Nerd Poker - S4E41 Creeps in the Deeps

Episode Date: June 22, 2021

The Castaway Cuties are on their way to retrieving the divine hammer! But oh yeah... it's at the bottom of a massive lake and it's very heavy. And maybe guarded by water monsters. Leave it to the Nerd Poker crew to make some surprising choices on how to turn these problems into problemade.

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 Pussain's Nerd Poker. Season 4. Hey everybody, I'm Brian Pussain, and you're listening to Brian Pussain's Nerd Poker.

It's episode 41. We did it. I'm looking at my friends. Look at them. They're all here. It's been, I think we skipped a week since we recorded, so I'm happy to see their faces in Zoom. And we almost saw each other live.

Damn it. And it didn't happen, but soon, soon, soon, you're a balloon. Hey, my friends are here. It's a Mr. Show thing, Dan. Oh, I've never seen it. Chris Tallman.

Hello, Chris. Hello, Brian Pussain. How are you? I'm good. Blaine Catpatch is there. There he is. Look at him. Hey, hi.

Hi, Brian. Look at his voice you're hearing. Hey, hi. Hi, Brian. Look at his voice you're hearing. Ken Daly. Hi, Brian. Who's Mr. Show? Bord Oden? Steen and David Criss. His name is Mr. Nobody. Sounds interesting.

Yeah, they had a sketch comedy show. A lot of skittles and sketchels. Mr. Nobody. Sounds interesting. Yeah, they had a sketch comedy show. A lot of skittles and sketchels and flappies and skims and flaps. Yeah. All bound together. That was what they were known for. It was all the

transitions. Transitions, I think they're called. Sure. Sarah's here, everybody. Hello, Sarah. Hi, hello. Our DM with the blue hair.

There he is. Dan, tell for everybody. Oh, it's a pizza pie. I got it for everybody. It is a pizza pie. Wow. It's a me, a Mario. I I got it for everybody. It is a pizza pie. Wow. It's a me, a Mario. I won't stand for it.

It's a me. You're going to make Gino mad. That's right. It's okay. He can say that because he's a racist. He's going to come over and break your fucking legs. Whenever I do an Italian accent in my stand-up, I say, I apologize. I would do an impression of my weird great uncles with their Croatian accent,

but I cannot find a Croatian accent on the internet. All I can find is people doing inaccurate ones because they're a terrorist and it was fun to call them Croatian. There's no actual Croatian accents on YouTube. Sorry, I tried. Brian, you do a pretty good Croatian, as I recall. Yeah, buddy. There it is.

Special for you. Whoa, is that Tony Kukoc? Yep, sure was. Whoever that is. Former Chicago Bull, who is very Croatian. Sam's here, everybody. Hello, sweet children. How are you?

I'm good. I'm good. Good. Let's see if that stuffed animal responds. Hey. You got to keep giving him treats when you make that noise. Otherwise, he's going to stop doing it for a long time. This is Spider-Man. Show it. Universal. What? giving him treats when you make that noise otherwise he's gonna stop doing it like for a long time it's spider-man showing uh universal what wait why are you talking about spider-man spider-man and universal what's going on it's like it's just on cue the way he has

such a cued up show it's like the spider-man that's uh that's a inside reference for everyone who has seen spider-man at universal studios i just read a i just read an article about it uh where they have a robot android kind of boston dynamics thing that does these swings over the audience yeah it flips in the air that's disneyland yeah you're california is it is it yeah i just read it and i was making up i'm sorry i i i tried to do a little aside and i now i've drawn attention to it uh when i saw the indiana jones stunt spectacular at universal uh cities in in florida in like you know 1988 uh i was like 10 years old i stood up and i said that's not harrison ford my mom was like you have to sit down that's not

a problem everyone expected it at least one more time I think I yelled something like are you kidding me just cause he looked so weird and stocky compared to Harrison Ford's lanky frame ah that tells more about Harrison Ford's body

how would you describe well you know when he enters a room he saunters more than walks and you can see from his silhouette that he's really got some muscles underneath that carpenter's shirt his golden hoop earrings glistening in the evening light first off the moon then off his ear that's why i call him old double lunar ford i don't know i was invited to write a love letter to harrison ford and i'm not gonna say no wow all right oh what if i thank people yeah you should jesus lord okay so we are a podcast that is powered by patreon and we sure as fuck wish that all of you could join us we thank you

all for listening but we would especially like to thank patreon supporters at our hey boss and stargoil tier which include listeners with usernames like anatomically correct warforged thank you anatomically correct warforged thank you. Anatomically correct war forged. Thank you. Thank you. Finch the Druid. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.

Sean George. Thank you. Thank you. Kaya the Wonder Poodle. Thank you. Thank you. Toons 7 AD. Thanks.

Ditch Wizard. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Blaine's ad reads. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks. Rob. I am. Thank you. reads thank you thank you thank you thanks rob i am thank you catch 22 where the a and the t is a 47 uh thank you thank you fart we have two in a row i'm sorry i'm always in another window so when people start talking i'm adding 47 and 22 together. Is that what's going on? I don't, I don't understand. It says catch 20. Okay.

