Nerd Poker - S4E13 Invisible Jerk

Episode Date: December 8, 2020

Our intrepid crew is getting a little sick of dealing with this huge invisible archfey who doesn't know anything. And you know what that means: they will probably blow him up so they can go about plundering the rest of this haunted mansion!

Hey everybody, I'm Brian Poussin. Comedian, writer, actor, nerd. I've been playing D&D with my friends for a long time. I decided to do a new podcast where we play Dungeons & Dragons in my very own dining room. With my wife, kid, and my noisy dogs. So meet my friends, Sarah, Ken, Dan, Clay, Chris. Now it's time for another episode of Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Season four.

Hey everybody, Brian Poussaint, you're listening listening to Brian Pesain's Nerd Poker. Episode 13 of season three or four? What are we on? Three? It's three. Who knows? Four. Four. Fifty-eight. Well, it's been a while since we've done a bunch of bonus episodes lately, so it's been a while since we've done the regular We Were Ahead. My friends are here. I'm looking at them. Hello, Sarah. Hello, Brian. Ken. Hey, buddy. Hi, Brian. How are you doing? Dan.

Hi, Brian. Wow, characters. Blaine. Hello, Blaine. Aliens. And hey, Chris. Hello, Brian.. Aliens. And hey, Chris. Hello, Blaine. How are you today? Is that already a holiday sweater, too, that you're...

It's my Beholder sweater. Nice. And in the upper left, our friend, as always, Sam. Hello, Sam. Hello, sweet children. Nice. Let's get this moving. Anybody you want to thank, Dan?

Oh, yeah. We just said Thanksgiving, remember? Yeah, it went great. So much so, I've decided I'm going to continue to be thankful. Thank you, Patreon supporters, at the Hay Boss and Stargoyle tier. Those are our special tiers where we give you a little shout out to say thank you for going the extra mile. Thank you, Holy Trunks. Thanks, Holly.

Thank you. Thank you, Jordy. I hope there are tapes. Thanks, Jordy. Thank you, Bob Robb. Thank you, Bob Robb. Thanks, Bob Robb. Thank you, David Feig.

Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Wick Rotation. Thank you, Stephen Terrell or Stephen Terrill. Thanks, Stephen. Thank you. Thank you, Clay Carver. Thank you, Roland Terrell or Stephen Terrell. Thank you. Thank you, Clay Carver. Thank you, Roland of Gilead. Thank you, Jack King. Thank you, Manfred Manthrax.

Thank you. Manfred Manthrax is a solid bit. Yeah, it's a good one. A little joke there. Thank you, Justin Millam. Thank you, Morgan S. Henderson. Thank you, Tensors Gifts. Thank you. That's not Spencer's Gifts, but Tensam. Thank you, Morgan S. Henderson. Thank you, Tensors Gifts. Thank you.

That's not Spencer's Gifts, but Tensors. That's a great one. That's a great one. It's a solid bit. Thank you, Megan Bradburn. Thank you, Adrian Bundy. Thank you, Scott Geeky or Goecky. G-O-E-K-E. Does anyone know that surname? Gecky.

Gecky. Gecky. Goecky. O-E-K-E. Does anyone know that surname? Geki. Geki. Geki. Yeah, Geki. Gaki. Geki. Geki. Geki. Geki.

Goku. Geki. No, it's not Dragon Ball. Is that Baby Yoda's name? Oh, don't say it. I haven't watched any of that. I won't. I won't.

I've had so much of it spoiled for me already. I'm. Hugh Grant did it. God damn it, Blaine. Thank you, Gwilym. Thank you, Not the bravest action thank you Jack Ransom thank you Blaine's refreshing pecans

thank you Mangione's flugelhorn of blasting oh man we're rife today thank you thank you thank you thank you and uh finally thank you Nug Nug's Oh, man. Thank you. Thank you. We're rife today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And finally, thank you, Nug Nugs Tug and Hug. Thank you, Nug Nugs Tug and Hug.

It's a classic, and always a surprise at parties. Blaine Bartholomew Kapach, who are those Patreon supporters brought to us by? Frames. It goes around a picture. Then it goes up on the wall. Frames! It's going to hang forever. Baby, remember my frames.

Remember, remember, remember. Frame Hut. Just the pizzazziest frames in City of Industry. Now in Whittier. Frame Hut. Back to you, Dan. Fr hot back to you Dan frames brought to you by wall nails wall nails the only kind of

nail for frames don't use those other nails they're for your god damn fingers wall nails anyway now I'm going to be an algorithm for thumb guards I just look scared the only way I know how to be funny anymore

is to rip off the funniest person I know. Thank you, Blanket Patch, for your commercial and thank you everyone for listening. Hey, everybody. These are all Carlos Mencia bets.

At least you were paid to be ripped off by Carlos Mencia. Union rates. No problem with it. Cheers. As well you shouldn't have. Remember jobs with union rates?

