Nerd Poker - Episode 23 - Unknown Waters

Episode Date: June 26, 2019

It's been a real tense negotiation with Havoccula, and now the Ice Five hopes to ditch him and come out to the coast to have a few laughs, specifically the coast from the North Sea heading on the outer ridge of the giant comet whirlpool. Their travels could take them past where our first episode found them, only now far down on sea level.

Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in for the all-new episode of Nerd Poker. If you're a Patreon member at the $10 or above tier that we call the Stargoyle tier, you are entered to win a random drawing for a bag full of swag. It's going to include signed stuff, Nerd Poker merch like stickers, and this month the winner is Kimberly Kyle Lovell. So congratulations, Kimberly Kyle Lovell. Congrats, Kimberly. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening. You have been a supporter for a few months, and we really appreciate it.

And we can't wait to send you some stuff. So we'll be in touch over Patreon about getting your mailing address so we can send you that sweet, sweet swag. And now to our regular scheduled episode of Nerd Poker. Hey everybody, I'm Brian Poussin. 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 Kev Dan Clay Chris So meet my friends, Sarah, Ken, Dan, Clay, Chris. Now it's time for another episode of Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Season 3. Hey everybody, I'm Brian Poussaint and you're listening to Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker.

All my friends are here. Chris. Hello. Chris. Hello. Sarah. Hello. Ken. Hi. Who dropped that die? I dropped a Skittle. Oh, I thought it was a dice. Or a die. Dan.

Hello. He was waiting. And Blaine. Snort. At the end of the table sam hi guys everybody hey sam hi bro and this episode is brought to you uh episode 23 right brought to you by patrons like uh-huh old school murder hobo Anthony thank you Anthony Josh Casey and Josh the sunshine

band the Jackson Fife and another one thanks and another one thanks uh and no i i forgot to go back to my notes i was

still at the patreon window open um you should close that browser or did i mean bowser too hot to handle. Too cold to hold. Gotta run for shelter.

Gotta run for shade. It's time for me to run. What happened last time? I shut the fuck up. I mean nerd poker. Dip, dip, dip, dip. Don't woe me, motherfucker. I'm an omnipotent voice.

I'm not afraid of you. That's great. You decided to go back inside the airship after kind of losing a tete-a-tete to the dragon where you were either gonna fight or compromise and you decided well let's put the fight off maybe until we get to know level five a little bit better so you went back inside the airship and dug around found a wall where there might have been something on the other side upon breaking it open you found a couple of modrons large gold kind of robot like things with wings they ran away at first but you cornered one and he managed to, through pops and whizzes, communicate that, yes, it would appear the Baron, a.k.a.

Alpha, might be inside the quill. Cool. And that has been this episode of Nerd Poker. I throw the quill against the ground. Whoa. Someone write with the quill.

Get some paper. We tried that before remember we tried writing And it felt like there was something But we couldn't figure it out So now just let it do its thing We just need to take it to somebody Who knows how to you know Re-extract him from his Or do we just say hey Baron

You all just had a pretty big realization Why don't we do a big group insight check Sure Well that won't help at all I say, hey, Baron. You all just had a pretty big realization. Why don't we do a big group insight check? Sure. Well, that won't help at all. Now, Queep decides to preen his feathers. Do you find some mites in there, Queep? Yummy.

What does Queep say after a big, delicious mouthful of mites? Yummy. Cagala. Doesn't ever get less weird. I am endlessly charmed by that uh everybody else let's hear those insight checks please 22 17 12 9 cool you help him de-louse himself uh hal seen you uh you realize everybody was talking about the last time they were trying to make that quill work and it seemed like it was just barely resisting and moving against their hands when they paid real close attention to what they were writing with it oh is this when i was so maybe yeah uh but you're recalling it because your character was present so i'm i'm just walking

you through that and yeah you from the new realization you piececed together, like there is something that was resisting you guys before when you were trying. It wasn't very powerful. You maybe weren't super on the wavelength of the energy. It's not sure. You're not sure what it was that was keeping you from. So now that you know, TikTok for sure should try. Okay, I'll try and write with it.

Try to channel the energy. Yeah, let's try and write with it. Try to channel the energy. Yeah, let's try to talk to it. Arcana check, please. Who? Oh, God. This is going to be from TikTok. It sure is. 20.

Yeah. Boom, boom. You feel like you can get it to move on its own if you loosen your arm and just very carefully put the tip of it against some parchment and wait. It takes a long time. I breathe. I'm patient with it. It very slowly writes the word yes.

Ask it some questions about how... Can you come out? It underlines the word yes. You don't want to come out. What's your favorite prog band? I bet it does. It writes Marillion. You get the impression, TikTok, it's very weak.

You don't know if it's barely there or not. It seems to need almost your assistance as it moves. Can we help you? It's very difficult. It underlines yes again. Ask it how.

How? It starts to write a question mark and it just runs out of steam. Okay, so he's very How? It starts to write a question mark, and it just runs out of steam. Okay, so he's very weak. He needs our help. We can heal him as soon as we get out of there. Is it worth trying to heal the quill?

Can we try it? Can I throw cure wounds on it? You guys throw some cures on it, nothing happens. Can we ask the Modron if it knows how to get Alpha back to Gnome? Yeah, it says through its vvvv and Gus interpreting, Alpha status unknown. If you change back, you could die? You're trying to get it to write in response.

Nothing happens. Not even a yes. It's not going to have the energy, right? Maybe only a few characters a day. You're not sure how you suddenly got so lucky, except through that dice roll, which implies that you were very patient and very careful.

Can I pray to Valkyr for some guidance? Let's get that religion check in. Nope, wrong guy. Maybe we should all start worshipping Valkyr. 16? I'm going to take an E-meter audit. You suddenly just get a really quick rush.

