Nerd Poker - Episode 12 - I Wouldn't Do This in Real Life

Episode Date: July 5, 2017

As our heroes continue their chat with the creepy moon elf something snaps in their heads, and things start to get a little warm in the woods. Will their alignments shift? Will Smoky the Bugbear show up and lecture them? Only time will tell.

Hey, you're about to listen to episode 12 of Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. All our Patreon listeners, I hope you have a great 4th of July. Everybody else, I hope you had a great 4th of July. I will be in Raleigh, North Carolina at Good Nights next weekend. I believe it's the 13th through the 15th of July. I've also got a really cool show coming up July 25th, uh, here in Los Angeles, California at Largo. Uh, look up Largo. I think it's Largo.com, but, uh, it's a great show. Uh, it's Blaine from our show, Blaine Kapach, It's Blaine from our show Blaine Kapach

Myself doing stand-up Some old friends Karen Kilgariff from My Favorite Murder Super popular podcast And a very old friend of mine It's actually celebrating my 30th year in stand-up So I asked a bunch of my old friends And some of my favorite people to watch

Perform Come do this show Greg Proops And Dana Gould Asked a bunch of my old friends and some of my favorite people to watch perform. Come do this show. Greg Proops and Dana Gould will also be there. If you don't laugh, you're just dumb and dead, I think. Because this show will be fucking hilarious. So check it out if you can. Thanks for listening. Hey, it's Brian Poussaint.

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 Pousossehn'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 and Dragons. We've got fifth edition and we're ready. So are you ready? Here's Brian Posehn's Nerd Poker.

Hey everybody, it's Brian Posehn and you're to Brian Pazain's Nerd Poker. Ken Daly always makes the cutest faces when I have to do the intro twice. Or even once. Ken, Dan, Blaine. Hello.

Tonight's episode. Key Lime Pie. You're going to wake my son episode, Key Lime Pie. You're going to wake my son up. Key Lime Pie. Well, so shall we do a quick recap? Sure. Have we gotten any letters in the last hour? No, not since that last episode, which we just recorded.

For that Key Lime Pie joke. hour no not since that last episode which we just recorded for that key lime pie joke oh uh hold on i have to um eat these rice crispy treats and ice cream that i just found in a um uh so uh you guys just fled castle of Amalegda. Since you heard a little rumor, half a dozen other high-ranking vampires might be showing up for a little dinner party. You are now heading northeast into what your map says is Elventory. Elventory. You're in the store after 11 p.m. to do Elventory. You're in the store after 11 p.m. to do Elventory.

Thank you. Sam got that one. Did you work at Trader Joe's, Sam? Okay, there. Solid retail job. Retail job, man. Solid retail job. I had to do that at Tower Records.

So, yeah, you're headed towards Elventory, and you ran into some kind of elf with pale blue glowing skin. Was she an Elven druid or an Elven bishop? Because if she's an Elven bishop, I might fool around and fall in love. You are definitely getting a very druish Daphne Zuniga vibe off of her. Daphne Zuniga, nice. Hey, Brian, do you have a pillowcase and a bunch of oranges by any chance? nice. Do you have a pillowcase and a bunch of oranges by any chance? What?

Do you have a pillowcase and a bunch of oranges? Why? Because I'm going to have to put blame down. A sock full of soda cans will work. So she's looking at your map. You said you had some questions that she might be able to answer about the map. A sock full of soda cans? Sock full of soda cans. said you had some questions that you might be able to answer about the map. A sock full of soda cans?

A sock full of soda cans. It's like a sack full of soda cans and a sock full of soap, right? Sock full of quarters. Sock full of... We're getting our bludgeon weapons all confused. The Sean Penn vehicle, bad boys.

Let's just say we're getting... Somebody's getting a blanket party. Let's open a sock. I was going to ask, where are the other vampires shack up? Is there like a vamp shack? She says that there's, yeah, about half a dozen. I have a baby. I got me a horse.

It's as big as a large horse. She said things have changed a lot in the last couple of months. Gentrified, they opened a Robax. She's not sure how many vampires there are, but they're starting to become more bold since the sun and the moon have hidden themselves. to become more bold since the sun and the moon have hidden themselves um as far as she knows there's definitely more than than the two that you slayed but they're uh there's there's um there's at least two more that she knows by name and uh she thinks there's probably more than that in the west side of the continent. There's Tennille and the captain. What are their names?

What's your name, by the way? Huh? What's your name? My name is Luovan. Well, well, well. She thinks they all live on the west? She doesn't know how many live in the west. What about on the east?

She tells you that the... I missed that. In addition to Count Amalegda, you slayed Count Dangle. From Reno 911? It's spelled D-E-N-G-A-L-L, or Dangle, if that helps. I'm going with Dangle. It's kind of like Oz, but instead of witches, it's vampires. It kind of feels like it.

