Nerd Poker - Episode 4 - The Hug

Episode Date: March 7, 2018

The battle for the courtyard of Roke has intensified with more eldritch horror! Our heroes hope to search for survivors, but first elven bard Twee is tasked with escorting one young man to the poorly boarded up alley entrance that he apparently wiggled through by mistake. Luckily everyone is very powerful, so nothing could possibly go wrong.

Hey everybody, I'm Brian Poussaint Comedian, writer, actor, nerd. I've been playing D&D with my friends for a long time. I decided to do a new podcast where we play Dungeons & Dragons in my very own dining room. With my wife, kid, and my noisy dogs. So meet my friends... Sarah Ken Sam

Lee Now it's time for another episode of Brian Pussain's Nerd Poker Season 2. Hey, everybody. Here we go. It's Brian Pussain. You're listening to Brian Pussain's Nerd Poker. Hi, friends.

Hello. Hi. Sarah and Dan Blaine. Hey, hey. Oh, hello. It's off to work we go. We, hey. Oh, hey. It's off to work we go. We're the thing and the thing. So we're only four episodes in to our new adventure. It's true. It's true.

Shit's gotten crazy already. Already. Supposedly the moon is going to crash into the planet. You've been told by an assassin during an interrogation that as long as they have Roke, there's no turning back. This can't be undone. Oh, and the goddess Zinzerina is supposedly involved somehow. This drow goddess. Everyone thought she was dead, but it sounds like maybe she

isn't i think she's that little boy yeah at some point you guys are gonna have to tell esmeralda about the whole you know i'll do a quick recap because i like to think we invited a bunch of listeners to come in in episode one and be like hey we're starting a new campaign and some people are like oh it's putting off joining but now there's episode one there surely isn't any because even sarah did not realize that there was a connection between so i've tried to i i had this idea of like i would let all you guys decide it when we did a new campaign if we would like carry over it all because i didn't know if you'd all want to do new characters so instead of using some of the new stuff I wrote, I brought in this sort of this plot that's the moon crashing. And you guys did encounter Zinzerina, but it was very briefly and it was in a very obscure context.

So it doesn't matter. Like you don't you're not missing much. But when they encountered Zinzerina, she was a dead god. but when they encountered zinzerina she was a dead god um and here's what i didn't remind you guys of a couple of episodes ago when you were like dan throw us a bone and tell us what the fuck is going on with zinzerina um you guys at one point went into these drow caves and this sort of collapsed i love that word collapsed uh drow city um where they all had one eye. They got to ask this dead God a question. And because multiple questions would make them go crazy, they would take out an eye for every question.

And there were a couple of blind people with no eyeballs. They were mostly one eye because they would all ask one question and go on with their lives. But this dead God turned out to be named in Zarina. This dead God underground in Amina after the apocalypse was just sort of like a fissure in the air, just sort of like shifting shapes. And you assess that her name was in Zarina,

but she seemed basically powerless. Omnipotent, but not omnipotent. Not a lot of power, but hyper aware as an astral being might be. And you weren't sure exactly what her place and everything was at the time, but now it seems she is indeed involved somehow

in all this moon business. And just to make it even more. So from Esmeralda's perspective, she would say moon business, the world ended. These guys are from a post-apocalyptic future. They went to on an adventure in an Island when they went through a storm, the world had ended 1500 years ago and they were like,

and they, they were allowed to go 1500 years back to before the world had ended 1500 years ago. And they were like, what? And they were allowed to go 1500 years back to before the world ended. So you're seeing some guys who... And we killed Baby Hiller too. High fives. He was adorable. He was. The timeline is very tricky.

Yeah, but this is like a prequel. Oh, okay. All right, that's simple. This is like a prequel. They went 1500 years and 30 days back in time. And so 30 days from now, these guys would be going off sailing to this sort of island continent,

but instead they're staying behind so they can stop the moon from crashing. So they know that this is going to happen. But that's like all they know. That's kind of all Esmeralda is included on that matters. The Zinzerina business is sort of just icing. Right, but they know that at some point in the next 30 days... This is going to go all Majora's Mask in 30 days, yeah.

But it's 30 days and 1,500 years. No. No? No, the island lasted 1,500 years and 1,500 years passed as you went through the storm. Ah. Yeah. so we have 30 days esmeralda's like i mean you could have told me in the carriage ride on the way to she says as you stand on these stairs battle axe implanted in a dead creepy crawly zombie thing. Okay, so apocalypse coming.

Biscuits. Also, yeah, there's some possessed people you hacked apart. The muttered things about biscuits. Biscuits are in the way life used to be. Oh, and hey, really quick. I want to thank Vic Tabak's Dinghy. Thank you

Snake Eyes Unibrow. Hey, ask me what you do with Vic Tabak's Dinghy. What do you do with Vic Tabak's dinghy. Thank you Snake Eyes Unibrow. Hey, ask me what you do with Vic Tabak's dinghy. What do you do with Vic Tabak's dinghy? Thank you. Thank you, Thomas Parton. Thank you. Thank you, Laser Beaks Cloaca.

Thanks, Laser Beaks. And thank you, Chad Byers, an old friend of mine from Wilmette, Illinois, who used to run a movie theater, and they would let me do stand-up in it. Yeah. Thanks, Chad. Did anybody else say anything? Oh, here's a fun one.

What's this Patreon name say, Ken? That says, I'm in love with Dan Delver. I have a stalker on Patreon. Aww. And Bubba Skywalker. Thank you, Bubba Skywalker. So, yeah, you guys.

Aunt Beru says, if you don't do your homework, then she ain't gonna pay for your college shut up Bubba fuck you shut the fuck up I'm going down to Tosh to tell you to pick up some power you guys know Star Wars quotes

who would ever have known I'll fix it up with my pilot You guys know Star Wars quotes. Who would ever have known? I'll fix it up with my pilot. We got the death sentence in 12 acres. So you're about to hack Bodhi into this guy again, and you notice there are what is easily another 10 or 12 of these creepy crawlers. You're the first hacker. Near the door is Captain Kenwald, Tom,

and Esmeralda. Tui is down an alley in the opposite direction and you're kind of between them. I'm going to head towards that door and fight as I go. Three guys between you and there. I'm going to say on this turn and fight as I go. There's three guys between you and there. I'm going to say on this turn you encounter one of them.

