Nerd Poker - Episode 25 - Jnrei D'Nah

Episode Date: August 1, 2018

Time to do some drugs and meet a cosmic trickster. It's Episode 25, you guys!

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 Hey everybody, I'm Hi. Hi everybody, I'm Hey. Hey everybody.

Hi Brian. I'm Brian Poussaint and you're listening to Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Hi friends. Hi. Dan. Hi. Dan. Hello. Episode 25.

We did it. Twice. We're a full quarter. What happened in episode 24? Or do we have some patrons? Let's go ahead and thank a couple of patrons. Let's take a look at that clip. Thank you for Glynishmore.

Are we not allowed to make that reference? No, that's fine. Is it just important to make it all like, remember that guy? No, we don't. Remember Jerry? No, I forget him. Don't forget Jerry.

Thank you, Uncle Nick's liver. I believe that has a reference to a movie. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Uncle Nick. And your liver. Thank you. Dan, do you want to pull your mic in?

Pull your mic in, Dan. The fuck? Jesus Christ. I don't know how to arrange everything. One second. Pull it in. There's a lot of stuff going on. Get it up on your mouth.

Oh, God. There's not much room for whiskey anymore with all. No, we have too many gizmos. Frank Light. I got my whiskey wet after midnight. Is that bad? I was like, what the fuck are you doing? Oh, it's gizmo.

Here we go. One more. One more. You said gizmo, so you did gizmo. That's what was happening. That works. Thank you, Ace Bartender. Thanks, Ace.

It's a bartender with a bandage. You guys made it to the town of Tential. You have been on quite an adventure, and you were deciding, well, you know, you've got a dead god's cloak. And we may have forgotten to mention this on the air, but it's tucked away in, I believe, Tom's backpack. So people don't see that you're walking around with a giant glistening God cloak. I feel like that would be the commonsensical thing to do. Okay. And time had to fast forward a little bit because even though you had like a little anchor to the material plane, you just came from another dimension.

Another dimension. I'm not doing from another dimension. Another dimension. I'm not doing it this time. Do it. Brian got such a somber face, like really judgmental. Don't you tell me to smile. Now he's done with it, guys. No one else is allowed to do it. Beyond what you can dial.

Versatile style profile. So you guys made it back to the the material plane but because it's always hard to travel between dimensions it's a couple weeks ahead and uh things are a little creepier there's crimson red lightning in the sky uh it appears all the mage colleges you were trying to save um are fallen in some way or another gostel you managed to not get a tendril going up to the moon but it looks like a couple others had that happen while you were in another dimension. And so I know I'm just baiting you at this point. And you made it to Tential where there's no mage tower, but it does look like some magical

stuff was in the process of happening. You pin down Dessa, a creepy half-drow teenager with a bad attitude. And her uncle, Master Magnus, a wizard, who had recently been turned undead against his will. And he was supposed to be watching guard over her, but she kind of cast a trance over him where he couldn't tell that she was awake and chanting. And you guys basically kicked the door in

and were like, the fuck you doing? And you pulled her upside down. And, you know, you guys know a little bit about her you know she was a student at the mage college of gostal that was a bit of a troublemaker that she helped get some drows trying to bring about the end of the world like into her campus to cast some apocalyptic type spells um and you managed to thwart it but like she was on the run she was like fuck this and she tried to hide up the mage tower she stole a bunch of artifacts you managed to get a bone wand back from her uh but um you know her her past is troubled

uh you learned in gostal that her father was a drow and he was like a deadbeat. He laid his hat was his home. He was a deadbeat drow. Now you've discovered that not only was her dad a deadbeat and her mom had dumped her kind of at the mage college, but both her parents are dead.

She said she killed them. She was hung upside down by her feet, and she confessed to having killed her parents. And that is why she believes she should hand over her physical form to the goddess Zinzerina, because she doesn't deserve her sentience anymore. And Master Magnus goes, what? Because that is his sister she's talking about uh-huh everybody as well as no you didn't as his ill-fated uh brother-in-law so to speak

who oh master magnus the wizard in the room with you guys cliffhanger where she delivered that bombshell, and now she needs to explain herself. She says, I'll tell you anything you want to know. She can do that all by herself. I don't like you guys, but whatever. You got me dead to rights. I feel like I can make a case for why not to kill me, so whatever you want.

So why did you kill your parents? How did that happen? Well, my dad was a real piece of shit. I don't think there's any debate about that. He was just this really shitty drow. He was a sellsword. And once I got old enough to fend for myself, I left a mage college.

I hunted him down. I found him upstairs in an inn, and I killed him in his sleep. Fuck him. Wow. I hope it was surrounded by loved ones. She says uh no he was uh you know he was with a bunch of prostitutes and i didn't kill any of them but so he went out like john ed's whistle high five he's like no i chased chased chased him out of the room and then i killed him while he was stuck in a magical sleep.

I slit his throat. He's a horrible person. The world doesn't miss him. He killed good people for money. He was nothing. Okay. Are we on Karen Kilgara's podcast? What about your mother?

In the middle of a door sign. She says that was an accident. She went to go tell her mother, like, look, I'm so sorry I had to do this, but you know that piece of shit who wronged you, I took care of him. And, you know, there was a tussle when her mother was horrified and she was accidentally killed.

She kind of gets vague here. She can't summarize. She goes from dramatics to like, and we got into a fight, and I accidentally cast a spell that killed her, and I feel real bad about it. Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her father 40 whacks. What's Master Magnus doing with this information?

He's shaking his head and saying, how could you? How could you? He's just in emotional shock again. He's feeling a little emotional right now. He says, what can we do with her to you guys? He's like, I don't even know. I mean, what have you guys learned?

