Nerd Poker - S4E43 Dead End Friends

Episode Date: July 6, 2021

Um... oh. The Castaway Cuties just realized they've hit the top of a tower with no real exits. At the bottom of a megalake. While lugging a 250 pound magic hammer. Luckily they can breathe underwater for a while, so maybe they can walk out... Except for that whole top of a tower thing. Hopefully they're not pausing to think inside the den of a weird swamp monster. Wait, what's that? Damn...

Hey everybody, I'm Brian Pussain, Comedian, writer, actor, nerd. I've been playing D&D with my friends for a long time. I decided to do a new podcast where we play Dungeons & Dragons in my very own dining room. With my wife, kid, and my noisy dogs. So meet my friends... Sarah Kev Dan

Lee Chris Now it's time for another episode of Brian Pussain's Nerd Poker. Season 4. Hey everybody. I'm Brian Pussain and you're listening to Brian Pussain's Nerd Poker

episode 43. My friends are here. Sarah's back everybody. Remember when she wasn't here? That was terrible. Well, if you're a bonus listener, if you're a Patreon supporter, then you've been furious that she hasn't been here. If you're a regular listener, just on the regular

feed, what are we talking about? Yeah, what am I talking about? You're missing some Joe Troman action over there on Patreon. They were good episodes. They weren't terrible, but we were terrible without her. My friends are here. Look at Chris. What's up, buddy?

Hi, I'm so glad Sarah's back. Man, when you were gone, so much of the party died. Man, what happened? Ken's here. Hi, we're all done without Sarah. Blaine. I burned myself.

Dan. My hand got stuck in a threshing machine. And Sarah. Hi. Hey, how are you? I appreciate the bits of support. I did want to note that I'm pretty sure that I'm the only person

who's actually died in a bonus episode due to like falling off a cliff or attacking a dragon or something in my episode, right? So it's not like I can be really that helpful, I imagine. I appreciate you guys pretending. Chris Tallman's

character died in the Tomb of Annihilation bonus episodes. Was it Red Betty's brain got melted and ran out of her ears? Something like that. Pretty horrific. Yeah, I remember that. We're also just talking about the Patreon

era. Who could forget Amarthamon's wonderful swan dive down the tower? Amarthamon. Amarthamon. Amarthamon. Amarthamon. Amarthamon.

Amarthamon. We gotta finish the song. we gotta finish the song we gotta hey Brian I hate to interrupt this little you know acapella we're having of our favorite Muppet songs but I'm just if we're getting closer to Thanksgiving and I'm just feeling grateful yeah

so I'm gonna what are you gonna do about that oh my god I'll tell you what I'm going to... What are you going to do about that? Oh my god, I'll tell you what. I'm going to thank our Patreon supporters at our Hey Boss and our Star Goyle Tears. And they go by usernames like Jeremiah. Wait, did we not... God damn it! What, Brian? Did we not introduce Sam? No, you didn't.

I don't know! No, you did not. Goodbye, sweet children. No! I had a feeling. Sarah, what did you do? Why did you come back? The recording's going to be all screwed up. Sam! Samuel? Shirt's already off.

Folks, the camera turned off between the last time we talked to him and now. Oh, boy. That's almost better than giving him a proper introduction. Anytime there's not a camera on Sam, his shirt is off. Yeah. And 50% of the time, there is one. I just can't be

distracted between introducing somebody and then introducing him because then I'm a shiny guy. You just dared Blaine to do bits between every single sentence that we hear that stretch. Go on with the thankings.

Thank you, Jeremiah. Sacralicious waffles do deck. Wow. Was a good friend of mine. Sacralicious. Thank you, Jeremy Smith. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Damn dams rubble. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Damn. Damn's rubble. Oh,

thank you. Thank you. Dick sword. Boo. Thanks. Thank you. Steve Wilchester, Stoner field,

Ville van housing, orc extraordinaire. Thank you. Thank you. Ray RPG. Thank you. Gregory's Dodds, not Gregory's dots.

Gregory Dodds. Thank you. Uh, this is the possessiveds. Gregory Dodds. Thank you. This is the possessive S that I saw coming. Thank you. Dargthur's secret rope hole. Oh, dear. That was very helpful. It was. Remember when you ran away from them dragons?

Is that dog okay? Is that ramen? Yeah, is that chicken okay? Sam's muted, so it's gotta be somebody else oh okay someone else had a we don't have that where is that dog noise coming whose dog is this who whose dog could it be it couldn't be ken's kenny my dog is is uh been put to sleep wait I'm actually is there a ghost dog

in this recording right now I was making dog noises Ken's a fucking idiot and covered his mouth but I wasn't the first one the first one was an actual dog somewhere it was Chris Chris said it was him Jim Jarmusch movie oh my god

oh my god for the love. For the love of, for the love of Dick Trebuchet, one of our Patreon supporters. Hi. Thank you, Douglas Scott. Thank you, John Matthews.

Thanks, Ben Kowalik. Oh boy, here's, here's a spinoff of a recent one. Thanks, Dark Thurs Ass Closet. Domo Arigato.