Okay. You know how, you know, leet speak where letters are replaced by numbers. They did that with the words in, or the letters in catch 22 for the a and the T. So it's letter C. Right.

And then the number four, then the number seven, and then C. So it's just a coincidence that those add up to 69. No, I don't think so. I don't think it's just a coincidence that those add up to 69? No, I don't think so I don't think it's a coincidence Wait You just figured out a

69 math joke? I'm high-fiving Wow My feud with Sarah is over Thank you. Fart Cannon is online. Thank goodness. Hey, let's break that one down.

Well, this next one's got numbers in it. Thank you. Fart Cube 420. Thanks, Nino Derrico. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That has a number in it, too.

Thanks, Matt Tesla Coil. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. Thanks, F number in it too. Thanks, Matt Tesla Coil. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Funky Cold Medusa. Thank you. Thanks, Who Gives a Fuck About a Plus One Comma. Whoa, right? That must be like an inside reference to their own game

where someone can't stop talking about their comma. Thanks, Lord Brownington. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. their own game where someone can't stop talking about their comma thanks lord brownington thank you and of course lord brownington's long time adventuring pal war anus it's very interesting those two ended up together on my list thank you mark strandberg thank you kevin hit thanks kevin thank you

beta ray bill nye the science guy thank you and finally thank you all Thank you, Kevin Hit. Thanks, Kevin. Thank you, BetaRayBillNyeTheScienceGuy. Thank you. And finally, thank you, AllClaudenheimWanted was to not be taken over by evil undead elves. And a Pepsi. Sorry. Didn't we all? Our bad.

That's weird. That's what the Ice Five wanted explicitly. We do what we can. Blaine, who were those Patreon supporters brought to us by? Brought to us tonight by Ad Classic.

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Dan. Blaine. Thank you so much for that ad read. One of us may be insane. I'm not saying who. Sockwits. Why limit it? It could be any percentage of us.

Yeah. Well, you're the math person in the group sarah so please tell us what percentage 24 how do i get to a boobs joke sit down all right somebody rush that boobs joke uh get the calculator uh anyway i'm gonna go ahead and tell you guys what happened last time on Nerd Poker. The Castaway Cuties sent an untrustworthy NPC to get a Godhammer? Well, that was weird. Anyway, they sent her down to her city beneath the waves of Mega Lake Pangodon,

where she cracked open a back room to a temple where Bahamut's hammer was sealed away. The castaway cuties managed to create a series of, I don't know, sneaky times, tricks, where they made a couple of folks invisible

and then they choked out a couple of fish people soldiers, and then there was like a little paint, like an invisible not invisible what the it's like uh it's like one of those illusion posters except it was of one of the guards ivah paperbark created this illusion to make it appear the guard was still standing there, whilst Danny choked out the final guards. However, as the lock is being picked by Iva, behind her there are some more guards wandering around, some kind of fish royalty kneeling at an altar, and a massive fishy-like demon pulsing with power but in some sort of stasis

in the middle of the room none of them are aware of the castaway cuties yet but it seems they are on a razor's edge what is behind the door is it Bahamut hammer it's time to find out so okay you guys pick the lock

the door is open and for your reference we're not does that hurt your voice doing that it seems like that hurts your voice you blow your voice out doing that every time um I don't uh

I don't know what that noise was but it was a voice that was so bothersome I think my brain like wouldn't receive the words um but uh yeah you guys i'm gonna send you the roll 20 link so you can get a lay of the land if you please those of you who may have unstable internet uh i am happy to for the listeners benefit as well uh speak visually for the mind's eye. Uh, so you guys sounds like a lot of stress on your throat.

You know, you should have like some iced hot tea. You take hot tea and then you make it iced by putting ice on it. Gotta be hot first. That's what I heard. Hey, Brian. Yes.

Uh, anyway, first that's what i heard hey brian yes uh anyway you guys are in this temple and no one's seen you yet but right now you're kind of inching your way uh as far east as this temple goes jelf tootie the princess and nathan are all kind of in this area where you first like surfaced beneath the the lake and there's like a little air pocket for part of this this this castle thing this castle existed you think before the galaxian fish people came to mega lake pangodon because some of it's broken there's air pockets some of it's underwater and this is some sort of weird temple to dagon where this wastrelith this water demon is currently in stasis and this royalty you think it it praying and is is some sort of um you know uh response to the fact that the shaman is currently tied up back where you just came from uh the shaman is uh sort of high priest of the galaxian empire and the uncle of the princess so you guys are kind of like you know taking it from her that

maybe the the shaman's disappearance is causing them to create some security measures like summon a water demon uh you're you're opening the door and so far no one's heard you but you get it open and you see on the other side of this door a dwarf frozen in in stone uh but holding this gleaming hammer hammer in his stone hand it's almost as if he has been turned to stone. His stone fist is gripping the hammer tightly, so there's not an easy way to

