Nerd Poker - Episode 16 - Feywild Girlfriends

Episode Date: May 30, 2018

In a stroke of bravery or insanity, our party has decided to divert from the pattern of visiting mage colleges and head to a mysterious cave on the outskirts of Gostel. Far below, in another dimension (another dimension) lies an ancient artifact of evil that against all odds the party is attempting to retrieve. And who knows, maybe they kinda almost will.

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 Poussaint's Nerd Poker Season 2. What's up, Spider fans? It's, I mean, hey everyone. It's Rose, and this is Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker, and it's episode what? 16. That's great. two yeah thanks buddy and um i'm holding a bunch of these spiderman homecoming menu figures nice all right pal thank you oh and you guys should see infinity war all right hope that movie makes some money back. Free advertising.

You guys, really seriously, there's this... It's really cool. The ending is so awesome. They win. There's a little independent superhero movie out there at New Jersey. Is it French? Is that a French film? Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, I think... La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre.

La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre.

La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. La guerre. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think gond... Gondry. Yeah. In fin de lycee. Hi, friends. Sarah, Ken, Dan, Blaine.

Hey. Sam at the end of the table being all quiet. That's a long name. Like he's meant to be. Still waters run deep, man. Speaking of what runs deep, my love runs deep for you, Patreon supporters. Thank you for the evil taint tickle.

Thank you. Wait, the name is for the evil taint tickle? Number four, all one word. For the evil taint tickle. Are you sure it's not taint tickle? Sure. It could be like an octopus from Baltimore. It's for sure spelled Tainticle, but they might be trying to do

a Tentacle pun. Doesn't make much more sense if you turn it into that. You know what? 10, 11, 15 levels there. Thank you Thomas Stimson from The Replacements. Thank you Justin Whitaker. Thanks Justin. From Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.

Thank you, Ren Espiritu. From the Stimpy Thing. Thank you, Joshua Hammers. From the Long Island Sledges. Thank you, Autonomous Toe. From the guy that works at Togo's next to the GNC in Gower Gulch. And last but not least, thank you, Twee's Old Fashioned Barbecue and Children's Home. Buy something or get out.

So when we last left our adventures, you were... Yeah, what happened? Well, here's what happened. Yeah, I wish somebody would tell me. You've kind of gotten a lot of the tension out of the little mage college known as Gostel. You collapsed their mage tower. So there's quite a lot of collateral damage, but you seem to have set ablaze the mysterious fey tree that was growing in the middle of the tower,

and there is now a sort of magical bonfire in the middle of the rubble, a giant whistling flame shooting up into the sky, as all the students wake up to discover many of their instructors are incapacitated or murdered. But you came away with it with some interesting knowledge you've decided to go on a little quest to go find Zinzarina's cloak an ancient artifact from when she had a material form

you've discovered that one of the sort of highlights of the mage town is deep beneath there is a cloak between the material plane and the feywild it's sort of half in two different dimensions and you're going to try to go down in the material plane there's about a mile of granite so you're going to try and go via the feywild the sort of uh plane of the fairy folk you know Twee's got a spell that will give you at least a crack into that dimension.

You haven't quite figured out how you're going to exploit that yet, but you know the cave is just a short trip into the woods. Mm-hmm. Might find a booster or something in the cave, but let's strike out and I'll start. A booster, you know. Like the thing I got for measles.

Until I read up on vaccinations. Have you guys read up on vaccinations and how they're bullshit, you know, like the thing I got from measles. Until I read up on vaccinations. Have you guys read up on vaccinations and how they're bullshit, you guys? Shout out to my lord and savior, Jenny McCarthy. Obvious edit and Blaine never comes back. No, no, seriously. Yeah, so you guys are headed out. You just bid farewell to most of the campus. You've got Typha with you.

You've got Gago with you. But you're not currently bringing any other, like, say, college NPCs with you. You're sort of striking out on your own, if I'm not mistaken. Does that sound right to you guys? You are not mistaken. Yeah. All right. And a couple more highlights, I suppose.

Esmeralda, you are in possession of an extremely deadly cursed wand. Right on. A wand that is not only, not so much cursed, but full of curses. The bone wand. The bone wand. Yeah, they really didn't want to give it up. And, no, they didn't want to give it up. But I would say that, Esmeralda, one of the reasons it makes sense for your character not to want to give it up is because you are an eldritch knight.

Right. You have studied magic. Correct. And the more you heard about it from... Oh, my God. Bless you, disgusting boy. That was one of the curses. It sneezes that loud.

You've sort of figured out Master Tetch talked about it. Master Magnus talked about it. Master Gendi, the three major instructors you were hanging out with. And they all started giving you enough clues where you pieced it together. This is a wand that a lot of people in wizarding schools talk about. But not everyone is sure exists. It's almost a... Famous.

It's a very famous wand. And the longer you heard people talk about the more you're like oh oh i gotta have this yeah i can't wait to point this at somebody you start remembering uh that it takes a very powerful magic user to concentrate and procure a specific curse out of it so you think it's going to be kind of random you're going to actually have to roll a dice if you cast this wand but uh you do remember uh all the curses that can come out of it. I could give them the highlights, but I've given you, via your Eldritch training, full access to the knowledge of what they do. Would you like to sort of tell the party some of the things that you are now capable of doing to people?

Sure. For example, one of the curses is that when making any charisma-based role, your character, I assume this means the person who the Mondas point the target. Yeah, because this was originally written with the expectation that Dessa would be running around with it. Must first make an intelligence saving throw of 10, or else they will begin to speak aloud the secret thoughts of a random nearby non-player character.

