Nerd Poker - Episode 31 - Ride or Die

Episode Date: September 12, 2018

The time has come for Esmerelda to get in touch with that worm she swallowed way back in Episode 19, and another one of our heroes will resolve a promise they've been hanging onto for over 70 episodes.

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 It's Brian Poussaint and you're listening to Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker My friends are here

Chris, Sarah Ken, Dan Blaine and Sam the engineer. Hi, Sam. These episodes are brought to you by Nike and Levi's. Ford. Corrig.

What did Ford do? Ford just jumped out too. With Levi's? Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. Well, we're brought to you by everything that... Not New Balance. with Levi's? Oh, okay. Alright. We're brought to you by everything that...

Or Papa John's. None of that shit. Anybody who wants to own the libs. Feel free. You guys are at a very interesting part of your adventure. You are trying to stop an apocalypse where the moon will crash into your planet. And you've done a whole lot of things up to this point.

You've collected the cloak of the dead, undead, withering, imprisoned god that you now think is trapped on the moon. There were originally five tendrils that were going to pull the moon into the planet. You took out the base of one before it could grow, and you are in another. However, while you were in the Feywild collecting that cloak, time advanced towards the apocalypse, and things are looking pretty gross back on your planet and the exact moment we left off you guys had taken an elevator of mysterious uh function up a little ways you you messed around on a little panel to to make the elevator do something it it did something you don't know exactly what the doors

opened and there were some more doors that were strange and it seems that because there is some sort of otherworldly parasite in esmeralda's gullet that she is was farther down than that huh it's in my intestines yeah well uh you know we haven't really gotten into it yet what exactly has happened but you tried to throw up a couple of times to get it out after you opened a door forgot about all this so basically you're in um a chamber inside this this this it's made of like a dark green but but parts of it glow uh green and yellowish kind of fungal material. It's squishy like a mushroom and it's organic like a mushroom, but it's almost fleshy and it's everywhere. The whole chamber is made of it. And you took this elevator up to this, I guess what you could call for your

earthling minds, a chamber, a floor of the elevator in the tendril, if you will. You're still not exactly sure how everything works, but there were two doors. One of them was kind of flaky and brittle looking. And your NPC pal, Master Gendi, a wizard, told you, based on her arcana knowledge and what she thought might be going on, that seemed like bad news or not necessarily what you wanted. And there was a more regal, sort of ornate door full of what looked like steel teeth sticking out of the fungal material with handlebars.

Esmeralda popped that door open, also realized she had that parasite, tried to hork it up. And while she was doing that, you talked to Master Gendi a bit. And then, yeah, she talked about maybe trying to commune with this little guy that's how we left is that i was about to try to commune with my parasite right mm-hmm so right you want to do that as michael shanker group song it's a deep cut now will you remind me because i'm trying to do a little more right by your elaborate little character sheets uh are you little proficient in our kind of yeah that's um do you have like an arcana yes proficiency okay well i it's the

character sheets don't specify anymore but i just have whatever my bonus is you know what i mean uh huh um oh wait i did specify hold on it's very tiny oh. I don't need bifocals yet. I just checked. Everybody shut up. Do you want me to look at that with my normalized? Yes, I'm proficient in it. Okay, great. So I believe you have a pretty decent Arcana bonus. So I'm going to ask you if you want to commune with this worm in your stomach.

I do. To do an Arcana check. Okay, I'm going to do it. Roll that dice and tell me what it is with your modifier please it's 20 with my modifier yeah hot damn all right so um you close your eyes you focus really hard on just that area because uh you only feel the vaguest kind of twinge, and it's hard to place. And you hear in your mind, very quietly, a voice that says,

Hey, y'all. Is it that naked creep from Family Guy? Is it Gago? It sounds like someone I knew. My name's not Gago. I don't have a name. Oh, you're just a small thing like Gago. No. You're not small?

I mean, I am small, but I'm more a series of crystallized little chunks in your circulatory system now. Like a southern accent? I mean, I don't really know what southern means. I'm more of a cosmic sentinel. Got it. Okay. From Durham? Y'all keep talking to me with these silly proper nouns.

I don't know what they mean. I don't think you know what they mean. I've got to leave for Durham. So, first of all, do you know where you are? I do. Where do you think you are? I believe I'm inside, first of all, you. I believe y'all are inside one of the osmic strings.

Oh, you know exactly where we are. That's right, y'all. Damn it. Where did you come from? Where were you before this? Well, you know, I was born in the sleeve of a priest. If you remember, I got kind of jangled

out of the sleeve of this priest made If you remember, I got kind of jangled out of the sleeve of this priest made of worms. Nurses all gathered around. But you know, that priest was sent to your plane, the Feywild of your plane anyway, to barter with three

of your gods. Three of our gods? Yeah, that's right, y'all. Which three? Oh, you know, it's Umber Yeah, that's right, y'all. Which three? Oh, you know, it's Umberlee, Lolth, and Bahamut. Oh, Umberlee, Lolth, and Bahamut. Wait, Umphrey's McGee. We've got the sword of Umberlee.

Lolth? And Lolth is the spider god. That's right, y'all. He's the drummer for The Cure, right? Okay, so I'm hearing all this, and I'm... Is the spider God? Yeah. He's a drummer for the cure, right? Okay. So I'm hearing all this and I'm, am I like conscious that I can talk to everybody else while this happens? Okay.