What were those days like in the before times? Just take a look at that clip. I remember when I was 11. Holy shit. Yeah, I just got another envelope full of WGA checks for $0.01. It's like a big old pile of those, and you're like, It's littering. It's just littering.

The stubs cost more to recycle anyway burger king coupons every time somebody watches the nick swartzen show wga sends a guy to kick me in the nuts that's the weirdest residual setup it's like candy man in reverse that's sad because no one's streaming it. Oh. Boy, oh boy. Anyway. I get plenty of nut kicks. Oh, yeah.

Brian, I have bad news. That guy coming over to kick you in the nuts is doing it for free. He's affiliated with nobody. He's just one of your fans. Hey, Brian. Hey, maybe that's the show. How about you're Candyman and you're just hanging out and all of a sudden somebody summons you in a mirror and you have to go kill somebody. That's actually a great reality show.

I would love to pitch around. Find Brian Posey and kick him in the nuts. Where is he? He's hiding. He's trying to have privacy. Let's find him. I like Wayne Idea better. Oh, okay.

He's a fat sales. He's totally a fat sales. Oh, my God. Anyway, sorry. Let's go. jesus lord um i did get fat cells before i went to the sacramento area oh my god uh oh so good they name it after you they should have it sounded like you said cheese is lord which actually makes sense if you're talking cheese is lord fat cells yeah fat cells it is yeah if you if you eat fat cells

it is very much like worshiping cheese as a lord uh boy boy i could go for some fucking olive oil on french fries in a bucket uh anyhow let's talk instead about what happened last time on NerdPoker, the Castaway Cuties slash Nice Five slash Bucket of Creeps, just kidding, they're much nicer than you'd expect for player characters on NerdPoker, from their body, a strange hag who, amongst other things, appeared to be running some sort of creepy cabal out of the back, and had some sort of feywild creature hanging out in a turret, having its power drained. This creature's name was Veralis, and they've been hanging out in the tower for a long, long time Trying to figure out what's on the other side of this door at the top of the turret Is there a portal to the Feywild like Veralis thinks?

Veralis doesn't know he's been trapped in this tower for 40 years Will the nice 5 slash castaway cuties kick down the door? Well, they've cast a tech magic on it There's some kind of magic on the door So they couldn't possibly touch the door Or do anything with it And they can't leave the tower Because now they've been fixated on it

For half an episode So they gotta fucking do something right That's me speaking as the listeners Who come to me on Twitter and Reddit And the Patreon comments Going are you gonna set a timer on these guys Jesus Christ Anyway um

That'll do Dan that'll do, Dan. That'll do. Let's find out what happens on this episode of Nerd Poker. Yeah, so I gave you guys a bit of a roast, but what I am doing is I'm telling you that that is actively happening and has been happening. So you definitely

hear Viralis sort of stirring invisible and impatiently nearby. Were you about to say something? Me? I heard Brian go. Brian sounded like he said something. I was. No, just nice job.

That was a nice recap. Oh, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I tried to take all the time I missed from telling the Dungeon Master stuff on the main adventure and put it into my energy. We haven't done this in like a month. No, it's true. I was raising my eyebrows in an

I'd like to say something. Well, I'm not the best at picking up social cues, but allow me to say, oh, hello, social cue. How would you like to proceed? I'm not the best at dropping them or picking them up. That's why we're friends so uh it occurred to me when i was comfortable i i might have missed it um we had said before we went inside that um nathan was going to identify the like bag of like human skin or

something that had been on the hag and then I don't think that we actually did it or did we do it oh you didn't oh interesting because it occurred to me that that might help but then maybe we did do it and I wasn't uh paying attention or privy to that at some point I don't remember uh I guess the guy

to ask is good old Chris Tallman Chris did you take notes on any identification happening we have not done that okay it seems like that would be a good it occurred to me as i was thinking back about this tower situation like maybe one of those things is relevant all i remember is the bag i also think anything we do that makes this guy wait longer is better right because all he wants us to do is open that door and I just, you know,

maybe, maybe not. Maybe we should. Last time somebody wanted us to do something, it was those guys that wanted to turn that homunculus

into the thing that bamfed and ruined and ended the campaign. I know, but that's what made us all too gun shy where then we spend

too long debating everything. So, I agree that... I am setting a 60 second timer after which something will happen. Pick up the pace. And, but one of the ways that we can do that is I say that Nathan should identify... Does anyone else remember this bag? It was made of human skin, right? There was... We weren't

going to open it because there was something would happen if we opened it. It felt like there was something hard inside it yeah right oh okay dan um is there something hard in that human skin bag there is gross this is the beginning of a really gross joke can you um identify it nathan yep it takes me 10 minutes dick joe why don't we wait it's a rabbi, and a guy from Ireland. We waited 10 minutes to cast identify, right? And then... I detected magic, and I walked up and down.

