Nerd Poker - S4E39 Hammer Time

Episode Date: June 8, 2021

The Castaway Cuties are going under the lake to get a magic hammer. Seems simple. No issues there. Probably a shallow lake with no monsters. Easy peasy.

Hey everybody, I'm Brian Poussin, Comedian, writer, actor, nerd. I've been playing D&D with my friends for a long time. I decided to do a new podcast where we play Dungeons & Dragons in my very own dining room. With my wife, kid, and my noisy dogs. So meet my friends Sarah, Kev, Dan, Lee, Chris. Now it's time for another episode of Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Season 4. Hey, everybody.

I'm Brian Poussaint, and you're listening to Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. It's episode 39. My friends are here. Uh, I see them. Let me put it in a different mode. Different, uh... Beast mode? No, shut the fuck up.

Oh, yeah, I prefer that. In Cogmeetover. Over Beast mode. Or... Ala mode? Ala mode. Yeah, definitely Ala mode is my favorite mode. Road mode?

We're done. I'm back in gallery view. Yikes. Chris is here. Hey! Hi, how are you? Ken's here. Hi, Brian. How are you? Good to see you.

Blaine is here. Hello, Blaine. Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me. Hi, guys. Hi! Dan is monkey in the middle. What's up, Dan? Oh, my God. Brian, it's so good to see you. I have so much to tell you.

All right. And Sarah. Hey, Sarah. And it's me. Hello. And Sam with a new haircut. Looking high and tight. Looking high and tight.

Here he is, everybody. Hello, sweet children children how's ramen let's find out tired ramen wake up ramen you got some people you want to thank Dan I do in addition to this being the place where I finally get

to tell jokes in the way of fantasy lore, it is also a place where I can give thanks. Thank you to Patreon supporters with usernames like Occam's Electric Toothbrush. Thanks, OET. Thank you. Thank you, Blaine's Successful Prehobbit.

Thank you. Thanks, Eric E thanks thank you Jack Watkins Jack thank you Blaine's bedrooms big mouth bass also and beyond thank you Nigel's not so great

sword oh here's one you guys will enjoy with a little bit of nostalgia. That levitating mall Santa you guys murdered at the Galleria. We did. The crowd of parents murdered him. People will not let us forget that, though.

It didn't even happen on the air, but you told the story so many times. We had to. Thank you, Queeps little boy peep thanks the committee for grima getting a magic sword oh yeah here here

uh thank you uh thank you creator of much of our battle music new tans thank you new tans thank you darth gibson was his name-o thanks dr uwits forest grown og kush thank you thank you Darth Gibson was his name-o thanks Dr. Uwitz Forest Grown OG

Kush thanks Waka Willis thanks Waka Willis thank you I liked what happened there it was weird and awkward and enjoyable thank you Bull Stallion oh hello thanks thanks

thanks Zen Smoke thank you Rachel Stallion. Oh, hello. Thanks for the love you on that card. Thanks. Thanks, Zen Smoke. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you. Thank you. Martha Mond's Unfortunate Climbing Mishap. That's even more nostalgic. I know. What a day

that was. Thank you, Pat Dukes. Thank you. Thank you, Jody Freeze. Thank you. Thank you, Legless Wonderes. Thank you. Thank you, Jody Freeze. Thank you. Thank you, Legless Wonderbread. Thanks, Legless. Thank you. Thanks, Axlent Crane.

And thank you, Ice5's Venus member. Oh, dear. Thank you. I think that would be George Martin, right? Yeah, George R.R. Venus. Hey, Blaine, who were those Patreon supporters brought to us by? We have an assortment of sponsors this evening, Dan.

We're brought to you by Agree. Stop the greases with Agree Shampoo. Betty Crocker Super Moist Cake. Cake so moist you'll have to rig it out over the sink. Only from Betty Crocker Labs. Betty Crocker Super Moist. Lysol Wipes. A great way to wipe Lysol on things. Lysol Wipes. Not for you solid butts. Lysol wipes.

And much ado about Groton. Instant Groton potatoes. Add potatoes, cheese, and water. Freezy all Groton potatoes anywhere, anytime. Much ado about Groton from DuPont. Dan? Oh, wow. Thanks, Dan.

I wish everybody could watch Chris listen. That's great. Much ado about potatoes? Are you kidding me? I'm in. It really made me start thinking about Rice-A-Roni, which as a child,

I thought Rice-A-Roni was going to be a large part of my life. Because it was the giveaway on... Yeah, like on a lot of game shows, it was at least one major game show that I must have watched when I was homesick. I was just like, I guess adults eat rice-a-roni all the time, because getting it as a prize is like a huge gift. I ate some

tonight right before the show. Damn. Did you really? Yeah, I made some. Are you in San Francisco? Wait, are you joking? I've never even, I know. We have it like once a week. Yeah. I've never once had it. Oh, really? You've never had rice-a-roni? Never? I guess you're not an adult yet. I haven't either. I genuinely thought

this was like a known... You must not be lazy. This is crazy because I thought this was like a thing where I was like, I only ever heard about it on a game show. Nobody actually eats rice-a-roni. It's like, yeah. It's not. Now you're telling me that you do. It's not like white trashy. It's like in the Oort cloud of white trash. It's sort of orbiting the edge there. It could get really bad. It's really full

of sodium and bad for you. I mean, look, I've eaten hamburger hell burger. That I've never used. That's so weird. Have you had sloppy joe from a can? I'm trying to determine the nature

of your bias. That's weird. Dan just looks mad. You have a weird pre-prepared food blind spot. Oh my goodness. Hey, guess what? I'm going to tell you about what happened last time on Nerd Poker.

