Nerd Poker - Episode 34 - Barry's Revenge

Episode Date: December 13, 2017

The crew meets one of those creepy Lunar Elves at the edge of the marshes, and her name sure isn't Lola. Also, the world is ending all around them. Will the ground come to life? Will Twee remember to fly? Will Dan just let him fly even though he said levitate? Will our heroes survive the for real apocalypse? 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 gonna be playing in a new setting, my dining room. Each week you'll hear my wife, my son, my dogs, and we're gonna be playing in a place that I love and playing the game that I've loved half my

life, Dungeons & Dragons. We've got 5th edition, and we're ready. So are you ready? Here's Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Hey everybody, it's Brian Poussaint, and you're listening to Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Rhodes is asleep already, so he's not doing our intro this week. The dogs are acting extra ornery. Jesus, Mavis. She's head-butting my arm to get me to give her attention.

She's worth a pat. I got to be honest, Brian. The way these dogs are acting tonight, I'm thinking maybe a 7.1, 7.3 maybe. Oh, shit. My friends are are here that was one of them that was the skinny funny one blaine there's also ken and dan hello everybody hi everybody hey there's sam we never say hi hi to sam in the beginning hi sam we we never say hi to Sam in the beginning

We don't say hi to him but we always reference him at some point One time he said hi One time we said hi to him and he said hi back and it was like whoa Make sure you edit that out Groundbreaking He lives here I brought a surprise for you guys

Did you guys ever see Bad Ronald? Did you ever see Bad Ronald? It's like that It's like that. It's just weird Sam. He just lives in our walls. Like Gaff? And draws paintings of my wife.

Ugh. Yeah. I feel like I really need to see a movie before you continue this joke. Do you know Bad Ronald? No. So what's his name? The kid from Christine? It was a made-for- TV movie In the 70s right

Uh huh Um And uh It's the weird kid In the neighborhood And Sounds like a Reject from

Fat Albert Yeah his wife Or his mom Is really weird right And then his I think he was He gets in trouble For like beating somebody up

Or something And then his mom dies Yeah And they saw the house Oh yeah his mom Hides him in they sell the house. His mom hides him in her walls and then she dies. They sell the house and then this kid just lives in the walls.

Super fucking creepy. They ought to call it Bad Oscar. That was a good movie. I brought some Christmas presents. Oh, really? I brought Christmas presents. Oh, really? So.

So here's the thing. I ordered you guys presents off of Etsy. It's pretty small. They're all in here for all of you. For all of you. All your presents are in this tiny little bag. Something my great grandma would always say at Christmas. So I got these off Etsy. Blow everybody out.

I got these off Etsy. And, like, you know how when you go on Amazon and you get, like, a gift great grandma would always say at christmas uh so i got everybody out i have these up etsy and like you know how when you go on amazon and you get like a gift and they you can put like a gift message they have that on etsy and so i wrote a gift message thinking it would be like amazon and whoever runs this shop would just like print this gift message out but this poor woman had to hand write this message out so there's a gift card in here that i thought would be like digitally like printed but on the left side she's like apologizing for like like i think she wasn't ready to hand write this i didn't know i spell something. Okay, so here's the card, Brian, if you would like to. Brian, Blaine, Ken, and Sam.

Jesus. There's a 20-sided with these are what's visible. Fart, nuts, butt, Casio, weed, dick, toot, nut. So there's a wiener dog on a bicycle

old timey bike so read the left side first knowing that something else is about to happen okay I tried I could come up with anything to match I couldn't come up with anything to match up to the level of awesome

as that gift message please enjoy and try to leave the house people might think you've gone missing if you don't facebook critical scrub twitter should i be reading that critical scrub go go to her etsy shop i made her hand right the other side, have you ever encountered a gelatinous cube and thought if I could trace my dick with one of those, I would never leave the house? Well, Merry Christmas, nerd poker. Love, Dan.

It could have been so much worse. One bad word. These are soaps that are gelatinous cubes, and inside there's a D&D dice that you can slowly expose as you wash your genitals. I'm only going to use that for my genitals. There's four different scents. There's vanilla. Is there genital?

Northern woods. That's genital. Toasted coconut. And Egyptian dragons. So you guys figure out which ones of these you want. And there's dice inside of it. And then I brought some... They're all green.

Little candy canes for Rhodes if he was awake. Thank you, Dan. Thanks, Dan. Happy Christmas. What are you saying about our hygiene? I'm saying you all smell fucking terrible merry christmas what are this one's dragon i just liked it because it had dragon in it

um enjoy your soap um last week. You stinky fucks. So you guys are experiencing the collapse of Amina. You kind of just met the Demolith. Barriss did a little deliberate possession of himself to channel the Demolith, and he told you to suck his dick and then he broke Barriss' neck. By the way, Brian is eating the candy canes I brought for his son. He's asleep and he brought

three. I worked all day. I'm starving. Fair. Fat Sal's will be here any minute. So good, you guys. That's the sponsorship we need oh my god can you imagine we'd be so fat we tried to get grill mall to sponsor us but here's what we didn't take into account they weren't delivery range yeah they're really far away um isn't turtle

from uh entourage involved with fat cells i believe he is oh no way he's not in the kitchen but he's an owner or something. Give him a couple more years of auditions. He's been bussing tables. Yeah, he's involved. But you guys were in the outskirts of the southwest edge of the island of Amina. You kind of ran away from the marshes of Gulduz because the castle of the demolith was at the bottom of a pool who's starting to collapse in an earthquake yes and to the east uh morgothal the lost city aka

war child uh was battling a bunch of monsters twee scouted over there uh for you right i thought war child was um the shmoo that we started yeah but he's in the tree now. He's currently steering Morgothal, the giant-ass tree. You haven't seen him, really, since he was mobile, except for Tui. Tui saw him from a distance. He flew over the marshes after you defeated Count Fenzen, saw it, and kind of turned around because Morgothal was in the middle of fighting a bunch of headless stone giants and headless

mind flayers and it looked like a bit of a mess. So you guys had Gago do some scouting and he found a cave. Now he's a weeblo. He got his time travel cave badge, you guys. I just remembered what happened to Gago.

