Nerd Poker - Episode 42 - Salute Mi Familia

Episode Date: November 28, 2018

It's been a long and desperate hike through the prison graveyard, and the army of ghosts is still barrelling down on our heroes. It's going to take desperate measures to change the tide of battle in their favor. Dangerous magic? A dead god? Perhaps a little of both.

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, Dan, Blaine, Chris. Now it's time for another episode of Brian Poussin's Nerd Poker Season 2. Hey, everybody. It's Brian Poussin, and you're listening to Brian Poussin's Nerd Poker Episode 42.

We did it. Yay. Yay. My friends are here. Sarah's, what's going on with Sarah? So she's sick and her whole family is sick. In addition to feeling like ass. I have a stuffed nose.

All right. Ken's the real hero. But Chris is here Hello Says Ken Says Dan Oh god And Blaine

Hi What's going on at Palladino's What are our Patreon Sponsors I'll tell you This is brought to you by this weekend Frankie Valley goes to Hollywood it's a it's a Frankie Valley cover band and they also do Frankie goes to Hollywood covers Frankie Valley goes to Hollywood there's also a

guy that appears right before the band goes on that explains the joke. Well, you know, I hear from Tim Garside, one of our Patreon supporters, that this week at Palladino's you can also check out the Mr. Mighty Mighty Brownstones, a Scott interpretation of Guns N' Roses with all instruments performed by Mr.

Michael Winslow. Opening act, High on Squires. Wow. Wow. You had me. Michael Winslow. Opening act, High on Squires. Wow. Wow. You had me at Michael Winslow. There's a lot of levels. They've got to add levels. And then, of course, performing next week,

Dessert Meets 80s Rock. It's going to keep loving you. It's Oreo Speedwagon. Yes. Yes. That's from John Lloyd. You know when I saw those guys, it was back in the 70s.

They were appearing with that Amish band, Journey. Did you say churny? Yes, churny. An extra buttery journey cover band? Yes, a journey cover band, but they're all Amish. Yeah. When the candles go out in the city.

Good bits. Don't stop believing in a primitive religion. It's okay. Our Amish listeners have a really thick skin because they don't listen. So we'll give you a little bit of a recap. Everyone is certain to die, so we're just going to, yeah, start.

We're going to play rifts now. Everybody's in a different universe with new characters. It's all over. Yeah. No, you guys... Dan's sort of joking, but we almost didn't do this one. We're all afraid.

You had a duel between Bodhi and an orc ghost. And Bodhi ran away with his tail between his eyes. Bodhi, well, you know, and I gave you a real hard time, but you did sort of accept Tom Nettie's invitation to intervene in the duel. And upon doing so, you offended the ghost of the orc warrior. And when you left this amphitheater to Baphomet,

you noticed a sort of a fine ghost mist full of orc ghosts barreling down on you across the graveyard. You're headed northeast to what looks like an infinite horizon and behind you, the ghost of an army. And one of the soldiers, Jerf, tripped. And our good friend Tom Nettie, being a good person, Tiefling,

bent over to help him up. And you noticed there was a floating ghost of a Tiefling mage bearing the signature mutation of many eyes splattered across the top of its head, barreling down on you. You think it's part of this cloud of orcs. Perhaps there are more than orcs, and you're just seeing a lot of orc faces, but you're the closest to this mist

because you stopped to help Jerf while everyone else is running. I'm trying to be further away from it. So you guys get up. Let's see another athletics check from you and Jerf. You're trying to just catch up and get away, right? Yeah. Well, Jerf botched.

Oh, man. Bye, Jerf. He trips again. As I said before Bye, Jerf. He trips again. As I said before, fucking Jerf. He trips again, and you get like 10 feet away before you notice. What do you do? How close is the problem to him? The problem?

Yeah. It's like 40 feet away from him. All right, I'll help him. All right, the time it takes you to get back and help him up. You succeed, but it's on top of you. Uh, roll for initiative.

Tom Nettie. Uh, the rest of you guys, as you're running, you can tell you're down. Tom Nettie. Uh, what'd you roll?

10. Jerf rolls a seven and this particular ghost rolls a fifteen the army's not quite there this seems to be the front of the army you guys all do perception checks the rest of you

how do you beat a fucking army of ghosts Esmeralda I mean Esmeralda looks over her shoulder and she tells you guys. 17. Yeah, she rolled a 20. Oh, nice. Yeah. Guys, they're pretty far back now.

It'd take like a- We gotta go back, right? It'd take a while to help, but Tom Nettie's about to engage a ghost. An army? An army behind this ghost. Right? We got a... Back to you, Tom Nettie. This tiefling is like you.

It's tall, but it's floating a couple of feet off the ground. It raises its hands, and you're going to do a constitution saving throw. Okay. Oh, fuck. Was that a 20? No, that's a 2. A 20? It's a 5.

Alright, you take 18 points of damage as you start you feel stabbing pains in your stomach and you start throwing up blood. Oh, wow. That was quick. I thought it was going to be something bad. So you're down 18 hit points. And you feel it after this ghost just sort of raises both of her hands and closes her fists.

Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, she's got a whole lot of eyes. Between two curved ram-like horns and an expressionless sort of scowl-like face. She looks like she is either a lich or a ghost of a mage, but that she's definitely connected through some sort of curse to the rest of these arcs. Can we still throw portals or is that in the other game? Yeah, we have portals in this. You sure have portal

staffs. Maybe we should send Tui ahead. Yeah, we gotta get the fuck out of here. We gotta get everybody out of here. You take one hit. If we each take four hits, we're all dead. Yeah, so we should... I don't know who's...

One of us has them, obviously. I don't know if we ever designated who, but we've got to get the fuck out of here. I feel like Esmeralda and Tui have them. Esmeralda and Tui have the two staffs. One of them, you left an open portal back on your planet. What happens if we do this again?

You'll open a second portal where you can go back to the planet and abandon the moon prison. Or you can start from scratch with a new staff. New staff. We don't want to stay on the moon, right? We don't want to get the... Yeah. Well, let me see.

Did we feed the cat? Esmeralda has the staff for the ground, and she kind of nods and is like, well, you're still jogging away while you're having this conversation, right? You're not stopping. No, no, we're running. Somebody go get him.

She says, I don't think we should use my staff. I think if we're going to open a new portal, we should do it. Go open a new portal. She says maybe do it behind something so the army doesn't see you opening this portal. I don't know. Okay. Yeah.

I'll fly as fast as I can. Great. So you go pling pling on your loot and you wave the staff and open a new portal. Is that right? Yes. Okay. So I'm also going to waive the fees. Thanks.

And keep that APR down. Appreciate that. Because I want to get you in this Kia. Thank you. We should leave, right? While he's doing the paperwork. Yeah. I'm trying to figure out how to get this next time.

So you tire inflation on your bill. You see like a sepulcher. It's like a mausoleum that goes down into the ground, and behind its wall you're able to open a portal that's sort of like facing northeast that the army can't hear. So everybody here is a... Wait, wait, wait for it. Internet.

Zoop! Zoop! Get Maria Bamford's jupe in there and you fly towards him so then we're going to it is your turn

oh is it? Tom Nettie oh Jerf has the low end of this initiative ah fucking Jerf so you just you're puking. And you've got jerf in your arms. He got to his feet, but he's looking at you like, oh, no. Well, I'd like to escape.

Would it help if I levitated myself, perhaps? Probably. There's a lot to jump over. Yeah. Get some distance and fluid motion. All right. You can levitate, and you can start booking. Do a de to jump over. Yeah. Get some distance and fluid motion. All right. You can levitate and you can start booking. Do a dexterity check. Try to disengage.

Yep. You're okay. So you guys see in the distance, it's over 100 feet away now, Nettie float up and... Is she puking blood while this is still happening? No, she probably would have wiped her mouth away. Could that be a nightmarish sight? It's like a pristine white cemetery. This woman puking blood while this is still happening? No, she probably would have wiped her mouth away. Could that be a nightmarish sight? It's like a pristine white cemetery.

This woman puking blood. As you fly away, though, Jerf looks and sees the blood puke that you left. And he tries to run after you. He's jogging. He's not keeping up. We're going to go back to the ghost of this tiefling mage. Will somebody make

a piece of art that remembers Jurf? Because he's gonna die. He's a plaque. He knew he had brown leather armor. That's about it. Yeah, you see the mage just sort of reach down and pick him up.

Oh, God. It's hard to tell. It's so far away. It looks like some damage is being done with the other hand of this ghost. Maybe she's just drawing her initials with her fingertips. Twee, you get

to Tom Nettie. What do you do? I have the portal thing, right? Yeah, and you're about 100 feet away from the other portal. So I can just tell him to clamor into this thing? Yep. Hey, Tom. Hey, I'm barfing blood.

Oh, well, you know what? Try not to get any in the portal. Oh, okay. Just get in there. Why don't I get myself in it? Okay, go, go, go, go, go. All right, so you open another one behind, like another headstone or something,

hoping that they won't see it, or are you going to do it in plain sight? I'm going to try to maybe do it surreptitiously. Okay, so once again. And there's another portal. You guys hop in, do it surreptitiously. Okay. So, uh, once again, and, there's another portal you guys hop in and, um, have you guys been running? I will say,

yeah, we were heading. Gendy, Gendy and, uh, Gilfry are just booking like hell to the, they're not stopping for anything. You guys are too.

Okay. So you guys, uh, emerge from the portal, and you see another 100 feet to the northeast, Bodie, Gilfrey, Ed, Typha, Esmeralda. They're way in the distance. What do you do?

Close that portal, right? Yeah, that might be a good idea idea turn it into the sausage machine or just run or just close it yeah do you want a refresher on what it does i'd say you would remember yeah so the third swipe opens a third portal um it also causes all three of the portals to um cause damage to anything that enters them. I like that. So, do we just wait? We might have to leave it here, though. If you were to open a third portal next to this original portal,

you're still leaving, like, three portal-based traps. I like that. Okay. And can we control... Like, us leaving those three open doesn't fuck up our ability to make new portals in the future well it's a

cycle of seven so there's more you have to kind of cast with the staff three more times before you get back to making normal portals it's got a sort of multiplier effect so you open a third

one next to the original, or maybe in more plain sight. Make a visible one, yeah. How about a visible one that empties, so if anybody tries to follow us, they go right into the next portal? Well, you know if anyone goes in these portals, damage will be done to them.

