that you saw what was in the rooms on each floor that you saw we didn't see anything one was magically obscured and then when the obscurity went away, it was all on fire. Okay.

So it was either smoke or sparkles. I mean, yeah. Everyone keeps passing up the magical tree room. Oh, yeah, the tree room. There's a tree room. What's that all about? There's a tree room on seven. Oh, do the inspectors know anything about that?

They go, what? Yeah. Okay, so let's go back to seven. I think we can't because you lit a fire between six and seven. There is a mage heading up to firefight. Okay, so we should probably go help him so we can get to the tree room? Yeah. Okay, so you head up to seven.

On the way there, right before the seventh floor, you notice everything's a little wet and the fire is out. It's a little black and wet. The mage is a couple floors up, putting out the much larger fire on the eighth floor. This will never do. I'm lighting everything back up.

You get up to seven and you can hear him kind of just like casting some kind of lazy water spells. I'm scarabing the tree. Great. It is, it's, it's like blue,

but if you look at it long enough, you might notice something. Roll a 20. What's next? What's next? Five. Is this perception? I feel like it was green at one point.

60. It flashes orange. This is the connection to the other. There's a lot of magic going on. Sorry, Bodhi's answer is a 20. It looks like a... It's the bat die. It's not distracting at all.

It's something that the listeners have no idea what's happening. I know, I know. Wait, wait, wait. Can I try? Yeah, get it. Flashing red die. Your clothes. Give them to me.

He's the Terminator. I don't know what movie this is. I'm the Terminator. It's me from Danny DeVito with the twins. Fuck you, asshole. Yeah, the twins. Terminator. I don't know what movie this is. The Terminator. It's me from Danny DeVito with the twins. Fuck you, asshole. Yeah, the twins. How do you get a picture of you doing this? It's me, twins.

It's not lighting up. Get a boomerang. Get a boomerang, yeah. So, your clothes. Give them to me. Also, give me some. Let me try those shoes on an eight and a half. How far into the room are you going to go?

Are you just kind of waiting outside right now? Hell no. I'm in the doorway looking in. You're in the doorway? Yeah. What about the rest of you? I'm going in. Okay.

Do a quick check. Who's going in? Just her? I'll go in too. He says hell no. She says hell yes. What are you doing, Tweet? I take go in, too. He says hell no. She says hell yes. What are you doing, Tweed? I take a Claritin.

You said there's a lot of pollen in the air? Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. Is everybody going in? No, I'm standing in the doorway. Oh, I'll stay with you. Okay.

Bodhi and Esmeralda, do a Constitution saving throw, please. Oops. I hope somebody can save the constitution. Well, what did I need to get? Well, you needed to get a 10. I got it. I didn't. Bodhi, as you breathe in,

you feel something kind of catch in your lungs. And you get a weird feeling. Oh, this pollen's kind of big in here. Kind of big pollen. Esmeralda. I said I took a Claritin. It's like you didn't even listen to me. The Claritin kind of makes you feel a little dizzy

and kind of slows this down a little bit. But as you breathe in, you also feel something catch in your lungs. And when it does, everything you see disappears and you find yourself underground in a cave. You see a giant toad-like creature. It's wrestling something. Suddenly it gets ripped in half. You see a glowing crown.

Guys, I'm having a vision. Then I'm gonna die. You hear a whisper saying, my blood is here. My blood is here. My blood is beneath the earth. My blood

is the blood. And you are back in the room. What is wrong with your eyes yeah and your eyes are completely black there's no white to your eyes wait no that's not true for a second and then oh really you didn't notice but wait they said that they might they may have noticed okay weird i don't like how everyone's looking at me sarah like that's happening please stop looking at me like not comfortable you made's happening. Please stop looking at me. I'm not comfortable. You made it about two feet into the room before this happened.

It's not a very deep room either. Guys, I saw things. The tree's like 10 feet in, and it's against a wall. So I step out, and then we need to all apply our masks to ourselves before assisting others, and then we need to go back in. We should probably... Is torching the tree the wrong idea? Is this where...