dislodge this hammer without doing something about the fact that this stone fist is gripping it. I assume Iva and Danny, you're going to try to tiptoe into the room or something sure

sure are you going to do anything else to make up for the fact that there might be people coming are you going to say drag the guards in with you and shut the door what are you going to do can I forget I know that I had cast that illusion spell I guess yeah so can i it takes

a minute do the same thing yeah right so we'll drag the the guards in and then i'll just do the illusion of the guard just chilling like yeah but um i'm looking this up right now too isn't the trick with minor illusion that only lasts 60 seconds and you have to renew it um yeah but i'll just i mean that's better than nothing all right so you're kind of yeah of course it is i'm just i'm just saying it for uh listeners benefit and so you i don't feel like i can pull that on you later when i introduce it as a plot device so yeah you're you're gonna cast it and then shut the door or you're gonna cast and leave it open a crack so you can see the illusion is about to pop or anything like that.

I think casting shut the door. Okay. You and Danny go in there. The room is now dark. Do I see it on the map here? Yeah. So let me. I'll show you like what it looked like in just a moment. I'll show you what it looked like in just a moment.

It's weird that you would come down to LA from Sacramento and bring an air horn with you. Yeah, right? That's one of the things you brought. I know. You'd really think I would have brought my Vuvuzela. Yeah, it's like you're going to, let's make a deal or something. Maybe I'll ask for an air horn. Okay, so I don't have the token

for the hammer, so instead I'm going to add a Paul Blart token. He's going to represent the dwarf holding the hammer. Just revealing it on the map there you see it there he is so uh danny and ivah you guys are going to be sort of here and here and if i'm not mistaken you knocked both these guys out right kind of by the door yeah yeah okay are you or were you gonna drag them in like I uh said your

character might consider yeah I said I'm gonna drag them in and then thanks juggling a lot of stuff haven't played in a couple weeks brain not worky times so uh yep there you go what would you like to do danny iva

you probably can't just take it right you try want to see what happens kind of um let me think if you do grab it or or try anything please try to describe the physical action as much as possible okay so it's a just a recap here it's a statue holding the hammer yeah um it's and and it's it's darker now but i think both of you have dark vision so uh yeah it's it's quite dark because there's only a little bit of light coming in from around the edges of the door but it is a dwarf with this big, it looks almost like a very lustrous, healthy beard with a couple of braids, one on each side with some sort of thick metal coil holding it. He's wearing armor. He looks healthy and young and ready for battle.

And he's holding it like in a victory stance above his head. But he and his armor, his his uh you know jewelry everything is completely made of stone the hammer itself uh it's not so shiny now but you noticed it was almost glistening with power uh it has a steel almost iridescent in a pearl like way handle and the the mithril making up the head of the hammer was so pure and clean and unblemished that you've never seen something so uh paladin like before so do we think that like is it a life-size dwarf or like a large like oh it's life-sized so do we think it's possible that the dwarf took the hammer and then was turned to stone by grabbing i would say that would occur to you as a possibility but not as the only possibility okay the victory aspect

um makes it seem that way yeah yeah um let's see okay can i um i'm gonna use my eye for detail to do an investigation check to uncover or decipher clues okay about the nature of this and this isn't a role right this is just an inherent part of your character i mean it's a role because it's an investigation check but i can use my action basically to do it yeah so please roll that check i mean you you can anytime i guess but i just more fun to make it specific yes um that is a 18 nice yeah you you you kind of look the whole thing over and there is something magical about it you you don't feel like this is a statue you feel like this is some sort of petrified person and uh the the reason you think that isn't just because of how you know completely realistic some of the stone shape

looks which would make it hard to carve right this beautiful without at least magically carving it you notice the expression on this dwarf's face is very detailed and you almost see like a glimmer of surprise writ on the muscles of his face.

Huh? Okay. Um, we, I mean, yeah, now we really need to be in here to talk to the Hamid. He's in another room behind the door.

There's guards and monsters. How long have they been away from the rest of us, Dan? All right. So after about two minutes, maybe I'll turn to 2D and Jelf and Cosby. Should I send them a message and see how they're doing? They can respond. All right. Yeah.

Pull out my carrot wand. Danny, it's Nathan. I'm like a tiny little firefly dancing around inside your ear. What's going on? Do you need help? We're very proud of you. Yeah, you guys should come in here. Somebody should call me in there, but I don here oh I will do it again

alright we gotta work our way they have to come across yeah I okay yeah I'm gonna take the guy that I was the guy that I was weekend at Bernie's thing who I dragged

in here I'm gonna take his, I'm going to take his hands, I'm going to put him on my body kind of like a skin suit, if you will. I'm Buffalo Bill, but he's just sort of in front of me. And then I'm going to use his hands like a puppet

to try to hold the hammer, to try to grab the hammer and see if I can... Is there nothing I can do to help you or... She's already doing it. Cheer. Go. Go. So you're like

kind of touching the statue or the hammer? I'm using his hands as my hands and I'm going to try to grab the hammer from the statue and see if i can like pull it out of the grip of the um give it you get a you get his hands his little his little corpse puppet hands uh around the hammer and you give it a little tug upwards and to the right to try to like rest it from these stone hands and within like a moment of you starting to tug you feel this absolutely

piercing cold dagger like pain uh of needles going through all your hands and you you instinctively let go because you know something awful may be about to happen but you feel like you were given a moment because you were using those puppet hands. Body buffer. And it did feel like in that moment, at least that it's pretty secure in there. You're, you didn't get enough, a good enough gauge as to whether or not it can be done with strength.

