Nerd Poker - S4E46 Underwater Hag Hell

Episode Date: July 27, 2021

The Castaway Cuties hope to dispatch the strange sea hag whose lair they stumbled into, and who is now fighting them for the hammer. Hopefully they can walk out of this lake soon, or at least come up with an elaborate balloon hat scheme!

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.

It's Brian Pussain, and you're listening to Brian Pussain's Nerd Poker. I tried it differently last time. Didn't go so well. Tested. Tested through the roof. I just didn't like it. But here we go episode 46 that blade made a blaine smile so i'm going to blaine first oh oh hey hi brian how are you how are you thanks i'm great i was just thinking about some stuff i saw when i was trying on some

pants today damn it damn it never mind uh let's talk to ken instead hey hi hi it's always good to see you brian yay sarah's here everybody it just took a huge drink of water but hello okay forget sarah's Dan. Hey, Dan. Okay, Sarah, you back? You okay? I am great. Very hydrated and ready to go. Good, good. Who am I missing out? Chris. Hey, buddy. Hey, man. I just ate an entire six-foot

party sub, but I'm ready to speak because I'm a professional. Okay, cool. In your face, Sarah. Sandwich shade. And as always, our engineer, Sam. Hello, sweet children. There he is.

And look at him. Ramen, everybody. America's favorite sweetheart. Hey, look at that pink belly. There's a lot of America's sweethearts, but that. America's favorite sweetheart. Hey! Look at that pink belly. There's a lot of America's sweethearts, but that's America's favorite sweetheart. Ramen. All other sweethearts, go home.

Yeah, fuck off, Sandra Bullock. Finally, her comeuppance. From America. No, I don't mean it. I love her. Brian, we're trying to get her to be a guest next week. Oh my god. Just watched Speed 2 recently. Way to go, Pochane. Cheers.

What's going on, Dan? We should thank people. We should thank people, and I'm going to start with a couple of Patreon supporters who go by names like DJ Jazzy Jelf. Yeah. Thank you, Nordic Viking Name.

Thank you. Thanks, Mottled Skeleton. Thanks, Dustin Peterson. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you, Paquito Torpedo. Thank you. Thank you, Hammer. Thank you, Hammerbeard.

Thanks, Hob the Troll thank you thank you Matthew Spears thank you Todd Voss thank you Giant Monsters on the Horizon thank you thank you Jonathan Mott thank you J.R. Weintzettel thanks Garrett

thank you thank you Kwee you, thank you, Kweeplash. Thank you, Primrose Fantasia. Thank you. Thanks, Neil Wicker.

Thank you. Thank you, Pepperbert. Thank you. Thank you, Shane Wager. Thank you. Thanks,

Talentshade. Thanks. Thank you. This donation is brought to you by a fistful of boing cones starring clint howard for some reason oh thank you thanks and finally thank you detective bobby fudge fudge detective 71st precinct blaine who were uh all of those folks brought to us by? Well, Dan, some of those folks are brought to us by Clorox Anal Bleach. Touch up the back door on the way out with Clorox Anal Bleach,

an original lemon and crisp linen scents. Promotional consideration for nerd poker brought to you by... Become a Narc! You can be a Narc. Go up to a cop and tell them what your friends are doing. If they're selling weapons or drugs. And when the cop arrests your friends, congratulations,

you're a Narc. Dan? That's my Narc horn. That was delightful. Thank you, Blaine. I'm so glad that we're supported by narcs. Yeah, it's... Hey, they paid for it.

Did you ever play that Nintendo game, that arcade game narc? It's great. Yeah. Bad guys throw syringes at you. Oh, what? Never mind. All right. Then I guess I'm going to tell everybody

what happened last time on Nerd Poker. Yeah, I said it real fast. Do it. And I'm barely doing the voice. I forgot to prompt you, but now you're in it, so go. Thank you for acknowledging that you forgot to prompt me. Eat that red vine or whatever that is you're eating, Brian. Oh, yeah, that's what's happening on NerdPoker.

Brian's making a jerk-off motion. You know what that means? He'd like me to jerk off. I think we need to get a new recap person. Listen, I'm drunk. It's been a long day. Daddy needs his medicine. Brian's jerking off red vines on camera.

I feel like the recap guy is just doing his best. I'm really just working with what I got here. That's not a recap. That's a description of current happiness. That's true. I kind of was like, oh, what if I just get current, you know? Oh, that's what millennials like. What's happening right now?