Yeah, oh, yeah. By the way, Tom almost killed Gago. You depleted him of his hit points and he was in his death spiral before we healed him up. Jesus. You did the same thing a few episodes ago.

He's gonna quit flying in like an asshole. I think next time he'll be a little more obvious about it, probably. He'll definitely try. Hey, you guys. You're going to turn it on. He's kind of a drunk idiot, so there's no guarantee. But yes, you guys are in a camp. You went into Lehman's Tiny Hut with your wood elf crew to rest up,

and now you're talking about going to the time travel cave. Are we healed up? Yes. We are. I'm going to swim by Lehman's radio shack and get some batteries. In the middle of healing, when Gago stopped by and you cut him down with a sword, I'll say all you guys are healed up and your spells are learned,

but maybe a couple of the wood elves still are kind of nursing some wounds. Because one of them got real... A couple of them got hit, but one of them got really fucked up in the Count Fenzin battle. Yeah, they killed a Fenzin. Yeah, yeah. And all that's left now is the Demolith. All that's left now is the Demolith

but you realize the only way you think you can defeat him is to go back and find his last ancestor who sacrificed themselves a little bard by the name of Horo who you met in episode one. The creepy freak-o. And a little bard by the name of Horo who you met in episode one. He's a creepy freaker.

You've actually met him twice. You met him after he had met Count Fenzen and had gone mad. Right, and then we met him... You went back in time in a drow cave, a drow cave that collapsed. And we saw the normal version of him. Because you went back in time,

you saw Horo right after he arrived on the island, and he was kind of just a go-getter bard. And you told him to watch his ass, and you kind of left him to his own devices. That's how it works. And tried to take a boat off the island in fast-forwarded time. So, refresh my memory. What did we decide we were going to do?

I don't think we were looking to go underground. Yeah, right. But we're going to go underground. Yeah, right. But we're going to try to do this, right? We're going to try to go back in time. Do we know for sure which place to do that? There were several options. Gago told you there was a nearby drought cave. There's a few more around the island.

Right, but that's the right one to do? I mean, because we could go further if it was, you know what I mean? Any cave will do. It doesn't matter. We still have to find the guy. Yeah. to do or i mean because we could go further if it was like you know what i mean like any cave will do it doesn't matter we have to still define the guy yeah so right but then and this is where he was i guess this is because we're by the beach right aren't we aren't we still by the shore yeah yeah which is where he comes in if we if we go back far enough, right? He's kind of a little bit east. He's maybe a day's travel

east of where you are, but he was along the beach. I feel like you can trace the map along the southwest shore. Once we find him, what do we do? Protect him? Or take him forward in time with us? Maybe we should do that.

Take him with us and go forward in time, I guess, with us. I don't know. Maybe we should do that. Take him with us and go forward in time. Huh. How do we do that? How do we go forward in time? By going out to sea. Oh. Really? Yeah.

I thought that was what happened. How? Sorry, just pass the claim to ding-dongs. what happens how sorry just a couple of ding dongs uh find out for sure if that's how it works well while you're you're debating this one of the wood elves comes over who's been scouting he didn't stay in lehman's tiny hut he was in good health uh so he didn't really need to rest so he was kind of watching a perimeter because you guys when you fled the uh not confence and um the demolits sort of marsh castle like it got fucked up like it was collapsing and it almost felt like the island was collapsing right so he wanted to scout make sure nothing followed you out of the marsh's woods and he says uh he found an. He comes back and says What sort of an elf?

A lunar elf. It wants to parlay with you guys. Alright. Parlay as in speak in French? Or parlay as in deal? Make peace. Okay.

You guys up for it? We'll talk. Sure. Yeah, we can talk to an elf. So the wood elf leads you back away from the shoreline a little bit. This lunar elf is very nervous. And as you approach, you recognize it as Luovan. It's the first lunar elf you ever met.

And it briefly encountered you again when you went to meet Lekas. Yeah, we fought this one before, right? You've yet to really fight a lunar elf. You just think they're gross. Yeah, but didn't I... So you tell me... Did you catch her on fire? Yes.

You pissed her off, right? Her friends pissed off. She strikes you as more of a... some sort of a caster or something rather than a warrior. But she seems very humbled and she tells you that she... Did she seem bitten before, or no?

This isn't one of the ones that seemed turned. Well, here's the thing. You guys have had some very creative interpretations of what I've told you they look like. So the Lunarelles have sort of pale blue skin. Some of them don't have pupils, and this one in particular has pupils, but she has very sharp piranha like teeth you guys interpreted

that as they're all vampires they turned like us into a vampire that she is there's no evidence that's actually happened because I said sharp teeth I think you guys were just saying it's a vampire it's a vampire it's for biting necks yeah yeah sharp teeth mmm my piranhas have but rats rats have sharp teeth too yeah yeah she almost does have a rat like quality because she's got Sharp teeth. That's why piranhas have them. Rats have sharp teeth, too. Yeah, she almost does have a rat-like quality. Because she's got elven ears. You know who else?