Thank you, Gimme Five. Thank you, Gimme Five Be bees for a boing cone memories thank you Devana Uppie Rock light the corners oh my oh no you guys this one's coming for me

thank you Dan was the one who forgot about Elzid Falcon Crow. Check the receipts. Whoa. If you go listen, apparently I forgot what happened to Elzid Falcon Crow in the Tomb of Annihilation adventure, and that's why he died. Thanks, Al. We did kind of do Brendan Dirty on that.

Yes. I forgot him, but you also forgot him I was I was merely the reason that it wasn't picked up as individuals as friends we did Brendan dirty thank you outdoor nerd thank you Warthog thank you Alan Maneric and thank you Paco

Scott or die Pluma thank you Blaine who, Scott or Die Pluma. Thank you. Blaine, who were those Patreon supporters brought to us by? Dan, those Patreon supporters were brought to us by Ad Classic. Splat Fabric Hardener. Say goodbye to soft shirts. My pants are runny. Catch them with Splat fabric hardener. Say goodbye to soft shirts. My pants are runny.

Catch them with splat. And classic. Worth it. So you did it the first time backwards. And then also said softener instead of. I said fabric softener. Right. And said fabric hardener. And. I said fabric hardener,

and the joke was fabric hardener. Oh, man. Pre-haul. Yeah, that's... You really pre-hauled this shit out of that hardener. I was... I'm having some difficulties queuing up my record pop sound effects, too,

and it was giving me fits. I didn't hear that. Did you guys hear that? No. No. There were sound effects... I'm playing. do and it was giving me fits i didn't hear that did you guys hear that no no i'm playing i'm so sorry oh it's okay it's all right it'll just keep me up for four or five hours sam sam we need you to go back and add some loud old like wax cylinder or record vinyl from the 40s cracking sound effects wasn, this wasn't getting picked up.

Oh, I hear it now. Now it is, but I don't think it was while you were doing the convert. Maybe barely. I think we're ready folks for what happened last time on nerd poker. The castaway cuties procured a 250 pound blessed hammer. Sounds pretty cool, right?

Well, they did it at the bottom of an ocean-sized lake inside an evil castle. And then they decided to go down some blind hallways and just sort of hope they knew where they were going. And then they continued into a very creepy, seemingly haunted little tower where there was a bundle in burlap buried beneath some black slime. And they thought, well, this is at the bottom of a 20-story spiral staircase going nowhere. Let's go up the spiral staircase. nowhere let's go up the spiral staircase and we last left the castaway cuties about 10 flights up this 20-story

staircase and dark are not dark they're sturdy well it was from last season Jesus Christ Danny N succeeded at a perception check and we left that as a cliffhanger we're taking out a nerd book with season 4 already in progress. So you, Danny and get a

feeling, you know, you guys came through an underwater tunnel up into this tower in the Galaxian fish people kingdom and it feels like something else came out of the water or some people. You feel like there was like a like a brief ripple of a sound of like a splash echoing up the stairwell because you're the spiral stairwell just that goes up and up and up.

And you, of course, tell this whispering or otherwise to your friends. Yeah. How far behind it? How far behind this was it? Way, way down there. It was pretty subtle. You guys, I heard something splash from below. Should we get

to the top before the spiral staircase gets taken out from underneath us? Yeah. Sure. Which way are you going? going up ascend all right um you guys keep going and uh yeah about about uh another full stairwell ride up uh and it's you're you're very high up and it would definitely feel ominous and tension inducing for you guys because there hasn't been a single door or landing this entire time. You're getting a little bit of vertigo.

Even those of you who are good with heights are starting to feel like a little uneasy about how far you've traveled down this very narrow tower or up this very narrow tower um and you've hit a this little wooden door um it's rotted there's the big like wooden ceiling above you and a wooden door with a short ladder going up to it and the woods rotted it's very old it uh but it's also it looks kind of almost petrified it looks almost like over the years it's hardened and stiffened and it hasn't deteriorated away but there's like you know algae growing on it and there's water dripping out of the wood and just kind of landing on the stairs and down the vertical shaft in the middle of the spiral staircase it doesn't feel like this this um this necessarily means there's just you know mega lake pangadon on the other side of this

door but it does feel like you know the this is the ceiling of this tower and you could open this door you You couldn't. When there's water dripping through. Mm-hmm. As you all look kind of around. Because we're underwater, right? Yeah. Yeah. You're very far underwater.

But this is what we want. I mean, we can breathe underwater right now. Yes. We're trying to get out of here. It's just a matter of. You don't know. Yeah. There was one tower that was sticking out of the top of the lake, but there's no reason

you guys would think this is it. You completely ran down a blind tunnel. This was not like a strategic thing. So I will have you all roll an insight check to see if you can gauge about the direction you went in versus the direction of that tower sticking out. Maybe you get a little bit of a sense of where you are, but while you do it, before you tell me your roles, I want to just really quickly tell you a little more what this looks like. Just basic glances. Yeah. The wood, the wood's got little black spots on it from where mold has grown deep.

There's a little bit of fungus growing off of it. And there's just this very small sort of stone platform built into the stone wall where the ladder is and there's piles of junk so you guys see a bucket you guys see what looks like some old wooden tools that have been shattered and broken feels like maybe there's some little bits of like ominous white things uh bleached white chunks um and a lot of much like it was at the bottom of this very, very tall stairwell by that door that had been blocked off. A lot of the muck is very black and organic, and you can't quite tell what's plant,

maybe detritus or decayed, you know, animal or something, but it smells horrible. Why don't you guys tell me what you guys got on your insight checks? 12. We are 12. on your insight checks? 12. We got a 12. What else do we got?