It lasts less than a second, but you see the faces of Valkyr scholars, temples, places of higher learning. You think that maybe no one in your party knows how to fix this, but there might be someone out there with the magic to draw him out. But this is great news.

Yeah. Although we got to smuggle this quill past the dragon now. This is going to be great if we could go to... I mean, you would know, you've been smuggling the quill past the dragon. Yeah, but we've got to go back out again. Yeah. DM.

Yeah. So I thought maybe we could take a shortcut through Mondor land mechonis is the plane that modrons are from through mechonis can we survive on mechonis uh it says um let's see what's the best way to use my broken dictionary here it says um um my broken dictionary here. It says, um, if you like Ruby Tuesdays, that's all we got. New quantity,

impending status unknown. Well, should we keep searching until we find something to give this dragon or are we just going to trick him and kill it? It wants the quill.

If we could get him out of the quill and then just hand off the quill. Well, he doesn't even know it's in the quill. So we are all are going to have to really keep it on the DL too. Yeah. That means that there will be deception checks in effect because he'll be reading you guys. I mean, if there's no other way to like teleport or get out of here, then yeah, it feels like we should.

You feel like should we try and find another way out of here? Based on what you know, you don't think that these portals are something this Modron can control, and you're not sure what it is, but based on it being a very lawful dimension, it's probably on some kind of schedule that he can't affect. All right. I have a question for the Modron.

Do you know the entire ship? Affirmative. Will the escape hatch help us escape now? It says referenced target access unknown. We can get out the hatch, but it might just put us in the middle. Yeah, it says gate access unknown. So basically, we just have to take our chances, go back out, deal with it. We could find something here.

That's what I'm saying. And say, yeah, maybe we could... What can we give him that is... Treasure? Like a fake treasure or a fake hint. A red herring. A candle or the paper or... Or yeah, or even something even completely the journal.

Well, we could, we don't have to, we can literally give him something that we say was laying next to an area that looks like he was there. We don't know anything. You know, we can just give him something totally fake. Tell her a lie is more believable when it has a piece of the truth in it. Right. So if we tell him, you know, we give him like him like a i don't know anything that we find here

and succeed our deception and then say you know this was laying in a in a nook where it looked like maybe he had been alive for a long time we don't know maybe you'll be able to tell something about it well if you want to tell the truth why don't we just tell them about we found a trash heap and we found a bubble and there was a candle in this journal. But I just feel like we might need the candle and journal, right? I'd give up my short sword. I don't even know what it does. It wasn't connected to it at all, but we should say that it was connected.

Do you think? Sure. What did you say, Brian? Well, I have that short sword that I got from the Baron. I would, I don't know, does somebody else have something they would maybe give up that the Baron gave us? I tried to give him my axe, and apparently I'm cursed. All right.

The axe is cursed, and you'd have to pass a wisdom saving throw to get rid of it. Would my short sword be cursed to you? You don't think it's cursed, but you think it might be pretty valuable. That I shouldn't give it to him? I mean, the Baron definitely left it for you as a gift.

A personalized gloom stalker, ranger, badass, impressed my guest kind of gift. Alright. And the dragon definitely wants shit like that. Who amongst us, thinking ahead, is the best at deception?

I have a plus one. Can I figure out what mine does? I've been looking at it. Sure, if you've been looking at it, you can figure Brian's weighing whether to give it. So, you figured out if you get to look

at it just a little bit more, it might be more nimble in combat than your average sword. Why don't we give him these chess pieces and say we found them in a nook, you know, and, like, it was under a trash heap and it... Also, the rooms you were in, there was a lot of scientific instruments made of, like, brass and copper

and, like, less valuable metals than brass. Didn't we see all that stuff? There's a lot. In the wall you broke through, you feel like no one's really scavenged there, but it almost might be instruments used chiefly by the Modrons. So there's basically Modron scrap and junk that you could... Let's just gather up a bunch of stuff and then... Yeah, look at all this.

Let's say we busted through bunch of stuff and then... Look at all this. Say we busted through a wall. We found this. There were creatures that escaped. I don't think we have to tell him that part, right? We could say we found a new room. Do an investigation check to see what you can gather. And I'll tell you what you can sort of throw in a rucksack for.

Sixteen. Havocula the dragon. Eight. Twenty-two. 8. 22. Nice. Okay. In addition, you find a... In addition to just sort of like metal

and random bits of measuring equipment that mostly are just like compasses, levels, there's more rope. You find what looks like a map for a trade route that dates back over 10 years um it looks like it is for a pirate clan it is buried deep in a chest that looks like the modrons have been using to just store their weird shiny junk in uh the more junk you accumulate the more you have been using to just store their weird shiny junk in. The more junk you accumulate, the more you think these things are just constantly measuring the boat for decay and trying to keep these gears that are powered by Mechanist going.

But this looks like it's from when the Baron occupied the space, and you're not sure how he got a hold of this pirate trade route, but you got one. Is it a treasure map? this pirate trade route, but you got one. Is it a treasure map? If there is a treasure specifically implied, it's not called out, but given that it's about

pirates, it could imply the existence of treasure. And it's a map. Yep. We're going to keep that one. Ken is a treasure map. Mostly what it is, is one half of this scroll, this thing that you can lay out.

It shows the west and south coasts that go from Bozor to Poxus to the Trident Coast all the way to Donkey Land. And then you see where Donkey Land used to be connected to the southeast continent. And then there are

lines going in the ocean and these lines are all labeled there's about a dozen different lines and these labels go to different dates and the dates say uh pirate activity and it is written in common uh that's all you can really that's super helpful okay so we'll keep that map what about remember we had jewels who has how many diamonds does everyone still have? We could say we found a couple diamonds. From your initial barren encounter. I never received diamonds.

