Nerd Poker - Episode 56 - Who Watches The Watcher

Episode Date: February 18, 2020

There's one more stretch of giant-infested land for the Ice Five to cross before they can cross the abyss into Donkeyland, and wouldn't you know it, not every roll goes perfectly. Given Nerd Poker's history with giants and diplomacy, it couldn't be that Dan is out for revenge with these monsters, could it? Nah, PROBABLY not.

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, Kev, Dan, Blaine, Chris. Now it's time for another episode of Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Season three. Hey, everybody.

I'm Brian Poussaint. You're listening to Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Episode 56. My friends are here. Hi, Chris. Hi, Brian. Sarah. Hello. My friends are here Hi Chris Hi Brian Sarah Hello

Ken Hi Dan Hi Eye contact everybody Blaine Hi Brian At the end of the table

Sam Hi everyone Makes a difference Hi, Brian. At the end of the table. Sam. Hi, everyone. Makes a difference. I don't know if everybody heard the eye contact. I felt it. I felt like I was losing the pack leader position with some wolves stirring that eye contact. Really?

Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah. Look at that eye contact. This is good audio. Snort. Go to Paris, France. What happened in episode 5-5?

I won't tell you. First, I'm going to tell you. I don't really care. I'd rather hear about people that support our show. I'm so glad that's what's happening instead. Yeah, that's what I meant. Yeah, well, cool. So we get supported by folks who go like the Patreon supporters with

usernames that go a little something like Unicornius. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Dark Thursday's closet. Thank you. Glenn. Glenn.

Head crash. Sugden. Thank you. Thank you. Excuse me. Matt Tesla coil. Thankden. Thank you. Excuse me. Matt Tesla Coil. Thank you. Thank you. Funky Ball of Tits from Outer Space. Any relation to Wicker Bean?

Yes. Thank you. Just Some Anonymous Martin. Thank you. Voodoo Beef. Thank you. Nordic Viking Name. Thank you. New Tans, who's been giving us some really cool battle music. Thank you. Thank you. Todd Rollins. Thank you. Jeremiah, that kid Blaine incinerated due deck.

Whoa! And now he's got a name. Jeremiah, that kid incinerated Blaine incinerated. Jeremiah was a due deck. Bound out. Sorry. Yeah. Thank you, Snaginthus' blue tentacle beard. I'll say. Thank you, Brendan Smythe. Thanks. Thank you, Nick Vucelich.

I love crazy Megan. Thank you, Mike Vucelich. I love crazy. Thank you, Mike Cribier. Thanks. Thanks, Mike. Thank you, Jim Price. Yeah, thank you. The Southern Dandy. Thank you. How scenes dragon counseling service LLC. Oh, boy. And thank you. Funny name here. Thank you. Funny name. Thank you. Thanks.

Hey, who are those supporters brought to us by those are brought to you by Vitamin, Vitamin, Vitamin Hut. You need a vitamin down your gut. Our fully trained staff's going to show you what's what. We're inviting you into the Vitamin Hut. Vitamin Hut, Lower East Wing. I didn't realize I was a vampire and I needed to be invited into Vitamin Hut.

Well, yeah, you know, it's like the Magic Castle. You got to know somebody to get in, but you got to know somebody else to get out. That's what they don't tell you about the Magic Castle. You're officially kidnapped as soon as you go inside. Yeah, you go in there. It is like an escape room. They make you vanish. I get it.

You know what else I get? What happened last time on Nerd Poker? The Ice Five executed two giants and three behirs, their weird dragon-like slithery centipede dragon thingies. They're a big old mishmash of body parts, and now they're strewn across the bloody forest snow. The Ice Five found some abyss droppers, abyss droppers being heroes of Donkey Land. Halflings that go by names like Buckham's Dongledee,

Pezzy Dinkleshine, Blurg Periwinkle, and Plinka Tonkalu. Along with these folk, you headed east to Donkey Land only to discover via your scout Gus the Pseudodragon giants were encroaching upon you from the north. Four of them, along with two new Bahir, you decided via Dr. Uid's slinky times ideas that you would head survival and stealth-like southeast across a cliff face in the hopes of ditching the coming ambush.

So you guys are going to go do that. You're in the forest, and the forest kind of rises up in a mini cliff. The cliff is only 20 feet high. So it's not unlike this, but long. So if I could just rearrange our styrofoam here and take these guys, we moved to Littlefellers so

yes so if we could just imagine if you will this is one cliff face oh cool imagine if you will I can't imagine it along that way with the abyss droppers

trying to and this is the north so they're you know somewhere in this direction this is not quite how close they are there are giants headed towards you well let's let's I'm assuming

the abyss also they're like this high up like this is actually level so they will be coming kind of like like I'm sure the abyss. Also, they're, you know, they're like this high up. Like this is this is actually level. So they will be coming kind of like I'm sure they're telling us to. Vamoose, right? They don't think we need to make a stand. The abyss dwell droppers. Well, we could make a stand. Do you think we should?

No. Okay, let's get out of here. There's too many of them. Good. Let's go. Four and two. I mean, we could try to, but that's how we got knocked down last time. We prefer better terrain than this.

Do you guys see Queep's figure on the other side of there? No. What the hell? Oh, is that him? Is that him right there? He got stuck to a giant's leg. What the eef? What the eef?

Get Tom DiReto the tiefling out of this season right now. Sorry about that. Where did that voice come from? Hey, Tom, do you think those giants, what are they? Are they family? They're fucking assholes. Bye, Tom DiReto. Anyway, you're going to all need to roll stealth to try to get across.

Oh, that again. 14. Steals. Hey, what'd you get, Ken? Eight. Sarah? Batch. Oh, what'd you get?