16. 18. Ooh. Six. Eight and a six is what I heard. So, Danny, once again, the high roller. Yeah, you don't feel like this is the same direction as the tower that was sticking out. So, this is obviously same direction as the tower that was sticking out.

So this is obviously like one of the many spires you saw. This kingdom had a lot of like very narrow vertical towers in it that sort of snaked upwards towards the surface of the lake. But, you know, even even with that 18, like you're you're like, there was a lot of open water between most of the towers and the surface. So you don't feel like you're necessarily that close to the surface. Okay. You know, like you, when you going down in a lake is much faster and easier than ascending

stairs. And you're like, as high up as we went, you know, we don't really, uh, you haven't really gotten super close to the surface yet. You're closer, but yeah, like you, you're, you're, you're, you're all also very,

all of you are like, Oh, do we open this door? Like, so it's mostly the pressure that's going to be the issue, right? Not, um, well that, and you've got a 250 pound hammer. What if we very quickly lash ourselves all together as though we were mountain climbing. So there's one rope holding us all and tie it, the rope to the hammer. Lay it here on the ground. When we open the door, the water will come rushing in. The weight of the hammer hopefully will hold us in place,

and it might advantageously, the rush of the water, knock whatever is splooshing up behind us back on its ass. I like that, but how do we get the hammer out of the... Do we have any sort of a skin, a bag, or a... Skine, I was going to say, but... A Skine is a mug. A skin bag is very different.

Skine with a K. We have a bag of holding thing, right? I'm just thinking if we can inflate it and tie it to that rope. You have a hat of holding, which carries less weight than a bag of holding. How much weight does it carry?

I believe 50 pounds. It's a big head. Let's cut 50 pounds off of the hammer and put it in the bag. Well, this plan will let us come back down to the hammer, at least, so I like that. We can't bring it with us? That's the problem.

It's so heavy that we can't swim up out of the water unless we can somehow levitate or transport it. Right. Pull it up. Right. Yeah, I don't know if you guys remember, uh one of our listeners did put together like a loot table for everything that you've collected this season some of it is goofy at it right now but uh yeah it's i've got to come in pretty handy i recommend you guys look at it because he he was nice enough to do this but also nice enough to take all the joke items that you don't

really have and type them out so there's a couple of things here that are bullshit, but you'll recognize who has what pretty quickly if you want to take a look through that. And yeah, so in here we've got the hat. And basically it's the hat

weighs around 2 pounds and holds up to 50 pounds. Could we possibly, if it's too heavy to carry up to the surface, could we just walk along the floor of the lake back up to the shore? Well, we could, except that we're in this tower. So now we're like halfway up or whatever amount we are in this tower up towards the surface didn't sound like we were that high perhaps we you're 20 you're 20 stories high and you feel like it was at least oh let's see what that insight check you feel like it was at least like 40 stories deep this lake, if not more than that. Hmm.

Well, if we open this door, we're going to drown. Also, you don't know that. You can go ahead and narratively say that, but you don't know for sure that if you open this door that water will rush out. The dripping just could be because there's leaks. Yeah, so you're right, though. Tootie had a smart idea about the soon-soon-you're-a-balloon.

If we can trap a bunch of air in something and then let the water in, then the air should be able to, if it's big enough, carry it to the surface. Buoy? But we don't have anything to put it in. Upside down down skin bag yeah and release the salt I mean clearly there will be a large

you know mylar balloon on the other side of this door right in front of you I mean can we no but genuinely it says written on there large sacks you can put air in like it's written in common on the door how would you put Can we put 50 pounds of air into the

hat of holding? Yeah, we just have to exhale. Or... I don't know how exactly you do this, but... Or do we blow it up like we're hyperventilating and then tie it off? I'm looking at the Dungeon Master asking

if this is a legitimate question. Can we put 50 pounds of air? Air does have weight. I know that from this book. The inside of the hat of holding is magically sealed,

right? Like, if you filled the hat of holding with soup, it wouldn't leak soup. You know what I mean? Like if you put, if you filled the hat of holding with soup, it wouldn't leak soup. Oh, you know what I mean? But if you put 51 pounds of soup in it, it would spill out the hole. You would need to find a way to keep any air from coming out of this hat. Also, air from coming out of this hat. Um, also, uh, you would need to really push the limits of 50 pounds of air and create some pressure in there, uh, to, to actually have it have enough

air that it would affect the hat because the whole idea of a bag of holding is the pressure inside doesn't affect the fabric on the outside at all so if you're putting 50 pounds of pressure in there the hat is just going to still sit on on his head like it's like nothing but if you put like 50.1 you're going to make it go it'll it'll it'll start pushing against the fabric uh and then if uh you do too much the uh some bad things will happen to the magic item but but you would have to create a very tight like to the point where they had a starting to inflate and then it would count as that much pounds of pressure um it's just that you would you really need to get it right up to the point of 50 pounds of air and then you would

