Nerd Poker - Episode 72 - Pirate Pyre

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

The Ice Five continue their mini-boss killing spree that has them in a showdown with Dratlanna the drow-beholder, and you better believe they've got some fun new moves to try out. Will they survive? Where will they head next? Is Gus toast? Time will hopefully tell!

Hey everybody, I'm Brian Pussain, 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

Clay Chris Now it's time for another episode of Brian Possehn's Nerd Poker. Season three. Hey, everybody. It's Brian Possehn. And you're listening to Brian Possehn's Nerd Poker. Episode 72.

Quarantine style. I'm looking at my friends on my computer instead of at my uh dining room table so they can no longer smell mavis's farts i have actually been sending everybody envelopes full of mavis's farts each week i don't know have you received do you guys been going to your po box uh well let's ask them individually I need to because I can still smell them. That explains why when I set it on fire, it caught so fast. I didn't mind the envelope.

I didn't appreciate that you invoiced me. There was a sign on my door that said, sorry, we misted you. We'll attempt to uh uh fart in your uh face uh tomorrow between 12 and 6 so that was uh dan sam and blaine

hello oh i missed my intro hello sarah hey uh hello ken there and chris hello do you want to thank some people for us i sure do hey thanks patreon for supporting Do you want to thank some people for us? I sure do. Hey, thanks Patreon for supporting us. I like to thank individual Patreon supporters

who go by little names like Bobbert Bob. Thank you, Bobbert Bob. Thank you. Thanks, Shane Herzer. Thank you. Thanks, Scott Parker. Thanks, Shane. Thanks, Scott. Thank you, illustrator of our Clodden High map and many other wonderful nerd poker drawings, Scott Parker. Thanks, Shane. Thanks, Scott. Thank you, illustrator of our Claude and High map

and many other wonderful nerd poker drawings, Sean Bryant. Thank you, Sean Bryant. Thank you, Pepper Burt. Thank you. Thank you, Pepper. Thank you, TikTok's downstairs mix-up. Oh, no. Oh, boy.

I forgot to wear my robe when i got the noosing paper i thought it was more like of an interchangeable parts on your groin area kind of thing where like you got like steampunk like you can just unscrew your junk and like put a blender on there uh that's correct thank you thank you for responding in your voice thank As it should be. Thank you, WiffleDiffle69. Thank you. Thanks. That is my high school AOL screen name. Thank you, Alan Manerich.

Thanks, Alan. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you, NonSpecific. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Matt Carter. Thanks.

Thank you, Matt. Thanks, Aaron Payne. Thank you. Matt Carter of Mars. Thank you, NomNomVicon. Thanks, Aaron. Thank you. Matt Carter of Mars. Thank you, Nom Nom Vicon. Thanks, CNN. Thank you, Dargther's Hatebait. Oh.

Remember that? Thanks, Toblerone Jones. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you, Gwilym. Thanks, Gwilym. I got a Toblerone Jones. Thank you, Quasidano. Quas. Thank you. I got a Toblerone Jones.

I got a Toblerone Jones. And thank you, finally. Please play Betrayal at Baldur's Gate. Thank you. Please play Betrayal at Baldur's Gate. Now, correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't that a board game of D&D? I think it's a PC game.

Is it? Oh. This PC thing is getting out of control. We should look at it. If it's something we can play remotely, I haven't thought of that. For a bonus game, we could just play multiplayer Tetris or some shit.

That would be weird. Yeah, it's a board game. Sure yeah it's a board game sure it is a board game we are currently without the ability to play things analog but there is a thing that lets you play board games online though hmm

I think it's like boardgames.com or something if you're in the Los Angeles area geeky tees Burbank they're doing curbside pickup. Board games. Curbside board games. Drive by really fast and roll some dice.

Speaking of which, hey Blaine, who were those supporters brought to us by? They were brought to us by Prawny, the paper towel somebody already used to wipe up some shrimp. The orange means it worked prawny dan all right well uh prawny i would like to honor you with my narrator voice and tell everyone what happened last time on nerd poker the ice five decided what happened next would be a series of sniping off baddies just fucking picking off the mini bosses

so they went for Dratlana she seemed like she wanted to have a conversation but in what is possibly my favorite Dr. Stur negotiation so far he opened with hey I think you should be dead what if you were dead

so you went into combat shit's got a little sticky up in this wicket uh dr who would block the door and you've been firing some things off and uh up next in the turn order you hear some banging on the door yeah so you just put like a quarter staff kind of like blocking everybody in you just hear some thudding as they're struggling with the door now the fact that they are sort of ghosty undead narwhals uh you're not sure how much they can phase you thought maybe they could get through the bars of this a little like blockage in front of the door but they might be able to get through the door proper also for now they can't one of them is

trying to open and they do not succeed. This is going to take us back in the turn order to the top, which means it is time to find out what happens from Dark Thirstury. I'm going to keep firing, but this time I'm going to use Hail of Thorns. Yeah.