Guys, I am in fact commuting with this guy. What kind of stuff should I ask him? He seems to know a lot, including where we are and the name of where we are. Does he have a regional dialect? Yes. What is his purpose? What is your purpose?

Well, by ingesting me, you have become sort of like an ambassador of the Osmicogloglocks. So, like, you know, if y'all are up to the challenge, I mean, you're basically in charge of that artifact what we locked away.

Okay. We're in charge of the artifact, huh? That's right, y'all. The Osmic. That Osmic priest that came out of their sleeve, you know, he got sent to your realm to barter with Umberlee, Lolth, and Bahamut. And, you know, we tried to lock away that, I don't know, that wavy thing, you know, to try to keep it away from Zin's arena.

Right. But y'all, you know, that plan we had to lock it away got all fucked up because of y'all. Right. So you're the ambassador of, you know, the Osmocoglogs as far as I'm concerned. Okay. And if you were able to sort of plan next steps here in this ambassadorship, what would you like to see happen? what would you like to see happen? Well,

I mean, you could try to commune with either them gods or, I don't know, y'all trying to get rid of Zinzerina is what it seems like. Yeah,

that was the plan. She doesn't seem to have some great ideas. Well, I guess you could kill her. You could try to keep her imprisoned and not have this death call i mean i should tell you y'all like there's a every every every single you know there's like bajillions and gazillions of planes of existence and they're all experiencing an apocalypse right now and because you guys destroyed one of those osmic strings you delayed your apocalypse and there's only like a a handful

of realities where that happened so y'all pretty good heroes i guess oh so do you think should we keep destroying those strings would that be the best bet i mean you could but you only bought yourself a few days i don't know by the time you get down no i mean you could try it sure i mean i don't know how days work on your plane that well. I don't know if you all have been keeping track of how many you should have left, but I know by destroying one of them tendrils, you bought yourself a hell of a lot more time than most of them planes of existence got. We can't hear this guy, right?

I guess I'm pausing to tell them what is happening. Can you do his voice for us? We're just hearing one side of the conversation. It's you on the phone. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. It's like a Bob Doherty album. Yeah, exactly.

The buttoned down mind of Esmeralda. Is there a way? Well, Abe, I don't know. Is there a way to continue this conversation and not have you inside my body? Am I in any danger? Yeah, she's talking to her bowels. Let's see.

Well, you mean danger with me in here? I mean, I'm pretty passive. I'll just pretty much ignore what you're doing. I'm just here to empower you with this artifact and kind of keep watch. I mean, if this plane of existence it won't matter much to the Ozimic Oclogs and the

Elder Beings. I mean, you could talk to one of the Elder Beings. Okay. That would be great. You're in a pretty good spot right now to talk to one of the Elder Beings is why I bring it up. Why is that? Well, you got the... There's a theater of reflection right in front of you is what this this door is you just opened oh the reason you kind of you know decided to commune with me is because you got to this theater of reflection oh okay so like a world party theater of reflection

work well uh and uh as as you ask that, I would say that you would probably take a cursory glance up at this door that you opened again. As you may remember last episode, I said it looked like a black expanse and indeed there just seems to be a strange black emptiness on the other side of this door. However,

if you look closer, you notice there is what appears to be a foot long white string just sort of floating at about eye level for, we'll say Typha since the rest of you are weird heights. But yeah. And so then the cosmic sentinel says, well, the way the theater works is, see a little string?

You just, one of y'all got to pluck it. And it just doesn't matter who it is? Does it need to be me? It does matter who it is, y'all. Okay. Why don't you start with that? Yeah, you're burying the lead this whole conversation.

It's all your sort of backloading all the information. None of us have heard any of this. I mean, I don't really know what y'all's goals is y'all seem kind of crazy I don't know if I should just dump info on you if y'all gonna ignore what I say he doesn't hear any of this

because I'm communicating everything and I'm much more he's playing Mario on his phone hey listen if you're talking you're obviously talking to your mother-in-law can you ask your mother-in-law if there's some way to get her out of you without hurting her later, or if she is some sort of part of you now that you won't be able to get rid of?

Well, that's sort of what I asked. He said it's not going to hurt me right now, but I do want an answer to this. It matters who pulls the string. So here's the way this works. Do you have to be in there? Okay, sorry. Yeah, yeah. The room ahead of you is a theater. It's a theater of reflection originally meant just for osmic priests

so so you know these these tendrils wasn't originally meant to crash moons into planets they're supposed to be summoned for these sort of ancient beings not meant to land on planets just meant to sort of float around the cosmos and uh the bottom floor there's like that door that's for people just come inside and kill themselves as a sacrifice out of you know reverence uh so y'all coming up here is kind of crazy uh this this theater is for the very powerful priests to meet beings on other planes that are that are sort of soul bound to them it's for so they can rejuvenate what the priest fuck is going on what is happening okay whoever plucks that string will see frozen in time someone on another plane whose soul is bound to theirs and in your case it's going to be a bunch of heroes i think oh my god but it's going to be

a different hero depending on who plucks the string. And from what I can tell, just from all y'all's auras, because I'm a cosmic sentinel, one of y'all's soul-bound beings kind of has a direct line to the elder beings. Another one of y'all, I think, might even know who your soul-bound person is if you meet them but they'll be frozen in time and like i said all the other planes of existence are experiencing an

apocalypse so these are all your all your soulbound beings are doomed like you're gonna see them right before they die basically but they're gonna be frozen in time about to die and kind of check out what they're up to and And maybe there's... Okay, who's bound to the elders? Well, I know I'm not hearing this, but... The only way to find out is for one of y'all to try. I don't know. Talking to Sarah. Who's Sarah?

