Nerd Poker - Episode 5 - Haushinka

Episode Date: February 20, 2019

The party continues their bloody battle with the creatures at the icy bend in the path. They seem to be reaching the end of the dwarven city, but even then it is a long road ahead. And sooner or later they're bound to meet another underground traveler... right?

Hey everybody, I'm Brian Poussin, 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 Posehn's Nerd Poker. Season

3. Hey everybody. My name's Brian Posehn and you're listening to Brian Posehn's Nerd Poker. Dan's gone crazy. I can't believe how much my gas

It's episode Episode 5 Of season 3 All my friends are here Chris, Sarah, Ken Episode 5 is alive Dan, Blaine Everybody's in their right place

It's all as it's supposed to be Oh that's true We're all here Our last recording without Sarah When we had Dana here Dana took Brian's seat and it just threw It just threw My life has been in turmoil since it

Wow It just threw everything off Are you feeling better today? Now that everybody's sitting where they're supposed to. Good. You're the pig. Dane isn't home the way it's supposed to be. Oh. Jealous. That was a really fun episode.

Dane's so good. What happened in episode four? I'd like to tell you after I first... Tell us, because I got some things too. Yeah, I just want to give a shout out to Ted Daughters you know this guy named Ted Daughters gave me a heads up at who's going to be at Palladino's this weekend

very special night rolling dice together an evening with Dr. Uwud and the medicine show rolling the dice together and you got some things you want to do Brian yeah I do we got a nice little package. So the P.O. box is up and working again.

Hell yeah. And I got some mail. Dear Nerd Poker, Brian's joke on a recent episode inspired me to create this shirt. I believe I saw Bauhaus of Pain when Hannibal Corpse opened for them, which is, of course, just Hannibal Burress, Hannibal Burress dressed as corpse grinder reciting cannibal corpse lyrics. Sorry if that seems sweaty.

It's supposed to be. Anyway, I hope it fits his meat sack. My meat sack. Well, it's a double X and I'm trying to get back down there. So let's see. Instagram is, he didn't

put his whole name but uh he put his instagram clown uh what did they do the bottom underscore writing underscore dragon clown writing let's see that shirt shirt's awesome oh yes sulk around oh my god that's fantastic it's white and it looks like a Bauhaus shirt but it's with the House of Pain logo and then the guys have like a

eyeliner and a tattoo and then it says sulk around it's pretty awesome thanks clown riding dragon nicely done good stuff and then we got one more thing from Tim

also I like how he addressed it look at the fancy medieval font calligraphy I don't think that's how you pronounce that calligraphy yeah sure calligraphy I don't think that's how you pronounce that. Caligula-free? Caligrafo-free. Yeah, sure.

Caligrafalo. Hello, NerdPoker. I originally sent this with $20, but when it got returned, uh-oh, I just signed up for the Patreon instead. Yeah. Hey. Thank you. I'm glad I did because I'm loving it so far.

Oh, yay. So far far it's a big tell oh he said toh so that's that was uh no no i'm loving toh that's not tomb of annihilation that's tomb of horrors He might have thought Tomb of Horrors, which is another classic module. The other hand. Can't wait to hear what the gang gets up to in 2019. Best wishes, Tim. Rest in chaos. Nug, nug. And then he drew a little nug, nug.

All my friends are dead. Put a nug, nug. And then he did a... Well, he had sent us this Christmas card originally that's cool happy holidays best wishes Tim

what a cool spot I like how you actually took time with lettering and gave us a nice note and letter thanks Tim that was the only Patreon you were gonna yeah just like I'm you know savoring it thanks Ted Daughters again for what I selected Thanks, Tim. That was the only Patreon you were going to? Yeah, just like I'm, you know, savoring it. Thanks, Ted Daughters, again, for what I selected as today's little bit.

You ready to get into the adventure, everybody? Yay, that guy's back. It's me. No. The ball breaker. It's me, the ball breaking narrator. Our heroes descended. I'm going to have to do it now.

You don't have to. Yes, you do. No, I feel like the president's been set, Brian. Shall I do some narrating? Do it. Do it. I'm going to text Sarah the map. So Sarah, you have been texted the updated map. If anybody wants it,

I'm going to request you share it with other players in digital form. Updated with locations marked? Yeah. Oh, and it's still sending, Sarah. It's like a couple megabytes. I have terrible reception here. Wow, that's a lot of bytes. A megabyte. Our heroes traveled from the base of Mount

Hook through stone doors into an abandoned and abandoned Not so narrating now, are you? No. You know, I'm going to back it up. I'm going to back it up.

I actually need to stop and look at this shit. Let me begin. You descended into the abandoned dwarven city of Brought and made it pass a strange enchanted statue, went through many tunnels. I hope you were keeping track of which direction is west because eventually you're hoping to go west towards the city of Bozor, civilization,

where you can find out what exactly happened to the continent of Cloddenheim. In the meantime, you found a frozen chunk where the tunnel ahead of you was broken, and upon looking down over the precipice, you encountered a nice elemental. You shattered it into a nice elemental. Nice elemental.