Okay. And I'm going to fire an arrow at her after uh uh doing hail of thorns well um i am gonna tell you she's currently staring you and hal seen down with her main eye and you would remember uh this has come up a couple episodes ago that a beholder when it stares at you with its main eye creates an a cone of anti-magic about 150 feet in front of it. So you feel like currently you and Halcine are going to have trouble with magic. Yeah. You can scoot to the side and try, for sure.

I'm going to scoot to the side and try. All right. Do you want to try off to the left there where no one is currently occupying or do you want to go where tick tock and sure i'll go off to the left all right can you move your token where you want to be oh sure so like you can totally choose anywhere up to the far you got you got 30 feet of movement so you can scooch anywhere in this corner if you want, or like up here to get out of the anti-magic cone.

Where's my guy? So, I'm going to give that a minute to register on my end, but I see you. Go ahead and fire off that hail of thorns, boss. 17 plus 3 plus 4. So 24.

24 to hit. That's definitely a hit. Wow. This means that in addition to normal effect of the attack, the target has to make a dexterity saving throw. Ooh. So she's going to take half of the additional piercing damage, which is 1d10.

She succeeded on her saving throw. She rolled a 19 plus her bonus. But don't I, what level can I roll it at? Let's see. Great question because it is, you can get additional dice. I have to pull up your character sheet to tell you that.

It's on your character sheet. So I can help you with that. It's just going to take me a minute. Well, I'm 7th level now, but what's the max level I can roll at? That's what I would like to do. I don't know off the top. I have to look at your character sheet to tell you, so it's going to take me a minute to pull that up.

Hey Blaine, can you tell us who this assistance is brought to us by? Dan, looking this up, is brought to you by Brawny Catane. The paper towel somebody already used to wipe up some David Coverdale. Oh, no. When there's a mess, reach for Brawny Catane. Dan? Thanks, boss.

Wow. You can go up to second level. That wand only has a few charges this episode, by the way. Yeah, so just second level. Dark. Dark.

There were some technical difficulties in the last episode that burned off a lot of my shittier jokes. Like, you know how sometimes you drive by the Long Beach, that refinery and those flames are going? That's me burning off poop jokes. Ooh. Yeah. I'm full of great metaphors.

I can't wait for them to reopen the churches. When are they going to reopen the churches? 20 total, Dan. Oh, what? that's amazing so um she's now taking 94 points of damage as you just lay into her with all these just needling attacks that are built into this particular arrow wow now um i should say you uh haven't drawn your runic sword yet but um if should you choose to do that remember you do get certain bonuses that you can give to your party. Yeah.

Yeah. Do I get another action? You get another action if you use your offhand melee. You don't automatically get multi-attacks with ranged weapons. But I couldn't use the sword? No. No. No. You could use your dagger, though,

to stab at her. Okay. Then I will. You'd just have to get up in her shit. Okay. It's probably not enough. 17 to hit uh no that's a miss and also can you no uh can you move your token within melee range of her within one square gracias all right so that's going to bring us to tick tock um great i'm going to seeing darth darthur

close in on her uh-huh i'm going to do that on the opposite side so that we're like flanking oh okay and she's got her eye on darthur right now okay so i'm going to swing at her with my greataxe. Now, because we're flanking, can I roll with advantage? Yes, you may. Can you backstab? Thank you. Backstab with a backstab. Backstab doesn't work the same in 5th edition that you're remembering, unfortunately.

You don't get an automatic stealthing. It's more of a rogue ability. Okay. Hey, I rolled a natural 20. Here we go. Remember you can double your dice damage. I do. I'm very excited about this.

Let's get these out of the way. Let's kill my mom. Uh, seven double 14 plus three, uh, 17 points of damage from the ax. Okay. That's a lot of damage.

You're going to be just shredding her open with that. I will, as I'm swinging at her, I'm like, you'd be very proud of Darkthor. He's a great leader and we admire him. So the last thing a mother wants to hear when she's dying is her son successful. 22 to hit. That's also a hit, my friend.

successful. 22 to hit. That's also a hit, my friend. 9 points of slashing damage. Okay. So you're just absolutely 4 points of Duff and Izzy in damage. She's got 120 points of damage knocked off of her at this point, so she's

looking pretty sketchy health-wise. You might want to say something encouraging to him you know let him know you care so she is going to go ahead and use one of her

legendary actions at this point so she's going to go ahead and point an eye stalk at you. I'm going to need you to do a dexterity saving throw. Me? Yes, tick tock.

Dexterity, dexterity saving throw. Tick tock, dexterity saving throw. Let's do it, Tick. Tick tock, dexterity saving throw. 12. Okay, so you see an eye stalk kind of turn and point at you, and this black smoke just starts swirling around it, and you just get hit square in the chest with a death ray.

Oogies. Is that good, or? It's like a tarot card. It means change. He said death ray. D-E-F. Oh, that would be cool. Now your sneakers are white

and laceless. Okay. You take 47 points of necrotic damage. Ouch. Wow. That is a lot. Are you still standing? I am, Dan.

All right. Did you say necrotic or erotic? Because that would be a different kind of damage, Dan. Come on. Where's the band? That was supposed to be a music cue. I got you guys in here and disrespected your instruments for three weeks for that joke. Dan, can you pull that up and post the band sting?

