Nerd Poker - S4E17 Cellar's Market

Episode Date: January 5, 2021

Our heroes (whose group name is currently unofficial but we all know Castaway Cuties is still the frontrunner) explore the cellar of the manor, and hope that they can claim its treasure as their own (or at least sell it at Blingbottom prices). Hopefully it will be a simple trip to an evil cabal's darkened basement and there won't be any funny stuff!

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

Lee Chris Now it's time for another episode of Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Season 4. Hey, everybody. It's Brian Poussaint, and you're listening to Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker, Episode 17. My friends are here. Look at them.

God, they're delightful. Hey, Chris. What's up, buddy? Hi, Brian. Hi. We've got Ken. Hello, Ken. Hi, I'm just a little baby.

Oh. All right. We've got Blaine. Hello, Blaine. I'm also a little baby. Mm-hmm. And Sarah. Hey, Sarah. Hey, I'm a big boy.

You guys all had a meeting. And look at that. It's Dan. Hey, everybody. Hey, I'm a larva. Oh. He turned into it, too. He was looking away like he was shooting some other show. It was a TV show opening.

I tried that bit a couple episodes and you never said hi to me so I just stared into the middle distance. Sorry. Well, you've worked it tonight. I called you out on it then and me doing it again now only makes it more uncomfortable. That was a terrific bit.

And back where i like them in the upper left everybody sam and his little friend ramen hello sweet children buddy hi uh hey so uh got anybody you want to thank yeah i guess let's see what i got here in the old docket yeah just gonna rearrange my imaginary paper here oh who's here at the top it's a patreon support don't yawn at me you son of a bitch uh i'm gonna thank our patreon supporters who uh of course are at the hey boss and stargoyle tears thank you michael corhonen thank you thank. Thank you. Thank you, A Wizard. But Broccoli! Thanks.

Thank you, Colby Allen. Thank you, a paladin that Brian doesn't hate. Not possible. What about Tootie, folks? No. Tootie's doing his best. I'm no Jerry. Thank you, Nikki

DeGrosse, have fun pronouncing my last name and protect Gus. Thank you, Dr. Balls, paging Dr. M.F. Balls. Wow. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Dan Telfer, and I'd like to thank such Patreon supports as also who could forget That's All Forever. Thank you, Latwig.

Thank you, My Dwarf as a Prince Allbird. Thank you, Frank Wacker. Thank you, Natural22. If I have to explain, I'm sending my money to the wrong podcast. Thank you. Just let that one air out a little bit. Just hang that one up on the patio and just let the wind dry it thank you jason lee not that one uh thank you ethel merman wow which is spelled like the the masters of the universe merman so

that's what's especially fun about that one thank Thank you. Thank you. Spong Lloydian. Thank you. Thank you. Matthew Redlin. Thank you. Albert Kistein. Thank you. Terry's sweet and hot.

Eric Okra fried thighs. No, I could never imagine frying and devouring one of our player characters. That's offensive. Thank you, Chris B. I've already moved on from the horror. Thanks, Chris B., for giving me that out. Thank you, Matthew Fruth.

And thank you, an expired Groupon for Terry's Brothers No-Pain Cosmetic Dentistry and Acupressure Spa. Thank you. Sam turned off his mute just to laugh at you, so joke achieved Laugh with you

Oh excuse me I don't know we are talking Laugh at you were joke I like to go on a few dates And hold your hand for a while before I feel Comfortable uh openly laughing At you so that's fair uh Uh Ken knows this but you know who else

I have to talk to blaine blaine who are those patreon supporters brought to us by hey uh dan uh those uh patreon supporters brought to you by we haul movers you haul you do it yourself we all uh call us about it yeah it'll get there yeah it'll get there don't worry about it yeah don't worry about it

we are movers don't worry about it Dan thanks Blaine. Definitely not going to visualize that every time I hire movers for the rest of my life. It's like an episode of Scrappers. Good God.

Well, without any further ado, I believe it is. By the way, Dan, I googled those guys and they have five stars across the board. Oh, okay. Highly recommended moving company. It gets there. I can't wait for me to review them on Yelp and give an honest negative review and have everyone say it's funny,

but not helpful. You got to go to ironic Yelp. You mean Twitter? All right. Uh, folks, it's time to get into what happened last time on nerd poker this group of mercenaries who go by one name or another who gives a shit we're hanging out in a haunted mansion clearing out all the rooms that were

possible to clear out including a room that, clearing out all the rooms that were possible to clear out, including a room that had an ancient vampire in it. Oh, he's dead! But at what cost? Some hit points, I suppose. They've got Octavio the butler kind of helping him out, and it seems they've deterred some local bling-bottom guards

from worrying too much about all the corpse out on that front lawn. So for now, they're out back opening the cellar door. With quite a great to-do, Tootie put his tool in the crack and just really cranked one out, if you catch my drift. That's right, Tootie really got his tool in the little opening and worked it around a little bit and you know really put some elbow grease into working that tool and now the