19. 14. 20. Okay. as you go Halcyon you kind of look over your shoulder and you just notice you once

kind of dragged your foot in the dirt and like a minute went by but when you look over your shoulder behind it you just see this

cloud of dirt and dust kind of rising up above the 20 foot cliff and higher knowing you're probably in some way giving away that someone is traveling cast gust of oh no i guess if i got a one i can't do anything that's not true oh okay but it but by the time you notice it it is 20 feet higher

i mean higher than 20 feet so like they you could do something to reduce it so it doesn't continue for sure but it's already that high um yeah, but only briefly, right? What do you mean? The gust of wind is only brief? No, I'm saying it rose up that high, but if they were looking the other direction, they might not have seen it. Maybe not.

Okay, I cast Gust of Wind. Oh, never mind. It's starting from me. God darn. Forget it. How far does the gust go, though? It doesn't matter. It's going away from me.

That's not helpful. You think it would at least dissipate it. I mean, it's coming up, you know. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah. It's like a... Okay. Don't aim it at those wind chimes, though. A Roadrunner Wile E. Coyote kind of puff of...

Okay. And just for fun, I'm just going to keep it going because it can last up to a minute. Okay. So I'm just going to be shooting air straight up out of my body, I guess. What? But that's what it does. Keep it in your dice tower, please. I mean, a line of strong wind, 60 feet long and 10 feet wide,

blasts from you in a direction you choose for the spell's duration. But it can push people away, so if they come close... I try and lean into it for a second and make my cheeks all go like... Like a dog in a window. Then you need to do a strength saving throw or you're going to be pushed 15 feet away.

Oh, I don't want to do that. Where's Gus right now, Tick Tock? I'm assuming he's crouching on my shoulder unless he wants to patrol. I mean, he's up for anything. I think if you could scout around, it would really help us, pal. Where do you want me to scout? I think maybe because of what Halcine did,

maybe keep an eye sort of directly in that direction to see if it did in fact attract attention. Roll perception for Gus. Oh, 13 total of 16. Oh, 13 is what time? So a total of 16. Yeah, it looks like they are about where our

camp was and they're deciding what to do next. It's unclear if they know what happened. I hear them speaking in giant, which I do not understand. Well, you should learn that language. Oh, man, if you give me the Rosetta Stone, I'd appreciate it, boss. So they've just discovered Two dead giants

And three dead dragon things Well no, that's different from where you guys set up camp They found where we slept There is a solid chance though that they know about that Well then maybe they'll be scared Maybe, what you looking up there, Chris? I'm just seeing if he can understand multiple languages because if he can maybe he could understand the giants but i'm looking it up

so let's keep going or if you have any if anyone has a spell where you could translate it via his telepathy that's a possibility also does anybody have a translate spell i'll look it up no i don't have so. So how long do you want to try to travel? This cliff is going to run out pretty soon. It's only going to go like another mile or so, and then it's going to flatten out. I mean, shouldn't we just follow it as long as it goes? Yeah, but how long do you plan on traveling?

I mean, right now we're about noon. I think we just got to keep, right? If we know they're behind us, we should just be going. Okay, let's get a survival check for everybody. Hey, I'm going to put on my insect gauntlets to get ready to dig maybe yeah just in case i need to don't forget we have that little rope trick if we need to oh true right oh that might got an hour of hiding in an emergency sure 18 all, what'd you get, Sarah? This is survival? Yes. 19? Much higher this time. One better than Ken.

I got an 11. 15. 17 plus three. Nice. Was that survival? Yes. My mistake, it was a 13. You actually made pretty good time.

You get past the cliff. You're starting to head east. You kind of realize it's a good idea to get into some denser woods. As you head in there, Gus says, All right, they definitely picked the trail up, and they are following us east along the cliff face. I don't think they've seen us or me,

but you might want to roll a stealth check for me next time because they have found some kind of, not right now, but next time, because I think we're all going to have to be super sneaky because they have found some kind, not right now, but next time because I think we're all going to have to be super sneaky because they're on some kind of trail. Maybe now's a good time for Darkthor's clever rope trick. The way we got rid of that dragon before.

They do look like they are maybe only an hour behind us. They're long striding. Well, let's wait until, let's have Gus give us a clue when they're really, really close. And then we go up into that thing and let them go by. Yeah.

I mean, he tells you this after you're in the woods. So yeah, you're, you can kind of get between some trees if you want and hide and wait. But shouldn't we do it at the last possible second? Yeah. So we should go like another 20 minutes or something and try to time it

with them catching up with us. Sure. And get all organized. Do we want to try and do the low to the ground thing? They're giants, but they got those worms. So I don't know how much that's going to fool. Oh, is that what's tracking us? If they do that, they're going to smell us right up to our thing.

Yeah, that's the thing. So maybe we keep moving. That's why they call them dogs. Well, the gust of wind, huh? Do you still have your gust of wind going can it blow our smell away is that what you're asking yeah maybe it could blow some of our smells i don't know ask brian he can blow into blow into the dice tower again what sure he's joking about your burp trumpet sarah's joking he can blow a point oh shit we need to leave a what we should be doing is trying to leave like a fake trail,

right? Um, or we want to be like floating up into, is there like water? Can we cross something, you know, purposely try to, why doesn't everybody do a nature check to try to figure out if there's

any natural terrain you can use to your advantage? Uh, start with you. Ken. I don't know what that number was. You said, but you can use to your advantage. Start with you, Ken. A 12. I don't know what that number was you said, but it sounded close to a 12. Yeah. Alright. I got a natural 20 plus one. Nice. Fuck.

Alright, what'd you get? 12. 19. 11. Alright. Alright, Halseen, you find that there's not only a river just a little bit to the north, but it looks like it goes into Donkey Land and it's flowing in the direction of Donkey Land.

It's about half a mile north. You think it's going to take just enough time where the giants will almost be on top of you if you head in that direction as fast as you can. Do we have her through some trees like looking around you see you see animal tracks and you can just see

it in the distance between the trees. You see animal tracks, and you can just see it in the distance between the trees. You could just swim down, too. You've got to run to it. And we have water walking. How long does that last? We all have water walking?