Millennials are in their 30s. What am I doing? That thing is still trapped in the Suez Canal, Dan. Oh, God. Last time, the Castaway Cuties engaged in combat with the Sea Fury. We now take you to that combat already in progress and underwater. You guys are mid-combat, and I believe the last attack came from little old bunny Nathan.

Iva, you are up. I am up. Am I still frightened? Up like a pup. You are no longer frightened. Guess what? The apparition evaporates. Fuck you, lady. She stunned.

Oh, I was talking to the appar operation but that that lady also can go fuck herself um you want to know what's great the description of that uh spell says that is it is the ghost of one of her dead sisters oh well now i feel bad you should i think that's the point i don't know okay um well i'm talking great i feel guilty um i uh i feel guilty but i'm also no she do so do i get advantage on an attack uh if she's stunned i believe you do okay and then i think let me double check this but I believe that that means that I get my sneak attack um uh once per turn if I have advantage yes so so I get my extra damage so I'm gonna go ahead and um so wait does that advantage just negate the disadvantage of using the arrow so I might want to swing something else

um let's see it's incapacity can't move automatically fails attack rolls have advantage yes that does cancel out the disadvantage now is anyone within five feet of her i probably oh i can't see also okay i'm just i can't see right yeah it is um it is still dimly lit by the witch bolt coming from nathan's carrot by which i mean his wand okay um all right well then i guess i'm just going to um so you're saying that the disadvantage this one i'm trying to figure out so i have advantage due to the stun but then i have disadvantage due to the short bow but then i get advantage if if i have another person within five feet of that person well there are two people within five feet you don't have disadvantage this is too complicated there's too many advantages and

disadvantages no i think you get advantage. No, I don't. I think it might just, it just evens out. Disadvantage, advantage. I thought you got double advantage. What I'm saying, I don't get the sneak attack, I believe, due to all the advantages. You get sneak attack because there are people within melee. It's advantage or, doesn't matter which one.

But I have to not, and you don't have disadvantage on the attack role. I do have disadvantage on the attack role because it's an error, but I don't have disadvantage because this is really just a, which advantage takes priority. I never want to say the word advantage again. And I just let that be known. I've said it too many times.

Why don't we call it Vanti? No one will hate that word. Oh God. Okay. So Dan, you you gotta call this. Do I have nothing or advantage? She is stunned, well lit, and next to your

friends. Though you are underwater, it is an easy shot and you get advantage. Okay, so then I get sneak attack. Here we go. Now watch me just miss anyway. After all that shit. I missed. Oh! Then it was worth it. Both rolls?

I'm gonna take that. Both rolls, Tootie. Both rolls. No. Nuh-uh. No one enjoys it. All right. Is that your turn? You're going to hide again. I mean, I'm going to angrily punch a water molecule or whatever's near me,

I guess. And there's junk. And then... And then I am going to... Can't, can't, can't, can't, can't. I'm going to try to clear the debris away from the hole with my bonus action. Can I do that?

Yeah, totally. By the way, this move brought to you by Tushy. Get the debris away brought to you by Tushy. Get the debris away from the hole with Tushy. Gross. Well, now I don't want to do it anymore. You do it. It's too late.

I was wearing a tracksuit sponsored by Tushy. Like, there's a big Tushy thing across your back and, like, down the arms. Get me some gloves at least and you have a t-shirt that covers the windows of your car alright now I'm cleaning a giant butthole in this tower thank you so much for that visual please enjoy the rest of your turn

everybody else alright Jelp you're up well first of all I'm gonna enjoy my soaking wet butt crack thanks to Tushy. And there's light coming from the witch bolt again, right? A little bit, yeah. And there's like faint light now coming from the hole that's been gently cleared.

I'm going to try to send another arrow into the sea fury. Oh, why don't you? Oh, there's a natural 20. Hey! And a 17. I have to take the 17, right? Because I'm rolling with disadvantage. No, you get to

take the first roll and the second roll didn't happen because she is stunned and it's going to cancel out the disadvantage of your ranged attack. Oh, okay. So you just got, you just got a crit. Okay. So that's a 1d8.