Meanwhile, let's, let's you and Danny think, and Hey, 2d Nathan and Jeff, Meanwhile, let's you and Danny think. And hey, Tootie, Nathan, and Jelf, are you going to take Danny's request to come sneak on over to the other side? Yes, I'm trying to figure out a strategy for Tootie. Well, Tootie, aren't you wearing sort of very loud armor?

You're not going to be able to sneak anywhere, right? His stealth is definitely not as good as your other two. Maybe I should tell... You do have invisibility. Yeah, I have it on them. But they're in the other room and Danny's already broken his invisibility. I have one more third level spell slot and

I can cast it on two people which will not save all of us and but tootie isn't aren't you like a loud clanky fellow yeah i mean my i only have a plus one to my stealth uh i can can i talk to nathan or no he didn't message me. He messaged Danny. I'll message him. I guess I'd tell Danny to note that 2D is Bahamut's paladin, so it feels like he really is

the person who should be in here if at all possible. Okay. Yeah, I relay that to Nathan. 2D should be in here because of his paladin. They really want you in there, Tootie. It's his faith.

All right. I can try and get there. Is there anything we can throw at me to help me with the stuff? I can certainly make you invisible. I don't know if anyone's got I can cast hold person on the closest well are we talking about sneaking or attacking

unless we want to have a distraction well I have to get by right so it's sneaking that's what I'm saying we're not talking about attacking yeah okay alright I'm just. We're not talking about attacking. Yeah, okay. Alright. I'm just trying to see a route. Even. Because these three are still awake, right?

They're fully... Yeah, and they're wandering around too. They're, you know... But if you're invisible, you should be able to do it, right? I will cast Invisibility on Tootie. Poof. Great. And Tootie, you're going to try and sneak to that other door yes please do a stealth check for me

all right and I'm gonna give you advantage on it because you're invisible oh well okay hmm oh well okay hmm oh yeah you managed to you know get across the the water especially is difficult because there's a you know the middle of the room is this sort of sunken pool uh you managed to get across without causing big ripples or anything you you only briefly

walk along the edge of the sort of top of it and make it to the other side um you you get over there and uh the door is closed what would you like to do 2d open the door it is locked I'll send a message while you consider what to do Jelf did you have something oh I have a spell that makes me quick so I'm gonna run across real quick

yeah I rhymed quick with quick well okay before we get to that what were you gonna say I'll just send a message to Ivar. Tutti is invisible which you probably know because you are no longer invisible and he is coming to you

now and Jelf you are while visible going to run across the room yes and i have uh i have like as an elf i have uh a way to blend in i have a pass without trace but that's a different kind of thing i also have i just have a way to like blend in and be extra stealthy. Now, is that an ability? This thing where you say you're an elf and you can just be stealthy because you're great and an elf? Or is this a thing you can tell me about that I can check the rules on? Mask of the Wild. I can attempt to hide even when I'm moving across with my long strider,

be able to dodge, flip around from shadow to shadow as I go. All right, Mask of the Wild is weird. So I'm going to go ahead and read what it says about this. This is a wood elf trait. You can attempt to hide even when you're only lightly obscured by foliage. Heavy rain, falling snow, falling snow missed another natural phenomena right now there's none of that okay

would I be able to trace is the other thing you have yeah that's more of a oh no where I have to kind of concentrate on it a little bit I would I could just run and take a just kind of try to

dart from cover to cover i didn't know you had to use my yeah i mean elf and my elf instincts i'm cracking the door for 2d while this is going on sure sure uh so you do tootie uh well hey kid toots sorry toots hey i cracked the door for you that's all i will uh anyway uh just wanted to yell into the microphone that's right the he was away from the screen folks like why were you just great something to attempt to briefly Blaine why would you not use pass without a trace because you lied to me and it's not something your character actually has I looked at it and it seems like

something that you that you use when you're trying to do what I'm doing but I feel like I would be wasting it by doing it just to sneak past something when I can just run past it.

