Nerd Poker - Episode 33 - Hello, Demelith

Episode Date: December 6, 2017

After a brutal confrontation with Count Fenzehn the party is ready to make a final push to the Demelith's lair. Or so they think. If things were dark and creepy before it turns out it can get a lot worse. Will Twee keep receiving DM notes just to piss off Bodhi? Will Tom get closure from his latest vision of Netty? Only time will tell.

Hey, it's Brian Possehn. I used to have a podcast where I played Dungeons & Dragons with a bunch of my friends. I missed it, so I decided to make a new one. It's called Brian Possehn's Nerd Poker. It's myself, a couple of my buddies, Blank and Patch, Dan Telfer, Ken Daly, an occasional guest or two, and we're going to be playing in a new setting, my dining room. Each week you'll hear my wife, my son, my dogs, and we're going to be playing in a place that I love and playing the game that I've loved half my life, Dungeons and Dragons. We've got fifth edition and we're ready.

So are you ready? Here's Brian Poussaint's Night Poker. Did you like that pause, boy? Did you think I wasn't going to follow up? Brian picked up his dog poops. Mm-hmm. They were really big. And then I took a little swim. He had to clean himself off, and he just dove in the pool. And the best part was how he didn't put the poops down before he dove in the pool.

It just looked like he just... No bags either. I just pick them up with my hand and hurl them into the trees. Like in the old country. Just yelling, fuck you, squirrels. It's like when Babe Ruth used to point at where he was going to fire Baby Ruths into the stands. It was so nice of you to stop by the children's hospital

and tell them that you were going to throw poop just for them. How far do you want me to throw it, kids? Ken, Dan, Blaine are here. They've already been talking, but that's who's talking, just in case you're slow on the uptake. Do you think you could throw poop all the way from here to Ventura? Oh, yeah. No, I mean the city, not the boulevard.

It's a jewel. Hmm? What? Ace Ventura? So... What happened in episode 31? Before we say what happened in episode 32, thanks Roy Harper.

Hi, Roy. Hey! This is a Patreon subscriber. That sounds like a real name. Yeah, he's actually a famous English folk singer that influenced Jimmy Page. He listens to our show? Yeah. Probably a different Roy Harper, I'm thinking. Hang on.

I'm thinking someone named David Way. Okay, thanks, David. Someone named Hyatt Lazier. How about David No Way? I'm thinking someone named David Way. Okay, thanks, David. Someone named Hyatt Lazier. How about David No Way? I'm thinking someone named Luke Goguin. Thanks, Luke. Go, go, go, go, go, go. You know, deep inside every child's heart, there's a dream.

A dream born from the angels. Too good for this earth. From the heavens, you might say. Born from the angels. Too good for this earth. From the heavens, you might say. It's a pure, pure kernel of joy that nestles itself deep within the ribcage, does a tippity-toe dance down the spine,

does a loop-de-loo around the pelvis, and just pops out of your crotch, and it's called Skeletor's Dick. Thank you, Skeletor's Dick. Always, always think Skeletor's Dick. Thank you, Skeletor's Dick. Always. Always think Skeletor's Dick. My thighs are chafed. I need some powder.

I don't know what you guys do for a living, but I really hope at some point you realize you owe your livelihood to someone who goes by the name Skeletor's Dick. Like, if you can find a way to make that happen in your chosen profession, it really brings a smile to your face. My boss is Skeletor's Dick. If you can find a way to make that happen in your chosen profession, it really brings a smile to your face. My boss is Skeletor is Dick. I've never seen Skeletor is Dick and Darth Vader 420 in the same room. I feel like

you've made that joke about Skeletor is Dick and Darth Vader 420 before. I think they're the same guy. I have some people following him around. I hired Cannon. It's not the fat guy. It's a modern guy. He's like a Comic-Con detective,

and he makes sure that all the episodes follow the pathologies step by step, and there's no overlap or weirdness. Everything follows the character Bibles. It's Tuesday night night and there's a river of vape running through the table, it feels like. But we are just

a river of vape? I really mixed my metaphors with that one. I was imagining when you do drugs and it's like it's flowing through. Are you picturing yourself on a boat and on a river, I guess. I don't know what it's cause we were talking about dreams and lady

marmalade. Well, guys, guys, guys, how about queen Kong? We'll be right back. Sorry.

This is like the most off the rails we've gotten. I'm doing takes on the podcast. I've never seen you make that face. Oh, God. Big right inhale. Wow. I've got a bunch of comedy takes that I don't need. Okay.

I'm going to do it. I'm going to get it. We're going to get on the rails, you guys. Here we go. So you guys just fought a vampire by the name of Count Fenzhen in some marshes outside the Demolits' Keep. But he was really a little salamander. He was really just a little old undead fairy dragon

that you pinned down with a web, you interrogated for a while, because he was ready to die. He was kind of feeling the end. He was talking about the final ritual had already started um when the last ancestor of the demolith had sacrificed himself and then bode started talking about uh how maybe he could undo it by going back in time and he i thought bode had an air of sincerity about it. My only concern about that is, do things that die come back to life when you go back in time? Who knows?