And she says to the east In the mountains there is another vampire Named Count Barris And Of course he invented the Batmobile Blah And somewhere beyond the mountains There is another vampire named Count Zellor I really thought you were going to go Chuck Barris

Not George Barris But they've been We'll be back with more stuff. She said, as of only a few months ago, they were merely ancient creatures that hid away in their castles and preyed upon others in the night, and now the night is eternal.

They've anointed themselves as counts, and they are beginning to collect slaves from the docks. Okay. Hmm. Reminds me of a certain administration. So we think... Do we? Never mind.

What? I was going to restate the obvious that this guy made the sky dark. This Manon character. So hopefully there's only four more? That's what it sounds like. Four more. Oh. About a few.

Hmm. She's not sure. As far as she knows. As far as she knows, there could be a dozen. Didn't we think there were more when we fled? She says there could be a dozen more to the west. She's not sure. Where did we get the numbers when we fled?

I mean, I thought we... Just from listening to some of the chatter, you didn't really give any follow-up questions. When you were in this castle, it was more murder and run. We did kind of leave there quickly. You showed up quick, you killed, and then you left. I feel like after the party, they're going to split up

again, and then maybe we can kick them out. Was there more we were supposed to do there? Could be. We'll see. I definitely did not hope you would stay or anything. There's stuff. One of the reasons

this map is so filled out is because I tried to you know, not to just play DM fucking bragging, but there's shit everywhere for you guys to do. Do whatever the fuck you want. There's no mission. Where's the closest vampire that you know of? She says Count Barrus's the closest vampire make your own mission

she says count barris is the closest he lives in the mountains the highborn mountains uh near the highborn mountains yeah this sort of southern edge more close to misery's finger oh is that the castle right there okay

yeah let's go there she looks at your map and she thinks that's probably Count Barriss' castle. Chances are he won't be there. She says in the time it would take you to get there, he would have... he would be able to travel back as well and he has

infernal means of travel that might allow him to. What, a new jeep? He's a shapeshifter. If he wants, he can take the form of something that does not have to walk. So he can fly? If he shows up at the castle and is disappointed with what he sees, she thinks there is a good chance. Also, Tui, you notice as she leans over your shoulder and consults the map that she has very sharp teeth and you definitely

along with her glowing skin are wondering if you've ever seen her type of elf before oh is she maybe yeah it's your turn an elf pyre. Elf pyre? Weird. Does anybody have a detect undead or anything? No. What exactly is perception? Are you asking your parents? Mom, Dad, where does perception come from?

I mean, if you tell me, if you want to ask me something about her appearance in an objective way, I can tell you whatever you want to know. I mean, does she give me an evil vibe? Do I have an alignment vibe from her? Do I sense danger? Yeah, you do sense a little bit of danger from her. She doesn't seem threatening or anything, but I mean... And she did thank us for killing the vampire. Right. You don't know whether or not she is good or evil,

but there is definitely something about her that makes the hair stand up on the back of Bodhi's neck. Okay. And she's creepy. All to say that she's very beautiful, but she has almost too thin sharp teeth teeth t-o-o thin uh and they're but they're see fish they're almost more piranha like yeah than vampire like um what the f and you realize you just know very little about this continent you're not really sure what's going on. Are all the elves like you?

No, no, no. All the elves in my territory are like me. We have many kinds of elves here, or at least we used to. What kind of elf are you? I'm just really curious. We call ourselves the lunar elves. We worship the moon.

Huh. Well, you know. See something different every day. The moon is gone, and we hope it will come back. So who do you worship in the meantime? The moon. Makes religious sense. She's definitely hiding something.

I think just socially you're like, okay, she's a little suspicious of you now. You're getting a little personal. Is she guiding us or should we just part ways? She offered to guide you to her territory because you asked if her people could help you. But she was rather frank and said she wasn't sure anyone would want to help you. I kind of don't want to meet any more of her type. Don't say that out loud.

I'm going to swipe left on you. You want to head down to the other elven territory? You want to head up to the vampire's castle? I think maybe we should just keep heading for the vampire's castle. Are you going to keep following us no matter where we go? I believe I will. I think maybe we should just keep heading for the vampire's castle. Yeah. All right. Are you going to keep following us no matter where we go? Is that your... I believe I will. All right.

That's interesting. I think it's for the best. You would rather have someone like me following you in these parts. Sure. Okay. The Demolits followers are everywhere. These creatures are everywhere. She's good if it gets dark, too. The Demolith's followers are everywhere. His creatures are everywhere. She's good if it gets dark, too.

Hmm? She's good if it gets dark. Oh, right. I have dark vision. She says, oh, by the way, if you sleep again and you see lights at the edge of the woods, it's only me. Don't you worry about what you might see at the edge of the room

oh oh got it you might see more than one glowing being in the distance but it's only me why would we see more than one well

I'm not alone but it's only me. Well, that doesn't make sense. She holds up her lantern and you notice that there's some sort of glowing fairy type creature in her lantern. She says, it's just this little guy. And me. But he's nothing to worry about.

Does he wave? Yeah. Oh, okay. Looks happy. I waved back. Please tell me his name is Green. What? He's telling me his name is Green. Green? Why? Because he's in a lantern.