Alright. So you're kind of just running and hacking trying to keep him? Okay. So he sort of reaches out towards you as you approach. Hack. Yep. Roll for damage.

That's a shame. Yep. Roll for damage. That's a shame. There's another six. In your butt? Six, six. Put a piano in your butt.

Put a tiny mano in your butt. Four plus fire. Okay. You want to just sing about butts some more? You can put anything in your butt, really. That was a really great Mr. Show sketch where everyone went on that field trip inside the teacher's butt. Or the teacher's grandma's butt, right?

No, the teacher's mother's ass. Mother's ass, yeah. What do you want to go up your mother's ass? Well, that doesn't sound like we should you know be a but it was uh it was odin kirk it came from uh we we were on lunch break everybody left and bob and i were just fucking around and riffing and it came from like smart ass kids pitching uh this thing to a substitute teacher and then the teacher just being really sincere.

Like, okay, well, sure, whatever you guys want to do. We should go up your mother's ass. Okay, well, we'll send out a... Permission slips. Permission slips and you guys will all go up my mother's ass. And then we had a woman who we cast. I remember. I remember very clearly other Sarah.

Sarah Silverman. She's like Sarah number two. Yes. Going, come on, everybody. Yeah, but I still don't think that woman was completely clear as to what was going on. But there was five kids climbing up her ass. Do you remember her ever finding out? No, but I feel like it was pretty vague all day, but then she had like a rope

Kids behind her Linda Blair didn't know all the shit the one on the exorcist. So it's Did you roll for damage again? I forget what happened in there. Lovely trip up your mother's hand. I'll roll again. I thought I did. I don't remember.

Seven plus fire. Something about that was just terrifying. Yeah, that's your second attack. Okay. And then you want to go again? Sure. Yep. All right.

Roll your damage and then do a dexterity saving throw. All right. Three plus fire. And then... What do I need? You need a 15. Nope. All right.

A bunch of little muscular strands. Grab a hold of your leg. And you fall down. All right. No. Go boop. Tweet, you're up. You're walking with this little kid.

This little kid says, oh, thank you so much for taking me all the way to the gate. Can I hug you real quick? No. Hey, I gotta go. I'll see ya. He reaches out. No, I'm gone. You dodge him the hug? Dexterity saving throw difficulty five. You were so nice before, mister. Now you're mean, mister. Eleven.

Alright, so you dodge him and he goes, alright, and he just leaves. Wow. What an asshole. He just didn't hug a kid. Yeah. I'm going to light this kid up. What?

Fucking totally light this kid up. Wait, what? I'm lighting this kid up. You don't think he's a real kid? No. No, I don't. What is happening? Blaine.

Before you do fireballs? Yeah. All right. Wait, really quick. This kid is five years old. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you know this Dan

but Dan Telfer is our dungeon master so I'm a kid that tries to lure me into the end of an alley, into some boards he was trying to get out that's when we came in we were supposed to board it up better so what happens?

talk amongst yourselves for a second oh god damn Wayne just changed his alignment yeah he suspected something bad yeah

I don't trust the kid either I didn't either but I wasn't going to light him up don't you guys don't you guys have a scarab

that identifies like what is yeah I don't have it on here's the other thing here's the other thing here's the other thing too is this is all taking place when there's a weird cloud full of musculature attacking us it is true so i'm i'm not taking any chances but he came from outside and followed i know i believe

me i'm not i'm not saying he's not evil but it feels like there's a more measured way to take the temperature uh blaine anytime my give me the end of the roll? Blaine? Anytime a little kid shows up while you're messing with, like, a Lovecraftian thing. You blow him up? You blow the kid away. That's how it works. Roll.

No, I'm not saying I would do that. I'm surprised. A charisma saving throw, difficulty 20. How about an 8? Would that work? So, firebolt? Yeah. You pop a couple of firebolts into this kid

as he starts walking out of the gate, and he screams and falls to his knees and you see his charcoal black skeleton fall to the ground and as his head disconnects and falls to the ground, you become completely

sure that it was a human child. Oh no. Jesus Christ. That's pretty rough. Shut that chicken up. I'm going to say you have two choices. Okay. You can either change your alignment or for the next seven days,

and with other possible effects, you're going to suffer a penalty on all wisdom, intelligence, and charisma rolls. Jesus. You know what? I think I'm just going to take the roll problem. The what? I just think I'm just going to take the rolls problem The what? I just think I'm just going to take the rolls problem The penalty?

Alright prepare for some interesting rolls in your future Okay You guys All heard the screams Only Bodhi was close enough To the alley to turn around And see over his shoulder But you saw everything

What was that noise all about? What happened? Bodhi, what was that? What happened? Hold on. Captain Kenwald heard it and kind of turns to you, Tom and Esmeralda, and says,

I'm not sure what just happened, but I'm a little concerned. And he says, like I said, I'll stay here, but I want you to know I'm here on behalf of the local government, and, you know, I have the best intentions here. So please, whatever honor you have, let's try and keep it together. I know things are looking a little frightening, but... How dare you, sir?

Should I light this guy up? Every man and woman here is an honorable... No one would do anything dishonorable in this group of people i've only known them a short while but i'm beginning to see the good in all of them he looks at you with a little bit of pity and says okay if you say so if that's what you believe whatever helps you sleep at night she saw nothing right no you saw nothing. Tom, you're up. I kill everyone.

Are we being attacked or just working our way into this building? You are kind of with Captain Kenwald and Esmeralda. You can sort of create a perimeter at the doorway. You can head inside. Can I cast Grease? I want to look inside, see what's going on inside the building. Yeah, we were trying to. I think that's where we were.