You can fly. I'm not even worried about that. I cast it on enough of us to get away oh i see they both have anything is it enough for the uh abyss droppers also and there are war donkeys um hang on i'm looking sure wish i had war donkey minis you guys me too got 3d print those for a hundred dollars he just picked that up on hero forge see if you can make a war donkey. Somebody do something. Hey, Blaine, what is this? Oh, this spell grants the ability

to move across any liquid surface, such as water, acid, mud, snow, quicksand, or lava. Oh, quicksand. Good jokes. As if it were harm to solid ground. Wouldn't it be better to just take the current? I wonder if it would be faster. You don't have anything boats. I mean, by the way, I'm just assuming you're running.

No, I'm just saying if we jump in and let the current take us. Yeah, what if we just let the, because the water would also theoretically get rid of any track, right? If we're in the water. At this point, are you going to try to sprint or are you going to try to be a little stealthy as you head toward the river? I think we have to sprint or.

Sprinting is the only guaranteed way you think that you'll get there based on Gus's intel. Let's sprint. I can break for it. Up to 10 willing creatures you can see within range gain this ability for the duration. And it's an hour. All right.

So let's get survival checks from everybody. Nobody under a five. Running to the river. 13. All right. 22. And you want me to roll one for Gus, right?

No stealth at this point. You're foregoing for speed. So, okay. He's just going to fly. I would get Sarah five. All right. That was very close.

What'd you get? 24. What'd you get? 22. Damn. Gross. Yep. You guys make it,

uh, again, healthy and just barely, uh, as you sprint, you get to the river. It, it,

it is rapids and you can tell that it's going to go, uh, around quite a few bends that are hard to read. It's, it's rocky terrain in the water. The river is, you can just get it. Like Blaine's going to cast water walk,

right? So we just keep basically sprinting down the river then? Yeah. Again, how many beings can you cast it on? Ten. So that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Yeah, you can do it. Let's do it.

I'll fly. All right. So you fly. That brings it down to eight just for the people keeping track of people who are waterwalking. How long does that last, Blaine? An hour. An hour. So we can walk out across the water to Lund's Crafters.

As you guys start sprinting down the river, it's tough. You're not going as fast as you'd like because it's like running on mud. You know, like it's the foam of the river keeps hitting you. None of the water is level. So you're constantly risking turning an ankle on it even though you're walking on water. It does say, just so you know, that it grants the ability to move across any liquid surface,

water, acid, mud, snow, lava, as if it were harmless, solid ground. Yes. Okay, all right. But because it is very uneven, it is like walking around solid but very uneven ground. So you're moving it basically even if you're even a full sprint it's you're getting your distance reduced a little

bit uh gus reports after you guys go around a couple of bends that the giants indeed make it all the way to the river and are currently investigating it trying to figure out what you guys did cool uh that does not however sound like an answer to the problems, as Gus also reports, that they look like they're looking down the river in both directions. Boss, I think it's pretty likely they're going to think we got in a boat or something at least. I would think that, but hopefully we're not leaving a trail for them to follow. Correct.

We could have got across. But they're probably going to run down the river anyway Yeah they're not going to just assume that we got in a boat But then that means we should pop off the river at some point right? Yeah we should maybe just get Get onto the other side And stake out like maybe a Maybe a base or something

Or a hiding place Yeah can we like look around And see if there's an area to And then we have it and as they get close we can i was gonna say we should just do your rope thing while we're on then we're just hovering above the water but we can only do that for an hour but then i can cast water walk again but there won't be any trail let's do that scent wise that's a great idea all right so you're gonna throw up rope trick right over the

water but we're gonna wait until gus tells us that they're like all right guys so can i add a wrinkle to this can he cast the rope thing from underwater so the entrance the rope climbing up would actually be the hole would be underwater uh it will partially fill with water however deep it is so like if this is the water level and you can cast the hole this far the the little pocket dimension you guys are gonna be that deep with water i mean i think you guys will be wet i i think that would that's pretty smart i think that way they can't find the entrance to find it yeah yeah. Yeah, it's good. Okay. So as you guys go, you get about 45 minutes into your hour

when Gus says, yeah, they're sprinting on the, you know... No, we were going to wait until Gus told us they were getting close and then start our hour. Correct.

Okay. But you're 45 minutes into your hour of water walking. Oh, I see. Okay. Before Gus says, they're gaining ground on you. They've started heading east down the river in your hour of water walking oh i see okay before gus says they're gaining ground on you they've started heading east down the river in your direction and he gives it about you know

10 minutes he thinks before okay let's do it let's get in position and do it okay uh as soon as you do it you realize it's gonna be very hard to get the war donkeys underwater and up into this hole but uh you cast Rope Trick and everybody gets in there except the Abyss Trappers who are like, Can't you abandon your donkeys for this moment to live? Or are they your partners?

Why can't they come? The donkeys just don't want to go underwater into this hole. We just can't. We're trying. We're dragging them and they won't do it. Can they survive on their own? Can you talk to animals? Just imagine it.

I cannot talk to animals. Too little. Too little. Got me a movie. You can't make them go into the hole? They're trying. You're hole they're trying you're saying they're stubborn if you want

some one of you can try to do something but yes right now they're I have animal handling can I try and help animal handle

an animal so do I guys try to get those donkeys one of you oh yeah I have an animal handling one of you three whoever wants to do it I'm not proficient in it.

Only one person gets to roll. I have a very high proficiency in it. Either way, it doesn't really matter who's doing what. Somebody just has to. Well, if he has a proficiency, he can roll twice. Everybody's talking at once and rolling. So we got to dial us back. You're rolling with a 19.

Did you roll with advantage? No, I rolled. Roll a second time, please. Just roll again. Another 19. Okay. Yeah, you can get the donkeys, but they're almost on top of you.

You can't see them yet, but Gus is freaking out. Gus is like, I'm going to go hide in a tree. And you get up in there. Gus says they run right past you. You guys are soaking wet up to your ankles. The donkeys are pissed off. And yeah, Gus says they are heading all the way down the river. Can I give a little jerky to the war donkeys?

Like, that's okay. That's okay. Do another animal handling trick. Give a little what? A little jerky. A little treat. A little salami? No. Damn. They could have a little jerky. A little treat. A little salami? No.