Yeah, exactly. At any rate, all of a sudden, Count Fenzhen didn't want to die so much anymore, and he blinked out of the webbing and is currently making an escape. Bodhi took a swing at him. Oh, no, he's not. And punched himself in the face,

but he's just out of everyone's reach at the moment. What you nerds gonna do about it? I would like to fire a crossbow bolt at him when I get my turn. Okay. Well, I'm gonna say, if you guys are all attacking, we should do a little thing called

rolling for initiative. So would you do that for me, please? Yes. Thirteen. Eleven. What's my new deal with initiative? You get advantage on it. So there's an eight. Roll again.

Eleven plus a thirteen. What was yours, Tom? Eleven. Alright, so that'll be twee-boaty-tum. You've also got a small army with you. A couple of the elves got wounded in the ruckus with Count Fenzin. I assume my fire has gone out. Yes.

Thank goodness. You took a lot of burning damage. I certainly did. Did you take any burning man damage? My checking account sure did. Yeah, once you started chasing down Count Fenzhen, the illusion was kind of broken. All you needed was Tweet to sort of explain to you

that none of it was real and that it was all just sort of like a water level thing where it was was a one-way mirror i never thought it was real but it's still burning well you didn't but the thing was because you failed your wisdom uh saving throws your brain couldn't wrap itself around the truth of the of the this is definitely feeling like burning uh the flesh overcame the brain as far as your character was concerned. Videodrome. Everyone knows. Heads explode.

So what are you going to do, Tweet? You are up first. The salamander is... I was going to say a brain scanner. It's not video. Videodrome is when Debbie Harry's in it. Yeah, that's where he pulls a gun out of his stomach. I think I'm going to go over to this thing with my... And just sort of say, hey, we need to follow you back to dad. To Vincent, right? Yeah.

He's not really interested. When Bodhi said that things could be turned back and undone, he kind of went into panic mode. Um, I think, um, you guys kind of figure out that, uh, he thought something was a done deal. That's no longer a done deal. Okay. Yeah. was a done deal that's no longer a done deal. So he's going to commune with the master somehow and he doesn't necessarily want you there

for it. Let's stop him. Yeah, well that's the thing is we're coming with you. Why am I not killing him now? I mean You think we need to He's going to lead us to where the demo is

He's going to try to teleport Farther away on his next turn So you can tell him that But he's not impressed So you can try to do some kind of Cast to stop him Or you can just follow him So you're going to have some kind of cast to stop him, or you can just follow him.

So you're going to be trouble teleporting very far? Yeah, I wonder if I should just grab onto him and teleport with him. Whoa. Kind of do a slim pickings. And whoo-hoo! Well, then you'll be by yourself with him. Probably not too far ahead. If he bamfs all the way to Demolat. You said that we were heading for the castle, right?

Mm-hmm. I'm going to ask the salamander. The castle's right up there, right? Sort of. Again, you're talking to him like you're super unfriendly terms. He's in no way interested in having a conversation at the moment. But Barriss

knows where the devil is. Are you talking to Barriss or the salamander? No, but I thought he pointed it out to us before. He's talking to the salamander. Yeah, I know that. I'm saying I don't know if we need the salamander to tell us where it is. Do you want to kill it? Does Barris know for sure?

I believe so. He thinks he knows. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, let's just go. Who's going to kill it? I'll kill it. Sure, go.

Fire bolt. Bodhi is up before you. Bodhi. I'm going to fire a crossbow bolt into it. Go for it. Roll a 20. Oh, goody. That is a hit. So a 1 and an 8

together. 18. I think you should try to damage this thing with some dice. Alright. We're a weapon. Heavy is it? 1d10? Oh, it's the one you bought from Grisma in the castle. So that is a heavy crossbow.

1d10. Piercing. Okay, and no bonuses on it? No, because you don't have a proficiency yet. All right, cool. Yeah, 1d10 piercing. You know one. Five. You hear a squealing sound as this thing gets knocked out of the sky and falls to the ground.

Cool, do I get another one on that yes you can run up to it and get in melee range this okay got it oh oh I can uh-huh so I'm gonna hack at it with that 15 and I just did okay roll for damage with your Herald of Kelmar I'm gonna stopped making those Harold of Calamar movies. I know. Neil Patrick Harris is too busy. I think the Christmas one didn't do that well. I don't know.

It was funny enough. Is that National Ed Poon's Harold of Calamar Vacation? Twelve. Great. So this thing kind of screeches and squeals. It wriggles back and forth and starts to curl up like a spider around the point where you stabbed it.

It starts flopping around the ground like a damaged bug. It's missing a couple legs. But again, it's about the size of a cock or spaniel, so it's kind of flopping around in the mud. Is there a way to finish it with a bonus action, just kind of leaning in with the sword, or no? Not really. Okay, alright.

You. I will firebolt it. All the elves are gathering around to watch you just sort of execute this thing ten so um

pew pew this thing disappears in a cloud of ash and everything gets really quiet any remnants of the shadow illusions disappear. Nice. Real quiet. The woods all of a sudden sound like there's no more life in them.