It's like it's... These things turn into, like, food processors. Well, if they could do a thing where they just keep in a loop going through a food processor like that. Oh, so they're almost facing each other? Yeah. Okay.

So third one goes up, and you guys head northeast. That's so great. I know. I'm so happy that we have that. So you guys book, and sure enough, if you look over your shoulder, you notice the ghosts are trying to go through these portals. Yes! And it is not going well.

A dual use! You hear shrieking, screaming. Some of these ghosts are still going after you but you feel like you have taken a serious blow against this ghost army and they've

what happens if you do 4, 5, and 6 fourth time a fourth portal appears but all the portals seal into sort of white magical barriers so never mind keep it like this. And then the fifth one doesn't open a fifth location, but those four points try to merge,

and they collapse space and time. In between them? In between them, yeah. Oh, well, hmm. Did we do that? I think we should lay down four right now so that when we want to lay down five and create a warp trap...

You do feel like as you're still booking it, these things are still kind of stupidly stumbling into some of these portals and getting cut up. So if you cast a fourth one, you're going to stop the mayhem a little bit. All right, so let's wait on that. But remember, we're going to cast it two more times before it becomes Death Triangle.

Yeah, and also you know the Death Triangle serious space-time damage occurs if you leave it for very long. Black hole-ish. It causes damage, but also it could cause environmental chaos. We'd really have to leave it for a second or two, I think, to kill

a ghost army. So you make it another hundred feet or two, I think, to kill a ghost army. So you make it like another 100 feet. Do an athletics check, everybody. 18. Everybody, 18. All the NPCs passed. Eight. Except Jerf.

Jerf is fucked. Jerf, got to be with you. Everybody get over 10? No, five. Jerf, got to be with you. Everybody get over 10? No, five. Poor Tom Nettie, still nursing her irritable ghost bowel syndrome.

But I'm levitating. Oh, what would you roll? What did you roll? Five. No, man, you've still banged your knee on something. I'll give you a lower DC on that that but that's not you you still you lag behind a little bit but it's actually not that bad because you would look it over your shoulder you're like oh there's a few dozen ghosts still chasing us but there's like a hundred just screaming around these portals right now um so yeah the rest of you've closed some

serious distance you see tom netty's lagging a little bit but the rest of you have closed some serious distance. You see Tom Nettie's lagging a little bit, but the rest of you, I mean, there's still nothing on the horizon other than more temples. Should we wait up for Tom Nettie just so we're all up at least in a pack? Just for however long, like 30 seconds. Do another athletics check, Tom Nettie. Okay. Boom. She catches up. Let's beat.

Let's go. Okay. I guess we're heading towards that next. We saw there were two buildings. At this point, you've run so far, you see like seven or eight more temple, like theater building type things. I want to see if there's anything about any of these.

I mean, I assume it's all going to be. You're still being chased. I know. You haven't done your master plan yet of exploding these things. No, but I'm just thinking, okay, so that temple was Baphomet. So that's what we're going to find.

We're going to find more temples. We need to find the Chord Temple or the Jenradin Temple. You don't know that there's going to be one, though. You know... There is an Chord one, I would have already known. You found basically a theater for the remains of the consciousness of Baphomet so right but like if we're gonna ask cord

for help like where to go or generate now it makes sense to try and find at least that's of these seven or eight temples do we recognize anything about any of them that one mix I mean you see one temp the closest temple is not tall but it leaves a wide berth it looks like it's another kind of amphitheater, and it doesn't have any archways. It's just sort of bare like a crater made of marble. It's another 100 yards to the northeast. Is that where we're ultimately trying to get?

We were trying to get to the tower. You see the building to the the northeast you can't see it you feel like that might be hundreds of hundreds of miles away somehow we have to like you need magical assistance to really get across that's why I say we need like cord or we need to know we need our crystal we yeah everybody do a perception check you did terrible there we go. Three. You did terrible. 26.

Your NPCs are not doing great. 17. 18. Hey, Typha. Hey. You see under your feet a lot of evil-looking names. What languages do you know? Celestial?

Me? No, that's Esmereldaalda Esmeralda knows a shit she knows it well she didn't roll very well so we've definitely talked about Celeste but I noticed the languages do you know probably fucking jack-and-squat it's important unfortunately I know I don't think we ever picked making you read I'm gonna look I can find it out common in one extra language we never picked the extra one. Goblin, I have. Sounds great. I read Goblin, buddy. You see one headstone

that's Goblin-y, and that's what gives you the clue that there's a lot of evil stuff, but it's languages you don't recognize. So we're not going to see Kord. Well, not where your feet are currently running. And the direction you're headed towards this amphitheater feels a little evil.

You look on the horizon, and you see a couple of towery-looking things. It's not the building you want in the end, but you see what looks more like... Like a guard structure or something. No, no. Facility. No, there's no functional buildings.

This all looks like it's in memoriam to some sort of missing beings. And you see multi-storied stuff in the distance more to the northeast if you keep booking it. All right. I say that. It looks like we just need to keep running. This sucks. We just have to keep running until we decide.