Let's double your dice damage and roll a 100. That's five. That's wait, but that's a, sorry, that's a 10 and a 10 and an eight. So, uh,

18. So 30, it's what? 36. No, no, no, no, no, no, uh, 18. So 30, it's what, 36? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. So 36. Yeah. And then I roll a percentage. That's a nice fucking damage. 42 percent. Oh.

Roll, uh, 1d6 and add two to it, please. 1d6 and add two. Uh, five. How would6 and add two. Five. How would you like to see this thing die, Blaine? Yay. I'd love to. I would love to see,

I'd like to see one of my arrows go in through its ears and then you see it go past its irises on its way out the other side with the brain sticking out uh and it the arrow sticks into a piece of floating uh detritus with the brain sort of like kind of flapping along behind it i loved when henry rollins was in brain flag. All right. So there we go. And this thing is dispatched little bits of brain floating now in the water. And it is now very dimly lit because the hole has been wiped clean and a little bit of the junk has been pushed aside.

So far above the lake surface, some sunlight is coming down. Okay. Before we go through this hole, we have to get the hammer, but also is there anything we can do to try to see if Princess Caspia survived? Yeah, totally. You can

do an investigation check. You can go as far down as you like this tower that's about 20 stories tall. You can swim down. It's going to take a while. I don't know if we have how much time we have but i will go ahead and yeah so how much time do you have on the shrink shrunked hammer and how much time do you have on it only lasts a minute okay so it's not shrunk

yeah it's been unshrunk i think um you know it it depends i'm actually going to say that combat took about 45 seconds uh no not even it took uh it was only two and a half rounds so that's it wasn't shrunk at the beginning 16 seconds was oh was he waiting for it to go full size to pick it up wasn't he shrinking it so he could uh take it through the hole was going to and then i think it i don't remember exactly i guess it doesn't i guess it does matter because we need to know if you use the spell already but yeah because i don't think nathan has it as a cantrip i had already marked it off i thought i thought i thought i had cast it and tootie was reaching to grab it when that thing while it was small though right that's what I thought. So I'm going to say, if we can just pause Iva's search and rescue for

Caspia, Tootie, I will give you that you're grabbing the hammer and you know instinctively you've only got about 30 seconds to swim this thing through the hole before it gets 250 pounds again. Are you going to try to do that? Yes.

Okay, so it is a bit of a struggle to swim fast, but you managed to do it without having to make a roll, right? And as soon as you get to the other side, though, it goes like onto the roof next to the hole.

So that's happened, just to be clear, narratively speaking. I wanted to make sure you guys didn't feel fucked over by that hammer on the roof yeah so now you guys including 2d if you want you guys can go uh search the tower for caspia anyone who'd like to do it can roll an investigation and sarah if there's something else you'd like to qualify this yeah i mean if you guys want to start i just feel like we got to at least try so i don't know how long the boots it looks like the boots of speed only are change my walking speed so i don't know if that'll okay

so yeah i'll i mean i'll spend some time doing an investigation check okay that was a bad investigation check i rolled a 16 anybody else wait but don't we have to leave the hammer to are you didn't you say we have to like swim all the way down if tootie is going down tootie is leaving the hammer tootie put it on the roof for now so i think someone should stay out there with it yeah you think it's someone you never know someone just tried to who's who's down hit points i know tootie's got hit pretty hard yeah yeah is anybody tootie why. Stay and heal yourself. I'll swim down there with you.

Okay, Nathan, roll an investigation. Ignore my roll. Investigation. Ten! Alright, you guys can't find any sign of Princess Caspia, at least the three of you who just searched. Can I swim a little farther? Danny wants to let me.

Yeah, let's let Danny roll first, Sarah. Okay. Joe, are you chilling or are you going to do it? I was going to stay up here with 2D. Oh, Chris, can you use your magic ball?

I'm looking at message right now yeah let me check the you have that mind reading where you're like connected to her right it was investigation right i have to i have to scribe first 17 get me a 16 plus one 16 plus one uh 16 plus 1? Mm-hmm. No, no sign of her. But what are you trying to do here, Chris? I've got that crystal ball. Will that allow me to scry on her? Let's see. You did once, right?

We did it when you were able to do it when she went. Yeah, I'm trying to find the stats on the crystal ball. It says it allows me to cast scrying as long as I'm touching it. Okay. This is my favorite Betsy Clyde. But if not, I've got message, which has a range of 120 feet. I don't know if we think the bottom is anywhere near that. Let's see.