Everything sounds dead. That's good. And a couple of uh of uh things happen um one uh you hear a sort of screeching noise back from where you came it sounds kind of like tearing metal like a metal sheet getting a sword dragged through it um back where you entered the woods in the distance. So this is way, way off somewhere to the east. How could that be? And then it gets really quiet again.

And then you guys notice Tweed, you are involuntarily throwing up. Would you stop that, please? It's disgusting. Alright. Can you give me Just a little bit of a note I passed you

If not I'll grab another Piece of paper What is this note I'm writing you brought to you by Oh uh This note writing brought to you by Big Six Sporting Goods Big Six We got another ball.

Formerly Big 5. What is what? Big 5 sports. Five major sports. I think it's Asia, Europe, Africa, North America, South America South America but then Australia and then Antarctica and Atlantis I'm trying to think all the major continents with

age study with a yeah oh and then there's and then there's the Peter pee your pantsia. I'm sorry, that's an incontinence. Oh, God. You know what makes sense, Blaine? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Why is he puking, I wonder? I think Tween knows why he's puking. He's pregnant.

Don't hang over. I didn't want to say anything, but that night at the Christmas party roll a perception check Tom and Bodhi 7 yep 19 um

barf Bodhi you notice it looks like he's barfing a lot. And it looks like there's blood in it. Oh, are you alright? Yeah, I'm okay. Vorenmeyer says, alright,

what are we doing here? Are we marching to the castle? Are we time traveling? What the hell was that about? What are we doing? Apparently, we saw this guy a long time ago who killed himself. And apparently, that was the last sacrifice of an ancestor of the Demolith, I think is what was said. Okay. We mentioned that maybe we can turn back time.

And it got him real squirrely and nervous, which means we should probably turn back time and undead that guy if we can. Now is actually a time I need to ask you guys something very important. Did you ditch Gago? No. Not intentionally. We were having a goof a couple episodes

ago where he was trying to get you to take his special fairy drugs. You said bye and he was like, I wasn't going to leave. You were like, no, bye. And you said bye. And he was like, oh, I wasn't going to leave. And you were like, no, bye. Like, get out of here.

And he was like, oh, no. We just didn't want to take this. So has he been fluttering around this whole time? I think so, yeah. OK. OK. Gago remembers how to turn back time. OK. I know what I have to do with traveling.

Okay. But what does Gago say? He says, we're going to go back in time. I guess it means going back into one of those caverns where you got the gauntlets of ogre power. Okay. That's how you met that dude twice.

That real annoying dude. The dude who cut his stomach open. Yeah, we saw him again. You met him a second time and he had just gotten off the boat. Right. Right. I do remember that.

Yeah, yeah. And those caves are close to here aren't they well that one collapsed because a purple worm chase throughout but if you could find another drow ruin that goes on the ground does anybody know if I draw a ruin that goes into the ground? You've had two other drow ruins mentioned to you during the course of this campaign, and I won't make you struggle to reach into your marijuana brains to remember. Ken doesn't smoke.

I do not have a marijuana brain. No, no, no, no. I have a 54-year-old brain. That's fair. That's fair. It's just as good as a marijuana brain. I'm 52, but I'm pretty fucked up. I don't even know that you necessarily have smoked marijuana now, Blaine and Brian, but

I'm just implying that you have done something to your brain that I can make fun of. All right. At some point in the past. Doesn't have to be now. I accidentally ate a bunch of wasabi today thinking it was green tea ice cream. No. Oh, okay. Also, I like to make fun of other people's brains.

Mater does that in cars, okay. Also, I like to make fun of other people's brains. Mater does that in Cars 2. He does? I have a worse memory than probably anyone else at this table, so I like to... What table? Ooh. The other two times you had drow caverns mentioned to you, one of them is south of Misery's Finger.

It was near where you met that old drow witch who gave you her house. Yep. Oh, yeah. With the dwarves. She told you there was a drow stronghold just east of her hut,

and she suggested you wouldn't enjoy going there. Also, the other time was when you had re-encountered Lekas in the Lunar Elf Woods. He told you the Lunar Elves had a drow cave that they were using to rewind time. So... Is it on this map or is it on the bigger... The big map.

I would think we should try with the house. And if we can go back in time around this house and maybe we can... It's a nice house, can get the answers to the... It's a nice house to hang out in. On the big map, you guys are here. The Drangstranghold is here. This is where there's a small population of drow stronghold is here this is where there's a

small population of drow that you'd even considered recruiting to come fight the demolith but decided

they were bitchy and you would not let this is up here with the

lunar elves but you you you you know you

but that was a mess so those are the two you know about. At one point, you might have even been from Gago. Gago would be happy to reiterate that now. You heard there might have been caverns all over the island.

And that this was just a random one he knew about, the one that caved in. So, there might be more. But those are the two of the three you know about that one that caved in. So there might be more. But those are the two of the three you know about that haven't caved in. Alright. We just need to figure out how long we have to be under.

How far we have to go back. Let's find a cave and then we will get like a jack-o'-lantern or something. You know what I mean? Like something that will decay rapidly.

Like take a bite of an apple and go underground for X amount of time. Come out and see how far that, you know, see how brown it's turned. Experiments. Kind of get some sort of baseline of how to do this. And then we kill Hitler. No, we don't kill Hitler. We kill baby Hitler.