He doesn't hear that. Yeah, is it... I was going to say, is it you because of your God connection? I don't know. I'm the only one who has a God. But then. Is it me because of my old references? Does Gendy have something she hasn't told us?

Well, Gendy, as you relay all this, is just kind of stroking her chin and thinking really hard. And she says, well, I don't know if it's going to be me. But if you want to have me maybe try first and we'll just see what happens i'm willing to be sort of the sacrificial or is it me because i have this thing inside me and then that's the direct line because i was supposed to because the the worm that i ate do you want to ask the worm? Yeah. Do another Arcana check. Does this,

whoever, uh, that's the worm just goes, uh, I guess I'm just for opening doors. I don't know. Whoever prayed accord and yeah, sure.

Do a religion check. Whoever has this vision, how does that advance this? What does the vision do? We don't really have a plan i feel like so that's hard for us to i really feel like we need to get rid of this cape somehow too would it help you you would i think gather from what you've been told that that this isn't just a vision it's you can literally step through and you'll be you'll be near this person frozen in time about to die. Just 11. All right. Nothing from Kord. Oh, is it because some of us talked to Zinzerina already?

Maybe. You had a connection with Zinzerina? Does it help us to talk to other people on universes that are about to die to know what not to do? Get advice from them? Yeah. We can say, hey, did you guys try and kill Zinzer like what did you guys do well does anyone want to just go pull that string

because I would do it I don't care we'll do it anyone can do it but Gendy has offered to go first if you're worried about what'll happen

I feel like you should be one of us right I was I was gonna say there's gonna be a reason that our DM is putting an NPC I will say I would not try to trick you like that.

Is it a one-time deal, I ask the Sentinel? No, y'all could probably do it one at a time. Oh, cool. That seems fine. All I can tell you is that it's a super magical place that's going to open up there, and y'all want to make your choices carefully. So cut to Twee looking at my guitar.

Cut to Twee looking at the string. Oh, maybe he's your soul bound to your lady. I don't know if she's connected with the... Oh, the elder. I don't know. All right. None of us know what's going on. So therefore, it doesn't matter what we do.

It's really the freedom of. I'm going to play it. Chaos. You're going to do it. All right. So, Tom, you walk up and you pluck the string. And as soon as you do it, the string disappears and you hear a low humming sound. And for a moment, it's still still black and then fading into view uh you

see a tunnel uh it looks like it's underground in a cave um and uh you see a tiefling who looks very familiar running from what looks like fire and plasma cascading down one end of the tunnel she is headed towards what looks like a bend uh but she's frozen in time and so is the plasma it looks like she's mere minutes away from being consumed by just rolling lava and uh flame and i can can i talk to her can i she seems frozen in time Can I talk to her? Can I? She seems frozen in time.

So I'm just getting a snapshot of what's happening there. Yeah, but you can walk in if you want. Yeah, can I reach out and touch her? So you walk in. You're going to touch her? Yeah. Cool. Do a charisma saving throw, please. Abra, kid Abra

Kid Abra He's gonna reach out and grab ya Great So um I just heard that on the The radio the other day I just thought of something What radio station are you listening to?

I'm connected to Storm Door 70s on 7 or 80s on 8? Yeah, I think it was 80s on 8. So you guys see... It would have been Deep Cuts. You guys see Tom reach out to touch Nettie. And as he makes contact... Where are you touching?

Your shoulder, maybe? Yeah. So you touch her shoulder. You so you touch her shoulder you see a bright bolt of purple electricity um and tom is thrown back against the cave wall uh you now see tom frozen in time running away from the fire and plasma and against the back wall of the cave uh as if canaries are going over her head you see a recovering netty oh shit ken you are now netty or is he himself am i me you have none of your usual equipment you you've retained oh okay all knowledge of of everything you've done. So I'm Nettie here in the...

I'm Nettie against the wall. I'm not... Your physical body and all the possessions are the Nettie that was just frozen in time. But you see in front of you... Myself. My old self. Uh-huh.

Including a bag with the cloak of Zinzerina. Oh, no. No. Well, this is one good way to get rid of it. Do an insight roll. It is a good way to get rid of it. It will now be destroyed in another universe.

Bust your sheet out. I want to do it. Should we make her switch again? How do we do this? What's your insight bonus? Look at your sheet, nerd. Plus three to wisdom. Do you not know how to read your insight bonus?

It's a separate bonus from your wisdom. It's related to wisdom, but it's... Yes. Okay, so plus three. Yes. Okay, so it's five. It's just two. So you kind of do like a mental, you do a physical inventory.

And you realize. Boobs. You have boobs. You still have all of the skills that an arcane trickster rogue would have. Okay. But they're a little different because she trained a little differently from you. You also kind of go through her rucksack you find um there's a cloak of invisibility right and also you look at your feet and you realize

you're wearing some extremely powerful slippers so wait this is you see this happening in the room yeah he's netty he is netty and you see tom doretto the tiefling that you've been adventuring frozen in time with lava and flame coming after him and after do now i want you to do a um that's all i'm going to tell you based on the insight role now i want you to do uh another charisma check this is a pretty freaky thursday yeah uh you now realize almost as if a second personality buried deep within your psyche you feel like you can hear Nettie with you and you have sort of gained her as a passenger and that there is no

personality in the Tom you see before you so both of you are in this okay got it like Steve Martin and the Tom before you is now a shell now do are we worried about this cloak I'm worried about everything right now Like Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin. And the Tom before you is now a shell.