have to be able to seal off the pressure in the hole in the hat okay let's do that that's the hard part well we've got a poisoner's pouch and we've got a flesh bag too. Yeah, water skin. Is there someone who's very adept at sort of camping, survivally sort of things who could tie off the air bag? I have a little cantrip called Gust

so I could sort of underneath it push up. Oh, that, I feel like that well, you could Gust air into it, right? Would that work? Yeah. Mr. Dungeon Master? It would. The trick would be sealing it off after the gust before

the air could come in. And air, it would, well, if it was in water, it would rise, so it would also do it underwater. But it shouldn't come out, right? Because it should, just like it would hold anything else, the hat of holding will hold it inside right no like the the trick the trick is you've got to push up against the limit okay which can break the hat and and if you don't tighten it off at just the right moment it's going to reduce pretty quickly and just become

a normal hat but if we tighten it at the right moment it will stay to reduce pretty quickly and just become a normal hat but if we tighten it at the right moment it will stay tightened on its own yeah but like would a rope keep a hat closed that had 51 pounds of pressure on it but I'm saying if we put soup in it the soup wouldn't spill out yeah it would squirt

soup like all over the fucking place fucking hat if you just pour a bowl and it wouldn't but if you poured in 51 you were trying to force it in to create pressure it would start spewing like you can't you can't easily take fabric and make a tight air seal do we need pressure won't the air just naturally even if there's like it doesn't need to be 51 pounds of i don't know the physics of this but i'm like wouldn't it just once it gets in the water yeah like a little bit of air

would go straight up even a tiny bubble will go straight up the water and but it blasts the gust into the open again this is this is such a great physics conversation that i enjoy and i hope listeners enjoy and i hope doesn't make any of you uh angry at me but uh yeah like the whole idea you need here's the two things you need that that are a problem yeah um a valve of some kind that will shut off really quick without stuff just coming out right which is we've already been belaboring that point a bit but the other thing is is like, uh, if there's not 50. Like zero, zero one. Exactly.

Then. Right. Right. Right. Like, like, like I, I get to decide the DC of,

of whatever is happening and whether it makes the hat explode. Okay. And I'm telling you, there is, there is like a sweet spot, but if you don't push past 50 pounds, it's as if the hat is has nothing in it got it okay all right well then uh does nobody everyone check their spells and make sure

or whoever has stuff like that that there's nothing we can do to transport or anything like that um what about something like if we use you know if you just overturned What about something like if we use, you know, if you just overturned like a large enough, like a boat or something, if it was underwater and then, you know, if there was an air pocket underneath. All right. I believe I have something. I can make things bigger. I can also make things smaller. Yeah. And when I make things smaller,

the weight is reduced to one-eighth of normal. Wait, why didn't we do this before? I can only do it for a minute. Oh, for a minute? You just cut out for me. Can you say that again? I can only do it for a minute. No, before that, I don't know what you're talking about.

One of my spells is enlarge-reduce. So I don't know how helpful it would about. One of my spells is enlarge, reduce. So I don't know how helpful it would be, but for a minute, it would become one eighth of its weight and then I believe half its size. It's more about the weight. Yeah, I think that would be super helpful

if we can get it to the surface in that minute, right? It would weigh 31 pounds. Oh, how much is the way 250 we'd have to really move i think it's more than eight that way than up way i will say you guys you guys are like okay if we could create some sort of massive air balloon that could get all of our combined weight plus a 35 pound hammer yeah yeah that'd be great but it feels like the hat is maybe enough to get one person

up yeah no the hat is we're over the hat it'll come in handy another time do we have some kind of a cape some sort of a waterproof sheet cloth anything around uh you know we put it in the magical cum bazooka some sort of a waterproof sheet cloth, anything around.

Put it in the magical cum bazooka. Hey, everybody do a perception check, please. When should I yell it out? Seven. Whenever.

Turn order is the hard one. It's just the ability to check. Whenever. Hit me. 21. Ooh. I can't beat that. 13. Is that everybody? Yeah.

Tootie, the hair stands up in the back of your neck it's as if the temperature just went down like 20 degrees in a split second the rest of nobody else feels it and after a moment you're like oh it's not really temperature but

it just feels like the air got sucked out for a second in a in a conceptual sense not in a literal sense you just feels like the air got sucked out for a second in a conceptual sense, not in a literal sense. You just feel like, oh. You look around. You don't see anything, but your spidey sense just went off as if something is very close.

I let the others know. Something weird shit is happening. Something is close. You think you might feel like it feels like you're being hunted. You don't think you can see it, but you get this very ominous feeling. Behind us in the stairs?

Yeah, like it feels like maybe just at the edge of what you can see on the spiral staircase because you can't see everything. Huh. Should we just open this door and let it flood in? Yeah. We can all breathe underwater of what you can see on the spiral staircase because you can't see everything. Should we just open this door and let it flood in? Yeah. We can all breathe underwater. Mm-hmm. There's a rusted

steel bolt that's holding the door in a locked position. You can lock it on the side that's currently locked. I will clutch onto Danny. Are we going to do that? Yeah. I mean, it seems like a terrible idea, which I love.