The effect is permanent. That's funny. It's me, Sam. I'd rather beat the movies. Over. There's some very intense physical ones that happen. I enjoy the one that says, you cease to exist for one full minute

and then reappear with no possessions and lose 1,000 experience points. It's called St. Patrick's Day. That was very funny. And then finally, how about this one? Just the highlights of this one. You're going to roll two six-sided dice. If you roll two ones, you evade the curse. But if it's another number, then that many of your teeth fuse together to form an enormous fang.

The tooth can be surgically removed, but will leave a large bleeding socket that will be incompatible with any normal denture-type device. I can't believe Blaine didn't do a bit about Phyllis Diller's ex-husband. It's right out there, Fang. Oh, God. I was trying to come up with something about manticores. Big Fang. Well, I thought as soon as you'd hear Big Fang, you were like,

oh, or Big Fang Theory is also the vampire version. Jesus Christ, Brian, is everything a joke to you? So it's a fang of an ancient and powerful beholder. It's got 10 curses in it. You roll a 10-sided dice. It needs to recharge for, I believe, a year and a half once you've spent 10 charges. I can't wait, so I think this is going to be... It's still valuable even if you spend all 10 charges i can't wait so i think this is gonna be

it's still valuable even if you spend all the charges because of its long-term power but um yeah it's got a one different curse for every tentacle on a beholder wait what happens so you can well no i was listening but yeah what was the year and a half thing uh once she spends all the charges it'll take a year and a half. So even if it doesn't... How many charges are there? Even if she's unable to cast anymore with it, it still has the potential

to gain all these curses back. We've had those before in different games. Now, does she know how many charges it has? Roughly. Roughly, yeah. I'm spilling the beans on you.

Yeah, he's decided to just let me know since I'm so brilliant. Because she's a student at a mage college and I was like, I'll just's decided to just let me know since because she's a so brilliant at a mage college and i was like i'll just give it to her okay um especially because your guys's characters have a lot of powerful weapons and uh backstory i thought i would sort of give her two birds with one stone throw me a bone uh one ivory bone yeah i couldn't come up with as fast

as you did so uh yeah you guys are headed into the forest and you know in the Material Plane it's a sealed off cave. A sealed off drow cave. If you were to get into the Feywild it would be open. It would be an open cave according to Dessa. And it's near this little hut. So as you approach, you see a little hut. You know the resident of that hut is a quaggoth, a sort of subterranean hyena humanoid that is usually very dangerous,

but this one is elderly. His name is Heglish, and you see him sort of puttering around his garden as you approach. That's like hip dysplasia. Yeah, totally. The plan was that Tui has a mage hand spell that can reach between the...

Is that the deal? Yeah, a regular mage hand can go, I believe it's 30 feet, and it can double its distance by taking a shortcut through another plane. So he figured that out just by studying a lot of necromancy in the last campaign. And yeah, perhaps by fusing that with another spell in your repertoire or doing something creative you guys can get into the feywild but that is where you guys take over

well i have a dimension door spell and i have another uh i have the cape of the mountebank which also allows me to do a little dimension door thing. Yeah you get a daily dimension door from the cape too. Yeah so I have the cape I have a loot and I have the straight up spell and I have the the hand so if there's some way that I can maybe cast all three at once and then use the hand to hold the door open like an elevator or something while somebody looks at their phone and goes, oh, sorry, here I come. I can maybe hold the dimension door open and we can get down under this granite and die there. I will. A couple of just real

quick reminders about Mage Hand. It cannot have an attack or do some sort of magical thing on its own. You can't say, like, give the Mage Hand a wand. He just said hold it open. Yeah.

If I could, yeah, I mean, I would just... You could take a wand and drop it somewhere. Yeah, but that's got nothing to do with what I was... I'm just thinking that, like, maybe I could... Maybe I could use it to... Fucking asshole. But I would open up these huge dimension doors. Yes.

You can try. And then as it's closing, just to make sure everybody was through, I could use the hand to keep the door from closing entirely. Or we just spend a day and night in the other dimension, and then you can use it again? Another dimension, another dimension, another dimension. Can you use it one daily? The mount of banks daily.

I forget what the rules are for the other dimension. Well, let's just do it. The other spells, I think let's just do it. The other spells, I think it would just be relearning it and such. For some reason, I thought the fey white side was open or something. Didn't we discuss that? Explain more what you just said. I thought we were told that the cape was exposed on one side. Okay, so this is a little weird weird it makes sense in my head but maybe

i haven't described it in a in a sensible way yet so allow me to try it's like um it's buried in granite on our side yeah not on their side so just a quick refresh i guess of what the feywild is it's it's completely parallel uh there's different creatures on either side and things are generally shaped different in the Feywild because it's sort of run by Fey creatures and just a lot of nature magic. But otherwise very similar. And so the cave is both in here on the Material Plane where you guys are and in the Feywild. Got it.

But in the Material Plane a bunch of wizards sealed it off with a mile of granite. In the Feywild, it's open. And near the bottom, way down deep in there, is Zinzerina's cloak, half in both dimensions at once. They cast weird spells on it, so no matter which side you're on, you can't get it, basically.

However, there's supposedly, and Dessa couldn't figure this out, some sort of ritual you do on the other side and it will completely come to the Feywild. You just look in a mirror, obviously. I mean, that is how you gained a lot of experience points a couple of episodes. But in order to figure that out, we need to get

there first, right? I didn't realize the Feywild was another plane. Yeah, like a parallel universe? It is, yeah. But like laid over top of ours, kind of, so that that's why it can be in both. Parallel to. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. What? Parallel to ours. Well, now who's cranky? I mean, it depends. Do you think there's a difference between on top of and between? I do. The parallel is like running alongside each other.