Do you think that this apocalypse stuff is stoppable? Is there something we can do? We may need to go to the moon. He kind of reacts the way I am. We also need to play Among the Stars. Would you like to fly in my beautiful moon? So we have a couple things that she might be interested in, but we would need to talk about them.

I'm sort of unclear on what we need to do. I mean, you guys do know as a party that your reason to believe Zinzarina is stranded on the moon. We have a moon map. And you also believe that there is, yeah, there's some sort of weird either civilization or small outcropping of beings on the moon. Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys. So all these schools are done, that whole thing.

Yeah, it feels like maybe there's not much you can do to stop what happened to those schools but maybe there's something you can do with what happened to those schools like ride the elevator up to the moon yeah that's a that's a theory you guys came up with that maybe that those there's a way to ride those tendrils i did kind of ask because um dessa she had said that she doesn't have anything to do with the weird lunar elves, that they're like crazy cult. Yeah. So what is their goal and how is it different from your goal? Why don't you do a quick little persuasion check? The difficulty is lower because she's trapped and she's feeling subtle,

but this will determine how honest she is. And you have one more. 13. Okay. Okay. So you ask her and she says, hey, look, I was just trying to arrange that fortune telling thing because my pals, they told me this was cool.

They told me it was fine. It didn't seem like a big deal. My pals are named Viesta and Parashree. They're a couple of drow who befriended me because they knew I wasn't getting along with any of the humans and normal elves at the mage college. And they helped set it up i don't really know uh you know much about it except you know there was a i'm pretty sure one of them is at the bottom of the shaft yeah um she said they they the parishioner said they were from the House of Faeon, a drow royal house.

And when she says this, Master Magnus says, House of Faeon? No. Like, there's no way that what happened could have been related. The House of Faeon is this very, like, reclusive royal house. And the drow said there's no way they would be in charge of, like, a traveling side show basically so he he kind of like looks at destiny and goes you're a sucker like that you got suckered

by these drow like whatever this cult is they played you whoever you think your two friends are they're part of this whole cult thing like you're a sucker and desa just kind of folds her arms and shakes her head. I assume they cast some kind of magic spell on her. Actually, can I detect magic on her? Sure. Go for it. Okay.

Roll for it? Yep. Well, she's going to roll to save because she's not exactly interested in having you detect magic on her. That's kind of like a slightly... Oh, yeah. she rolled real well. Plus. It's her wisdom, right? Oh, God, I hate when I say this stuff out loud.

I don't know. So, 19. I'm going to do this the right way so listeners don't do the googling and then talk to me on Twitter like we're in the same room and I didn't google later for the duration you sense the presence of magic you can learn at school of magic if any

yes okay so you detect that she has some sort of passive aura spell cast on her but not much else she doesn't appear to be mesmerized or so she's mostly just you get the feeling that maybe master magnus is right she's she's psychologically brainwashed she got she was lonely and she got suckered by a couple of did your do you think your friends had contact with zinzerina she says yes they absolutely did we We did the same rituals together to commune with her. But you don't think they were connected to the lunar elves?

She sighs very deeply and rolls her eyes and says, I didn't think maybe like 10 minutes ago, but now I guess it's possible. All right, well, baby steps, I guess. possible all right well baby steps i guess she says i still don't like you guys we don't like you either so do you want the moon to crash she kind of spits on the floor do you want the moon to crash into the planet uh she says no i don't want the moon to crash on the planet but i don't think from talking and she's like here's where i'm kind of confused like i don't want the moon to crash on the planet but i don't think from talking and

she's like here's where i'm kind of confused like i didn't think that's what was gonna happen from me and my my two friends who were like basically doing drugs in the woods and talking to the goddess she didn't ever ask for that i don't know like me and my two friends were like let's talk to this goddess and let her come back i didn't know my two friends were like all wrapped up in some death cult of bringing the moon crashing and that seems like she goes you know what it is this cult they're dumb that's what it is they're trying too hard they think that's gonna bring they're they're being too literal they think their goddess is on the moon so they'll crash the moon in the earth

they're dumb so where do you think you don't think she's on the moon she says maybe when i commune with her she was seen like she was on another plane of existence it could have been the moon but i thought i was just going to bring her here like like she would inhabit my body and take over my consciousness and what do you need to do for that to happen i was hoping to get her cloak and make it happen by wearing her cloak i feel like we find something yeah it's really hard to get right she goes yeah i mean there's there's like this there's like what is it like a 10 miles of slate that just goes like straight into the ground that these wizards sealed it

off in i don't even know how to get down there your friends trying to get who does she's like yeah me and my friend me and my friends have been trying for a long time we would we would meditate out in the woods where the sealed off cave is and try and ask zinzerina for guidance on how to find her cloak and she just kept saying all i know about my possessions are that they're in your realm i don't know anything else and we kept trying to pick her brain but she seemed like she didn't care about material objects that much she's kind of she's kind of like uh so if you if you did get the cloak what were you gonna do with it just put it on she's like yeah i'm really good at attuning myself to magical objects it's it's kind of my specialty i can you know really fast

attune myself to powerful items because i'm just really smart and so you know i was like i'll figure it out. Interesting. Okay. And she does give you the vibe that you might be picking up, which she's just arrogant as hell. Like she's, you know, maybe 16, 17 years old and just thinks she's figured out everything. And she's a drow, right? She's half drow.

She's half human, half drow, and you can tell she's gotten some of the worst traits of both. She doesn't seem like she's evil, but she seems like she's gotten some of the worst traits of both. She doesn't seem like she's evil, but she seems like she's got all the arrogance of a dark elf. Like she's just so like, I'm genetically superior because I'm different. And she's got pointy ears. So she sticks out.