And after you blew him and... Excuse me? What? We did what now? Dan Telfer. I've got frostbite on my lips. After you destroyed him, you noticed swooping out of the darkness

was some sort of dragon-like creature, silvery white, attaching itself to Queep's face. And there we resume our adventure. Aye. So, there is now what appears to be a dragon type thing you just sort of see feet and like the bottoms of silvery bat wings kind of flapping underneath the darkness

that darks their cast so right about where queep is you just see just like like in mostly in the dark it's like 60 of darkness and then just clawed things is just raking your face right now. And you just took damage and tick tock. You're up. I will. I think I should try and grapple or grab it rather than swing a weapon. All right. So you're heading over to him and we're going to do an athletics check.

Oh, how dare you? I will dare. That's how. Okay. Rolling here. What exactly is this creature? You're dare. That's how. Okay, rolling here. What exactly is this creature? You're not 100% sure yet. Well, let's see. I rolled a three.

No, but really, what is it? I'll tell you what it is. It's the bottom half of a silvery dragon-like creature. That's what it is. And I got a seven. You son of a bitch. Oh, wait, athletics. I'm sorry.

I got an eight. Yeah, I mean, you're wait, athletics. I'm sorry. I got an eight. Yeah, I mean, you're trying to get your hands on it and nothing's happening. It's just this flapping around. It kind of squawks. Hold on, cuckoo bird. Help is imminent. And that brings us to

Darkthor. How far away is it? It's like 20 feet away away it's a big old pile of that ice elemental that you blew for some reason like it's shattered ice crystals and then uh yep exactly thank you tiktok for moving your figurine you guys it is so fun we we haven't even talked about it yet we have our customized hero forgeatures, and they look badass. They're really cool. Something tragic did happen to Sarah's. My husband dropped mine immediately upon me receiving it,

and then my head popped off. So not my head. But you got modeling glue. I did get pretty mad, though. But he glued it back together, and I think it looks good. But I do think it's probably just going to roll away at any point. But she looks good. She looks fantastic. We'll take some pictures why do you think he dropped it on purpose um yeah it's a good question i think he's very jealous of this so

holy shit he is dmv these figures are awesome oh man i'm super stoked and i and i love uh i love just how you guys look as a weird little group there it's it's really come together just how much you guys look like three LV types. A robot and a bird. The robot and a bird part is such a great caboose for this party. Robot and the bird sounds like a great TV show from the 70s.

Or a morning radio show. Was Rock Hudson the bird? Robot and the bird. I don't want to work. Beep, beep, beep. Beep, beep, beep. It's time to meet. I don't want to work. Beep boop beep boop beep boop beep boop. Ah ah. That's a great little jingle. So what you doing

Darkthor? Ah la la la la. Indeed. Rubber biscuit. What could Darkthor do in this situation? Pout. Kill the beast. That's true.

Option one for him, I guess, would be to pout. And then you've got some slashing you can do. You've got some spellcasting you can do. You can sulk. There's sulking in addition to pouting, yeah. Sulking's kind of like a second level pout. I'm eye-rolling right now.

It's a cantrip. You have an eye-rolling cantrip, yeah. Hi, Mavis. Do you have brood? What about mope? Do you get that to level five? I'm going to slash at this little thing's exposed feet. Cool. It's right in Queep's face.

You're going to roll with disadvantage or you can roll without disadvantage and there's a chance that he will share the damage. Your choice. How carefully disadvantage or you can roll without disadvantage and there's a chance that he will share the damage. Your choice. How careful are you going to be? You'll roll disadvantage? I don't hate him.

So you carefully kind of pivot back on a leg. I haven't really formed an opinion on him yet. I know what I think of TikTok. Besties! Yeah. Forever. That was a...

So you would roll it twice when you have disadvantage, but that number you just rolled was so low, there's almost no point in rolling a second time. No, you can't take that, so you have to take the two. Okay. So that's a miss. You have to take the two. That's a miss. You swing and a miss. Swing and a miss. This thing's going to attack your face again,

Queep. What's your armor class? Doesn't really matter at this point. Sure it does. That's your armor class. No, I know. You're real low on hit points. What's your armor class. No, I know. That's what your point. Oh, you're real low on hit points. What's your armor?

14. Okay. Well, it rolled a 7 plus 4 to hit, so it rolled an 11 to attack your face. That means it missed your face. I'm glad. Dr. Uwit is up. Oh, thank God. I missed your face, too.

People have had a lot of fun guessing what celebrity voice that's supposed to be, by the way, Blaine. That's a wholly singular creation. Every single move I make. Hey, that thing is on his face. Yeah. I'm going

to, I have my flame blade going, so I'm going to I have my flame blade going, so I'm going to go over and flame blade it. Sweet. Same thing. You have two options. You can either be careful and roll with disadvantage or you can just straight up attack it and there's a chance that Queep will share damage because it's still attached. I'm going to

err on the side of caution. Alright, so again, you pivot on your back leg and kind of like are swinging a little carefully. I know. I love it. All right. I got a six. Plus.

It's a hit. It's your spell modifier for a flame blade, right? Is it? I'm going to check that real quick. I's your spell modifier for a flame blade right uh is it i'm gonna check that out it was just like uh it might just be what is this game i think flame blade is just a straight up sword made out of flames i think you get a plus to hit with a sword at least right it should be on on on this page where you have your spells plus six. So that's a 12. Sorry, sorry. That's a hit. Oh, okay.