Okay, so you poke a head in, and everything's quiet. It seems abandoned at the moment. There's still bowls and silverware on all the tables. Is it dusty and old old or just newly abandoned? A little bit. A little bit. A little bit dusty and old. Okay.

Anything? Seems a couple weeks. Dangerous nearby us. Inside, everything's very quiet. Outside, yeah. There are about 15 of these things. Any headed our way? Two are...

They're all headed your way. Oh, wow. There's maybe one or two, it looks like, are headed in another direction, but most of them are headed towards this door. Fire bolts? Hit them. Go for it. I am nauseous.

What? I don't blame myself. That kid was going to kill me. I figured something like that was going to happen, but it was the timing that really took me off guard. He's on his way out. This is done. Oh, excuse me.

Where's parents dead? Ooh, 10. Where's parents dead? Two 10s. You don't know. I'm asking you. You don't know. I love that. That's my favorite kind of DMing. You keep your secrets, Dan. Two 10s?

Alright, Kadush Kadush. You keep your secrets, Dan. Two tens? Yeah. All right, kadush kadush. One of these things is toast. In fact, it's the one that was in front of Bodhi left. Is Bodhi on the ground? He was going to try to come inside, but he'd fallen to the ground. He's on his tushy. Okay.

So he just had to crane his head to the side. He could see over his shoulder what went down. Got it. Okay. Tishy. Tishy. Captain Kenwald starts running over towards Boaty. Doesn't quite make it over to him.

But crawlers keep approaching. Tui, you notice there is one of them at the end of the alley between you and the triangle uh Tom you're up or no you just went Esmeralda you're up um okay so I guess we're just I'm just trying to get everyone inside the door does it feel like people are I mean

Bodhi's down does he look like he's about to be overtaken it's not entirely sure he look like he's about to be overtaken? It's not entirely sure. It looks like one of his legs is being kind of pulled into this thing's torso area. Okay, I'm going to try to shoot that thing with an arrow then. Go for it. A crossbow, rather.

We're going to say it's armor class is only a 10, but I'm going to. Called shot. Yeah, it's a called shot. Kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got to roll a 12. Okay. I have to roll a 12 or I have to get to a 12 with my bonus?

You have to get to a 12 with your bonus. Eight plus four. That'll do it. The number is 12. you have to get to a 12 with your bonus 8 plus 4 that'll do it the number is 12 roll your damage 7 plus 2 is 9 there was just a look exchanged between the DM and the child murderer

at our table I didn't think that would happen so fast. Great. That kid was going to absorb me or something. Plunk, it goes into this thing. Bodhi, you're up. I'm going to scramble towards

Resmerelda and everybody else's. Do a strength check. I'm going to smother and chunk myerelda and everybody else's. All right, do a strength check. I'm going to smother and chunk my way over here. Difficulty 17. Yep. So you managed to drag yourself a solid, like, 10 feet, but this thing is not letting go of your leg yet.

You got a bonus action. What are you going to do? Slice at it. Go for it. You got a bonus action. What you gonna do? Slice at it. Go for it. Bonus action, bonus action. What you gonna do? Alright, roll for damage. Oh, nine. So this thing's pretty fucked up, but it's not quite dead and it's not quite letting you go.

Nine plus fire. It looks really fucked up, but it's hanging quite letting you go nine plus fire it looks really fucked up but it's it's hanging on i'll take another slash at it uh go for it yes all right it goes splat there's no way okay seven yeah it's it's it's it's head head falls off. Remember when that happened a few minutes ago, too? Nope. Tweet, you're up. There's a thing on the ground underneath me, right? And there's a charred corpse on the other side.

Of a five-year-old child. I know, I know. Five-year-old child who was fucking coming at me with a knife. You see, glistening in the ashes a single gold coin hey it's lucky you know i'm not gonna pick it up it's probably hot uh i'm going to uh uh i'm going to uh position myself out of range, but above the thing on the ground, and just fire some fire bolts into it.

Great. Roll for damage. Genuinely thought that he meant the pile of ashes for a moment, but that's not right. Okay. Eight. Great. Kadush, kadush.

It gets knocked back a little bit, but it's still going. Is this between him and us? It's at the end of the alley. He's, if I may, I promise I'm not picking the marker up too. Oh, cool. We walked him all the way to here, which is sort of the boarded up area. And then one of these little crawler guys tried to cut him off at the pass, and he's got to kind of get past him.

Once he does, he can make it over here. Okay. Well, I mean, he could try to fly right over it, really. I mean, he is a-floating. Yeah, I just don't want this thing coming back and killing us. The captain gets over to Bodhi. He helps you up. You guys run over.

And now it's just a matter of Tui getting there. And he does pretty quickly. But as you guys all get to the door, you realize there's like 25 of these crawlers. They've just been starting outside the door. Coming from between all the buildings heading towards you. The commotion got their attention. And the increased commotion got their attention and the increased commotion got more attention uh you're gonna head in captain's kind of got the door open waving you

yeah if these guys are gonna follow us are they on their way yep okay yeah do we set up like uh some sort of perimeter or something or like uh let's get inside there's a door so we can at least get inside and then once you get in the captain um on autopilot just runs over to one of the heavy oak tables and starts dragging it towards the door okay he continues to do this for four days um are you going to help him or do something else? If you help him, you can barricade the door more than if you let him do it by himself. Helping. Why don't you guys do that? I'm going to sing a little song of rest for everybody.

Okay. Is anyone besides Tom helping with the barricade? Yeah, I'll help. Okay. I was going to set a snare right in front of where someone might come in. You cast the snare. Okay, there are two large windows that are about five feet up,

but you feel like these things might be able to crawl up to them. Oh, okay. So if you're barricading, if these guys barricade, focus on the door, these windows are still kind of left open. Okay, so I can set it right below the windows now? I'm going to say Tom heads over to the captain. They start working on the door. These windows are still kind of left open. Okay, so I can set it right below the windows now?