Yeah, that's right. The cast heard Brian make a noise and I was like, well, here we go. I better pull this confidently off, or else I won't be able to compete with that noise. Oh, my attention span. R.I.P. Anyway, the castaway cuties

made their way north through Davenglaven to Megalic Pangodon in order to break in and get a big old hammer. In the meantime, they had to fight a retinue of Galaxians, some fish people, because they were in a weird situation where they thought the shaman would kind of help them in, and then it turned out he was kind of mad at the Galaxian they have with them,

who is currently in the form of an octopus. We take you now to the Castaway cuties in their awkward situation so yeah like for those of you who may not remember the more complex aspect of what's happening right now is you've got this shaman who's you know some kind of high ranking

galaxian in the underwater city where this hammer is being held he came to the surface to sort of collect princess Caspia who's in the underwater city where this hammer is being held. He came to the surface to sort of collect Princess Caspia, who's in the form of an octopus at the moment. You've killed a bunch of guards because he was going to drag her to an underwater prison and then turn her into the form of her choice.

But, you know, you were like, oh, that doesn't sound great. She might drown if she turns into a rabbit deep underwater. So don't we go ahead and uh eliminate this hostility aspect so you've now got two galaxians one looks like an octopus one straight up looks like a fish shaman and uh it's time for you to kind of think about like how are you gonna get into the castle with these two assets so to speak unfortunately Unfortunately, your guide, Burke the Orc, had a pretty horrible botch and then had his throat ravaged to the point of no return.

So, you're down a tour guide. That happened to me with clove cigarettes a lot when I was in my 20s. I mean, they just smell good. Yeah. Did you jar them? Damn near killed him. Oh, boy.

He's so fast, folks. That's a great joke if you know that brand of clove cigarettes. I smoked Jarum. I knew if I said that, that was the joke Blaine would make. That's how our friendship goes. I programmed like an ant it's pretty simple i wouldn't say crack a toe there i would say uh yeah so you guys uh if any of you were trying to impress somebody else in the 90s you know

what brand of clove cigarettes that is you you uh you've got you've got this guy the shaman who you just uh cast i believe it was command on and took away his staff so you believe by taking away his staff you've eliminated at least some of his powers he probably knows a couple other spells but you definitely saw the staff glowing as if he were summoning something i believe uh i believe iva had a very successful perception check and saw some bubbling water or like had a memory of it uh so that's kind of where you guys are at you you don't really know a lot about the sort of construction of this underground city but you have you you thought you'd get a guide and it got a little weird.

Well, who wants to talk to the shaman? Who? Well, I will go ahead and try to help you breach this weird subject. These guys. These shamans.

And fishy people. They don't seem to speak. The common tongue. Do any of you guys. Have any sort of language barrier spells. We were using her to translate. Yeah. And you probably could keep doing that. Okay. Great. Yeah. And also probably, you probably could keep doing that. Um,

but great. Yeah. And also like, you feel like at this point you've endeared yourself pretty well and haven't completely betrayed the princess. So you feel like she'd be a pretty reliable narrator. At this point, we need to just get,

we need her to take us down there. Right? Yes. Great. So I don't know that we actually need the shaman. there, right? Yes. Great. So I don't know that we actually need the shaman. Well, Princess Caspia says, well, I don't suppose we do need my uncle. I suppose I would rather we don't slaughter him as he is my flesh and blood.

But well, I just want to say it would be nice if we kept him around because he does know that complex spell that could turn me into beast folk and it would be lovely to be turned into that sooner rather than later it would be nice not to have to hunt around the continent for a witch that also knows the spell

or something so have we tied him up? let's tie him up and bring them with us I mean this we're getting into a very weird territory here because why are we doing this for the only reason that we were helping her to begin with was because she was going to give us

a tour of the hammer town yeah you got sucked way into the like social dynamics of the fish people right this is like well beyond a favor at this point so she actually needs to be not the direction i expected to go whatsoever yeah of course like she needs to be offering us something to figure this out it's it's delightful to me because i hit a fucking octopus lady deep underneath a dungeon and was like you guys will probably not find this and

then and now it's like this central narrative the last six episodes uh yeah let's just kill her and go on our way you can i mean because we're not monsters all right no that may be jelf hey Maybe Jelf. Hey! I'm not a monster. I'm an elf. Yeah, yeah. How you feeling? How you feeling? Do you want to just drag one of them? The other?

Do you want to just get intel and set them both about their very business? How you feeling? I'm just concerned about letting him go. Yeah. What he might do. This is why I was- They wanted to see that we had a force. That was the deal. We said, Burke came and then just started slashing everybody.