Oh, boy. He does have a pale glow about him as well. He's a fairy. He seems a little creepy looking too you don't see any sharp teeth but there's just a lunar fairy you you wonder if there's anything in a minute that's not that's not creepy everything in a minute seems creepy yeah it sure does all right a vampire we will go so you guys are just going to cut right through the elven territory woods and hope she uh

what's uh what's the quickest way to that castle do you think she suggests you follow the edge of the woods along the mountains and the foothills okay that way you'll you'll have the most uh you'll be able to see the most as you can you won't get lost in the woods you won't uh be easily surprised by something in the woods what do we have to uh what do we have to worry about on this this little walk she says there's a lot of uh creatures in the woods there's a lot of sentient beings in amina all of them like to stay hidden uh she thinks that's why uh manon and mcgleer likes amina so much is because the creatures here keep a low profile and don't ask for much but uh she says you know you could be

seen as a threat this is not a place that gets a lot of or got a lot of visitors before the slaves started showing up so be mindful of where you step. Do any of your friends know about us? Yes. They do. I've sent word that you're here and that I'm trailing you. If you want to stay on the elves' good side, I suggest you

don't try anything funny with me. Okay. Well, I never tried anything funny in my life. Bodhi really doesn't like her. Bodhi doesn't say anything. Yeah, the more she talks, the more you think, yeah, she's probably evil. She's maybe, or maybe some kind of true true neutral chaotic neutral that rubs you the wrong

way but people or no she's she's she seems like like unless you are trying to please her or something she gets very standoffish and but otherwise is kind of willing to be on your team not actively threatening you trying to make this place better. She definitely doesn't seem to like the vampires. The whole time she's been talking, she seems to think that they're just a bunch of dicks. Well, the enemy of my enemy. Yeah.

Yep. But yeah, you also wonder, perhaps, is everything here evil, and all the evil is just against each other. All right. Oh, apparently there's dishes being done or something. There's creatures in the woods with palm olive. All right, so she nods.

She seems to get the vibe that you are no longer interested in her assistance so she uh she tells you she's gonna go do some uh checking on the other beings in the woods and she just sort of ghosts you like kind of walks away doesn't really say goodbye it's pretty hard to say goodbye To yesterday Let's run away from Dan singing God, your dog either is not Stopping farting since the second we got here Two and a half hours ago

I shit my pants when I got here Or I just smell like a dog fart forever stopping farting since the second we got here two and a half hours ago. I shit my pants when I got here. Or I just smell like a dog fart forever. She's not even eating here. I know. You smell it, right? I shit Ken's pants too. I don't know if that helps. Oh, I forgot to mention, I'm wearing Tom's of Maine deodorant. You've been blaming Mavis

and she's been in the room with Rhodes. I know. This is not looking good for me, is it? Wow. These farts, they smell like burning toast or rubber bands? We do have a farting ghost here. Really? Yeah, this house is built on a farting ghost Indian burial.

Put it in ancient Indian Chipotle. Ancient Indian burial toilet. Yes yes i live in the hills like poltergeist all right so she's gone you guys are alone in the woods uh i'm sure i miss her you're gonna keep it heading for count barris's castle yeah yeah let's do it sounds good I'm gonna keep a keep an elf eye on her oh yeah please do are you gonna fly or are you just gonna

keep glancing behind you with your long range night vision yeah I kind of have the same thing right yeah I might I feel like I have to look up every time well on L3 you guys just do a quick perception check and see what happens when you keep an eye out for Luovan. Yep.

Yep. I mean, if one of you gets it, I guess you all get it, right? But, cool. So, yeah, every about an hour you think you see between the trees some sort of glow oh she's still with us it's great right lecus fucking hated luovin and the second she is out of eyesight he didn't want to see wonder woman either so there you go. He let you guys do all the talking and he's Because he's the professor. No, he's He was ready to fight her.

He was like this I don't know. I think she's fucking with us, you guys. I really think she's fucking with us. You don't tell us you're following us and then go back to following us. That's like some mafia shit. Some what shit? you're following us and then go back to following us that's like some mafia shit that's what you're smelling yeah no I don't trust her either and she really annoys me extremely I found her interesting. Extremely annoying.

Extremely. So I say you guys travel about. I am grilled. Just based off the map, you're hoping you're about this far into the woods. You're trying to follow this mountain lion like she suggested, right? Let's stop at the Flying J before we really get up into the grapevine. I don't think it's a good idea to follow a mountain line.

You make it this far. Okay. You hope. Right. And you hear something in the trees. I'm getting tired. I wish we could hear something in the double trees.

Do we see Llewellyn? Or wherever. Llewellyn. It's Llewellyn. But, um, no. She's not visible at the moment. Lyle Wagner, is he there? Could it be her in the trees? Is it Doug Llewellyn?

You don't know. Uh... Lekas hears enough noises that he stops and he starts looking up yeah what do we see do we see anything in the trees nope that you sort of like

all around you hear rustling oh really yeah directly above you probably monkeys all directions that's what it usually is hmm should we just keep walking or just Monkeys. All directions. That's what it usually is. Hmm.