And I was thinking, yeah, whatever. It doesn't matter. Creatures that live in one rarely go to the other. If you do something, if you knock a tree over in the material plane. Does it make a sound? Yes. Also, it doesn't necessarily fall over on the wild side the creatures in the woods the feywild has its own sort of different rules and creatures they're not like copying you it's not like that kind of parallel right you describe it using grand theft auto Yes. If you're in a main story campaign mission,

it's not going to affect side missions because there's cinematics. So the side missions are like the Feywild and the main story mission is like the material plane. That's pretty good. Yeah. Probably the best I could do with that really difficult attempt. So do you think you can get us there, Tui?

He's got a plan. I don't know. I have a dimension to where a spell has a 500-foot radius. But that doesn't mean once you go through it. Right, you're not trying to necessarily, I would say you would know it Right, you're not trying to necessarily I would say you would know this too You're not trying to go distance You're trying to sidestep into the same place

The door is to infinity It doesn't matter Ambient Could you stop at a bed and or bath? We just need a portal to this alternate dimension While you guys are discussing this, by the way, Heglish comes over and says, Hey, everybody, what's going on?

Hey, what's going on? Hey. Do you know how to open up a dimensional door of any kind? Oh, no. No, no, I wish I did. I really wish I did. You do wish you did? What would you do if you could?

I'd visit my girlfriend. In Canada? No, she lives in another dimension. What dimension does she live in? I don't know what it's called, but she lives in another dimension. She used to visit me a lot more. I haven't seen her in a long time. How did she get here to visit you?

I don't remember. It was a long time ago. It was years and years ago. So the girlfriend. But I have proof. I have have proof I can show you I've got some of her things in my house picture of me with this blur please show me her things

she's from very far away so you'll have to forgive me if none of this looks familiar you'll have to just take my word for it that I have this girlfriend but she's my girlfriend she visits me what are you thinking Brian just take my word for it that I have this girlfriend, but she's my girlfriend. She visits me. Okay, I'd like to see her things. What's her name, by the way?

What are you thinking, Brian? You seem very suspicious either of me or the NPC. I'm not sure yet. Do you guys go in his house? What's her name? His little hut? What's her name? Huh?

What's her good? Moribori? Moribori? Yeah. Was it, huh? huh what's up good moribori moribori yeah was it huh so um he opens his door and you smell mildew he doesn't seem to have a very clean home and it's just a little shack and he uh he starts rooting around in a basket and he pulls out a little box and he opens the box and there's a bunch of like dried up twigs and berries and some crystals. And he says,

this is from where my girlfriend's from. Do they look familiar to me? Do an insight check difficulty 10. 14. You notice the crystal is very likely from the Feywild. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's what Ken was thinking.

I guess. And he says, yeah, she brought me this. And it's little keepsakes. And I would give her things that I found around here from back when I used to live in the Underdark. I had a few jewels that I gave her. And it's been a few years since I've seen her. Why did she leave? What happened?

She said she couldn't stay here. She said there wasn't enough magic for her to stay here. She's a very magical, magical creature. What's her name again? Moribori? And where was the door that she got through? I never saw the door. She would just sort of walk behind the cave and disappear.

Behind the cave? That's me. Here. She says she lives here in your hut yeah that's why she's my girlfriend because we live in the same house but it's like in a different way other dimension and this is where he starts to seem particularly old and he can't quite explain what it means but he's like we live in the same house right separate beds that's not my business i mean yeah all right look i'm old it doesn't matter they live in the same house in different dimensions guys it's a love story across time

and space uh yeah and he says so yeah i don't know larry king does it with all his he says i wish i could go see her but i don't know how are you going there we're trying to figure it out maybe you can help us um he's like well she she did give me some instructions if I could ever get there. She said she could only go one person at a time and she could never take me with. But she did give me directions. And she said to keep it safe because the directions weren't safe with her. Oh, great. Can you let us know about what those directions are?

He kind of starts scratching at the bottom of the box, and he pulls out this really old piece of paper, and it looks a little something. Prepared item. Okay, cut to camera two, and close on the paper, and go. And he says You can see, there's her house That other stuff is

She said that other stuff isn't that important But it's why it's not safe with her People want to know that other stuff It's very over the garden wall I like it Let's teleport to that skeleton So I'll post this obviously And shout out to that skeleton. I'll post this, obviously.

Shout out to illustrator Phil McAndrew who drew this for me. Yeah, this is terrific. He's a really talented illustrator. So cool. So where are we right now? We're in the hut. He says, this is the world where my girlfriend lives. I've never been to anything on this map,

but you can see how her house looks just like my house. Yeah. And all that other stuff, people always want to go there, and she's supposed to protect it. So she says, you know. Is she one of the three guardians listed on the map? He says, I don't know what that's all about. But this is his hut. And what is that hole at the top? He says, I don't know what that's all about. But this is his hut.

And what is that hole at the top? Is that a... He kind of points over to the cave and he says, see how there's just rock there? She says that's like an opening on her side. People always want to go in that opening and she's got to keep this map with me so people don't find it. Who's the guy in the hole?

What guy in the hole? What guy in the hole? This guy right here. I don't know who that is. Doesn't look like anything to me. Looks like we want to avoid that one. This one. And we can't even get to that dude. Why don't we just go plunge down into this pit

and kill whatever these three guardians are well cause we all of this is in the other dimension so we have to get first to the other dimension did she say you could use these crystals to get there? she did say that they were important crystals do you want to borrow them? will you bring them back to me?

of course yes he lets you have them without putting up with us that's very friendly have you um he he also is just kind of like enjoying the attention and super old and non-threatening seeming and just sort of like oh this is very oh you're in my house thank you for coming in by the way how many crystals are there uh it's just two okay and can you pale purple can you show us the area that she used to walk to when she would come in and out? Yes. So he shows you behind the cave. So the cave is sort of comprised of three rocks.