I'm going to say Tom heads over to the captain. They start working on the door. Bodhi goes and starts blocking up a window. You want to set a trap on the remaining window? Sure. Well, it has to be on the floor, so... Okay. Yeah.

So I'll set it in front of a for hit points sure i'm good does his song help with getting spell slots back like a rest or is it just for hit points i think it does the rest yeah let me let me cast this real quick and then you can sing what is it again the trap um it's um it's just a snare it's the first level for some reason i was looking up and snare that's ensnaring strike yeah just snare you use the rope to create a circle with a five foot radius when you finish casting the rope disappears in the circle becomes a magic trap triggered when a small medium or large creature moves onto the ground or floor in the spell's radius. Cool.

All right. Everything seems pretty well blocked off. There's one window that's a little... It looks unguarded, but you know there's a magic trap underneath it. I just got... So do I get my spell slots back now? He's going to sing to me? Yeah, I'll give it to you.

Sure. Oh, thanks. All right. Whatever the rule is, I'm saying fuck it. It sounds good to me. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like there's a solid 50-50 chance that you get it back.

If you wouldn't, then I don't care. You just don't care about anything anymore, do you? I mean, it's hard to care about some of the more arbitrary things after I am responsible for a certain narrative portion of tonight's events. Captain Kenwell

does walk over to you, Tui, and say, what was that noise? Oh, some shit got up close. Sorry. You were walking that kid to the other end of the alley. What happened back there? What kid? He looks at Bodhi. You saw what happened.

Oh, man. I'm the captain of the guard. I'm not'm not gonna arrest you you clearly outnumber me i want you to be honest i'm not sure exactly what happened but i i have a feeling god it doesn't sound good did he attack you uh i was uh being led to believe it was going to get bad. By what, the universe, the sadness around you couldn't handle it? Yeah, it was pretty bad. You might need a little stronger stomach for what's coming up if you can't handle this sort of thing.

You're going to wash out real quick. Oh, man. Okay. So, Esmeralda, you know that there is a sort of cellar door but then once you go down a flight of stairs there's a whole bunch of interconnected rooms and you're thinking

it's like the pizza place under the child oh my god it all makes sense you feel like it's worth testing the doors and maybe you'll right away notice that someone's barricaded that. Okay. I do so.

And, yeah, it's stuck. It seems like someone on the other side. I knock. No response. Hello. But it does feel like someone on the other side blocked it. Yeah. There's nobody in here.

Can we say you who? I don't want to try to bust it down. Knock, knock. who's there? I guess I'd call out, is anyone alive down there? No response. It's a heavy wooden door. We're humans. We're here to help.

Well, mostly. Wait, actually, none of us are human. But we're half human. Well, I. Wait, actually, none of us are human. But we're... I'm half human. Well, I'm human. Oh, that's right, yeah. I'm half human, and we got one other... Nothing?

No, but as you do that, you realize, like, the tunnel kind of goes down a little bit. There's a chance there could be people down there, and they just don't hear you, or that that sounds suspicious. They just can't make out exactly what's being called out so um does anyone have any kind of like like messaging or communication type spell or ability that we could um unseen servant or the hand like a hand appears on the other side of the door. Thumbs up. Yeah. Two words. First word. Sounds like.

No. All right. Then I guess. Well, you don't know. I mean, there's probably a lot of ways you could get this open. Yeah. I just. Yeah.

Okay. Sorry. Please continue. Can I pick the lock? You could try. Yeah, yeah. What is it? A ghost?

Is there a ghost? I'm'm gonna pick the lock okay all right heart beating under the floorboard checking for lock picking is so i i don't know why i think i came up with um yeah it's just a matter of i give you the difficulty class and you gotta beat it on a 20 roll i think all right um so it doesn't seem like it's a traditional lock it seems like they've got some kind of uh wedge on the other side as you pull on it it doesn't it seems like there is a key there is a lock but it's not being used it seems like they've barricaded it. So you think you can pull it off using some fancy handiwork by kind of jostling things, but it's going to be a difficulty 15. Okay. Based on what skill? Do you have any kind of bonus?

You probably do. I think it would be... Someone at home is like, I'm going to leave a really long comment. I think I just looked this up for some reason. Did what? Lock picking. Oh, dexterity.

Dexterity, interesting. There's like a proficiency also, right? Or kit? Yeah, you need the kit, and he has the kit. And he's also got a bunch of lockpicks. I believe what I said was you could try a certain number of times, but you start going through the lockpicks every time you fail

a la Skyrim. So if you can do a 20 roll with I think you get a plus 4. Yes. Give it a shot. I'll have a better. Boom! So yeah, you managed to get yes give it a shot boom so yeah you managed to get

one of the longer picks underneath and knock a piece of wood off the inside and the thing opens up you notice there is a lantern lit down there that means the presence of someone who lit it what you guys gonna do scope out the room

should we like call ahead I mean if it's barricaded I feel like they're trying to keep away we should like announce our presence at least in some non-threatening way hello who's in here leave me are you alright

no Leave me. Are you all right? No. Did you barricade the door to protect us? Or yourself? At first, myself. Now, you. I close the door back up and leave. Maybe it's a kid. Let Blaine kill it.

Yeah, I'm fucking... I don't leave. I'm all lugged up. I'm going to peek around the corner. Popped your kid-chilling cherry. Oh, man. Now I can't stop. You realize that the voice is coming from three storage rooms down.

I love that band. You'd have to go farther down. Okay, I'm going to go rooms down. I love that band. You'd have to go farther down. Okay, I'm going to go farther down. So you go down and you see that somebody is chained up in the dark in the back of the room. It looks like sort of improvised chains. It looks almost like something that you would use for livestock. Oh, he's a little friend. Okay, what's happened to you?