door is open and what is inside the cellar who knows i'm fixing to find out yeah well you i'll just have to look and there it is an open black expanse with some cobwebs. It looks like it goes down about a full floor underneath the house. The house, of course, did not have a basement that you knew of, so this may go deep underneath it, but that's the direction the stairs head underneath the house. Right now, I don't have a Roll20 map for it because there's not, as as i know any threat whatsoever down here but uh are you okay i'm okay because i'm lording the threat of doom over you and that always warms the cockles of my heart yeah you guys see this sort of stairway down and it's dark i mean

of course there's enough cobwebs where it's temporarily obscuring what's what's down there and octavio had never been down there no he didn't i mean he really does seem like an old man who's been uh magically prevented from remembering things he's magically prevented well um is anyone uh can anyone see in the dark? He's sneaky. You could probably do some seeing in the dark. You know what I mean? Like once you get through these cobwebs, unless there's just more cobwebs. Can we maybe do like some sort of torch to the cobwebs?

Get rid of some of them? Sure. Light them up. Okay. So you're going to light a torch and just try to non-magically light them up? Yeah. Burn our way in. I can do Mage Hand. Also, I could sort of have this magic paw

sort of just reach out and pull everything away. You want to do that? That could be good, yeah. Who else has Dark Vision? I do not. I do. Danny has it. Alright, so you cast Mage Hand. And you reach out to just like a big sort of like thread line

of cobwebs right like a foot of the way in and as the Mage Hand touches it it just kind of passes right through. You mean like it doesn't affect it? Passes right through? Mm-hmm. The cobwebs are an illusion? Is that what it looks like? Yep. Yeah. The cobwebs are an illusion? Is that what it looks like? Yep.

Huh. I'm going to change characters and cast the spell magic. Oh! Which character are you? The Great Rando! Again, folks, check out our bonus

Patreon episodes for Adventures with N'Guyo Bilem and The Great Rando. I almost rolled my arm i felt it and musical instruments yeah i mean you i mean unless someone can uh dispel magic you don't have an immediate solution for getting rid of it i cannot i can detect magic though i sort of i will look at the group okay that help? At least we could find out exactly the nature of what's going on in front of us.

Mm-hmm. Okay. So you cast Detect Magic, Nathan, and you see the green cobweb. The cobwebs start to take on a green aura. So they seem to have a vague green aura. So do the stairs going down. And the walls. Hopefully it's not a pit.

Okay. So can we toss something on the stairs? Yeah. Can we like toss something on the stairs and see? Throw a platinum down there. Yeah. So what I heard is you're throwing your platinum piece down through there. Oh, I don't have any.

No, that's not happening. Someone has one. But yes, Chris, you're about to say. Just from the yard, there's got to be a rock or just a clump of dirt or just something we can just toss. There's a stray weed that's kind of been knocked over by one of your boots, and so

you can just kind of pick it up and toss it. When you do, it goes just silently, almost passes right through the stairs. Oh, yeah. Good thing we didn't walk in here. I'm curious. Well, we know it's straight down.

So perhaps we throw rope and just very carefully, foot by foot, explore. Oh, can I? How about, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I just suddenly remembered that I have a flying friend. Oh.

We haven't talked to Agatha in a while. I wonder what she was doing while I was unconscious on the floor, but probably just, you know. Oh, she actually came over. We were actually watching a bit of The Repair Shop on Netflix. She did not seem concerned yes oh great well okay i think i said that uh she's she like flew away when okay good noodle skittered away okay so i'm gonna should i ask agatha to just if she feels like it to scout

down and see what she sees also do illusion illusions work on birds? Like maybe she sees what she sees. Yeah, let me, that's a great question. I really like that question. Thank you. Thank you. Sam, make a note. God, finally to be recognized. Let's see.

So, I think the sort of trick is like like yeah Agatha can make a roll do you have Agatha's stats up no but I can get them okay so basically you can I'll let you choose you can either do a persuasion check for Agatha or you can do an intelli uh no not intelligence uh an investigation check for agatha um you say which one sorry i was let's do animal handling i'll let you do either animal handling or she will roll investigation. Okay. Then. I won't make it too complicated.

Yeah. Then I'm going to roll animal handling. Okay. Oh, I mishandled that animal. Oh, no. That's your animal. I know. I got a six.

Okay. oh no that's your animal i know i got a six okay so she just sort of you know flies towards it and like keeps pulling away at the last second like she's afraid she's going to run into the spider webs because they're so big and thick okay but she gives she understands you want her to go i mean there's there's obviously um i mean basic passive insight i mean you could you know still force her to go down there. Yeah, I'm not going to do that. Okay. Not a monster. Danny, do you feel like a bit of exploring?