We turn on the thing and zap him. Turn on what thing? Oh, yeah. If we turn on the portal two more times, it creates a... Right. We can do that now. What if we turn on the thing and zap them. Turn on what thing? Oh, yeah. If we turn on the portal two more times, it creates a... Right. We can do that now. What if we turn on the heart light? Do it now.

They're all pretty... Do you feel like this cloud of ghosts is centered on those three portals you created? Let's do it now. Turn on for like a second. It may not kill them. It might just mess them up. Sounds good. We'll take them on.

All right. So you wave it a fourth time, and there's a white barrier in front of you. Go five. You hear a quick little, like, huh? Like, collectively from the ghost cloud in the distance. And then pop another one. Wave it one more time. Get ready to wave it.

All right, you wave it a fifth time, and you hear a very deep thunderous sound as the white barrier next to you turns black, and you see a crack open in the ground and quickly cut across the ground towards the other portals. The ground begins to shake, and... We never heard a zoop, though. Well, that's because you didn't

order open a portal this time you open something to like a black you opened a black like fissure in time and that ain't no jupe so you're all zhuped out this it goes on for a little bit and then the ground beneath you starts to shake are you guys trying to run while this happens? I think we need to get away from this. For sure another athletics check. 26. 16.

You're fine. I'm flying too, right? Yeah. Ed trips. Ed? You see him lag behind I'm flying too, right? Yeah. Ed trips. Ed. You see him lag behind about 100 feet. 100 feet? The rest of you did fine.

I got a 22. Yeah, you definitely did fine. Okay, let's close it. That's long enough, right? Yeah. So you do it one more time, and the ground shakes incredibly violently. You know you just erased all the portals,

but it almost seems like you did some serious structural damage to the graveyard itself. It wasn't over that big of a, you know, it was like maybe half a mile wide, the distance, but you feel like you may have scrunched it up like a tin can. And the ground continues to shake. Keep going. Keep running. I feel like I remember a while back something about like deep underground,

it gets very cold and there's an absence of magic. You notice what looks like little pink lightning bolts dancing across the sky, almost like static electricity sparking above you. Directly above us? Everywhere in the sky. It looks almost like there's an electric charge in the sky

after what you've done. Oh well. That's it for one of those towers, huh? Yeah. Alright. Maybe the cops will come and pay us a courtesy call. Somebody will come talk to us. Everybody do a wisdom saving throw. Do we still have some wisdom bonus-y thing?

No, right? 20. No, I remember what you're talking about. You got a... I got a 9. I got a 20 also. Oh, Bodie and twee are going to have no problems,

but I got a rock. I got a eight. Okay. Uh, Gilfry got a 20. So Gilfry kind of looks at you, Bodie and looks at you twee and kind of like points his thumb at everyone else. And it's just kind of like,

like shrugging as best he can. He doesn't really know what to say. But Typha, and you notice Esmeralda's bent over too. She's having a really hard time. Gendi's bent over. Typha, you get a, well, okay. Everybody who made the saving throw, you feel like a shockwave rolls past you.

You're not sure what direction it came from, but you feel like a magical wind just knocked into everybody. And you didn't feel it physically, but everyone else did and almost fell over. Typha, all those horrible childhood memories start going through your brain um and uh you feel like uh a desperate need uh to to undo and what's happening you're you're seeing it visually over and over again and you can't snap out of it um you uh tom feel like you're in a black pit um

and uh yeah you guys just sort of noticed everyone else is like non-functioning they're like bent over they're they're about to fall over they're like staggering back and forth this is like college uh grab who you can grab i guess okay so there's four people to grab um ed is twitching 100 feet away uh and then there's gendy well there's five gendy taifa tom netty and and Esmeralda. Well, as usual, I'm way more concerned about our friends than the NPCs. Yeah, and Gilfry's about four and a half feet tall, so he's not going to be too good at picking anybody up. I'm going to do a levitate on Tom Nettie and Esmeralda. Right before you cast Levitate,

Tom Nettie looks at you and says, where am I? You do not say anything. You're in a black pit. But Tom Nettie says it in a slightly more feminine voice.

Where am I? Except it's not controlled by the player sitting across from me. It is Nettie. She is steering the car. Tom's consciousness has fallen out of sync.

And she suddenly writes herself and says, what's happening? Who are you? Oh, we're on the moon. Her eyes get wide and she's like, what? We're running from an army of ghost orcs. She looks over her shoulder and indeed sees just this, it's like a lighter blue version of the nothing

from the never-ending story rolling over the horizon. Yeah, we're going to... They didn't get destroyed by the... You know, some of them are still coming. It's a smaller cloud, but you feel like there's a mass that approximates 100 ghosts at least. What about the ones that were closer to us? Are they gone?

Remember you said there were like ones that were closer to us? Are they gone? Remember you said there were a few dozen closer to us? They're the ones who are still coming. They're still coming. So we're going to keep running for our lives. All right.