Thanks. Erotic damage. Yeah, just the sound of a romantic novel audiobook suddenly starts pouring through Dramon's chambers. Suddenly the room smells like Fabio. It looks soup. Except when he got hit in the face with the bird. Erotic damage. Yay.

Alright, that's going to bring us to Halcine. It hurts so good. Great. I am scared and Right now the big eyes pointed at Darkthor third it was just one of the eye stalks that pointed to tiktok um right so but i still uh the way the cone works the cone anti-magic cone

am i in that cone right now no right now it's just dark who wouldn't be able to use magic great um you know what then i'm just gonna go ahead and um oh shoot is dark they're right next to her though now yeah dark they're on tiktok are right next within 10 feet huh yeah dope okay and the door is um there's a big shattered glass door behind her and behind you there is a yeah like wedged shut bar door. Okay. Well, this isn't ideal, I guess, but I'm just going to cast Sacred Flame.

Ooh. Okay. Flame like Radiance descends. Dex saving throw. Great. So she rolled a 15 plus is that too much already it's plus

two yeah 17 okay yeah does that have the damage then unfortunately no it's cantrip so ooh so it just completely evades yep so that was great.

My turn's over. Goodbye. Goodbye. Alright, well. Depressing results and reaction from Sarah. Let's take a look at that clip. Up next we've got Dratlana. She is going to bite Darkthor.

Oh. Weird. Ooh. I mean, bite. Roy's going to have a. Oh, weird. Oh, I mean, Roy's gonna have a field day with this one, huh? Uh, rolled an 11 to attack. That's not going to be dark.

There's 15, uh, armor class. So, uh, no, fuck you, mom.

Fuck you, mom. How you like it when your tooth gets chipped on a popsicle stick mom dr uid you hear smashing from the door it sounds like they're going to be through this wooden door did a bunch of british guys uh check out my outfit you think they're going to break it down and then next time someone on the other side has a turn okay brother got it uh queep you're up i'm gonna move in great on the other side has a turn. Okay. Rubber. Got it. Queep, you're up.

I'm going to move in. Great. And attack with my great axe. I'd like to see you try roll to attack. Am I still flanking? I would like to flank. You get to roll with advantage because she is super flanked right now 16 sorry 18

okay that's a hit okay you succeeded what the hell alright is our new is my new microphone recording the sound of me flipping through this book nope okay good i thought it sounded like you could hear me reading infinite jest 15 nice great okay uh again she's starting to look bad and and now she sort of like

rolls her eye over to stare at you. Cuckoo bird, don't you get like rage damage or something? Yeah, I already considered all that. Can I move away first when she's not looking at me? It's not her turn. No, it's correct. It's not her turn. You can move away from her, but she will get an attack

of opportunity if you do that. Which it looks like she would bite specifically. Yeah. Well, then I will... I am still going to move. You get two attacks, right? Wasn't that my second? Oh, no, it wasn't.

Let's go again. That was your foist. Yeah, you're right. I got so excited. Okay, that is 23. Okay. Oh, boy. That's a hit.

Another 11. Damn. All right. So she's, you know, blood sprays everywhere as you hack at her again. She's still standing. Boo, mom blood. So to speak. She's hovering.

And you're going to move away? Yes. You definitely have her attention. She rolled a 23 to hit. Oops. As you back away, she is going to slam her teeth into you however this is piercing damage i believe if you're raging you get to have this uh something hang on okay this is a listener's favorite thing to remind me of please remember when he is raging yeah uh i

have this isn't too bad yes so i have uh resistance yes great so this is 12 points of piercing damage you got knocked that down to a six great you as an embattled erikokra

the teeth graze your flesh but do not rip your muscle tissue as you manage to jauntily step backwards. Cock-a-louch. Wow. You sounded almost like a person when that happened. Did you hear it? It sounded like he was talking. Dr. Wood, it is now your turn.

And yes, you've heard that sounds like they're about to get through that door. I am going to call lightning on those guys i guess it'll i don't know how to so i'll just i can make uh the lightning appear above those guys behind the door and they will uh bolt of lightning comes down each creature within five feet miss make a dexterity saving throw, or a 3d10. Oh, boy. All right. I'm going to try that and see if that fits. I'll keep the receipt in case I've got to get it back to Brookstone.

We got all failures. Oh, good. Aw. Now, this is a point you can see within range. So, technically, I'm allowing to like cast this on the door uh you you said you want to hit them um well i'm gonna allow it but like it's it's you're hoping and it's only gonna land like right on the door it's gonna 100 screw up the door well it's uh it's a storm cloud appears in the cylinder. It has to be in a room that can accommodate the cloud. So I'm thinking that they're behind this door, and I know that they're...

It can happen in here, yeah. The thing is... I sort of wanted to create it... Sorry, I'll use this to show. I wanted to sort of create it over their heads here, like kind of aim it into this room uh-huh where i know that they are because i figured that there there was there's still like bars down in front of the door right correct um what you what okay here's what dr wood would know that you can make a cloud come in through the shattered bay windows and like pour into the room and strike the door

sort of through the bars. It might mute the damage that they take regardless is what I was trying to say earlier. Oh, okay. Okay. They're still probably going to take damage because you're striking the door they're touching with lightning. But they're still behind not only this wood door, but like the steel bars in front of it. Okay. All right.