Yes. Well, we tie off a rope up here. Perhaps Tootie can help hold it, and Danny can explore. Yeah, is there anything we can tie the rope off? You can definitely tie it on to the cellar door. I do see Jelf the Yop is raising

a hand as if he... Do we wonder if this is some kind of pit or if there is a platform that's far beyond it. Across. First of all, I would just

What is Danny Stee? Blame for doing that bit for his character 16 episodes in. Danny, are you lowering yourself down? What do I see just looking into the pit? I mean, right now you don't see anything unless

you're lowering yourself sort of through the stairwell that you know is an illusion okay like right now you see you see like a i'll try that yeah you see like a dusty stone stairwell with dirt walls with cobwebs um and you can easily yeah, tie the rope to the cellar door. Um. And baby, talk dirty to me. Uh. Ha! Yeah, uh, I'll, uh, I'll try that. All right. So you, you, you get the rope nice and secure.

And you start lowering yourself down. Um, you guys all see Danny just kind of, like, disappear through the stairs. Just like. Until finally his head dips beneath them. Danny, um, you are now in a very dark vertical shaft. Uh,

you're human. So I don't believe you have dark vision. Oh, I know I do have dark vision. Oh, cause you're half. Yeah. Yeah.

I forgot. So you're lowering yourself, uh, down and yeah, you, you, you can see it goes about 20 feet down and then there are some spears that are fastened to the floor and what appears to be a uh a skeleton of uh it looks like it's been like almost not a skeleton like a baby a while ago you know it looks like it might be like a year old body uh just one uh and then not a not like something blaine would kill a year old uh it the body is a year old oh 2021 starting hot oh my god the body looks like it is about it is decayed for about a year it appears to be a fully grown uh we'll just say like it seems like a townsperson or something it doesn't seem like a monster um it's alfred molina, it is. Alfred Molina has Dr.

Octopus back again. He's, he's at it just for Disney cannon this time. He's coming back. Yeah. Uh, should they, if they're making a huge mistake,

if the dude who played Spider-Man in, uh, Spider-Verse doesn't also show up as Miles Morales, by the way. Uh, so yeah, you see this goes about 20 feet down and then there's the tips of the spears and then sort of forward towards the house there

is what looks like an actual doorway into another chamber no cobwebs in sight beyond the illusion so now they're in this vertical shaft looks like if everyone were to sort of lower themselves down here about 20 feet and as long as they didn't fall on the spears they could sort of continue on it to another platform it's kind of like an elevator shaft um i'm gonna i'm gonna tell them and i'm gonna break the spears out of the way and there's like yeah there's like 30 spears with pretty thick you know things it's gonna it's not easy to just clear it i wish there was a monk who could take care of those yeah if only somebody liked chopping things are you gonna lower yourself down you who could take care of those yeah if only somebody liked chopping things are you going to lower yourself down

are you going to take care of business Danny yeah I'll clean it up Danny calls up to you guys and he says look out motherfuckers Danny's going to take care of business Danny I'm going to have you do you're doing like flurry of blood you're pulling out all the stops to knock these things down

I'm going to have you do just like a survival check to see. Well, I don't want to use all my ki, but... No, that's why I'm having you do a survival check, so it's not going to be like an attack. I'm just going to... All right. It's just rolling survival. Let's see.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Probably. 16 plus 3, 19. All right. Yeah, it takes you a little while, but you just are running as much as you can down here.

You just managed to snap all the wood and just crack it with your feet. The whole thing kind of get the spears are all laying on the ground it wouldn't be comfortable to land down here because there's a bunch of splintered wooden spearheads but they're no longer pointing upwards in the chamber so if someone you know slipped uh yeah it takes about 20 minutes and you now also get a clearer view of this body uh it looks like it probably was either an elf or a half-elf. You see some sort of pointed ears desiccated away from the skull's face.

And it doesn't appear to have anything on it. It looks like it was looted at some point. Okay. I tell my friends to join me. Cool. Would you all like to join Danny and head yeah I'll let her

recline down I'll brace the rope cool make sure it's safe you all head down into this chamber that was definitely hidden by the illusion and collected at least one victim you kind of like get your bearings it is a very sheer black chamber that is almost a perfect square there's not much

in here, but there is at the far end of this sort of 50-foot room what looks like an Iron Maiden and a little wooden shelf with what looks like little glass vials on it. When you say Iron Maiden. Yep. Instead of Black

Sunday. Bill and Ted. I will pull out my wand, point it at the Iron Maiden, and cast Message and say, Hello, are you there? You receive in return silence. Okay. I don't think anybody's in there. That would be fucking horrible. It is about 50 feet away it is closed you see on it it looks like a mask uh on the front of the iron maiden that's divided

into sort of like thin pie slices each of the pie slices looking like it's a part of a different face the rest of the iron maiden is just sort of a matte gunmetal like dark uh iron color and again it's closed it's propped up so it's like leaned back about 15 degrees and uh yeah next to it's a little wooden shelf it's in it's like 50 way this big empty room it looks like they maybe used to do something in here, but they cleared a lot of stuff out and this is all that's left. The cabal. I am going to set a timer before a thing happens. Who would you like to approach? You can set it on fire. Well, before we enter,