Some real bad stuff went down here in the college. I think you should leave. No, I know. Can you please just tell me what happened to you? There may bad stuff went down here in the college. I think you should leave. No, I know. Can you please just tell me what happened to you? There may be a way that we can help. Bring the lantern over so we can see. So you pick the lantern off the wall, and you see that they've got one of those sort of muscle tissue legs,

and that's it. Otherwise, they're like a normal person, but it's sort of. It's not so bad. But it's the bigger leg, and it's it. Otherwise, they're like a normal person. But it's sort of. It's not so bad. But it's the bigger leg. And it's. Yeah, it's it. We'll just cut it off. He's got that leg chained to the chain down.

All right. Can I cast mending as a cantrip that might fix it? It says that I can fix a broken chain link, two halves of a broken key, a torn cloak. Or healing, I would think. Or maybe a leg that's like a weird muscle robot leg. fix a broken chain link, two halves of a broken key, a torn cloak or maybe a leg that's like a weird muscle robot leg. I'm going to cut his leg off. Pairs a single break or tear

on an object such as broken link, two halves of a... It doesn't say anything about organic living tissue. You can try. You can tear them him into a chair. Cool.

Or I guess someone who could actually heal. It's a transmutation cantrip. Oh. I mean. Well, someone else can try if we feel like healing will be better, but maybe we can actually fix it, right? Yeah, he says, I don't know what's going on, but unless you can magically take care of this leg, I wouldn't trust me.

I've seen what people like me can do now. Would it help to grease his leg up? Would it help if I killed his child? Would it? I don't have any kids. Why are we talking about this? You guys saw these creatures before, right? These things with the muscle.

Oh, I thought the Island of Dr. Moreau. They were inferring a lot from the last campaign. I really tried not to bring too much over from the last campaign. There's just this one goddess who died at the cataclysm and may have caused it. Do I feel like this may be magically caught like done it's for sure magic in fact you all get a sense that this is some sort of demonic oh it's possession type so there's like a i have an identify spell that can tell me what it has affected what spell is affecting it or what magic is can i do that okay i Mm-hmm. Okay, I do that. You know. As you cast identify,

you get a really otherworldly vibe. It feels like something from another plane of existence is inhabiting his body and trying to change its physical properties. That's unfortunate. I explain that to them. Mm-hmm. We need a priest here.

Can we perform a trans-dimensional exorcism? You can try. Oh, I could never. Tui has patched a wizard with no arms or legs into an undead ent and turned it into a whole new different kind of creature. That's true. I want you to say trans-dimensional exorcism again,

but I want you to say it with a mouthful of soup so like in his tongue to add some neutral exorcism and go what do you guys want to do this guy wants to die and shoo you out of here well i mean at the very least we could maybe try to cut off his leg does it feel like his whole body is taken over adjust the limb he's afraid and and thinks his whole body is taken over or just the limb? He's afraid and thinks his whole body is going to. But from the identifier, I should be able to tell if it's limited.

It seems limited to his leg at the moment. Cut his leg off. Cut his leg off. Cut his leg off. Cut his damn leg off. Let's ask him how he feels about it. I explained to him that it feels like it's limited to his leg and would he like us to try to. He says, oh, my God, cut it off. I don to him that it feels like it's limited to his leg and would he like us to try to... He says, oh my god, cut it off.

I don't care. I'm going to look through the scarab to see if there's a change in aura to see how far we need to cut. Funny you should say that. His leg below the knee is bright orange and all this tissue is glowing orange but the rest of him is just swirling

gray. There we go. But you know from experience it usually just means he's alive, the gray part. Cutting at the end of him is just swirling gray there we go so but you know from experience usually just means he's alive the gray part cutting at the end of the gray to heal him once we do this we'll tie him off yeah yeah now are you gonna try to cast that mending spell first are you gonna no i think we're just gonna get we're gonna cut it off just gonna hack it right off yeah the mending spells for stuff no i No, I think he needs to heal. Okay. Does anyone have any medical? Somebody here had a really good.

Tweed's got a ridiculous medicine. Yeah, and I think just put a tourniquet on it before I cut it off. Yeah. With my sword. What about cutting it with my fire sword? Fire sword? Sure. You might cause fire damage. Does it cauterize at the end?

Oh, yeah. It might cause damage. Okay. You take out your sword and light it up with fire and he goes, ah! Okay.

Never mind. He's just nervous. Okay. I pour alcohol all over. What would be the best? Alcohol? You do have a flask of whiskey. Yeah, yeah.

That I got from the Thane. I only know whiskey. I've never heard of alcohol. I'm very well read, as I mentioned. Are you some sort of alchemist? She knows that there's some type of connection. Are you a chemistrician? I'm an Eldritch Knight, sir.

I'm just as good, baby. So who's doing this? We know who's doing the healing. Who is doing it? If he has a medical ability, would doing the cutting actually be better for him to do? I'm going to get a healing spell ready. If Blaine does the cutting, it'll be a pause before he can cast the healing spell.

I'll do the cutting. Okay. You do the healing. All right, Tom. Do you feel something, anything? Medicine roll, difficulty of 18 it's a wisdom I'm looking at your sheet and according to D&D Beyond you have a plus three to your medicine so roll that medicine. Come on, medicine.

19. Oh, you aced that shit. So you make a real clean cut right above the magic aura. You're welcome. With your scarab in one hand. Because you scored so high, you were able to hold the scarab and just feel like you could not have saved more of the leg. Can I go back in time just briefly and give that guy some of the flask also

before we cut his leg off? He says thank you for rewinding time. He grabs the flask and pours it down his throat. I hope I don't have to roll again. Blaine? 15. Great. Roll for healing, please.

Oh, no. We forgot he has a ding on his rolls. Yeah, it's all right. We don't know how big it is. Are you going to tell us? Nope. We're going to see what happens. Okay. Cure wounds, right?

Yeah, cure wounds. There's not a bad picture of Donald Trump. Have you noticed that? It's like he doesn't take a bad photo. When you... It's 1D8 for Slotlip. Because he looks terrible everywhere. He's just always... You say 8?