But it was like, we'll give you the princess if you will show us the hammer. That's what we had originally said. Perhaps we could explain ourselves to him at this moment yeah so i feel like we can say you asked to see that we had a force i tell her to translate that we do you know we can't say that he he kind of just like sneers with his little pointy teeth and sends a message back uh to you guys it's like a bunch of gurgling noises that sound very hostile uh but it's telepathic like it's some kind of threat and um you you uh hear the princess kind of go well he says he'll uh he'll do whatever it is uh that you want but he's cursing you and your children and your children's children and seems

seems very unimpressed and says oh you're bringing up this whole thing about our people having watched over the hammer for centuries and he's like oh if if no one has gotten it to this point what makes all of you think you're going to pry it from the hands of my people

and let's go tie him up in the woods can we I have a suggestion love to hear it friendly octopus suggestion I'm worried

that if we just sort of tie him up he'll do one of two things he'll die because he's gonna get all dry as a fish person and he might lay there for a few days uh the other thing is that he just won't ever change me i don't we've got him right now i mean we could just have him change me right now and then maybe he knows another spell that will temporarily make me look like my old self do you know what i'm saying you and your one track mind need to get with the program because you have negative leverage with this party at this time so you're very lucky that we were

continuing to even support you in any way on your quest i appreciate that you and n Nathan may have some kind of situation going on. I look at Nathan like, I don't know. But you don't really have a leg, a tentacle to stand on. Technically, on an octopus, it's an arm, not a tentacle. But please continue. Okay, my sigh applies to both me and then also to dan for the i knew it would octopus also are we gonna need some sort of water breathing to visit right i mean like this is out of control but that's the thing we could get maybe that spell out of my uncle

there's all sorts of spells we could force him to cast i mean well, we've got him. Friends, I wonder if we need to consider abandoning the hammer. That's what we're talking about, right? Wasn't the hammer central? Yes, I hear you. It does seem to be central, but. It was central to the whole season, if you will, that we are all in. Not to metagame. Let me say a few things.

You definitely can abandon it. There's also the possibility that you guys just don't have resources to make it easy to do without an NPC. Right? There's ways to do it, but you guys took a very unorthodox way and you didn't gather any water-breathing supplies

along the way. You haven't really... You've not been to civilization in a couple of game days, so, like, get a big five. That was such a gentle... Oh, yeah, let's just do that. Listen.

Gentle way for David. You guys were very unorthodox when you did not in any way plan for this. I mean, let's just flash back to when you went on a adventure supply shopping trip and instead of really getting a sense of whether they had any like water breathing supplies you knocked out the shopkeeper and stole whatever was sitting on the counter so he cheated number one but also i think i thought that there was like a way well okay i asked her i'm like is

there a way for land peoples how do you guys like talk i mean is there are there like underground tunnels like how do you normally deal with people who are coming to visit who no one comes to visit um i will say uh there's a few ways we could potentially go in the city it is a vast city um one way I can think of there's a sort of abandoned temple that all of you might be able to hold your breath long enough and

get to without attracting the attention of the Galaxians and it's not right by where the hammer is but it's you know not all the way on the shore it's not right by where the hammer is, but it's not all the way on the shore. It's not miles and miles away. And there is a connection between the abandoned temple and the rest of the sort of air pockets of the city.

You could get into the keep that holds the hammer from this abandoned temple, and I could probably get you there just on my own without any help yes do we want to go on underwater she hasn't been yeah i mean i would send her ahead to just retrieve

the hammer for in the name of yeah in the name of first of all yes you can try that second of all in the name of uh of me feeling guilty about the season finale of season three, if anyone would like to do an insight check to see if Princess Cosby is full of shit with this abandoned temple thing,

please go right ahead. You don't have to. I feel like we might end up being fish food too. You never know. 16. Maybe we have to go shopping. 12 plus 6 18 yeah maybe oh maybe that's what it is maybe we have to go back to town and kind of reset or maybe maybe this maybe this is the plan maybe she goes in and gets it because she has no leverage right but she's trying to

get something so maybe we're like we will help you transform can Can anyone beat an 18? Damn hammer. No. For what? Anyone beat an 18? Okay. I mean, you, you get the sense that she's selling the truth,

but that she just really hates the idea of having to return to her old form. She was really hoping that she was like, not going to have to move into yet another apartment. She was really hoping to buy a house and, and become sure a rabbit person but she's so maybe she seems to be truthful okay maybe we get her somehow then we only need to get her and maybe one other person has a water breather to accompany her or something yeah and if you want you can do also uh you can ask her do you want to have asked her to just go get the hammer yeah i like that idea

the most but she's not i mean oh yeah i guess she could go as an octopus yeah i was thinking she had to reach maybe why why couldn't she so you ask her uh she says oh well i would probably need my uncle if you remember when i touched the lake i'm supposed to turn into a fish person again magic oh great uh so if you want me to be an octopus you probably need my uncle to cast a shape no no spell oh that works great i forgot that you were going to turn back i was just thinking how are we going to do that wonderful it's all settled then. Okay. What will make you confident? What do you need to be confident that you can do this?