So like you're doing something fun. fun it's just not gonna be as dramatic as it would if they were in the room invisible uh 12 17 okay so you guys all see uh especially those of you who are surrounding dratlana right now this cloud just fucking swoop in through the opening to the out of doors, rush over the top of the curtain, and an explosive lightning bolt just smashes into the door, utterly shattering it and definitely startling. The two undead narwhal folk that you see were on the other side of it as they sort of reel backwards.

Wow. I look at Darkthroat. I didn't know we could do that. That's pretty... That cloud was so cool. I can make clouds. Ha ha ha! Whoa! I learned it from Kozik.

So, yeah, we're going to go ahead and show the two tokens of those guys. And yeah, they took damage, but it was half. Okay. So even though they didn't make their dexterity saving throw i'm giving it to them because it fucking was a lightning bolt hitting a door they were touching rather than just them okay thanks dan i appreciate it great so uh that will then bring us to one of them. They're going to rush through the bars and come at you, Dr. Uwud, of course. I'm going to need you to do a dexterity saving throw. How about a 19 plus?

Yeah, 19. How about a 19 plus... Yeah, 19. Great. You're going to take halfsies on this. So he's going to just jump at you with his tusk. That is... 11 points halved. You're going to take five points of piercing damage. Okay.

The Tusk, by the way, named after the nickname for McFleetwood's penis. Gross! Is that what that song was about? Yeah, it was about McFleetwood's penis.

They're all about McFleetwood's penis they're all about Mick Fleetwood's penis Dreams Rhiannon but it's like the USC marching band marching along to a song about his penis right like that's amazing yeah it goes back to a long

tradition about way back to like the Boston Pops and Arthur Fiedler. All those great marches about Mick Fleetwood's penis. Well, speaking of marching to the song of a penis, Dark Thirstury, it's your turn. Hey. What? Nice segue. Oh, it is?

It's not flattering, but it could be. way oh it is hmm it's not flattering but it could be i'm gonna use my long sword dan and uh and i'm gonna then uh give tiktok uh another attack is that okay sure is boss that's what i'm doing all right i just get one attack though, right? But he gets one. You can attack with your offhand weapon also. Also, we might need to, for the 71st time in a row, discuss how exactly ranger attacks work. Chris, can you remind us if you remember? Right. So Sarah, when we got confused, Sarah was correct.

We have a council of people who have done some research. When Darkthor takes the attack action, he gets two attacks with his sword and then your offhand is considered your bonus action. So he can do two attacks with his sword.

Yes. A total of three. So swing the baby. So the first one is 18 plus 4 plus 3 so so that's a hit, right? That's very much a hit, yeah. And then, let's see, so... And she's flanked, so you can roll twice to try to get a crit if you want. Ooh.

Okay. Love the Hey Boss shirt, Chris. Just noticed it after we've been playing for an hour and a half. He's speaking out there. I got a seven plus two on that. So nine on that. And then I get... A nine on your damage?

Or is that the nine on your second attack? That's my first attack. The damage, I mean. Great. Got it. Yeah. Okay. So no, there's no bonus on that unless you know something I don't

okay and then I'll take my second attack okay oh nice uh that's totally a hit 19 plus uh oh and then I get advantage I get to roll again see if I get a crit yeah go for it man yeah

no so 8 six plus two and then uh and then i get a little stabby on the dagger right yes uh and the dagger's a hit too 17 plus six je. Jeez. Rolling high. Brian rolling high. Brought to you by Pepperidge Farm Milani paper towels. The paper towels somebody already used to wipe

up my memories. An additional 7 piercing damage. Wow. Did you hear that Dan? 7. additional seven uh piercing damage wow uh hey seven i sure did yeah brian i think your your internet's got a little bit of a stutter to it uh so there's a little bit of a delay sometimes no you're don't be sorry uh but i want you to hear me say uh dark through stirry how would you like to see your mother die oh my gosh oh my god uh not to get too dark but i've already

seen it it's really terrible uh but uh but this mother that wasn't dark at all i went out of my way to say dark through stirring no i know but it's always a little bit of Brian and Darkthor, so oh, man. A little. I want us all to get covered.

Or is her blood, would I know that her blood is lethal to me, or no? No, you would have no reason to suspect that it's lethal, no. I want it to be like Gallagher. Like, we should have all worn plastic. Like, we all get covered in my mom.

All right. First of all. And just everywhere. Roll a performance check with advantage. Okay. Okay. This is a plus three to performance also. I always feel my performance checks. Oh, no.