That's the way to go. Super easy. Baby Hitler only can protect himself with baby Nazi soldiers and they're really easy to defeat in battle. Garing as a dorbs. The civilians were partly responsible. I have such a horrible joke sitting in my mouth.

You hear that metal screeching sound again, and Forenmeyer suggests we've got to come up with a plan of attack. He doesn't know of a drow ruin in his woods. He thinks we can pretty much scratch that off as a possibility. If there's another drow ruin, it's either you just missed it or somewhere you haven't explored before, but it's not in the woods where you discovered his encampment in Morgothal, the Walking City.

Okay. You've got to find drow! You've got to find a drow cave or meet with like us again or go to the stronghold but you might have a lot of you've either got some recon or some traveling to do right it feels like fighting fends in without trying this isn't gonna end well well we've done the demo yeah I mean yeah yeah because it was too late right we have to we have to undo the sacrifice of the word first we got to find that guy again and then he may not let him kill himself

yeah has he only done it once? Because we've met him more than once. He would have done it at least twice at this point, but it almost seems as if the time loop, the way it worked, him killing himself is a stuck moment in time unless you stop it. Right.

So you fast-forwarded the last time you encountered him and you fast forwarded past him killing himself right I'm still concerned about what else we're going to undo if we go back in time though yeah like vampires coming back to life we're coming back to death

I don't even know anymore man wait will we lose our levels? No. No. I'll promise you this. Whatever happens with time, it's... Will I have fewer gray pubes? Your party will be a fixed point in time

that can travel forward and backwards. So whatever you take with you... Like entourage. Sorry. The real entourage was Christ's Apostles. Yeah. And you know what?

Our entourage also has a turtle in it. Oh no, I'm thinking of the Patreon show. Yeah, yeah. Nug Nug yeah Tom Lennon hey so what you gonna do cause they're gonna come for you we're gonna go back in time

what do you guys think what's the quickest drought cave we can get to Fornmeyer shakes his head and grits his teeth and says, probably the Lunar Elves. Probably the Lunar Elves. I really don't like those guys.

I don't like them either. It's not that much further to the other world. So, again, you guys are looking at the map again. Here's some areas of the map you haven't explored yet. There's the Hills of Hope to the south. There's the human monastery there.

That's a band. Why are you doing a weird, funny thing? Yeah, and then Count Diendel's castle, which you've never been to, is in the northwest. And then Count Zellor's castle is in the far northeast island, but that probably would be the longest you could travel. Wait, did Fen Fen have a castle?

You're not sure. Barriss kind of tells you he thinks Fen Zen was based out of the marshes. Dude, these are dumbass fantasy games. You can mispronounce it. We can look at the castle. We can go check out the castle if everything's cleaned up

and nice and quiet here. Maybe. That is a thing. You guys do kind of realize as a group when you say that out loud that all the vampires are gone except the Demolith.

What you know about the Demolith is this. He was a vampire. He became a lich. And somehow he has done some sort of sacrifice where he is now a part of the entire island. He is thousands of years old. And some sort of physical part of him

is probably in this castle. This castle? Mm-hmm, in the Marshes of Gulduz. And he no longer has any of his sort of clutch of vampires to protect him. That said, supposedly it's too late. So something might be happening in the castle without the vampires. Did we kill Fenton? Yes.

Yeah. It was that dragon? Yeah. The little fairy dragon was a vampire. Oh, shit. That was his over Fenzhen. Okay, no, I know that, but I thought the dragon was attached to Fenzhen

and we were still trying to get him. No, you found the weird-ass little worm creature. I can't believe that worked out. It's just a weird little creature. Well, he knew a lot of illusion magic, and that was what the demo thought it was. Is that going to get us level 8 soon? Is that guy a big... Well, he didn't have a ton of hit points.

No, he didn't, but that's not necessarily what gets you experience points. You did gain a healthy chunk, but you've got... The experience points from level 7 to level 8 is 11,000. So you did not get 11,000 experience points for killing a vampire. Do you guys want to check out the castle? Yes.

So you trudge through the swamp. It takes you a few hours, but you see eventually as the trees again begin to thin out, a sunken castle with towers broken off of it, but it's massive. It looks like it goes deep into the earth.

It almost looks like a dwarven castle that has had some sort of creepy-ass curse put on it. There's some drought tunnels off of it. There's cr drought tunnels off of it. There's crows flying around, but otherwise it's very quiet. There's a main entrance into a courtyard. You can't see inside

the courtyard, but some of the walls are chipped away. There's nothing living or undead in sight, other than the birds. Let's see what we can see. Yeah, you don't have the thing you have in our other party, right?

The scarab? No, he got that from Grisma in Glorinda. Can you take a look at the castle? Yeah, I'll look at the castle. It becomes a blur of bright red when you wave it even near the castle. You get just all, it becomes a blur of bright red when you wave it even near the castle.