Oh, okay. And yeah, you detected that there was a moving aura as well as a pulsing aura. Yeah, there were two separate magical things, and one of them, I think, Blaine had made it sound like there's a thing pacing waiting inside there. Or trap. Yeah, there was some sort of large thing on the other

side of the door, right? A pulsing thing and a moving thing. Yes. Right. So let's identify the hard skin sack. So you cast identify on the skin sack. Now is that pulsating or is it is what's behind

the door the only thing that's pulsating i just wanted to be clear before we do this no okay great great i'll say all the all the auras uh the new auras that we were really talking about were on the other side of the door although there is magic coming off of this bag, it's meant to contain souls on behalf of the hag. You believe some sort of necromancy sacrifice was made to create this, and it wasn't just human skin, but like a life and a soul were given up to some sort of evil god or goddess. And in the process, this bag was able to collect souls for the hag. And yeah, there is some sort of soul gem inside this bag. Well, I will share that with the group.

this bag. Well, I will share that with the group. Is anybody familiar with collecting souls? What do you think you do? I mean, nothing good. Yeah, it doesn't sound good. You're not making biscuits.

That's something... Should we maybe free these souls so they can go back to their halls? Can we? Or is that something we can go back to their holes? Can we? Or is that something we can do? Or maybe we could just... Yeah. Would you like to do an inside check to see what would happen if you destroyed...

Or Arcana or whatever. I don't know what we... Oh, yeah. I'll let you choose. I'll just give you a magic versus an intuition answer. Can I do an Arcana? I know often when I say there's a check, everyone likes to roll regardless of whether it makes sense for their character.

So why not everybody just go ahead and give that sweet roll a go. So we can do Insight or Arcana? Insight or Arcana, you choose. Yeah, and everybody tell me if you don't get a super high roll, I'm going to go with whatever got the highest. I got a seven. 20? 17, 20 is good. I got a seven. Twenty. Seventeen. Twenty is good.

I got six. Talked big game. Ivis got the high roll at the twenty. What you got, Brian? Insight. Did you roll Insight or Arcana, Sarah? I rolled Insight because I had a bonus. Well, Sarah got the twenty. I'm asking her. Me?

I rolled Insight. Me? I rolled insight. Okay. You feel like there is magical properties to be gained from this stone in the bag. But you can take out. You can open the bag. Just pluck it out. There's nothing gross will happen except that you'll have to play with this human flesh. But it's long dead and there's nothing undead about it exactly.

It will just... You can... There's like a power to it, Nathan, and you would be able to sort of converse with Iva about this, that only the hag could use, because she created the stone herself. But there is additional magic in it that could possibly be used by your party. It would be destroyed if you destroyed the gem, but the soul would be released. Doesn't sound like anything you can help us right now.

But because no one got a super high Arcana check, I can't really say what those... Seems like we should hang on to it then maybe and get more information. Because I don't know if we release the soul, like if we release it i mean yeah it feels valuable you could you could also possibly sell this um but it feels like you know upon further study someone might be able to figure out or like by having someone look at it you might be able to figure out what could be gained here no i love i mean i love the idea of releasing the soul i'm just like if we release it is it going to be like sucked down into like a gaping hell chasm or something as soon as it gets out of the gym you know like i don't like but that but that's fine sure it is 2020 anything could

happen yeah that's right you never know the worst possible here's another but surprises um all right so that doesn't help us with this door though so let's just put a pin in that in the human skin bag and come back to it later loop back around that was my nickname in high school um all right so you guys human skin you guys are kind of talking about the skin bag when um skin bag you you hear and you're discussing it like out loud right um and um after you've discussed it for a while you hear the voice of varalis say uh enough talk something must be done and um nathan and ivah you you're both kind of holding the bag right now. Oh, man. I'm going to have you do a strength-saving throw, a rare strength-saving throw, as the invisible hand of Veralis

attempts to rip the bag out of your hands. Oh, I don't think so, Veralis. Ooh. Oh. Well. Arrgh. I got a zero. Whoa.

Not the strongest characters in the party. I mean, I got a five. Whoa. Whoa. Does Danny see it being pulled? Does Danny see it? Wow. Well, I'll tell you what.

Despite having a plus one, his for alice rolled a three so uh nathan you kind of you kind of get knocked on your ass but ivah yeah you're like i'm like no i'm like i really like i'm totally lashing out punching watching old dogs fight. He like pulls on it for a while and then exasperatedly grabs a hold of Nathan now. I'm kicking this invisible man in his balls. So I don't know what he thinks he's grabbing.

Yes, I'm biting his hard skin. Do you want to attack him? Yes, I do. He's trying to grab the bag i'm gonna kick the man thing a wild creature roll to attack wherever i can this is just to get him well it's a fun thing that happens sometimes in this game we call dungeons and dragons where you botch when you botch something funny happens roller 100 it's an unarmed strike are these your new dice sarah no i was using the online ones but let me and is this a punch or a kick sarah uh you know it was a kick that'll make it fun it was a kick hold on i'm getting my i will get my new dice out for this let's see how it goes somebody fill some time here hey blaine what was this botch brought to us by this botch is of course brought to you by a workstation five with such games as a

halo what are you doing hanging out here get back to work and uh work work revolution workstation five get back to work dan thank you plain sarah how did things go in your neck of the woods? I got the answer to life, the universe, and everything. You rolled a 42. Yeah. Excellent. Well, Douglas Adams, thanks to you for that. Rolled lower than a 50. That's pretty good.