Dee Snider from Twisted Sister. He sharpened his teeth. Did he really? Yeah. Well, that's pretty silly. And then he had to have them fixed. Well, good for him. That's a good point.

Because he had sharpened his teeth. I lost my teeth to Silver Jews, which was kind of like a Sebado offshoot from Pavement. So it's kind of the same for... Boo. At any rate, what you know about the... I have low hopes for my Clan of Zymox bit coming up. What you know about the Lunar Elves now is very different from what you knew about them when you first

met them. Right. The reason they look so gross is because they were a part of an elven death cult. I saw an elven death cult open for an elven mission.

Blue oyster fart. I blew some oyster fart um so i blew some oyster hey send any of your funny punch line to that one to uh a nerd poker p.o box the uh the funniest part of that bit was me saying that people would nail something the reason the world ended is because the lunar elves brought the moon down on the planet. That's right. It's like a total eclipse of something. When Lekas told you this and said that

they had reformed, you didn't really believe it. Right. It was sort of the second strike for them. But how does the Demolith have something to do with that then? That's what's confusing to me. You don't know yet. So how does the Demolith have something to do with that then? That's what's confusing to me. You don't know yet. So they brought the moon down to the...

Well, let's talk to her about it. Here's what you do know about the Demolith and his connection to the apocalypse. He struck a deal with a god to keep this island alive. Where basically this god monotomically kept Amina around

with the Demolith's help. And as a result, the Demolith, who was originally a vampire, him and his vampire buddies were bringing in slave ships for food. Right. Which you guys were on. And this is sort of like a food area for everybody. This whole place was like a meat farm for vampires. So that's why he's keeping it alive.

But he's also trying to kill it. The Demolith has cast sort of a spell on the island and is sort of, because he's evil, he hasn't really settled for the bargain that he made with Menomit Glir. Now he's trying to absorb the whole island to transcend into being an evil god. Right. Well, that's not going to happen. You hope. I hope. the whole island to transcend into being an evil god right well that's not gonna happen you hope oh yeah it's the the earth is sort of collapsing at this point so it's difficult to say who's really on the winning side at the moment and do we know where he is exactly where he is um

from what you know gossip wise at least or at least like the demoliff told you this when he uh communicated to you through Barriss. There's just like a shred of bone left of the physical entity of the Demolith at the bottom of that pool in his castle. And once it's gone, he will transcend because I guess once his last descendant died, sacrificed himself, it meant that he had no more blood left on the

physical plane. So we have to find that guy. Is his name again? Hobart? No. We've got to find Horo. And I think take him forward in time with us beyond the time of the demo

maybe. I don't know. Hey, can we go to the Jetsons time? That would be cool. Yeah, maybe. All right. I don't know. How do we... Hey, can we go to the Jetsons time? That would be cool. Yeah, that would be cool. In the meantime, you do have a visitor. Oh, yeah, the elf.

The elf. Hey, so tell us about bringing the moon down, all that shit. She says, yeah, we did bring the moon down on the planet. Yeah, we did bring the moon down on the planet. Well, our god is one of chaos, and we thought if we ended the world, we would ascend into some sort of godhood, and it didn't really work out. No, it didn't happen, did it? No. No.

Weird. So what's your offer? Well, you know, my brothers and sisters and I just tried to march on the Demolith's castle. And I might be all that's left. Might be? Yeah. Okay. So we marched with Lekas.

And, you know, I think one among us was a traitor, a spy for the Demolith, because as we started marching across the plains and we left our forest, some of us started to feel kind of dizzy. And as we got closer to the marshes, my sister, Marinthan, who was marching next to me, looked at me and she asked who I was and then she asked who she was. and she asked who I was and then she asked who she was. And, you know, I started noticing a lot of us were starting to have this problem and I realized one of us was casting spells in secret. So we were starting to become disoriented. But Lekha said, oh, you know, there's Morgothal, the lost city that you had told me about. He's in the distance. He's marching on the marshes.

I can see him. Let's hurry. But it didn't get better once we got to Morgothal because he was engaged in combat with these stone giants that had giant steel clamps over where their heads should be. Their heads were missing. There were dark priests, some kind of floating dark priests with no heads

that were casting spells of protection. And just when we started to think we were turning the tide of the battle we were actually doing kind of okay helping morgothal he was starting to you know pierce a couple of these giants with his his fingers and reduce them to ash um something really uh unsettling happened whatever Whatever there was left of light in the sky, all the sort of reds and blues above the mists that function as a sort of sunlight for a minute, disappeared and appeared underneath us,

under the dirt, and shown up, casting light from underneath. And a strange pop happened in the air, and we saw a very tall figure that was pure white. It had a human's face, but it was far too tall to be a human. No, it was... Oh, Jesus.

Was that the demolition? Was it Jesus Bram Lincoln? Peter Boyle. He was tall. Whatever it was, it had a very calm look on its face. It was not a contagious kind of calm, though. It was very unsettling kind of calm though it was very unsettling kind of calm oh barry manilow um looks like we made it you think it was barry manilow so

barry manilow uh was about 20 feet tall very thin and um still is he wrote all the songs he uh approached one of our strongest warriors, pointed a finger, and then all of a sudden the warrior's skin was missing. And the skin was facing the warrior like a mirror reflection. And for a moment, the warrior didn't seem to know what was happening. And then it began to scream and die. And there was much chaos and eyeballs and entrails floating in the air as many of our warriors were being disemboweled

by Tallberry Mantle was just flicking its wrists and removing our body parts and that's when I fled into the marshes I have a story her name was Lola she was a showgirl its name was either Barry Mantilow or the Demolith.