Now, is Tom in there with you? She kind of pauses and she says, oh, right. I forgot about that. That did happen, didn't it? How dare she? You see she's piecing together. You're like, yeah, I guess I was just aware enough to know that I'm in here with Tom, aren't I?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right. So, well, anyway, use Tom's legs to run i mean they're my legs well use whatever legs you got you see you're getting a little protective like i don't i don't know if i should let this guy come back i mean i love him but hey you know do what you gotta do and when i say i'll run all right so so she seems taken care of however taifa you are still yeah you're still just in slow motion seeing something horrible happen and you know what i'm talking about i'm not gonna spill the beans because not everyone knows what it

is but uh yeah taifa esmeralda and uh ed in the distance are all still zonked tapha can't hear you typha typha you can make noises but they're not canon uh yeah she's incapacitated okay so you can levitate but i'm just sort of i i wanted to give you that narrative also to let you know you don't need to levitate tom netty to get her to run all right right. And how about Esmeralda? She's out. Vomiting? No one's vomiting, but they're barely conscious. They look like they're not in control of their bodies.

They look like they're blackout drunk. Can I do a levitate on the two of those guys? And do a quick wrap-up. I'm going to tie them up like a little kite. Great. And they're going to tie them up like a little kite. Great. And they're going to follow me. Great. All right.

You're going to head towards... There is a tower looming that you're heading towards. So you get over there. Without too much more ado, I mean, the ghosts that are following you actually start slowing down. They look like they're losing a little bit of their motivation. Yeah.

What happens when we open it again, assholes? Yeah, you know what? They overwhelm Ed. You've lost Ed. Bye, Ed. So you are now without guards. Oh, we lost Gorp, too? Jerf, yeah.

No more Jerf, no more Ed. I guess they have to go back to that big Ikea in the sky. There's enough of them left. They seem sort of appeased with Ed, right? Sure. You've kind of lost him. We've got Gilroy. We like that guy.

Gilfroy. Gilfroy. You can call him whatever you want. Gilbert. And you get to this tower. So this tower is only, it's a small tower. It's five stories tall though and it's narrow. It's

white marble like many of the buildings and mausoleums here. And there is a plaque outside of that. A plaque outside? Yeah. Yep. And what does the plaque say? Is it like a birthplace of Woodrow Wilson or something?

Dollywood. That would be fun. Now entering Little Koreatown. What's the plaque say? It says Sechellis. Everybody do a history check. Even me and Esmeralda? Nope.

You two don't, actually. Yeah, it's just you two. You guys are still fucked. Seven. Fourteen. You know it's a good elven god. You don't know much else, Bodhi. Say its name again. Sechellus. Sechellus, good elven

god. Blaine, do you know anything about a good elven god? You used to be good. Now let that history role, unfortunately I forgot all about good stuff when I went evil, man Sorry, that's just one of the things that you do Gendy shrugs, Gendy doesn't know

What about a good elven bishop? You know I'm gonna I don't know about any good Elvin Bishop, but I do know some good boss gags. It's called Lido. But there's a door here, and it slides back and forth.

You feel it looks like it's on some sort of track, but you're not touching it yet. Okay. So what you going to do? Somebody want to check it for trappies? The door? Well, it's you and Blaine. That's it?

Yeah. Nettie can't check? No. Oh, right. So Nettie's like, yeah, I'll check. Sure, sure, sure. All right. No traps. Let's try to slide

the door open okay slides open real easy it's heavy but it's on a track that makes it simple okay and we got everybody in you see um what looks like a chasm inside this building. It goes deep, deep into the ground, but in the middle of this chasm, there is a... Let's shut the door once everybody's in the cell. Sure, everybody gets in. And you're on a little landing. There's a rail so no one dumb falls into the chasm.

And there's a pedestal made of what looks like ice in the middle of the chasm. And a little glowing fissure above the pedestal. Everybody who is dead, do a wisdom saving throw. Again. the middle of the chasm and a little glowing fissure above the pedestal. Everybody who is dead do a wisdom saving throw. Again, you two. Oh, dead. I didn't know what you meant. Not dead-ish.

What kind of wisdom? I exaggerated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 21. Esmeralda snaps out of it. Typha snaps out of it. Thank God. You see Nettie kind of look over at Typha and Esmeralda is snapping out of it and kind of act surprised

and then go back to look into you guys and just go on. What is... You've seen somebody make a saving throw before? I don't get it. You come to Typha. You don't recognize your surroundings, but you... How long was I out? He asks you.

She? She. Like. She. Like six days. Six days? I'm just kidding. Is the moon dead? Did we win? Hooray!

It's over. The long night. Where are we? We're just inside the store. Oh, God damn it. Yeah, I mean. But you were out for six days. You're in some sort of memorial to Sosheilis,

some sort of elven being. Sechellus, I know that name. Do a religion check. They did the history, now you get to do the religion. Ten. Nah, you don't know much else. Do they have a sliding door? That's Sechellus, that's sort of like the hallmark of Sechellus.

Yeah, it was a sliding door. Oh yeah, yeah. That's pretty much what i know uh yeah i mean no one else has any uh gilfry does kind of like point at the pedestal and like kind of like scratch his beak do you want to tweet you want to like fly over there or maybe like mage hand over there and see what's what i feel like in the same way that that thing had the consciousness of orcas this place must have some contact with a good elven god maybe we can send out like an SOS maybe I can send out the the

trans-dimensional mage hand and do a little sign language saying hello hey hi you send your mage hand out. Are you really trying to do any kind of signal that you might know? Are you trying to do like... Yeah, I'm going to try to do some... An elven... Some elven hand signals. Okay.