I feel like we would all turn to Ivan and say, are there traps in this room full of death do you suppose yeah i don't know i i would like to use my divine sense to detect evil no i'm kidding i can check the i'll check the iron maiden gently or just the room yeah first we've got a uh divine sense coming yes okay so the way uh divine sense works is the presence of strong evil registers or senses like a noxious odor powerful good rings like heavenly music um you do not uh after casting divine sense get any kind of sort of good or evil vibe off of this thing there are there are like little

like sort of wisps in the air of evil in this whole room there's just sort of you like like a how do i put this like a like a haunting kind of just like eeriness but you don't detect anything especially evil about this uh and then you've got detect magic still running nathan i think uh no i don't think so i don't think it goes that long let me check real quick but i don't think it yeah it's up to 10 minutes oh concentration yeah so i guess i would i guess i would well the amount of time it took danny actually to clear out the spears i'm gonna go ahead and cancel okay um i have a roll and investigation check please will do investigation that is a 17 hey cool um without opening it you don't detect any traps it does

appear to have a metal latch on it you can see inside the eye holes in the iron maiden there are eye holes that's it uh two openings in the in the iron um and doesn't look like there's a body or a person inside of it at the moment um glancing over at the little vials on the little wooden shelf it's just a tiny kind of side table with it almost looks like chemistry set kind of like like 20 vials all in there and there's like some sort of congealed red fluid in most of them you think maybe one of them's got what still looks like uh wet red fluid is it blood yep looks a little like blood okay um the top of the iron maiden's head does you notice have a little hole um it doesn't show through though it almost looks like it's a hole like almost a keyhole in the very top

but it's not key shaped it's just like a a circular thing like the size of a vial yeah size of a vial who wants to put a vial of blood in the head of this iron maiden Yeah, size of a vial. Who wants to put a vial of blood in the head of this Iron Maiden? Oh, I thought they were extracting it from the person inside the Iron Maiden. Yes, you're right. Are there any empty vials? No.

Well, let's put it this way. They were trying to summon demons, right? Mm-hmm. Why not summon a demon and drag him down to your fuck cellar and you can pull his brains out and put him in a vial? Nathan. I'm not making

it up. This is Lady Mesramane and her sexy dog club. Lady Mesramane and her sexy dog club. Erotic novel made it a sexy dog club. Erotic novel about Lady Besser. I know, this got way more erotic than I was prepared for.

Her bodice is torn. She stands at the top of the lighthouse as the wind tears through her perfect hair. Well, it's good to know that you've got a side gig during the pandemic, Chris. Tits to the tits. What do a tits look like?

Wowziers. If there's no hole at the top, then they wouldn't be extracting. That's why I thought maybe it was like you put the vial in and it creates something. in and it like creates something yeah so imagine imagine just just to be clear the the iron maiden is very much just like a sort of a it's got no arm or leg kind of um uh divot or shape to it it's just sort of it's just sort of like a shoulders and then down uh straight down and then blank iron the face has that sort of pie pie mask and there's two holes for eyes. And the top, this hole right here, it's like right,

like unicorn horn placement. And it doesn't seem to go all the way through. There's some sort of, like about two inches in it stops as opposed to revealing the inside like the eye holes does. Other than that, yeah. Does it look like it would fit a vial perfectly?

Yes. Right. So I could either open it or try to open it or we could just put a vial in and see what happens. Vial! Vial! Is each vial like a different person or a soul? Are there any writings or markings on the vials

or are they all? One says McCready. Meanie, meanie, mighty Mo. There's no John Carpenter esque, uh, labels on these vials.

Uh, there's no labels. Do you want it? On the top? I don't think it's a collection thing. I think it's an insertion thing. So if I can either try to open it first or we can just start with the vial. What do we want to do?

Vial. You're right. Do it. Put that vial in, yo. Violet. Violet. You don't think we should try to open it first? I mean, I did ask.

Okay, let's open it. Open it if you want. Is it locked? Check and see. It does not appear locked. Okay, so I'm going to gingerly, gently, carefully, having already checked it for traps, open the... Do not fall inside it.

Fall inside. Fall inside. fall inside. Yeah, maybe. Let's find out. It'll give us something to do. Would it perhaps be to our advantage to momentarily study the many

faces and see if anything rings a bell? What faces? our advantage to momentarily study the many faces and see if anything rings a bell. What faces? Did it say there were pie slices of many faces on the cover of this thing? It's sort of silver, like kind of like silver leaf

sort of painted onto the iron. So we can't tell. I already said I was trying to open it, so I guess I have to do that. Well, well, sure sure um uh first you open it there's no one inside uh there's no body inside um it is it looks a little different than you expected it looks a little less like a torture device and some sort of uh surgical ritual type thing the the head right where that little violet sized slot is um on the front of the iron maiden there's like a series of needles that are all sort of pointing downwards there's

also a very large needle in the both of where the hands are and one in the chest yeah they they all seem to have action they all seem to have... They all seem to have some sort of... Gypsy the Asset Queen. There's like a gutter that goes from that place where the vial hole is through, not just where the needles by the head are, but all the way down into the chest and those two needles in the hands.