She's got white hair. So she sticks out, but she's got pale skin and like, she's got little splotches on her skin. It makes it look like she just gets you know like a reaction to any sunlight it's like you know okay she looks like an outcast okay i'm gonna pull out my little drow orb my little she immediately lights up and goes what i'm going to uh uh kind of light it from beneath with my hand because i can do stuff like that

she goes what is happening oh my god okay check this out i got this at the gift shop uh-huh look at this i want you to look at this and see if you can see zinzerina any place if you could maybe she looks at master magnus and goes um hey um remember those those drugs if you let me take some of those drugs i bet i could do something with that orb that this guy is showing me um we did learn that it's magical and needs a spell to activate or there's some kind of spell yeah you probably need to attune yourself to that thing i can hook you up with how to attune yourself to that thing that'd be interesting uh smoke some of this man definitely seems like a terrible real good seems like a terrible idea that you should totally do yeah master magnus says uh the rest of us will just watch you trip your balls off.

This is like that time I did Salvia. Yeah, this is like Drow Salvia. And Master Magnus says, yeah, you know how you guys walked in and I was kind of suckered? Like I had that spell cast on me where I couldn't notice my niece was in a trance. I knew that because I'm newly undead

and that there's some weird thing going on that she was going to get maybe a jump on me, but not that drastic. So I had some samples of that tree you found. I think that's what she's talking about, that tree you found in the mage tower. I had samples of that, but I entrusted it in like the royal keep of Tenchal. I didn't want that on my person while i was in hiding here in town because right now we're in like the mage quarter and i wanted to hide in a mostly abandoned building with her because everyone would try to kill her oh we probably should also tell you guys i don't know if you knew that when we were coming inside

um there was a demon eating a guard uh Now Master Magnus stands up and goes, what the fuck are you talking about? Yes, there was a lot going on when we got here. Roaming demons and shit. How did we forget about that? Dessa folds her arms again and she's still upside down but she's just kind of like

Dessa, do you know anything about that? Maybe. I was trying to break out. So I know how to create one of those monstrosities from a distance, and I've spent the last three days enchanting somebody in the mage quarter until they transformed.

That's really bad. She goes, yeah, I know. He was eating the guard. She says, yeah, I was trying to break out i mean like i said you got me dead to rights i don't know what you want from me at this point i thought i was just gonna break out and become zinzerina and save everybody's life stop the goddess from crashing into the moon or the moon into the planet or whatever by like just giving her life but no all right so uh cool but she apologizes and says yeah i know that was wrong i shouldn't i didn't know we came into this and uh the middle of a box of wine she says that

was and but but uh master medics is pissed and he's like i don't know what you guys are thinking about letting her do drug wise with that orb but she's you can tell she's dangerous i'm trying to get her not killed but i don't i'm at a loss like i i guess you know if you think it will save the world we could maybe try to get her some of these drugs but look at what she did when she was given the chance i mean well maybe she doesn't do it maybe one of us does it do we need to pause? Oh, okay. When the engineer walks over and starts touching wires, it's like, well... I wish Sam would tie his robe. He says, I like that idea better.

Was that his dog on my shoulder? Who wants to do that? That was just his balls. It's got to be either me or Tui. Right? Or Master Magnus. He nods and he says, I mean, you two seem to have the most knowledge of magic. And it's Tui's globe.

He says he doesn't think he should do it because he's undead. And he tries to explain, he doesn't feel like he's been commanded to do anything, but he almost feels like some sort of lesser ghoul almost. I haven't trusted him for a couple episodes. He's like, look, I think I'm speaking with free will right now, but I don't know what... I feel like a lich, you know, like an undead wizard, but I don't know any new spells.

I don't know what evil force is allowing me to be a lich. I have a feeling... I'm messing with a son of a bitch. She's like, Dessa told me she just cast a spell on me. She cast a spell on me that she learned from her friends and she doesn't know where it came from.

So I'm at a loss for what she did to me. Can you try to pray to your God? Did we already try for you to pray to your God to see if you could like help this guy? Did we already try that? that oh it's been a while i don't i think you asked you prayed to your god to ask if you should execute we should kill him right yeah you have a bit of a mixed relationship with this guy because as soon as you heard he was undead you were like fuck i'm dead and then you prayed to your god and cord was like

have mercy he's uh okay well i'll uh i'll go back to him. Okay. Do a religion check, please. Hey! And you have a religion bonus of what is it? I know you get something. Just one. So 12. Does that do anything? Yeah, it does something.

What is it, brother? Hey, brother. Help this brother. What do you, What is it, brother? Hey, brother. Help this brother. What do you want me to do, brother? You mean you help him? You mean like, you know, tag him out and get in the ring? Help him get back to normal. Heal him.

I don't know if I can do that, man. That would require some special rituals. One of your friends would have to help him out with. I'll tell you that much, man. All right. Sorry if this impression's falling apart. Dungeonmaster doesn't watch that much wrestling, but... It's okay, brother.

I'm going to call in Iron Sheik in a minute. Can we hear? Or are they just talking privately? No. Court says that we'd have to Do some kind of ritual What rituals? What would we have to do?

Roll one more time Alright It's just a 10 on that one Alright well he says Well man Basically you have to get like one of them clerics Or like a priest I don't know if any of your pals there already know

What kind of magic you need but You know you gotta do Some kind of reversal of the spell. Right. That makes sense. You ain't got no warlocks. I hear warlocks know some shit. I need to spell magic. So I come back to you guys.

But he's changed, man. He's changed. We need some sort of mage to do a reversal of this. I'm gonna go make a six-tapes to six takes you gross don't say that you know what yeah true i've had so much shrimp i gotta go it's weird how something so small can do so much damage okay so yeah master magnus says i mean that all sounds about right you know we are wizard school so we don't really have a lot of religious people at our college and i never really studied that

stuff much yeah okay well we're gonna try to help you when this is all over he says great i agree though that one of you two might be the one who wants to take the drugs and commune with this god and find out what the fuck. Sure, man. I'm just going to get some chocolate and Gatorade. I'll cut up some more slices for you. Oh, cool, man. Thanks. While you guys are talking, someone... Don't watch Killer Clowns from Outer Space.