So you go to kick him in the fey nuts. And unfortunately, he is much, much taller than anyone in your party. This guy is like towering and you whiff you just you know you're aiming for to connect with anything but just the huge sort of the

hugeness of him and he's very lanky it makes it impossible and you're gonna go ahead and flip backwards and you are now tumbling down the stairs I'm gonna have you do a dexterity saving throw okay okay 15 oh okay so you uh are only going to take a 1d6 bludgeoning damage and you'll stop yourself after just a few stairs uh it's uh three you take three damage uh at this point you just hear Veralis punching

the door over this booming sound as he's desperately trying to smash the door open fuck is with this guy but it seems the

magic on it or the magic perhaps cast on him is preventing him from making any progress hey bud why don't you chill and did we talk about what if

we open this door for you if we figure this out I just feel like we we have no guarantees of anything and we'd like some information about what lies ahead and what you're going to do for us for doing for you you know what I'm saying I do a persuasion check DC 20 how do people

think this is gonna go? Eh. Really well. It's hard. You know this will be hard because he's just wailing on this door. He seems really frustrated. Oh, buddy. He would not trust the party very easily at this point. That's a 10. Yeah, I mean he just keeps punching it.

Everybody do a perception check. 9. 9. Nine. Nine. Eleven. What did you get, Sarah? Fifteen. Okay. Eight.

Hmm. Those of you who get a 15 or higher, I think it was just Sarah. You notice it looks like this bright yellow, almost white light is beginning to shine through the keyhole in the door from the other side. Okay. What time was our checkout? Maybe it's the maids. Oh, my God. I do feel like we're just going to have to do something here.

Well, there are other rooms. We can go somewhere else. There are, but what's the most interesting choice? I mean i mean i was like what happens if we open the door break down that door okay yeah uh we have we checked it i'm sorry i was looking up i i've had a headache for over a week and i was seeing if i'm dying oh no yeah i think you should go ahead and take a minute and do that Yeah But What's the condition of the door? It seems magically locked Oh

We think it's a good idea for me to kick it Yeah, I feel like we're not going to be able to break it down Does Verales have an idea about how we were going to do it? How we would open it? Or was he just hopeful that we would... All you gathered was there was some sort of abjuration spell on the door. That's a big word. I'm setting a timer and then something's going to happen.

I suppose we could try and just destroy it with magic, I suppose. I will... stand back, everyone. Stand back. Get out of the way. I will cast Witch Bolt at the door. Oh, right. I'll point my wand and try and blow the fucker up. And I think that is an

attack roll, right? It is. It's an attack roll. Lovely. Please. By all means. Does anybody have anything like a like a Tylenol for Brian like a mage hand or an unseen servant or anything that could maybe do this

I don't think this crew does I have a mage hand I thought we were trying to break down the door it's locked right yes I got an 11 against the door um you at this point you all notice there is this white hot light shooting like a laser out of the keyhole um you think you all uh smell sulfur perhaps we should stand back he is still banging on the door but the invisible friend

is still punching punching punching i but the invisible friend is still punching punching punching i'm gonna put something in um reflective against the keyhole so that the light that's shining through is gonna be reflected back to wherever it's coming from oh you're gonna like try and like like is it gonna be like a little hand mirror sure i mean or whatever something that i have whatever is the shiniest thing and i have yeah you would have that i do like looking around the corner or yeah you would uh totally have a shiny thing um tell me pick for me what you're using now because this is going to be interesting um yeah how about a how about a a hand mirror that sounds good okay uh do a dexterity saving throw.

Sure. Because it's covered in vitalis. That is an 11? Yeah, you just barely manage to hang on to it, but you feel like a force pushing with the light. Jesus. Whatever's on the other side of this door seems powerful and horrible. Like the light is a creature or the light is a weapon?

It feels like a magical force is pushing, like this laser-like light is causing force to push through the... Hey, Viralis, is this one of your buddies? What's going on over there? He's still ignoring you, but the light seems to be getting brighter the longer he punches on the door. It's like a system. It's going to hurt him in a second. It's telling that guy can't be next to that door.

So we can either pull him away or he's about to get the shit kicked out of him. Oh, I see. And maybe us. Yes. Perhaps we should all back away. Okay. Should we pull him away. Okay, let's put... Should we pull him away? I didn't get that. You're very smart.

Oh, well, thank you. You're very handy. Alright, what are you guys doing? Are you backing away? Are you pulling him away? Let's take him away, right? Yeah. Would it behoove us to get him as far away... secure him as far away from the door as we can so that we can get through the door without this thing being activated?