Does that make sense? Sure. I looked at it and I thought Pass Without a Trace was just sort of like I do a chameleon thing where I can kind of just do elf blending while I run and dart. But that's not what it was at all. It was a little more. Pass Without a Trace is possibly very useful here. And as much as I really want to see Jelf run across a room full of soldiers and demons with no magical protection or invisibility or anything whatsoever,

I do want to just describe for you, Blaine, what you're talking about running across. A big temple area that's open with some narrow pillars but there's a giant in stasis water demon very big demon just sitting there possibly able to see and there is there is what looks like some the crown duke of fish kneeling with his back to the demon but nonetheless in the room and possibly awake and soldiers stepping around in the water and out of the water so you feel like if you just ran across the room there's maybe a

99.9% chance no matter how high you roll on the stealth that someone's going to be like why is there an elf running across the room what if I yell oh then then you'll bump that up to that sweet 100% oh okay I just thought my

yelling might help well maybe i will do pass without trace okay so pass without a trace uh folks a veil of shadows and silence radiates from you masking you and your companions from detection so what that means is nathan you could be great when i go to see mank did you catch that chris before the the mank joke jumped all over my fucking if he wants to cast it on me that's fine but i'm i'm uh i think i'm good where i am yeah you're gonna stay well i just feel like it would be in your best interest to get a little stealth bonus before jelf runs away from you uh so i'm just i'm just do it i think that's fun. So you are going... Each creature

you choose within 30 feet of you, including you, has a plus 10 bonus to stealth and can't be tracked except by magical means. The creature that receives this bonus leaves behind no tracks or other traces of its passage. Please roll a stealth check, Jelf, as you

attempt to, while visible, run across the room. 14 plus 4, 18. 18, but are you adding the pass without a trace bonus of 10? 28.

Yeah, that's a big fucking stealth check. Aren't you glad I told you to use that spell, you nerd? Thanks, Dan. I was just like, man, it would be so fun to just let him do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You make it across. Likewise, she's able to crack the door.

You do notice you have to cast the spell a third time at this point Iva okay alright everyone is in the room except for Nathan and Nathan's got the bonus right well while you're in 30 feet of him everybody in this room

will not get it because they weren't there when you cast it but if you let me see i think it's like yeah you you cannot pass it on to them and nathan will no longer be invisible because you're more than 30 feet away you'd have to cast it again to get people currently yeah you said invisible though you mean i can't i don't have the stealth bonus i mean right i mean okay yes i'm sorry so invisible two days oh but no you were never invisible I'm sorry. So invisible. Two to you.

No, you were never invisible, Jelf. Right about this point, I'll send another message. I thought, Jelf just cast a spell on me and ran away. So I think he's coming towards you. I apologize that I didn't know that that was an umbrella thing. I thought it was just a cast thing. Is there a way to retro and say that I stay near him as we both bolt across?

Yeah, I tried to help you with that, but Nathan would like to stay behind to stay safe. Okay. Yeah, I'll fly around the earth real fast. So before we go to the room where most of the party is um uh this little cloaked figure shambles up to you nathan uh you are now alone with princess cospia oh and she says uh thank you for going through all of this you you could have made it much harder for yourselves but much harder for me

especially. What? Well, you kept my uncle alive. But how? I got confused when you said we were making it harder for you. No, you could have made it harder for me. I was trying to give you a compliment. I'm sorry, my friends are about to fight a water demon. It's rather scary.

Yeah, she said, I understand, but... Oh, I saw the dark side of Nathan for a moment. Oh, I forgot. I forgot. Pardon me, your soccer. You want to become an adventurer? Yes. Well, good luck.

Back to the room. You guys are now alone in this darkened room. You again all have dark vision because we've got a dwarf, two half elves. I'm sorry, an elf, a half elf, and a halfling. Yeah yeah you're a halfling yes I am so which no I'm not

you're a gnome I'm not a half elf you're a gnome I'm a gnome god damn it I finally tricked you but I got it wrong enough times you waited until I told you I only got three hours of sleep last night. Oh, okay. Pounced.

Yes, you failed your constitution. What would you guys like to do? Dance. Like no one is watching. I'm going to pray to Bahamut for advice on this hammer. Alright, well I'm going to ask you to do a

plain old religion check, please. to do a plain old religion check please gave me that plain old religion you don't get advantage you do not get advantage but uh the dc will be adjusted hey 19 hallelujah uh bahamut graces you with some knowledge you do not hear his voice however um you you close your eyes and suddenly you still see the hammer though your eyes are closed glowing in the place where it just was when your eyes were open uh you you get this very clear feeling that none of you should touch the hammer until something is done to it okay uh and by with

your bare hands at least that includes you okay i will let that be known to the others something about it just seems like uh this this hammer is not yet ready for a mortal to wield it so don't touch the hammer guys we already know that what needs to be done to it? I assume there's, yeah, there's either a curse on it or it must be released by killing the thing in the other room. Perhaps. You just call him right back and be like, so sorry. Could you be more specific? I have one more question. I prayed really hard and really well.

I'm trying to do this thing, And I can't remember if I've, if I've busted this out before, but I'm going to give you a peek behind the curtain. When you do a religious, a religion check to talk to a God, no matter who it is or what it is. I try to do one a day, one a day.