There's like one that sort of sticks straight up, kind of a lumpy one. And then one kind of looks like wedged between, but it's almost flush. Like there's no cracks in it. And the big tall one, he says, she would walk back here. And then when I would go and peek, she wasn't there anymore. Picnic at Hanging Rock. Hmm? Nothing.

It's a film. They're doing a remake of that, by the way. Really? Weirdly. So can we go around? Can I see if I see anything in the area? Yeah, you don't notice anything particularly out of the ordinary. But it does look like a good place for someone to, say,

disappear if they wanted to go out of eyeline of somebody. But there's not, like, two slots for crystals to go into. No. Like a video game? I don't like that. Cool. Anyone want to set up a door to another dimension here? There's no hole in there in the middle of the crystals?

No. We're trying to of the crystals? No. We're trying to look for this. Can anyone maybe tweak and look at the crystals and see if he knows anything about them? You want to, Tui? Yeah. Do an insight check difficulty. This is a tougher one, 15. Seven.

Wait, did I try yet? No, you can all try once. I should have gone with that one. That was a 20. 15 insight. Nope. Nope. Did you get one, Ken?

Did you get one? Sure. What'd you roll? Oh, I didn't roll yet. No, when I say get one, I mean like a number off a dice. Oh. We'll see what happens. A one, is that good?

You fart. He eats the crystal. You guys have to wrestle the crystal away from Ted. We have to eat the crystals, you guys. Stop watching your math, Ted. Did you roll yet? I rolled for something before, but it wasn't like understanding. No, that was difficulty 10.

That was just to figure out if the crystals were from something. And what's the difficulty here? 15. Of course, that time. Insight or Arcana? Insight. Okay. 19.

Oh, okay. That's good. I guess I could have made this Arcana. So if you're listening at home, you might immediately be like, either way, people listening who are familiar with Dungeons & Dragons will be like, you should have just let her have it. But you think about it, and you look at the two crystals, and it occurs to you that stuff that happens in the Feywild

is often on a very erratic timeline, and just going off of what you know about magic, you're like, oh, right, right. If you go to the Feywild and come just, going off of what you know about magic, you're like, oh, right, right, if you go to the Feywild and come back, there's a lot of dangers. One of them is you might forget you were ever in the Feywild. You'll have to do a saving throw when you come back, basically. So it occurs to you as you sort of think about it, like, oh, and it could be a different year when you come back. So you look at the two crystals, and you're kind of like, oh, and it could be a different year when you come back. So you look at the two crystals.

You're kind of like, oh, what if this is two? This is like, like if you've got these, somehow you can stabilize the timeline in your memory somehow. Like because there's two of them, you start, and they look identical. You're like, oh, like maybe this is some way to keep time from slipping, slipping while you're on one side. this is some way to keep time from slipping slipping while you're on one side it's like an e-meter

hold one in each hand maybe she gave this to her boyfriend because the time works differently for her than it does for him okay yeah that's all you can sort of figure out just by looking at it but

so do we see this nope that's all in the feywild he tells you oh even this top part in the that's the cave and the rocks there look similar except there is a there is no opening they're filled it's filled in if you can slip into the Feywild, that opening should, in theory, be real. So we just have to set up a dimensional door here and try it, right? Yeah. My loot does not have dimension door.

I was incorrect. Not for loot. I got you. So this is a once a day, amount to day kind of a thing. One of them was a shredder. There's portals. Well, yeah. I just used mine too much.

So Heglish... But I do have the spell. Heglish says he's going to go make lunch. Would you guys like some fish? I'll have a bite of fish while we figure out... Okay. So he putters inside. Thanks.

Just polite. I would say, Tweed, it also occurs to you that, you know, you could camp out here and wait until you're, you know, dawn the next day if this doesn't work and try again. Yeah, I'm going to kind of sit down and start studying. I'd say if you were to translate quaggoth years to human years, Heglish seems like he's about 89 years old. Can I scare up him? As he putters away?

Yes. He's swirling gray. Swirling gray. Which, again, not an alignment check. It just means he's away? Yes. He's swirling gray. Swirling gray. Which again, not an alignment check. It just means he's not undead. He's not cursed. He's not blessed by some god.

He's just... So are we gonna... Are we gonna do the door? Is Tui gonna... Yeah. You wanna give this a shot, Tui? Yeah. He seems conflicted.

Yeah, I just don't wanna to fuck anybody up i get it tell me what you want to do and i'll tell you what the difficulty is because i i i've tried to figure out in advance all the different ways you guys could approach making a door and so i've got like a little algorithm so we have the dimension door of the cape which i can use once a day and we have the hand that i can use to to stick my foot in this dimension door and which by the way is a cantrip so you can do that whenever you want oh okay well then i can uh i can just keep getting fingers smashed in this dimension door. Do I want to try to cast this thing? Because you can go through the dimension door with me if you are roughly my size and within five feet of me.

So I'm thinking maybe if I could cast this and have everybody run through it and I'll use as many dimensional hands as I can maybe try to use a bunch of cantrips at once I'm just trying to think of ways to not endanger anyone have anybody trapped in barstow if you do that I'm going to have you do an arcana

check and then you're going to do a wisdom check and it'll sort of equal how long you can hold it open. Yeah, does the door only stay open for a second, or does it stay open for however long you roll it? Yeah, why can't we just all roll in it? It's usually instantaneous. Oh, the second you go through it's instant?