We have faith in you. And when you return, we are going to make your uncle change you into a rabbit folk. Right, guys? Yes, that sounds exact. I stand fully behind you. All right. How are you going to keep my uncle alive? yes that sounds exactly I stand fully behind you alright

how are you going to keep my uncle alive I mean he's in the water he's tied up right yeah we'll hang out with him here guard him here oh wait you want me to go by myself yes I mean that could take days

well we could get a long rest. I'd have to convince my father and I'd have to sneak past. Oh, my goodness. What do you need to make this plan work? Hmm. Well, first of all, I would need some kind of weapon I could conceal easily. Do any of you have a dagger?

I believe I have a dagger. Second of all, I need something that I can wrap the hammer in. I don't want anyone to see me as I gravitate and make my way out of the castle. Do you understand me? I'm like that when I'm walking into my apartment with an Arby's bag. Do you have some kind of cloak or something? or third of all if you have yes any kind of invisibility that I can use

how long will it take you to get from here to the where it's stored it depends what you can provide me with if you can provide me with some sort of invisibility haha I can do it in merely 12 hours just for travel

I could only make you invisible for the very first hour unfortunately well that might help as I am a wanted criminal I'm trying to figure out a way that we can get um oh how about doesn't someone can fly yeah can't we fly out over

to the lake and then do like an airdrop? Drop her in invisible, right? Yes. And then I follow Dumbo drop fish. I think can someone fly in this group? No, nobody can. No one has a fly spell or anything. No.

So you look up sweep in the the white pages uh unfortunately he's local only in clod and i'm i was thinking of black i think oh yeah blacky green in bonus episodes only what's his charisma uh tie i can't remember yeah it's uh it's like Doug Benson, high and outside. Okay, hold on. Let's see. What do we have? Let's go through our things, guys. Let's go through our things. I have a human flesh bag. I have a dagger. I have a dagger of

venom, which I feel like would be probably helpful to her. Would you say this out loud? No, I think we're just sort of looking right now through our own things he's not the guy's not going to help us even if we can't trust that he's gonna because i would offer him something but we can't trust that he's going to do anything that we ask him to do so oh my goodness so yeah, all I have is a dagger. All right.

So one of you, so we have two, two spare non-magical daggers. So one of you guys can give that to her. Um, do you, I'll give her mine. I'll give her a magical dagger.

Does anyone have a cloak of any kind? Nevermind then. She'll take the dagger of venom if you'll give it to her. Sure. Yeah. And she's going to bring it back to me. Right. Or a bag. She says she will. Yes. if you'll give it to her, sure. Yeah, and she's going to bring it back to me. Right? For a bag or a cloak?

She says she will, yes. Something to put the hammer in? And yeah, like something big enough to not just be random burlap you have in an adventurous pack. She says it's a very large hammer, especially for someone her size. I'll take off my cloak and be like, would this help? I'll bring it back to Buddy Cloak. How generous of you. Yes, that will help. my cloak and be like would this help I'll bring a body cloak how generous of you yes

that will help we're all trying to contribute things to help you move all right so all that's left is if you have anything that she can use to be more stealthy it's not just about invisibility it's about like getting past guards hmm

I love that you're sending an NPC to do an entire dungeon for you that really makes me feel good about all the maps she she brothers on herself can anybody link to her like psionically or psychically or anything

yeah I was fine if we didn't do a split thing where someone went yeah well what we're gonna do is once you send her off I am going to just ask you guys to riff for like a few episodes while i just like play by myself no it's called quarantine wait who's our uh hey maybe i'll make it fun don't worry i'm just being a dumb dumb fuck. Maybe Tootie could pray and explain that for the cause of good, we are trying to rescue Bahamut's hammer from the evil fish folk and any benevolence would be appreciated

to bestow upon our champion. I could do that. I'm just looking to see if I have any spells that I can have nothing invisible or nothing. Princess, is there any sort of land settlement nearby that if we were to go in search of supplies

you could sort of point us in a direction? Oh, that's a great question because I sure don't think there is let me wait for the dungeon master to consult the map of the continent who's that oh just doing some metagaming don't listen to me um let's see you guys the curiosity is peaked on forge are not really like you're far from civilization obviously there is

a castle under the water but the nearest city is probably either Krakakafa which is a few days travel to the northwest which you know you've heard oak and doink plays there sometimes or bling bottom which you've been to before

hmm okay now we're just going to make do with what we have got it okay and I would like to pray to Bahamut to give guidance through the hammer to her.

Okay. I mean, is this his hammer? Your god? Yeah. Okay, then definitely he's going to help us out here. I think if you do a special prayer, I feel like... Tootie? Yes? Please roll a

religion check. And I'm going to have you roll a 100 if you beat an 18 or better. Oh, Ken, you're so good at these. You've been practicing this roll your whole life. All right. Here we go. Ha. Five.

Now, can I use a luck point and try again yeah you have luck points yes I do yes you may alright come on baby oh my fucking god nine uh there's another one

yeah I might use them hang on let me just keep track of my luck points keep track of my lucky okay that's one use another one damn it is it all right

luck it's 2D's day come on 5 oh wow last chance It's Tootie's day. Come on. Five. Oh, wow. Last chance. Okay, one more. Wow, this is rough. Six.