That's the one they call Dr. Uli Damage. Let me make sure. And it's going to attempt to stay attached to his face while it gets hit. Sorry, I was... And it fails. Sorry, while I'm looking up my flame blade damage, you guys, I didn't really have a chance

to make it down to Paladino's last week. Oh, no? Oh, no. That's terrible news. I went over to Saladino's. What's Saladino's? It was a bunch of great bands playing there. Leaf Garrett cover band. There's Caesar. They're a Weezer cover

band that had some anchovies and eggs and blue cheese oyster cult. This is at Saladino's? Yeah, Saladino's. Oh, okay. Salad, Saladino's. Oh, salad. Yeah, it was at Saladino's.

I didn't make it over to Paladino's because I was at the salad joke place. Right, right. You know, listeners, you've heard it. All jokes have to be in the form of Saladino's now, so please get to work. Oh my God, no. As if we were not dealing with enough here.

Saladino. So flame blade. Yes, sir, 3d6 fire damage. 1d6, so. 3d6. 3d6, yes. And two. You can. Where's the new one? 3d6 yes and two where's the new one oh thank you

oh here it is oh 15. yeah all right so you hit this thing hard and it detaches from Queep's face. Queep, you just feel a couple of feet just off of your face. And this guy lands on the ground next to Queep. Whoa! He's bigger than Queep.

You just had a tail in the bottom of his wing sticking out and you notice he's got pretty big shoulders, upper arms. He doesn't look too fun to fuck with. Reminds me of Gronk. Somebody want to fire something at him? That'll be Halseen's

option. Yeah, can I... You should throw a flame net on him. I'd like to... Weird that. Weird vocal mode you just went into, Ticktock. I'd like to... Weird vocal mode you just went into, Tickhawk. I'm just real helpful with magic. Inflict wounds.

Oh, jeez. Alright. Reversible spells are always cool. Fourteen. One's like a windbreaker and one's like a plaid thing you could wear to like a function sorry I can't open my book

I'm trying to see the damage death priest years ago yeah actually I do have it it is 3d10 necrotic damage that's a lot it's a shit load I mean it could be a lot. It's a shitload.

I mean, it could be a lot. So you guys see Halcine rip out one of the more powerful spells that have occurred in this adventure thus far. I send necrotic damage open for a nuclear assault. Damn. 1994. I got new dice, so I'm hoping that... Well, and those new dice cause the small silver dragon to howl loudly, and it begins cursing at you in common.

It is clearly a sentient being, although baby-like. It's got kind of like a very deep voice. You know, they say dragons are often born with memories of their past lives. I did not. Yes. Who says wizards of the coast? What about the wizards in the flyover states? I know that could be Skyrim. I think you're going to get a lot of scrolls. You're going to get a lot of parchment. What's up what's up? All right, chop him. Roll your chopping axe. Roll your batal axe.

Roll your Mario Batali axe. It made us. Parmigiano-Reziano. What does that mean? Plus what? King of all cheeses. Seven plus... You're still raging also, if I'm not mistaken.

It's been three weeks since we played this campaign. Plus five to hit. That is a miss. So whoosh is the first one. Oh, no. It's hung. Oh, it is cocked. It's slightly cocked.

That is almost 100% a one. That like a 99 one but so that's insane yeah all right and now we're gonna fly up all right so you're oh you're above him now slightly out of his range but now this means you are in darkness so you fly up and it's okay you can't see anything. I just want to get away from damage. So that'll bring us back to TikTok. TikTok. Am I in melee with him? Yes. I am?

You can totally melee with him, yeah. Although Dr. Uid's also closer. Dr. Uid is the one who knocked him off the face with a flame. Yeah, you can melee with me. All right, I will. Yeah, I'll great axe at him. Blades the one they call him off the face with a flame. Yeah, you can my lie with me. All right, I will. Yeah, I'll great axe at him. Blaine's the one they called Dr. Urid. That's a 19.

That is very much a hit. Nice. Nice. He's going to be your flame. Oh, that's not a lot of damage. That's only four points of damage. All right. Could have been.

That's probably the worst. You nick one of his wings and he screeches again. Does he say some potty bad baby words? Fuck you, motherfucker. I'll fuck you to death. Can you make sure my son's not on the couch right in that room? You see?

He's not. Okay, good. Thank you, Sam. That's Sam, everybody. Baby dragon. He's in there reading Lady Chedroly's Lover. I'll tell you what Portnoy's Complaint is. I feel like it's always my swearing that Brian finds the most unsettling, too. It'll be like the seventh or eighth time. You shout it, too.

I didn't shout it. It was just very, very upsetting. You shouted it out loud. We're gliding past Lady Chatterley's Lover as the example for the porn that it would be. That was kind of the first one. By the way, you're up, Brian. In what century? The 20th.

The last one. Yeah, the last one. Is Rose even alive? I'm 72. You've all got this bad boy surrounded. Except for Queep, who's up in the darkness. It's still on the ground. It hasn't had a

chance to recover from being flame bladed off of queeps face. That's good. And it's Sarah Hal seen did so much damage to it that it is looking pretty messed up. She really yeah she's kind of just like flip the hand and all of a sudden she

loosen the jar. Yeah, no kidding. Right. So it's she loosened the jar. Yeah, no kidding. Right. So it's time to open the jar. Right. Yeah. Darker's looking at his attack. Shut its dirty mouth. I know you're keen to start working on some ranger type stuff. I know two handed weapon fighting is in your

near future. I'll tell you what was in my near past. I didn't make it to Pallinos last weekend oh no yeah i had to go to uh i went to growl adinos growl adinos i saw a couple of great bands oh yeah growl adinos yeah growl adinos i saw tony tony tony the tiger and uh uh and lion o richie wow that's pretty cool he's also in a Thundercats cover band. Is that Growl-O-Dinos? Growl-O-Dinos.