Are we worried about the cloak? I'm worried about everything right now. I don't know what to do. Yeah, we got to get the cloak back. I feel like I'm losing my mind. Wow, how fucking weird. I'm going to use my trans-dimensional mage hand, and I'm going to reach out, and I'm going to grab that cloak

and pull it back through the... I don't know if you can do that. Well, now we to reach out and I'm going to grab that cloak and pull it back through the, I don't know if you can do that. Well, now we'll find out. I will say, Dan, did you hear that? I did hear that.

Uh, should you choose to do nothing? I will hand you this. Uh, you're going to use the mage hand to grab the cloak. Yeah. Almost reflexively, like,

uh, to reach out and grab it with this trans-dimensional hand. He has her character sheet. I don't run any of that at once. That's crazy. Do a wisdom saving throw, please. 19. Your mage hand blinks out of existence

the second it touches. Okay. Oh, man. Oh, God. I ask for the Sentinel. I tell the Sentinel, hey, here's the deal. We lost something kind of important when he did that.

Is there any way to get that back now? I mean, you could swap bodies again, but it's going to go back to the way it was. I kind of like the way it is now. What does that mean? But would he get his stuff back that's now over there?

He'd get his stuff back, but he'd put Neddy's mind back in Neddy's body. Right. I also don't think it's going to work another time. I'm kind of happy with the way this is. Well, except the glove. But we don't have the glove. Yeah, we need that glove. Well, we don't really need it.

We're trying to get rid of it, actually. It's going to get destroyed. Nothing can destroy it, I don't think. It's going to get destroyed in that cloak. We don't really need it. We're trying to get rid of it, actually. It's going to get destroyed. Nothing can destroy it, I don't think. It's going to get destroyed in that apocalypse. You have... Or she's going to get it. I'm going to set a timer on my phone. You have...

Holy crap. You might get it in that apocalypse. You have one minute to make this decision. I'm saying, where do we think that apocalypse is? It's another plane. Do I have an idea? It's another plane of existence. This wall of flame is going to consume the body you see before you, whichever body it is.

And if you replace Nettie's body, it will take her soul with it. Right. But it's in another plane. Correct. And if you commune with Nettie, you can figure out what plane this is perhaps or how she got there. No, I think we do have to worry about it because I think the point was if every plane is experiencing apocalypse

then isn't Zinzerina doing that through every plane or the elves are doing that through every plane, the lunar elves? I would like to commune with that either. Okay. I'm going to pause it just so you can do the roll, but I'm going to start it as soon as she talks back to you if it works. Do a charisma check

of 20. She doesn't tell you. Is there another plane of existence, though? But doesn't Zinzerina have access? The scene starts to fade before you. She has access to many planes, Zinzerina, right? We've already been told that thing cannot be destroyed. You're not going to convince me to go out.

To send her back? Yeah. Tom and his backpack disappear before you. Well, that's... We can talk later about your spells, but in case you need to make any basic rules, that's your new character sheet. Wow.

What does it say? You're now Nettie. So he is Nettie, but he's also himself? Or no, he's just Nettie he's just yeah i mean he can keep his personality but he has the physical form training and and uh skill set of netty which is which in his case and stuff in his case well we can work that out later we can work out she's a we're gonna say it's gonna take him let's i don't know a game session and a half for Tom Nettie to settle into his new spells and stuff, but I have basic

stuff like inventory and basic spells decided for him, and he can go over the rest with me, perhaps. Well, that's one way to solve that problem, I guess. By the way, that wasn't what I was talking about about talking to the Elder Gods. Y'all just kind of did this other thing, but that's cool.

I don't think he was the one. He was the one that I knew was going to meet somebody who he already knew. But he was not the one. Another way to convey that information is to tell us who... No one else can be talking to him.

I don't know. No one else can be talking to him. I don't know what he's talking about. That sounds silly. What is your name? I wondered if it was me because I have the connection with Stormdor, but that does remind me that I would like to take a moment right now

and look through Stormdor's eyes. Great. Okay. Just to see what's going on down there. Thanks to the bone wand. Yeah, I'm going to look up the bone wand thing that I just. You want to drink one for Tom Dorado? You're netty now, sucker.

Wow. Let's see. So this is the reflection curse, right? Bone wand eyes. You can see through it at will, and each time you must make a wisdom saving throw. So, okay, he's going to make a wisdom. As you see through his eyes,

he's going to make a wisdom saving throw to just try to retain consciousness, or else you'll be taking him over. Oh, dude. I didn't realize that was... He made a saving throw. He's got really high stats, so it's really hard for him to not. So you see, all of a sudden, your head is...

By the way, the rest of you are in a uh a sort of black chamber the door of the fungal spire behind you you're about 10 feet into blackness right now uh you kind of your eyes turn white for a second and you kind of plop on your butt on the ground uh and you see just a your head through the dragon's eyes slamming over and over again into a fungal spire presumably the one in Gantham that you guys went up and he's chewing on it he's breathing acid on it and he's trying to shred it to pieces

you see this for about 30 seconds and then it blinks out of you what a dick okay well we we are through the spire but we also remember we left a portal down in the town, and also now we're in this room. Anyone want to pull that string?