Yes. He's a super handsome dude. Cool. Presidential. You wave your hand, and for some reason, this guy just doesn't feel better. Okay. And the blood starts to pour out. Tourniquet, tourniquet, tourniquet.

So people, listeners don't think that was a totally crazy out of nowhere. There is a picture of Trump, a mad magazine. Yeah, it's a cartoonish, super cartoon picture. I kind of liked the idea of listeners going, it was really hilarious when Brian mentioned Donald Trump out of fucking nowhere. Fucking snowflake, he's obsessed. Just out of nowhere. Okay, who else has any kind of medicine bonus?

Because I don't. I have medicine. I don't know if I can heal. You can try to stop. At least. I stopped the time. Yeah. Can I cauterize it?

Yeah. All right. Tell me how you're doing it. I'm using my tiefling fire-ness to help cauterize. Dummy. The injurization of this victim. Wait, what?

Are you breathing fire on him? No, I can't breathe fire. He's no longer Dragonborn. But I am still fire-y. Still into fire? Yeah, I'm still into fire. We could just bind his, you know, tourniquet his leg.

Well, you have tourniquet turning his leg well you have tourniquet but he says bleeding so we need to cauterize it do we have any sort of gun powder or uh what else do you use first roll the tourniquet do a 20 20 difficulty 10. 19. boom you get this thing all wrapped up as tight as you can good Good job, good job. I assume, I'm just going to give you as a freebie, you put some kind of cloth around the stump. Yes, and there's like a powder you put on the wound. I can't remember what it is. What do you use in the field?

Saltpeter? Yeah, I figured gunpowder would work, but I don't know if I have any. I don't know. He has lost nine hit points so far. Would there be anything in the tinder box that would help that? Yeah, I mean you've got like a little bit of powder and flint and steel.

Put that on there. I mean I can try to cast amend which is only for like torn pieces of paper but it couldn't really hurt. All right, roll a 28. This one's going to be difficulty 15. Two. That's almost 15. I have a plus 15.

He bites down on a piece of his robe and he's trying not to scream. You just kind of burned his open hand. What's his name? Captain Kenwald. Kenwald. He's pointing at me and saying Cornhole. He's got to know some.

He's a, right? Yeah, he says, if you want to let me in there, there's some basic stuff I can try. Yeah, please get in here. Try some of that basic stuff you do. So he bends over and he uses his flint and steel to heat up the edge of his sword. And he tries to cauterize it as best he can.

Yeah, there's more screaming, and he manages to do it, but the guy is just ash white and barely conscious. He's in shock. It's normal. Maybe a sign of healing? Start him off with 50 cc's of D5W and an IV of Ringer's Lactate. Yeah, can you try a different spell or a different song or however that works? You can try.

I can do a Song of Rust. Roll the healing dice for this guy. Six. Cool, he gets one point of healing. Is he still going down? It's not sexual, is it? Is it sexual healing? I don't know that one.

Wake up, wake up, wake up. He's conscious, but yeah, he looks like a feather could kill him. Keep all feathers away from this guy. He says, I don't know if that worked, but I sure hope so, because that really

fucking sucked. Sorry. It's better than having a weird meat leg. You just put him out of his misery? What was that for? No, no, no. I just rolled all these. You just got bored and wanted to make a heavy thing fall down.

Skull splitters. Captain Kenwald says, do you want to keep looking for survivors or do you want to get out of here? I think we should keep looking. And also, do I know if there's anything down in these storage areas that might be able to help? Like maybe there's some type of herbs or medicine that might...

You think there might be, yeah. One of the storage rooms on the other side of the hall, you think probably has spices and something in there might be like a healing type of thing. We make him delicious uh you think in large quantities there is stuff that might help him heal you know you're not sure you'd have to make a dice roll uh with a nature to try to pull it off okay um but uh he sees a paprika stat you also know there's a tunnel through one of the broom closets down here that will take you to the dorms so there's another way out of here this way okay so are you guys cool if i get brooms if i try to collect some herbs for this guy first and then we can

no problem oh the sentence ended in a different place than i thought it was going to yeah roll Yeah, roll your 20, please. This is my nature, or this is just seeing if I find anything? This is your nature, yeah. Okay. You're not going to tell me what the difficulty is? I wasn't going to. Okay, all right. 15 plus 1? Yeah, you got it.

I thought I was going to know all over him. No, you find something called just, what is it, green air, and you get like a bag of it, and you bring it over. It's basically aloe, and you know that it'll soothe the wound. So, yeah, you bring it over. Does it seem a little better? Yeah. Okay, good.

Yeah, gets another hit point. Breathing a little deeper. How much time we got left, Sam? Is 14 minutes. Oh, cool. Great. So this guy sort of is able to hop up on one leg. You see his demon leg just kind of sitting there motionless on the floor.

And the motionless seems reassuring. You're glad that it's not twitching or squirming or trying to grab you or anything like that. Hey, while we have a moment of quiet, I just thought since we're in a brief break time, could we, we've got a bunch of amulets, right? Or stuff from the. You do. Maybe we could just investigate, do a quick figuring out what those do. Because what if they're very helpful right now in our situation?

Cool. Did you guys write down how many you grabbed grabbed i know you got two on the first pass did everybody grab one uh i'm pretty sure you guys got stuff right yeah is it not on here i think each of you got one and you got two i got two and a rolled piece of paper cool um you open up the rolled piece of paper and it's directions to another college okay um and uh the rest of you guys you've got identify right so you can just straight up tell yes although i'm not this is my first time playing this type of character so i'm not sure what the spell slots if every time i do it i lose that spell i think i have to rest do like a long rest

or something like that before i can use it again. Yeah, I'm going to check real quick. Is it part of your special kit or regular? My special kit. It's a straight up cantrip, right? No, it's not a cantrip. It's not a cantrip. It's a spell. And I have three spell slots. Yeah, it's level one.

So I don't know if I can cast it three times, but then I have to rest afterwards or cast it two times. I don't see. You find out how many charges it has, if any. Yeah, I think it's just once a day. It's like a slot. Yeah, it's one slot. It's the first levels. That means I can use it.