Just a second, but... Is this where... Remember those other towers got taken over? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe that's where the power is coming from is this tree. Very probable. Are any of the are any of your poker face sucks the mages have any i have a really bad yeah you got a good nerd poker face i uh i'm just so easily amused by both the correct and incorrect assumptions you guys make do the mages have any theories about this tree?

Let's see. They know magic shit. Well, they're kind of like, yeah, don't maybe go in there unless you're ready. We don't know what this is. Okay, let me come back out. We've never... What was in this room before? This was a meditation room.

I told them what I saw and heard, by the way. And it was far out. Oh, okay. So we just encountered some drow. That sounded super underdarky. She saw the hypnotoad. Hypnotoad. One of the instructors says,

Oh yeah, Zinzerina. She's a dead drow goddess that supposedly died thousands of years ago. That sounds like one of the myths of Zinzerina. That's probably not good, that vision you had. That sounds like the tree is there because of Zinzerina, a god that's supposed to be super dead. Let's like the tree is there because of Zinzerina, a god that's supposed to be super dead.

Let's kill the tree then. They say what did you say about the this is the thing what do you think you know about this tree? I think we should explain it to them, right? There's no reason not to.

You've been somewhere else where there is a thing. They go, we should proceed it to them, right? There's no reason not to. We give them the whole backstory. You've been somewhere else where there is a thing. They go, we should proceed with caution. I wouldn't quite nuke this thing unless it's a very specific kind of nuking that you think will be effective. Well, what would you say if you're magicians?

I stab things usually. We would want to rally some of the people who are maybe protecting the dorms and diffuse what looks like what could be a world-ending or at least tower-ending bomb. All right. Oh, cool. Because this tree is maybe a seed, if you catch my drift.

Sure. How much time we got left, Sam? We have two minutes. Cool. Well, we should get those people to help you. Where are they? One of them runs out and is like, I'll be back with at least three more instructors.

I'll be back with your character you're doing. Your clothes give me the true lies. But they're like, you know, there's the upper floors of this tower have bigger protections. This whole tower must have been taken over by this death cult of Drow and these other weird pale elves we've never heard of before. Do we think there's more of them up past where I didn't get? You see no reason why there wouldn't be, given that the most powerful wizard on campus had been taken over. But he was killed on one of the lower floors.

They found him. Right. Yeah, on the second floor. So you're not sure. It's a bit ambiguous. All right. All right. But it kind of doesn't matter.

It seems like this is where we want to be. It feels a bit like you found the money floor. Right. Okay. Cool. Let's call it. That was episode 11? Yeah. Or was it? On the 6th. Yeah. Any

more plugs? I wish you'd buy my job thing. It's called Mad Magazine. It's very funny. I'm in issue 1. Any other guests you can mention in issue one? Let's see. Who else is in issue one?

Chris Fairbanks has a really funny piece in issue number one. What about the old artists? What about the guys? Al Jaffe's got a brand new fold in that's really great. Sergio's in there. Sergio has a mad look at harassment. There is

a parody of The Last Jedi. Now the art looked like the guy from the 70s, but it's not the guy, right? Drucker? No, the guy that always did the film parodies. Oh, Tom Richmond? Yeah, he's been doing it for like 10 years. Oh, so he draws like the guys I grew up with.

Yeah, he is a very Mort Drucker-inspired style. That's amazing. Anything else? Blaine, any dates coming up? No. I just won a runoff election. I'm the new junior senator from Florida. All right.

I don't know if I'm going to take it yet. Congratulations. That's pretty cool. It was weird. Are you part of that new political party those Parkland kids started? No, I keep politics out of it.

BrianPersing.com Join us on Patreon. If you're done already, if you already do, you're awesome. Thanks. Everybody else, you're also awesome. Thanks for listening. See you episode 12. Thanks, guys.

Thanks for listening to another episode of Nerd Poker. You can follow us at patreon.com slash nerdpoker, and you get bonus episodes from there. And you can also send us anything at P.O. Box 16069, Encino, California, 91416. Thanks for listening.