That way that you're not constantly just getting gods to interfere. Okay. But yeah, you know, from experience. I'm going to do one. I'm calling him calling him back I'm gonna tell him I got his number from you all right the DC will be higher for you because you're not as fervent

of a worshiper well watch this I'm calling this I'm rolling it natural 20 plus 3 oh my god what actually that creeped me out that actually creeped me out

oh my god Sarah this means you worship Muhammad in real life now yeah you have no choice literally like half of like the treatment for OCD is like you need

to learn you can't control things with your mind and like if you think something's not gonna happen but guys it just happened this is the first act of our zoom horror film oh god you should know that i got this really like compelling feeling as soon as you said the number that like something was being willed to happen like i felt like a tear in the universe when you said that just so you know oh god please okay so uh there we go i rolled it it was a natural 20 as i called it that's a god killer sarah this summer get zoomed uh you hear this voice this very deep gravelly voice uh has i ever met a dragon before probably what a bold move to party yeah exactly uh you know sometimes you're just hanging out

beverly hills but uh yeah you hear this deep, gravelly voice that could only come from a throat that is hundreds of years old and raked with the damages of battle. You hear it say, Do not

touch this hammer. This hammer is not ready. All who touch this hammer this hammer is not ready all who touch this hammer will be made immobile no I'm sorry to interrupt but I we already knew that part I was calling back

to find out specifically what needs to be done to it because you rolled high I'm going to tell you I was not done and you very rudely interrupted when I was pausing for dramatic effect. You're a new follower, so you get one mulligan.

Listen. Listen. All who touch it will be made immobile. However, there is a ritual that can make this hammer usable once again.

Should you want to make this hammer available for the ritual, I would be most grateful. Right now, speaking as God to Gnome, your best bet to get this hammer out of here is to trick someone else to touch it.

For you do not contain something that could simply carry both the hammer and the stone figure that carries it. now uh i would say basic intuition from all you guys staring at this thing a few more options do occur to you and because this is a podcast and not me trying to make dungeons and dragons uh full of puzzles that are difficult i'm going to throw you a bone your passive insight tells you you could try to smash the arm off of this petrified dwarf and drag this hammer out uh or perhaps lift it if you're strong enough you don't know how heavy this thing is yet also you could try to get like layers and layers of something right and drag it a little bit you know from talking to iva all of you amongst yourselves that she had at least like a moment before her hands started stinging. So maybe you're,

you all think collectively, maybe if you had something that was like, you know, six inches thick all around the hilt of this thing, you could maybe drag it, but you still need to dislodge it from this stone dwarf. Somehow, uh,

the, the, the dwarf does not seem to be rooted to the ground. You could also just try to pick up the whole dwarf. Um, but right now you don't, uh, automatically know that. seem to be rooted to the ground. You could also just try to pick up the whole dwarf. But right now you don't automatically know that. I wonder if someone else touches the hammer if

the dwarf will be freed. And they'll be holding the hammer. Yeah, or... Right. Yeah, like if we got like an ant to touch it and then it doesn't add any mass. But then the guard would be,

we, the problem is it's going to turn into a statue. Right. So, but maybe the dwarf has some place. Blaine doesn't still have his unseen guy. Right. That was one of his other characters. Is that Blackie that has that?

Yeah. I, I, all my guys are seen. Yeah. Also, I think when he takes damage, he would just disappear. Also, I

discussed this with Sarah off the air between this and the last episode, but Noodles and Agatha are both above the surface of the lake. I thought we left Noodles. I got very confused. But I guess he came with us. He did. You can leave him in the jungle.

I don't know. came with us he did um i know my my you can leave him in the jungle again um all right so i think i think the first thing we should do is try to break off the hammer and just see if we can get it out that we need some we need to be able to carry it using the stone part like the touching the rest of the statue doesn't have this effect right it's just if you touch the hammer part it's the vibe you get you haven't tried doing uh the same uh corpse puppet head thing on the statue do you want to do it danny try to try to do like a drop kick on that leg like you're breaking a board or whatever it is you do at monk school and then try to just snap it off school yeah are we sure we're not uh killing killing this am i right is there not amongst us? Well, we're going to make the dwarf lose an arm,

but also, do we know that it's safe to touch the dwarf? Is it only the hammer? I use the guy's meat puppet again to touch the dwarf and see if I start to get... No, you don't get that feeling. You can feel him up all you want all right i could also whack i will uh okay well oh so but i felt like it wasn't it wasn't loose like i couldn't just pull it out right correct because otherwise yeah we can just slide it out and then it feels like

yeah like this this hammer's hilt has grooves in it and his fingers are gripping it too tightly that the stone fingers are pushed into the grooves I'll uh take a kick at a place that looks like it might be uh breakable well the most uh clear breakable places are his limbs so you could

try to either take out one of his legs to knock the whole thing over and let the gravity knock his arm off or you could try to just knock his arm off with a dropkick. Hey, Jelf, put your hands out. I'm going to

run up to Jelf's hands and use him to launch me and then I'm going to try up to Jeff's hands and, uh, use him to, to launch me. And, uh, then I'm going to try to kick the, kick the arm. Yeah.