So, but if we all just hold on to each other in a big ball and roll in. Right. It's an additional role of difficulty if you wanted to keep it open. But you could just huddle together and make it instantaneous. Or I could turn everybody into some sort of weird

like possum babies or something and cling to me and we'll all go through a dimension or at once. I like that idea. I mean, is there any reason we can't just all huddle together

and go? I would say Tweeno's you could just huddle. Okay. If you really want to polymorph everyone into baby marsupials and make them all pink and weird, I mean. That sounds cute. Let's just make like a last episode of Mary Tyler Moore. Yes.

Certain members of your party may want a saving throw against your weird possum baby plan. Possum babies. We can just do like a huddle. Yeah, we're going to do the Mary Tyler Moore hug. All right. So. And I'm going to get my, my I'm gonna have all my dimension

little dimension hands ready to go really quick tweet do an intelligence check difficulty 10 you get a plus 2 bonus 20 should I do something with these crystals first you think do I hold them up to the light I'm gonna hold the should I do something with these crystals first? You think.

Do I hold them up to the light? I'm going to hold the I would say you remember what I just told Esmeralda and she would have shared. That there might be something You hold one in each hand? Look at one through the other one maybe? It occurs to you that there's two of them

and so maybe you do something different with each of them. Maybe you do the same thing with them. But again, time works differently over there. Memory works different. So maybe something. Is there anything that I see in these things? Do I look at them?

Can I set them like digital clocks? Do an. Like one is a. Like one is a. Here's where. Investigation difficulty 10. You get a plus four, I believe. So that's an eight, so no.

No, you don't notice much, except they look real similar. Do I line them up? Do I put them end to end? Do I put the points together? Kind of like... Try all those things, maybe, and see if anything... I investigate them to the tune of a 19. You notice

they look eerily identical. Dan keeps thinking he's dropping knowledge on us and we're all just like, what? Is one supposed to stay here? I was going to say, maybe one stays here to bring us back. I don't know. Maybe one that's to track?

Maybe he has a really good poker face. I believe you said I have a terrible poker face. Tonight, it's good. I planned really hard for this. I think we have to put them in two of our butts. Literally, we're just about to... That's it. That's the answer.

Yeah, I mean... And then touch our butts together. You know what? This is very annoying because I feel like this is something that a mage college would probably have knowledge of.

Do an Arcana check. Yeah. Esmeralda is the only one who can do this. Do an Arcana check difficulty 10. 23. I have a plus 10. Did you roll? I rolled a 19 and I have a plus 23. Did you roll?

I rolled a 19 and I have a plus 4. Did you roll again though? Oh yeah. No, I just rolled my 19. You did again? Okay, okay. You said do an Arcana check. You think maybe you should leave one here

and that it's some sort of anchor. Thank God. Broke Dan down. Can I do an Arcana check? Huh? To do what? Just to kind of, based on what she's saying, see if I can take it to the next.

Just see if I can go, oh, if we leave one here. Absolutely. Just checking. 16 plus 5, so. Oh, great. Yeah, you realize you can't, if you lose this crystal, you might be completely, like, the year thing in particular could get fucked up. Okay. Can't put it up your ass.

It would occur to you that if you lose the crystal... If you leave a crystal here, maybe you bury it in the ground. No squirrel can go hide it or some shit. Then that'll be probably fine. If you take one with you, you have to keep it.

Or you could come back a year in the future when the apocalypse has happened and be in the middle of outer space. You could come 10 years in the past and no one recognizes you. It's a bookmark. Yeah, it's a bookmark. Got it. So, if you want to do this, it's going to be...

If you want to actually hit that sweet portal attempt, everyone should go huddle up. You're going to do an Arcana check difficulty 10 and if you don't make it... But first we have to leave one of them here. We all have to? No, just Tweet because he's casting a spell.

Are we leaving one here though? Are we burying it? Tell me exactly what you do with this other one. I mean, it seems like he kept it pretty safe, but I guess if something happens to him, then... So what do you guys want to do with it? What is a good... Buried at the base of something that we recognize.

Yeah. Yeah, do we have any spells? Anything that has a remarkable... There's a tree nearby that's got big, hefty roots and looks like no animals really go under it. This soil is really flat and dry, so it doesn't look like it's being turned over by bugs or burrowing creatures.

The tree could grow and change, though, over time. It won't be gone that long. Well, but who knows what that means. If the time is different on the fairway, it could be 100 years. If you keep it together, I would say one of these guys who made the successful Arcana rolls would tell you, well, time should pass the same. Okay.

So if you're only gone for a day, a day will pass. Okay. But if you lose a crystal, that's when it gets really fucked up. Got it. Okay. So we bury it safely. Okay. And then who's hanging on to the other crystal?

Actually, who's burying the crystal? I don't want to do that. I'll bury it. Whatever. You're going to bury it? Yeah. Roll a 20-sided dice. Okay.

Seven. That's all I'm going to tell you. And who's going to hang on to the crystal? Lucky seven. Who wants that responsibility? I'll also hang on to the crystal. Where are you going to put it on your person? I'm going to wrap it into my wrist cuff

He's laughing Does anyone have like long hair They could like braid it into Oh I wish Does a Bodhi have like a ponytail or something? Oh yeah Bodhi does Brian doesn't You can have long hair in the back

You can put it in your beard a ponytail oh yeah bode does yeah yeah brian doesn't you have long hair in the back you can put it in your beard i mean we're really just using bode and brian at this point just for the sake of weird braiding jokes all right so what is it what did the um scarab say about the crystals don't know then look shall i look yeah i'll look well You gonna unbury the one that you buried? No, no, just the one that we have I can do the other one You don't notice anything unusual about it No, nothing Looks exactly the same

Put it away on my wrist for a moment Okay Alright Ready? Steady Let's do this thing So you guys all hold on real Twite Twite to twee Twite let's do this thing so you guys all hold on real twight twight to tweet wait you

all of a sudden see a bright flash and it takes you a second to realize anything is different hello but you realize even though it looks like nothing has changed everything has changed. All the trees. It's like the election, you guys. Oh, no. We're in the big wild. Yay. Hillary's president.