I mean, isn't that how that works? I guess this is what I'm asking because I'm not sure. Oh, boy. I thought that I just could use up the slots and then I have to, I'd like recharge the slots and I rest. Yeah, to rest. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure someone will.

You could do it once and then you can rest and then maybe. Couldn't I do it three times and then rest? Just use all my slots and then rest? Yes. Okay. I don't know how long a long rest is. Sorry. So which ones are you going to?

Nobody else knows what they have apparently, right? So I'm going to start with my two. And then if someone has something. Yeah, you've got the one really good one that you've got the most magical vibe off of. And that is a water breathing amulet. Okay. The other one you have. Not very helpful this moment, but.

The other one you have allows you to cast hover once per day. Ooh. And who else are you grabbing? Anybody? Maybe. I don't know what I have. Okay, well... What did I have?

Ambulance. Tom spoke up first, so... Two hit points. While you wear it, he gets two extra hit points while he wears it oh cool write it down he's just sitting there listening i'll write it down for you i'll write it down for you uh you have to wait she's used up all her identify spells for the moment so she can rest or she can... Hey, why don't you put the amulet on the guy without a leg right now? Sure.

Right? Great idea. You put it on him and he gets a little color back in his skin. Yay. And he's like, all right, when are we going to get going? Are we safe down here? Tell me what's the plan. What's the plan?

Give it a minute. Did you kill all the monsters? Oh, yeah. What about the children minute did you kill all the monsters oh yeah what about the children did you kill all the children somebody no just the one okay good because they're selling

girl scout cookies this time of year I'm real scared of kids real manipulative so terrible okay so we were gonna to head out. Yeah, you're not going to rest and try to refill your stomach.

Well, that's what I was going to try to look up, but that's very boring. So maybe you guys could do something else. I could figure that out. What's going on upstairs? Are they trying to bust down the door or anything? It's been relatively quiet so far. Do you want to scout out there? I like quiet.

Yeah. You come upstairs. Everything's still quiet, but you hear some sort of quiet shuffling on the other side of the barricades. Every day. And there is one open sort of window. It's not open-open, but it's not covered by dining tables and chairs and other furniture. Is it where she set a snare in front of us? She set the ensnare trap over there.

And other furniture. She set the ensnare trap over there. And if you get just close enough, you think you can see the tops of some waving muscle tissue. Just at the bottom of the door five feet off the ground. Or the bottom of the window. The pane of the window is five feet off the ground. You feel like there's something just there. Alright.

I will let it be for now. All right. Head back down. Yeah. Let everyone know. Yeah. That's the scoop, everybody. What you going to do?

Something's going to happen in about 60 seconds unless you do something. I have to sleep in order to get my spells back, so I hope I need to breathe underwater pretty soon. Because otherwise that was a real waste of time. Check out the rest of this room. Look for a large puddle to swim away into. Well, so there's a passageway to the quarters. Yeah, you know, you can get down to the dorms, which is farther into the college.

So should we... Is that cool with everybody? It's cool with me. Let's go to the dorms, which is farther into the college. Is that cool with everybody? It's cool with me. Let's go to the dorms, yeah. I think I brought a map of this. Yeah, so you guys kind of this little, see where there's

like a triangle? That's where you fought the guys. This is very zoomed out. But the dorms are down here a little bit. So you're heading farther in. There's a big wall here that you guys went through a gate. So just so you know, as you go through this tunnel, you're aware that it might be easier to climb the wall to escape the college than it would be to go out the way you came.

Just because of how many creatures were swarming, you feel a little bit Resident Evil-ed in at the moment. You come out and the other end of this tunnel is sort of another broom closet and that opens up into sort of a rec room. There's just a lot of little you'll spell practice area. It seems very pretentious though.

There's a lot of books laying around. A lot of couches. Gravity's rainbow. TK. Esmeralda you immediately get kind of like the hair on the back of your neck stands up because you're like, oh, this is where the shitty spellcaster kids kind of, it's a different part of the school where they didn't like the blades. They didn't like the Eldritch Knights too much.

They thought you guys were a bunch of brutish idiots who are sort of allowed into their school. Right. But again, no signs of allowed into their school. Right. But again, no signs of life at the moment. Yeah, wait till Milo shows up to speak. Once you make it to yet another building that seems largely cleared out, you all get kind of a weird feeling, obviously.

And the guy whose leg you cut off says, yeah, I don't know if you saw some of those things outside but i think that's where most of the students are now i think most of the students got turned into something else they just turned into those things they didn't left so you know there's like a stairwell sort of on the other side of this room behind a couple of couches but up again up you're in a basement right now got it basement rec room so are we thinking that there aren't then any people to find or is that the or is he just saying like your new friend who again you haven't really introduced yourselves to yet sorry just saved your life and all, but.

He's not my friend. He's family. He says, hi, I'm Carl. What's going on, guys? Hi, Carl. How about it? Esmeralda. Hey.

Yeah, so there might be other survivors. No, I was just, I was here for some party. Oh, yeah. We should probably hear about this party from you, huh? Oh, it was a shitty party. So one of my friends who goes to the school said, hey, you should come check this thing out. We've got these guys doing like a little fortune telling party. And I was like a fortune telling party in a magic school. That's that sounds fun. Sure. But none of these guys really do clairvoyant stuff and they all seemed like they didn't really know what to expect so uh this guy sat down and started conjuring spirits and uh

things turned into a bloodbath within like five minutes it was kind of screwed up who was the guy who sat down and started conjuring oh he was he was weird. He's one of those elves. Do you know what I'm talking about? Drow? Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of those drow elves. So he was real gross looking. And everyone thought it was kind of cool that there was a drow here because you don't see them too much.

But yeah, he offered everyone these drinks. And it was really good alcohol. And I feel like that might be what got my leg. That's bad news um okay did he say what his name was ah he did but I can't quite I think it was... What's up, Ryan? I think... Give me 20 bucks. Maybe this will work. Have Blaine give him a gold coin. That'll end up nice.