Tootie, that man's getting himself hurt by not listening to us. Enough time has passed where you all kind of like are moving towards Viralis when suddenly a sonic explosion sort of reverberates out from the door and the air hits you like a brick wall. I'm going to need everyone to do another dexterity saving throw. All right, then. Ooh. 17. Ooh. 17. 20.

21. 17. All right. 16. Cool. Good work, guys. Those of you who beat a 12 are going to have 11 points of force damage so we round up yep uh you guys all get knocked into the brick wall of this turret you don't see anything in the except the light has instantly disappeared from the

keyhole um and you see yourselves get knocked in the wall and then you depending on how high your dex check it was you stop yourself after a few stairs but if you did not make the dex check of 12 you are at the bottom of the turd you you thudded your way all the way down

um everything is quiet who's down there at the bottom who didn't make everybody everybody made it but i am very close to actually dead now um due to a series of poor choices so um if anybody could uh throw me a a bone of healing at some point or whatever that would be great you hear a grunt from the invisible Veralis who did not get knocked very far, but was pushed away from the door.

Veralis, our friend is hurt. Can you help her? I don't know any healing. Well, then you probably shouldn't have been banging on the door like a dumbass. Like a dumbass? Yeah, pretty sure you knew what was going to happen. Oh, please.

Show me. Somebody heal me real quick. Let's see. Guess what? I can just run out of your dumb tower. All right. what's your AC I told you guys to help me but nobody I'm gonna cast sanctuary on Iva

you unfortunately don't get to do anything just yet Sarah what's your AC it's 14 say again you cut out for me 14 oh okay what's your AC? It's 14. Say again. You cut out for me. 14. Oh, okay. So you managed to just kind of like,

like shrug your shoulder to the side as you feel him take like an open palm. That's about half the size of your body and just sort of slam it against the brick wall behind you. And you just hear the, the, the stone crackle as little bits of dust and pebbles fall off the wall where he slammed. Well, we're going to have to fight him now.

No, you can just leave him in this stupid tower. He's being... Yeah, he grunts and you hear him kind of stomp back up the stairs and sort of sit down by the door. He's very irritated, but... Alright, fuck this shit. Yeah, we'll be back for you. Can anyone heal either

let's get out of the tower right why don't we go back down to where the guy is we can go explore the some other room unless somebody has a brilliant idea of what to do with this let's leave this guy isn't going anywhere are we all logged into roll 20 yes i can uh drop the link in if anyone needs it I'm not showing Sarah I'm coming so if you head on back there you'll notice you're currently shown as on the second floor up in the tower kind of cramped in a tiny part of the turret somebody do take a screenshot

if you would because I've got the fog of war happening and my screenshot looks much more Detailed than yours and I don't want to give away all the secrets Um All those secrets Secrets of Sun Dragon We're going to head over to the first floor And you all will

Note that you're all kind of positioned I'm going to put Danny in the same hallway where You guys are And the butler is back there. Just kind of looking worried. He says, Oh, I heard a noise. Are you all all right?

Not great. But we're out of there. Look at her face. Can you heal that? I could make some stew. Does the name... He wasn't there when we saw who was in there, right? No, he didn't go in with us.

What is his name? Veruleth? Veraleth. Veraleth. Veraleth. I don't go in there. I've never been in there. That's who we...

Wait, his name is Veralis? Yeah. Man, that doesn't sound the same. I'm going crazy. I apologize if I am tripping over my own notes here. I'm going nuts. Do you know what's in there? We went over this last episode,

so rather than continuing to do this in character, I will just remind everybody that he claims this was a hidden door that he never went in then he he has had his like memory wiped so i just thought we'd tell him who it was and see if there's like a flicker of anything um yeah i mean he really seems kind of dumbfounded yeah what about now? Are there still healing potions? Any perhaps a spell book left by the cabal that we might use to heal our friend? Oh, interesting. There is a room full of liquors and other strange, you know, sort of distilled things. Just off to the left.

If you're in the main room, just across the hall now from where we are. And then there's a room where the cabal would meet and summon spirits. I suppose that could have some magical things in there. And then there's the, the solarium in the back. There could be some herbs, but most of the plants have overgrown. I don't,

I don't know which plant from... Tootie, can't you just lay some sweet paladin healing? I don't have healing. Do I? You have that thing that's like lay on hands, where you get a certain amount of points. Oh, shit. Yeah, you're right. This is the episode

where Tootie realizes he can heal. No, I did it before. I just forgot. No, that's cool. I can just go in the other room and just drink one of these weird bottles and see what happens. If you prefer. Lay on hands pool, yes. But I haven't had a long rest since I did it. Oh, really?

When did you do it last time? Didn't I heal Nathan before? I think you healed some of us before. Have you exhausted your pool? Yes. Have we all rested? Alright, well. Why don't we take a short rest? Why don't we take a short rest and roll some hit dice?

If you want to take a short rest, I will say that your friend the butler does tell you there are guest quarters nearby where the staff used to sleep, but no longer does. Let's all take a room and rest.