Damn. They could have a little salami. It's an 18. Yeah. They cheer up a little bit. It's okay. It was weird when we were underwater. It's okay.

It was weird when we were underwater. All right. The rope trick goes on. Gus keeps reporting. They're still going. They. Gus keeps reporting they're still going. They're still going. They're still going. They appear to not even be thinking of whether or not they're on ascent at this point. They just assume they're eventually going to catch up to you.

And you come down to 10 minutes left on the rope trick. All right. Maybe we should get out of this thing. All right. So you're going to cast Water Walk again? Do you want me to do it this time? Well, do we want to go after the giant or do we want to go up on it?

Yeah, we should probably cut out anyway. Yeah, cut out and hit like an angle to approach Donkey Land at an angle. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. Which way are you going to go? North or south of the river? The donkey land is east.

Where did we come from to the river? South. We came from the south. So we'll go north of the river. Okay. You said north? Sound good? Mm-hmm. Okay. Everyone's super soaked, wet again as you walk across the water eventually, but first have to go again underwater to get out of

Darkthor's little rope trick pocket dimension you close the dimension up setting up just trying to get ready to move again you know at whatever pace Gus oh wait I have an idea before we go can I do something of course before we go

I want to go to the other side of the river and I want to like stomp a bunch of tracks and leave leave a bunch of things going off into the forest. Make a big mess? Isn't that a good idea? Or will that just tell them where we got out? I will let you roll a deception check with advantage to try to go across the river and leave a trail heading south. I think any trick is a good idea. I'll let you actually pick. You can do deception or performance. All the same to me, so.

Walk in a direction and then walk backwards. Two 19s in a row. Nice. In your footprints, like Shelley DeVos. Yeah, you feel like you've made,

you've made a pretty, you know, convincing trail heading to make it look like you managed to turn some rocks over or leave a whole bunch of footprints with the assistance of the donkeys and like it looks

like it kind of goes into some rocks where it wouldn't leave tracks but it could follow a sort of path south. Okay. Fingers crossed. Start heading north. North it's rockier. You're kind of if you want to, anyone got a Clottenheim map?

Can I point some stuff out to you on a Clottenheim map? Give me a pencil and I'll point to the map. See, Clottenheim, Thomas Guide. You're getting right up in here. But like you're, here, again, somebody pencil, pencil. Can you hand me sarah's or something somebody okay you're you're like right here so you're almost to donkey land proper and it's just rocky there's uh very little grass it's all stone the donkeys have no problem with

it but you guys are a little slow they seem like they're adapted to this sort of terrain. You're heading in and... I asked them if they have any techniques they could share with us. Well, what do you want in the way of techniques, the proud people of Donkey Land? No many techniques that we cannot teach you so simply. Well, I'll do something that maybe would help it so we all were faster on these rocks. Those of you who could fly could teach the rest to fly.

Wow, nice one. Do some push-ups. Want to do some push-ups? Get strong. Lift yourself up on some rocks faster. You're suddenly kind of an asshole don't really have any techniques that I can save from the jaws

of death just saying you're about to see a bloodbath donkey land is full of terror and death I hope you're ready and that was your prep yes okay I

stop selling I've seen some real shit out there in donkey land what will tell us what what are we what can we expect the giants often have wings and can leap from cliff face to cliff face so must we uh we often have to feather fall deep into the cliffs and then we have secret teleportation stations that allow us to go higher back up but we'll have to go deep into the ground. Station stations. It's dangerous

to try to get into inner donkey land to one of its cities. Can we feather fall? Is that a thing that we can... Well, it's a very specialized spell that we are trained in. I suppose if one of you was a wizard, you could

learn it. Got a couple here. I'm not a wizard. Nope. I mean, you're magical. I can tell none of you are wizards. Not to be a dick. You wouldn't want to cross that threshold. Forgive me, it's just the attitude that some of us from the town of Clippity have.

You know, we're not like those nice folk from Clompity. They all have resting dick face. Pretty much. Are we there yet? Also active balls face. No, you guys start heading east, and you're getting pretty close. And I'm going to have have can you do a perception check for

not all of you for Gus Gus is the only one who could possibly see a certain thing except queeps flying right 17 how high up you flying I don't want to fly that high because I don't want to be seen by the giants you don't want to twist your ankle on a rock well he's flying enough

to be over the rocks but not try to be out of the way. You got a what? 17. 17. So he says, hey, boss, there's something real weird walking around the head. Well, tell me, boss. It looks kind of like a giant. It's giant sized.

It has one arm. It has a giant eye and tentacles. No mouth. And it's walking with a cane. Kind of limping around but it's got tentacles with eyeballs coming out of it. It's just kind of walking. And it walks with a cane? Real

slow. It's big old eyeball just darting back and forth. Is that familiar to us? I know. But it does sound sort of like a beholder giant of some kind. So that might be whatever the commander of this area. I ask the abyss droppers. Is that what?

Yeah, that sounds like a watcher. They're heavily mutated giants whose jobs it only is to lock down people. to giants whose jobs it only is to lock down people. They can cast spells on you that eliminate your ability to cast your own magic and then paralyze you for capture. They're what got us.

A watcher, yes. They're like a giant that's more beholder than giant, but they're huge. Are they vulnerable to anything in particular? Theater? They can pretty much look at you and cancel out any spell so they're not very good with magic uh they could take a lot of damage but they're not that hard to hit so if you could theoretically just run up to and start chopping the hard part is it can speak telepathically to giants and call in for reinforcements if it sees you. And is it safe to assume if we see a Watcher, there are other giants in its telepathic proximity?

It's a good point. Probably within a couple of miles, there's some sort of outpost. That's how far it can speak? Yes. Wow. Okay. Good to know. far it can speak yes wow okay good to know and gus lets you know it looks like it's alone but it's just sort of like you know limping across the rocks it's big eye kind of looking to the

east and south and west just kind of gazing back and forth so do we want to kill it avoid it maybe avoid it right um if you guys want to try to avoid it, you're going to have to kind of sneak between the rocks, and you're going to have to do it from a safe distance. This might help us. Did you ever fully attune to that piece of coral? I don't think you did, and we don't know what that does. What piece of coral?