It's almost just all red aura. Does that necessarily mean that somebody's in there or just that it's a lot, some shit has happened? Yeah, the latter. So it could just be undead magic, vampire curse, all sorts

of crazy shit. The farts. The farts that linger. Like a bloody fart because it's red. Oh, bloody farts are the worst. I saw a bloody fart open from Astadon at the Palladium. You were at that show? Yeah, buddy.

Got one of those $30 t-shirts. I saw a bloody fart back when they were still dry fart. bloody fart back when they were still dry fart. Before the singer left. Oh man, he was great. No blessing on your head, bloody fart, bloody fart. So what's going on in this castle over here?

There's a, yeah, there's a main gate. You can scurry on up there. None of the elves are a huge fan of this. They're trying to, again, keep their arrows drawn in a rounded attack formation, but it's really quiet. As you go through the gate, you see that there is some sort of pool in the middle of the courtyard, but there's no other visible doors.

Just this sort of blackened pool in the middle. Wait, there's no visible doors on the castle? No, like the courtyard, it's all just rubble and broken stone. It doesn't really look like there's anywhere else in the courtyard you can go. It looks like there used to be an entrance to a tower that's collapsed. It looks like, you know, there's a servant's quarters that got kind of caved in. It looks like Magic Mount. Any holes in the ground?

You think you see a lot of shadows in this pool. It looks like it might be very deep. Maybe that's the way in. What does it look like? Water? Yeah, or dirty water. Seems safe. Maybe we should stay out.

I would say, just as a vague hunch, it seems the opposite of safe. It's not going there, then. All right, do we give up on this place, then? Barris says he's pretty sure whatever's left of the Demolith is below the water. So we'll have to go's he he's he's like you know i'll be honest i feel like as if there's a calling from my master as i get closer i don't think i would who said that barris did he's like i don't i i there's i don't think any danger of me falling under his command but uh i do feel he is he's beckoning me to listen

and I'm denying him. What's Barriss' take on defeating this guy? Does he think we need to go back in time or does he think we just fight him head on here? He kind of rolls his eyes and admits that he is a little embarrassed. He doesn't know a lot of the Demolith's secrets. This seems to be where he lives now.

The only time he ever met the Demolith was when he still had a sort of humanoid form and came to him in the night. Right. So this is sort of different. He thinks whatever's left of him is down there. He thinks there's something physical down there under the water. He thinks when there was some sort of ritual happening

that, you know, perhaps his master is disappearing. He said he's felt more and more like count fenzen had been biding time and distracting everybody and trying to get the other vampires to go ahead and carry on with making little slave cults right right you know they were trying to drink less blood off of people and scare people less and make the slaves kind of their pals and it felt like that's definitely why we wanted to kill him yeah he's an asshole he's a real jerk yeah barris is gross um but uh he felt like it was all i thought we were talking about fenzin oh fenzin well yeah that's the thing like fenzin was like encouraging everybody to do that and he's he's wondering maybe it's because the demolith was trying to

disappear from the physical realm he's like realm. He's trying to wipe himself out. He tells you what he doesn't know about necromancy. There is something called a Demolich. And a Demolich is a kind of arch-lich or lich that often reduces itself to just a skull. that often reduces itself to just a skull, and then its spirit sort of can travel around the different planes of existence. And so he thinks what's happened here

is the demolits somehow become part of the island, and it's under the water, and when a demolit is all gone, everything will be all gone. Well, sounds like we need to start digging. Yeah, he says either we should go for a swim or we should go underground. Wait, so destroying and we'll destroy the world? Yeah. We can't go for a swim.

I'm not getting in any water. Well, I'll get killed and drowned. So the only way to beat it is to go back and not have it get its full power. Right? Well, he just basically said that if we kill it physically, that'll...

Everybody do a perception check. That was a lot of great rolls. The ground shakes, and you all stop and notice. And you hear a screeching noise, again, coming from the east. Guys, I get the feeling that that sound is a whistle being blown. I have a feeling that... I thought the whistle was like a dog whistle and you wouldn't hear it. It would just be...

Yeah, there's something being activated. So whatever's happening, I think the clock is ticking on this. Yeah, well, let's find a drought tunnel. Gago says he can go back to the fairies and see if anyone knows. He's originally from the Marches of Gulduz. This is sort of his town. He doesn't fuck with the demolith he just sort of goes to the outskirts of the woods and fucks other fairies we just need some drought tunnels

so yeah he's he'll he'll go see if there's anything else closer so you can avoid the lunar elves so he goes and flies off uh forenmeyer says um he doesn't know if we should go closer to the screeching or farther from the screeching, but he would like to do something about the screeching because it sounds like something crazy is happening to the east. It wouldn't be the big tree guy that we reactivated. You don't know. Yeah, we don't. Shall we head east, see what we see?

And we're heading west. We forgot to come back. Yeah, we don't. Shall we head east? See what we see? Or head west? We could send a scout of some kind. Oh yeah, let's do that. I'm going to go straight up. Okay. And to sort of follow the... Sort of take a look at where...