There are four beds so someone will have to sort of, you know, throw a blanket on the floor if they want. That's fine. He's okay with that. Just a short rest, right? Well, I need a long rest to fill the pool, but it'll help heal. What time of day Are we talking about just a short rest, right? Well, I need a long rest to fill the

pool, but it probably helps heal. What time of day are we talking? Is it nighttime-ish? It's like midday. But you can, you know, we can make a little disco nap before we go out partying this evening. Yeah.

But he tells you, so if you want to go there, see where I'm pinging on the map? If you go through that door, it'll take you to the dining hall and then that room in the... Do we want to check the distillery or whatever it was? Yeah, this is silly. I mean, I think... I'm sure it'll be fine. I'll be fine. No, no, no, no, no.

No, I think you need healing. You'll be fine in that we have no way of saving you if anything happens. None whatsoever. All right, show me to the potions room. I love... This happens every season. I love when you guys turn a side quest into this huge thing. You want to look in the distillery?

Not the cabal room. Right. So that is this door right here. If you guys would like to move your tokens on over there, you can. The door appears unlocked and the butler says it should be unlocked.

Right. I open the door. You open the door. Inside you see several large casks and a couple of shelves full of bottles um there's a lot of liquor here and what looks like a couple of strange magical fluids mixed in with some of the hard stuff on the shelves on the walls on either side i mean don't like the word fluids, Dan, but It's unlabeled and it's in like a definitely like a bottle that was made here and apparently only the

hag knew what was inside. Lady Mesramine. Well, anyone want to do a taste test or do you want to identify something or you know, are you expecting me to just drink this? I'm happy to identify. Can identify get a fluid?

That's the real question. Oh, well, I think if it's magic. I'm looking for some type of healing. How about detect magic first? Does anybody have that? That's a good idea. If it's a magic item or some other magic imbued object,

I learn its properties, how to use them, whether it requires attunement, how many charges, if any. I learn whether any spells are affecting it, what they are. If the item was created by a spell, I learn what spell created it. Got it. Cool. So you're going to, are you going to cast identify or detect magic? What are you guys doing

oh that was for identify well which which are you casting i don't know if anyone has detect magic okay uh i have detect magic i was going to do identify it takes me it takes 10 minutes no matter what so i might as well just do the one that if it is magic, identifies it. Otherwise it... Yeah, you cast identify. It doesn't appear there's anything magic about this one bottle, although it is green fluid that you've never seen before, and it almost has like a phosphorescent quality to it.

Ooh, it's a glow stick. Is there a fish fest nearby? Is that Nicki Minaj white? Well, if it's just a taste test, I can take a little taste. Is there a fish fest nearby? Is that Nicki Minaj wine? Well, if it's just a taste test, I can take a little taste. You're going to take a little... Oh, right, Nathan. You're going to take a little taste.

But if it's poison, why would it be in there? If that's all it is, it's tasty. Okay, Nathan. Do a constitution saving throw. Okay. 20.

Not natural. That's still fantastic. You just kind of like, you know, turn the bottle over on your little bunny finger and a little dab and just kind of put it on your tongue. You guys all see Nathan go like, and like his eyes seem to go completely white.

Nathan, without blinking, all of a sudden the room suddenly seems to shift. It looks almost exactly the same, but all your friends are gone. And the room has a sort of dark blueness to it. Everything's much darker. And there's just sort of like little crackles of white light everywhere. Uh, all of you, Nathan is still here,

but, and Nathan, what you're seeing appears to be a parallel plane to this one. Is it, does it feel like Faye or ethereal? You do an insight check. All right. 11. Uh, do an insight check. Alright. Eleven.

Yeah, you know what? You're a wizard. I'll give this to you. It seems like this is the ethereal plan. Ethereal? Alright, yeah, so I'll be like, I can see other worlds! That really upset Sarah. It scared me.

I was paying attention to something else and that voice was just in my ear. I don't know if all of you guys are using your mind's eye properly. The idea of Nathan saying that in that voice is terrifying. Do I see... Scarier than Watership Down.

Jesus. Do I see still, but I still see like the framework of the room. I don't see them, but I still see that. So, so that's part of how you put it together. It's with that insight check. You're like looking and it's like, oh, this is the room, but not, it's like, it's like a parallel version of the room. And do I see creatures?

Do I see things floating in that kind of stuff? That's sort of a theory, right? Perception check. All right. How many have you tasted, then? 11. Yeah, there's little things sort of moving in the shadows, but they're insect-sized and you can't quite focus on them.

There's something here. Oh, my God. All right. and you can't quite focus on them. There's something here. Oh my God. All right. Are you okay, friend? I've made a terrible mistake with this. Can I hear them? I can hear them though, right?

Yes, yes. You do hear your friends if you don't see them. I'm fine. Nathan, are you... You're fine. I'll slowly turn I'll do like a full 360 just to try and get like a lay of the land okay with his head only god damn it please

yeah you all see his head just go fuck um no as you turn around Nathan you look back into the sort of big foyer of the manor, the big sort of receiving room, and you do notice there's like a

strange glowing magical plant for where the chandelier used to be, and there's glowing orbs in that room, but the room you're in right now is very dark and seedy. Are the orbs like hovering? Yes. As though they are like fixed?