Should we just keep walking or just jump into a fighting stance? Start hearing a weird noise in the wind. Kind of a whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. Oh, it's monkeys. Told you. I like monkeys. I'm going invisible and up. Yeah? Yeah. All right. So you get invisible and up. Yeah? Yeah.

All right. So you get above the tree line. No problem. Movement in the trees? Yes. Where? There's tree branches swinging all around the party. Pretty big circle around them, too.

It seems like there's something moving around. You can't quite make it out yet. Multiple things? Yes. Can I see any of them no not even with uh they're too fast but uh yeah even with night vision you're kind of are they big they're like about your size oh geez uh do i have a do i have a special run whistle that i could i mean i just made a whooping noise I didn't tell you these are monkeys.

Don't give me that monkey look. Oh, monkeys. Don't give me the DM promised monkeys look. I didn't say that. The DM did not promise monkeys. We went to the zoo. I did not tell you I would buy a churro at the zoo. I'm going to love you.

Can you move? Mm-hmm. I'm going to cast a ray of sickness up into the trees. Oh, shit. All right. Do it. I'm doing it. I just realized how bad my poker face was while I was doing that.

So the second you do it, some of the weird whooping noises you heard in the distance get closer. And there's become some more vigorous shaking in the tree right above you. We're not going to get cascaded with vomit already. We might. Should I roll for damage or anything or not yet? No, not yet. Well, let's see. Why don't you tell us what it does?

Yeah, exactly. It's a 60-foot radius of... It teleports the target to Yoshinoya. Cast beef bowl in a cone. That's the ray of diarrhea. Is this brought to you by Yoshinoya? I was just about to ask. What him looking it up.

The ray of sickness is not on this page. Let me turn some more pages, and then I will tell you what it is. Here we go. A ray of sickening greenish energy lashes out toward a creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, target takes 2d8 poison damage and must make a constitution saving throw. On a failed save, it is also poisoned until the end of your next turn. Interesting.

As you tell everybody what you hope this spell you just cast above you does, something drops with a thud onto the ground in front of you. Is it dead? Nope. It's sick.

What does it look like? It looks like a pug with four legs that are like three feet long. Ew. Really long. And they seem to end in sort of bone hooks. Oh. Does anybody know what that is? It's got big bat ears.

It's a weird bat bat ears and no wings but like long bony hook sort of like a little clover field I will attack attack it yeah you get the impression he was swinging around the tree branches like a gibbon he's almost got like gibbon arms

where they're kind of gangly but he's got what's my... What's my danger sense right now? Not good. Oh, okay. You're like, this is not good. This thing...

So they are threatening. It starts hacking up something. And it pukes up a bunch of what looks dark, pasty material. And as it's doing that you realize it's its face isn't really that pug it's more like hyena it's got like big sharp teeth should I put it out of its misery? I think so yeah done I just slam the sword into its face Sort into its face Would you roll a 20 Brian sure

Yeah, you do proper one Eight L can that'll connect't you roll for damage, sir? All right. And that's... It's that. That's the bonus on that right plus if you get to do another action because it's basically incapacitated you get

a bonus action oh shit it's a 20 so then that then does that's like bowling a strike on the ninth frame so much as you suggested you would brian so confidently your uh your sword cracks it right in the middle of the head and you kind of do a diagonal slice across it and it goes smush good um and the the tree branches above above you start getting really noisy you're a lot of just whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop.

All right. Who's up? I scream up, come down and join your friend. I speak whoop, whoop. What are you going to do? Are you just going to wait? No. I'm ready to do something of my turn.

Okay. Well, you stand there for a while. They appear to just sort of be swarming around you. They're taking their time. I'm on the page. Again, we'll cast a rare sickness. Yeah? It's a cantrip. Awesome.

Oh, cool. Ladies and gentlemen, cantrips are a spell you can cast as much as you want over and over because the caster has memorized it from frequent use. And we're about to see what that means exactly. Oh, boy. Sickness at will. Another one drops out Of the trees

Lane's right on its back And it's just sort of going Choppy Roll would ya Choppy's cleaver Sure Wow Tell them what that was, Brian

Tell the listener Oh, a two and an O Oh, on the same side? And not in a two-no? Next to each other Oh, cozy-like It's a twenty Our dice towers, thank you