No. Who's next? And find out what other characters Dan has in his bag? No. It only happened because he touched. Aren't you curious what you'd see? This could be like a diorama at the Natural History Museum. You can just look at it.

Gendy says again, I mean, go ahead, Gendy. Gendy, do it. I'll do it. I don't understand what these guys Museum. You can just look at it. Gendy says again, I mean... Go ahead, Gendy. I'll do it. I don't understand what these guys are... They do not have a scholar's curiosity. Who's Bodhi going to see, Johnny Utah? I thought we wanted to kill the god. I don't... Oh, I'm sure this is unrelated. If touching the string...

And I'll remind you guys again, yeah. We lost that fucking cloak, man. That's all I can... I can't get over it. As far as I know, it's gone. I know. As far as you know, it is being consumed by flames and it is as safe as it will. That can't be right. That seems funny.

We've been told it can't be destroyed, though. Yeah, it can't be destroyed. But also, we weren't supposed to have it in the first place. Yeah, but we went through a lot to fucking get it. Agreed. I know, but we wanted to get rid of it. We haven't even discussed the fact that it's just Nettie here now. And everyone's just all chilling and chatting about it.

Hey, Nettie. Yeah, he wasn't that happy to see Nettie last time either. Just because I knew it was her. He knew his suspicious Feywild circumstances. It wasn't her before. He's gone now. Now it's only Nettie and her body and her mind. He was suspicious of what ended up being true,

that it was a dryad trying to trick him. I think it's both of us. But now this is actually Nettie and her body and her mind. He was suspicious of what ended up being true, that it was a dryad trying to trick him. I think it's both of us in one. But now this is actually Nettie. This is real Nettie. You guys. We've heard a lot about you. Hey, Nettie, you want to say hi to everyone real quick? Nice to meet y'all.

How are you doing? I feel like you could go into Vin's voice if you really wanted to. Just do Michelle Rodriguez. It's the same voice. Just do Michelle Rodriguez. It's the same voice. Hey, guys. That's my Scarlett Johansson.

Gendy says, all right, let's get out of the room. As a fellow deep voice woman, I say, how dare you? You guys all exit the chamber. I never noticed Scarlett Johansson had a really deep voice because I've liked her forever. And that is so unlikeable but no no it's not that but I just never noticed it until this last Avengers movie when she was next to Elizabeth Olsen

because Elizabeth Olsen is like a little pixie you know she's got this girlish voice I feel like there's some movie that Scarlett Johansson has the very I'm worried about Vision Scarlett's like we should kill Thanos alright so

you all exit the chamber and the string reappears and Gendy says so it's me is it you want me to see if it's me we're gonna play roulette with me now sure Bodhi shrugs alright she plucks the string you hear a low humming noise and a seam fades into view

you see what looks like a drow with large vulture wings coming out of its back a rain of fire knocking her to the ground frozen in time

we see what? Who's that? Gendy. Gendy says, I have no idea who this is. I think this is someone on another plane who I have something in common with on some sort of soul level, but I've never met them. We see a drow. What did you say? We see a drow.

With vulture wings. Yeah. Hmm. Is she related to, what's her face? Vulture wings. Gendy says, I guess she could be. Michael Keaton. Not mechanical. They look like black feathers.

Ask Dr. Worm who that is. Do you want to ask that they might be giant song? I'll say, good morning. How are you? So, yeah. He says, I don't really know I'll say good morning, how are you? So, yeah, he says... I don't really know who it is, but yeah, it's like Gandy was kind of saying.

I mean, this is someone whose body might be completely different than Gandy's. Someone who's had a different life experience, but something about their soul is almost identical to Gandy's. And they exist on a completely different plane of existence. How about that time at Duke Boy's? But there's millions and gajillions of planes of existence. This is the one that's closest to her. I haven't actually heard this thing, but I'm still annoyed by it.

Of course you are. It doesn't involve punching. So, Gendy's like. It doesn't involve punching. So, uh, Gendy's like, uh, I don't, I,

I don't know. My gut tells me this isn't about me. Uh, I'll do it. I'm not in a, I'm not in a hurry to exchange bodies with this. Yeah. Yeah.

I ain't touching this. She said, or does it make sense for Bodie and his guy? I feel like the, I just feel we can go in or. Or does it make sense for Bodhi and his guy? I feel like the... I just feel we can go in our... Just everyone can go and we see if we see anything in these... Something will help us.

Yeah, we just don't have to touch anything. Yeah, let's get out of here. And she had like one foot in, but now she's one foot out. And she's like, let's... Who's next? Who's next? Wait, I look at her.

Do I think that she's telling the truth about not knowing who it is? Do a... Which would... Let's do... I perceive her. a perception check. Or insight? Yeah, I'll do whatever you do.

I'm going to do perception. That sucks for me. Nine. Can I perceive her? Yeah, you can. Eighteen. You don't think she's lying, but you do think she seems a little afraid. Hmm. All right. What are you scared of?

Getting trapped inside that drow's body and dying. Yeah. Okay. Very reasonable. Copy that. Who's next? Yeah, she pulls that leg out of the the door and the the scene fades out of view and uh are we all gonna go look who's next i'll go i'll do it all right uh typho you pluck the string boom and uh after the low hum you you see the next doomed soulmate.