It's an injector. Anyone would like to know more, I will let you choose either a medicine check or an insight check. I chose lower above the blood gutter. It is extracting, I feel like then. But okay, let's... It could be injecting. I'll do a...

Didn't you see Tommy? You said medicine or investigation? Insight. Medicine or insight. All right, I'm going to do an insight. Can anybody do that? Yes, anybody can do it. Alright then, I will do it. But I'm still going to wait and see

who gets the highest of either of those. I got a shit roll. Ooh, natural 20! Yay! And for what, Nathan? Either one, Dan, because I'm plus zero in both! Well, you choose. Let's go with medicine.

Cool. What is the highest insight someone got? I got a 23. Fuck. All right. So, Nathan, you do think that there is something magical that happens when this is used and that it is not just a matter of blood or extraction. Is it magic extraction? Yes.

But that's not all because here comes Iva with her 23 insight. Sweet. It does both. You think it extracts but also imbues. Hmm. you think sweet it does both you think it it extracts but also imbues okay so somebody can go inside then you put the vial in and it takes that blood and puts it in you maybe ah got it got it got it so summon the demon take the demons ju's juju. You go in. Now you have the powers of the demon. Or maybe it's like that's how you get youth out of people.

And then you, you know, inject their youth. Who knows? The power to turn all of your naked friends into tiny dogs. Right. Or maybe the Moderna COVID vaccine. Only. I just got injected with the sex scene.

Yeah, Chris, what happens next in the novel? Oh, after that Lady Mesrumain found herself with Rono the stable hand rancho was feeding the bug bears as he was wont to do on those humid summer afternoons his sweat glistening and dripping down into his drawers unfortunately really accentuating just the butt crack area but going very wide and making it seem more like he pooped himself. It wasn't great.

But let it be. You get it. Oh, boy. Stirred within me. We should take these vials. Right. Take all of them. I can cast identify as a ritual later on when we're safe and we can maybe figure out what's inside of these little things.

Great. So you pocket all the vials. There's about 20 of them. Maybe what if we put the body of this thing, this person. Sorry, that was sociopathic. We put this body of this thing, this person. Sorry, that was sociopathic. We put this body of this thing right here. The thing that you see as a human being

that we saw earlier. And then we put it in the sarcophagus and then, you know. Make it come to life? Yeah, what if we try that? Is that fucked up? I mean, fucked up, yes. That is fucked up. Doable, absolutely. What if it saves him or her? By injecting him with I mean fucked up yes that is fucked up doable absolutely

what if it saves him or her by injecting him with random demon blood I mean it's dead so okay anyway instead we do Nathan's idea where we talk about butt cracks and then gather up the vials

and go back upstairs so anyways butt cracks and then gather up the vials and go back upstairs. So anyways, butt cracks are awesome. Someone slips on a banana peel, falls inside the sarcophagus, it closes. Nathan goes, whoa, drops the vials. They splash. Swing.

Lord of the Rings style, perfectly into the vial slot. I'm trying to get a butt crack withial slot. I'm trying to call you a Bud Crackwith lime joke. I'm setting a timer. I think we're leaving. We're taking the vials and leaving. Okay. Yeah, is there any other furniture or shelves or anything around?

No. It looks like there used to be. I mean, you can see there's sort of outlines where dust may be gathered because furniture used to be in here. Does anyone want to test it on the body? Not really. I'm curious. I'm curious to see what might happen. See? Nathan...

No. I'm not against it. Do we want to hold a vote? I mean, if the Paladin's into reviving a hundred-year-old dead body with demon blood, why not then, right? One-year-old dead body with demon blood, why not? One-year-old, right? One-year-old, right? Oh, sorry.

One. Hence the roasting of Kpatch. Are there needle marks on the body? You kind of, like, walk 50 feet over, peek down at the body. No, it doesn't look like any needle marks. Is it, like, a skeleton, though, at this point? Yeah, but that's why it's so desiccated. You're not sure.

Oh, I thought it wasn't that old. Okay. All right. Well, listen, I'm curious. It turned into a skeleton in a year? Close. Wow. Just parts of exposed bone, for sure.

Timeline on that. Perhaps Octavio got hungry. I mean, I'm definitely curious, so I'm down if Nathan wants to put that desiccated body in there. But I'm also fine to go back upstairs with these blood vials in the back. Let's take a vote. Who wants to drag the body out of the pit and put it in the Iron Maiden?

I'll hands up if you're on board. I'll try it out. Why not? We got two of five. It appears you're outvoted Correct Just leaving with vials of blood Oh All right, well of course

Tootie and Danny are more, we'll just call them Lawful good-ish Characters May not have Danny does not love the idea call them lawful good-ish characters. May not have... Annie does not love the idea of messing with a dead body. Tootie also does not.