Learn from 1980. It's not a great movie. No, when you're tripping. It's designed to upset you when you're tripping, for sure. Yeah. It was awful. I walked into my apartment bedroom, and the characters were all in there. No.

And they were all 12 feet tall, and they were all bent over. Like presenting? No, no. They were all like, I walked into the room, and they were all taller than me, taking up all the space of my room. And then they're just like breathing in my face and I could barely move to get to my bed. And then I looked down at a hit parade or magazine and Kirk Hamill was on that and he winked at me. That was like the weirdest part of the whole trip.

I'm so sorry I laughed so hard. As he's like, hey, have fun. I love hearing stories like this. This is why I would never in a million years. Although I did tell you that I one time took an Ambien instead of my thyroid medication at 9 a.m.

9 a.m.? Later in the world. My grandmother did that one time. I would never take any kind of drug. 9 a.m.? Yeah. Later in the day. The 9 a.m. was crazy. My grandmother did that one time. I would never take any kind of drug, but that was- Yeah, 9 a.m. Ambien is like going on a water ride at work. Well, what's crazy is that obviously I didn't know that I did it. So only like an hour later, I was like, what the fuck is happening? And then, yeah, I had a poster, like an Elvis Costello poster on my wall,

and it started like moving like he was swinging his hips like Elvis like Elvis Presley style and then I was like did I maybe and then I checked

and I was like mm-hmm I'm going to bed and I went to bed all day got a lot of stuff done probably I never did it

unintentionally but that always that always scared the shit out of me because I know people that were dosed and would trip their balls off not knowing that you were going to do that.

It was bad enough when you would be tripping and then you'd be like, why is this not stopping? And I remember I took my contacts out once because they were actually kind of painful and I'd been awake for a long, long time and I shoot a contact into the sink and I look down in the sink and now now there's 1,000 contact lenses in there. Oh, my God.

I'm just like, oh, God. I'm trying to grab my contact. And then later what I had done is I completely destroyed the contact because I was rubbing it around trying to find it. This is pre-daily. Scratched it. Not daily. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, this is 1989 probably. yeah yeah yeah no this is 1989 probably oh my god you guys know I'm a cop right oh shit what

yeah this is all big long stick you're all in the red ba da ba pow schwow alright so you guys are talking to Dessa and Master Magnus

for a while and all of a sudden they're not me I'm a cop well funny you should say that running into the room is a mercenary and all of a sudden they're like, not me, I'm a cop! Well, funny you should say that. Running into the room is a mercenary, and he's

real skinny, he's like a young guy, and he runs in the room, and he goes, what the hell's going on? Somebody cast a spell on me! What's happening here? There's some kind of magic spell going on, you can't do that, you can't do that! Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! He pulls his sword out, and Master Magnus is

trying to calm down, but he's not listening. He says, you told me you were under some kind of undead curse or something. I know what's happening here. She's casting some weird shit. Who is this guy? Gotta get it back to the Maccadamia farm. Have we seen this guy before?

I think Magnus said he was casting something to keep them from killing Bessa. Yeah, yeah. And this guy says, who's that girl? She wasn't here when you guys came in. I'm hanging around with you. And you realize that she was probably invisible or something and got smuggled in. And he's real suspicious of her, perhaps as if she is wanted.

Perhaps as if there is word that a half-drow is wrecking havoc upon the world. Where is this guy? He's in the doorway. And he introduces himself as Bevix, way. And he introduces himself as Bevix, a mercenary hired to watch over this part of the mage college quarter of

Tenshal. Is he calming down or is he still agitated? No, he's very agitated. Well, let's tell him to calm down. Give him a gem. That's how we solve it. Time to wave your wand. I just use my persuasion and try to calm down. Roll your dice and tell me how it sounds.

All right, so Tom steps up. Five. But with you... But plus 11, yeah. Yeah, okay. So what does Tom say? Look, man, just take a breather. Just relax a little bit.

It'll be okay. He strides up to you and says, why should I listen to you, man? Because I'm your brother. Yeah, man. I'm your brother. Yeah, man. I'm a human. You ain't no human. I don't know if you get...

My name's Bevix. What's your name? Oh, man. My name's Tom. All right. Well, I'm Bevix and you are not my brother. Oh, man. I'm my brother.

We're all together in this. He seems agitated and now he's focused on Tom. He's a mercenary. He's a mercenary. He's wearing light armor. And he's ready to go. Okay. We got a situation here. We're trying to solve it.

Back off, Bevic, seriously. Okay. What did you just roll? I was going to do intimidation, but I didn't roll very high. What did you roll? A five. Plus four. I was going to do intimidation, but I didn't roll very high. What did you roll? A five. Plus four.

Now he squares off against you and he says, I'm afraid of you, motherfucker. You want to fucking go? Okay, I say. We're about to catch sleep on him. This is your last chance. Relax. I'm a student from one of the colleges that fell we have come here to help

okay we know who that is so you're talking to one dangerous little lady over there in fact we're we were here to get her okay we we're the ones who tracked her down do you see her in this in this snare yeah i put her there okay so don't worry we're not trying to all right so accompany this with a number please to see how see how... I just rolled again. I got a good one. Yeah, I have a feeling it won't be for a persuasion or an intimidation. 21. Oh, shit.

Oh, yeah. So he very slowly puts his sword back in his scabbard and says, All right, all right, but you listen here. We got to bring this girl to the authorities. This is a big deal. It's a big deal. I'll, you know... I tried to tell you. I'll try to tell you.