Oh, I missed it I missed that old baby Rolled for damage, won't you? Yeah, sure Here's the thing thing these guys if you nail them good you're great if they live it gets interesting snake thighs just for total on that okay so this one you cut a big gash and it's tum tum, which was waving because it was on his back, but then all of a sudden he... Do I get another action? Oh, actually you do, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can do your bonus action. So he's trying to get up now. Why is it popping out? I don't know. Maybe we need to lean it back a little bit. 19, yeah. 19? Yeah. Jesus. know maybe we need to lean it back a little bit 19 yeah jesus these little guys got no hope never received a receipt or a bag we did that roll for damn damn please

it's so old yeah i can't remember who did that parody, right? No, no, that was a real song. No, but in the 19th. Yeah. Oh, wow. There you go. Six, six. Boxer eyes. And then, again, because he's incapacitated, he tries to get up, and you just sort of cut him the other way across the belly,

and he lies still. Okay, good. The rustling is still getting more intense above you. You want to keep vomit fishing? I've made a mistake. I'm going to just change it to poison spray so that that's a cantrip

because ray of sickness is actually a spell. Okay. When I was upgrading, I mislabeled. Somebody already knew that. God damn it. At least three people already wrote a tweet saying I can't believe

that they screwed this up. The subreddit's already got a thread about how bad we don't know cantrips. Anyway, this is just Noxious gas instead. Is that why? And it's 1D12,

it's 2D8. So that's whatever. Sounds just fine. Um, I mean, all this is really doing is, uh, if it hits them proper,

it knocks them out of the trees. So they're getting some real nice saving throws. can i see any no i can't right no i can't see anything uh they're they're moving really fast every time you think you see one it's gone um and uh sure enough another one falls out of the tree, laying on the ground, twitching, hacking. You going to do the same thing? I'll just stomp on this one's face. Give it a shot. Was I close enough to the mic?

I'm just going to stomp on this one's face. 16. Nice. Man, I'm rolling okay. Roll for damage. What's a stomp? It's a Broadway show. Eight.

Great. So he gets a big gash. And before you can hit him again you notice something is flying out of the tree again what do you want to do towards me mm-hmm uh swing my sword at it the one coming at you Why don't you... Is that Dex or is that... Yeah. Athletics? Why don't we say athletics? Athletics, okay.

Athletics is strength plus four. Yeah. So... Yeah, you got a real good shot of turning this into a fun t-ball tournament. Why don't you give it a try? Okay. Just a two.

Ooh. Okay, so, uh... You managed to wing this thing. You're on a... Say you hit it but it doesn't really do any significant damage. This thing flies at you out of the

tree and it is looking to party. Okay. But I hit it and it didn't slow it down? No. Okay. No. This thing's coming at you like a bullet and the one on the ground is half dead. Yeah. It. This thing's coming at you like a bullet. And... The one on the ground is half dead.

Yeah. It's not going to get up, probably. But this guy... Can I borrow somebody's six, please? This guy is going to... What's your... This is what I should be doing. What's your armor class? what I should be doing. What's your armor class?

12. 12? Great. He just rolled over a 12. And he does two points of damage as he hooks into your shoulder and flips back up into the trees. All right. he hooks into your shoulder and flips back up into the trees. Alright.

Let me keep borrowing that. We'll see what happens with that. What do you guys want to do? There's a bunch in the trees, right? Do we have any idea how many? No. You might want to potentially stomp this guy on the ground again he's mostly dead but you're not sure how biologically this guy's functioning you have oil you have torches yeah you have oil you have all

sorts of options you could do right now start a forest fire oh yeah nice start burning trees so I'll just I have oil in my explorers kit you sure do while I splash the nearest couple of trees as much as I can

and then I immediately light them up how much of an escape the nearest couple of trees as much as I can and then I immediately light them up escape is that not okay you're starting a forest fire in a forest you're in well we'll keep walking I'm gonna start rescuing all the baby animals oh you Forest fire I love it You silly bastard Alright Oh Okay so Smokey the Bear shows up

You said You said I wouldn't do this In real life He looks very displeased with you Tree lights up pretty easy Oh smokey light You get the impression

It's a fun game I brought happy with you It's a bit foggy But you You get the impression It hasn't rained here in a while, and the tree starts to go up pretty quick. Good.

The rustling disperses really fast. You think one of them might be stuck in the tree, but you can't tell because the sound of the fire is getting really loud. Uh-huh. Well, let's move. Okay. Where are you going? The way we were going.

You're going to keep following following was that a bad idea? you're going to keep following the woods along the foothills to the northeast that's where we were going before these assholes slid us down hey Blink can you give me a commercial while I try to look up what to do during a forest fire

why don't you guys talk amongst yourselves for a second? This forest fire brought to you by Pier 69 Imports. Nice. I would say you run a forest fire and see which direction it's going. That's a great idea, actually. Hang on. Well,

I just tried to light three trees on fire to scare these fuckers. I didn't mean to light the whole forest on fire. Sorry. You're going to wet the bed tonight. Squirrels and whoever. Elves. Yeah, all the tree creatures.

Sorry, guys. Oh, and if I lit any ants on fire, I'm sorry. Is this the elves forest? Oh, yeah. Shit lit any ants on fire, I'm sorry. Is this the elves forest? Oh, yeah. Shit. Elves might be bad. Those fucking monkeys. They got a hold of my lighter.