Take a look east. Cool. So we'll put a little song on his loot and he goes flying up in the in the air you see a very familiar sight doing something really weird a giant tree-like form is stomping around at the edge of the marshes and it appears to be fighting something you can't quite tell what it is because you're about five miles, and it appears to be fighting something. Uh-oh. You can't quite tell what it is because you're about five miles west,

and it's just far enough away where you can see Morgothal very clearly because he's gigantic. Gigantic. But you can't quite tell what he's fighting because even though it's very large, you're five miles away, so it's like a speck. Let's help Morgothal. though it's very large, you're five miles away. So it's like a speck. Let's help Morgothal.

I'm going to, you know what? I'm going to dimension door over there, take a quick look, and then fly back, I believe. So. Actually, no, I'm going to do it the other way around. I'm going to fly over really fast. Okay. And dimension door back fly over really fast. Okay. And Dimension Door back if I have to. Okay.

I'm glad you're that specific, because once you start flying over there, things start to look very violent very quickly. You realize Morgothal... First of all, you see the steps where he had marched from further east. There's giant craters behind him. You'd only seen him march through the woods before. So now that he has marched across the plains, you can see where he's knocked trees over and boulders and left the dirt overturned.

And it's just a big motherfucker. He is fighting what looks to be like four or five stone giants. Wow. These stone giants. Wow. These stone giants have no heads. They all have heavy steel armor on with a sheer steel plate bolted over where their neck stump would be. Not unlike a large monster you saw when you fought Count Zellor. So there's a bunch of headless giants with giant clubs just hacking at Morgothal, the

lost city. And so he's just swinging his arms around, just trying to knock these things over and stab them with his fingers and smush them. And they're pretty wily. They don't, they don't have heads really. So they're kind of like doing whatever they can to knock pieces of Morgothal off.

And as you get closer, you see, there is also four, uh, headless mind flares floating around, uh, casting spells on Morgothal. Hmm.

All right. Okay. I'm going to go back to these guys and tell them what I've seen. All right. Well, that's not good at all. Yeah. I know, right?

What happened? Anyway. You tell Bodhi, and Bodhi just kind of blinks at you and goes dire huh man gotta go back in time I don't like that guy but oh we're not gonna help

Morgathon if we back time up this will not have happened yet that's true I just don't know I'm still consider how much damage going back in time is gonna do because we've done a lot of work to get to this point right it's also it doesn't feel like you can beat him otherwise here's the other thing too if we undo any work that we've done,

like a vampire comes back to life or something, we've already killed him once. We know how to do it again. Yeah. And we can set traps, lay in wait for these guys. Or just avoid them altogether and go straight to the devil. That's what you do, yes. All right.

So we're still waiting on Gago to get back to us if there's any shortcuts. Yeah, while you're waiting, Vorenmeyer hears about what's happening to the East and he says, that sounds very violent. He's a big fan of Morgothal of the Lost City and is cheered and excited that his dream has come true

Morgothal is starting to fight for you it sounds like but your old pal Shmoo is in there steering it sounds like but yeah you know like it sounds violent to the point where like we could go into battle and help Morgothal.

Morgothal could... He still seems to be dreaming of Morgothal coming over here, reaching into the pool, and just ripping what's left of the Demolith out of the pool. But that's still not going to help. Right. And then... The apocalypse has happened, basically. demolith out of the pool um but then they're not gonna help right and then um because the apocalypse has happened basically right and then uh comberis says well he's got one more idea uh he is technically the only surviving uh child of the Demolith. He can try to

commune directly with the Demolith and make a plea to it to at least meet with you. I don't think that's going to get at all. He's like, this might be our only chance to talk to the Demolith.

But if he's an ancestor and he has to sacrifice himself, then it's not too late. Hmm? If he's an ancestor of the... No, he's not a descendant. He's a vampire child. He was bitten by the Demolith. It's a different kind of blood relative. The bard that we're talking about, Horo,

is an offspring of an offspring of an offspring, many generations descended. Yeah, you know, gotta keep them separated. Totally. You know what we really have to keep separated? The church and state. Oh, man. They're all sort of church-related.

Or religion. Your inside thing. Hey, you know what? I've got to be honest, Brian. I don You know what? I've got to be honest, Brian. I don't know what's worse. Bad religion or actual religion. All right. Go to Paris, France.

But yeah, Barris says he'll rewind time with you. He'll do whatever you want. But to slay Fen'zen is no easy feat. You can't just face Fen'zen and say, I know you're going to cast Illusion. Demolith.

No, but he's saying if we rewind time, he doesn't think we'll be able to get to this castle so easily again. Got it. So whatever you want to do once you rewind time, this might be our last chance to speak to the Demolith directly. Oh, okay. Maybe we should ask it what we should do to it. He's like, yeah, well, I don't know if I would just say tell us how to kill you

hey if we were going to go back in time and kill you what would we do wait so now if we go back is there somewhere we can trap the Demolith now that will keep it trapped after we've turned back time

well turning back time. Well, turning back time pretty much implies you'll undo whatever you would do. Unless it's some kind of a logic puzzle that I'm not smart enough to figure out. Like something about... Do we have a... I will tell you guys this. I've known about the time travel aspects of this since the very beginning,

and I have worked out a couple dozen ways that you could approach this. We can't work out a single one. Right, and this is the annoying part. You at least have a couple of options here that you have already talked about just now. Well, how about let's see what Barris can do with this guy. Yeah, let's let Barris talk to him. This is okay. So what he's going to try to do is...