I was a servant. You also have a fair bit of, you're straight up rich from Thagas's lair. Yes, we have lots of gold and platinum. Yeah, how many diamonds do you guys have? I have 20. You have 20 diamonds? Yeah.

I've been using mine to bribe people, I think, over the course of, so. He was using them to clean his teeth. Yeah, he did some Kanye West, like, diamond-encrusted teeth thing. So. Nobody else knows. All right, so let's take five of those diamonds,

if you don't mind. Yeah, I don't mind. So we're gonna give him five diamonds, some scrap metal, and anything else? Anybody have any cool weird things they have picked up? I don't really want to give up the water-breathing amulet or my dragon scale shield. Yeah, me neither.

Yeah, I don't want to give up any of the cool stuff. All right, but you're going to head back to the main gate. Just being honest. Yeah, let's try it, I guess. Terry, climb in this sack for a minute. Yeah, let's try it, I guess. Terry, climb in this sack for a minute. So you spend about an hour just sort of going through all your belongings.

And again, queeps the best of deception? Yes. So he should be our appointment on this. You wait like another hour out on this balcony and he's not showing up. You get the impression you could start maybe even resting. Gus, go

find him. Or should we go down? Because don't we want to be on the... I feel like the longer... Fight with him here. Yeah, the longer we don't deal with this dragon, the better off we are. I think the more stuff we find, the more... Can Queep start to fly us down? Yeah, Queep can start flying you down. If you wish, yeah.

That'll be four athletics checks, one with a higher difficulty for TikTok. Okay okay all right and then i lost my oh wait before you do that let me i bet i know what you're gonna do um i was just i forget whether this is for checks or not blesses for saving throws i believe i different spell. I should have memorized the other spell. Sorry. Yeah. But you know what? I'm going to go ahead and bless. Attack, roll, or saving throw.

I'm going to go ahead and bless. I can only do, let's see. TikTok's heavier. Yeah, I'm going to do this at second level. So I'm going to bless all four of them. So that just means that you might not need it, but just in case you need it, it's going to be a saving throw. You get to roll a d4. You get to add

a d4 to it. Dr. Udo, are you going to fly yourself back as a green eagle? I could. You gonna though? You know what? I could turn myself into a green parrot so I could talk. I wish you'd fly like an eagle to the sea. Roll those checks.

Let your spirit run. 20. 19. I'm going to also feed the children that don't have enough to eat. Do I do a... Chew the children with their shoes on their feet. And 17. Then I'm going to leave a crate of papaya by your door. You have a little trouble.

Jungle love. But you get everybody over. It takes a while. But it's now been about four hours since you've seen Havocula, and you get back to the ship. Hoshinka comes above deck and reports that all has been eerily quiet. Are the sails ready to go? No, I think they will still take about a few more hours.

Let's start putting the sails on. I've been doing some work. I have some spells that can help with such things, but it speeds me up only a little. Yeah, we got to move. Spend a couple more hours. Memorial Day, we're going to use those sails. And are you doing any Ice V embroidering?

No, we're not here. Are you going to hoist the sails or leave them down for when your friend returns? Well, we're going to wait until we're ready to go and then we're going to hoist them and go. As soon as the sun disappears and things get quickly dark, you hear

the telling beating of wings. He again decides to fly high above the boat. Should we lay stuff out at one end? That's easy for him. And let's go over what you're giving him. You're giving him five diamonds. Remove five diamonds from your inventory.

A pile of brass and steel and iron equipment. Are you giving him the candle? No, but we were going to tell him that we found an area that looked like... Where all this stuff was. Yeah, so it looked like someone had been hiding amidst all this scrap, but there was nobody there. And who is going to tell him this tale? Queep.

Queep, let's see a deception check. Let's see what it is. And before you roll, I'm going to make you say what it is after the roll. Roll your dice, tell me the number, and then tell me what you tell them. 20. And what do you say? We found a bunch of stuff. We're happy to show you what we've got Chris is laughing at how

incredibly adjective-less this is he rolled a one he just kind of like grinds his broken cocked jaw for a minute and swoops down and snatches all of it up. And very dexterously with none of the brusque shittiness that he tossed you guys a thing, just sort of like clips open the sack,

opens it up with two claws, dumps all your stuff in it, closes it up and drapes it over a claw. Hope you find what you wanted. I will leave you with a watcher. You will wait on board until you have parted the North Sea. I know where you are and I will

for a long time. He starts flying away. All right. A watcher, huh? Have a good one. He's got one of those weird things on here. Hiding in our floorboards or whatever. Like a baby monitor or something.

But I'm using my sense, too too to make sure he's gone yeah you know he flies away and you feel as if he is once again entered some sort of lair inside the iceberg which is above us so it feels like he's this this ice flow glacier type thing that the airship is stuck on top of is about 350 feet high and he about 150 feet up has a lair like in the middle of this iceberg. You think it might be around the back because there's no clear opening on the sheer face that you guys have been climbing and flying up and down.

Set that fucking thing on fire. Well. I heard that. You guys now have a little bit of freedom. This guy has decided to leave you alone for now, but he's got you marked. Yeah, there's somebody on the boat. Let's just go.

Let's just get out of here. Yeah, let's... Is there a physical watcher that we see, or what? Do an investigation check. I bet it's one of those... If you guys all want to... Oh, yeah. If you guys want to do an extermination check on the boat who know but should you know just a

suggestion maybe hold off on the extermination until we get a little space between me and us and him sure I will give you that for sure so you start trying to one day oh nice Oh natural 2019 was perception, right? Plus two. You guys spent a long time investigation. Oh, okay. Well, so 21. Spent a long time looking around the boat. You start sailing. You're a couple hours southwest.

Dark, do you see on the back hull, there's a weird, there's like two big leathery pods like stuck to the back of the boat. Okay. And it's just above sea level. Gross. I show everybody. I'm just like, fuck.