Sorry, I fell asleep in bed with a cigarette. Part of me as the DM was like, should I encourage you not to start a forest fire? But it's so fun to let you start a forest fire. I just was like, well, in my defense, I was just lighting a tree

fire. I wasn't trying to start it. Also in your defense, fuck this whole continent. Yeah, yeah. So, okay. So here's what's happening right now. You guys start booking at Northeast, and as you start to book it,

you notice... I'm going to totally take... A lower hotel price on Travelos? Ken had a great idea, because I looked up the part of the DM guy that should tell you, it certainly doesn't say much. Well, people like to do the old game

when I would do terrible stuff, and go, is was that right should i have done that right so that's what i did so it's gonna go north by it's due north okay so okay uh into the heart of elven territory another tree catches uh as you guys managed to kind of book away from it but it is kind of like i'm gonna do this in reverse for your guys's benefit but as you guys go this way the fire is going this way i don't feel that bad i didn't like that lady they're not regular elves there's something fucked up going on. We're going to kind of make our way away from this fire scene the way Bill Murray gets away from that priest that got hit by lightning on the golf course. In which movie?

Razor's Edge. I know. You guys noticed that whereas... Yeah, Quick Change is a good movie. Yeah. I like that movie. Randy Quaid, before he lost his marbles, his finest hour, perhaps.

He's pretty fucking great in Christmas Vacation. Yeah. Quick Change was like his last hurrah. People say I look like him now now or he looks like me now yeah don't don't think about what you just said too hard um so the the weird sort of white noise sort of hushed wind you heard before seems to be turning into more of a low rumble as you know the fire is spreading a bit behind you. I don't feel bad.

I really don't. There is something almost indeed comforting about the fact that whereas before there was sort of a creepy, unknown, impenetrable forest in most directions. There's sort of some hills to your right that weren't that wooded uh but now there seems to be a very clear force in the near distance that is a forest fire and you know what it is so there's then you know how things tend to react to a forest fire so there's something almost comforting about the fact that you're like, well,

a lot of my enemies would hate this forest fire. The enemy in my enemy is my friend. In a way, this forest fire is my friend. And all of you seem to think on some level, oh, Bodhi did kind of make a good move. Because now they're afraid of us. Whatever's in these woods, they know we're not

fucking around. But at the same time, you... I don't feel bad you do know you have to move quickly we were going to have to fight a bunch of those dumb fucking whatever they were no those bat things those wingless bats I don't trust them

they're called mice Brian hyenas with hooked gibbon arms yeah that's nightmares i have i have them in my uh my my monster spreadsheet as whoop whoops fucking stomp on your laptop don't even show it to me oh i won't so um yeah you're to keep booking it for a while? Yeah. Great. I'm going to give you back that die that I thought I would need, Ken.

No, it's perfect. We could have spent the whole episode fighting those. Really? Some people are sitting in their... Very creative way out of the combat. In their cubicle. God damn it, Posey. Lekas is laughing really hard the whole time you guys are

running. It's like, oh man. You guys are real stupid. I love it. You guys are dumb. What? You just set a magical forest on fire. I'm stupid like a fox. Only you can start

forest fires. Alright, so you make it... If only I can start forest fires all right so you make it oh if only i can prevent forest fires i guess that explains all those forest fires you make it to about how fast would you say you guys are traveling let me scale 75 miles an hour are you in a corvette so i'm doing like my sunglasses on are you guys basically doing a paced sprint? Yeah, we're running away from a fire. I'm flying above these guys. We're at running away from a fire speed. So, before you get completely exhausted,

you manage to get pretty much to the edge of these woods without anyone trying to stop you. Twee, you notice as you're flying above that the fire's not taking over the whole forest, but you can definitely see it real well, even as you get much farther. Oh, good. So it's still going, and it's spreading for sure. still going and it's spreading for sure um and uh you do need to take some sort of a breather after you've been sprinting for a couple of miles okay uh you lecus starts panting uh he's still laughing his head off uh he can't believe what you just got you got he feels like

a bunch of bros just having a bender. That's totally what it is. It's hanging out, starting to fire. Yeah. There's no moon anymore. It's dark all the time. He takes his shield and looks at the god sigil on it. He considers his... I'm going to start channeling Damien and get really dark.

Well, yeah, Lekas is considering his alignment for all he enjoyed that he's like oh i don't know if i should have enjoyed a good going with that just napalm this whole fucking place um i do think your chaotic good is you're dipping into neutral a little bit yeah that's what i thought yeah you're you what you just did was an act of uh let's say extreme uh narrow-mindedness extreme so it was hey you are extreme it was extreme yeah it was extreme self-defense so yeah you know you the self-preservation aspect of it is as as wise as it may have been. Fight or flight, fight or flight, man. Fight and flight, or just fire and flight. When faced with some small woodland creatures attacking you, you decided rather than taking them out one by one,

arson is the way. That's what I decided. I'm just really entertained by that. Well, I wanted to flesh them out a little. I didn't know where it was going to go, actually. I just wanted to do something left turn. I feel like... I'm just trying to give him tummy aches.