I'll share the, you know, the bounty on her. But, you know, this is not the kind of thing we can just let go. No, we're not letting it go. We have, she has crimes, private crimes to pay for before she goes before the public. Private crimes? That's my favorite Pat Benatar record. That's my favorite Pat Benatar record. That's my favorite made for Cinemax movie.

Private crimes starring David DeKalbney. Esmeralda and Sarah Blushing. Now that's not the kind of crimes that I meant. I meant that she did things personally to us that we need vengeance for before she goes before

the public to pay for it. He goes, vengeance, I see how it is. You're missing the big picture. He's like, I'll tell you what though, I want credit for this. So why don't you say we go somewhere and he backs away. What about creative consultant? He backs away to the door and he says, I'll tell you guys what.

I'll tell you guys what. Why don't we go somewhere a little public and you can work out whatever you're doing? I don't feel safe in this room with all y'all. You guys want to go to the Chili's too at the airport? We'll be down in two shakes of a lamb's tail. Can you just give us a second here? He's like, yeah, I'll wait right in the other room over here. Sounds good. So he backs out.

I close the door. As he closes the door, he goes, are you just? That guy wants to die. He needs to fucking relax. Yeah, yeah. Dessa says, I can take care of him if you want me to. No. Let me out of this snare.

I'll fuck him up real good. So we have to get these drugs? The drugs? Yeah. Master Magnus says, I can probably get it for you without much trouble, but... Do you know a dude? Yeah, he does. He does.

He's going to call Postmates. Postmates for wizards. And he says, no. Yeah, he does. He does. He's going to call Postmates. Postmates for wizards. And he says, no. Yeah, exactly. The more drug-specific version. He says all he needs is a simple messenger who can get to the keep, the royal keep. And he's like, well, we can get this here. People trust me.

And Dessa starts bristling again and saying, or I could send my familiar to go get it. Oh, Dessa starts bristling again and saying or I could send my familiar to go get it I like Dessa who's your familiar talking she says I have a raven for Miss Barnes but Master Magnus doesn't seem to be taking our suggestion seriously

so is that our plan or do we want to do that or are there options where do we want to go try to travel up one of the moon elevators? I think we'd do both. Also, just to remind everybody at this table that we have something in the backpack that she doesn't know that we have. Oh, no, I know.

We know that. You don't say this out loud. I'm saying we do the try the drugs. The drug thing seems like the next obvious thing. Yeah. The great glass elevator seems less doable. But we'll try that. So Magnus says, well, there's one more elephant in the room, too.

What? I have one. There's a, I don't know if you you remember there's a sleeping mage right over there Master Jendi is still sleeping there and we need Dessa kind of out of the snare to wake her up or unless you guys know

Dispel Magic wait what there's another wizard in the room that's been magically asleep what do we have to do with Dessa? He was saying in order for her to break the spell. He was like, unless one of you guys has to spell magic to wake up the other. I'll wake him up.

Okay. I'll wake him up. Great. Wake up. Boom. Yeah, because we're not releasing Dessa. Yeah, so Master Jenny gets up, and you guys catch her up to speed on what you're doing here, where you've been for the last couple of weeks. And she says, why don't you let me go to the keep?

I think what you guys need to do is find a new place to hide out and get rid of this mercenary waiting in the next room. The snare is only going to hold for whatever the duration of that spell is, too. Let's make a real snare. Like with some rope and chain and shit. Dessa tells you and I can already guess just as a dungeon master

you're going to be very skeptical of this. I doubt that. But if you set her free she won't be any trouble right and she says look you guys

I don't have anything on me I don't have any magical items you can tie me up if you want but you know may as well let me walk I'm not going to do shit how did you start this commute? Can you just start meditating at any time and talk to the Zanzarino?

She says, I have to say some words out loud. And I needed to very carefully wait for Jenny to fall asleep. And then cast permanent sleep on her. And then cast an illusion spell on my uncle over here so he couldn't tell who was awake and who was asleep. And so it took a combination of spells, and I can't really do that unless people are really, you know, dumb and not paying attention because they're going to sleep and stuff

so y'all seem pretty awake and i i feel pretty confident that you know you're not going to let me get away with anything so i mean maybe like tie my hands up but let me walk around i mean you don't want it to be conspicuous i mean it might even be helpful if you disguise me somehow she's like you guys are just trying to move me right like i'm not gonna make it hard for you i don't want to okay well let's tie her hands up i guess and um put a cloak on her yeah and as as as you start to like that's the wrong cloak as you walk over with with rope to tie her hands up and um you take her out of the magic snare that's got her upside down well it's gonna fail i mean it's gonna it's an eight hour spell so it that's got her upside down? It's an eight hour spell.

It could potentially keep her upside down for a long time. Is it portable? That's the part I need to check. Do you need to have her levitating or anything? I can levitate her. It looks like if you try to move her it could

uh it could stay i'm trying to look for an exception but i'll i'll allow it if you want to just keep her magically ensnared because i think you got her legs though right like you've got her legs but what we could do is find the location and then use the portals to get there instead of traipsing about. Yeah, that makes sense. So maybe we send out someone with the portal staff. Or someone, I guess we create a portal here and then someone leaves with the portal staff.

And Master Magnus says, you want me to take care of this guy, this merc? What do you mean? Just put him to sleep? Yeah, he's like, I can put him to sleep. Okay. So he walks out of the room. Forever?