One of them is about the size of a humanoid. The other is about twice the size of a humanoid. Are they like truck nuts? They're as obnoxious. I didn't know did not expect that. Ask me about my ice grandchildren. It's like,

yeah, I mean, it looks kind of like Alien Eggs from the movie Alien. Two episodes in a row with a Siguruni Weaver reference Should we get that stuff off the boat? Yes, we should He said they were going to wait until we were out of the North Sea

So why don't we just see if they drop off And if they don't, then we've kept our end of the bargain Yeah, let's And now we just know where they are Alright, everybody do a survival check Please The winds begin to pick up 15 They are, at least. All right, everybody do a survival check, please. The winds begin to pick up.

15. 22. 20. 21. Do I use my survival? You get a permanent bonus to all survival rolls. You need not ask. It's not an active thing.

23. You managed to make pretty good time sailing the fuck out of here all hands on deck trying to get put as much distance between you and the airship as possible um it's actually a 28 because i already had a plus five yeah you're you have a fucking bonker survival roll if you roll a 20 uh and yeah like you you get out of here so fast it's a little bit like the end of an episode of Benny Hill. That was my grandpa's favorite part. You yakety-sax it out of here,

and you can't quite in one day get out of the North Seas, but you get good time. I will now suggest you plot a destination. Where the fuck are you guys going? We're not out of the North Seas yet?

You're close. Does anyone have a Clottenheim map? You feel like you're approaching... You're kind of just going due south of the general area. You're not that far east. You're kind of up where the actual airship is designated on the map. You feel like you're either going to hit

the north coast of the area north of Silverhenny Woods or you're going to sail west of it soon but you've lost sight of the main landmass so it's going to take a little bit of navigating to make sure you can get back there The Silverhenny Woods are the

closest and Bozor Yeah we could go could we come around here to Pe to pepper and then come down the river if we wanted to go back down here? You could. Yeah. I mean, the question is, where do we want to go to try to get the Baron out of here? Right.

Where do we think knowing what we know? Where do we think the best bet for that would be in terms of like. Hawbelly. To get the Baron out of here? Yeah, wasn't there something that he said about... You now have so much lore revealed to you that I might know too much. That's what I was going to say. Okay, hang on.

Do we need to find like a wizard to help us? That's what I was going to say. He talked about the Archmage of Vanzervale. But then... We're off to see the archmage doctor are there other druids in the woods is that a home for druids what the uh uh silverhenny yes where you are from i know a few guys in there so would i wouldn't i druids silverhenny woods no would i know where druids were uh yeah there were druids wherever there were forest i mean there used to be just druids and you know the woods near

populated areas do we think the archmage of Vanzervale. 27. I got a natural 20 and then a plus 3. Holy shit. That's what I got too. Natural 20s. We got the two magic people. What was this roll?

To decide if the Archmage of Vanzervale was still alive. It would be really funny if you got a high roll considering you have no idea what's happening. It's an insight? Yeah, it was insight, right, Dan? Nice. Yeah, I got a high roll considering you have no idea what's happening. It's an insight? Yeah, it was insight, right, Dan? Nice. Yeah, you got a real high. Someone rolled so fucking high it almost doesn't matter.

27? Yeah, yeah. You are the Archmage of Vanzervale. Hey, I'll take it. I'll explain these weird tramp stamps that I have. More than one. Yeah, I have. More than one. Those of you who rolled over a series of them. Those of you who rolled over a 20

would remember the Archmage of Vanservale as a reclusive figure. He was a sun elf. Like Steve Ditko? Yeah, like Steve Ditko, except less Spider-Man. How seen? Half. I mean reclusive. In fact, members of your family would actually

have told stories about the Archmage of Anterveil. But he was a hermit. And he lived in this valley. This valley was between sort of the rivers and mountains leading up to. So, like, if you were going to take that river down, he would be between that river and the rusted mountains. That's where he used to live. You know that based on the diary, the Archmage of Vanzervale summoned druids,

and he helped keep this planet from exploding when the comet. That's what I was reading, is that he summoned enough druids to keep the oceans from evaporating and the sky from burning down before those druids are slain. It says are slain, but maybe he meant where. I hear they hid their talismans and imbued them with wild magic that could fight the Dread Wizard, but where they hid them I do not know. So that's why I didn't know. You think the druids are all dead, but the Archmage of Vanservale, you know, you're trying to figure out just on intuition.

And you're like, he's so powerful, there's a strong chance that he went into hiding even if many people think he is dead and okay so but we would don't know more than that's where he was was right in that area yeah yeah um i got an insanely high role and i'm a druid wouldn't i like just sort How high was your roll? At a 27. I mean, he sounds like somebody I would probably go to lunch with. Not that I eat. I do. I don't want to give it away completely, but this is the connection that you would make.

None of you had heard of the Dark Wizard until you woke up from being frozen in ice but the most powerful wizard you had heard of before you were frozen was the archmage of van der veel okay so though the diary paints the archmage of van der veel as this figure you would think oh that, that's interesting. Hmm. Whose diary is this? Who's the dark wizard, though? The Tenebrous one?

Uh-huh. Oh, we might think it's the same person? No. I think you would piece together it could be the same person or they'd know each other. So you wouldn't say it's the diary of a madman? It could be it's like the same person, or it could be like Christopher Lee and Ian McKellen

and that kind of relationship. Okay. Well, then who wants to go to the area where the Archmage of Vanservale used to be? You would definitely... We'll check it. You'd be sailing in unknown waters. Who wants to sail in unknown waters, guys?

I like adventure. That is also potentially where others like me would be. Oh. Unknown waters? Well, no. The story was that the mechanical men walked out of the sea to take the Trident. This is where all the elves lived, right?