Yeah, I know. 14. 14 is my highest. Yeah. Okay, and that's a plus three, or is it 14 with the three? So 17, yeah. All right. yeah okay and that's plus three or is it 14 with the three so 17 yeah all right well that's enough so uh luckily hal seen because you're kind of half behind a curtain uh you're able to go like and like kind of put it over your face in time and dr uid you're kind of wrestling with a narwhal

undead zombie so you're not really going to be affected by this. But Queep, Tick Tock, you see Darkthor plunge his runic sword into the back of Dratlana the Beholder and just, like, dig into the middle, right where, like, the retinal cord in the back of her big eye is. Poke it out the, like, side at, like, a a 90 degree angle and just yank guts and blood and just like tear through 45 degrees of her entire body and just just using his big old jason momoa arms to just like spray the holder guts that just sparkle with outer rim horror as uh they coat your your bodies your

outfits and of course pooling in the rim of dark thirst tri-corner admiral hat what's that honey no no no dan was talking about jason mom. Yes. Okay. Sorry. My wife just heard somebody thinking about Jason Momoa. I took a screen cap of whoever drew Pink Viscera all over the Roll20 map. Oh, my goodness. Okay. So that happened. Dark Thur. That's pretty rough.

I'll say you're not out of combat that is the end of your turn but uh what a what a way for her to go tick tock you're up you you you're hearing a commotion on the other side of the curtain and you're noticing that two of your party are not with you so i can't see them right no i'll see i mean i'm giving it a given that she peeked through the curtain she can be peeking back out can Can I yell something? Or not? Because not till my turn. How does it work? I'll allow it on your turn.

Okay. But you can be visible if you want. Yeah, I just wanted to communicate something, but I guess I'm not allowed. Yeah, you should. What do you want to do, Tic Tac? I guess, I mean just if nothing else i've heard all the stuff with the door and i saw the cool cloud come in and the thunder so i will uh

move i think i can only get to like here that's 30 one two three four yeah that's i think that's 30 um so then because i can't see another target i think i would use my action to dash you can go one more square before that oh one more okay so i'm yeah but i'm still i think at least five feet short of the curtain so i will move through and so i'll go one two i see that guy i just see those two right yes actually that's not true you do see there is another one who looks like he might be about to phase through the steel bars phase through the steel bars yeah Phase through the steel bars. Yeah, so the door is gone. The door got exploded, but there are still steel bars that were sort of covering your side of the door

that were not destroyed. They were damaged a little bit, but they were not destroyed by the lightning. All right, so I would then yell out, there's more of those Tusk ghost boys coming for a dirty party. And then that's, I guess, that's all.

That's exactly what Halcyon wanted to yell. Something like that. And I look over at Halcyon like, right? Are you going to attack? I can't. I had to use my action to dash. You got an extra attack from Darkthor. Oh, then I will use that one.

Another extra attack action specifically oh then I will use that one I remember another extra attack action specifically yeah so great then I will use my full movement to come to the other side of so is that guy then considered flanked yeah great so I will swing at him with mine axe with advantage

yeah that's a 20 20 jeez i can't even add 24 that that's a miss he's wearing the skin of god as a leathery kind of armor just kidding that's obviously a hit glad i cast the skin of god that's a thing i've made up to be an asshole yeah uh not great uh five points of uh slashing damage okay that's a thing I've made up to be an asshole. Yeah. Not great. Five points of slashing damage. Okay. That's something. Yeah.

Two points of additional Steven Adler damage. Yeah, that's it for you, unfortunately, TikTok. Halcine, you're up. Okay. So I'm going to do two things. I'm going to turn undead. And then I'm also going to cry. I'm going to yell the scroll to everybody because we should technically just be able to immediately now teleport to Dame Island. Right.

Now that we've tried. Yeah. I don't know. Just I mean, like, then we don't have to fight our way off this dumb boat. And we just killed Dralana. Right. So I'm going to turn undead. All right. killed uh dratlana right so i'm gonna turn on dead um all right so that means the the both of these guys are gonna have to make a wisdom saving throw that is gonna be a uh botch and a 11 i take

the 11 does not beat um yeah no um and then i've i've failed a few wisdom saves in my day you know what i'm talking about if the um i don't know if uh it's instantly destroyed if it's challenge rating is at or below a certain threshold which right now is one half or lower yeah they're not they're uh they're no they're um challenge rating four okay all right so they're challenge rating four. Okay. All right. So they're turned, though. Yes. Also, I made them up, so I decided the challenge rating in advance,

and I want to be clear to listeners who are like, wait, what? Yes. Okay, it's turned for one minute or until it takes any damage. So it's this guy's turn trying to move as far away from me as possible. The one in the hallway disappears down the stairs. The one being flanked right now tries to flee down the stairs. TikTok and Dr. U,

do you want to take hacks at it as it runs away? Or do you want to just get the fuck out of here? Oh, I mean, it would be rude. If it takes damage, it is no longer turned. So that's the only... Oh, so they would not want to do that. So I go, ooh, I move my axe away from it. Cool.