If it upsets you, we don't have to do it. No, you can do it. No, it's okay. I think they're trying to role-play, but they're... Yeah, as much as they're role-playing their characters but they're... Their principles only go so far. Yeah, as much as they're role playing their characters, they're like, I hope my friends make this happen and I get to see it from a distance.

They're stating for the record, when we're all dead, I get to say I told you. Yeah, exactly. True Dungeons & Dragons. So you haul this corpse up. You get a look at it as you're dragging it over. It's wearing sort of a simple linen button-down shirt, um you uh you know you get a look at it as you're dragging it over is wearing sort of a simple linen button-down shirt a light jacket and pants and boots uh none of them are

actually like of a poor person but it looks like maybe they worked on the docks um you you think you see some nautical tattoos on the sort of desiccated shriveled skin on one of their arms as a sleeve just sort of droops off and you gently lay it in the Iron Maiden. Yes. Excellent. Yeah. You shut the Iron

Maiden lid on it and then what do you do? Somebody pick one of these files. Yeah. Someone taller than me, probably. It is tall.

Like, this Iron Maiden's about seven feet tall, so yeah. Jelf? Jelf, pick a good one. Some are more congealed than the others. Some of them are different colors,

but they all appear to be blood.itting it and mixing your mother were picking out blood my mother punched your mother right in the mud what color was the roll 20 sided dice for me, Blaine. And I'll pick from my table of vials. 13. Oh! Lucky 13. Ooh. Fun. All right. Well, so you put the vial in,

and you immediately hear like a little tink noise as it sounds like some kind of mechanism crushes the glass vial. It's like a Keurig for souls. It gets sort of sucked in as you do it too. So it's the glass, you're not sure what happens to, but you do hear like a very soft hissing noise as some sort of mechanism is moving around inside the Iron Maiden. And then you hear a tink, tink, tink.

And the Iron Maiden. And then you hear a and the Iron Maiden almost seems to bloat. The eye holes in the Iron Maiden now seem to be filled with a slimy silver flesh instead of the eyes of a creature. Is it a Cyberman? Ooh.

Or a Cyberman. There's now a doctor who inside no well okay well we gotta i guess we gotta open it right do you want to use your message again now oh sure yeah great idea i'll pull my wand and go thank you are you there in response, you get silence. Possibly feeling a little... Okay, I open it. You open the Iron Maiden, and with a loud thud, the giant body of an eel-like creature with tentacles flapping around lands on the floor.

It is still dead, but it now appears to look like some sort of deep subterranean aquatic creature okay humanoid sized same same size as us uh very big it barely fit in the iron maiden so it's it's long so this is the thing that maybe that turns that can turn it's like the vials are from different creatures and if you use one any one of these vials it's a different animal and it like turns you into that animal or like it's like genetic splicing. Iva please do an insight check with advantage.

Will do. That is in two 18s in a row. Damn. 36. You get like a strong feeling one if not more of these vials has dog blood in it right and that's basically the gist here oh so but it was to the max but that's interesting because then it means that the magic once she died the magic they all turned back into humans right

so whatever this is her magic magic, they all turned back into humans, right? Mm-hmm. So whatever magic it is. So this is her magic. Yeah, I wonder how that works. Well, that's all turned into dogs. That's not fun, but no. All right. Who put the vial in? Jelf. Mm-hmm.

Perhaps it's connected to Jelf's life. If Lady Mesramine put it in. And we know this thing is magic. So this thing, theoretically, knows who's doing what. It's magic. It knows. You think there's a

strong chance that's what's going on, yeah. Well, I don't think that would bring this guy back to life. I just think perhaps there is a connection that we cannot see. It is as if Jelf cast it, sure. Yes. All right. Well, that was illuminating.

And we're out of here. Right? And we'll see what I... Rope plus is leaving. Does anyone want to turn into an animal? Until whoever does it dies, and then they get to turn back. Should we ask Noodles if he wants to be something different? Oh, and then you want to find out what he's saying.

He's like, no, I'm good. Okay. Yeah, we'd have to hold him up in there anyway. Okay. So is everyone good with us leaving? We think we've discovered the... Yeah, let's go. Yeah.

Okay. Do we want to go to the Cabal Room or are we done? I mean, I feel like we want to get 100% completion. Danny, would it make you feel good, Danny, to realize that this house is free from evil? Sure, but why had we skipped it before? It's a lot to do. Just never got around to it.

The cellar sounded more interesting, but we for sure know there's going to be some shit going on, so you might want to wrap your knuckles. Okay. Well, let us all head over to yeoldroll20.net.

Oh, shit, bro. Now we did it. Way to go, Nathan. I'll go ahead and post the link in the chat just in case you can use it uh yeah so you guys are you know you head back to the main room uh of course octavio greets you warmly there's just uh those two rooms that you can see on the main floor you're you're kind of like, oh, okay. I could go in the cabal room. There's also those sleeping quarters, but no reason to believe the sleeping quarters are weird.

Do you open the cabal room? Which one is the cabal room? It is this guy, right where Jelf's icon is. Right before we go in, I'm going to cast Mage Armor on myself. Okay. Basically, it pops up my AC.