You know, Brian, I felt bad. I went to Palladino's and saw such a local band that I decided it would be better if I went to Palladino's and saw some bands with more accessible references. Oh, yeah? Yeah, it was New York City night instead of Baltimore night. The bands I saw were pretty great. I saw Foghat about it.

I saw Forgetty Lee about it. They were pretty good. I saw Gabagoo Goo Dolls and Hey, I'm nickelbacking here well that sounds like a really great lineup it was horrible

oh uh Nathan you open up a window through this plane of existence and you see uh an image that's dark you're clearly still underwater

and it takes you a moment to focus but you see Princess Caspia's form unconscious floating up like into a corner underneath some stairs in the tower she's under the stairs she's about 10 flights down sort of stuck under into a corner underneath some stairs in the tower. She's under the stairs.

She's about 10 flights down, sort of stuck under the stairs, not moving. I will swim to her and try and communicate that to everybody as I dash my way underwater. Yeah, water breathing is weird, right? You can go, but it's not going to make a whole lot of noise. I can message it to them around

me. I can just point to them. I cast a minor illusion of little hearts floating off like air bubbles from Nathan as he swims down. Oh boy. I turn this tower into an underwater TikTok. You see

her little piranha with floppy arms and legs form kind of with the cape the cloak that iva gave her flapping in the water just like she's just sort of wedged in there is she breathing uh very slightly i don't have any more potions i guess i'll i will start swimming her back to the group i don't have any healing potions on me so I will start swimming her back to the group. I don't have any healing potions on me, so I will swim her back. You guys, you see Nathan

swimming up. He's got Princess Caspia under his arm. She doesn't look great. Okay, let's get her outside to maybe 2D has some left or the pebble. Yeah, I will cure wounds. Are we all going outside? Right? on the roof

yeah like out of the hole out of this nightmare into a new one you make it onto the roof everybody once you get on the roof please do a perception check for me Dan I'm gonna roll to play turn turn turn by the birds and we're gonna cut ahead

to Nathan and Princess Caspia sitting in a backyard with other kids running around them. Oh, fun. Little guild rabbits. Nathan's going to say that was close. 20. 40 to 20? Alright. What else? What else? Danny didn't see shit.

7. 9. What'd you get, Blaine? 9. That'll be a big old german no but iva and nathan you're able to see this and you can kind of uh tap your friends on the shoulders and point this out you're still way beneath the surface of the lake you can kind of look out and through all the plankton and like just sort of like little bits of lake matter floating it's hard to see very far but you think you can see you know far below the outline of a of the horizon of the ground and and like maybe deep in there is some sort of floor you

see other castle towers uh all of you can see this much i guess but sarah chris uh your characters can see there's like a patrol of galaxians like 30 of them just like sort of swimming a couple hundred feet above you like right near the surface of the water and they're they don't seem to notice you at the moment, but, you know, it reminds you, like, oh, there's that. Okay. So did you, I'm sorry, did I miss, did she get healed? Yes, can I cast Cure Wounds on her? Yes.

All right. Roll your heal points. Seven points. Do we have any sort of sense of direction? Like, maybe if we could uh surface uh close to shore away from where the galaxians are patrolling we can't surface because of the hammer so i think was the problem uh why don't you walk across the floor right quick quick narrative note cospia does not wake up she seems a little better, but yeah, she really got in rough shape.

Still unconscious. Everybody, you get to choose. To try to get your bearings, you can either do a survival or a nature check. If you do a nature check, I'll tell you north, south, east, west-ish. If you do well, if you do a survival check,

I'll tell you just basic paths, possible outs. I'm going to do it. If you do well. I'm going to do a survival. Can I do a survival? Yeah. I'm going to ask for 12 on either roll.

Survival or nature. 12 survival. 19 nature. Great. 12 survival. 19 nature. Great. 12 survival, 2D, you look around and you feel like you guys are going to have to navigate around some castle and likely some Galaxians if you go down.