I thought he said he couldn't use any spells. He says he knows some basic illusion spells and some minor stuff that he's been able to pull off. And sure enough, guess who didn't make their saving throw? So Master Magnus comes back in after he hears some shouting and then some silence in the next room and he says um all right so I drew I uh I kind of tied him up I'm not real great at knots I don't

know if you want to take another pass at it but I tied him up and I shoved him in a closet um I say let's try and find another let's try and sneak around another building with Dessa um and uh yeah you know you can you can leave her legs bound, or you can do something else with her. You can levitate her or whatever. How you want to move her, it's up to you. It was like deserted out there, right?

Yes. So right now, let's just like levitate her. Yeah, and she's real small. Can she turn off that demon that she summoned? She's like five feet tall, so you feel like Bodhi or Tom could easily just throw her over. That's what I was thinking. Can we ask her to turn off that demon, or is that not doable?

I believe you killed the demon. Did we? Okay. I'm pretty sure you killed the demon. Good enough. And she promises she won't make another one. Okay. So as you...

Which one are you going to throw it over your shoulder i'll do it all right so uh a little counter roll nothing happens as you walk outside and master magnus says okay master jendy you go to the royal keep uh we're gonna try the house it's two houses down there's an abandoned inn and i think if we go in there we should be able to hole up for like a day or so while she gets the drugs. So sure enough, Jenny takes off. You guys move two doors down and the doors unlocked. There's nobody around.

So you're able to just get in, lock the door behind you. And it's as if, you know, you're in the Ravenclaw common room with none of the students. So sorry about that. What did I say? Ravenclaw Common Room with none of the students. So, sorry about the Harry Potter reference. Ravenclaw? It's time to TP the Dean's house. A lot of books. I'm Ravenclaw. A lot of books.

I'm Ravenclaw. A lot of books, and it only takes a casual glance to tell most of them are like young adult fiction. There's not a lot of magical spells, but you feel like you're in a part of the mage college where a bunch of students used to... I'm going to read some Goosebumps.

You're in like a part of the mage college where a bunch of students used to i'm gonna read some goosebumps you're you're in like a an area of the college where there is a lot of just drinking tea and uh goofing around um so you mean college normally just not not now yeah so uh now you wait is there anything you want to do while you see if the drugs or some other body shows up i want to search for some goodies okay um you guys have all this cool stuff and gold bars and stuff well and i'll i'll just go ahead and remind you you still have a shitload of stuff you've looted from the college of gostel yeah well we got some of it identified you do um You do. And I am looking up... Wait, from Gospel or from Tenet? You're right, from Tenet. Dad, look it up stuff from Tenet brought to you by...

Hi, I'm Randy Newman for Valswex. When it gets itchy, doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doob Three I did really well Tom you look around You find some chamomile Fantastic You look around and you find Some young adult romance about vampires There's a whole book series You find there's 30, 40 of these books That just goes on forever As if the author just refused to stop churning these things out

What did you roll? 11 Kind of like Chuck Tingle doing the Hardy Boys. Brian, you find a book full of magical spells, and after you read it for a while, you start to realize that none of them are real spells. It's all close-up magic. It's all party tricks.

All right. I'm not even going to tell you what I rolled because... Did I figure one of them out, though? Yeah. What could I do? You can now hold something in your hand and then shake your hand and it's gone. I show those guys. Okay.

However, you don't know where it goes after you do it. Wow. Okay, so you learned a close-up magic trick, Brian. Because you were curious and you rolled over a 10. If you want, do you want to know this magic spell? Sure. Okay. Bodhi, to see if you get the full knowledge, please roll a 20.

I'm sure you don't have an Arcana modifier. No, you have a plus zero, right? I have a six Arcana modifier. Roll 20. This will determine how well you know it 18 holy shit so you just learned close-up magic you can now take any object that will fit in your hand and without having like a sound or any any clear evidence of where it goes it will disappear when you shake your hand okay uh however you're going to have to roll 100 to see if you know where it ended up. Hey, uh...

Because you have no magic experience. Word of advice? Don't jerk off. Oh, my penis is gone. So. After an hour waiting... 69! 69!

Did you really roll a 69? Did you just do some close-up magic? No, I didn't do one. Don't forget, he can make toothpaste out of nothing. Because what you just basically learned is the disappearing pig trick from Willow.

So, you guys, and we all know how that worked out for willow uh so after an hour uh master magnus also just looks around and says um yeah real real sorry about this uh situation i got you guys uh there's a few basic spells i know uh that that will still work but you know do you know identify uh yes cool i can only do it three times a day that's that's all the college of gospel really that's the max guys we've got it remember the alive cloak you can find out what it is you have a cloak that's alive but we don't know what it is yeah can you ask him to identify it uh yeah here's my uh brown gray alive robe

so what do you think it does uh this is a plain brown cloak that uh it has a gray aura which you with the scarab of farcing which you know means it has uh something alive about it he scans it and says oh this is very interesting. I feel like we started to have somebody else look at this one. We did. We just had. You almost had it identified. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. You have a lot of unidentified stuff. And now this is. We did identify a couple other things. Right. So now I have one more thing. Right. Like, you know, you have a robe of silence.

We have potions. My face changing amulet. Yeah. And we have potions that if you throw them are like tar or something. Correct. But this is what? potions that if you throw them are like tar or something correct but this is what uh there is the soul of a um some sort of uh it's like a half human i guess they're called dragonborn there's some sort of dragonborn warrior trapped inside this cloak that seems like something i'd like to

wear i can't really i'm having a hard time communing with it i need to spend some time with this cloak to really know more, but there's a very clear soul trapped in this almost. Does it gain you in battle or does it help you in battle? I don't know. This is very strange. It almost feels like this warrior

was tricked somehow into being in this cloak. We should free him like a genie. But I don't know what came of his physical form. I just know that there's a warrior's soul. Try rubbing it. There's something draconic about it. He says, well, I would need some pretty dark magic. I can't cast anymore.