Now we get to add those all together, though, right? Even then, we may be in trouble. I mean, with all of that praying, you definitely... You definitely, like, you're really straining, right? You definitely feel like Bahamut's listening, but Bahamut just is looking at the greater events unfolding across the globe,

the realm, the plane that you're in, and just can't focus. I just had a thought. What about that scepter thing? What can that do? The staff of the... Because that could do all kinds of stuff. Right?

Does she know? I guess we can ask the wizard, actually. We can't trust that he's going to do it, but I feel like can someone attune? You feel like either one of you would need to attune to it or whoever's using it would need to attune to it attuned to it or whoever's using it would need to attune to and it would take like up to two days to sit with it and like

meditate over it you just try just try to attune to it yeah hail mary but are you sending her with it or no no my thinking is that if we can if that would then give us the power if you know maybe with the scepter you'd be able to make her invisible make her fly you know teleport us make us be able to breathe underwater yeah if one of us could also breathe under that kind of thing give us huge frog sacks um from fifth avenue here's another thought i ask ask her, is there like a storeroom or easily accessible like invisibility things or whatever? Oh, like does the castle have like

inventory of invisibility? Well, I'm just thinking I could talk, I could speak with small beasts in the water and they could swim down and bring us like an invisibility potion. Doesn't that seem reasonable interesting um she's like I don't know I mean I suppose

my uncle as the shaman might have a store of magical items is it just this water that will change her yeah like she's the whole time she's just been sort of octopus pacing back and forth on the beach trying to avoid the water also we don't even know this is gonna be true you got to get

in the water right now before we go any further with this plan because like what if you touch it and nothing happens i'll go when i'm making my exit and i'll ask nathan to avert his eyes i'll do it when the time is nigh so what's good is if she doesn't change, octopuses have camouflage. Mm-hmm. Great. A wonderful, beautiful, amazing camouflage. And it occurs to me I could wiggle my nose and twitch my

tail towards that uncle in the hopes that he would maybe become our pal for an hour or so. Oh, yeah. Actually, yeah. Can you charm him into like, what would be the best thing? A fly spell or a teleport? What's your ability called? Savage

cuteness? Unwavering. Sorry, I'm on the wrong page. Yes, unwavering cuteness. I can use my natural charm and cuteness to gain an advantage in social interactions. That's amazing. And it functions as a charm person spell. So I could try and do that, and we could talk to the guy.

Maybe he'd help us out. And so my wife gets away with a lot of shit around here. Oh. Melanie is always at unwavering cuteness. So I'm going to have, I guess, you're going to do the nose wiggle, and he's going to do a wisdom saving throw, and we're going to see. Should we decide what we would want him to do for us, if it works? How do you want to word this, Nathan?

Do we want him to, like, teleport her, or can she fly? I feel like fly would maybe be the best, so she can fly directly over, as I said, but I don't know. Maybe we first find out what he can do, and then, like, once we have the menu... Everything! Yeah, I mean, that's what we want, right?

So... Seduce him first? You made that weird noise I have a cricket in my room is that what you're hearing I thought it was in my room no I mean the person who did the everything oh that was me Jesus Christ

I was surprised he scared my ball hair oh god oh no scared every hair on my body Scared my ball hair. Oh, God. Yeah, sorry. Oh, no! Scared every hair on my body. Well, you've had your revenge because now we've all pictured something. Especially the balls. Specific.

Dan, it's a DC 13 wisdom saving throw for that charm person. Wonderful. Let me bust out the lovely marble dice that Kaylin got me for Christmas. And we will use those for the hammer stuff because we're going into some fun stuff. Love a good

marble. 16. Did not charm him. But I still like give him like a wink like, hey there friend friend we were just kind of wondering if you wanted to you know rap a bit and talk about feelings and i put my arms backwards and i sit on the chair and i'm just sort of like leaning my chin on my paws and just be like you know sometimes grown-ups can be a real drag all right so uh the princess relays the the youth pastor uh captain america's speech and uh

says oh he's saying something about how uh the abyss will open its maw for all of us one day it doesn't sound like you really cheer up all right are we sending her out there? I'm hoping for the best. Well, it sounds like off I go! Very well. Nathan, I ask you to look the other way. I'm going to go through a dungeon by myself.

Wish me luck. Good luck. Give us lots of good treasures. Battle princess away away avert your eyes Nathan I don't want you to see this yes I very sort of as per her wishes dramatically

turn away and sort of remain sort of very like holding eye contact with the opposite direction if the rest of you would look away that'd be cool too, but no pressure. Sure. I mean,

we need to see what you get. She, she, she get it on my flip cam. Flip, like flips the hood over herself. So you can't like completely see her body. So she's got the dagger and like,

like in one, in one tentacle, like under this but it's like a little it's a little cloak scooting across the beach and like flat on the ground and then yes once she hits the water

it rises a little bit and you see two little fish legs and she splooshes into the water she charged but I feel like he was gonna do invisibility at least for that first hour, right? Because we did say that. Okay. Sure.