I think it might be one and the same. I'm not sure. We should get off this fucking island. But I thought there was nothing left of the Demolith except for a bone shard. This appeared to be some sort of ethereal form or almost like a god visiting the earth. It was very disturbing. He's just accumulated so much magical power even though he's physically disintegrating and there's a few

molecules of his bones left when they go that he's gonna be a purely astral so so Luolven kneels and says she's kind of kind of gross so like she's she's kind of crying but like it just sort of looks like she's choking because she doesn't know how to cry and she's like you know you can slay me if you will I'm not going to slay you it's okay but please take me with you

we will you're fine are you going to want to fight the guy again I will say this if any amongst you wants to I don't know what you have planned, but there is a final battle taking place, and my people are losing if any of them are left alive. So my message to you is I don't want to go back,

but if any amongst your wood elf friends or yourselves want to join in the final battle for this island, it is happening to the east on the other side of the marshes tickets are going fast it's a thrilling enema I think we need to take a different approach

she also doesn't know your plans we're going to go back in time and try to prevent all of this from happening. We've got to get back in time. We're going to go back to the future. She says she doesn't know for sure what happened to your mutual friend, Lekas,

but he was alive last she saw. She ran through the marshes. She went back into Vitello's to see if her gun was in the booth. She went out and Lekas was dead. So... Are we...

So you were accompanied... Time travel plan. When you came over to Luov and you were accompanied by Forenmeier, the head of... Foren the head and wire there you go the head of the the wood elves and he says he thinks some of his people may want to go be a part of this battle but he will stay with you and go to the caves and you explain to luovin and she says yeah i want to go to the caves i don't want to go back why hey why go to the battle if we're going to reverse everything there's some there's some proud warriors who given the uh apocalyptic nature of what's happening that's all right we'll bring them

back um and uh here let me tell you exactly what's happening so right um hey uh blaine what's me looking up the NPC table brought to us by? Yeah Blaine. I gotta figure out how many elves are staying. This brought to you by Malky Way, Russian candy bar that is not made of wood. Mall hunger like huge bear, vicious bear, hungry bear, with monkey way, not made of wood. So based on my roll, you guys are about to lose 12 of your elves.

You had 17. You can try to make... 12 running off to the battle? Yeah. You're going to lose most of them. So you can roll to try to persuade some to stay if you want. Tell me what you're trying to do here. You guys should stay with us and fight.

We're going to kick this guy's ass in the past. Roll. You can do intimidate, persuasion. You can do crystal blue persuasion intimidate you're going to intimidate? no I'm going to persuade him because I'm going to score him away okay

we're going to say this is because you're doing you're trying to keep 12 of them so let's say you Because you're trying to keep 12 of them. So let's say you get to roll a 12-sided, and you get to keep for every number you get. It works out pretty well.

It works out pretty well that I rolled a number that there's another dice for. 11. So what's your persuasion bonus? Plus two, plus one, and then my charisma is 18. Fudge. All right, so we'll say you went ahead and persuaded all of them to stay with you. Thanks guys. Uh, they really wanted to go,

but you, uh, you have a lot of charisma for some reason. You'll be happy. You'll be happy. You did. Nice. Um,

so you guys want to make your way over to the beach in the cave, I guess. Yeah. Yes. Uh, everybody roll a perception check difficulty 15 please perception I don't got it I got 11 plus 2 so 13 what did you say i had a hit 15 you said yeah 15 okay i did not get it all right tom um you suddenly have a thought swipe through your head as if from another being that says uh

i think i will still be here when you return. Okay. The voice sounds familiar. It's not your own. I think it will still be here. Okay. Great. I'll tell them that I heard this.

Okay. Who do you think it was? No idea. The Demolith, perhaps. Yeah. It sounded familiar in a good way. You're not sure. Oh, so the Demolith.

It wasn't threatening us. Oh. Was it a lady voice? Was it a goggle? Hmm? I got goggles with you physically. Okay, cool. Was it a male voice? Kind of. Kind of? Yeah, vaguely male. God goes with you physically Was it a male voice? Kinda

Yeah vaguely male Vaguely male Nothing especially masculine About it but Do you remember it from my past? Recent past Okay Since you've been on the island for sure

God we're dumb we can never alright well hopefully they'll be here I don't know who this person is either alright so you guys head across and you have your map out do you still have your main and minimaps

so you guys are here and you got to kind of go up the coast a little bit you came out and the very tippity southwest tip um and he says it's on the beach at the top of that little western peninsula okay um so that's on the wu-tang map right oh yeah taint nothing to fuck with definitely p.s i have if in case you guys or any of our listeners are curious i've reached out to sean bryant and he's super interested in doing a wu-tang map ain't nothing to fuck with t-shirt and uh that would be amazing yeah and he wants to he what did he say? He said, as a suggestion on the back, have it say,

nerd poker, where giant killer bees are a possibility. I like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, as you guys head to the beach, you... Shut it up. God damn it.

Have we ever even talked about that? That was so obscure There's a stand up comic Named Killer Bees And one of his bits is Save us One of his bits That's his bit

He's great though I did a week with him at Charlie great though I did a week with him at Charlie Goodnight's in the 80s I did a show with him at Just for Life's Montreal yeah I don't even remember

what save up came from well here's here's what he would do is he would go it starts and he looks sort of like a redneck-y like a

Willie Nelson comic if you and if you want to look him up it's B-E-A-Z yeah Terrence Beasley Jr. But he'd go up and he'd go, Hey everybody, how you doing? I'm Killer Beas

and he'd tell a joke and the crowd would start to laugh. He'd go, No, no, no, don't laugh. Save up. And then he'd tell another joke and the crowd would laugh a little bit harder. He'd go, No, no, no, don't laugh. Save up. Save it up. Save up our laugh. And then by the end of the show, he would go, And then I get to the punchline.