Maybe when Master Jendi comes back, we can ask her for some help with this one. What do you think would happen if you put it on? He did it and it gave him a headache. Yeah, he said, well, like any complicated magical item, if you aren't attuned with it, there's

only so much you can do. If you knew more about it, there might be some way you could fuse spirits or commune with it indeed, but you'd have to learn more about it. Can I ask you about this? I got two more. I have to learn more about. Can I ask you about this? I got two more.

I can identify two more things. Cool, because I have two more things. The green jewel sword? Yes. Do tell. He takes a look at the green jewel sword and says, ho, ho, ho, ho.

Santa? What, it's devil's food cake with icing? One second, I've got to look this up because this is a fancy pants one. Sorry. Hey, Blaine, I hate to do this. Ah, this is Randy Newman for Randy Cass. Short penis got

no reason. Short penis got no reason. Short penis got no reason. Short penis got no reason. Short penis got no reason to care. Doobie doobie doobie doobie do. You wrote that one down? Yeah, I wrote that one down. All right, so this sword is called the Pride of Umberlee. Oh, dear.

An evil aquatic goddess imbued this with power. It appears to... You just showed me the whole card. It appears to imbue the wielder with water breathing. Another water breathing. But also there is some sort of offense water spell that has a chance to activate every time you hit somebody with it. Also, if you're in Baltimore, it's a spell of water breathing. Water.

Pride of Umberlee. Some kind of water-based attack? Yes. Yes. Pride of Ellicott City. He suspects that what it's going to end up being is some sort of shock, almost like electric. Would have been really helpful down in that underwater cave.

I guess that's... He goes, wow, you're in an underwater cave. This would have been amazing down there. He said that, you know, well, there might... Luggage with wheels at the airport? Because there's an evil aquatic god that imbued this with power, there's all sorts of little crazy things that might happen if you were to bust this out while underwater.

But again, you got to maybe attune yourself to it a little bit, play with it. But he's like, I feel like if you just studied this sword for like a day with like fighting included like if you if you if you tried wielding against opponent things would suddenly become clear okay i just have one more unless someone else has something yeah i know you had a bunch of stuff that's still wasn't a blue dagger and then i'm all done and it's so thrilling uh the dagger gives you um uh what is a plus one to your armor class

because it makes it easy. You can use it as an offhand weapon to block attacks. And that's the one that Typha has one too, right? I have a blue dagger too, by the way. Okay, so then you have a bunch of them. Yeah, so you can increase your armor class to one while you're wielding it in your offhand because it'll block attacks, physical melee attacks.

Okay, and now we wait. Wait for the dogs. And after, yeah, another hour. Is it like an old PlayStation around or something? Yeah, you see in the corner there's a PlayStation 1 with Twisted Metal. I want to take the our party aside away from dessa at some point and be like what part if anything do we want to talk about the message i think the drow that was killed was one of her friends like at what point do we

want to share this information or not which drown that in the shaft oh yeah but she had a note on her that said that she'd written that was like to dessa i mean to oh that's right that says our only hope like you have to get to her so i assume that this that's right okay so and then the other one she said got killed no she doesn't know that they're okay she thinks they're both alive as far as I know. Oh, she does. But she also doesn't know that we have the cloak, so I just didn't know. We should all be on the same page.

Do we think they're both dead or just one of them? I think just... We only met one, right? Yeah, so there's these two... I know we encountered... There's these two friends... A couple of drows, didn't we? These two drow named Parashree and Vyesta

that you've heard have been following Dessa around. Particularly, Heglish said that they used to meditate together. But you only really have a strong sense that the one you kill on the shaft was on because of that note. You've encountered a bunch of drow and lunar elves. And one of them was like a female assassin. So she could have been the other one. You encountered her in the tower. But it collapsed without Dessa ever seeing who died in the tower when you beat the shit out of everybody in the tower.

So you're not sure. So we don't know. Anyway, I just wanted to remind everybody of that and if we wanted at any point to parcel out that info or whatever. Yeah, I think that's a good thing to bring up because your party actually has a lot of leverage over Dessa, whether she knows it or whatever. Yeah, I think that's a good thing to bring up because your party actually has a lot of leverage over Dessa, whether she knows it or not. So there's

stuff you could try to use to manipulate her. So yeah, I'll say you walked off into the corner of the little study and you talked about that and after two hours Jendi kind of slides back in through the door real quick the

door just kind of opens a crack and she goes whoop and she shuts it behind her and goes she goes i got what you needed some pieces of bark and some of these weird acorn things from that tree that you guys nuked uh i mean you set this thing on fire you crushed it under a mage tower there wasn't a whole lot left but uh we felt it was important as a magical artifact we'd never seen before to preserve some of it so i got it i mean i hope you guys know what you're doing so who's gonna do it not really but yeah i'll do it what time are we at sam we are at 51 minutes how long you think this is gonna last man should i just do half yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah break off a quarter drink some water with this shit all right um yeah so she says you know i i i wandered into that room and i inhaled some of this pollen you guys were there yeah and and i felt like i went to another plane of existence

and i don't remember all of it but it was hallucinatory in nature so i don't know if you guys are gonna chew this smoke this whatever is your pleasure go for it but it could it could last hours it could uh it could last minutes and i definitely think that uh you will be uh under duress for a bit so i would get comfortable whoever's gonna do this shit all right sure let's take a little this is a leather beanbag chair over here um yeah i'm gonna put on some sweatpants and my flops yeah and she's looking between you two and she's like, you two clearly know magic. You're a student. You seem insane.

But I don't care who does this. She's like, I could do it but I think you guys know more about this moon agenda than I actually do so I trust you guys to make the call.

Cut to me nude with the globe. Yeah, you guys decide who's going to do it. I think Thuy seems pretty gung-ho. Yeah, I'll do it. All right. So she hands it over to you. I'm going to need you to tell me what you're going to do. So you've got two options.