Because we're fucked anyways right now. When's time has left? Yeah, what are we at? 13 minutes left. Okay, cool. So Barris says, Fensin always told us we were never allowed to speak directly to the Demolith,

but we always knew he was in the back of our minds. So all I have to do without Fenzin here to police me is quiet my mind and he should come to me. So he just sort of finds a pile of rocks in the courtyard, just kind of bows his head and gets quiet for a while. And you guys go over

and start poking him with a stick. He doesn't respond. And then his head pops up. And? He kind of looks at everybody and then his head pops up and? he kind of looks at everybody and you get the distinct impression that he probably would have talked if it was just Barris he's being weird

he's not making the first move okay well we're here we found you But he's not making the first move. Okay. Well, we're here. We found you. It's too late. How do we know it's too late? Oh.

We're not worried about that. It's too late for you, maybe. Not too late for us. Yeah, what he said. maybe not too late for us yeah what he said not too late to suck my dick Wow all right and a pause for that is rude I don't know why you have to work blue What were we going to He was going to ask him He was going to Communicate with him He opened a door

Well Hey How do we kill you? How's the water? I invite you to kill me I'm at the bottom of the pool Jump in He doesn't know what we know

Right Does he? You don't know? I think we've got you really like I said jump in there is but a shard of bone left split it in two see see what happens. What? That's all that's left of him, I guess. I don't know what to... Well, I don't know what good threatening him would be in telling him that we know how to defeat him. Right.

Yeah, that's James Bond stuff. But, I'm confused because wanted to talk to him and now dipshit's not talking to him no he's letting us talk to him right but i thought barris was going to ask him questions i'm saying i don't know what to do to commune with him so we can communicate right well so what are we going to do barris is not helping you communicate. Right. So what are we going to ask? Barris is not helping you.

Barris is out. Yes. Whether he intended to or not, it's not working. All right. Hey, where's Barris? He's in here. You want to see him again?

I don't know. Yeah, whatever. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Go either way. What about that one? Don't tell him we said that that I know he's in there

we figured out a way to unkill Hora Hora Hora Hora Hora you tell him

he stares at you Hora. Hora. You tell him. Yeah. He stares at you. All of a sudden, Barriss's neck twists really hard, and he disappears in a puff of dust. Right. The ground begins to shake. Get out of here the castle does not seem stable

all of a sudden the elves wave west they're panicking so they're running away from the screaming of Morgothal and the headless giants and so they're just away from the screaming of Morgothal and the headless giants.

Okay. And so they're just doing kind of a blind run away from the castle. Us too. You guys get about a quarter of a mile away before you see it just sort of collapse inwards. But the ground keeps shaking. Keep going. The ground seems uneven and as you go farther and farther west in the swamp the the shaking decreases a little bit but it did feel like it was getting worse before it was getting better for a second there you guys are starting to approach some... Gago again.

Gago is nowhere to be found at the moment. He's kind of doing recon for you at the moment, but you're hoping that because these are his woods, he'll find you through the fake creatures and the gossip train. As you go

farther west, you're getting in the hills again um the marshy trees are still muddy and gross and sticky but uh there's cliff faces and uh as you know uh cliff huxtable faces uh you're you're starting to see very sharp spires of rock. Which way is the west from here? This way? There's little mini mountains sort of jaggedly sticking out of the ground.

You also realize as the marshes get a little thinner, you don't hear the stomping and wailing sounds of whatever Morgothal was fighting. So you've gotten away from him and his battle quite a bit. He was kind of over here fighting, and now you're kind of...

A lot of help, Leah. You're in here. So you're now in the far southwest corner of the map. You've got the elves. A couple of them are wounded pretty badly. And they're trying to heal each other. I'll heal those guys up. Forenmeyer thanks you.

He comes out of his... I want to camp and heal up all of them. Yeah, he recommends it. He says... Yeah, I'll throw up a tiny hug. Morale's kind of low right now amongst his people. They don't like the sounds of everything they're hearing. I wish we had a

bard to play a pretty song. You know what? I got one thing better than a bard. I have the comedy of Rita Rudner, ladies and gentlemen. Come on out here, Rita. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da better than a bard. I have the comedy of Rita Rudner, ladies and gentlemen. Come on out here, Rita. She uses that song? It's a Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Right. Why would she use that? Rita Rudner. Oh, a lot, right?

Jesus, Brian. I'm sorry, Rita, go ahead. Oh, I like to sleep because I get to be alive and unconscious at the same time. That's my Rita Rudd impression. Much more normal emo.

Yeah. She's the first headliner I ever saw on a real comedy club in 1985. She was headlining, and the feature was Jonathan Katz. It was a great show. Oh, wow. Great show.

That would make you want to do it, I bet. Yeah, next week I did my first open mic. Hell yeah, you did. 1985. Fuck. November 6th.

And then we started playing D&D. Yeah. You throw up a Lehmann's Tiny Hunt. I threw up a Liam Inn's Tiny Hut. I threw up more of a medium-sized Radio Shack. Ooh, I like that. It's got the crumble.