And the crowd goes, save him! And they would carry him out of the parking lot on a litter like Pharaoh. And they would throw money and gold and emeralds at him. Yeah, he looked like Jimmy Hart from WWE. Yeah. He was that kind of redneck. He went like 80s piano key tie stuff but he was still around killing it though like you can find his uh well it used to be tapes and truck stops all

over the place yeah he's a truck stop comic and you know what he was like i said i did a week with him and he was uh we hung out we went to the mall we lived we stayed in the condo it was the fucking worst but we had a great time together he's a very cool 80s or 90s 80s oh yeah wow it's been 88 yeah i did a gig with them i think 90 in reno when they had that uh it was a catch catch a rising star no the catch was me out you were there for five days and it sucked that's what the catch was oh that's some five days and it sucked. That's what the catch was. Oh, that's some catch, that catch. I'm thinking maybe that voice was War Machine.

Oh, yeah? In the tree. Okay. That'd be good if he's still working when we get back. So you guys hit the ocean and you see the storms sort of at where the the ocean meets the sky i'll be saving um and um there's these big rocky spires i pointed out last episode that are sort of jutting out of the ground they continue into the water um you start heading north up the coast, and you feel the ground shake for a moment, almost like a familiar shake, like the earthquake or Morgothal, but different this time. Like a rolling or like a long shake

or something coming toward us? It's like waving rolls, and you kind of look around, and you notice in the ocean to the west, it feels like there's a large fissure in the water about like half a mile out that could be... Kujira? be well the center of the shaking and these big rocky spires are in the water and a couple of them kind of topple over and crash wow so

there's something happening in the ocean and on the island motion in the ocean yeah the ocean. And on the island. There's a motion in the ocean. Yeah, the continental drift. Gago says it's just a couple more hours north. You're almost there. You're almost there. He's got to slow down for you guys. He can fly a lot faster than you guys can travel. We get it.

But yeah, he's like, you guys, I don't know why you can't fly or some shit. One of you can fly. I almost killed you once. Hey, you know what? While we're traveling, I'm going to... Why don't you suck my tiny fairy? Ding dong!

Hold on, there's somebody at the door. Finish your thought when I answer the door. Yeah, you're the only one who hasn't tried to kill me yet. I'm going to sort of float along. I'm going to levitate myself and tie myself to a rope behind Bodhi like a kite. And I'm going to study my necromancy book that I found. What a great idea. going to study my necromancy book that i found uh what a great idea um you're flipping through it and you uh roll a 20 please um what you're gonna let's see i'm gonna pull up your sheet real quick

tell me that's a fuck of a roll um i'm gonna give you your bonus on arcana i believe that's a plus five if I'm not mistaken. Oh yeah, 23. It's pretty fucking ridiculous. It's true, I'm looking right at it and it says plus five. Holy shit, man. The next way too excited. You find a chapter

on liches and you're kind of flipping through it, and you notice there's some sort of footnotes handwritten in there by your now-deceased friend Barris. Liches get stitches? One of the ditches? Oh no, that's snitches. This is a book that you...

This is a book you snagged that he had been in possession of, and so you see that there's some notes there about... Drop the bomb, exterminate them all. ...sowing his master's blood across the entire island in the dirt amongst the rocks and producing enough blood to cover every granule of sand

on the island. Hmm. You're gonna on the island. Hmm. I'm going to watch the island. What is this in the margins of? The Archlich chapter. And there's a recipe for Archlich? Florida, yeah. Is that Cary Grant's real name?

The Archlich chapter seems to be designed for wizards who want to ascend into immortality. And you know that the Demolith was a vampire. Sure. So there seems to have been some kind of plot to sow the Demolith's blood all over the whole island. Yeesh. We need to take a quick break. Let's do it. Hey, we're back.

We're back. We're back. We're back. We're back. Hey, we're back. So you noticed that there was some fissures in the ocean as you were marching. Yes, it's going crazy. And then it seems to keep going. The waves of earthquakes, the ocean still seems to sort of be foaming.

You get to the cave, and a couple of the spires start to sort of rise up out of the ocean. Just running into the cave. Big stone ones. Get in there as fast as possible. It looks like a mountain is starting to bubble slowly up. I'm yelling at people, come on, come on. mountain is starting to bubble slowly up. The elves say, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. And you guys sort of make a mad dash. And then

Forenmeyer says, get down, get down. And you notice that they start dancing. Get down, get down. And the get down get down and um the uh the spires that look like they were slowly rising are not only like kind of like significantly higher out of the water than they were before but it looks like there's two enormous onyx eyes sure in in away from this get into the cave go back in time so you're gonna keep running yes yes um there's sort of some tree cover along let's fight the giant thing coming

out of the ocean um and so you so everybody kind of barry manlo is it yeah all of a sudden uh bubbling up out of the ocean looks like we're made Yeah, all of a sudden, Bubba got out of the ocean. Looks like we're made in. And so everybody kind of ducks under the trees a little bit, tries to not be too visible towards this thing rising out of the water. And I'm going to roll just to see how well that goes. That Dan Rickles was here. My third week at the Saban Theater this weekend.