He's having a hard time remembering. It almost seems like it's because he's sick. He's having a hard time with some of the details. I understand. So this was the thing, that there have been these parties all around. This is what the Thane was going to have us investigate. And I guess this is tied into transformation parties tied into what you

guys. Yeah. Like the people I saw drink almost all seem to, to grow things and become immobile on some level. And then the people who are closer to this guy who just in proximity just seemed like they turned inside out. All their skin just sort of got peeled off muscle monsters the latest campus trend um i only had a sip i was like halfway

into a sip and i just tried to book it out of there and i thought i was fine for a while i got all the way to the banquet hall bro for real yeah dude um but then when i felt my leg was messed up i was like oh i don't want to like give some kind of plague to the city so i hid in the basement it's very noble of you very conscientious for you well you know uh once you've seen 20 people turned inside out you kind of grow a conscience a little bit i saw that at a playground once oh yeah swings did you grow a conscience once at a playground where there were kids yeah no he just killed it a long time ago um he was like so uh we should maybe look for more survivors i there was a bunch of people

like me who were just sort of visitors on the campus i mean you think there are any survivors i wasn't the only one who ran out of the party. Oh, okay. Well, they ran away. There was a lot of kids at this party, and I know some people... Where do you think they might have run? Well, there's just, I don't know,

maybe shelters of some kind. I don't know. A bunch of them probably left. You know this town at all? Yeah, I live in the town. They're probably... Everyone's still on campus because everything got boarded up right yeah I mean Esmeralda you know that some people escaped like you but they were kind of ostracized and run out of town a little bit so yeah so okay so

Yeah, so, okay. So we're going to keep looking for survivors? Should we be heading towards like... Do you have any ideas where they might have gone? Again, your two other ideas are maybe the empty building in your neck of the woods. You've already looked at the banquet hall and the tunnels under the banquet hall. That's sort of like your okay let's go

to whichever's closest if you guys are good with that yeah all right so you make it uh up the dorms you don't hear everything's real quiet everything's real quiet um once you get to the first floor you peek out the window and the uh sidewalks on the streets are are lamp lit and they seem strangely quiet although you do notice there is a bush on fire. It looks just sort of... It's gone. It's sort of quietly smoldering. It doesn't look that interesting.

It just looks like, you know, there's a wreckage. And if you look a little closer, you notice it looks like there's some sort of building has collapsed. There's a lot of just sort of smashed up buildings. It looks like there was a lot of sort of violent explosions or something and um uh the ground shakes a little bit what do you guys want to do like does it feel like an earthquake or does it feel like it sure feels a lot like an earthquake it's not like uh uh it doesn't earthquake and then stop and then earthquake and stop like big footsteps, does it?

Well, right now you felt like what was a 1.2 right on top of you. Hmm. Okay. Was it long or quick? Yeah, it was a solid eight seconds long enough for you all to kind of make eye contact with each other. Would you place like a cup of of water out on top of a... On a dashboard? On a dashboard, maybe.

Yeah, maybe... Do a reenactment of Jurassic Park scenes? Yeah, maybe T-Rex is going to come up and sing Telegram Sam. You hear a really loud rumbling noise after the earthquake goes away bode sorry um from where which direction outside um and underneath you and kind of all around you a little bit all right i think we just keep moving yeah um you feel like if you open this door, as normally from here, these dorms, you can just kind of run across. Um, so you're kind of here in the middle and the blades are just back here.

So you just got to kind of run down the street and you can get there. So, uh, you do? Why not? All right. Uh, everybody roll a dex check. Difficulty 15. why not all right everybody roll a dex check difficulty 15 nine that's 15 right yeah 15 17 uh so those of you who didn't make it you get tripped up a little bit and the guy

on one leg straight up falls down. Oh, I forgot about Carl. Captain Kenwald's been trying to help him. I'll help you. Slipped out of his grip. Kenwald's okay, but the ground shakes heavy. It's bigger. And the mage tower kind of off to your left is shaking violently from side to side.

Stay away from the mage tower. The ground doesn't stop shaking at this point. We got to just keep moving. Can we keep going to the... We're going to a structure, right? So let's just keep going, heading across to where we're going. I'm going to help. Yeah, Carl.

You guys get up. It doesn't take too long to recover your footing but you have to stop for everyone to sort of regain their footing everyone do another dex check difficulty 15 12 15 i got 16 cool those of you who didn't make it have to lean up against the dorm that you're running past as the next round of the earthquake shifts you've made it a little farther to the next building but you're still about two buildings

away and the mage tower collapses it breaks in half splits falls into the wall bricks go flying everywhere you see furniture flying out of this thing uh there's a small fire that starts uh in the middle of it so there's some more of that going on and um the ground again is not really stopping shaking altogether all right keep going uh one One more dex check, please.

Fifteen. Three. Yeah, I don't make that one. Uno! Me too. You gotta brace yourself again. Okay. Ken, you fall flat on your face as some sort of magical structure

appears to start emerging from the ground. Where the mage tower once was, some sort of new tower appears to be rising up out of the brick and the dirt. Bricks are flying everywhere. The ground feels extremely unstable. And that'll do it for this week. Yeah. Thanks, Dan.

It's the giant penis from Listomania. That was episode four, everybody. Thanks, Dan. It's the giant penis from Listomania. That was episode four, everybody. Thanks for listening. Anything you want to plug? Well, the same old, same old.

Hey, you guys, check the social medias and shit. Stuff's going to get fun soon. And then BrianPassane.com for tour dates. Mahalo.

Shut up, Adam Carolla. Thanks for listening to another episode of Nerd Poker you can follow us at patreon.com slash nerd poker and you get bonus episodes from there and you can also send us anything at P.O. Box 16069 Encino California

91416 thanks for listening 0 6 9 Encino, California, 9 1 4 1 6. Thanks for listening.