I didn't make the Paladinos. I had to go to Growl-O-Dinos this weekend. And you went to Saladinos. Yeah, I got around. Oh. I'm working on an article for San Bernardino Weekly. I'm kidding. That's my cover story.

Off-White Lion was playing there this week I'm gonna stab Go for it Sorry It was very straightforward I liked it Very direct Or was it I'm trying to think of an Ocelot joke Oh he rolled a one.

So wait, hold on, everybody. What? Oh, no. What was that? By the sound of that bell, somebody's walking into the candy shop. That's the ding dong for bocce times. Just walked into a hippie's bedroom.

I feel like I'm about to buy a geode. Do you have any of these in Amethyst? I'm kidding. They're all Amethyst. 76. Oh, brother. All right. Roll 1D4.

Oh, no. There's so many more rock stores. Oh, boy. This isn't good. There's none. They used to be everywhere. Rock stores. Why?

They ran out of geodes do you need one brian really no i got it there's also yeah you can grab my dice any old time too all right you take two points of damage as you bring your sword down on the dragon it uh reacts quickly and pulls its claw up knocks your sword out of your hand your sword does kind of a spiral out of your hand and cuts one of your fingers for two points of damage. Ouch. And it clatters onto the ground about

five feet behind the dragon. So the dragon is now between you and your sword. I don't like that. Great. I never know if Brian's mad at me or the game in character. Darkthor, this dragon claws at you and does, yuck, nine points of damage.

Dr. Uyd, you're up. Sam, I hope you're remembering to take your notes. Hey, is this dragon close to anyone? I mean, like engaged with anyone? Yeah, yeah. Look at him. Just detect, Darkthor, you're... I know.

You're a little Hot Topic friend over there. Don't worry, Darkthor. We won't bring it up repeatedly. Don't shop at Hot Topic. This is all from thrift stores. But I've seen you at the Hot Topic. I used to have to work there because of my mom. Remember all the different things about Deadpool they have?

Oh, Hot Topic. What did you do, Dr. Ruud? Oh, Hot Topic. What'd you do, Dr. Ruud? I think I'm going to take this thing for a little walk in the moonlight. Jesus Christ. Sounds romantic. That's the upside of how scared I just got.

I did suddenly get invested in their web story. I like to call Hot Topic and say, y'all got fake poo? No, that's Spencer's book. You're thinking of Spencer's topic's that's another story in the book yeah but do you do you all got fake poo who's this guy

my grandma was born with fake asshole you all got fake poo that's a David Cross thing no it's a Bob and David Mr. Show bit I still love born with fake asshole.

So, oh, yeah, what are you doing? Go for a walk in the moonlight, which spell is romantic evening called Moonbeam. Oh, shit. All right. So silvery beam of pale light shines down in a five foot radius centered on a point within range

dim light fills the cylinder it's engulfed in ghostly flames that cause searing pain must make a constatation saving throw alright that'd be a

12 what did it have to be what was your spell save DC? 14. Oh, this is going to hit. How's my head? Oh, do you do,

you do your charisma saving throw. 16. You see dr. Uid place his hands on either side of his head and scream for about five seconds and then the final second of his six second turn he fires a moon beam at the dragon roll Roll your damage, buddy. My damage is 2d10. What's your damage? 3d10, 4d10. 10d10.

Oh, good. 13. Jeez, this is going to be... 26. Nice. How would you like this moonbeam to eviscerate this baby dragon, Dr. Uy? What would your dream scenario look like? Surprise me! Okay, so the moonbeam just cuts out of Dr. Uy's hands

as he places them both palm forward. You just see this white hot energy fire out and the dragon just gets split in half and you just see silvery entrails just splatter against the ice. It's silver on the insides. See? Happy anniversary.

Nice job. Cool. Does it hurt you every time you do that yeah why it hurts when I spell so this little ice any more questions

I don't understand the first answer no one does this icy hallway was originally a stone hallway and it kind of got um covered in ice as you went far down and you realized after you did some tests in our last episode that this was a sort of magical unnatural unhealthy to drink ice when melted so you cut through all these sort of spider webby ice crest crystals and there's now a little mini cliff that goes about 15 feet down so that

that wall there is not really a wall it's it's more of the edge of the cliff okay and there's it looks like a big icy boulder keeping you from going straight on but you can go down about 10 15 feet into some more ice and halseen you can carve away if we want to try to get here, do we? She does have a spell that can convert the ice into a sort of poisonous water. Oh, poison water. I do need to see. Or magically strange water. Can I just use my flame blade to kind of do a little?

You know, the thing is, the way this curves down, it's far enough ahead that you would have to. It's like here? Yeah, so you can't reach it with a blade. Oh, I wouldn't have my flame blade going anyway because I was doing the moon beam. Yeah, you had to put it away.

Yeah, I do have the cantrip version of Shapewater, which is a smaller, like five feet, I think. Good to remember. Right now, it seems like unless you have another idea, the only way to go is down. We do want down. Let's do it. Or behind you, you could backtrack.

I don't know how well you guys have kept track of your cavern that you've been is down. We do want down. Let's do it. Or behind you. You could backtrack. I don't know how well you guys have kept track of your cavern that you've been traveling down. Can we take some sort of a healing break? I'm very damaged. Oh, yes. I'm so sorry. We could take a rest and healing. Do we want to do that? A rest? Yeah. Okay.