My third week at the Saban Theater this weekend. So the stone spire rolled real good. Oh, great. You hear this very, very low voice say, You. That's not what you want to hear. These great black stone hands start rising out of the ocean next to the

head spire. This is Moana, right? How far away is the cave? No. It's now about 300 yards. I was pretending to be brave. I wanted to stand up to this. Let's see.

I'm going to do some group rolls. Everybody, you're going to do an athletics check. I'm going to fly. You're already flying as far as I'm concerned. Okay, sure. All right. I'm gonna fly You're already flying as far as I'm concerned Okay sure You told me you had risen off the ground When the ground first started shaking So I'm throwing you that bone

But How about this I'm gonna say Do I need to be raging for danger sense To help me as i'm running because danger sounds is not what i thought it was originally danger sense is the thing that kind of it helps me in athletics if i'm if i'm you know trying to right sounds as good a time as any but do i need to be raging to do it or no? Let me see.

I think it's just one of my abilities. What's Danger Sense being looked up, brought to us by? Danger Sense brought to you by Gloss Tito's Russian Snack Ship, no longer containing complete fiberglass. Gloss Tito's destroy jaw and teeth, crush not fiberglass, also not 100% wood. Gloss Tito's.

So this is for dexterity specifically, Brian, but because this is athletics is a dexterity skill. That's what I thought. Yeah, I'm giving it to you for sure. I'm taking the dash. You've got advantage. You get to roll twice on this. What are you

talking about there, Tom? I am dashing. That's my cunning action. I'm going to do dash. Great. Let's see what happens with that. Everybody roll a 20, please. Wait, what's fast movement? I have a thing called fast movement. Don't look that up.

How about a 12? What's your athletics on that, though? My strength? Keep it around 12. Probably make it about 10, I think. I don't have any athletic skills. And my strength is a minus 2. You're flying faster than they can run anyway

so you're okay you're gonna do pretty good that was just to make sure you didn't trip for the most part or bump into a tree while you're flying um so brian uh you get a plus 30 bonus on all movement speeds in addition a character can make a speed check difficulty 10 to improve by another 10. So roll another 20. I haven't rolled one yet. Yeah, roll one twice, please. Once. See.

Ooh, one. It's a botch, but then roll again because you got advantage. You have to take the higher roll. 18. So you get an 18. So that's your initial one. Your athletics bonus. I can't believe I fucking botched that first.

Yeah, well, luckily you had advantage or you would have been fudged. So you have a plus 7. So that's a 25. I could go for somebody getting 18. Roll a 20 again to see if you get another bonus for how far you can get. 18 again. Fuck. Okay. So Bodhi plows

far ahead of all Bodhi plows ahead of all the elves and he gets really close to the cave Tom what did you roll I didn't roll yet okay roll and see how that dash goes boom you're right up there

with him you You're fine. A couple of the elves lag behind. Forenmeyer keeps up with you guys. Not quite as fast, but he does fine. A giant stone arm

shoots up out of the ocean really, really fast and dips up into the mists in the sky before slamming down. Gross. Four of them go splat. You just lost four elves. You guys make it into the cave, and there is a narrow tunnel, but you guys can fit in the cave and there is

a narrow tunnel but you guys can fit in it two by two so you dash down you hear rumbling and crashing as you hear what is probably the cave being slammed shut behind you Luovan keeps up with you at the front of the pack she's the lunar elf that has decided to go with. And she says, well, this is actually where I think I can come in quite useful.

The lunar elves in our wood actually had access to one of the abandoned drow caves. It's too far for us to have even considered traveling there. We would have had to cut through the marshes. But I know how the time travel works here. And I think I know where this tunnel actually connects with another tunnel. We have to spend a certain amount of time at a certain depth to make time unwind. And we actually, you know, while we're traveling here, I should tell you, I think we have more options than you might realize. You were talking about saving the bard.

The possibilities are near limitless down here. If we can find safe passage through the tunnels. We can rewind time really far back. The problem is the farther we wind back time, the less we might know what to do with ourselves. The island will change beyond our normal expectations and perceptions. Our ability to leave the island might change. None of us know exactly what happens in the past except what we've heard through stories.

So there's... I think we should go back to the time that we were here. So we don't... It was already shitty when we got here. Well, right, but we can stop... Our mission was just to stop this guy from getting killed. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. And that happened when we were here. Yes. I think his idea seems like it could get too crazy. The not knowing... What other options were you talking about?

Yeah. Well, she says... That's what I other options were you talking about? Yeah. Well, she says... That's what it means, her. When you heard about Amina being a place you could travel to, you heard that there was adventure here. Yeah. You heard a variety of things might be here. They helped me pay for college.

That probably meant that Amina was still a part of the globe before my cult, as it were, crashed the moon into the planet. That was about 1,500 years ago. Okay. So before then? When you arrived here was probably just a couple of

weeks ago, but the world you left was over a thousand years ago. Wait. Our world? Yeah.

So we're a thousand years in our future? More than that. About 1,500. Well, here's my question. Where's the jetpacks? We were promised flying cars. And food pills. It's all well and good and i'm not saying it it's uh have they taken over well i'm sorry have apes taken over

she thinks it's actually maybe the best idea is to grab this hard but after that do you have a plan we may want to take him back farther. Let's see what happens. Okay. I don't like the idea of coming back to this place where it's already detached from a planet. Yeah. Because it's really not that worth saving at that point.

There's a giant cabin in the woods hands coming out of the ocean and smashing people. Yeah, she says... We're here at a bad time back i think you're on the right track though let's let's go back to when you you landed here and fetched this bard i think he he might be at the very least a key to unwinding the demolits plan yeah if he's an ancestor too of the Demolith, it's kind of weird. Well, the Demolith was once human and had some sort of relatives who did not become undead. That's what the bard is descended from.