Just like a hello or a steel third. Do a charisma check. That's where blacky green would come in handy. I love 15. Yeah. You do see the fissure kind of like flex a little bit and dance side to side as you do the hand signals, but that's it right now.

Hmm. This has been your only interaction with the fissure or even really. Gilfroy, do you think we need to go through that thing? He shakes his head now. But there is some kind of communication here, right? He nods, yeah. Do we need to touch the ice?

He opens his mouth and says, dead. Yeah. This is the consciousness of the dead Shiselas, right? There's no way I can do a mind meld. You haven't even tried talking. Other than the hand signals, you've ignored it.

I'd rather try something complicated first. It won't work. You are. It's funny. It's clever of you. Don't get me wrong. Can I walk over and kind of do a V'ger thing? Voyager 6. You do whatever you want,

except there is about 50 feet of bottomless pit between you and this ice pedestal. Do you have to shout out to it? You don't know. Again, you've been talking to each other, but you've only tried a careful hand signal. Tweet, do you want to shout out to it? Do you want me to try?

Seashells. Do you want to do it? Seashell. Are you saying its name? Yeah. Or were you making a seashells joke? I was making a seashells joke. Okay.

But is that what Tweet actually said? Seashells joke let's make a seashells joke okay but is that what twee actually said seashells chisellas would you act would you actually say seashells i would say seashells you say seashells and if the form starts to take shape and you hear a voice back say and you hear a voice back say, seashells? And you see something that looks vaguely like a merman. It's not quite clear enough what it is, but you see sort of like a swimming tail and a humanoid top, but back in Elvish to you, it says as a question, seashells?

Tell him we need help. Tell him what's going on. He's not a bad guy right No we think he's a good You think it's a good elven god Yeah I'm bad you know But I'm an elf I see

Is that a sea joke Yep Wow this is gonna be Like tennis I see. Is that a sea joke? Yep. Wow, this is going to be like tennis. More like water polo. Sorry. Marco. Polo?

No running poolside. No horseplay. I pull out a small knife and I start raising it towards my eyes. What do you want? Hey, where's Zinzerina? Do you know where Zinzerina is? Zinzerina. Ginradina?

Ginradina. Jinradina? Jinradina. Jinradina. Yeah. I know of this Jinradina. Don't speak Elvish. I just said Jinradina. I was slain by the goddess Umberlee. But my lack of form and my lack of power has enabled me to see the trail Jinradina has left what what do you need to

know we need to go find her she's near she is mm-hmm she under here or is she ahead she is and you see you see the tail fin flap the way you're headed. Okay, keep going. Is there another way to travel besides on foot? Is there some way we can move faster? Other parts of this world have crystals that allow us to think ahead.

I feel the dead have been loosened from their slumber. Yes, that is for sure. And perhaps one of them could assist you you but I lack the power and the form myself got it so that orc guy if we win that duel can we go back and fight

that duel again? no I would say Bodhi and what he knows about orc culture gets a pretty strong sense that he has offended that tribe and they are not going to help him so are there any other ghosts here? that he has offended that tribe, and they are not going to help him. So we're going to find another ghost. Are there any other ghosts here?

There's many ghosts here. You mean that they're talking to you? In my temple, no. This is solely for me. This is my private place to exist between worlds. You said you knew about the history of Jinradana. I think I do, yes. Can you tell us about that? She is from a collective from another plane.

There are magic beings who have brought magic to your world before, long, long ago. Are they the authors of magic on this world? In some ways, yes. They brought beings known as Jin to your world. And they have brought certain spells to your world that have survived the centuries but gin raid no was but a drop of water from that ocean that broke free when planes collided and spun into the Sea of Japan. There are no survivors. She orbited in this space outside of your world

and she was detected by Loth and brought to your planet to be one of Loth's minions, but she was too of another place to behave herself. I love the minions. They're so funny.

Banana. She refused to wear the suspenders They're so funny. Banana. She refused to wear the suspenders and the little goggles. You know before when you said we're here to kill her, I'm more and more thinking maybe we're not here to kill her. Oh, maybe we're not. I think maybe we're definitely here to set her free, but I don't know that we're here to kill her. She was enslaved by lulz, as far as I can tell. I think she's more like not necessarily characterized,

but I think she's Mr. Mixle. And then slain by lols after not behaving. Or the Impossible Man. She's like a visitor from another place. Okay. Did you ever try to say that Mitzel pick guy's name backwards? Yeah, that's it.

My power is waning. Is there anything else you would have of me? I must rest. Esmeralda, do you have anything else you want to ask her? Yeah, she like kind of she looks like she has something she wants to ask this whole

time. She's kind of like eager to shake everything off and she says uh yeah so what are we supposed to do once we get her out like what is the point of even going to her yeah and um so sechella says uh this jinn raidna does not want to be a droplet from an ocean. It wants to be of your world. So if you choose to not slay her, then that is what she wants. She wants a body.

She wants a mortal existence. Well, we can maybe work something out. And that sounds familiar. It sounds like what you already knew. And Esmeralda kind of kicks the dirt annoyed, um, because that doesn't really answer the question in the way she wanted it to be answered either.