Fun. And it lasts for eight hours. So that's what I'm doing now. Oh, thank you for putting that in Roll20 so we could all see it. Is it one of the dark rooms? The one up top or the one on the bottom? Okay. Cool.

I'm going to go ahead and reveal that as soon as you tell me what you're doing with the door. Somebody check the door? Check the door for traps, please. Do a investigation check come on that's a 10 but doesn't seem fair these are the new dice

no this is still the online I was in a rush the door knob seems unlocked kind of loose heavily used all right well I have to take the hit for this one since I'm the one responsible for checking so I open it

you turn it pull it open nope no issues I will now reveal the room great job Nope, no issues. I will now reveal the room. Great job. So you see a room that's got like a little altar by a window that it's kind of blackened over on the west side. The table itself has got six sides to it and six chairs and there are four bookshelves very celebrity poker yeah it feels it feels like they had some sort of meetings and rituals

in here bookshelves have a few little items in it uh everybody do a perception check please ooh 15 plus 5 20 that is a natural 1 hey Iva picks her nose I have a 10 14 for Dani what if there was something shiny in there though would she pick her those of you who rolled a 20

you hear coming from the back the southwest bookshelf one of the top shelves a little hard to see there's a gap between some books you just hear this very quiet ticking noise oh weird Ew, weird. Um, it's rhythmic. But it's also muted. Metronome. Like a timer? Perhaps. Which bookcase? Timers aren't exactly commonplace in this medieval fantasy realm, so.

Which bookcase? The Southwest bookcase. Ah, interesting. the the southwest bookcase interesting let's have a look in there yeah go look at it all right tootie you you kind of get up on your uh tippy dwarven toes and are you guys telling us that you hear that are you sharing this information so uh can you kind of like look up and you see what appears to be a strange brass object that you've never really seen before it's circular it's like a pocket watch but uh those are very very uncommon what i think we should back away very very very quickly. What if...

This is the Cabal room. What if we walked in the wrong way and there's a timer about to go boom, boom, boom? Let's back away for a moment. If there's nothing, then I'm a dipshit and there's nothing. Back away outside of the room. Yeah. Okay. Let's clear the room.

We can mage hand it. Yes perfect let's mage hand it okay uh you use mage hand to pick this up and from outside from outside the room cool uh you are you sense it is being lifted you sense it is being brought to sort of the center of the room the ticking gets slightly louder but it's still very quiet uh is there any sort of a button on it? Let's see. Or that I saw, I mean, you see, like, does it say sleep on it anywhere? I'm trying to look up all this stuff on this guy.

So it's nine more minutes. God damn it it's like got a little knob on the top it's got a little chain that's dangling off of it click the knob that's what I'm asking the group

it's like a pocket watch there's a knob on top click the knob the mage hand yes oh yeah In the room. Yeah. Yes, everyone? You pop the top open. Yeah. With the mage hand and you just see the face open

up. There's some sort of symbol very delicately painted inside and then you see, it's a very strange pattern that you're not familiar with but it looks like little numbers are written in a circle on the face of this thing around the artwork and there are little arms in the middle kind of reaching out towards the numbers it's like the face of a pocket watch but again you

2d are kind of like what i don't know never seen one don't know what this is it can be a is there any sort of investigation investigation you can do an investigation check sure lore or history I do investigation all right then can any of us help him to give him like advantage or something I don't know how you would only if you get closer or pick it up yourselves that was a 13

all you can kind of see is it looks like it's like some kind of fish drawn in the middle of it oh fish yeah roll it All you can kind of see is it looks like it's like some kind of fish drawn in the middle of it. Oh, fish. Yep. Roll it. Oh, hot dog. You realize it is not ticking. It looks like a mechanical object.

And all of you guys definitely got the impression of some sort of mechanical ticking. definitely got the impression of some sort of mechanical ticking but you just doing an arcana check you're you're like that ticking is because of some kind of weak enchantment that is that is hiding inside it oh great i will apologize and go sorry i was very paranoid can you try to talk to it with your message oh yeah i will can i while using the mage hand cast a message can i do the deuce hang on let's see if not i'll put it down gently in the center of the table yeah yeah so that way everybody can at least see what's going on Yeah. So that way everybody can at least see what's going on. Got some lollipops going on over here.

I think you can. I see that. If it's a question, I'll just put it down and cast a message and go, Hello? Are you there? And you hear in response, Silence.

The word silence. Silence? Nothing sentient appears on the inside of the watch. Well, at least it's safe for us to go in, I think. I was worried that it was some sort of ticking bomb. Yeah. All right. Well, I'll go in.

I'll investigate the watch. And the room. I'll go in and start looking around the room. So, Ivo, you kind of turn the watch over. There's, yeah, like this strange rhythmic ticking coming inside of it. But, like, you look in these little arms on the watch. They just kind of flop around when you turn the watch over. They don't seem to be mechanically doing anything.