From human blood. Not undead blood. Right. There was very little we could do to stop him last time by the way. Yeah. So that's why I'm thinking. I'm thinking we. Shall we do a quick refresher about what your characters know about Horo?

Sure. He landed here a little bit before you guys. You found him wandering an encampment when you first got here. Cutting his hair with it. With a rock. With a rock. Yeah, he was already a bit nuts. Still better than Fantastic Sam's.

He'd already, you know from conversations later that Count Fenzen had at some point talked to Horo, sung him a song even, and it had made Horo go crazy crazy uh lekis and the other guys around the encampment had seen horo kind of wandering around he he wasn't wearing all of his fancy clothes anymore he kind of stripped down to just a unitard and was just being weird and um when you and lekis went to explore the woods you saw him gut himself yes and a bunch of sort of shadows came out of his gut and just flew

into the woods. It was not pleasant to watch. Yeah, I've had nights like that. But he looked like he had already kind of been cursed somehow. And then when you rewound time you saw right after he got off the boat and he was fine. Got it. So you could try to fetch

him in that window. Yeah, right off the bat. Before he gets off the boat. You might see yourselves. Is that a problem? Leuven shrugs and says, are people considered such a thing sacred on a religious level? Yeah.

There are multiple timelines. And then what do we do with them when we get them? We either take them further back in time to where before the... How are people getting here on a boat if we're detached from the... So there's a... Are they time traveling? Are they time traveling? Luovan tells you that there is some sort of great storm that began to surround Amina back in your time.

And once a boat passed through it, it would land in Amina. But to leave Amina was impossible. So at some point... At Hotel California, I stayed there that one weekend. At some point, Am California I stayed at one weekend at some point Amina became surrounded by a magical storm that separated it from time so

how long has the storm surrounded Amina? since before the apocalypse since before the moon crashed into the planet but she's not sure but it people couldn't leave before the moon crashed into the planet, but she's not sure. But it was... People couldn't leave before the apocalypse? No. Once the Demolith and Monon and McLeer

struck a deal to protect Amina before the moon crashed. Got it. And so they hid Amina. Well, we're talking about a god and an arch lich. So, and also the lunar elves. She says, you know,

she's not undead, but she's very old. Yeah. Well, yeah. So let's go back in time. Snatch Horo. Then think about things.

Yeah. Start traveling through the tunnel, and all of a sudden, you hit a door. Tunnel's been staying pretty narrow. Door says, Hamburg, 1964. We're about to watch the young Beatles. It's been winding down and down into the earth. Leuven's been telling you, down is good. It means we're separating ourselves

from the timeline. It means that we're avoiding whatever calamity was behind us. It's good. We're approaching sort of neutral territory. Once we get certain depth, we are out of time. We are sort of in... We're apart from time yes uh and can we go back to the night before i went to see american hustle so i can tell

myself not to go see it because it was the worst piece of shit oh my god victoria and i went on a date night and we were like oh we don't really like this director we don't really like this director. We don't really like any of these. And we were like, fuck, what have we done? We watched it as a screener and it made us angry. We were so pissed off. We were looking forward to it. It was like, oh, this looks like a great cast. It looked like fun.

I'm kidding. Wow. Brian, are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine. You were out for a while. I said I liked it. I left for like four hours. It was crazy for a while. I said I liked it, and then... Yeah, I know. Oh, that was like...

I slept for like four hours. Yeah, it was crazy. That was a mistake that you liked it. You get to the door, and it's... Does she think there's anything strange about this door? Hey, Brian, you missed the exit. Then you were asleep for like three hours. Am I driving?

Oh, my God. My pipe just fell over. Oh, you know what was great? Eddie Pepitone and I were doing a road trip up and back to San Francisco. And we're driving back in the middle of the night and he would fall asleep. Yeah, he would fall asleep and he'd go,

I don't want to fall asleep. Okay, sleep, Eddie. And then he would wake up every 40 minutes. Are you okay? And I would always go, Huh, what? it's alright ok sleep Eddie and then he would like wake up every 40 minutes alright Eddie you ok and I would always go huh what Jesus Christ what the fuck

so easy to mess with people just tap the brakes right there woah I used to do take a bow all the time the brakes really hurt

take a bow and the time. The brakes really hurt. Take a bow. The car goes forward. You're an asshole. Take a bow. When cars used to have emergency brakes in the middle you'd go Batman and you'd scream Batman and then pull it. And then,

and you would strip all the gears out of your car. No, you'd flip your tail ass around or, you know,

flip your tail around. I learned how to do that from my friend Stroker Ace. If I could stroke my ace, I'd never leave the house. Is everything a joke to you, Dan? For God's sakes, take this seriously.

You know what's not a joke to me? The American dream. So the party reaches a door, and LeWolven says, yes and no. It is unusual in that i didn't necessarily know it was going to be here but i can guess what it is it's probably drow drow door drow door so uh it sounds like you guys have been down into a drow tunnel before yeah uh it sounds like you were at a part of the drow city there were no drow yeah uh sometimes there's drow oh well you know yeah worry about that uh our our tunnel also

had no drow that's why we were able to manipulate time that's why lekis aged when you met him uh he looked a little older and it's because he had spent about 10 years rewinding time and relearning scripture to become a paladin huh we could level up so high right now. Yeah. She's like, yeah, man, we could just spend 50 levels down here and never go above ground again if you wanted to. You'd mostly have to

fight giant cave toads and stuff instead of an evil god, but you know. That's true. We could level up to level 50. Grind some levels 50 Grind some levels That would take like two years We could farm gold We could sell it on the internet

In real time We would have to just keep playing the game Without going above ground Yeah yeah We'd just be playing underground Just grinding XP I'm sticking with it It'd be like World of Warcraft I'm going to attack the microwave in the crew room again playing underground. Our listeners. Just grinding XP. I'm sticking with it.