The second of the druidic uh relics remember the we've got the giant dragon skull that you use you got it under underwater with that titan thing that was underneath i believe you're partially attuned yeah we found we you you were like an hour shy of attuning oh right right would you like to stop and try to attune yourself to this coral yeah i could do that why don't you do an Arcana check? And you are proficient, yes? Yes, 18 plus 5. Oh, fuck.

23, yeah. So holding this piece of glowing coral, you suddenly feel something very powerful coursing through your arm, and you realize you can use this coral like a wand, and you're not sure how often you can do it, but you think every once in a while, maybe only once like a week, even you can cast a spell called Lehman's tiny hut.

Oh, and that it recharges after say a week or so. Nice. Okay. And how long was that hut last? Uh, let me look that spell up for you. Hey,

Blaine, what was this lookup brought to us by? You know what? I wasn't really able to get any sponsors lined up for tonight's episode. What? I was busy. I got a suit at the men's warehouse. Yeah?

Yeah. It had a remarkable fit. Okay. But when I went out... remarkable fit. Okay. But when I went out to the Emmys, I slipped

and I fell in some shit. That's a bummer. So I was busy having that dry cleaned. How's your beard, though? You know what you might want to use to clean it is shaving cream. It'll clean all your shit shaving cream

it's a b-side from grandpa metal thank you how great would that be if you put that as a bonus track? Is it too late? It is. The next record. Bonus download. You guys can have Lehman's Tiny Hut run for eight hours. Groovy. A 10-foot radius immobile dome of force will spring into existence above and around you and remain stationary. Formerly Lehman's Radio Shack. above and around you and remain stationary.

Formerly Leomond's Radio Shack. So you can use it, but it's stationary. Sorry. Can we head south or head east without catching this beholder's giant eye? Is that discussed? It's walking south. It's east of you. In theory, you could say, find a spot, let it pass. It's going to pass us south it's east of you in theory you could say find a spot let it pass

it's gonna pass us and then let's do that yeah okay are you gonna try and get any closer before you cast it or are you gonna do it from here you're again oh i didn't think we're gonna cast anything i thought we're just waiting to just hide we're just gonna hide okay all right i'm All right, I'm going to have everybody do a stealth check. 17. Hey, Ken, what'd you get? A four. Sarah? 14.

22. I know what Blaine got. What'd you get, Brian? 18. Okay. uh but no way blaine got what'd you get 18 okay um so what'd you get ken the four so uh you guys kind of wait for a while gus is whispering through his mind to yours tiktok it's like this guy's just watchers parallel to you. And then he's a little bit South. You know,

he's like a few hundred feet away. You guys can't see him because of the, how you're hiding behind rocks and the big jagged boulders that you're trying to cross. Uh, when queep a little crab running up from where the river is, it's kind of runs up to your leg. Just you're, you're, you're trying to crouch. is. It kind of runs up to your leg. Just

you're trying to crouch. Just gives your leg a little tweak with its claw thinking that you might be some food. And you very loudly make a loud bird noise. Would you like to give it what it sounds like maybe? A little crab

nips your ankle. Imagine that ow super loud um gus reports that the watcher freezes when that happens uh-huh i'm gonna fly up and be seen okay so queep all of a sudden shoots straight action and starts flying north. You guys just see Queep impulsively. When you fly straight up, do you try to get its attention? Yeah. Right now it's just kind of frozen. You can see it.

It's far away. And its back is to you right now. The eye tentacles are not necessarily facing you yet. Yeah. I'll give a cuckoo laugh. When you say cuckoo laugh, you see the tentacles coming off its back. I'll kind of pivot and turn to you.

And then I'll dive back out of sight if I can. North or away from everybody? Away from everybody, yes. How long are you going to fly away from everybody? Here is the beholder guy, right? We're heading this way. We're all kind of like he's like here he gets about this far i'm a fucking dumbass and then you fly up fly that way

and fly that way he flies and you're gonna go back he's gonna come straight okay oh i see what you're saying i'm gonna fly this way i'll fly that way then okay uh you you dust can report he he he follows you but also he stares and he stops a certain point he just stares at what and i'm gonna duck out at queep asap uh you get like a mile out nothing's happening nothing's happening. Nothing's happening. You're starting to get back to the river at this point. But you're going to just try to duck down under trees? Yeah, I'm going to steer low.

Okay, steer low. Again, nothing seems to be happening yet. Gus, on the other hand. Yeah, what do you see, pal? Uh-oh. I see a lot happening. I'm going to fly up a little higher. One second.

Roll a perception check for me, please. Copy that. We're trying to get above this turbulence. 19. Okay. I see. We're getting close to the edge of where Donkey Lad's cliff faces are, and there's two giants climbing up out of the sort of canyon.

Out of Donkey? Yeah. And I can see it might be the same giants. There's four giants coming up from the river as well. They might be the same guys. As well? Yeah, and then they've got two dogs with them. Yeah. Excuse me.

Bless you, says Gus. And it looks like there might be more giants coming from the south near the coastline so there's at least six giants two dogs and more giants headed towards queep i pray to valker do religion check religion check. Ten. You think you hear the quiet ocean mist hitting the rocks in your mind. Can I pray to Valkyr?

Yes, I'll pray to Valkyr. For what? Assistance for our dear friend, Kweep, a friend of the cleric of Valkyr, Halcine. Perhaps in eating Kweep, Valkyr, how seen perhaps in eating queep, uh, Valkyr might,

uh, be worshiped one day. Once we conquer these horrible monsters, what's your religion bonus? Two, two, uh, roll 20 side of die.