Let's see. I can I can stand guard if we should. Yeah, okay, well, let's see. I can... I can stand guard if we need. I have a... I'm gonna do a prayer of healing as long as we're gonna take a rest afterwards. I wanna make sure that I'm still. Roll your healing. Sorry, Dan, it's not on here.

Oh, no problem, give me one second. What's it called? Prayer of healing. So Prayer of Healing up to six creatures of your choice that you can see can get up to 2d8 plus your spellcasting ability modifier. So find that modifier and roll

2d8. It's a great spell. And this healing will be courtesy of Valkyr, the god of storms worshipped by Halcyon. Healing brought to you by Valkyr. Thanks, Valkyr, the god of storms worshipped by Halcyon. Healing brought to you by Valkyr. Thanks, Valkyr. It does sound like a sort of pharmaceutical company.

Thanks, Valkyr. Spellcasting modifier? What is that? It's one of those three. It should be near your spell. Spellcasting ability, wisdom, spell save DC, and spell attack bonus. What's the first one? Spellcasting ability. Yeah, that's it. It just says wisdom. bonus what's the first one spell casting ability is just that's it just says wisdom

so it's the wisdom it's your wisdom who's got the most damage it's you and who else took a is all messed up a dark through I don't think it's looking too good but you're down at least so everybody gets 13 back I'm done much great

thank you hell scene thank you thank you and you notice I'm down not much. Great. Thank you, Helsene. Thank you, Valkyr. Thank you, Valkyr and Helsene. You notice I'm going to do a... Do I have to cure wounds on just one person or can I throw it on all three? I'll have to check that one too. I don't need any more.

I'm at full. I'm good. I think it's just Queep, right? Oh, is everyone up full? I was severely damaged. You need more? Yes, if you have. It is a single person for Q&A.

1d8 plus your modifier. 10 points. Thank you. Great. And yeah, I was about to say, you know, as you guys, as this prayer takes place and Dr. comes over to heal Queep, you see the sort of long icy strands that Halcine had brushed away, reforming in the path behind you. Oh. So how long was that approximately?

It's been about five minutes since you came down here and engaged in battle. It feels pretty... Oh, well, so much for a rest, which I needed. Is there a place that looks like that? So we have to get through here now to rest? You think if you wanted to rest, you'd have to go down. You didn't see any crystals downwards, but you did have to clear some out in this area you just fought. Okay, so we have to keep going then, but we do need to rest soon or else it'll be pretty useless.

uh maybe we get down there it'll be pretty useless so yeah so maybe we'll move ahead with with the eye being with the idea being we're going to scout specifically for the place to yeah to try to find it how are you getting down coach it's like 10 15 feet you got a plan how about a rope cool you're gonna try to tie it to something uh how about fly one down if you climb down 10 feet you can can try. How about this? I'll chunk my axe into the ice as like an anchor. Tie a rope to the handle. People can climb down and I'll take my axe and jump down.

Great. I won't make you do a roll. But you all get down and it's very dark. Down here, the sort of light you get off the magical torch definitely helps. You see what looks like a little nest kind of wedged into a wall. I like it.

So once you get down, the ice is clearly broken up by rock. It looks like someone smashed the floor out of this stone hallway. When this ice happened, you're not sure but it looks like maybe the dragon was nesting here and you see a lot of weird little baubles and junk and rocks like stuffed

what do we search that treasure we like treasure Dan treasure and baubles search search search Jack's treasure, Dan. Treasure and baubles. Search, search, search. I'm going to detect magic. It's a thing I can do, and I'd like to do it now.

Will it make you scream again? I don't know. Will it? This is not my riddle. No, it won't. No. I'm going to investigate using my passive intelligence. What is your passive investigation? Ten.

Yes. How about your aggressive intelligence? That's not that great. You should do a straight up investigation. Can I do an active investigation? I'm just looking through the treasure. I have a plus zero to investigate. Yeah, somebody, because you're helping each other, someone can take the lead on this ransacking of the nest with

advantage. Whoever's got the best investigation. Yeah, you want to figure that out. I'm not so smart. Time to meet each other's investigation scores. I'm okay. Plus one. I have plus two. Yeah, so tikka-taka. Alright, I shall check. How's an 18 fit your britches?

Oh my gosh, it fits my britches great. All right, so you dig around in there and you find a few rings. Do you write this? I'll write it down. All right. You find three rings. Did he detect any magic on any of this stuff?

Didn't you say it didn't go well? No, it went great. Oh, okay. Yeah, there's this trio of rings are all magic. Three magic rings. Larry, Moe, and Curly. You find 15 gold.

Are any of these rings given off more than the others? No. Do you want to describe them? off more than the others? No. Do you want to describe them? Are they all the same? There's two plain rings, one silver, one gold. And there is a brass ring with a ruby set in it. Oh. Okay.