What? Yeah. You found all her emails. Swank. And it's worse, right? Right, bro. We've always been at war with Iran. I'm so sad right now I know

Brian looks like he's obviously well we did have a week of not worrying about North Korea nuking us that was great remember that week oh boy that was a great week

oh yeah hey when's this air after it it depends after it happens we're taping like four or five episodes ahead of this

what is the point of escaping to a magical world? If we're going to do it. That's what our listeners are thinking. I just want to. So we. We'll cut all the stuff out around. Just get back into politics. Now, Brian.

Major depressive episode will come in an hour when we're done. Let's just. You realize all the trees have the same sort of ceiling in that the heavy branches start at the same point but they all seem much taller the sky seems farther away um for a second i would say for a second you all get kind of this weird like wait a minute something feels dangerous and you notice it's not the same but there's heavy sort pollen, kind of like there was with that danger tree in the tower, and it's different.

It's not the same sort of pale blue. It's not as big, but you do sort of go like, is this like fairy dust or something? We're in a very magical forest, so to speak. I was thinking we could wrap some cloth around their faces. Yeah, could it do like a little... You notice... Oh, so point taken.

You all kind of cover your mouths a little bit. I actually want to breathe some in to see what happens. Okay. Hey, do you remember when Sark gave us those cool underwater helmets? Yeah. They were really cool. I'm going to... This is going to...

Roll a 20. 13. 13. You inhale some, and for a second you get like just this it's almost like you did a shot of espresso but that's it yeah

yes dudes it was good sheets and checks and so yeah you realize there's weird purple crystals not unlike the ones you have jutting out of the big rock that you're sort of behind right now that's not confused um with those and uh that also sort of tells you oh right the big rock you look at your map and you notice see see how there's like taller rocks to the right? You're behind those.

Oh, so we're here. And you feel like if you just leaned a little bit to the left, you'd see the other version of the hut. Ah, what do we see? Do you look? Yeah. Leaning. You see a hut. It looks almost exactly like Heglish's.

But it doesn't look like there's anyone there. Should we check out the hut? Is this map to scale? If there's a sword on here, or is it just for decoration? You can't tell, but I will say it is a homemade-looking map. It doesn't look like it was so much done by a cartographer.

I'm digging for that sword. Yeah, I want that skull. Do an insight check, though. Let me look at your bonus, Esmeralda. Anyone else want to look at this map? Yeah. Roland, tell me your insight check. Your insight bonus.

I got 15 total. 18. And then... Oh, sweet. 19. Everybody's rolling high as fuck on this map thing. I'm curious about this chest. Inhale that pollen.

And so you look at it and you realize, oh, this is, oh, mm. It looks like the above ground stuff might be relatively to scale. You actually see trees that kind of line up with the trees. And the mouth of the cave almost looks to scale but then you kind of look at the rest of the map and it looks really distorted and you kind of piece together oh see how it says the pit of the second sky i've seen this on maps before where there is a label over a long

part of it. That could go really far. And you're like, that could be a really, not anywhere near to scale. But that chest is right over there. I wanted to dig for it.

Oh, I didn't even see that chest. I just saw the sword. I want to dig for it Oh I didn't even see that chest I just saw the sword I want to dig for that lonely demon And help him through his problems Listeners if you look at the map You will see there is a demon Of some kind a creature That's timer he hankers for a hug of cheese Slabber slasher chunka A snack that is a winner

Yet won't spoil his dinner I don't get lonely from him. He looks like he's... Eager. He definitely looks bummed. He's an eager demon. I think he looks bummed. Sure, okay.

In the eyes. Anxious? A little anxious. He's probably inhaling all that espresso. What do you want to do? Dig for the chest. By the time this is done, something's going to happen. I want to dig for the chest.

You're seriously digging for this chest? Yeah. Shouldn't have the guy draw a chest there. I mean, he found it. So you walk across the hut and you just start digging. See that tree? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you digging with?

It's going to determine how long this takes your big w i'm gonna do the same for the sword then if he's doing this um i look at it i look in the hut for you know what before you break before you you break the earth i would say all of you realize it's just decoration no oh but you're like, first of all, it could be decoration. More importantly, this is a two-dimensional map, and the Z-axis means that it could be... Anywhere along that line. You're not going to find it immediately. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking.

Does anyone have some type of finding spell? I create a dowsing rod off a branch that I pull off a tree. The look on Dan's face. Yeah, what is your bonus towards making a dowsing rod? You don't have to make it. Hey, do you have, Dan, can you please recreate the face he made when he said he was making a dowsing rod?

That's very easy. Do you have any detect magic? I don't, unfortunately. We do have some things that we don't know what they do. Hey, you know what? Let's go over to this cave and figure out what's going on with this cave. Instead of looking for things that are nowhere.

Because I can fly and I can levitate, and I figure if this is a long thing, we can drop a torch down. What if it's the greatest treasure ever? Before we go down, though, what if we just do a quick recon of the hut? See if anything's in there. Oh, yeah? Okay.

You notice there's a door. Do you open it? It looks almost identical to Heglish's hut. Oh, I just opened it. Sorry. Yeah, I heard that. Same hut on a different floor. It's unlocked. You said it looked like it was empty. So I just opened it. Sorry. Yeah, I heard that. Same hut on a different floor. It's unlocked. He said it looked like it was empty, so I just... You go inside and...