Why are you reaching in your bag? Do you know he's a real guy? I'm not going to reach in my bag unless you lead me there, sir. So you see what looks like a very proud warrior. She is kneeling over a large woolly beast that seems to be gravely injured, and she is healing it. She's wearing plate mail. She has glowing golden eyes, and she is healing the beast.

She is frozen in time. There is a rain of fire. What do you do? She sounds awesome. I'm not going to touch her. Why, you'll become a federary? You can become her, I guess. Oh.

Yeah. There's that. You're shaking your head. Why are you shaking your head? I like the game the way it is. Do I get that sweet plate mail? I don't know. You do.

I don't know. I do. I don't know. I think... I don't know. I think the way it was so casual, the way that he swapped it, terrifies me that we're all just... You did start with an interesting choice. With Ken going first, you sort of saw how tricky this could get. That was not a casual choice for me.

That was a very definite choice. I wanted to... how tricky this can get. That was not a casual choice for me. That was a very definite choice. It was like one of his character traits that he chose a year and a half ago that he would do anything to save Nettie. I feel like it's cool to see what I presume is another version of me, but I feel like I should probably I just want to be me.

Gendy is also going to think about it. She says I don't think this is the one that can commune with the elder beings. No. Should we get out of here? Yeah. And say goodbye to this soul, basically.

Yeah. So basically, okay. Sorry about your dog. So one of them is going to be able to commune with one of our. But every time you close this theater, that being is going to die, basically. Right, the other one. Hey, I'm evil now.

I'll try it. You're up, Twee. So you step out. You going to pull that string, Twee? I'm going to... Okay, big money. Bing. 35 cents. No whammies.

All right. So when you pull a string, you see... Where are you from? Brian is looking at me with so much... Just like never had eye daggers from him like that before. Working out here with the Defense Department. I know what he's mad about, too. You're mad that I'm going to have something in there

where you're going to go, fuck, and you're going to want to do it. And you're like, I'm not going to pull that string. He doesn't like change. Exactly. What if you look in there and it's Danzig? Like in a Corvette.

And he's going to die. I'd pick somebody taller. What if it's tall Danzig? They're going to die. I'd pick somebody taller. Yeah. What if it's tall Danzig? They're going to die, too, whoever we leave. That's right. That's absolutely right. You picked the wrong guy. If you'd said Geddy Lee, we'd have a different.

Nobody doesn't like Geddy Lee. So you see a scene before you. It is what looks like a room in a stone tower. This is the first time you have been indoors, so to speak. You were in a cave with Ken, but now you're inside. And you see something very different. There's no fire coming. However, there does seem to be an apocalypse happening in the room.

In the middle of the room, there is a sort of stone pedestal with a large book open on it with strange writing on it that none of you recognize and on all the shelves you guys see books about demonology there's artifacts of uh someone's adventures in the past uh there's a very large vanity mirror on one wall. And you get the sense that this is a chamber that belongs to a powerful warlock. And on the other side of the chamber, the bricks and the stone masonry of the tower seem to be getting yanked into a black hole. There's just this sort of purple cosmic expanse that is ripping the room apart and you see a half-elf warlock being pulled

into the expanse kind of reaching for the stone pedestal frozen in time above the stone pedestal there is a sort of fireball of purple flame frozen in time sucks to be that guy there is a sort of fireball of purple flame frozen in time. Sucks to be that guy.

That's Blaine. I asked the worm about this guy. That purple flame seems like what I was talking about. Oh. What do you want to know about that guy too? I don't know about that guy, but that's definitely someone who's soulbound to that guy who pulled the string. Me?

Yeah, do you know that guy? I don't know. Do I recognize this guy? Do a perception check. Nine. Ten. You don't think you've met him but he sure seems charming it's like what Tom Hanks more like Jim Hanks

roll to see if it's actually Tom or Jim Hanks what'd you roll? 10 it's not Tom Hanks is there a way to... What'd you roll? 10. It's not Tom Hanks. Is there a way to enter the scene without touching the things in it? Like, can we look, could he go read the book or look at the purple thing

without actually touching anything in it? You're gonna ask the word in that? You're gonna, you're asking the word in that? Oh, sure. He says, I think it's only, I think the scene only closes down

if you talk to the other, the person, if you kind of pull the person out of their scene. I think the scene only closes down if you talk to the other person, if you kind of pull the person out of their scene. I think that's what's going to stop everything, start making it fade to black as if you switch bodies. But I think if you did switch bodies, you could try to commune with the person and interrogate them a little bit.

I said it right away. But if we switch bodies, then you would just share a body with this other warlock guy is that maybe for just five minutes well oh then you how you switch them back yeah i guess you could try to switch it back but then you know that'd be permanent okay so it makes a little more sense is there anything any value to like really studying the stone tablet and the purple thing before you yeah because from what the worm just told you you would think that time would this chamber would last for a while if you just tried to mess with the tablet and the flame

that would make sense so unless you wanted to interrogate this half elf uh you've got some time to examine the room and mess with the book on the stone pedestal. So I'm going to step in there. Uh-huh. I would say everybody, Gendy would follow you immediately because you've all talked about it and would feel comfortable going in and helping

and just wave everybody in and be like, all right, let's look around, but careful not to touch the half-elf. Okay. Yeah, and I'm going to, do I recognize any of the rooms uh I'm in the book yeah um first of all I take some pictures of it with my we take that flame is that what we the worm seemed to find that to be important right well I didn, I didn't hear that. When you look at it, you feel like...