But somebody's gonna have to make a sacrifice. Maybe. I mean, you definitely feel like once you find Jen rate in a, it might be a little more clear. It might also be a bigger pain in the ass, but, uh,

yeah. Um, so, so Shella says uh i must go i will tell you you do seem to want a way out you do seem to want something to help you move faster there are beings here that are both ethereal and undead and not all of them are good, not all of them are bad. But some of them are certainly capable of travel. So I would suggest you look for a traveling creature. Like a Corvette? A Corvette. Anything you can tell us that would help us in negotiating? Because basically we have to convince this ethereal undead thing to help us.

Sashalis says, I am of the sea, and I wish I knew more, but I am of depths, and the dark I am not of your plane, and disappears. Thank you. The fissure kind of shrinks, and it looks much smaller and weaker than when you first came in. Back to the pineapple. Hey, is that it? Tom Nettie, do a third and perhaps final wisdom saving throw.

What's your wisdom bonus? I think it's one. It'd be cool if it was ten. What time are we at, Sam? We are at... One. 47 minutes. Oh, jeez.

You are in a pit of blackness, and you're beginning to lose sight of your arms and legs, and you're beginning to feel very tired. All right. Is there anything we can do to help this guy? You hear a deep humming. You don't really know what's going on with Tom Nettie, but at this point, maybe yeah. But I mean, Esmeralda and I know

what happened to us. Yeah, and you look over at her and you're just sort of like, it's been a while since Tom was driving the car. It feels maybe like whatever hit you, Typha, was something of a wide-scale prison-level spell created by gods to subdue the populace in case of an emergency.

What about, can we do dispel magic? Can Master Gendi do a dispel magic? She doesn't have dispel magic. uh however when you start talking about this esmeralda remembers how she saved tom recently okay uh he got locked in a similar sort of psychic pattern and by using mending she was able to just sort of work work the uh blood flow in his brain and jar his personality back. Does she want to do that right now? Yeah, she's like, here we fucking go. So I'm just going to look up mending again really quick

because last time Sarah did the hard work of looking the spell up. And it's definitely a spell you don't normally use for medicinal or even like anything else it was like an emergency last throw kind of a thing so um hey blaine yeah what's uh dan looking up uh mending brought to you by? You know what? I haven't really been watching a lot of TV, Brian. I've really been getting into some lute jam bands. Lute jam bands?

Yeah. There's one playing at Palladino's. Really? Yeah, the Sting Cheese Incident. Check them out. It's a tantric jam band. know what i'm gonna give it's like seven or eight hours of just complete fucking with your head uh she goes over and lays her hands on the sides of netty's head and netty's like what the fuck and she look esmeralda

concentrates as hard as she can and casts mending and it's just like I don't it didn't work I don't hmm I don't know I don't know what to do it's just your friend Tom but yeah Nett Tom's still in here. She's going to do a charisma saving throw. All right. So Tom, you hear Nettie's voice. Tom? Yeah? I think we're losing you.

That's not good. What are you thinking? I'm in a black hole. How do I get you out of there? Tom, you see nothing. I'm in a pit. What do I do to get you out? What can I do?

You have to find me I'm trying right now but I just barely hear your voice in my head I don't see anything I don't remember remember? remember what it was like

back when we were together ride or die? Remember? Remember what it was like back when we were together. Oh. Ride or die? Ride or die, baby. I feel like you guys are both wearing white tank tops on a beach. In Cuba. One more wisdom saving throw, Tom.

For family. Nine. Nine. Fuck. Come on, Daddy. I mean... Hey, Tom. Tom. What are...

What's Tom DiReto's final words no what your family and with that your personality ceases to be what uh netty kind of like closes her eyes for a while and is kind of checked out and she's like I don't think he's I don't even get why that happened you guys were hit

and this is just well it was the psychic damage you guys when you did when you made the stabs you triggered like a defense spell built into the prison it was the riot spell

and you can figure that the passive knowledge you have of magic and what's going on I can't believe they'd make a spell that would make it so a prisoner's mind would disappear. Yeah. That's fucked. Oh, man.

It's meant to incapacitate you permanently. It's a great prison. I'm feeling more... This place is fucking awesome. It's the worst. So now I'm just Nettie. Well, we can talk about that. You can be just Nettie. Well, we can talk about that. You can be just Nettie.

Or you can roll up a new character. That's going to be your choice. But Tom is gone. Oh my god. That's a player death. Tom Doretta is gone to that cool ranch in the sky. Do you want some scotch? No, I'm fine.

Okay. Tom! No way. That's a fucking merman. I'll let you steer Nettie the rest of the episode, and then next episode you can. So you're Nettie. I'm going to watch you uh cgi wave and

drive off with a porsche but she's netty in tom's body no no she's it's been it's been it's been netty's body for a while okay cool that's what i'm making but tom i was his voice his personality and she was kind of passively there but the psychic thing flipped it um so you get the feeling that you could have been trapped in that memory forever and slipped into a coma yeah and just been a vegetable Jesus Christ yeah hmm so what is that of a vegetable you've got a tiefling with a different personality standing in front of you now and you're eager in this temple sorry for your loss and for ours no I know but still you lost the

Tom side of you but the but the rice side is still there, and it's still really crunchy. What you guys going to do? I mean... Well, do we... You know, Gilfry is kind of sad. You've never seen him like this before. He starts just sort of like... What's he so sad about?