You also see... Can anyone identify these? All right, these? Absolutely. Eventually, you know. You also see, among the magic items, there's this strange feather that also

seems magic. Doctor Strange Feather. There's also a pair of gloves that look very clean. They are a sort of shimmering gold and green with long grooves along the back that sort of almost look like a spider web. Like, that's not connected. They're clearly magic. And just a pile of buttons and teeths and bones those are

not magic no but little scraps of fabric does anybody recognize the gloves does anybody know what they do looks like webbing maybe yeah I'm wondering if they're like wall crawling gloves there's webbing maybe they don't look like exactly spider webs it's um but I said they're not connected so it's like long lines like group like like like yeah yeah yeah maybe they're like you're like oh the spell i wanted is in these gloves now can i do an arcana check would that help if i did that all right can i do an arcana check all right um in the box unfortunately that was a bad roll it's a 10. all you can really tell with that is that it it almost seems magical how clean these gloves are would i have some

special feather knowledge sure do i notice anything about this this look uh do a history All right, then. One with zero plus zero. That feather's from a bird. Oh, bird feather. I like it. Yeah, but can you say it as Queep really excited about it? Oh, bird feather. Squat in the nest and try to lay an egg as the treasurer

I don't mind I can keep track but if everybody wants to take three gold pieces if we're good with just splitting them sure thank you and then cool and we just get three magic rings I can hang on to them or we can

whoever wants to hold them until we can identify them i was in the other room i love only gold do we know what they do we don't know gold one a silver one and a brass one with a ruby in it i think you'd realize right away like oh this we should find someone who can maybe identify these and the city of bozor might be a good place to do it i'd be a jeweler no but you guys nobody in our party has identified no i don't think so so you um head oh round and don't see much more in this sort of little basin but you do notice there is another wall like if you if you keep going through this little pit that's been dug and it looks like it slopes back up you see more of those crystals about 10 15 feet

up again but it looks like this was sort of like a hallway going hallway goes down and back up and back across. So we could do our rest here. Yeah, you think you could. And the dragons aren't reforming down here. The dragon's dead. That's the impression you get anyway. All right, I'll stand guard. Great.

Do a perception check while these guys rest, won't you? Your friend TikTok does not require rest the same way you do. That is a six. Everything is fine. Yeah. You see icy mist come from their mouths as they take a breather. So long rest? How long do you want to wait? Eight hours?

It's just like Prometheus where you're just alone on the ship. Are people okay with a long rest? It's fine by me. Tinkly sound is the ice crystal. So it's completely reformed. I'm going to dick around on my loot. I'm trying to learn. Dick around your loot.

Yeah, I'm going to dick around on my loot. What do you sting? What is that ditty you are playing, Dark Sir? I'm trying to learn Highway to Hell. It sounds basic, but it's hard. You're basic. No, I mean, I'm learning. Is that bad?

Well, I wasn't slamming you, but if you want to make it a slam contest. I don't want to slam. I want to learn to slam. I want to learn to slam. Darkthor, we are friends. So just because as a cleric I'm learning that I can change my list of prepared spells after a long rest.

Great. Oh, I was sleeping this whole rest. Just to be clear about if you are like, why do you have that spell? No, it's good. Good note for the listeners as well who will often wonder such things. Great. So you finish your long rest without noticing anything

TikTok. I'm going to make some coffee. You guys want coffee? I'll tell you. I'm going to make some coffee. That's funny. Are you going to continue down the tunnel? Is everybody up to speed? Yeah. So let's go heft yourselves up yes

hal seen i assume continues to cast uh her cantrip where she can blow aside the crystals without touching them and you make it uh through sort of the thicket of this it goes on for about 50 feet the hallway then continues uh for a while and you go for about two hours down the hallway you notice there's no more sort of obsidian dwarves inlaid in the walls with gems in them it's more of a plain hallway at this point um and uh you you wonder if maybe that's the reason why the dragon set its nest up there because there there were there were maybe, you know, certain aspects of gems inlaid in the walls that appealed to a dragon. And it stopped when the gem stopped. Dragons eat gems, y'all.

So you head down for a while and you notice some stairs. That head down some stone stairs and the ice is gone, right? Like it's now you're just in a dark tunnel again. And it's clearly a tunnel made by dwarves, the sort of stones and... Can I just check again for tracks just to make sure we're on the right trail and everything? You see a lot of footprints.

You see what looks like dozens of beings have been here recently. And you hear down the stairs, it's dark down the stairs and the stairs go down long enough where you can't see what sort of room is on the other side of them you just hear very quietly is that not playing

let me try that again you hear very quiet I don't hear anything it's a loud eater those are mouth sounds is it is it it's michael winslow just like an asmr thing is there is there someone making asmr youtube videos at the bottom of these stairs is that you want to roll a check because that'd be what's happening that is what's asmr it's people who flick a brush bristle. Do you not know about ASMR? No.

It's like audio sensitivity, something, something. People that get turned on by chewing sounds or like to hear very delicate sounds like scissors, like hair being brushed. Wait, they get turned on by that? Or they're soothed by it. I prefer that. It. Or they're soothed by it. I prefer that. It's like intimacy porn.

Yeah. They like whisper and it like makes the, they say the hairs go up on the back of their neck. But to me, that's like, well,

why would you do that on purpose? I don't know. I'm cynical that way. It's fine. I'm not trying to delegitimize your ASMR. When they're fucking weirdos. And hey,

listeners, we're all a bunch of fucking weirdos over here. How dare you? Yeah, you hear the chewing noises. Oh, yeah, I'm not kink shaming. We're not trying to yucky or yum, as they say. Who says that? Yucky or yum?

I'm going to shame anybody that says that. If you say yucky or yum, I shame you. Those are two words that no one should say once they graduate kindergarten. Sounds like you're trying to yell at the cook at pea soup Anderson. That is a phrase, though, that I have heard people say. What are you going to do about these chompy noises?