No, I told you guys. The words seem to be in Elvish, but not Elvish. So like... Parallel dimension Elvish. Like an Elvish impersonator. And you recognize it. You don't have to do a perception check.

More like Elvis Costello. Oh, okay, okay. Wrong Elvish. Like it would have been like a perception check difficulty five and you've got a plus six. It's like the kind of thing right away you're just like, yeah, this is parallel dimension Elvish. This is weird.

It could be a code I could crack if I really tried. Should we just try to bring the... Okay, I guess we look around and then we should bring that guy in though, I think. I examine the purple light. But I don't think we can bring him because then though i think i examine the purple light but i don't think we can bring him because then he'll switch with blaine right they'll be in the same body and then we can supposedly send him back well blaine will be in his body but a time a clock will start

ticking as soon as you touch it just left a shell yeah he would he would take, Blaine would permanently switch bodies possibly, but bring the old personality as a passenger. Behold the cloaca. Do a perception check. Absolutely. 20. Holy shit. You feel like if you spend five minutes looking at this book,

you can speak it out loud, but it's going to not sound like Elvish or Common. It's just going to be you phonetically going along with it. Okay. While he's doing that, can I perceive and deceive? Yeah, do a perception check. You're just scanning the room for stuff. Whatever we need.

15. All right. So all the books seem to have to do with uh either uh demonology or outer space there's a lot of sort of studies of the stars um you you you uh can't read any of it right it's all really hard to read uh there's some stuff about familiars um what about this purple flame thing you get a sense that that is connected looking at the scene you think this warlock summoned the flame to commune with an elder god just as some sort of apocalypse was happening was in the arena purple uh yes just okay Was Zinzerina purple? Yes.

Just, okay. I guess I'm going to have to go up and do the Freaky Friday with this guy. You're not going to try to say anything out of the book first? I feel like that's a bad idea. Just as a quick refresher. Yeah, but what if he says something out of the book that we don't know what he's doing? Well, I can tell him what phonetically

the words look like in front of him and he can pick which ones to say. I'll give him three words to choose from. But why would we do that? Because he might summon a... Well, five minutes have passed. Now that five minutes have passed, Tui, you figure out there's like three words

that seem to be final trigger words and you don't know what any of them mean but you can say them out loud okay borscht shart and felger carb do you want to say Borscht, Chartres, or Felger Carb? I had some written down, but this is more fun. What are yours? Oh, it's just... Vergalish, Morocal, and Osmetic. I'm going to have to go Osmetic. So you're just going to say Osmetic. I'm going to have to go Osmetic. So you're just going to say Osmetic out loud?

Oh my god. The way he says it, right guys? A la Osmetic Butter Sandwich. Alright. Do a wisdom saving throw, please. I think I said this is silly, but Dan really wanted him to do it. No!

You know what? Because it's Blaine's choice. Yeah. A nine. He heard you say it was silly. He could have taken it. A nine? Yeah.

All right. So you take some damage. You take three points of damage as you feel a stinging needle-like pain Right in your eye sockets The rest of you Ow, my eye sockets Do a charisma saving throw Blaine, you're fine

Because you covered your eyes But you're all looking at this purple flame And something happens I got a three You're fine, you're not flame and something happens. I got a three. You're fine. You're not. No, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm good.

But I have advantage against being charmed, if that matters. What'd you get? 17. Great. So yeah, you two are going to take some damage. I can speak common. Does that change anything? Typha, you take six points of damage.

Esmeralda, you take five points of psychic damage. The rest of you guys, well, by the rest of you, I guess I mean Nettie and Bodhi. You see something appear in the purple flame after it flickers to life for a moment. You guys, I guess everyone will see this after a second or two of recovering from their headaches. But the purple flame starts to flicker. It starts to come out of its frozen state.

And appearing in it, there is a writhing mass. It looks almost zoomed out, like it's too big to be in the sort of floating fireball uh it's got brittle looking shards in it it's got pulsating lengths of whisker like flesh that's kind of mashing and masticating together in little waves um and uh the purple flame slowly kind of gets sucked into it and now you've just got this zoomed-out-looking mass of thing in front of you, and it's just sort of undulating, and you see these kind of like these dark orbs of fire. They're dark, like purple and black,

and they're kind of going in and out of the massive whiskers and worms and stuff. Whiskers and worms. And it says Melisk Fingersk Rekalk

Stray Hmm Fire. You guys had Rekak Stray Fire You guys had a It sounds like a sketch Before a metal song What is Dr. Should we get that That warlock in here

Maybe to Whatever we just did Is the worm Knowing who that is Yeah Worm Do an arcana Check

Does it look like a spider it looks like a it's like shards of broken glass and worms all mixed together brought me nothing the worm says nothing almost as if it is silent

seriously though shouldn't we maybe get that guy here to explain what's, shouldn't we maybe get that guy here to explain what's going on? Should we maybe get out of the room and let this guy die in his apocalypse? Well, it seems like that thing is here now. It just affected us from within its own space. Do you know what I mean?