I will mark that off. So it's fish legs, not crab legs. That would have been weird. So you're now alone with the fish shaman who you can't speak with. Let's take him out of the sight of the water because otherwise they're going to come looking for him and then we'll just we'll just pour water on him put him behind a tree put him on behind a tree or something all right are you um are you going to do anything about the pile of fish corpses with a big orc corpse laying across them cook them yeah i guess we drag him to the shore hide him behind some grass or whatever give him an

improper burial i mean it seems fairly certain someone's coming yeah let's just get as much of this deep out of the water as we can and hard to hard to clean up a murder scene in the middle of the water. And yet we do it. What were you going to say, Chris? Oh, just what I said. Crime scene cleanup. Somebody's coming. Montage. Dance as we clean.

Danny, you can just start putting on your corpse cleanup gloves and, uh, dragging everything into the bushes. So yeah. Harvey cocktail.

Can we all put on a, a matching, uh, overalls, denim overalls, but like in bright colors, like I'm red. Danny's way.

Somebody. Yeah. Yeah. You're not only cleaning up, but you're filming a children's television show where you're, you're, you are all like different archetypal characters. Um, so, and then you're not only cleaning up but you're filming a children's television show where you're you are all like different archetypal characters um so and then you're in a band but you guys uh time to sing go so you guys are dragging the bodies out you're just kind of waiting

in a few hours go by uh the sun starts to set haven't heard anything you hear cricket we gotta wait a couple days i feel like so this is just what we're doing now The sun starts to set. Haven't heard anything. We hear a cricket. We gotta wait a couple days, I feel like, so this is just what we're doing now. I think we need to leave. I'm not kidding. I think someone's going, I think she's going to be captured or at least seen,

and then someone's going to come here. Yeah, probably, but we're hiding. We're going to disguise ourselves in the woods. Jelf and I are good at woodsy stealth, right? Look at me, I'm a tree. Right? He's a tree, Dan.

Right now, I am doing some rolls for what's happening with Princess Gaspia. How's she doing? She's doing. Are you guys going to camp out? We're going to tie this guy up. We're going to pour water over him at intervals.

Yeah, and try and bring him food, even though he was a creep. I feel like we would make a point of being kind to him. Is anyone doing any attuning or learning of spells or anything? Yeah, Nathan should do that. Yeah, I would like to try and take another stab at attuning to that uh crystal ball wait what about the scepter oh we have a scepter too all right that's true it would be better i can try to attune to the scepter sure or i'm happy to change course whatever this is uh the crystal ball you you found in the castaway cuties is house? I believe that is the case.

I'm looking it up right now. Yeah, it was a mind reading, right? Yeah, it's a crystal ball of mind reading. Yeah, that'll be useful. I think maybe we found it inside the big skeleton, exoskeleton. Did we find it in there maybe in the evil turtles layer maybe? I don't remember. But it allows

us to scry. I thought it was in the house. I think it was in the house. It was? Okay. And detect dogs. From the vampire? Yes. I forgot about the vampire. Yeah. Who is from Amina

so yeah you guys are you're gonna give 2D the staff yeah and I'm using like a I'm gonna like use scrub stuff to make us look hidden as much as possible okay so let's get a survival check for that Sarah

and if I get an Arcana check for 2D and Nathan that would be lovely certainly natural 20 plus 2 22 holy shit you guys are in an amazing

disguise that Iva has constructed to hide all of your campments and it sounds like 2D is halfway to learning the staff's powers. How about you, Nathan? What was your arcana? 17. Not bad.

You are done attuning to the crystal ball of mind reading. I think I already linked to you what this does. Yes? I have it in the equipment. I'm just now finally turning it on yes would you like to tell uh listeners or would you like me to go for it so the crystal ball it allows him to use a scrying spell um you can also use an action to cast detect thoughts while he's scrying with the crystal ball.

And scrying, if you're unfamiliar, means you can see and hear a particular creature you choose that is on the same plane of existence as you. The target can make a wisdom saving throw, which is modified by how well you know the target and the sort of physical connection you have to it. If a target knows you're casting

the spell, it can fail the saving throw voluntarily if it wants to be observed. So is there a physical distance thing? Wait, could he... No. Oh my gosh, you could mind read her right now. As to just be on the same plane of existence, Nathan can now

scry on Princess Cosvia. So it's getting back to the 80ia. So it's getting back to the 80s. So it seems like a good idea to have. Yeah, you can check in on her right now. See how she's doing. Sure. Before we do that, I would like to do a bit of healing, if I may.