It's pretty wide open, the surface. You can't even see the part of the castle that pokes above the lake surface. There's just too much castle and uh too much lake that's obscured by distance uh sarah you you feel like iva and all of you you're like uh kind of the southwest-ish corner of the castle just because it seems like there's more of a central castle structure northeast of you. And you figure the sun is about like afternoon-ish in the sky. So you just sort of see the way the light is casting from one side to the other

and casting shadows. Danny was doing survival and he shit his pants. Yeah. Sorry, you guys see like a little bit of like smoky water coming from his sweatpants. Hey, I rolled a natural 20 with a plus 6 for my

survival. What? Yes. I thought you said like a 13 or something a second ago. No. I thought Blaine like a 13 or something a second ago. No. I said 12. Oh, yeah. I thought Blaine said another number. No, everybody said theirs, and I just was like, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in. Which one did you roll that on again? Survival?

Survival. I have a proficiency. All right. So you can take what those guys learned and put two and two together. Yeah, you're on like the southwest-ish corner, like Sarah was thinking. And that tells you, oh, it's probably the shortest route to the south end of the Mega Lake, which is good. That's where the Uncle Shaman is still tied up, possibly with Floofy the sloth creature dribbling water on it. So that's a good spot to be castle speaking um and

then uh you're like okay we got two options we could swim up or drop down and given that the hammer is now thonky it seems like walking across the lake floor might be your best bet however you don't know what it's going to be like when this lake starts to have a steep incline towards the shore maybe are there like um like plants and stuff on the bottom of the lake that might disguise us also as we move if you jump off the castle tower i'll tell you i jump off the castle tower yes i'll see so i basically walk to the edge and float down yeah right well now you have to tell me i was waiting to see if anyone would join you but i think everyone fucked off so i've uh uh everyone just sort of stared they're like oh uh thank god sarah's doing this for me what happened yeah you look around and it looks pretty muddy and murky i'm

just starting basically yeah like like your your boots are kind of like made for walking look around and it looks pretty muddy and murky. I'm just scouting basically. Yeah. Like, like your, your boots are kind of like made for walking three. First of all, they're made for walking. Also, they're about three inches deep in this thick sloshy mud.

There's seaweed and like, you know, like dried old chunks of wood that are floating almost all the way up to eye level. There's just a lot of... That'll kind of disguise us. A lot of stuff, but it's hard to move. Do I see any fish around? Do another perception check for me real quick, Sarah.

Okay. Just you. Is there a way that we could maybe build, like tie some ropes around this thing and we could all swim and carry carry this thing distribute the weight of the hammer between us as we swim and maybe kind of get up towards the uh get up towards the surface because i i have a feeling that that the that our movement is going to be so bogged down that our spell is going to run out before we get out of the lake.

Yeah, you could potentially do that, but let's think about that a little more in two seconds, Sarah. What would you roll? 19. You don't see... I want to communicate with a small beast of the water, so find me one, please. Yeah, you don't see anything too significant,

but there's some little anchovy-sized fish swimming around. around okay i want to talk to one of them yeah i just want to communicate a clear path to shore that we're trying to do this and then i'm going to communicate giving them a bunch of food when we get there if they can if they can show us the way okay yep they start swimming around you in a circle like like they're they're sort of saying as a collective as if that gives them a little bit more intelligence like hooray hooray treats follow us follow us so i give them the wait signal and i swim back up and let the other guys know that and i'm like it feels like we should because of the water breathing like let's at least get moving towards shore right just leave the hammer here no we bring it with us

yeah yeah bring you with us yeah that's the whole point we can just drag drag ken is sick of this hammer he just wants to leave different anchovies guys you're gonna show us a clear ish path to shore all right let's go so how you? You're walking across the floor? Yeah. All of you? Well, that's worth a shot. I mean, you can cast me with us, I guess. Y'all plunk down.

It's really hard. A couple of you do have to sort of share the burden of this hammer, because, Tootie, as soon as you hit the ground with this massive thing in the water, you just feel it dragging you deep into the mud, everybody's got to kind of like help you up can i cast uh well when we get there can i cast unseen servant so when you get where to the ocean lake floor to help carry the thing yeah absolutely how long does that last an hour okay so it helps a lot to have the unseen servant um without ego right like kicking its legs lifting it up and you guys make pretty good time um but it does take a couple of hours and you you're you know kind of going oh god this is a pain in the ass and it does take

you this sort of point where there's starting to be a little bit of an incline you feel like it's not fast but you're getting to shallower ish waters and then after you've been underwater for a total of about 15 of your 24 water breathing hours you get to this spot where yep cliffs so rising up above you in the water like almost it seems to the surface there's just this sheer surface uh there there is however this little school of anchovies that is delightedly trying to show iva swim this this way to the right this way to the right thank you and everything uh so more ideas of food i asked them to i communicate make sure you think about what you want me to find for you when we get there uh they're very excited in response to your offer of