But we're coming here. Right. You do think, yes, the Warforged marched along the river towards the Trident coast. If this is where the most powerful wizard... And this is close to my neck of the woods, though, right? So I know this area. Yeah, you're from Blue Bog.

Yeah, Blue Bog down here. And Dame Island? Yes. Dame Island is very close to where the Archmage of Vanceville is. I say let's try to sail down. Let's do it. I like that idea. Just know that it'll be dangerous waters.

Who's ready for dangerous waters? Ooh, me, me, me. Who's ready for adventures on the high seas? Me, me, me. You know the great thing about dangerous waters? They don't make you sign a release. They just let you go. You get the health beat out of you.

Don't get any in your mouth. I believe we're going to do a survival check from you and a perception check from you. Sure. I'm going to do Gus's perception again. Is that cool? Gus is going to be scouting for the ship ahead to look for land and such.

And Brian is going to be as captain rolling survival for the whole boat. 19. such and brian is going to be as captain rolling survival for the whole boat 19 hell yeah you both stick very well uh you have no problem reaching the continent um and you get close to the shore within uh we'll call it uh two days nice so with Gus flying ahead, you're able to stop from hitting anything. You see what looks like an abandoned coastal town. There is an

abandoned lighthouse. It looks dead. It looks like no one's been here for years. Does anyone want anything? Stop to pee? Do we feel like we're still close to the arc or is this getting closer? Do I know the area? Do a history check. 12 plus.

Man, just a 13. Are we anywhere near where I was from? I feel like I would know that area maybe. Well, he got it. We can keep rolling. I'm just looking up lore lore which takes me a couple of seconds uh yeah this is uh barracuda bay and that lighthouse is a place that you have seen you have sailed past before where is it in relation to it is on the here let me just go ahead and

if the bay is like that U-shape there. Okay. It's a small little town. They used to have... Don't take home to mama. Nobody's going to sing Barracuda. There used to be an inn there. It's darker.

What? In Barracuda Bay, there used to be... Barracuda. There used to be an inn and a tavern. One of the greatest songs ever recorded, by the way. Oh, yeah. There's nothing there in the town anymore.

It doesn't look like it from a 20 minute docking distance. How are we for supplies, little one? You're asking who Junkle? Yeah.

Well, we got maybe two weeks food left. Okay, let's keep going. We're fine. We're down about half supplies. Yeah, we had 30 days of food, so we should have like 20 days left, I feel like.

Can we get like an Amazon drone out here? I have, based on how long you spent in the airship. Just so you know that I am vaguely tracking it. Good. Yeah, I have you down more from the time you spent in there. Also, I'm docking you for how injured everybody was. They're going to need to heal up. John Cole made himself a few omelets when he was below deck

in PTSD. Yeah, but we were all, everybody's at full health and everything. Are you guys gonna deboard or are you gonna keep sailing? Where do we see? We just saw this abandoned town. Yeah, right? You see an abandoned town. You only see two buildings in addition to

the lighthouse. There's no signs of life that you can tell from the ocean. We can do a quick look around if you want. I guess the thing is it feels like basically this land is so packed with stuff to do that I feel like we could stop anywhere and do stuff. So if we have an idea about, oh, let's go here, then we might as well because there's going to be... Is there any correlation between this map and the pirate map we found?

Yeah, that... That was born down here. He can help you with that. He remembers. So you're going sort of in a different direction than the pirate map. It'll kick in once we come out through the Trident Coast. I apologize.

Wow. I was just swatted away from the community map. I need to get to my Skittles. It's the sweet heat. That sweet heat. Gonna head east, southeast? Yeah. All right, let's get another perception and survival.

I know you're doing it. Do we want to stay closer to the coast? You look really hurt. Do we care about that? Do what? How close to the coast do we want to stay? Yeah, we want to stay pretty close. Safely close, right?

20. Sure. Right, Captain Darker? Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, Admiral. What'd you get? 14 plus 8. Crushing that survival check. What did Gus get? 20.

Hey, boss. We're approaching the east end of this edge of the continent. Good work. We're going to want to tilt south from here. I did some scouting a couple of miles ahead, and I'm communicating this to you now while I'm still flying ahead. Of course. Of course. This is via our telepathic bond.

It's fun. That's right. That's what bosses do. My head feels funny when I talk with it. Anyway, there's a crazy drop off. It's a little scary. What now? It looks like there's this giant whirlpool with glaciers and stuff sticking out of it.

It's very disorienting. We don't want to go near that. We want to stay away from that. I think if we stay a little bit west and away, we'll be fine. But, oh, boy, I don't recommend going where it's dark on that map that I looked at that one time. I don't. No, no, no. Do that.

Okay. And also, I would say, reminds you all of when you first woke up and came out of the cave. It's like a horror show. You're going to be sailing through what looks like an apocalypse. So you are going to head into the apocalypse and start sailing south. Yeah. Yeah. Next to the apocalypse.

Apocalypse adjacent. Yeah. The sequel. third sailing south yeah yeah next to the apocalypse adjacent yeah the sequel uh the that'll be the name of episode 23 no i don't want to spoil it so there will um there will be uh another check here as you turn south uh 19 and brian's gonna roll and i'll read for him because he's got skittles and drink 19. And Brian's going to roll, and I'll read for him because he's got Skittles and Drink. You're over a 20. 22, yeah. Yeah, you start making the corner,

and you do see there is what looks like a smaller magical dent in the ocean that is represented on the map by that sort of wee one. As you steer past it, you notice there is something that looks like a weird checkpoint. There's what looks like... Were the X's on here? No, the X is where

you woke up. As you approach it, you notice something that you hadn't noticed when you first looked out. Perhaps there was too much vertigo. Perhaps the ice shelf that you were lodged in i like blacked out i freaked out yeah yeah you fucking turned off but you notice there is uh what looks like a small wooden structure with a boat docked in it and there are people it's hard to see from a distance

but uh yeah with that perception check from a pretty wide distance, you see there are humanoids walking around. And Gus kind of snaps back and heads back to you guys and says, boy, they're going to spot us if we get much closer. How should we proceed, sir? Boss? Hey, boss, don't worry about it, boss. These are pirates. I think they're pirates. Why don't we stop here so they don't see us, but we could send Gus ahead just to kind of see.