Oh, yeah. Are we short resting? Are we considering this a short rest? Are we here for days? It's dark. I think we can do long rest. We should go into a long rest. Okay. Yeah, then I will go ahead and scry on her or people can do other stuff

if Ken wants to. Well, if you want to rest first and then that makes sense, I guess. And then... Yeah, how much time? No, no, no. You do it first

and then does it reset after he does a long rest? Correct. Oh, yeah. So it's in his best interest to do it before he lays down and takes a nap. Yeah, so I'll do that if there's anything anybody else wants to do but i'll do that before we go to bed scry on her

see where she's at okay so you cast scrying and she uh is going to feel a tug on her mind and for a moment you feel her resist and then she realizes the familiar identity that is trying to see through her and she relents and allows you to experience the area around her

so this doesn't necessarily let you see through her eyes this allows you to sort of like as almost like a specter view where she is from like above or nearby right you're you're not you're not necessarily like visible to anybody but you're you're witnessing her um and so third person shooter kind of yeah uh make sure you push uh down on the l stick to make this happen when when uh your vision comes to you see she is currently underwater on the side of some kind of building and she's like creeping along pushing her back flat against the wall creeping along uh she's having a cool adventure i'm proud of her uh and she you you kind of like look around you you see there's fish like people swimming above between uh the the

setting sunlight and the place she is in the water and you get a sense that she is very deep and that this lake gets very deep um and it seems like maybe you could swim that far on your own but it would be a stretch like it would it would be like a dive uh and she's on like a spire and she's trying to like find a way to like get in uh and then uh she sort of um stops for a moment and looks around and uh blows a kiss um and you see like she's doing it definitely to you but like she's a fish now. And you haven't seen her like this before. And she doesn't seem to really know if you can see her. So she doesn't show any signs of being embarrassed like you would normally.

She thinks maybe you're just inside her mind. But yeah, she's pretty much like a piranha bipedal creature with it looks you can sort of see some of them poking around the robe like big poison spines sticking out of her back um like a lionfish so uh or a zebrafish if you please that that goes on for a bit she still tries to sneak around and then you see her kind of like find something and start swimming towards it quickly and the vision dissipates and you're back amongst the Castaway Cuties.

Wow. So far so good, I think. That was cool. Okay, let's take a look at sports. Does anybody want to be on watch while people sleep? Yeah. Yeah, I'll be on watch. Do I get another chance to do tuning or have to rest first uh you're gonna have to rest first okay resting uh you know i can i only need four hours of rest but uh i was wondering if i might be able to do a little recon along the uh the banks of the lake up and down and see if there's any like in fort

things going on or any sort of fish activity or not too far I just want to but I'll do it like as a patrol kind of a thing be as sneaky as I can but who's going to do watch who's going to stay with the encampment

and do so I I will. Okay. Everybody else rest? Sound good, Brian? Yeah. Great. So, yeah, you guys, Iva, please do a perception check and I'm going to need a stealth and perception from Jelf.

Stealth from Jelf. Ooh, that's a natural 20. With a plus 4, so 24. 24 nice what was the other one survival yes sir no perception excuse me uh you're not gonna believe this 20 wow you're gonna get creamed in the next fight yeah this is not looking good i'm getting them all out of my system as a 26 because i have a proficiency in perception that's awesome i guess i just wanted it well i forgot that this uh game was invented by ayn rand just gotta pull yourself up by

your bootstraps yeah there's a virtue to elfishness. Oh. That was a good joke and it was sad at the same time. I know, I felt bad saying it, but I'm kind of proud of it. Yeah, you... Sarah, what'd you get? I'm sorry. 16. Great. All the laughing at Blaine. It blurs the vision. You do see

in the distance some sort of dark shape over the tree line to the west other than that uh not much but the dark shape is definitely making like a like noise that kind of rattles some of the tree branches um jelf jelf is headed that way so let's talk about his perception check you managed to stop before this thing steps on you basically jelf so you're running through the forest and you just feel in the ground something is coming and you dart up a tree and notice this thing that is it looks sort of like a cow with long stilt legs that reach above the tree line the legs are all as thick as trees and it's rather nimbly dodging the trees as these legs kind of rise and just stomp remiss and stomp and it's very hard you can't really see what the body is but it looks

like it's large uh not necessarily monstrous and You get the cow idea from its legs. It's got the three-toed foot, but they're enormous. Again, they're the size of trees. And it went by me? It's going towards the river as if to drink from it or something. And I forget if either of you were on the watch when you saw this earlier, but it does look like it's maybe the enormous beast were on the watch when you saw this earlier but it does look like it's maybe the enormous beast that you all saw rise out of the canyon a couple of nights ago it had fangs or uh like a

bell around its neck and friendly board and horns no when you when you saw it from far away before it was miles away uh now it's in the dark above the tree line even with that really good perception check there's just too much i mean all you get is like a glimpse beneath the branches that it's got a shape and you feel are we in its path you'd have to rise you'd have to rise above the tree line to see more um no at the camp you're not really in like that much of a better position because it's a couple miles away and it's dark okay can i can agatha can agatha go take a look and give us a better yes uh is she trying to be selfie uh yeah but she's a bird so it's i feel like you know she's she's pretty unobtrusive to

begin with sure you know what uh i'll give you that and not make you roll twice just do a perception check for agatha or you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna roll this into how she communicates it back to you so will you do an insight check 20 oh my gosh great so yeah she comes back and um she just sort of communicates to you that it seems harmless but that it's very large and it scared her anyway okay so yeah if it doesn't step on us we should be okay feels like all right cut back to camp iva are you staying up for the last shift um are you crashing i guess if i everybody needs the full time to do it so i'll just not tonight and then do it the next night i guess if you don't sleep yeah if you don't sleep at all um or did you sleep all other people were tuning or what did you do no i don't think so i don't