You need a 20. Oh, I got a 20 oh hell Valkyr so you think really hard and all of a sudden you can see the sort of fog covered series of gears that turn in your

head that connect you to your former warforged brethren. And as you concentrate on Valkyr, all of a sudden the series of gears seems to open up and inside of it you just see blue and water and

ocean. What do you want to say to Valkyr? I say, Valkyr, you remember Halcyon of course, one of your great clerics she's told me much of you well a friend of ours queep the little red bird man see him he's being chased by all those giants is there a way we could make him hidden through your glory from from the giant so that queep could return to us and someday Valkyr's name could be spread? I, for one, am new to Valkyr.

I find him great. All of a sudden, you just see... Gus actually tells you this. Hey, boss. Yes? There's something rising out of the river. I don't know what it is, but it looks like a giant made of water. And he tells you that the giants suddenly turn towards this water giant.

It's like a water golem that has risen up out of the water. And they all go to fight it. And he says, yeah, they've all turned their attention away from Queep, and they're obsessed with it. It's like twice as big as a giant. Velker! It's just smacking them.

It's far away, but yeah. Thank you! This will not be the last time you hear from me. Thank you! The vision of the gears in the water fades away from your mind. But you do get the sense that you could potentially connect with Valkyr again in the future.

Now you're a religious man. Well, hey, now you and me, we can talk shop. You're a religious machine. Spreading the good word. You rolled a 22 on a religion to a new god. So you officially, as long as you want to, can worship Valkyr. Consider yourself worshipped. also means uh in certain situations you could take advantage of it we can talk about

that later but it would require more sort of experiences but you could potentially dual class or something that requires a religion. All you guys could do a class in certain situations, but yes. Okay. Speaking of experience, when are we going to level up? Soonish. Okay.

Cause we're all going to die. But this now, you feel like you could make a bit of a getaway. You're going to try to fly back to the party. Do a stealth check. Creep. Oh, yeah.

Valker fly low to the ground. Get back to the party. The abyss droppers are freaked the fuck out. They don't know what happened, but they're like, all right. I can't do the voice all of a sudden. All right.

Yeah, we need to. We need to book it to donkey land. Let's go. Let's go book it. Donkey Land. Let's go. Let's go. Book it. You guys head east. This time, you can see almost in the distance

when you get to one of the higher rocks, this giant water golem is still just sort of smacking giants around. It's really far away, but it's a very tall thing that you've created. Is that water golem wearing sandals? Is it wearing jean shorts? There is almost just something kind of deadbeat about it. Terry?

The spirit of Terry is inhabiting this golem very briefly. Hey, Terry, you suddenly wake up from a hangover nap and you're briefly inhabiting the sentient body of a water spirit. Okay. Can does anyone have a smoke?

One of the giants looks at you and you you realize he's not going to give you any then I'm looking to fight. All right, so that continues to happen as you guys get closer to the cliffs of donkey land uh yeah the abyss droppers say uh well now we must get across the canyon and you see there's this drop off it goes about a mile there's like this mile across and then it looks like an infinite

drop it's okay queep is really good at carrying people. As long as we get a running start. Well, here's what our options are. There's a small cave that you can take, and if you can get far enough down into the cave, there is a teleportation circle that'll get you across the canyon. We're going

to take a shortcut. Perhaps we will see you on the other side. What's the shortcut? We'll jump off the side of this cliff and slowly descend to the teleportation circle. So why can't Queep just slowly, and he can turn into that flying thing, and we can slowly

descend too. We've seen what happens when I fly people, right? There would be a chance you could get dropped to your death if they carried you. I guess, but what's inside the cave that we need to worry about? Well, hundreds of feet down, there's a very small opening that leads a shorter cave path into the teleportation circle.

There's not necessarily bad guys that they know of, but it's not patrolled. There's probably not giants. There could be monsters in the cave, yes. There could be obstacles in the cave. But the surface level cave that goes down is, you know, humanoid sized, not giant sized. Can you not cast

feather fall on other people? No. It's something they can only... It's sort of built into themselves. They can't cast on other people. That's part of why it's a special version of Feather Fall. All right. None of them really have it as a castable thing. It's just something they can do.

We should spelunk it up then, right? Or, as was said, you could try to have Dr. Uid in a bird form and Queep lower you a few hundred feet. Would it be better if we tied ourselves to Queep so Queep didn't have to worry about any of that pesky holding on business? He might just go down. I guess we'll just stay in the cave. Still an absolute extract to see if he can stay level. I want to go in the cave.

All right. It's doable. It's doable. Cave it is. You guys start going up to this cave. It looks like it used to be here before some of this damage was created because at first it's sort of an opening in this sort of collision-based magical rock thing.

But after you kind of head down some rocky stairs, it starts to look like a very old natural cave in that it was either created by one subterranean race of humanoids or another. This is pre-crash. Pre-crash. At first it looks

like maybe some debris had to be cleared and then it looks like this was built by a civilization of some sort. Maybe more mind flayers perhaps. Well, you could do a check if you want to try to figure it out. Let's check. History check from everybody who wants to figure it out. 22. Cool.

20. 15. I'm out. Okay. I figured out this is drow. This is a former drow cave. Dark there. Can I try again?

Well, you know it's drow. What else do you want to know? Well, now don't you have special abilities in caves and stuff? Yeah. Isn't this sort of like going to, I don't know, your uncle's house or something? See you, Ken. Should be. I will say, just for clarity,

Kenny is stepping out. Does somebody want to drive Queep and I'll help you with abilities and such? I can pull his character sheet up. No one wants that responsibility. Sure. No one does, but somebody, yeah. We'll be mindful of him.

Chris. I'll be mindful of him. I'll make the decisions and I'll help with the rolls and numbers. Queep grabs us and flies us down one at a time. I mean, the beauty of Queep is So, um, creep grabs us and flies us down one at a time. Uh, I mean, that's the beauty of creep is he has a plus six to athletics,

which is very good. And that's what he would have to keep rolling. And somehow it just never quite panned out. Uh, and yeah, as you guys start heading down into the cave, first of all, yes,

uh, you are all going to be leveling up very soon in your next rest, but, we're going to probably save that between episodes just because that is a fair bit of monkey business. But it'll be nice. You guys are going to get some new stuff soon. You start heading down. You discover pretty quickly the Dural have at least abandoned this to some extent.