That's what I love about it, too. Yes. It's just stupid enough to work at getting us killed. Can we lash ourselves to, like... But if we go back down, if we go back down, we got to go by whatever this fucking thing is. Yeah, let's try to... What if we try to, like, lash ourselves to the wall

or to the doors? Are we going to do that? Yeah. Dan, what if we try to like lash ourselves to the wall or to the door? Is there a way to do that? Yeah. Dan, can we quickly try to just like, don't we, oh, we have that climbing gear from when we went inside the duck penis, right? So then we can wasn't there a wooden door?

Yeah, so but if we're going to open the door, is there a way that we can? No, but I'm saying the door should float up. Right, if you remove it from the Can we tie ourselves to the door is no but i'm saying the door should float up right if you remove it from the can we tie us ourselves to the door you could you could tie yourselves to the door yeah i mean there's there's like a there's a because as soon as the water but they don't think a door to the surface but it won't have enough hole right we need we need something that's like... But at a minimum, yes, let's tie ourselves to something here.

Door is fine if we want to rip it off. But I was thinking something along the wall so that when the water rushes in, we're just stuck here. That makes sense. Oh, I'm looking for something to pull us up. Got it. Okay. So we're stuck so the water whooshes back to the thing behind us. Then we can try to swim

out and see what we see. Sure, we can leave the hammer here if we have to. Yeah. Or, you know, tie a rope like Nathan would say. Or make it smaller. I mean, Danny's into this idea which I feel like bodes super well, so I think we should do it. Yeah.

By the way, listeners, my attempt to record local audio went haywire and I'm just realizing it. So I apologize for how bad my audio must be up until now. But yeah, so you guys can attach a rope. Where do you want to attach it now? We are going to use the mountain climbing gear that we got to basically attach ourselves to nearby to the door or whatever we can. Whatever we can looks

the most sturdy so that when the water comes in, we're all kind of clinging and then we can... Who's doing the knot tying? Is that going to be survival? It'll be a survival check and you can elect one person and they can be helped for advantage, but you got to elect somebody to do it. I only have a plus three. I'm good at it it I only have a plus 3 I have a plus 5

I have a plus 6 yeah Jelf's the man Jelf's the yop roll it twice your yopness that's a 19 and a 23 amazing knots

the absolute best Jelf's got your back alright are you opening the latch amazing knots the absolute best jelf's got your back all right are you opening the latch yeah yeah all right so when you when you push the steel bolt it looks like with the hinges

on this this wooden door on the ceiling here uh it's going to open towards you so we need to get out of the way who's moving the latch? Sorry to do it without... Danny. I'll do it.

He's very dexterous. Danny, be careful. If you don't make it back to the surface, I don't know what I'll do. Is it a strength check or a dexterity check? Right now you're just opening a door. Okay. So constitution?

I just let dexterous to get out of the way okay I'll open it all right so you pull you pull the steel bolt monsters come out and the door slowly swings open there is a dark space above that smells of rot

oops now we've secured ourselves to the wall we gotta we've tied ourselves to the wall so that we've prepared ourselves for this thing so we quickly undo that yeah get out uh hey hey jeff why don't you do another survival check for me oh my god to untie these knots in a timely fashion. These knots you made to last. We can cut them. Yeah, but you're gonna ruin your rope if you cut it for sure. I got an 18. Does that count?

Yeah, yeah, you managed to get it undone. However, it takes you a while. And as you finish, you all, like, the hair stands up in the back of your neck. You feel, all of you start to go, oh fuck, we feel what 2D felt. And like your blood pressure, all your blood pressure starts to go up. It feels like there's just this weird breeze coming out of nowhere.

You don't know what the fuck's happening. Oh, also we're going into an area that can be bolted from the outside. Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, it's too late now. So I'm going to bash off the lock. I'm going to bash off the lock as we go through. yeah oh yeah well it's too late now so what was it yeah you're all off the lock i'm gonna bash off the lock as we go through oh do a strength check wait we're going through where else are we going okay just checking no i mean like i'm fine do you want to do something

where else are we going this is my favorite episode we have to genuinely where else but i'm okay to go back down i'm clinging to danny and he can feel my heartbeat on his leg 13 13 uh yeah you can't quite get it off unfortunately can i like remove i guess yeah couldn't i mean no it's it's we're talking this thing is hundreds of years old and it's this this this really like heavy, like latch. It's, it's not meant to be easily destroyed and it looks like it's, you know, it's got a layer of rot to it, but it's really hardened over the years. Um, you could, do you want to just smash this door completely? I mean, you can, you can try anyway.