It'd be like World of Warcraft. I'm going to attack the microwave in the crew room again. World of Warcraft, or one of those games where you start in that village just killing squirrels to level up. And then like, what if I stayed in this village killing squirrels for 100 levels? And then venture out.

So, Forenmeyer says, okay, 100 levels. And then venture out. So Forenmeyer says, okay, I'll do it. And he walks up to the door and bangs on it. It's metal and it's blocking off your path completely.

And a little slider opens up. Walt sent me. You see some yellow eyes and dark black skin looking at you through the... It's not the thing in the crate from Creepshow, is it? It says... Password. Oh, shit. I just changed it.

Adrian Barbeau. I remember it was a number and then a couple of uppercase and then a lowercase. What was it? It was my dead cat. Are you raiders? No. What do you want? We're trying to save the planet.

Save Amina Sounds dumb The thing slams shut Alright Knock again Anybody know a password? Yeah who can Who has persuasion

Who can talk to this guy Next time I'm just going to tell him to open the door. You want to knock again? Yeah. Loeven says if you guys run out of ideas, she has an idea. Okay. So you knock. Uh-huh.

Thing slides open and says, find that password. No, we don't really need a password. Oh. You don't? No. We can just come right in. We've been here before. Why should I let you in?

We're very powerful. Roll a 20. We're going to say this is a difficulty 12. 18. Yeah. He says, well, there are a lot of you and uh I mean

I don't want to say we don't want trouble you look kind of like a bunch of dick fucks but uh I guess if you're on some kind of noble journey you're not going to just kill us all right the thing slams shut and it opens and you see a bunch of um if you're on some kind of noble journey, you're not going to just kill us all, right? Nope.

The thing slams shut and it opens and you see a bunch of drows sitting around. They're all missing one eye and smoking cigarettes and just kind of like playing card games and they're like, ugh. They kind of all stand up.

Fun party. Oh, nice. There kind of all stand up. Fun party. Oh, nice. There's about eight of them. There's torches on the wall, and the tunnel kind of leads into what looks like a city, an underground city. It goes about a mile down, and the tunnel breaks off into a bridge over a chasm,

and you realize this is not just a door, but like a gateway to some sort of drow civilization. Um, and I think we're going to call it. Okay. But, uh,

first of all, we had fat cells and we have a couple of people to think like, Will Rubenstein. Thanks, Will. Thank you, Will. Delicious.

You know what? Uh, I got a Will Turkey Rubenstein. Thanks, Will. Thank you, Will. Delicious. You know what? I got a Will Turkey Rubenstein. It was pretty good, too. Thank you, Vader's Helmet. Oh, no. Come on. Thanks, Vader's Helmet. Thank you.

That looks like a peanut. Thank you, Barry Blue Jeans. I believe that's a reference to another D&D podcast. Thank you, Montana. Oh, Montana. Ah, Montana. Thanks, Montana. Oh, oh. Beautiful, beautiful

drive-thru. I saw him with Rosanna, Rosanna, Dana at Dantana's. Oh, God. We have Thank You, Hectic

Planet. I believe that's an Evan Dorkin comic book reference. And we've got... This is kind of up there with... First of all, thank you, Skeletor's dick. Always. Always thank you, Skeletor's dick.

When we don't say it, we're saying it. We're always saying it in our hearts. Sometimes I stub my toe and I say, thank you, Skeletor's dick. I'd like to think there's a little bit of Skeletor's dick in all of us. I wish. We know where to look.

Also, and this is with no spaces, one word. Thank you. Eat your family. Working on it. It might be eat our family. Hey, so check out Crit Scrub on Ets etsy she makes gelatinous cube soap with dice inside yeah thanks can you smell it for cleaning your nerd i'm holding it right up to the microphone thanks for handwriting the word dick on a cute little card so sorry if i had known

your policy was to handwrite these notes i um? But yeah, go please check out the Two for One Mad Magazine subscription and fucking get your mags. BrianPassane.com for tour dates. There aren't a ton because I'm doing other shit, but I've got Chicago and DeKalb coming up in the new year. I do always do in the new year. I do always do that once a year. What's that place I like? The club you love in Chicago.

Bee Kitchen. Yeah. Terrific. I will be there. I think it's like the 10th. It's the second weekend of January. But Brian's PostSane.com knows better than I do. Shout out to Meredith Katchel,

who took over my show at the Bee Kitchen. Yeah. Good place. Also, large packages, USPS.gov. You can make sure that they're there for easy pickup between 9 and 5 at most participating local post offices. I did that this week, actually. I had a package I couldn't find it.

I had no idea where it was. I still have a guitar in Japanese custom someplace from about a year and a half ago. And they just said, well, you're shit out of luck. I went, thanks.

At all. Yeah. I help them. Which episode was this? Thanks for listening to episode 33. And a turd. See you in 34.

Thanks, Blake. 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. Sam was wrong. That was 34.

34. Sam was wrong. That was 34. Okay, can you turn it on for just a second? Can you turn it on just for a second? Record it? Yeah. 34 and a turd.

Jesus. It's so worth it.