Yeah, so good. Antimon's Tiny Hut. Antimon's Tasty Hut. We're probably done, right? So, Barrris is dead uh oops and uh you've got the elves and you're sort of in the middle of this creepy wasteland with big sharp metal spikes sticking out of the ground uh After a while, you see a cloud of what looks like large beetles buzzing over your

hut. I don't like that. Yeah, I don't either. Are they zeroing in on us? They're like 20 feet off the ground, so you can't really see what they're doing. But they're like... Yeah, they can't.

Yeah, we're... But they're sticking to like a city block radius near the hut, as if they know something's there. Alright. Well, keep resting. It's hard to sleep

with the giant beetles. Are you guys resting near each other in the hut, or are you kind of huddled up? What are you doing? We're resting on each other in the hut. All right. We're playing that game where you put each other's heads on each other's stomach and we start laughing. One of the giant beetles kind of comes over to you guys

and starts right kind of directly above you, almost as if it can see inside the hut, and it just starts buzzing really loudly. Making kind of a droning noise. And so you're trying to rest, and this thing starts... You almost feel like it's looking at you.

And it's really kind of disconcerting. You can't sleep, because this thing is just kind of... I'm not down any hit points, so I can wake up. He points his head out or puts his head out. Okay. Go for it. What is... Do you need to do all we think or what?

Do you need to do all we think? I have to look something. 1D12. And it's increased to 2D12 at 5th level. If you're visiting Los Angeles and you're in the Grove, why don't you drop in and have a bite at the Axel Roasterant. It's a great place to fill up on braid.

What? 19 points of poison spray. 19? I'm actually going to GNR this week. Oh, really? I'm kind of stoked. Where are they? Playing at the forum.

Oh, okay. The penthouse forum? I never thought I would be writing a letter the forum. The penthouse forum? I never thought I would be writing a letter about seeing Guns and Roses. That would be good for your slash fiction. You poke your head out of the hut and you see this thing buzzing like 20 feet

above you. You can barely make out what it is, but you fire off the poison spray and just nail it. And you hear a very pathetic squeak noise, and it plunks to the ground next to you. Oh, no. And you see gasping for breath. It's Gago. Gago.

Why do you look like a beetle? He has always looked like a beetle, and looked like a beetle? He has always looked like a beetle And looked like a beetle In fact when Bodhi swung his sword And hacked at him What? I thought he was like a little fairy A couple dozen episodes

He is but from a distance Because he has black wings No We would know No No that's why I described him like that Because this is how he has come across Multiple times from a distance

As a large Buzzing beetle So what'd you do to him? I killed him, I guess He's twitching on the ground I'm gonna throw a cure wounds on him He takes the cure wounds And he says

Arf You fucking I thought you were a terrible beetle So sorry, Gogo and he says, Oh, you fucking piece of shit. I thought you were a terrible beetle. So sorry, Gogo. I mean, I seriously looked like a beetle when you hit me with the sword. This is the same fucking thing. Yeah, but this wasn't me this time.

Wait, we're all born a certain way. Listen, there's an island of vampires and stuff. We're a little on edge. We're jumpy. Yeah, so. Oh, you fucking dick fuck. Fuck a dick. Urethra inside out.

Puppet dick nut shit burger. I'm going to cause some wounds here. Oh, fuck. I'm dying again. I only have 11 hit points. This is fucked up. Please stop doing this. No, he's not really doing that. He's joking. Oh, thank God.

But I am going to cut one of his fingernails too short. And exactly like Julia Louis-Dreyfus in an episode of Seinfeld. She goes, oh, my cuticle. So, yeah, he tells you... Did you just get it? I hope that's what it was.

He says there's a drow cave just off the beach. That's handy. Sorry about the poison. Northwest of here. A drow cave right off the beach. Maybe it's near the mystery spot. We can stop in and get some lunch. Well, in episode 34, I guess we'll head out or check out the drow cave.

Think about the sea monsters. You're a naughty Seamonster Oh yeah And then when we're done We go out and share the vision Did you ever see that? Uh no I was more of a Beanie and Cecil

Kind of guy Why don't you Google Johnny Whitaker And then get comfortable in your K-hole. My K-hole is for Bob Clampett only. Thank you very much. There's room in your hole for a lot of guys,

Dan. Go see Brian Posehn in Bloomington, Indiana with Jeremy Essig. Oh yeah, yeah, please. And please get your two-for-one Mad Magazine subscriptions on madmagazine.com. I'm going to be charming some proto-quarks at CERN in France all this weekend. Tickets still available.

Go to my website, blaineatsern.org. Oh, are you getting the Large Hadron Collider to open for you? Oh, man. I'm getting a small Hadron Collider to open for me. The Hadron Collider's lost a lot of weight. Looking really good. I just hope the God particle is not running lights, because it is not very forgiving.

I don't know what that means. Thanks for listening, everybody. Thanks for listening to another episode of Nerd Poker. You can follow us at patreon.com slash nerdpoker, and you get bonus episodes from there. And you can also send us anything at P.O. Box 16069 in Ceno, California, 91416. Thanks for listening.