Okay. Still inside it it you hear this kind of quick ticket anything else of interest in the room uh that's what we're checking yeah i mean these books look like they they uh they're generally like mundane cookbooks uh sort of you know living in bling bottom like handwritten journals not by anyone magical you like flip through them you're like what what is this crap this is like something they bought out of like a like a secondhand store or something like or um but you do at a certain point uh realize oh these books might all have something in in common because they're all kind of domestic.

They all seem like the kind of thing you'd find in a variety of people's either like maybe kitchens or living rooms or bedrooms. You're like, oh, these are all stolen. These are all like stolen, like probably from somebody's home and just sort of collected here. You get kind of like a thieves vibe

from all these bookshelves. Does Nathan, do you have any magic uh detection left do you have any uh vibes coming from these books i can cast identify if we if we sit if we sit here for 10 minutes i can cast identify on stuff yeah okay would you like to do that yes all right so you wait kind of 10 minutes and then you cast identify on what let's go with the books. I think you have to pick an object. You can't just do like a couple hundred.

Can someone do detect magic first? I can also do detect magic. Why don't I do that first as a ritual? Yeah. And I can pass that over the room. There appears to be, when you cast detect magic, some kind of tiny magical object inside the watch. You're not sure what is happening here without opening the watch. There's also one magic book on all the shelves.

I'll point that out. Okay. It's a northeast shelf opposite from where the watch was. I don't think I can reach it little bunny man I can't reach it where is it how far away just northeast shelf top of

top of northeast shelf you want to go grab that Danny yeah I'll take something off of there yeah great uh you pull it down and the it looks like there's some sort of spell in here. You all kind of look at it together. None of you recognize the language, but it's some sort of spell book. Okay.

Who wants it? I'll hold on to it for now. Perhaps if we can, I can cast Identify on it. I'll hand it to you. And you want to cast Identify now? You want to use that spell? Yeah. Nice space work.

Yeah. Why don't we do that on the pocket watch first? I'm just trying to play Danny a little better. I'm just conscious of it. I don't know. All right. What are you doing on the pocket watch first? You're opening it up?

Or were you... Identify. Identify. Identify. What are you doing in the pocket watch first? You're opening it up or were you? Identify. Identify. There is some kind of, it's an enchantment on a little tiny component of the watch.

It looks like this component is designed to rhythmically repeat the most recent acoustic wave that strikes this component. So you think somebody tapped on the watch Oh, it's like a recording. Somebody tapped on the watch and it's causing it to go But if you were to open this up, you could cause

this little thing, and again, you can't really see physically what it is until you open it. You could cause it to receive some sort of acoustic wave and repeat it rhythmically for an indefinite period of time. Cool. Wow. Interesting. Yes.

Rhythmic pocket watch. All right. Do you want to identify the book? Sure. This is a book of an ancient wizard you believe it is the book of uh necromancer specifically and it's somebody who is well beyond your powers there's a lot of spells in here that you find outside of your abilities but it looks like they've lived hundreds of years. And there's some interesting stuff here.

You feel like if you sat down and studied it, you know, with a knowledge of the language, you might be able to pick up a few things. Cool. Do we know what language it is? It's, it's not quite something identify can pull off right now it's

just like oh no none of us are familiar with this in our travels okay and i'll tell everybody it's it's quite evil but quite powerful there's something here we might be able to definitely about like undeath and and becoming uh something you're not quite yet okay and on that note yes we'll find out more uh about where you're going to go with this book and this pocket watch and this mansion on the next nerd poker hey sam hi hey happy holidays sam i know we're we're 2021 thank you uh in listener time but in our time it's just before christmas all right this week we are still exploring this spooky old house room by room we found a body and no sooner did i type out i wonder if it's that kid blaine lit up that

brian made that joke and i out loud in my kitchen said i love you guys we found an iron maiden and i very much want to learn more about this fuck dungeon nathan's excited about we're poking around the vials of blood and we think the machine either sucks out a demon or puts in a demon, whatever it does, it's not great. We put a body in the mystery machine, turned it on, and it spit out a fish man, just like one of those creepy crawler ovens. We found a ticking watch with floppy arms and it has a magical something inside. I wonder if it's that kid Blaine lit up.

It turned out to be a recording device and we found a book of evil spells. I hope we fight it. Yay. Nice job. Anybody got anything they want to plug? Dan? I've just got my weekly little stand-up thing I do on Friday nights. Come check me out at twitch.tv slash sell for Dan.

I've got a grandpa's metal stash on Tuesdays on Gimme Metal, and then we took a break for the holidays, but I'm back now. And then I've got the new video coming for New Music Sucks, but that's on Posein the Band on YouTube. That's it. Blaine? Oh, Stacy Keach and I are going to Yellowstone to record

Mysteries of the Supervolcano for National Geographic. Hope it doesn't flow. Nice. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. nice thanks everybody thank you thanks for listening to another episode of nerd poker you can follow us

at patreon.com slash nerd poker 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.