Well, that can effectively end combat at least for a minute, which is about 10 turns. If you guys want to use the scroll or make your exit through the bay window, either of those are options right now. I feel like we should quickly search the room for anything, and then I feel like I did. Why not use the this role but if someone has a good reason why not i'm totally open to discussing let's do it if you guys are trying to rush before turn undead wears off uh that combined with the fact that this room has been exploded through both a lightning strike

and shatter i'm gonna have you guys roll all roll investigation with disadvantage please copy that disadvantage oh yep oh a 20 with disadvantage oh no a investigation check specifically so add your investigation modifier and i will remind you if any of you are proficient in investigation that means you get to cancel this disadvantage and just roll once 23 hey queep don't you have an advantage because you're related to hudson hawk you got a 17 with disadvantage brian yeah right just wow i got this I got the same thing twice oh yeah you get the lower number and then Blaine you got a

23 a 23 shit I got a 15 how is that possible are you proficient well I got a I got a 20 and my investigation is a 3 did you roll twice oh the second time i rolled an 18 plus

three says 21 okay well i showed you didn't i i well let's let me just take you down a notch specifically the tiniest notch possible uh yeah i mean you rolled over a 20 and all you guys did okay but you rushed but immediately you're drawn to a couple of things uh one what looks like a really strange band that was around one of drat lana's eye stocks she is now almost cut in half on the floor but you see her in one of her eye stocks it's like this brass band with a jewel inlaid on it uh that you could easily just sort of cut off of the eye stock in a blink of an eye. You also find what appears to be this book made of seaweed that is like in a jar, like it needs to be suspended in water that is sitting on the floor.

It survived one of the shelves crashing over. But other than that, you guys mostly are just like, there's too much paper here. I would have required a 25 or higher to really find much with all this disarray. That's pretty good, though, guys. Grab it and smash and grab. That's great. Kelsey, did you write that down? Yeah, I wrote it down. So, jar of book

and an eye stalk bracelet. Pretty much. It does actually look like it would fit on a bracelet. Yeah. Pretty much. And it does actually look like it would fit on a wrist. Interesting. Dark, maybe you might want to

go through your memories and see if maybe that was Mommy's bracelet some time ago. I'm going to go ahead and pull out the teleportation scroll and read it.

Great. Well, you read the teleportation scroll and also, we should check in about Gus. You want to do something with Gus and I think we...

It takes, unfortunately, it takes an hour to summon him again. Got it. I'm waiting until we have an hour. All right. Well, you read this and this gate appears of blue magic that sort of arcs up in two points about six feet apart. Sort of draws a vertical line up about 10 feet up. And then they meet together in the midpoint and a black sort of sheen drops

over this rectangle that has been created in the air. Uh, you're assuming this is a gate back to Dame Island. Let's hold hands and jump through guys. Let's do it. I got the bed knobs. Who's got the broomsticks? Mattresside ahoy.

Yeah, no kidding. So you all stepped through, and it immediately blinked shut behind you. You are now standing in the streets of Dame Island. We did. You hear bagpipes playing in the distance. Oh, no. Let's go back! There's some sort of farmer's market going on and you are outside

of the Arcanist's Tower. Are there any guards nearby? Oh yeah, absolutely. There's like a whole retinue of them marching north right now. Anybody we recognize in particular? I'm gonna require you do an insight check

all of us are just ticked up can we all uh all of you sure if y'all want to know i'm not even gonna tell you what happened six 23 oh holy shit so uh great um quip you recognize a big beefy captain of the guard uh who is human unfortunately most of if not everybody on dame island is human. Unfortunately, most of, if not everybody on Dame Island is human, but, uh, you guys chatted up in small talk after some of the aftermath of that juggernaut exploding itself in the, in the, uh,

in the keep. And who is it? It's one of the captains. He's just like a higher ranking guy. I'm just wondering whether we know anybody to, I guess we need to like, yeah, this is a guy who's just sort of intrigued by the fact

that you look like a barbarian, like another kind of badass looking dude and you weren't human so he was trying to ask you about your culture a little bit. Hey, Queep, we should maybe in a controlled way spread the word. Anything? She's dead?

Well, that we they don't know that.'re under attack yeah they are they let's ask him if the halflings have arrived oh yeah we we sent them here that was what we we left to do that for the dame island so they know that did we talk to we talked to the mayor who were we talking the arcanist who did we talk to about going to get the halflings the mayor and the arcanist were both there the mayor gave us that letter okay so let's just ho there did uh have the halflings arrived the donkey riders yes the donkey riders the battle donkey uh riders they arrived from donkey land

about a day ago yes they're they've they're on the banks around dame island they're not on dame island proper trying to stop any land force that might come. So yeah, there's many of them. They're, they're a fearsome looking, but diminutive lot. Okay.

So we should, we have him take him, take us to the, to the mayor, to the Arcanist right away. Right. Yeah. And maybe if you guys internally,

like as guards sort of have like a, Hey, everybody's working today signal. Maybe go ahead and start prepping everybody. Oh, why? You'll find out. The vaunted tusk is perhaps coming to attack. We're doing our best to stave off.

And the giants. Well, yes. And the giants, which they know. Everybody's coming. Well, I'm going to go ahead and switch the roll 20 map back to the class. People then before though, thanks to us, the ice five.

Yeah. This basically means the path of the vaunted Tusk are going to scatter from the North. The, there was only like a little bit of them. They're still probably going to come from the Southwest with more of the traditional force. But the boat full of them is no longer coming.