Smack it with my hammer. Sorry. Do a strength check okay 13 and the door just kind of goes bang bang bang bang bang and it stays on the hinges again you guys feel like you're being

hunted and something is like okay let's just go yeah going up the ladder and into the again you guys feel like you're being hunted and something is like okay let's just go yeah you're going up the ladder and into the above space are you leaving the door open behind you yeah we can't close it

there's a latch on the other side you could try to like open it or close it in like jerry rig it so it stays closed there's no there is no latch on the other side though okay at least we close it like if it's if it's like a creepo

they'll come after us but if it's just some dumb it's like if it's that giant crab can a giant crab work a doorknob maybe not not okay try it crabs are idiots somebody quickly so okay you all go up um and are you you're i i couldn't quite tell because of all the the jokes but like are you trying to shut it and pin it or are you yes yes i wanted to all right so you shut it and

it's kind of like you're able to take some of the mountain gear and kind of like just pull it up and like set it almost like a, how do I put it? Like you can hook into the door a little bit and then have the butt of a hook kind of like sit down so the weight is sitting on your mountain gear. You're all looking around. It takes your eyes a second to adjust to this pitch black, right? So all of you with you you all have dark vision but you're all seeing in black and white this room is just the filthiest thing you've ever seen the smell of iron and rot is heavy in the air um and it only takes you a moment to realize oh that's the smell of uh a decayed corpse yeah um you see you

see um there's in one corner just clearly just a pile of skeletons um there's also a collection of what looks like uh decadent silver uh someone's been collecting uh you know eating utensils and trays and teapots just a lot lot of it sitting on one side. There's a child's doll and a straw bed sitting in another corner. It's this circular room, about 50 feet in diameter. Okay, I'm immediately checking the walls to see if there's any escape hatch or way out or loose brick or anything. All right. While you're doing that, do an investigation check.

Everyone else do a perception check, please. Sarah, what'd you get? Natural 20 plus six. Oh, fuck. Yeah. Oh, that'll be a fun one. So we're gonna get to everybody else in a second everybody please remember your

perception check I'm gonna tell Sarah what she finds so the the ceiling goes up a bit it feels like this is a turret with a pointed uh like top um it kind of goes up in a cone after about 10 feet is a 10 foot high ceiling

that's gone like the ceiling's gone all you see now is this enforced uh reinforced roof that is somehow holding back the water you feel like maybe at some point this castle was magically enchanted so some of the walls can stop the water from coming completely through uh but there there is a little bit of dripping coming from one area way up there you can't quite get there it's about 20 feet up right because there's the the place where the ceiling would be and then the cone um most of the way up the cone near the very top it looks like there's a patched area somebody has uh at one point broken through and repatched it with like mud and wood. But the rest of it is like these sort of heavier wood bars.

So you feel like if you could get about 20 feet up in the air, you could smash through this part of the roof. However, the rest of the, you know, the 10 foot walls are solid stone um with no gap in it you don't know how you could get through and that would again you've got a sense just from like you know you're you're you're diminutive but you can sort of like look up and get a pretty good uh view with your dark vision it seems magically reinforced just knowing how deep underwater you are of all the pressure on this roof something you must be keeping it there it's just that one spot you think might have been redone and have like some around the crease of it might have some sort of weakness okay i shoot an arrow at it uh while you roll oh yeah sorry well you roll to attack. Everyone else, what'd you get on your perception check? 21.

22. 19. Jelf, what'd you get? 22. Blaine, can you not hear me or are you just embarrassed because you rolled a 1? 22. Ooh! Tootie, Jelf. Yeah? You hear a

click. Come from the door. It's Maggie Simpson. Is that a familiar sound? Uh-huh. It sounds like a metal latch being clacked. Oh, cool. Oh, from behind us? Yeah, I've been locked in.

Okay, let's go. Keep going. There's nowhere to go something coming in or sealing the door someone has someone has sealed the door behind you yeah so let's just get through this hole but there's a hole or there's a place where we can break through i have a good feeling about this swim up there we can't swim because we're still in air but jelf you hear a hissing noise as if some sort of animal is breathing heavily just on the other side of the door jesus it's a hisher perhaps it's some sort of uh like like someone wants to give us like that uh the animal uh is going to come in and eat us what kind of basically

if it's if it's if it's hissing and it can move a lock it's not like a dog it's definitely something that's got opposable thumbs and breathes heavily and hisses like some sort of let's just say not pleasant creature it's not like

gas coming into the room no no you hear that you hear the labored no you hear that wait wait here the labor the labor breathing of something that is thinking about what to do next all right let's get up to that hole in the ceiling yeah i was gonna shoot an arrow at it but we can also try other yeah roll to attack just roll to attack are we attacking the hall the the I've a paper bark is firing an arrow at the hole in the magic roof um not a hole it's a

pad yeah that was neat but although what is it a sneak attack because it did not see me coming that's true she's pretty sneaky uh the roof the roof blinks for a second and goes but it but you you miss by about five feet.

You're also, as you finish, you're like, man, I don't know if an arrow's going to do this. Can we all stand on each other's shoulders? Yeah, what if we all stand on each other's shoulders? Like a... Can you see through Agatha's eyes? Danny Top.

Agatha's on the shoreline. Agatha did not come with you, unfortunately. I'll take the base. Who, are you all going to climb on each other's shoulders? Because you don't need all of you. No, not everyone. You could do this with four of the five of you. Perhaps I should not be part of the human pyramid.

I'll start. Why? Because I would be crushed. Oh, what about me? he's too little you mean on top what could be the other four oh there's only three okay so uh what about the galaxian how large is she what's her uh oh um i'm a bit small i don't know if i would be very good to step on yeah i mean she's smaller than any of you okay well i can i don't know if i would be very good to step on yeah i mean she's smaller than any of you okay well i can i don't mind i guess being on the top if i go all the way climb all the way

up to the top and no one squishes how about 2d danny me me iva that's that is indeed about this dirtiness yeah um i'm really the galaxian lady is not she should doesn't fit into that she's not bigger than me no no she's small okay oh i was imagining it yeah she's she's like she's like what if she's like if if uh if a french bulldog could walk on two legs sized oh they're oh wow much smaller than i thought. Why don't we just kick them? How did they kill that big orc? Fuck these guys. They're durable and ferocious.