Where are they like sort of ceiling, middle of the room, closer to the floor? See where those four plants are on the map? They're sort of right where those are. Okay. But like how high? They're floating, yeah, like higher than you, about six feet off the ground. Okay. The orbs.

There's something about the orbs. There's something about the orbs. And you snap back into the same perception as everyone else. What are you looking at? You okay, buddy? Ew.

I think it's molasses. It's very sweet. It's a very sweet flame what did you see in there I believe it's some sort of person that takes you to the ethereal plane did you still hear me unfortunately yes oh good then

so I will sort of peek out back of the door and point at those four points and be like that's something oh boy um well look guys i have two hit points so not to put too fine a point on it but i'm gonna take a nap um and uh you guys just go why don't you go exploring while I do that does that sound fun then if there were anybody monitoring our adventures

through their ears they might be entertained while I napped you guys could actually do stuff and um I'm sure someone will that guy will watch over me right mapped, you guys could actually do stuff. I'm sure someone will... That guy will watch over me, right? You trust him.

Sure. Do you guys head into the dining room and see Iva off? No, I'm just curling up in the distillery. You're going to sleep in the distillery? Great. It's cozy. She just sort of curls up there. She needs a break

um yeah what we say it's like uh two hours you rest i think i think a short rest is four hours i don't remember i'm sorry but i don't wait hang on yeah and then you roll um your hit die to right okay it's one it's at least one hour so we can say uh you're gonna let them go goof around for an hour yeah um a short rest is a period of downtime at least one hour long during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating drinking reading tending to wounds uh you can spend one or more hit dice at the end of the short rest up to the maximum of hit dice. For each one spent, you roll the die and it adds an add your constitution modifier

to it. You regain hit points equal to the total, and then you can spend an additional hit die after each roll, but you only get so many and then you regain them all after your long rest. So if you guys all go to bed at a normal hour, you'll get them all back. But, yeah.

If you want to say you're out for an hour, when you're done with the hour, you can roll. Okay. You guys have a choice now. And the butler tells you, yeah, there's the dining room, the sort of solarium in the back behind it. There's the cabal room. There's the room upstairs we don't really go to. There's the sleeping

quarters and the private rooms of Mesermane, or sort of her treasure room. And then he goes, oh, and then of course there's the cellar I'm not allowed to go in. you can access that from the

the backyard these things he's not allowed to go into did you say treasure room this it's like uh an artifact room full of knicks and baubles and such if ivy here, she'd have you by the throat. Praise you, or you say, is something she would be throat-grabbing about. You didn't mention it before, yeah. I think it happened in passing. We may have discussed valuables upstairs. Jop, what seems most interesting to you as a, or Jop, I should say, as a Yelf?

Uh, uh, got some reverb up there. I'm using my thought balloon, it seems, so you can hear what's in my dreams. Perhaps we should station ourselves

around these plants like they are shelves. Find out what's in these other dimensions. Other dimensions. Other dimensions. Other dimensions. It also sounds like someone's headphones got unplugged and we're hearing an echo of

people talking. Is it me? I don't know. I hear you. I hear you. I hear you twice. I would like to explore her quarters and see what's going on up there. That sounds like a good idea. Impressionally.

No, right? The only trick, if you go up to her quarters, it requires passing briefly through the room we do not spend much time in according to Butler or you can as Jelf was sort of playing with I'll show you real quick the second floor the second floor's got that balcony sort of on the

over here so this is a balcony kind of to the left in the main room. No. Can my mage hand pick me up? I don't know if it can pick up that much weight.

I beg your pardon. I'll lay off those mallow cups, Nathan. Just kidding. It is the holiday season, and if one does not celebrate, one is not having a holiday season. It cannot carry more than 10 pounds. Yes, it is. I'm sure I'm still 10 pounds.

No. I would say, Nathan, you weigh about 70 pounds. Got it. Maybe a rope, then. He's a huge rabbit. He's like one of them Teletubby rabbits. But I think you guys could if you wanted to figure out a way to use the chandelier or the power of flying or floating to get up onto that balcony.

If you want to avoid the room, we must not spend much time in. You haven't really asked the butler much about it. Maybe if we just don't spend much time in it, it'll be okay. Are we allowed to just... As a dungeon master, I of course love this zero option. Octavio, can we just walk through it quickly? Like, is it a room

that you can just sort of, like, get through? Oh, of course. It's perfectly safe as long as you don't touch the suit of armor and you don't look at it for very long and you don't dawdle or taunt the suit of armor. Everything should be fine. Suit of armor. So there's a suit of armor then, I see.