Hey, don't yuck my yum there. You are sneaky. Yes. Can you sneak to the bottom of the stairs? Yeah. Do a stealth check, Dark. There's somebody down there. Is that where the sound is coming from? Yeah.

Well, could I dread ambush them? Oh, maybe. Dread ambush. I believe that would involve definitely an attack of some kind. So let me. Well, right. We don't know if they're bad right my stealth is 13 plus oh shit he's very stealthy that's a 19 damn all right so one second for just

for the sake of it let's look up dread ambush because i know i have um i have a little thing about it this is yeah we i don't know if i am attacking this person so i'm probably just going down to check them out sure sure and with that stealth which is really great uh and so so it says here dread ambusher you add your wisdom modifier plus three to initiative rolls at the start of your first turn of each combat your walking speed increases by 10 feet which lasts until the end of that turn if you take the attack action you can make one additional weapon attack that deals an extra 1d 1d8 that's great damage of the weapons damage uh type on. So what that would mean in this case is since you're probably going to have

the element of surprise on whatever this is, I get extra points. You could sneak right up on it and stab it for just catastrophic amounts of damage. Yeah. Without it necessarily knowing. We don't know if it's a bad guy.

We're kind of expecting it is, right? Could it not be a bad guy? Tweet, fly ahead. Ah, shit. We got that season two campaign blues. I can fly ahead, but not sneakily. I can sneak ahead, but not fly away. You run ahead.

At this point, dark turns to the bottom of the stairs, and you're not. You can't see what it is? I have not had an opportunity to speak yet. He's trying to speak. Go speak. Let him in. You get to the bottom of the stairs, and you don't draw the attention of this chewing sound source.

But you get to the bottom of the stairs, and you see a big, stone room and there are three doorways three archways there's no doors just archways uh and they're giant there's very tall ceiling ceiling seems to go hundreds of feet straight up and there is a very thin beam of sunlight coming down through it so even though you know your many stories beneath the earth, you just see this beam of sunlight hitting the middle of this circular room. And yeah, three tall archways. There's one to the left, one to the right, and one straight ahead.

And above each archway, there is something written in Dwarven. You don't know what it says because you don't speak Dwarven, which we have established a couple of episodes in a row. But you see the door to the right, the archway to the right. There is a pile of charred bodies. And kneeling near the bodies, there is a form in a cloak of some kind. It's hunched over. It doesn't look like it's hunched over a body, like it's feeding on a body or anything.

But it's just kind of twitching and it's got it's back to you twitching and you hear more gnawing sounds from there from the hooded hunched over figure that has it's back to you how does that not seem like he's chewing on a body

because there's as far as you can see no body near it. They're scattered around it, but like 10 feet away. He might just be a grinder. Yeah, maybe. Or he has a drumstick. It's got a handful of face. Yeah.

Or mouth parts. Gibbering mouth parts. He's very nervous. First of all, I can tell you more about what you see if you want to stop and look before you uh do a perception check sure uh eight so you only kind of notice it looks like something horrible happened in the doorway to the right it looks like these bodies uh were either knocked out by flame or they were on fire and crawled out you just see black tracks leading from the archways to the bodies and there's there's footsteps imprinted in ash

around the bodies does it go to uh the creature that's gnawing on his uh hangnails a little bit yeah um god well my old characters would have just but i just murdered it immediately yeah i'm trying to figure darks are out hmm well he is a fucking yeah okay yeah uh well he is a fucking okay yeah he creeps up on this guy and stabs him holy shit

so it's about 50 feet away so you're gonna need to do another stealth check across the floor I stepped on these frosted flakes 12 okay 12 on the first one so um

you get you know uh a little more than halfway there and it stops chewing and it very slowly like just sort of turns its well this is back around and looks at you. And you just see this sort of ash-covered face with little red eyes. Some kind of elf.

And it goes, oh, hi. Here we go again. How far away are these guys? They're up the stairs, unless you guys want to declare that you were trying to sneak down. I feel like we'd be waiting for some signal from you. Yeah, we were waiting for him to let us know. How long has it been?

What's my feeling off this thing? Like two minutes tops. I don't think we'd wait much longer. I think you all would have heard at the bottom of the stairs like a couple hundred feet down and just, just oh hi. It's not like me. It's not a drought. It's not. You said it was an elf or half elf? What'd you say it was? Great question.

I said it's elven so why not? It's got ash all over its face. Why don't you do oh it's a good one to do. Let's just do an insight check. Do an insight check for me darker. Very low DC on this though i'm just curious uh a nine sweet the number i had was an eight it's a drow bro okay but she's just got ash like splashed across her face so her normally probably dark skin has just got like black ash

all over it too do I recognize her? no she's got red eyes and she says oh hi hi hello this is adorable

this is the meet cute shut up I'm trying to figure out what he would ask or where This is adorable. This is the meet cute. Shut up. I'm trying to figure out what he would ask her. But he doesn't get any. Does hell have a trap door? She is smiling. Right. She doesn't seem like she's in danger at this point.

There's no blood dripping off of her face. All right. Yeah. I start descending the stairs. She says, very well. Shall I introduce myself first? Sure. Yeah.

Hello. Hi. He keeps saying hello. You still haven't introduced yourself. Remember? Wait, what? She seems a little confused. Dark Thirstury. Hello. Oh, confused. Dark Thirstury, hello.