But Hashinka, so she starts to recognize some signs as you she wasn't really paying attention until you realized that it was drow and she says oh yes uh i do believe uh the violet fang they they have left some markings on zeval does that mean traps potentially yes oh shit okay but I believe I can anticipate these traps. Good. By looking at these markings. So coming up ahead, we have what appears to be triggering steps. So I will let you know when we are about to hit them, and I think we can get past them. Great.

You head down a little bit, and it yes she's able to tell from the markings that are sort of in uh like violet fang can't it's like thieves can't it's like a series of markings that you know uh indicate that if you step on these rocky steps coming up that look like any other steps at a certain depth it will set off uh like a drop and everyone standing on them will fall into a pit of spikes. Jeez. Yes. It goes down for like the next 50 feet's worth of steps.

So it's a pretty big expanse. Can we climb over it? If you can climb on the wall or the ceiling. Could we... Could Kweep fly a rope across and we can... Like, is there a safe way to get across? I mean, it's down.

You could do... You'd have to set something up. Like, there's no real hooks or things you could easily attach on the wall. You could drape it across the ground, but you think it would probably trigger to have rope just kind of

hanging there on the ground. Can he just shuttle us across, though? He can. But if we want to rope it up, couldn't I just lodge the blade of my axe into the wall and we tie off a rope and just climb down? Then everybody's going to have to roll.

And you're taking steps, so it's like it's like and you're taking steps so it's like step step step step and if you step on one of these steps the steps will just drop away okay and it'll be a big pit help us um so what is he doing be clear for me again i just don't understand really what you're trying to are we asking are you saying queep flies us over i don't know like could he fly it's stairs right so he can just fly us down without touching he could try to but he would yeah one at a time after we'll roll athletics checks for everybody um otherwise you're saying that we can't go further doctor i have to do put ropes in the ceiling dr uid i believe you would know you could transform into something he can

transform so that's not a problem for him take out take a u3 or something oh what take a rope over or something or that's what we're talking again it's like there's nothing to attach it to you'd have to think of a way to attach the rope it's your it's like going downstairs and the stairs drop out so like there's you could have one person hold a rope and another person hold a rope but i don't know how nobody has any like across it what do are they called? A zipline? No, I always had these. Growing up playing D&D, we always had a set of the...

It begins with a P. P-tons. I don't think anyone has a dungeoneering kit that's got a grappling hook or P-tons. Unfortunately, I have a dice kit as part of it. Check your inventory. My bat grappling gun.

I always forget that your real name is Bruce Wayne. I have iron spikes. I have 10 iron spikes and rope. We could do that. You do? He's got spikes. Yeah, I have a dungeoneering kit. That's one of the things. Okay. Okay. I have 10 iron... So how exactly are you going to do this? So it would be like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, iron spike

into the wall, tie off the rope. It'd almost be more like a zip line kind of a thing. It's like as long as we stay hands and feet on the rope, just zzzz down. Right? You would probably want something else so you wouldn't get rope burn. Probably on the wall

because then you can kind of like... Wouldn't we want it on the wall? Sure. So you can kind of like go down like that. Okay. And then Queep could maybe fly right behind you so that as like a backup if you fall you can try to catch it's a good idea okay so queep can go fly across uh he has to put in the the thing first of all i need somebody to do a survival

check for the the near side and uh then i'll need you or i need Kweep or Dr. Uwe to do a survival check to fly or crawl down to the other side. Are you survival proficient? I have a four. That's good. I just did a 16. Unfortunately, you're out. You would either need to you need to get across this. No, I know.

Giant pit. He could do this side. Near this side. Yes. Throw my good energy at them. Yes, you can roll. You could. Well, you could roll with advantage.

I mean, they can have a roll twice for this side. throw my good energy at them yes you can roll you could well you could roll with advantage I mean they can help so roll roll twice for this side Darkthor same what'd you get 13 both I mean you get it pretty good

great who's gonna go across to the far end I am the heaviest does it make sense for me to go across to the far end? I'm the heaviest. Does it make sense for me to go first and test it? Well, someone either, again, sorry I keep repeating this, but like. I thought Queep went over there to do it. Did you roll for him?

I thought Dr. Uwud went over. Oh, sorry, Dr. Uwud did. Yeah. What did you roll? Yeah, I rolled a 16. I completely missed that. I'm sorry. Okay, 16 on that side, even more sturdy.

Yeah, do you want to go first? Now, are we doing ones in between? How far is the distance? 16. I completely missed that. I'm sorry. Okay. 60 on that side. Even, even more sturdy. Uh, yeah. Do you want to go first? Now are we doing ones in between? How far is the distance? 50 feet. Yeah. So we're gonna have to do them as we go along also.

Right. So that means queep is the only person or Dr. Who can fly. But if you're an animal, you're not going to be able to do it. Basically someone can be, yeah. And I lying right over over you two or three. But I'm saying to put the spikes in. Someone needs to put them in.

Spikes are in. Only two, though. Aren't we doing more? You can do more. I thought, do we need more? Anyone with insight into that? I would think 50 feet, you might. I guess maybe I'm not understanding what it looks like.

Sure, roll an insight check, Halsey. You need an advantage. 15. not understanding sure cool inside check house you need an advantage um 15 it's hard to tell i mean you think it could be sturdier but it's it's rope and you're you've got it pretty secure you could do it again but it's kind of like uh taking a shoelace or anything and tying it to something twice you know okay i guess i was sort of seeing it more as like rock climbing along the wall but i guess well no well then if that's yeah i mean even even hammering it in you think you could break up the rock a little bit make it looser if you don't hammer it in perfectly the second time okay so we're just going let's go for it okay and then uh queep is gonna fly behind to sure

in case someone's shadow so where so you three as you go across queep is gonna fly over you you'll make your own check and if you fail and this pit opens up the idea is that queep is ready to anticipate he's gonna make an athletics check to try to catch you before the pit opens up because if you you fail you'll start falling onto the stairs but if right he catches you before that correct we. Can we tie you to Queep? The problem is that he misses his, like if you could just drag him down into the pit of spikes potentially. Correct. Right.