You know, the giants are coming. Yeah. And the, and our donkey friends are giant proficient. Has the violet, has there any been, we described the violet fang to him and like,

has this person arrived in town? Have you seen? Oh, the, the strange one. Yes. She went to meet with the Arcanist in his tower. They've not come out in some time.

We got to go. Right. Oh, boy. Right. Can you take us to the Arcanist right away? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're right outside the Arcanist tower.

If you want, you can attempt to. Before we go in there, we got to tell this guy, sound the alarm, organize, right? I mean, I think they know because that's why we brought... They knew that the... But yes, we tell them that the Vontitusk is possibly coming from the south. We may have thwarted an attack from the north. Giants coming from the north.

Yeah, they know because that's why we got the halflings for them, right? They knew that giants were... Yeah. Yeah. So you relay all this and they say, oh, well, good to know. We'll alert the mayor and the general and we'll try to distribute our forces in such a way to reinforce the battle donkeys. Can you feel Gus? We need to reschedule the farmer's market.

Yeah. Is there any Gussie? No sign of Gus. Mentally. Okay. Your connection appears to still be on pause okay uh where are you headed you headed to the the arcane key for the arcanist okay so you so yes okay great but i think i think we have to sort of be like hey hi hello but i think we have to sort of be like, Hey, hi, hello. But I think we have to be ready for murder time, right?

The Arcanist. Or what's her name? The Arcanist plus, plus her. I mean, we got it. I feel like our final step or the next step is the arch mage, but I feel like the Arcanist was,

we were unsure. I'm not saying we have to, I'm saying maybe something's occurred now that she showed up. Maybe, maybe he's like, Oh yeah, I'd love to murder everybody to become God. Yeah.

Let's go find out. All right. Uh, you opened the double wooden doors to the Arcanist tower. Everybody do a perception check. Oh fuck. Oh my God. Uh, natural 20 plus five five

holy shit 21 22 15 plus three great one dollar that is a lot of good rolls so um right as soon as you all step through everyone who rolled over a 20 that's going to be queep uh tick tock and dr hood you uh sorry you other two uh there's just something wrong with the air it just smells dank wet moldy almost in the building or outside of

the building definitely didn't smell like this when you met with the arcanist you know a couple weeks ago other dimensional uh no has the arcanist been turned into some sort of beholder right now you're just sort of in the landing there's some stairs that go up to the top of the tower where you know his study is uh nothing visually out of the ordinary except the torches aren't lit and there's some windows but it's all natural lighting seems very quiet damp yeah there's just something wrong with the air that just smells too old or something musky go all right up we're gonna need that jar of book okay who's gonna lead you guys up the stairs um i'll take the point i'll go well okay is that going to ask for some good berries or something before, but. Oh, sure.

That's a very, that's worth stopping the conversation real quick. Yeah, we're all, are we all down a little and we need, we have no spells? Well, yeah, but we can't. Or we're running out of spells. I mean, hopefully it's not a fight. I don't want it to be a fight. Yeah. Okay.

Well, I think probably the best thing to do though is i'm gonna go use my last slot and cast mask well who who's down i'm only down a few i'm down a lot i have a thing called second wind that i can trick oh yeah trigger i'm down five it's not no big deal okay then maybe blaine Blaine, could I just have some good berries or no? Well, that's a... I already burned that one back at the other place before the last fight. Chris and Brian need heal, too.

Do you have a slot left for it? You can just do it again if you... Well, okay, I'll just do... I don't know. I guess I'll have to do, because it's my only option. I'm going to do... I could do it again,

because I haven't cast anything. I didn't cast that much stuff. I'm at 20. Why don't you hang on to that spell slot? Okay. Best case scenario is this is all prevent... Everything's fine. We're going to walk in the Ark and it's like,

oh my god, it's crazy. Here, drink this crazy shit. But if it's a crazy fight, there is no amount... I need to be at max and i and i won't be so you should hang on to that spell slot and just right yeah okay well i guess we'll just go and see but yeah i'm okay for murder power all right so uh uh make sure you've got your healing added and you get up to the top of the stairs. There's a door that's closed. You know, his study is on the other side.

It's like a vertical door. You know, you open it. You kind of walk into like an attic like study. Knock. Nah. No response. knock nah no response housekeeping housekeeping

you open the door I heard a let's get a perception check from everybody 14 20 12 22 i rolled double natural 20s jesus lord yeah 40 40 perception 2020 okay um well here's first i'll tell you what all of you notice and then i'll tell you what those of you who rolled over 20 notice um all of you notice there appears to have been a fight here of magical nature there are just smiting like sort of circles in the walls and

in the floor where it looks like magic bolts of energy have hit. Things are burned. Things are scattered. Not unlike the scene you just left in Dratlana's lair in her boat. There's broken things everywhere. Also blood. There's a massive amount of blood and there's actually entrails kind of smeared around on the floor,

like human intestines. There's no sign of a body though, other than the guts um uh and those of you who rolled over a 20 notice this there is something humanoid sized perched about 50 feet above you and the ceiling of the study with uh feathery black wings uh held over its body appears to be hanging upside down. That's the valet fang. Remember, we saw her like that before. Yep.