Okay. And fast. Gotta redo all the animation there. Alright, I'm gonna need the four of you to do an acrobatics check, please. Boop-ba. Boop-ba. 16. need the four of you to do an acrobatics check, please. Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa!

Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa!

Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa!

Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa!

Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa!

Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa!

Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa!

Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa!

Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! Opa! O Ah, yay. 20 plus 5. All right. We all get thrown through the ceiling. All right. You've managed to get to the top of this.

It's more of a totem pole than a pyramid. If you guys were on top of each other's backs, it wouldn't really be tall enough. You're more on each other's shoulders. And it's tricky. You guys got to use a wall, right? You start against a wall. And then as you hit the conical roof that's at an angle, you start like whoever's on top puts their hands against it. And you start backing away while people climb up.

Iva, you're now at the top of this and you've got your hands against it. And you can see it much closer now, right? And now that you're seeing it, it's about, you know, it's about like three feet wide by three feet wide. It's square. And it seems like, again, just basic passive insight. What may have happened is someone got somehow a hole in the roof here. some sort of other magic like square of wood that can also

repel the water enough that was like put on top of it and the water pressure is pressing this square of wood into the hole you can see the edges of it are just a little bit not indented what's the word I'm looking for there's like a lip to the

inside of this thing that's keeping it in place okay so i i the strength required to push it out of place is not going to happen it would be astronomical there's no there's no so i have we have to yeah we have to try to or bore through it or just destroy it you could you could uh possibly destroy it you do you're you the part of you would go oh oh, this is magic. I don't know. But it feels like normal wood. Is it being magically held in place?

No, water pressure is holding it in place, it seems, at least to Iva. And it is magic that's keeping it from being crushed by the pressure. So magic's making it strong? The magic is somehow reducing the effect the physics have on the structure of the world.

Doesn't someone have dispel magic? I do not. No. I thought somebody did. I have detect magic as a ritual. But what occurs to me is, if that thing is just sort of magically being strong, what if I reduced the size of that thing? Well, you could, but then we were going to want you to reduce the size of the hammer as soon as the water starts coming in, right? Unless we leave the hammer here for now.

as soon as the water starts coming in, right? Unless we leave the hammer here for now. Well, would I reduce something? It's concentration up to a minute. So I could, in theory, go reduce thing, flood, flood, flood, flood, flood. And as soon as I reduce the size of the hammer, the door will be big, but the door is no longer in place. Right.

Oh, great. Okay, yeah. So you could just do it and then it'll, as soon as if you reduce it it'll come in presumably i'm assuming everything is going to get blasted right let's get out of the way we're gonna tie ourselves down again well now we're trapped in a room so unless the door opens below us it depending on how water tight that door is it might be really good because it's just going to fill with water quickly and then we would be able to get out. And perhaps an unseen hissing

friend won't care for the water. Shall we? Yeah, do it. Alright, I'll pull out my carrot wand and cast reduce on the door. Whatever, the thing up at the ceiling. After we get out of the way, yeah. Yeah. What do you mean by out of the way? What are you guys doing

before he casts reduce? Let's get hanging on. This is going to fill up and then and then the it's going to the pressure will maybe make the hatch fly open and then it will flood the thing below us.

And I guess we just have to wait until it fills up, and then the pressure will rise. Do we want to attach ourselves to the wall again? Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Here we go again. Because we're going to be rushing down. Shackling ourselves to the wall.

This isn't weird. There's nothing weird about it. All right. shackling ourselves to the wall. This isn't weird. There's nothing weird about it. Alright, so you are how you use the mountain gear again to do it? Yeah, obviously. Just like you always do when you shackle yourself to a wall before you flood an ancient underground underwater tower.

Hit me with that survival check, Joey. I roll a natural 20+. Alright, so you're all hooked up and again, you're, you're going to reduce this, this wood plug and then the water is going to come in. And then what are you going to do?

We're going to wait for it to fill up. And then we're going to see if the door doesn't give way, then we're going to try to swim up and out with a 250 pound hammer. No, Nathan is going to reduce the hammer. OK, Nathan, you've got enough of these spells slotted that I do. Dan, a large reduce is a second level spell. I have two spell slots left. And how are you going to float up to the surface?

Well, I think we were going to try to swim. I mean, our bodies should have some flotation to them. No, you're all, you're all armored. I mean, you're going to need to, you're going to need to have more than just your standard strength to get you out. Swim. We can pull ourselves out at least of the, of the, I mean,

like, like, yeah yeah like nathan jelf danny you guys yeah you might be able to swim up but but 2d but then we all swim down 2d like well you did swim down but again 2d jelf you guys have a lot of armor weight on you especially 2d right and like this is you've got some loot like it's it's it's going to be much harder to swim up than it was to sink to the bottom yeah i think if we get on the outside of the tower at least then we can see how close are we to the surface etc etc etc worst case scenario, et cetera. Worst case scenario. If you have to, like, you've got water breathing.