treats and you guys had like another half hour it takes a while but there's like a canyon groove dug like into this cliff face so there's a sheer drop off and it forms a canyon as you guys kind of look in there though it looks like there's a like a cave in the side of it little ominous like deep black hole in the side of this but it looks like if you go through this canyon where there's like sheer cliff on either side of you if you keep going down it'll get shallower and shallower and you'll eventually be able to but there will be on either side of you this little tent if you're going through like a 10 foot wide canyon these very tall things and at one point a little bit a little bit above your head's a giant cave

on one side of the canyon just send a question mark to the anchovies about that cave okay what do they communicate to me an exclamation point um they communicate to you uh god okay so big big fish of some kind you you could intuit that yes it's not that bad ska band real big fishes well i will not tell you that because that would mean that i have i will sell out how high up does the cliff appear to be dan like if we were to swim straight up a few hundred feet nathan will using message sort of say like we could tie all our ropes together and make one giant super rope. Tie one end to the hammer, swim up to the top, and presuming

the rope is long enough to be the entire length, pull it up. Like Battle of the Network Stars. It's kind of smart. It's not a terrible idea. As opposed to walking through the canyon? Right. As opposed to walking past God

Cave. Okay. Are you going to try it? Might as well, yeah. So you all tie these ropes around yourselves. You tie it to the hammer and you're at the mouth of this canyon.

You're not going to chance it though. So you start swimming straight up, boy, it's hard. And, uh, wait, I don't think I was clear.

What I meant was tying one rope, make it all one giant length and attaching one end to the hammer. Then when we get to the top of the cliff, start pulling up, pull it up, start. Oh, it's, uh, you're not going to have enough rope you could do it you could get it like about

halfway up god cave god cave I don't mind the idea of having that thing at the end of a of a rope like that and then we could maybe fight this thing and i missed what you said under the kiss but what are you saying blaine i i like the idea of having uh the the rope a long rope tied to this thing for us while we're trying to get out of here just in case because that way if we

get separated from it we can just keep we can just pull it up okay do. Do we want to tie off? Who's our anchoriest member? Would that be 2d? Would that probably, should we just tie off with, with a substantial length? So you don't get strangled. Should we tie off? Like,

I don't know how much slack do you want? 10 feet, 20 feet. 2d. What do you think? Yeah. But how long is what I'm asking? 20 feet. All right, let's do that just to be safe.

Whoever's best at tying. I'll tie it up. All right. So you guys have it all tied up. You've got a little bit of slack on it. And you start walking yes as you approach

near where the cave is overhead the anchovies send a little quick message to you Iva they just say kind of without emotion pray pray to the god.

How? Think pray. Pray not eat. Okay. All right. You guys start walking past. Everybody do a stealth check, please. Pray not eat. Okay. All right. You guys start walking past. Everybody do a stealth check, please.

As you instinctively go, Mo, I should be careful here. 22. 13. 17. Sorry. 5. 17 and a 5 18 18 alright well for a change

unfortunately there was a 5 so I accidentally dropped princess Caspia for a second and I pick her back up. Yeah, and she's not looking great. She's like healed, but it seems unusual that it's gone this long without her being able to wake up. So it feels like you guys might need to cast something else

on her to help her out. But yeah, you guys make it right about to the bottom of the cave and then sure enough, you know, deep in the muck, one of your pieces of metal armor just clangs against a rock, and it just sort of goes like through the water. And you, there's a pause.

You guys instinctively, like, freeze for a second. You don't see anything right away. Do you move? Or freeze? Freeze. Freeze. Yeah, hunker down, hopefully under the mud. You're going to like squat under the like

three feet of seaweed? Yeah. Yeah, I will think prey. Do you really? Yeah, of course. If you want, you can roll a religion check to pray to the creature in the cave i will allow it all right i didn't know anchovies were so religious who knew well that's a d12 that's the wrong thing oh that wouldn't even give you the right number you need i'm even close uh 16 dan interesting so uh nathan you just

suddenly hear this very deep like reverberation in your head sort of like they weren't kidding run are you run? He's praying. Upon praying? Okay. There is a crack of lightning that fires out of the cave

and smashes into the wall across from it. Will everyone please do a dexterity saving throw? But my anchovies. from it will everyone please do a dexterity saving throw but but my anchovies oh my anchovies they're gonna take a quick little dexterity saving throw too but they get advantage

because they fish 17 alright natural plus 3 7 21 20 All right. Natural plus three. Nice. Seven. 21. 20. All right.