Hello. It looks almost identical to Heglish's. There's a layer of dust on everything. Maury Borey lives here. It almost looks like no one's been here in a week. A week? Mm-hmm. Nothing's rotten or dirty, but it's got that sort of

like someone's on vacation. Is this like the Lutece twins in Bioshock Infinite? I'm not saying nothing. It's time for me to practice my poker face. By the way, never say you're practicing your poker face. It's the same as dropping your poker face.

La la la, I'm kidding. Poker face. Is there an old wedding cake? No, Miss Havisham does not live here. Are you just going to rifle through some stuff? We're just going to talk about pop culture references that you could be referencing for the next 20 minutes. Everybody do a perception check difficulty of 10.

I'm going to roll to see if you know who Miss Beasley is. Got it. 14. Yes, that was the doll on Family Affair. Yeah. I was trying to describe to Vera how cool their apartment was. All right, so Esmeralda, you're kind of... The entire floor of a cool New York apartment building.

Did the kid look like Ken? Yeah, it was Johnny Whitaker. It was Ken, though. People used to think it was me. No, it was you. I recognize you. I used to be asked for his autograph. I know, it's because it was you.

Johnny Whitaker? Did he have a sad ending, that kid? No, he's right here. The girl did. Oh, the girl did, yeah. Sorry, if anyone interrupts me, I'm going to take over the riff and just try to drive it into a mountainside. Buffy, was your name Sissy?

Buffy, Sissy, and Jody. Jody and Buffy were the younger ones. What happened while I was not paying attention? What are you guys talking about? We're talking about the show Family Affair with Brian Keefe. Yeah. And he had a... It's Master Cabin is Mr. French.

It's literally from like 73 or something. You guys are like saying a bunch of words. 69 or 70, yeah. It's still on, isn't it? Go. Yeah, he's right here. No, you realize everybody except for Esmeralda

who's rooting around. Sad child star ending. Okay, anyway. He's right here. But you guys, you notice someone is coming towards the hut. Uh-oh.

You hear noises. From the outside. Where are we at on time, Sam? Good evening. I'm going to peek out. Go ahead. Boaty peeks out. Is it a lady?

As soon as you peek out, you see a shape run behind the tree. How big? A little shorter than you. I'm going outside. There's something by the tree. It might be the owner of the hut, so let's tell them we don't mean any harm. We come bearing messages of...

We're invading your home, but it's cool. You guys should tell them that. Quaggoth? What's his name? Heglish? Heglish. Heglish. We're friends of Heglish. Are you Moribori? Is it the girl? Is it Moribori?

You don't know? You only saw shape. But is that who lives here in this dimension? I think so. Who's out there? We mean you no harm. Why are you in my hut? Sorry. Oh. Are you Horibori?

Who's that? Who are you? Huh? Huh? Do you know Heglish? Do you know Haglish? Do you know Haglish? Nobody Tom? Tom Haglish?

No She's calling you Tom She's calling you Tom She knows your name How do you know me? You guys know Who's outside? Does anyone else go outside?

I'm outside You all see a tiefling step out from behind a tree. Oh, hey. Is it Nettie? It is a very familiar tiefling. Yeah. It's Nettie. What?

It's your girlfriend. The fuck? Tom. Yeah, what the hell? How did you find me? Cross dimensions. Ken actually looks flabbergasted. I've never seen Ken this surprised.

I'm pinching myself. She says, I've been trapped here. What the hell? I thought you were dead. No. Someone tried to kill me. But the race and the thing. Yeah, it was the flail snail race.

Someone kidnapped me, but I got away. Does everybody feel okay? Tom, I hate to be a buzzkill. Look for your scarab. Roll a 20-sided dice first. Nine. Does any of us get the creeps? You for sure think this is her okay there's nothing

suspicious about it to tom i profusely shit my pants no i don't really uh we'll do whatever do we get the willies do we get the creeps uh yeah do we get the heebie-jeebies i've heard a lot about her she says thanks What are you doing with him? You know, just general adventuring. How long have you been here? Feels like. How long has it been? Like a couple years?

Yeah. Like two years. At least. Should I light her up? I looked through the scarab at her. You notice when you look through the scarab, there's no color coming off for no swirling gray or anything. But then you kind of put it to your own hand and there's no color. You look at everyone else, there's no color.

And you look around and you get the impression the scarab of Farsing does not work at all in the Feywild. Interesting. It's like a plane lens. What the fuck? So weird. What are you doing? Wait, so how did you get this hut?

You just found it and built it or what? No, I had to. Okay, so I ran off with a warlock. They kidnapped a bunch of people, right? They were taking us to some weird slave camp. They were trying to find powerful magic users. And we got away. And the warlock told me to come hide with him.

He cast a spell. We went through some weird portal. And we got split up i got lost and i have no idea what's different about this place but this place feels different like i tried to i tried to follow some roads that look familiar but you know i live most of my life underground i didn't i only knew a couple of main roads and i just hey everyone found this hut that's my Rose impression. Oh, and she remarried.

Well, how long have you been here? She thought she'd never see you again. How long have you been here with the hut and stuff, did she say? Like two years. She's been here for two years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about this big pit here, this cave? Do you know anything about it?

Seems pretty dangerous. I try not to mess with it, but it also seems to scare off a lot of the wildlife. If you go too far into the woods, there's a lot of weird creatures here, but everyone seems to stay away from the mouth of this cave. How have you lived? What do you mean by everyone?

I've just foraged. I've killed little animals. I've tried to trial and error, figured out which berries don't give me hallucinations. Are there other people around? And who's everyone? No, I haven't seen. I mean, the only thing I've seen, if you go a little bit into the woods, there's like some satyrs, there's some

satyrs, whatever. Have you been bored? Hmm? Have you been bored? Very. Very. I forgot what it's like to talk out loud to other people who understand me. This is a relief. And no podcasts. I'm so far behind on 99% invisible. So, yeah.