What do they look like? Would you like me to parlay? No, I don't want you to parlay. I want you to. I've never negotiated before. Sounds tricky. Do they look like? What do they look like?

We want you to sneak. I can attempt to sneak. Yeah. I don't want you to be seen. I just want you to be sneaked. Roll a stealth check for me, please. 13. Oh, balls.

That's not great, but I'll try should how close do you want him to get not very close okay just want to get the lay uh he flies back and says um he's gonna fly back i can talk to him okay okay uh i'm gonna whisper with my brain sure hey what's up? Hey, boss. Hey, boss. They look creepy. Like the monster men that were on the ship before? No. Or more like men? Well, they wear clothes like men, but they got different heads. Describe a head.

I couldn't get that close, but their heads are different. Shape? I'm racist towards these guys because I'm scarred from for life from those other creepy guys. You maybe look at on that boat that one time where they one guy melted and is oh, this is reminding me that we get rid of those balls in the back of our boat. They're still there. We got to guys.

Come on. Come back. Gus, come back. What's up? We're gonna deal with these guys in a second. We've got to kill this stuff on this boat. I think I need to bring Timeboat out if we're going to talk about the boat nuts. I don't know what we were.

Come on. Boat nuts. Yeah, we were going to do something about that. When we got out of the North Sea, we were going to. Yeah, but come on. You're not out of the North Sea. You're about to leave. Oh, I see.

Okay, yeah. I'll still give you the boat. Why not have a boat? Let's play with our toy boat. Yeah. Toy boat, toy boat. Hey, everybody toy boat yeah everybody so do we want to toy toy or so they're like back here underneath basically our plan is to cut these things off when we enter the river then which is okay okay okay the toy boat like a coffee shop? It's a coffee shop on 5th and Clement in San Francisco.

In the 90s, yeah. Yeah. It hasn't been there for years, I'm sure. It was a coffee shop and a bakery type place and ice cream. Right around our neighborhood. Yeah. And all the comedians would go there that had money. Yes.

I'm setting a timer until something happens. Okay, so let's send Gus up. Oh, so he said weird heads. Can we get near the coast without them seeing us? No, they set up what looks like a checkpoint. There's like a drop off where it looks like dangerous to get close to the whirlpool, and it looks like they're trying to control

who comes in and out of it. Oh, got it. Should we take land? Or let's just go and try to see what happens at the checkpoint. Maybe they just want a payment of some kind. You can send him to Parley. We could send him to Parley. Are we cutting off our truck nuts?

We decide we're going to do that when we get out of the North Sea. Yeah, we'll see if they fall out by themselves. Like a goat with a rubber band. All right, yes. Hey, boss. Yeah, boss. You said you wanted to parlay, right? Yeah, I sure do. Sounds crazy. I made it up. It's a word, right? Parlay away. Parlay away I go.

Just find out how much it what the checkpoint is. He flies off. And you're seeing through his mind? Yeah. So you see him approach. There are what looks like pirates. They're wearing seafaring outfits, but they could be sailors. It's hard to tell, except they look tough. How many are there?

There is about 30 or 40 visible, but they're coming in and out of buildings, and it looks like there might be more than that. 40 visible, but they're coming in and out of buildings, and it looks like there might be more than that. There are a few races that are different, but the majority of them look like humans, except their flesh

is blue, purple, or green. They have webbed fingers with claws on the end of them, and their heads resemble octopuses with tentacles coming over their mouth. Like Cthulhu people.

Like Cthulhu people. And they come in, like I said, a variety of cool... Do they have crystals? Nope, not that you can see. So these are the tentacle men. But Gus flies up to one of them

and says, Hello, my name is Gus. I am friends with the Ice Five. I have come to parlay. And one of the guys walks up. And I'm going to pull out a mini for him. Hey, Blaine, can you cover me while I find a good... When you need a moment

that is when you reach for Chloroform by Calvin Klein. It's it's it's it's it's It's Ziggy. It's Ziggy. It's Ziggy.

Chloroform by Calvin Klein. So at first you see this guy. This little fish man. And when Gus says it to him, he just kind of blinks. Just kind of blinks at Gus and walks away. Yeah. And he comes back with this guy. Oh, that guy looks... Who I painted.

Wow. Is this Eugene Merman? It's Davy Jones. From the monkeys. And he says... He looks cool. He says, he says, Hello, little dragon. What do you wish to parlay?

My name is Captain Snaggathus. Snaggathus? Snaggathus. I am from the Thixit clan. Who are the Ice Five and what is your business? Well, the Ice Five is just an adventure group who wants to pay their way through. Right, boss? That's right, boss.

My boss says I'm right, boss. How much to pass through? How much to pass through? Well, I would accept a coin. I would accept fealty. There's a lot of things. If you would like, if you're a friendly sort, we can work out lots of deals. Ask what lies beyond, what's in the whirlpool?

They seem like nice pirates. What lies beyond this gate here, friend? What lies beyond this gate here, friend? What lies beyond this gate here, friend? I was told to say friend by my boss. He calls me boss, too. I like what's happening. Captain Snagent says, well, there's the river that heads south towards, you know, Dame Island and try to coast. And we just try to keep, you know, and try to coast.

We just try to keep, you know, the right kind of folks do. We try to keep people from the clan from coming through and harassing people. That's about it. The what clan? The Dratlana clan. Dratlana clan. Dratlana clan.