There's what looks like some thick blue bark, like tree bark. And it looks moist even though it's in a little pouch. And it's been there for a while. And your other option is these big, mushy, almost look like honey-coned acorns. It's really weird. It looks like a piece of a beehive, but it's also just sort of brown and blue. And you can break off pieces of it. Both things are too big to just shove in your mouth

without chewing it up and swelling. They're almost sandwich-sized. I'm just going to break off a couple of pieces of the blue one. Sort of put them under my tongue and let them dissolve, yeah. All right. Dessa watches you do the whole thing intently, and as you start to put it in your mouth she kind of sneers, smiles at you

and just shrugs like great hey thanks you could ask me for advice we could ask her but you can't trust her yeah she's like I don't think you trust me you're right but if it doesn't work we might have to absolutely right

do a constitution and then a wisdom saving throw you're right but if it doesn't work we might have to but yeah absolutely right do a constitution and then a wisdom saving throw it's going to determine how fast this acts and how intense it is what's your Constitution I just rolled a two on that okay so this is gonna happen real fast all right what's scary and roll your wisdom. Your constitution bonus, I'm just checking right now. Oh, it's a negative two. What did you roll? I rolled a two.

This is happening immediately. All right, good. Whoa. This is like in a Rustler's Rhapsody. And this root is really working. I forgot you were so twee and you just literally... Any constitution roll is like getting punched in the face. Yeah.

Nine. A nine and your wisdom bonus is plus two all right so you're gonna retain a little bit of uh a little bit of control so there's like there's like a the the you know fantasy medieval version of a beanbag chair there's like you know like some leather stuffed with broken up straw or meal or whatever in the corner. And you hop on that sucker, you get comfortable, you take your robe off and...

Sit a spell. The second you sit down and put this stuff under your tongue, your head snaps back. You lose track of everything in the room. And suddenly you find yourself somewhere very blurry. Everything is blurry and it's gray and yellow. There's gray and yellow everywhere.

Does he have the globe? Gray and yellow. You kind of feel your hands, and there's nothing in them. And you're like, oh, I don't think I brought my gear with me wherever I am. So my stuff stayed back on that plane, huh? Yeah, man. Oh, man. Stuff on a plane.

I want my motherfucking stuff on this motherfucking plane. Oh, man. Stuff on a plane. I want my motherfucking stuff on this motherfucking plane. Oh, man. All right. You hang out for a while. What do you do? First of all, you just sort of hear your heartbeat in your ears. Everything is gray and yellow and blurry. Okay.

Can I move? How do you react? Yeah. You pick up your feet, and you realize you can stand. All right. Am I in a room, or am I in a plane? As you put your feet down, it has this weird heavy and soft quality, like you're on really thick foam padding and your feet kind of go...

into the ground. I like it. I like it a lot. You hear rustling in the middle distance. Okay. Cattle? No. Okay.

It's like a crunching noise that's kind of like moving towards you. All right. Coming towards me. It sounds like it gets about 20 feet away, and then you hear kind of a, and it stops crunching. It's footsteps, right? Mm-hmm. Hi, who's there?

What are you? Nothing if not happy to see you. What are you? I'm Jin Radina. Oh, man. Is my wife listening to this? Hey, where am I? Oh, you're in exile with me.

San Diego? No, it's not a mostly abandoned port city that's propped up by internet media culture. It's my prison. Oh. Why are you here? Well, I've been banished here. Really?

For what? What'd you do? I'm kind of an interloper. Is that illegal? I mean, it was in my scenario, yeah. I kind of broke some rules. Yeah. You know how it is, man.

Sure. And who put you here? What's your name? Oh, that's not important right now. You've got those ears. I like those ears. Yeah, well, you know. They remind me of home.

Where's your home? I don't remember, but you look like home to me. Will you do me a favor? What's that? Another $20,000 song is playing. Nice job. When you go home, I just want you to tell him. I thought it was going to be over faster than it was, I guess.

I want you to just tell him, Jin Raiden, I sent you. Jin Raiden? And I'll fix whatever you need fixing. Hey, are we on the moon? What's the moon? You know what the moon is. Don't, dude, come on. I mean, I'm not in the place where you're from, that's for sure.

What do you know about where I'm from? I mean, I think I've been there before. Really? Yeah. Let's take a look at that clip. Okay. And she goes, and you realize it's a female voice,

but it's weird and it's airy, and it doesn't seem, you don't see a physical shape in front of you. She say who she is? Hey, listen. This is Zinzerina, right? Gin Radina. Yeah, right.

Yeah, Gin Radina. Oh, oh. So it's sort of like Krampus. Like you're sort of like a different version of Santa Claus up here. Like a European. I mean, sometimes things get lost in translation. You know how it is. Sure.

So you want me to tell everybody that you said hi? That's all. Yeah, yeah. I got some friends back where you're from. Who are your friends? They're mostly, you know, they're like you they got those ears and then everything kind of like starts to hiss and all the grays get kind of thinner and whiter and uh you hear that weird laugh again.

Wake up on the plane. You have the worst hangover, yeah. You see white for a second, and your head snaps back, and you just feel like you had a bloody nose or something. There's no blood, but you've got that weird sort of nasal cavity emptiness you get with a hangover, and you just kind of wake up, and your eyes are bloodshot. All you guys saw was his pupils got really big for a second, and he looked

like he was nodding off and uh after about 15 minutes he comes back yeah uh hey uh jinrita jinrita uh zinzarina says hi uh dessa looks real pissed off and that's the end of the episode. Episode 25. Thanks for listening. Follow us on Patreon, BrianPassain.com, ReadMadMagazine, and... Party on, Wayne.

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

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