Huh. All is still quiet. But the guy's gone or whatever we think. The archmage. Hey, we're back. Let's back out and go back to the hotel and change clothes. the archmage. Hey, we're back. Right? Let's back out and go back to the hotel and change clothes.

Halcine, did you actually want to yell out hey, we're back? Yeah. Cool. So, when you do this, the feathery wings part

and yeah, the violet fang sort of like peeks at you and says, oh, oh hello so much has happened what'd we miss well it seems a mutual enemy of ours is now out of the mix you're welcome who's that the arcanist you know he was plotting to not only kill you but take on the mantle of the tenebrous one it's a good thing he won't be able to do that anymore.

That seemed to be in his future, didn't it? Great. Well, we're just knocking these out. She kind of glides to the floor. What have y'all been up to? Hey, hey, hey. How about just relax and have some sweet tea? Let's talk about that.

Oh, you killed your mom. Good for you. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Where's Gus? Yeah, she says, one less drow above ground, eh? She just finger guns at you. Who's Gus? Remind me who Gus is.

I'm going back to her. Okay. The little orange dragon? Oh, that's right, he was with you Ah, yeah, we had a little accident Keokure Well, around the time I got to Dame Island He appeared to be tailing me or stalking me So I had to eliminate him i apologize yeah he was trying to we're trying to get your attention we're trying to talk to you oh you succeeded yeah how seem you were about to

ask something no uh i was gonna ask you dan i because i can't keep track since a while what happened where was hashinka where is she you guys were attempting to get into donkey land and uh encountered a magically trapped stairs you think magically trapped right she's either with the archmage or she's dead uh she sort of disappeared in this weird magic trap right okay um so what's next on your agenda well things are wrapping up around here uh you know i think i am uh i think i'm gonna head northeast to see what that archmage is up to i mean give him a once over yeah you know at least try to stake him out for a little while see what kind of intel i can get figure out what he's up to if i'm lucky i can get inside his keep and observe him from there but he's probably got a lot of magic protection

so i may just have to see if there's something i can do from outside his keep you know there's a bunch of giants and a bunch of those fish people coming to attack dame island right now yep all right well you seem to be in dame island i wonder if you would involve yourself oh are you asking me to nope All right Well you seem to be in Dame Island I wonder if you would Involve yourself Oh are you asking me to? Nope Kay Well

It's been great talking to you We're just gonna Regroup Same hard same We're gonna regroup We need to rest up And And we'll talk to you

Maybe we can grab some coffee And chat After we've We're going to regroup. We need to rest up and we'll talk to you. Maybe we can grab some coffee and chat after we've showered after our journey. You don't want to come with me? We might. Yeah. Can you just give us a little, we're a little, we had quite a trip, quite a day. We're covered in his mother's blood. I noticed three of you look quite gross.

Do you want me to wait up for you yeah right how about we all meet in the lobby tomorrow morning around that's yeah how's that be sounds good i will meet you at the east city gate of dame island on the docks in 24 hours how does that sound sounds good great um well i assume you'll want to pilfer something from here so i'm gonna leave you to it she says and she descends through the door and walks away let's pilfer let's do it all right i guess well yeah i guess we'll pilfer and then we gotta go talk to the mayor and rest, right? And discuss what we're doing. On that note, yes. We will do that next episode.

Hey, Sam. What do you think happened? Remember to pilfer next time. Ooh. You guys would be happy to know that when I opened the Roll20 map and I saw it, I out loud said, oh, that's right. It's a beholder. Not, oh, that's right, it's an eyeball. One of us. One of us. Growing up before our eyes.

I learned that even clouds can be dangerous. You guys all laughed at the idea that it sounded like erotic damage or exotic damage, but that's how everything sounds to me. erotic damage or exotic damage, but that's how everything sounds to me. The Fleetwood Mac thing reminded me why I don't miss Googling stuff for Blaine. We killed Darkthor's mother in a way that I would only

describe as hatebreed lyrics. Thank you, Brian. Did the Violet Fang casually mention they killed Gus? yeah they sure did i'm out i thought tiktok was gonna go crazy but i figured he was holding it in we're all real chill about that most restrained tiktok i've ever seen i think it's the tightest tiktok you guys have seen he's just tight yeah he's waiting coiled like a serpent. Yeah, that was weird. Anything you want to plug, anybody?

Nope. That was weird. Stacey Keech and I are doing a pay-per-view batting cage. It's all for charity. Stacey will take a swing. Dollar swing.

Charity, your swing. Charity. Uh, I would plug our, uh, I would like to plug our Patreon page. Uh, we've got some great stuff coming up. It's been,

I mean, just in the quarantine, the bonus episodes we've done, uh, Tom Lennon and Patton Oswalt were hilarious. We've done these star wars episodes that uh chris is running and uh we're having a blast so uh if you can uh you know join over there and check it out um and then brianpersain.com uh for fall dates or dates in the winter but uh

or dates in the winter. But I'm on Gimme Metal DJing Grandpa's Metal Stash with Brian Pussain on every Tuesday now on Gimme Metal. So look for me there.

Cheers. Thanks, everybody. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to another episode of nerd poker you can follow us

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encino california nine one four one six thanks for listening.