think anyone was okay well if i did if there's i just don't think there's a way for me to get i guess i can do short rest if somebody else would do that, but everybody needs it. Yeah. I mean, you will want to at least do a short rest. You're going to get a point of exhaustion for staying up all night. I don't think I can though,

because then everybody else will lose their thing. Right. I'm not doing anything. I'm not attuning. Okay. So if he does, he would also have done a short rest. If Danny also did a short rest,

then we both at least get. Yeah. Your health is good. You can also, everybody can sleep in to make sure everybody short rest, if Danny also did a short rest, then we both at least get... Yeah, but you can also everybody can sleep in to make sure everybody's fully caught up. Okay, then I'll sleep in. We have nothing else to do. 11 o'clock. Also, by the way, I guess I'm pouring water on this guy all night. Whoever's on watch needs to be doing that as well. And make sure he's not

breaking free of his bonds. Every once in a while, too, over the course of those four hours, he just sends these weird gurgling thoughts into your brain. It's upsetting. Any any encampments or anything up and up along the coast of this lake or any movement? So you're eventually eventually you feel safe climbing down the tree. feel safe climbing down the tree um you do eventually get far enough west where you think you see something sticking up out of the lake that resembles a building okay so you think maybe part

of this castle actually reaches out of the water but that's about it all right no encampments all right i'll head back and all right who's uh next watch danny or iva danny said he would or i guess no we said we're sleeping in so it doesn't matter yeah so maybe he can take the last one and you're gonna do one more yeah okay so roll perception for me uh i'm gonna use a lucky point okay on my perception roll i'm gonna use one more lucky point on my perception roll since i'm about to rest oh no i think it would be more helpful oh no

hmm well now i got a three oh no no i a no wait yeah because i can use the what it's not like that other there's a luck thing where you have to use the thing and i think oh you don't have to take um so actually i got a let's see i don't have to i got a 12 it's not the original i got it okay well uh just in the nick time, while you're kind of looking on the horizon to see if that large beast was kind of rising out of the water, you look over your shoulder and you notice that after some successful rolls on his part, the shaman appears to have loosened his bindings

and is starting to wriggle towards the lake. Oh, I tighten them back up again. Yeah, he fights you pretty hard, so I'm gonna have you do a strength check come on guy you rolled an eight 19 oh yeah you you fucking plant him on the ground and get the bindings nice and tight. Alright, so Danny, you're on watch. Roll a perception check.

Certainly. And as you start your shift, you're told about having put a poor water on this guy. You're told he tried to sneak away and Jelf arrives back in camp to take a little nap. Okay, first roll's low. First roll's low. First roll's

nine. Well, you only get one roll, I believe. Okay. Yeah, you don't really see much and nothing happens over the course of the roll I just made. The sun begins

to rise and we'll find out what the castaway cuties do as Princess Caspia has not made contact since a vision of her showed her swimming towards something that caught her eye. Oh, will Nathan use scrying again? We'll find out on the next episode of nerd poker. Hey, Sam,

what do you think happened today? Hey everybody. This week, we're still considering heading into the water of which we have no supplies for in fact we're so unprepared as a listener i forgot we're even supposed to stop and get supplies i forgot that's even a thing we do we decided the best course would be to give the person who has not been truthful to us some of the tools we could definitely use and see if she comes back uh we're tuning to the shaman's staff so we can spy on her and we found a large beast and the shaman

is trying to squirm away. Well, thanks, Sam. That sounded pretty accurate. You did a good job. I love when Sam low-key makes us sound like idiots, though. We do that ourselves. By spelling out, makes us? Was I wrong about the

supplies? spelling out makes us was I wrong about the supplies uh it wouldn't be nerd poker if we weren't fucking up every week uh Dan you got something uh yeah I mean just keep an eye out for my

stuff I guess this is far enough out of advance so I can't really think of any stand up stuff but keep an eye on my uh twitch channel keep an eye on my twitter for announcing dates and uh definitely uh keep an eye out for the role-playing book that i'm writing right now on tales of zadia.com that's tales of x-a-d-i-a.com and that is based off the netflix show the dragon prince i'm having a blast writing that right now. There'll be some really fun stuff in there. Oh, boy, you're going to like it.

It's got like art from people who worked on the TV show. You'll think it looks legit. How about you, Brian? What are you up to? Oh, so much. But really only one thing worth checking out is Grandpa's Metal Stash on Gimme Metal. And then my tour dates, BrianPussain.com or follow me on Twitter and all that shit. And I'll bark about it often. Lane, what's going on with you and the Keechmaster?

He is going to be in ottawa for uh the big uh columnist festival he's doing his one-man show i irma he becomes irma bombeck it's crazy i don't know if you if you ever saw hal holbrook do Mark Twain. Dog shit compared to this. And the Keechmaster, that's a legendary character actor, Stacey Keech. Yeah, him doing Irma Bombeck, it's like Irma's in the room with you, and I'm not kidding, I'm not trying to

be flip about it, it's really eerie. And I'm opening this in a couple minutes. Okay. I want to go to the show. Hey, everybody. Thanks for listening. 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 one six zero six nine. Encino, California, nine one four one six. Thanks for listening.