How about this? We'll say you can keep chaotic good if you want, but you can go chaotic neutral if it pleases you. Listeners? I feel like if you do one more big action like this I'm gonna make you go neutral you'll keep good for now but yeah Lekas is looking at the god sigil on his shield

and pondering if his god would be disappointed in who he's hanging out with these days um he asked you guys if you wanna you, you know, you've been going for about eight, ten hours since you last rested. Yeah, let's rest. If you want to try and catch a nap, rest, eat.

You've got a little bit of rations. Let's do both, eat and rest. All right. I'm going to conjure up a tiny hut of some sort. Sounds good. I hope you do.ure up a tiny hut of some sort. Sounds good. I hope you do. How long do you want to rest? A couple hours.

Is somebody going to watch, or are we going to do what we did before? We're in a hut. Yeah, we're just going to sleep. I'm going to put something on the ground so I don't get all sticky this time. Eight hours. You do think you're far enough away from the marshes that the ground seems like it's not as sticky as it used to be. Okay. How long? How many hours you said? Eight hours ago?

Eight is what we did last time, right? Yeah. Yeah. You rest about an hour when you feel like something is watching you. I always feel like that. In the hut?

No, from the hut. You see something moving in the tree line towards the... You guys are about here, and you see something off in this direction. Lights? Just movement right now. You feel like lights could be next? You're not sure?

Huh. What should we do? It makes enough noise that if you guys were asleep asleep you woke up there's something going on could start a fire we didn't start a fire tell the elves it was always burning since the world was trying to just sing to Bodhi that he starts another fire if somebody sings Billy Joel I'm gonna start a real fire say slow down you crazy child you're so ambitious for a juvenile. If you're so smart,

then tell me why you're still so afraid. What's the matter with the car? I only know the shitty one he was doing. The other really shitty one. Hey, where's the fire? What's the hurry about? You better cool it off before you burn it out. You've got so much doing,

only so many hours in a day. Yeah, do that one. You've been living. Can you do some Downeaster Alexa lyrics for us now? Oof. No. Bad enough doing vienna all right you gonna keep uh keeping your dome all right i'd say we hang here for a minute at least yeah we're kind of protected right here so excuse me they can't see it right um they can't no um you you feel like you heard something

to the north now yeah fire oh so there's more than maybe more than one. Mm-hmm. Okay. What should we do? Should we move? Eight hours have passed. Oh, okay. What kind of, when you say we hear something, is it, is it like, is it. Yeah, what do we hear? Vocal utterances? Is it just moving around in the woods?

Clanking? Which stops? Thump. It sounds like branches. It sounds like gravel rubbing against gravel. It sounds like things are moving around in the woods around you. You feel like you might be getting surrounded. By those fuckers?

You're not sure who. But it's at eye level as opposed to tree line. Okay. Or like it's not up in the trees, but down on your level you hear. They found the people who started the fire. Okay, you want to step out? No. We've been in there for eight hours,

so the dome starts to dissipate. All right. I'm going to go invisible and fly. Go up. You see a glowing semicircle around where you guys were at.

Semicircle like in the direction we were going or the direction behind us? Pinty elves. You guys are here. There's like a glowing circle

on all sides of you except the mountains. Oh, E.T. It's all elves, right? Yeah, it's probably all elves, you think. Okay. But they're setting up something to get back at us for burning down their forest. Maybe.

Probably. Well, let's talk to one of them. You can. How far away are they? You can't see any of them from where you are. Tweet, are you going to head down and tell them what you saw then? Yeah, I'm going to float down and go, hey guys,

we're kind of three quarters surrounded. That makes sense. Let's go at the quarter. Might be because of that thing I did. Yeah, let's do it. Let's head into the Toro Mountains. Check out my porn collection.

What are you doing? I'm sorry, I was making fun of Brian. I think we're going to try to start quietly making our way towards the mountains. We're going to go out through the unknown knowns. Yeah, sure. Sounds good. Does it? Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky.

I have my longsword unsheathed, or my greatsword. As you head up into the mountains, all of you are pretty sure you see the edge of the forest is glowing. It's acting like nothing happened. Hey, what's going on, guys? I think I might also strum a little protection from evil. We were under attack. Sword hit a rock and started a fire.

Are they in the trees again? Out from the tree line, which is about 100 yards away. You guys are trying to leave the woods at this point. You're like in a clearing in the foothills going up the whole forest at your back. A series of what look like white bolts shoot out of the woods and hit Lekas in the back, and he falls on his face. Oh, no. Not Lekas. Is he dead?

He goes, ah, fuck. Oh, they got me right in the asshole. Oh, Jesus Christ. Let's grab him. That's the one place where he can't be harmed. Pick him up. It's my achilles anus uh there's a lot of uh rocks in the hills you can hide behind some sort of uh you know cliff faces you can get around but there's not a ton of coverage from where you're at you're you're kind of left pretty open and you can't see, but there's not a ton of coverage from where you're at. You're kind of left pretty open, and you can't see your attackers.

They're all in the woods. The white bolts, these are like magic bolts? Yes. Hmm. What did it do to him? You see his back, the plate mail is burned. Oh, okay.