Oh, hello, Dark Thirstury. I'm Hoshinka. Hi, Hoshinka. She walks up to you and offers her hand to shake your hand. Where are you from? Are they called tribes? No. No, I think they're either clans or sects or something.

What clan? Oh, I don't know anymore. Oh, you've been down here a while i think so okay hi let me call my friends okay guys friends i just got a text we better get downstairs uh when she goes to shake your hand she kind of like hobbling towards you okay and you realize she's missing the bottom half of one of her legs. It looks like it's been like burned off. Also, there's just a lot of explosive looking damage to her armor. She looks like a pretty rough shape, but she's in a good mood.

What happened down here? I'm not sure, man. You have no recollection or? No. It was a long time ago. No, I don't know what's going on. Are we down there? Yeah.

She looks at all of you and says, hi. Do you remember what happened to your foot? Seems like you would. She looks down and goes, oh, no. That's it. She looks up at you and says hi i know i'm hoshenka i knock an arrow i keep really she sees you do it and kind of stumbles backwards it's all i've got falls down far yeah are you are you are you in pain at all she goes ah, ah. Shell shocked. A little bit. A little bit. She feels her leg and she goes, oh, looks bad. Oh, this looks bad.

Maybe we could do that. She doesn't know how long she's been down here. Can you heal? Can someone? Why is she smiling? She should be in agony. Something's wrong. Something is wrong.

Yes. She's kind of looking back and forth at all of you. And she goes, oh, I think I've been down here a while. I pray to Valkyr for some guidance with this. Do a religion check. Okay. She's a drow like me. Six.

Yeah, you just hear the gentle sounds of the ocean breeze. I detect, well, drows are always evil right not necessarily but i would say a solid 90 of the time look at lovely dark okay so i detect evil uh no you actually don't detect any evil uh-huh and what about the room in general is like one of the doorways uh what's the range on detective that's a great 30 foot sphere there's no evil within a 30 foot uh this room is a little bigger than 30 feet but nothing in this room seems evil okay can i try to bind her wounds uh yeah so you you notice this stump where her her knee used to be does look like it's been um uh hurt pretty bad but it looks like somehow it's been patched up um and while you're doing it you you kind of look like it kind of you realize it looks like someone

did bind her wounds already um and um just a quick glance around it looks like a lot of people have been through here maybe even since she's been here and if they've just kind of left her here this looks like perhaps what the dwarves at the main stone door, the sort of mercenaries who took a toll from you guys, told you would be like different directions you could go in. And

perhaps stuck at this crossroads, there has been this confused drow and her corpse buddies for a while. What's your name again? Hoshinka. Hoshinka. Hi. Hoshinka, hi.

I am TikTok, the mechanical man. Hello. Hello. Do you speak Dwarvish? I don't know what that is. Can you read those words written above the arches? She comes up and just blinks, and she's like, oh, I don't know.

It looks, looks real hard. Whatever that is. Hmm. Hmm. Do you remember anyone else coming through here? Hoshinka? She says,

Oh, Oh no, I don't, I only remember two things. I got them written down and she shows you her forearms. She has clawed into her right arm, Hoshinka, and she has clawed into her left forearm, Kev.

What is Kev? Oh, I worship Kev. Anybody know anything about Kev? It's the god Kevin. None of you recognize Kev. And there's a beat of awkwardness while y'all think about just how weird it is she says she worships Kev. And she says, do you want to see Kev. And there's a beat of awkwardness while y'all think about just how weird it is. She says she worships Kev. And she says, do you want to see Kev?

Yes. Kevin Bacon. Did you show Kev to everyone else who came through here? All these burned people. I don't remember. She slowly reaches into a bag on her hip. She opens the bag.

I don't want to meet Kev. I do, so you guys can go away if you... She reaches in. She takes out an old rotten sandwich. She says, it's just me and Kev down here. And she starts picking at it and eating it and making little wet chewing noises. I feel bad for her.

And there we will call the episode, you guys. Hey, Sam, you've been listening to this episode so far? Hi, everybody. I have been. What do you think has happened on this episode of NerdPoker? I'll tell you exactly what I remember. Everybody ignored

Brian's Dr. Feelgood reference for a full 10 minutes, and then we went to Saladino's. feel good reference for the full ten minutes and then we went to saladinos uh the flame blade sealed the deal that i officially can't tell this apart from game of thrones uh brian made the same doctor feel good joke several more times and no one bit there's a dragon and his wing is hurt the kiss reference went unnoticed and now brian only looks at me when he makes metal references we're opening a jar because this game is uneven and

excitement and the dragon attacked dark there also if you can take healing breaks just take them all the time d.a.d advice there's a key for there's a brass ring can got a bird feather and can is a bird

Brian's got a loot. Dan's mouth sound effects reminded me when you guys used to record at Earwolf and you would get those meatball sandwiches before you came in. There's a hunched over Blair Witch person and she's in rough shape, but in a good mood. Sam, everybody. To be fair, the jar was a metaphor.

Yeah, it was a metaphor for how much damage that Halcine had done to the boss. Cool. He doesn't care. He thinks it's boring. You started this explaining thing. He thinks it's very boring. No, I like this.

I love jars. Thanks for listening. All right. Thanks for listening to another episode of Nerd Poker poker you can follow us at patreon.com slash nerd poker and you get bonus episodes from there and you can also uh send us anything at p.o box one six zero six nine encino california nine one four one six thanks for listening.