We have not seen any of them. We haven't seen any of them. We haven't seen any of them. We don't know what you're talking about. All right, guts. So can my boat of people come by? Do you wish to dock or just sail through? I pull the boat. Do you guys want to dock?

Do you want to pick up some supplies? I don't know if you want to pick them up here. I definitely want to pick them up. I think they sound nice. He sounds much softer than pirates. This sounds more like civilization. But he's got a face like the villain from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Yeah, and it's going to be like 40 minute wait from this point in line. The Baron said that the, whatever, the tentacle men are like his soldiers. This is like the Tenebrous ones. This will be his town. Dead men

tell no tales. At some point or another, we're going to have to see what life looks like on the other side. We can skip it now. Anybody? I don't know what you're talking about exactly either. The tentacle men? I thought there was something in the letter about...

He said that he seeded the country with his terrible tentacle lieutenants, but that could also be beholders, right? Yeah. I guess. I don't think these are tentacle men. Okay, so this is just civilization then. Medusa face is what I'd call them Medusa beard Darkthor would you do a history check for me?

For sure if he's talking about the Drotlana plan It seems like you would know something I botched my history Just like high school I'll let you do a history too but that's it I'm cutting you off I botched my history. What about me, a sailor? I'll let you do a history too, but that's it. I'm cutting you off. I have history proficiencies. Yes.

Nice. 22. You've never heard of this pirate clan, but you do think the clan reference means they are pirates. This guy seems weirdly friendly for a pirate. Yeah. And yeah, when he mentions he doesn't let the Dratlana clan through, I mean, you think that, you know,

these guys don't get along with Darkthor's mom. All right. I'm fine with whatever you guys want to do. So I'm eager to get going, but if people want to stop. Horshenka, how do you feel about stopping at some Dratlana hunters? I do not mind. I will say that

I like to keep a low profile in general, so I'm not eager to meet anyone. Coolio. Yeah, I don't really want to spend too much time around you. However, yes, I don't know how you feel about supplies or nothing, but I'm looking at your map.

I do not see a ton of cities along this path, so I bet there will be more towns. Yes, more civilization, but I do not know that any of them will be this friendly. Why don't we dock and I'll stay on board, and then you guys... Yes. Do a little grocery shopping? Yeah. But I'm sure Kixik is going to stay on board. And then you guys... Yes. Do a little grocery shopping?

Yeah. But I'm sure Kixit is going to stay on the boat too. Prices are going to be crazy way out here at sea. We'll see. All right. So you guys are going to approach with timeboat? I'm going to wear some kind of hood or something like that. Okay.

I'm going to keep what I am on the DL. Cool. So, uh, as you guys approach, there is a retinue of these guys. Um, I'm going to ask you to do,

uh, one more insight check. Dark there. Last time was history. This time we're going to do insight. History was so you can figure it out in advance. Insight is it's happening. There you go.

These are for sure illithids, also known as mind flayers. Is there a way for us to set this thing on fire from a distance so it all sinks? You are still docking, yes? You get pretty close when you figure it out. So it would require a very last minute. Hey, everybody, these guys are all mind flayers.

I think we should keep going. Oh, now everyone wants to go. Yeah, let's just keep going. They're mind flayers. Yeah, but he was a nice one, I thought you said. Here's what Darkthor would tell you. You guys all, from that exchange, definitely are just like,

why the fuck was he so nice? Because Darkthor knows these things tend to live hive hive mind existences they don't even usually uh bother speaking anything other than deep speech or under common their general plan is to assimilate people by ripping their brains out and replacing them um and uh that's what they do below ground but darkthorn never would have seen them above ground before. Okay. Well, then fine. Let's just go through that, which is what I want to do anyway, I guess.

And not stop? No, we still have to pay. We're going to pay them or whatever. Oh, yes. Well, Gus can... Okay. Yeah. So you finish docking,

which involves pulling your boat up to this pier. And this guy, who, again, introduces himself as Captain Snaginthus. Snaginthus? Uh-huh. Am I saying that right? Snaginthus. Snaginthus.

Snaginthus. Yeah. Snaginthus? Oh, boy. Snaginthus. Snaginthus. He says, welcome, welcome. Oh.

This is a friendly checkpoint. And there is a bit of upkeep, we generally ask that per passenger. Oh, uh... a pretty simple ship, but it's a bit weird how small your ship is. You've got two cannons. Oh my, we don't see cannons much, but hello. Hello. What a speech. He's surrounded by other mind flayers. There's, you know, about five of them

all just sort of staring blankly, their tentacles arriving. Could we do, let's say, 70 gold for everyone? That sounds more than a bunch of gold. I feel like if we can try and... Isn't that how much we pay them? That's more than...

He said 10 gold each? Yeah, there's us. There are three of you hiding below deck right now. Oh, I'm sorry. Darkthor, Jonkel, and Fegma, I believe, are all below deck. And Hoshinka. How about five gold per person? Do a

persuasion check. He's going to flay our minds. Nineteen. Alright. Great. Is anyone else tracking how much gold they have? I am. I have all the Thargus gold, I couldn't pay the 25 That's what it is, right? 25?

Is there a way Is there a way to scrape off the truck nuts and put them on this thing? Put them on this little Are you asking the captain I'm just trying No, I'm asking

the crew here if there's a way for us to take this spider tracer and put it on a rental Kia and then beat feet out of here. I like that idea. I don't know. Does it work that way? Well, what do we do? Once we try to pry them, they're going to. And once we tell him that they're there,

that might make us more interesting and or... Right? Well, we get past this and then do it. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. All right. Because they might still just fall off, too. We don't know.