No, worst case scenario. I was going to say worst case scenario. You strip down to your skivvies and we just, you know, let nature take its course and float beautifully to the top. Like a bunch of naked weirdos emerging from. that's pretty weird.

And then. Was your story. Let's make it up to the surface guys you created the situation where this had to happen and uh if only jerry duggan we're here to see this uh so the okay and then you're all cast you're doing the water breathing thing we're water we're already it lasts for 20 that's still going um is there anything in this room that would act as what we were no it's only three feet wide so even if we find a little air thing it's not going to help us because the whole out is only three feet wide what if we expand the plug and break it open so there's more room for us to get out.

I feel like it's riskier. Is there any... Well, first, is there anything in the room that might act like what we were looking for before, like a balloon situation? No, it's mostly... There's this silver table setting stuff, bodies,

and a straw bed with a child's doll. If only we had some coke huts. Okay, well, I quickly examine... I'm just going to do a quick rogues check through of all of the stuff here to make sure we're not missing anything before we do this. Okay. You do need to do an investigation check.

Okay. I have an eye for detail. I don't know if you remember. okay i have an eye for detail i don't know if you remember i i remember i for detail but not how it works so i'm looking it up it just means i can do it as well as action um fifth 50 i know but i just like to say 15 because it sounds cool 15 so uh amongst the bodies you find a leather belt that's got these green diamond-shaped shapes across the middle of it. And it seems like it could be pretty special, but you're not sure how. There is in the straw bed this weird sort of fleshy sack that has hard lumps in it.

And that's about it. Okay. Well, I guess we take those things but then who's taking the fleshy sack and who's taking the belt i don't want no fleshy sack yeah i've already got some truck nuts okay i'll take it for now and then we'll all right are we uh you're taking the belt i'll just take them. I'm not keeping them. I'm just taking them for, okay. Put it on and it makes you float right to the surface.

Uh, yeah. What if I put it on and it curses me forever? I mean, yeah. And you, you had to wipe some like weird black sort of organic slime off of it. Yeah.

It was buried under some, uh, congealed fats and stuff it's pretty nasty yeah okay here we go and nathan are you doing it once everybody's set i will cast reduce on the ceiling plug and we're attached cool we attached ourselves to the wall so can you cast a little to my thighs everything Everything happens really fast. Nathan casts the spell pretty chill, right? But almost like a bullet, this thing just goes slamming into the ground

and water starts rushing in at a very high velocity. It's filling the room by like a foot. And then like two feet. by like a foot and then like two feet starting to get up around everybody's neck. Princess Caspia starts treading water. I mean

nothing else is happening except the water levels rising very fast. We don't see any snake dipshit? No snake dipshit or whatever you think is on the other side of the door. Okay. I'm gonna ready another reduce

for the hammer when it's time. Well, you're about to I mean, you say that you're now all starting to tread water. All your feet start to lift off the ground, except for Tootie. Tootie's starting to get dragged underwater because he's holding

onto this hammer. ground uh except for 2d 2d starting to get dragged underwater because he's holding on to this hammer well you can be underwater until it's totally full you can breathe so that starts to happen you guys notice 2d just sort of goes um yeah you got a tread water pretty hard the water is okay this chamber is now filled up to the 10 foot mark where the walls and it's starting to come up towards the hole. We have to get out of here before that other door opens or we're going to get sucked down into the castle one. Well, that's why we, you're going to have to unattach us. That's why we did attach ourselves to the wall just in case that happened.

But so before we go, he's going to have to undo us. All right, let's start figuring out what to do with the hammer here. And as you figure out what to do with the hammer, we're going to go ahead and do that on the next episode of Nerd Poker. Son of a... It was a good one though, buddy. Nice job. You guys, you're doing some crazy shit.

Hey, Sam the Engineer, hello. What do you think happened today? Here's what I think. This week, we're still trying to figure out how to get this hammer out of the water. I mean this with no sarcasm. My new favorite sentence is, can we put 50 pounds of air in this magic hat? We're trying to make the hammer smaller, and we mentioned a duck penis. We entered the corpse tower, and we tied ourselves to a wall immediately

and then untied ourselves. Something locked us in this room and basically we're just trying to get out of here before this place fills with water. Accurate. Anything you want to plug? Sure. Please go watch The Dragon Prince on Netflix because I'm making a tabletop role-playing game

about the damn thing. Head on over to tales of zadia dot com that's tales of x-a-d-i-a brian uh brian dot com and then follow me on social media and buy merch

that's all oh and uh give me metal every Tuesday uh Blaine Brian are you doing pull ups? yeah pop that shirt off please don't

uh me and Stacey Keach are doing the Tinker Toy Festival he's Grand Tinker again this year he loves it so uh I'm opening up, doing some stand up. I know he loves that. That's so good to hear.

It's just watching the kids build. Especially after what we've been through. Yeah. Oh man. It's good to be back in precedent time. We're healing. I know. Thanks for listening.

Cool. Yay. Thanks for listening to another episode of nerd poker you can follow us at patreon.com slash nerd poker and you get bonus episodes from there and you can also uh send us anything at p.o box one six zero six nine encino california nine one four one six thanks for listening 6069 Encino, California, 91416. Thanks for listening.