But you could try to like tie his waist to your waist too. I have an idea. I have a better idea. Uh-huh. Queep can go in a ceiling. He can do some spikes and then we can have like a rope harness that will like be attached to the

ceiling that you kind of as you move along it's like a rope that moves with you like this great that makes sense yeah and then if you fall that will catch you what's your uh bonus for survival dr wood four oh that's higher than queeps one why don't you go ahead and try to attach this harness to the ceiling 22 beautiful get Beautiful. Get a great harness for Queep. Good idea. Up on the ceiling. He ties this. One is connected to the ceiling and one is around his waist.

Really secure. Who's going first? Oh, I was thinking for the climber, but I guess that works too. It depends. What do you guys think? I think he got that set up. Let's use all of it. Let's do it. But he's saying that the harness is attached to Queep.

I thought that's what it was as opposed to I was thinking the harness would be attached I agree with you I think go touch the attached to the climate who's climbing first I'll come first great doing an athletics check or an acrobatics your choice I will

take athletics okay and of course you do have a slightly higher DC because you are heavier. 22. Beautiful. Okay. So you managed to get across. No problem.

Although it is very difficult. Guys, it's scary. So Queep goes ahead, unties the harness from you, flies it back over. Who's next? Dark Throat. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

All right. I'm going to have you either pick acrobatics or athletics, Darkthor, to try to use this harness and get across to the other side. Doesn't remind me

of how a Marthamond died at all. What? Plus four on either, so... Are you proficient at either? Pick the one you're proficient in. Where would that be? There's a P next to it if you're There's a little open circle next to it and sometimes

there's something written inside the circle I'll say prof and then dots Oh yeah, so athletics Alright, that means you get to roll at advantage on athletics Please do that 17 Not bad Oh, advantage 17 not bad

oh advantage I'll take that 17 plus that 4 so it's a 21 badass no problem at all too you get all the way across I just don't have a good so I guess maybe I should go

because then I'm the last person let's get you guys all over there before i point you can go valker's favorite she rolls a 20 a 17 plus three nice uh she gets across just fine okay you're a pal scene athletics or acrobatics right your choice what are you gonna do and tell tell us what the bonuses are plus two on both okay i rolled a two so plus two so you get maybe like 10 feet in and you just slip your foot off the side of this wall and land on the stairs sure didn't quick quick it's a try to catch me before I hit the stairs. Well, he's going to try,

but. Oh, is he proficient at athletics? Oh, you're right. Thank you. Mm hmm. Oh,

you should roll. You don't even take these roles. Oh, okay. You're rolling for creep. That's more fun. Uh, a 14 plus whatever his six. So he catches you. Yes. Um, but you're rolling for a 14 plus whatever his six.

So he catches you. Yes, but you're he he gently flies you back to the wall. Wouldn't he just at that point try to fly me to the other side?

Do you think it's up to you? I would. You're only 10 feet across. It's up. What do you want him to do?

He's he he starts pretty. I think he's I think at that point right now right now he's just reassuring. I think it would starts pretty good. I think at that point. Right now he's just reassuring you. I think it would be forward momentum. I think it's like, I got her. I'm just going to keep going.

How many checks would he have to do if he goes? He'll do whatever you want, but we're not going to just automatically have it. How many checks would he have to do if he goes? Just one. But it's tied DC. You can tell him to go back. Yeah, I think it makes sense for him just to do it

because I'm still attached to the ceiling. So if he drops me, then I'll still hopefully be swinging from the ceiling. Okay. Keep going. Okay. So what is this? Another athletics check. Yeah, this one's going to be a DC of 16.

Why would you tell me that? It's fun. 16 plus 622. Oh boy. Yep. He gets here. Cross. Huzzah. What were you worried about i'll let you

automatically detach all this stuff you sort of pack it up start heading down uh sam what are we at now we are at oh 48 seconds great well i guess on that note oh we'll find out what happens farther down the stairs to the teleportation circle on the next episode, Sam. What happened? Oh, my God, guys. If you were not listening, what happened this week? I don't know if I never noticed, but does Gus live on TikTok's shoulder? This game is cute.

Dr. Uwud received coral as a cane. Something pinched Queep. And, oh, no, there's four giants. as a cane, something pinched and oh no, there's four giants. Tick-tock tick-tock talked to Valkar with his clock brain and made a water golem for us to be friends with. Terry

briefly inhabited a water golem, directly disobeying his doctor's orders for both of his feet casts not to get wet. I'm concerned someone may hurt themselves on this pit of spikes and we're slowly working our way across like the movie cliffhanger and sarah has slipped

damn well uh you guys have all leveled up so i can't believe sam didn't notice though that his beloved queep caught me in his strong arms and flew me to the other side so i'm okay i did notice i was crying i was unable to verbalize strong strong arms

uh yeah level eight if I'm not mistaken. Yay. Seven, right? Seven? Yeah. This would be seven. Okay. Cool.

Well, level seven it is. Congratulations on your level seven. Thank goodness. Thank you. And yeah, you're going to pick it up next time. I don't get anything plugged. Just watch my monthly show if you're in LA. Hey, what are you doing, Blaine?

This will probably drop like end of February, I think. Okay, well, then we've already done Lucha Vavum, but that means that I'm going to be doing Mod Live with Stacey Keech at the Music Box. So come and check it out. But I got to give you a heads up, stacked parking. Somebody want to Uber that one.

BrianPosain.com and Grandpa Metal by Posain is the name of the band. You can get it everywhere that you get music officially on the 14th, February 14th. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for listening to another episode of Nerd Poker. You can follow us at patreon.com slash nerdpoker

and you get bonus episodes from there, and you can also send us anything at P.O. Box 16069 Encino, California, 91416. Thanks for listening.