Yeah. All right. Very well. Do you wish to come with the poor to do any trade? No, we're going to keep going. All right. Well, allow me to give you this coin. You can throw it in the ocean if you don't want to,

but should you need any assistance, feel free to show this to, let's say, any pirate of any clan, and they will be afraid of us. Wow. Tell me again the name of this clan. The Dixing Clan? Say it one more.

The Dixing Clan? Say it one more. The Thixit Clan? Say it like I'm a real dum-dum. Spell it. The? Thin? But you know letters. Let's start with letters. He's trying to say something like T-H-I-X-X-I-T.

The Thixit Clan. Yes, the Th-It Clan. See, I'm sorry. I just woke up, so my brain's crazy. Jesus Christ, this is trying to negotiate with Gene Shalit. Yeah, he gives you the impression that they consider themselves rather powerful and all they ask for is basic upkeep. Yeah.

Well, hail Fix-It Clan. Good job, upkeep. Well, hail Thixit Clan. Good job, my friend. Hail, thank you. Are any of you looking to join full membership? Not now, but when we do, we know where to come to. I can't help but notice

you appear to be marked by Havocula. Generally, when people are marked by Havocula, it means some sort of death sentence. You are aware, once you begin passing south, there's a chance you will attract the attention of more dragons. How are we marked? Well, there's those truck nut things.

If you try to peel them off, they will attempt to devour you alive. They are monsters. What's the best way to handle them, you think? We would be happy to assist you. They are monsters. They will attack. We have tools for such things. Oh, really?

Yes. Now, you say when we head south of here, just south of your port, then other dragons will sense them? These psychically reach out for, you know, members of the Barrow Steps dragons, and yes, they will come

to find you, and when you are marked by Havocula, that is an invitation to other dragons to enslave you. Interesting. That's not what Havocula that is an invitation to other dragons to enslave you. Interesting. That's not what Havocula told us. Oh, Havocula's an asshole. Have you... You met him, right?

Is there a... He was mentioned in the Baron's letter. That was a lot going on in that letter. I don't know if you guys realized that. Who was? Havocula. The wizard had parlayed with Zetagog, Havocula, and the other dragons of Varro steps. All right, let's get these things off.

Can we pay you to take these things off for us? Absolutely, yes. That'll be a platinum piece apiece. Whoa, whoa. Halcyon, are you okay with that? Oh, well, Halcyon, are you okay with that? A platinum piece for each of the two. You will see, if I show you in this direction over here, you will notice there is a boat here.

This boat looks like a giant cork with a large mechanical arm on it. This arm will rip the monster off of your boat without causing damage to your hull and then my friends here will eviscerate it with psychic daggers and it will be no more, but it costs quite a lot for upkeep and my men need to

find their food. We usually trade with, you know, others in the Silverhenny Woods. I just meant, is it a platinum piece for each of the two things? Yeah, it's one per, yes, one per. But that was a cool story. How many?

I could tell you many more stories of my fixer clan. What is a gold platinum translation? How about one diamond for both? I believe it's ten gold is one platinum. One diamond for both is, I believe, not quite the same. That's like way more, right?

Yeah. He straight up looks at you and says, I would not want to steal from you. What's going on here, guys? I'll give him two platinum. All right. Yes? That's what he asked for.

He takes your hand and very sincerely shakes it and says, I've never seen one of your kind be so generous. I appreciate that. I'm used to death and destruction from your people. Where do you normally see my kind? Well, we saw you march and destroy the elves before they fled into the Feywild. Your hood didn't really cut it, I guess. Yeah, you should have had TikTok on the back of your sweatshirt

my people are used to hiding their appearance it's only recently we have felt so bold to not do so yeah what changed we were encouraged by the mother brain to no longer be ashamed oh that's nice so it's the mother brain

yes you gotta be yourself I learned that watching the resc brain, yes. Okay. You got to be yourself. I learned that watching The Rescuers. It is uncouth for me to share the location of the mother brain for it shows our vulnerability. Oh, of course. Gotcha. But thank you for this tithing,

and we will in turn destroy the leathery nuts hanging off. As this machine, it's barely a boat it's like it looks like a tiny it looks like a giant like steam shovel attached to a tugboat it's kind of like rickety like like moves over there it's got some kind of engine on the back of it. When the thing moves down and grabs it, you see these things turn into giant manta rays with horrible vampiric faces. In fact, should you have attacked them directly,

glad we didn't, you would have had a couple of these things come at you. You see them flail around as the mind flayers gather at the end of the pier. How do you pronounce those? Exoclodles or something? These? Yeah.

These are cloakers. Oh, that was way off. Yeah. Cloakers were attached to the back of your boat, and the mind flayers just rip them to shreds as they flail around in the mouth of this device good and on that note and so

now the boat is going to have a cone on its head until it heals up exactly okay so it doesn't chew the stitches open you sam were you were you listening during episode twenty sure was if you're if you're just joining us this quill is weak i always forget blaine can be a bird if he

wants. We're going to try and bribe that dragon with the pervert voice. Oh, hell yeah, we're going to Dame Island via the Apocalypse River. I hope the boat's name is now Boat Nuts. Captain Snagathus is here and he's got a real Billy vibe.

He gave us a get out of jail free card for pirates and i missed the part of the show that explains why our boat has balls but i love this game thanks buddy uh anything you want to plug no all right i'll take i refuse uh we've always got merch at uh near mint and uh I refuse! We've always got merch at Near Mint. NearMintMerch.com slash NerdPoker.

There's a bunch of different levels of Patreon now. You can support us kind of as much as you feel like, right? If you want to make sure every month, if you want to win that grab-brag of prizes, you're signed up at the $10 level at the beginning of the month. So make sure you hop on that ASAP or you could miss another drawing. Cool. Thanks, you guys. Honk, honk, a-hooga.

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

California, nine one four one six. Thanks for listening. I got to close this browser tab. I got to close this Bowser down. This is 23. Hey, everybody.