All right. Don't forget to sweep the leg while you're up there. Yeah. Aim for the elbow. So first thing we're going to do is we're going to do, we're going to do an acrobatics check, Brian. Yep.

And if you get over a 15, I'll give you advantage on the strength check you're about to make okay for the attack roll i should say it'll be attack roll over 15 beat a 15 on an acrobatics check easy uh 17 and plus i have a plus six so all right so you just launch off a jelf you you do this completely fluid flattening of your body on a horizontal angle and you launch your kick into this thing's arm please roll an attack with advantage okay and is this a strength it's attack so we'll add your attack bonus, not your strength bonus. Okay. Which should be more. Yeah, do it.

Kick it. Kick the statue, Brian. Stop. Stop what, Brian? Oh, whoa, shit. Eight plus what? It's only a 6, huh? Oh, a 14?

What's 8 plus 6? 12. Well, wait. No, what is my... I'm looking for the attack advantage. I don't see it. Or the attack. You roll twice. Oh, your attack bonus? Oh, okay. You rolled a 6 and let me pull up your character sheet.

Oh, I rolled twice. Okay. Yeah, you rolled twice. and let me pull up your character sheet oh i rolled twice okay yeah you rolled twice that's what advantage so i got nice the other one was 16 oh yes you get the higher number 16 16 plus something or 16 total what's my attack bonus oh i thought you figured that out. I'm still looking on. Would it be an arm strike? Or, yeah, okay. So it's a six. Yeah, it's a six. So 22. Great. Yeah, you launch both your feet right into this thing's arm.

It pivots and kind of spins about 80 degrees and then launches with all its momentum right down onto the arm right on the elbow connects with extra force on the ground and it just snaps right off yay so that happened

I land happy bless you Sarah bless you nothing happens to the hammer though Danny lands very. Nothing happens with the hammer, though. Danny lands very happy. Nothing happens with the hammer, but you do now have a hammer shimmering on the floor with a stone dwarf's forearm and fist

stuck to it. Perfect. Can you lift it? It's too heavy to get out of here. I was trying. Yeah, but touch it only by the arm. Who's the strongest, I guess. Any levitate spells or anything? No.

Who's the strongest? Who's the strongest? Tell me your strength, kids. Tell me your strength. We've got a 16 from Danny N. We've got a 13 from Jeff. Those are the two I have open. Yeah, 13.

Sounds like it's not Nathan, probably. He's not in the room. I'm going to try to grab it by the arm, avoiding touching the hammer. Strength check. Nope. I rolled a 1. Oh, I won't

make you have a hernia, but yeah you you feel like this is it's like benching more than you can bench it's like it's like maybe 20 pounds over the limit you think you could do it but you feel like oh if i lift this all the way up i'll slip a disc uh you could try again but uh right now with one try you're like oh that's way heavier than i thought it was gonna be i feel like maybe if we can make a sled or a cart of some kind. To drag it or drag it on a That would be fun, too.

Festive, even. Well, you did give at least one cloak to Princess Caspia. Are we? Who is with Nathan across the table. No, we're in like an air pocket. We're in an air pocket, but the middle of the room is water it's it's about eight inches of water and the floor is

um as i tried to illustrate when jelf was running across the room the uh the north part of the temple the east and west they are above the water and you can kind of skip from part to part but there is water uh between the different above guard things you do have to kind of skip from part to part, but there is water between the different above guard things. So you do have to kind of like either dip your foot in briefly or skip across. Okay, so we don't have any way to like make it float out there. We don't have anything that... Tootie, what if you and Danny together

and then I'll cast an illusion on it so it looks like you're carrying I don't know a birthday cake does it really matter what we're carrying as long as they see us carrying something we're trying to bring this cake to the king it's his birthday I definitely feel like it's worse if they instantly

say it's the hammer there's no other exit from this room is there not from that room that you can see. Can I check the walls to see if there's any hollow area behind any of them? Absolutely. Do an investigation check, Tootie. Everyone else, feel free to join

him if you like. Join me. Join me. Okay. And then you said investigation? So that was a big fat eight on my part. 23. Ooh, well that'll do it.

You guys can keep rolling if you want, but 23. Pretty hot tamales. Uh, I've a, you're feeling along the stone wall in the Northwest corner. And yeah, there's,

there's a few, um, very loose bricks on that stone wall in the northwest corner. Yeah, there's a few very loose bricks on that stone wall. You can feel like there's air behind this. If I push this through I won't end up having water flood this chamber. Like an Indiana Jones. You got a 21 too, buddy.