By saying the word that you just said. So it feels like maybe that door is... What if you read another word? Oh, yeah, definitely. Let's read one more. Because that was the one sending it here. Or maybe the three words of the three elder gods, and we just called one of them,

and he's going to call the other two. That sounds like the name of the three elder gods. Sounded like the location um the voice speaks again while you talk to each other it says uh minds on its fingers eyes on its tongue return it to

us it strayed too far fuck man us. It strayed too far. Fuck, man. Yeah, you know what, guys? This is the three gods who wanted to protect, keep the cloak, and now we lost the cloak. I feel like that's what's going on. So this probably is one of the... Mines on its

fingers. Mines? Lines? Mines. Mines. Mines on its fingers. Mines on its fingers. You mean like mine? Hey, has anybody seen my sweet gypsy rose? Is there a worm? Eyes on its tongue.

It's not a riddle. Return it to us. It strayed too far. Return it. That's why I thought it was the cloak. Because the worm said that the three gods were supposed to communicate. Yeah, I think those three words were locations. Okay, I asked the worm directly what those three words mean.

The worm in your stomach? Yeah. I don't know, but that's an elder god, yeah. Yeah. I mean, an elder being. Or elder whatever. It's an elder thing. yeah. Yeah. I mean, an elder being. Or elder whatever. It's an elder thing. Yeah.

Umberlee, Louis, and Muhammad? I don't know. Can we kill it? I'm just a cosmic sentinel. Ask it if it's Wolf or... Can we twang it really straight? Can we touch something? How do we talk to it?

Well, again... You haven't tried to talk to it yet. Yeah. Okay. We can try to talk to it, or we can try to get that guy in here. Fine. Who are you?

We are the elders. Oh, cool. We wanted to talk to you anyway. Since you're here... Just without the fanfare, what are you referring to when you say, return it to you? What do you mean by it? Gin

Regina. Right. What? Gin Regina. That's Zinzerina. Oh. The cloak or her? Gin Regina.

Her. So how would we do that how can we how can we help uh return her uh sorry when you when you when you created being from another planet you will try to write a script and then you have a bunch of chunks of the script

and you look it over um your gods imprison her but they are dull and foolish bring her to us so that we may feast upon her identity and return her to her home her home is the furnace Beneath your time and space Her home is death and nothingness She must be no more How do we get her? Bring her to us Do we bring her to this room? Your stupid and dull gods imprison her

Who is she? Cinderina Our stupid and dull gods We don't have Cinderina Yeah, we're trying to get a hold of her Do you have any tips or tricks? Do you see her all the way over? Life hacks Our stupid and dull gods. We don't have Cinderina. Yeah, we're trying to get a hold of her. Do you have any tips or tricks? Life hacks?

Any hot takes? Is she at work? What time is it? Does she have 5-minute phone turn off? Blaine, do a charisma saving throw, please. Oh, boy. 19. So you take no damage as you feel a strange sensation all those sort of dark orbs of flame suddenly emerge at once from the writhing mass and seem to focus on you

and you uh you you hear a voice and that's been inside your head uh but now also go. You. You. Okay. What do you want from me? You have spoken to it. What did I speak to? Oh, I spoke to it. Check radio. Oh, when I did the drugs.

Oh, right, the drugs. Esmeralda, do a charisma saving throw. Oh, me too. Take the drugs. I did the drugs. No, he's just saying that you're connected to Zinzerina. 17. You don't take damage as the same routine goes through you.

Yeah, yeah, I spoke to her. Do you need to make her flesh? We need to let her become flesh and then deliver her? Yes. Okay, all right. You could have just said that, but this is... I don't speak common. This is difficult.

It's like playing Mad Libs. I feel like all these worms are just like little metaphor dudes. They just really end up being rhymes and riddles. Yeah. Your folly is annoying. Okay, so basically we need to. At least you can understand my folly. So guys, one cool thing is that we could just let, what's her face?

We could let Zenzarina inside that little brat, then deliver her to eternal hellfire in this room as one option. How do we get that to happen? Yeah, but the second she takes over that girl, she starts destroying the planet, right? I mean, it's tricky. Or one of us has to sacrifice ourselves or find someone. Rock and run, that's right.

Is that what has to happen? It's tricky, is that what you're saying? Are you asking? Yeah, I am Is that what has to happen? Is that what's tricky? Is that what you're saying? Are you asking? Yeah, I am asking. What has to happen? Yeah, like. She is currently dead but imprisoned. In essence, nothing more.

God's imprisoned this essence. Deliver me the essence as you would deliver a dead god. I don't deliver dead gods called postmates. I don't know. Or give her flesh and deliver me flesh if that is easier for you.

Well, definitely throw her on attitude. That's going to help. It's Betty Davis. What's your name? We have to find you again, right? How do we find you again? Baphomet or Loth. I thought Baphomet was a dragon and Loth is a spider, right?

We are the elders. We existed long before your tiny gods. We are the stomach of the stars and the death. Okay. Or an address.

Or you could just say, I don't know, Ventura Boulevard. Can you just call my phone? Can we just give him some of the mushroom stuff to eat uh that sounds like a great question for the next episode all right thanks everybody that was episode 31 brian passane.com for tour dates uh mad issue uh roads yeah mad issue four will be on newsstands um in I believe October so next month

it's still coming up a couple weeks from now I also have a letter in the new penthouseforum.com check it out I never thought it would happen to me Hey your friendly neighbor in Spider-Man I'm a Marvel Legends action figure awesome those are really cool figures

also find us at Target and Twitch. Oh, yeah, I forgot. Twitch. Okay. Our biggest toy. We'll be back for episode 32. Thanks, everybody. Woo!

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