Yes, or of course, the bauble that it protects. Oh. Oh, I was going to kill you. I was going to run you through, my friend. Yeah, let's go through the room. Yeah, let's do it. The most prized possessions of the manor is in a small glass case. It sits on a small pedestal, but behind it is a suit of armor that guards it,

and you don't want to touch the ring or the glass it is beneath, or the armor will do something horrible, and if you spend too much time there, the armor will jump to conclusions, and the armor will still do something horrible, and oh, I don't think even adventurers as powerful as you want to do that, for this suit of armor terrified even Lady Mesramane herself. But she kept it in her house. She had no choice.

It was here before she. Let's cruise out through this room, see what's up, and then come back and maybe deal with the suit of armor. Okay, so you guys are going to head upstairs. We're going to go ahead and stay on this second floor map, and we're just going to go ahead and take all your tokens, right? Except Iva, who is going to scoot you there. You guys get up here. It's a little landing. And you pop open the door with Octavio.

So I'm going to go ahead and reveal this room as the butler octavio opens the door it is a giant nearly completely empty room sitting in the very center of the room there is a a it's almost completely dark right there's some lights coming in through um the doorway now but uh no natural light no candles no torches there's just this huge like eight foot tall blackened metal just like jagged edges on the armor it looks like something from another world suit of armor that just sort of very pensively almost as if it is flexing its muscles beneath the armor just like like looming over a little pedestal with a little glass bubble over it and inside is a little ring with a yellow stone in it um you see by looking off to your left there, there are two doors, one that heads out into the balcony and one that heads directly into Lady Mesramayne's bedchamber.

That one. Bedchamber? Yeah. What do you guys think? Yeah. Absolutely. As we walk by, I will not look towards the suit of armor,

but I'll casually point my paw and cast message. And I can send a message to any creature within range. And I will just say to it, we are friends passing through. We will not

be staying, nor do we intend you any harm. My name is Nathan. Do a persuasion check. Sure. Six. You just hear this strange humming noise in your head that goes like almost like air being sucked uh through a vast expanse it's not quite

language but it's definitely some sort of message that is difficult to understand nothing changes about the suit of armor octavio uh walks you to the west side of the room you should not spend much time in and sort of nervously goes through his key ring and pulls out a large iron key that he uses to open the bed chamber door for you and inside you find a large royal sized bed with a footlocker at the foot

of it vanity and a chair and a door pretzels one of those bath bombs it does look like Octavio has not had a chance to make the bed yet, so the room is in a little bit of disarray, and he apologizes for this.

You notice the powder room door is to the south. And that's about it. Excellent. I think we'll find out more about what is in Lady Mesramane's bedroom chamber on episode 14 of season 4 yeah hey uh Sam hi everybody

what do you think happened I'd be happy to explain uh episode 13 it is bold of us to joke about finding and kicking Brian in the nuts. Considering our last joke, got us tracing of dicks mailed in for 12 years. We're still battling a door.

Everyone stops saying skin bag. Ava kicked the air and Brian is a potentially fatal headache. A light exploded through the door and I didn't catch who was behind it. For someone whose job is recapping the episode. It feels like a real, you had one job scenario. We're in a room full of fluids and Nathan drank some sort of spiritual drink and went to another dimension

and his Buffalo Bill voice scared Ava, so she took a nap. We discovered a lot of new rooms and a suit of armor and nothing is cuter to me than the idea that Nathan might be a little fat. I don't believe in shaming someone for such a thing. I don't. I think it's the cutest

thing on the planet. Anything you want to plug? Anybody? Oh, yeah. You know what? I'm doing not just my regular Friday Twitch stream at twitch.tv slash tellfordan, but I'm doing a little show on another twitch channel there's someone else doing

stand up on twitch huh um but uh it's called cabin fever comedy i believe it is on december 12th at 8 p.m uh you can check that out at twitch.tv slash comedy hub that's cool

cool so that'll be and it'll be on they have a youtube channel for afterwards you can check it out there cool i have a top top secret video every uh every thursday on um true tv with ron funches check that out and then uh grandpa's metal stash every tuesday morning on uh give me metal anything else hey yeah i was gonna say uh you know i've been putting together some some acting material lately did do you and stacy keach have any experiences that i could draw from uh well you know we uh we used to meet with uh lee strasberg ator's all the time and we would play Uno for a couple hours and Lee would just tell us

stories about Jim Stafford and Mac Davis, the late great Mac Davis, because he knew all these country people from Branson. He knew that I loved the Osmond so much. Anyway, Stacy and I are the new Mythbusters,

so check out our pilot episode where we're going to – the pyramids, are they square? Nice. Cool. Well, thanks for listening. See you next time. 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. Oh, man. I need to dye my hair. Shut the fuck up. I'm just kidding. Yeah, God forbid I talk for once. I was going to start. I love you. I'm going to come up to Sacramento and hug you.

I can be there in six hours. I, oh boy, yeah. I'll be there in six hours. I'm from there. I'm from there. I'll be there in six hours. Aye, aye, aye, aye. I'm from there. I'm from there. I'll hunt you down. I don't know anyone here, and it's terrifying. Guys, Blumhouse is taking pitches.