He seems like he took some sort of concussive damage from it. He doesn't seem too upset. But it did knock him in his busted up face. He's pissed. Do we run away?

No, part of me wants to run towards them. Yeah. Well, it's not like you started a fight or anything. Didn't mean to. I was just trying to kill those monkey creatures. Whatever the fuck. What time are we?

How many of these does it look like? Yeah, how many? You wouldn't be surprised if what he got hit by was one caster. But you get the impression from how much glowing there is hiding behind the trees that there could be 20 or 30 beings in the edge of the woods. These guys are just asking for another massive fire. Yeah, let's kill them all. I mean, we didn't kill any of them. What are you guys doing positioning wise

I'm getting behind Bodhi do I feel like they know I'm there um they okay so when Lekas got hit they could see all of you and let's pretend like I'm invisible by the way so

okay well you said you were going invisible when you went to fly up and check so um let's pretend like i'm invisible by the way so okay well you're you're yeah you said you were going visible when you went to fly up and check so um let's pretend that this bookshelf is like a scale model of the the hills going up right and like these chairs are lava this is this is some hill this is some hill this is like cliff face there's a big boulder right here you could potentially try to get behind and also you could try to like get flat on the ground at any of any of the sort of outcroppings go for the boulder go up a little higher so maybe we're uh above them and we can maybe push the boulder down on them or shoot javelins or throw things that Try. As you try to get behind the boulder,

Tom, you get nailed in the back. Oh, dear. Wow. For three points of damage as a bunch of white bolts cap you in the tushy. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, my tushy. But you managed everybody to get behind. Unfortunately, there was no way to even try

to save against those missiles because you were wide open. There was no... You guys were a sitting duck. now at least you've got a little bit of coverage um but you're in a bit of a standoff uh i see where the bolts came from yeah they came from like this the opposite sides so again if you're imagining this is the cliff you guys are behind this boulder over here, and, like, my DM screen is the tree line.

Bolts came from here and hit Lekas. Bolts came from here and hit Tom. Oh, okay. Was that the same place they came from the first time, do you think? No. All right. They're all shooting bolts. Yeah, you feel like it's... Who bolts. Yeah. You feel like it's...

Who has ranged weapons? You feel like it's something like elf, elf, elf, elf, elf, elf, elf, elf, elf, elf, and this guy shot and this guy shot. All right. I'm going to make a fast, slow pass along this glowing semicircle and see if I can get an estimate of how many of these guys there are okay and I'll also find out if they're magical or not if they take shots of me how far away are they about 100 yards you get

you get the impression that they're reluctant to maybe leave the trees as you do a flyover, Blaine. They aren't paying attention to you. They're probably wary. You did kind of let Luovan know that you were capable of invisibility earlier, so they know one of you could be invisible somewhere, but they don't detect you as you fly by. You see there's 24 elves you manage to count them in a slow pass there uh looks like mostly druids they look like a lot of

granola crunchy type of outfits a lot of you know uh mossy leather a lot of clipboards in front of a whole foods yeah but they they're real strange looking um luovin was already a little strange looking but they not all of them have like pupils in their eyes some of them have like really really uh dark black eyes and they're like carnivorous moon elves yes carnivorous moon elves so um uh it looks like there's some sort of a Druid leader amongst them. There's a couple of warriors who look like they're in heavier armor, but most of them look like some kind of casters and they're all behind the trees trying to keep their cover.

Uh, you're not sure if they're going to come out. You feel like maybe based on what you saw 50, 50 shot, if you were to try and make it up into the mountains, should we go to talk to them or should we, you know what I'm going to do? based on what you saw. 50-50 shot if you were to try and make it up into the mountains. Should we go to talk to them or should we... You know what I'm going to do? There's a fire at us.

Oh, yeah, right. You know what I'm going to do, Dan? What are you going to do, Blaine? I'm going to... I have a few oil flasks. I'm going to spread these oil flasks, kind of make a little line behind them, maybe 10, 20 yards behind all these guys.

I'm just going to oil the trees in the area. I don't know if that counts as an attack, but then I'm going to light it up with a firebolt, and that'll count as an attack. I'm glad you did it. Yeah, I'm going to light up the woods behind them so they can't... They have to come out. See, it's not a terrible idea.

Oh, you're lighting it behind them. I'm on record as saying, fuck this whole place. And I will firebolt them from the front. So, the forest catches on fire. How far them i'd say let me uh like 20 20 30 yards behind them uh so and and i've i've sort of like laid the oil out so that it looks like uh if they tried to go back in one direction they wouldn't be able to do it. They would probably have to scramble

to get through the flames. What are we going to call this one? It's called... I think we're going to call it right now. Fire-herding elves. Well, on that note... That's a little magic trick that I learned called key lime pie.

Lekas turns to you uh tom as you fire the fire bolts and he says what have we done and that'll do it yay thanks for listening, everybody. 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 in Ceno, California, 91416. Thanks for listening.