This is like something he's never he's never seen someone get like a race then it's kind of fucking with him a little bit he seems like he's kind of none of us are happy about it he's like a malicious little guy right you've seen him torture people you've seen him do cast some really fucked up spells but he's like he's still kind of just like uh like i don't know you guys. This is hard. And, um... Yeah, you're a torture master in God's prison. What's throwing this guy off?

Uh, he just opens his mouth and says, uh, dead. Bad. Mm-hmm. Yeah, Chaka. You fucking nailed it. Gendy says, I think what we need to do is figure out, like, what...

We got to find a transport ghost. We got to, like, I guess something undead, not a ghost. Like, something... An undead ethereal. Can any of you raise undead do we have any burgeoning necromancers amongst us does anyone know i could maybe yeah you've read some necromancy so i have a feeling it's called dianetics and it's really helped me oh boy this again you have a feeling i say don't start with the no no, no, this again. If you could find the right corpse,

we might be able to improvise some necromancy. Oh, wow. Now, why... Oh, and when he says that, I reach in my sleeve and I pull out some flowers and then I go, oh, man, and I give you a look and I reach my other sleeve

and I pull out a shovel and we're going to go dig up some bodies. Yep. So, you're going you're gonna head outside yeah why not alright so you head out and you uh do you wanna look for a body and like some of us could be on like murder patrol

no sign of the ghost by the way I hope not but like I'm gonna let him focus on figuring out who to dig up. And do you want to be on scouting? Sure. I'm going to perceive like a motherfucker. God, I can't believe Ken's my ride home and I killed his character. I know.

It's a bad idea. I'm super pissed. I'm not going home, you guys. Yeah, you start looking around and you feel like the more you look around, like, oh, there's like aquatic elven stuff here. This is not going to help me fly or run this is gonna help me swim we gotta get out of this area to like the next is there any like artifacts or stuff here we could we could get any water breathing things or something you

there's some statues holding marble weapons that look like you know you could maybe break them off but they're not artifacts yeah there's some statues holding marble weapons that look like, you know, you could maybe break them off, but they're not artifacts. Yeah. There's tridents, but they're, uh, they're like part of the statues a little bit.

You're not sure they're artifacts. So not just from looking at them. It seems like everybody around this God is going to be like this God. So we need to find another head towards another temple. Gendy, um, Gendy does a little, uh, Uber towards another temple. Gendi does a little detect magic.

And Gendi's like, yeah, I mean, everything here is magical. I don't know if it's magical in a way that will help us artifact-wise. Just keep moving, I guess. Alright, so you kind of walk around this building,

and you see another building like it to the northeast, and you see another amphitheater due north. Northeast, because that's ultimately where we're going. Great. Yeah. All right. So as you get closer, you notice it's actually bigger, and you walk up to it.

It's something of a spire. It almost looks like a mage tower, but there's smaller buildings built into it, and there's a sign outside that says, Refuge for the Children of Bahamut. Bahamut? That's good. Giant flying dragon.

That's even better, right? Bahamut, not Baphomet. Bahamut. Do you want to look around and figure out who to dig up? Or look inside. Yeah, let's look inside before we start grave robbing.

It's got a wooden door. Check for traps and open it. Yes, Neddy, you can check for traps. Why don't you roll an investigation? Tom used to roll a 17 you can tell there's no traps there's no traps and yet

no traps door locked? it's not locked it's like an unlocked normal door alright so you walk in and there's a dragonborn in a tabard that's not dead.

And it's reading a book with its feet up. Yeah. And it looks at you and goes, oh. Hail Bahamut. Hail Bahamut. Right, guys? Yeah. It's fun to hear Bahamut. Certainly. Hail Bahamut. Hail Bahamut. Right, guys? Yeah. It's fun to hear Bahamut.

Hail Bahamut. Gilfry says, Bahamut, ugly. Okay. This guy's crazy. And that's where we're going to pause it. That was episode 42. Thanks for listening to Nerd Poker anything you want to plug?

if you don't hate me after killing Tom Doretto please check out my new show at the Lyric Hyperion in Los Angeles called The Filling co-hosted by me

and Taya Lux it's going to be a lot of fun cool I'm opening fronting the killers we're touring Europe

I didn't ask you no I just I just figured I wanted to get it out there. I'm not sure when this is going to be playing, but we're going to be on tour for a while. Hey, Blaine, do you have anything you want to plug? Yeah, I'm touring with The Killers. Oh, my God. For the next, I think, three or four months.

You've been singing with them the whole time? Yeah, I've been with them for years. Oh, wow. Yeah. All right, well, I'm going to bed. Oh, Blaine. Yeah. Do you have anything you want to plug?

Well, me and some friends of mine from Henderson, Nevada, called The Killers, are going to be touring Europe and South Africa. So come check us out. Let me check out with you. Could you guys let yourselves out? Yeah, sure, sure. Oh, before we go, because we might not see each other for another week or two, Blaine, what are you up to these days?

I don't know if I hate to toot my own horn. Well, I'm not really a horn player. I'm a singer. I'm a singer with the Killers. Ba-ba-ba-da. Ba-ba-ba-da. Thanks for listening. We're going to be touring with Europe and some South Africa dates,

so come check us out. I said thanks for listening. 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 one six zero six nine Encino, California, 91416. Thanks for listening.