Cool. I have it rolled just a little bit higher, so that still applies. I know. Push it. Push it real good. So you give it a push. Or do you point it back to one of us and we can, I was waiting for Ivor to kid. Yeah. Do you want someone else to do it? Iva? Yeah, we can all, we can all push it. Okay. Pushing it. Okay. I have to concentrate. Oh no, I don't actually have to concentrate but

yeah yeah i mean you are as of right now peeking out once per minute to cast an illusion to keep it looking like guards are watching the door right right if you all exit through this you would inherently know that illusion is no longer going to be maintained got it so at the very least someone's gonna go oh there's nobody at that door what happened or uh the worst case scenario someone's gonna go that guard just magically disappeared in a blink of an eye something's fucked up here um so yeah uh is it two who's gonna push these bricks out at a push they pop real easy. Don't need to do a check or anything. You just go

It's a tight fit, though. Like, all of you guys feel like you're going to be able to make it, but it's like you really have to squeeze through. Only that many come easily. And is it dark in here? No, light is coming through now.

Interesting. Let's How are we going to let the other guys know that we're leaving? Ava, it's Nathan. I've told Princess Cosby about my favorite salad ingredients and I'm afraid I'm running out of things to say to her. Great. I feel good. So you feel good now, Nathan.

And I'm going to go ahead and just color in a little bit more of the map uh so now you can see this much of the cavern around the temple it is indeed also a cavern you guys are like uh in some sort of subterranean or I'm sorry sort of subterranean but it's beneath the waves of Mega Lake Pangodon some sort of like little beach full of sand part of the temple

complex and yeah I'm going to go ahead and say you are here and two of your tokens are still way over there so I'm going to go ahead and say you are here. And two of your tokens are still way over there, so I'm dragging you over. Sure. And you're going to

leave the two guards in that chamber, right? You're not going to drag them with you? Yeah. Are you going to seal them back up? Are you going to try to cover your tracks with the bricks? Put the brick back in, yeah? Yeah.

I will let one of you roll deception with advantage if someone wants to help. Who's rolling? Who's helping? I can do it. Actually, I don't. I don't, but I'm going to do it anyway. I have a plus two. I would help too.

Can anyone beat a plus two? Yeah, but I'm going to do it anyway. I have a plus two. I would help too. Can anyone beat a plus two? Yeah, but he said he's doing it anyway, but someone else can do an advantage roll with him. I rolled a 12 with my negative one. He has a negative one. Yeah. You get to do advantage though, so you can roll one more time.

I rolled a one roll a 16 before you get to do it again tootie yeah like jelf just pushes them all they just start falling into the room kind of haphazardly it just kind of makes a mess and you got to like spend a lot of time um it takes long enough because jelf did it first that you know the illusion has popped at least once but there no one bursts into the room as to first that you know the illusion has popped at least once, but no one bursts into the room as 2D. You put the bricks last and feel like you make an approximation of sealing the room off.

Okay. You guys are now in this sort of underwater beach outside this temple to Dagon with the stone arm of a petrified dwarf that is holding the hammer of Bahamut. How will you get back to Nathan and the way out? And my favorite part, how will you get this, you know, 200 pound-ish hammer above the surface of the lake?

I guess we'll have to find out on the next episode of Nerd Poker. Hey, Sam, what do you think just happened? Well, this episode was a greatest hits of things. I like in D and D there was using a dead body as a meat puppet, uh, looking at a room packed to the gills with soldiers and a demon, and then deciding to run right through it,

uh, making a star 69 call to a God, a hammer. That's not ready to be picked up a reference to monk school, kicking an arm completely off, very loose bricks. And my favorite phrase, this is like benching more than you can bench.

Can you tell I don't lift weights and know a better way to describe that? Oh, I sounded like a strong boy. don't lift weights and know a better way to describe that oh oh I sounded like a strong boy strong boy Dan what's up ramen what a cutie oh is he

oh good good oh he looks happy yeah Dan anything you want to plug my friend I'm going to be opening for Jackie Cation at Flappers in July so

definitely check that out if you're in the Burbank California area in July that's going to be a date that I'm looking up what's up I don't have it pulled up but I'm gonna look oh yeah pulling up Google

will you be here July 8th I'm checking I'd love to answer cycling I'm at flappers on July 8th I don't have anybody booked yet I haven't done shit I will be there

I will be there July 9th and 10th so if you should do the 8th also okay all right Dan Telfer and me July 8th come see the show and then stay and watch him with Jackie two nights in a row after that

BrianBersane.com for my dates I'm in Cobbs the middle of june uh 18th and 19th will this air before that probably not huh uh actually this is yeah this will air before that oh cool come see me at cobs it's been a while my favorite stain song My favorite Stain song. The only Stain song I like. I don't even like that. They're terrible. It's been a while. Since I played cobs.

It's been a while. Since I spun knobs. Is that the lyric? You should teach improv classes. You should. I do. I know. And you should.

Blade. Oh, I'm doing a thing with Stacy Keach. He's got a table read for Mother Jackson Speed. Oh, nice. The play? The musical? I'm not allowed to say anything. I'm just working on his monologue.

Nice. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to another episode of NerdPoker. You can follow us at patreon.com slash nerdpoker and you get bonus episodes from there. And you can also send us anything at P.O. Box 16069, Encino, California, 91416.

Thanks for listening.