Yeah. What the fuck? You got to check out this new guy, the Fat Jew. Poisoning cultures across planes he's still very successful yeah she so so this is how you perceive everyone including you perceives this the exact same way but she puts a hand on your shoulder and says, let's get out of here. Let's go home. Okay. Let's do it. Am I getting any weird

vibes from this? I mean, I'm an elf. And I've killed children, so I'm tuned into this kind of thing. Am I getting any sort of testicle retraction? any sort of, like, testicle retraction?

Any sort of goose bumps? All right, you're not allowed to make this roll, Ken, but the other three of you do an insight check and just tell me what the number is. I won't tell you how hard it is. 20.

Total. 17. Four. Tui, Esmeralda you definitely are you notice something in her voice when she says let's go home like it sounds like she's trying to just like and Tom's adventure what do you mean like like let like, let's go back to where we live. Oh, without everybody else. Without these guys, yeah. Hey, Tom, would it upset you if I told you that she might be trouble and that she might not actually be her?

Like, weird shit's happened before. I don't know what to think. You feel like it smells like Nettie. Have they embraced it all? Hmm? Have they embraced it all? She's leaving her hand on his shoulder. I mean, it's up to Tom.

She seems nervous. Can you ask for your space? Is there some other... Is there anything unusual markings on my body? Yeah, or a question you could ask that she would know. Yeah, ask her something. You can ask a question, but because we haven't decided

on a ton of Nettie lore between us, you're going to have to roll a dice to see how it turns out. Right. So you tell me what it's going to be like, and then we'll roll the dice. Well, back when they last met in too nerdy, too poker-y.

What's happened since then? Or something that happened in one of your old adventures? What kind of chariot did I drive? Bachelorette number one. Is Bodhi the one asking? No. Who's asking? I'm asking.

Okay. Roll a 20-sided dice. This is going to be an investigation difficulty 15 would you roll 4 your investigation according to this is

plus 4 so she tells you exactly what you want to hear I rolled a 20 you say an eight. So she tells you exactly what you want to hear. I rolled a 20. You say... Well, because he asked this question, what did you ask her? What kind of car I drove.

What kind of flail snail? She perfectly describes the cherry red flail snail that you used to speed around in the underdark with. And you all hear it. It was black. She said it's black then, asshole. It's actually a

Dodge flail snail. Great mileage, not too reliable. She says, Tom, I mean, I understand. Why aren't you telling me something better to do? It seems to me like you're not, you know. I'm in the middle of a very important mission.

Well, right, but is it more important than us? No, you can come with us. I think we should go home first. All our friends are in danger. That's why I'm here, to stop the good danger. How did she know all of their friends are in danger. That's why I'm here. To stop the... How did she know all of their friends were in danger? We all got kidnapped. They tried to assassinate me in the middle of a race and they kidnapped

all of our friends. That was years ago though, right? He would remember that, yeah. That is something we decided. But it was years ago, right? Two years ago, yeah. That's the real adventure. That's our history. That's the people we care about. You can wait 24 hours to get to that though uh do a persuasion check difficulty 18 as marilda you know i uh i roll a pretty high investigation can i can i ask something uh yes but real quick i'll say when you say that, she says, I've known him much longer than you have.

She doesn't bristle, but she gets a little like... She'd understand if I said, look, these aren't just friends. They're my family. She says, oh, thank you for quoting the movie. That does make it a little more clear, but what were you going to say? I was going to ask her, hey,

remember when we went to his brother's wedding? And do you remember what he said to me when we bumped into each other leaving the restrooms? She says, we've never met. And that registers as true

for everybody else. You're all wrong. I got my shields are up here Tom alright really important roll here Tom roll a charisma saving throw difficulty 10 and then roll a chorizo 11

you passed she presses her hand harder on your shoulder and says, We have to go. I got a mission. You can come with me or wait here. She sighs deeply and says, I guess this is goodbye.

I'll wait, but I don't know that I matter to you the same way I used to. Then come with us. I don't even know I matter to you the same way I used to. Come with us. I don't even know what you're doing. Who are these people who are more important than me? She starts getting real Michelle Rodriguez confrontational and jealous. That's my family, baby. I thought I was your family.

Everybody's my family. Everybody's your family really kind of lessens the bond that we have. My friends, strangers. It really feels like. I love a guy. Bodie's looking at his phone. Rhodes. Hi, Rhodes.

They're all my family. Bodie's trying to distract himself. So, Tom, you get the sense that she's a little put off, that you're not just immediately excited to go back to your life together. She sort of cocks her head to the side and folds her arms and says, maybe I'll be here when you come back. Maybe I won't. Where are you going to go? I don't know.

Maybe I'll find more meaning in life. I was making a new life for myself here and I was hoping I could find a way back. I finally found some Bodhi feels so uncomfortable. The magic cube is just ugh. But we're gonna guess, pause on that note as you guys sort of leave Netty.

That's how it's got to be. You could do Netter. If I may, I want to give a shout out to She's got a real nutter face Oh boy Shout out to one of our listeners Chris Herring Chris, thank you for saying hello to me

when I was in line to see Infinity War Hey Thanks Chris Thanks for saying hi to Dan He tweeted at me later, that's how I remembered his name By the way, I had somebody yell blacky green at me from a moving car. That's amazing!

It's always fun every now and then. That's really cool. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to another episode of NerdPoker. You can follow us at patreon.com slash nerdpoker and you get bonus episodes from there and you can also uh

send us anything at p.o box one six zero six nine encino california nine one four one six thanks for listening