Tootie, you take seven points of bludgeoning damage as some rocks fall off of the cliff face and crush your leg. Ouch. The rest of you are able to sort of like swim off to the side as all this debris falls off the side of the little canyon. And this massive eel with long tendrils of flesh dangling off of its face flies out of the canyon. You see arcs of electricity sparking along its entire body. And with a little bit of too much momentum it slams into

the side of the canyon turns and swims deep into the lake but it does not attack you it seems like something good just happened interesting let's hustle yeah let's move

are you okay to move yeah or is he Yeah, let's move. Are you okay, Tootie, to move? Yeah. Or is he trapped? Okay. Let's move. All right. Well, you guys feel like you're really starting to come up against the 24-hour water breathing thing as night begins to fall and you make it to the edge of the lake. Your heads all poke above the surface. It is approaching dusk here in Davenglaven.

You look around, get your bearings and figure you're still probably a short trip from where the shaman is hopefully still tied up. And we're so croony. Almost a day ago. I need to reward my anchovies. Oh yes, they are swimming around yeah um you ask them to think about what kind of treat they wanted yeah is there something i can do yeah they say meat oh um okay uh do they are they thinking like a like an animal type meat or will they be happy

with like little dried meats that i have probably have in my rations uh they say very hopefully but not optimistically god meat oh like fish they want like like that kind of meat like an eel or some other kind of thing i don't do i understand like special meat? Big meat? Okay. I look around first. I'm just going to quickly look around. Sorry, guys. This is important. You have to reward people who help you along your way, even if the people are anchovies. So I'm going to quickly look for an animal

to slay and feed to my anchovies. Yeah, you see there's like a little it looks kind of like the back of a bear cub near the edge of the jungle. Okay, well, I'm not going to do that. A cub, is there anything else? Like a squirrel? Some sort of small animal that doesn't have a mom around? Oh, sure. There's like a little two-tailed squirrel, like running up and down.

Let's start with the squirrel. I just got married. Where's my wife oh well i take them both then if they're married i'll i'll just yeah roll roll to kill the squirrel uh we'll call it a survival check okay you need to just be a 10 uh i 19 to that squirrel oh just just chopped its head right off and as you sever I love you yeah I skin it finally everything on my wedding registry got purchased

oh I skin it and I throw it to the chovies oh they're very excited they're just nibbling up all the little bits thank you to them my darling where'd you oh honey I'm pregnant oh i mean i will kill them all if it probably it's more kind if that's what you want me to do but i know it's

already it's already like the oregon trail where you've killed so much meat that you can't fit it all back on your wagon so there's okay i just so then i say thank you to the anchovies and we get going right and we can we try with cosby again to get her so she's unconscious you um you can try any number of spells if you have them i don't know if you have the pool or the pebbles the pebble that we had yeah the pebble does healing word. Would that help her, Dan? I remember it's not a lot. I remember it's not a lot, but... No, it's a d4 plus my spellcasting ability.

But it's hit points. Would that potentially... It's really just hit points, yeah. You feel like you need something to... It's like a bigger healing spell. Something that would help change her status. Perhaps her uncle could help her, if we can find him.

He's probably going to be pretty mad at us, though. Tootie, you want to lay your hand on the hammer briefly and talk to your god about why you're making that face at me. I just thought you could use it to communicate with your god briefly and see if he might give you some extra healing juice.

Sure. I will pray to his master. Because we're rescuing his hammer. Great! I will let you choose, Tootie. You can do an arcana or religion check. Let's see what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do an religion.

Do a religion. Roll it. That's a 17. Hey. Oh. So you hear Bahamut speak to you. What would you ask of Bahamut? Healing strength. um what would you ask of bahamas healing strength um you you've you get this impression you should try holding the hammer in one hand and laying a

hand on cospia at the same time i will do that very thing okay Okay. You feel this energy coursing from the hammer into your other hand, and Caspia starts to blink awake. Sweet. Nathan. This is like a Neosporin hammer. Be in her line of sight as she awakens. She tosses her head side to side wildly and says, Nathan, where's Nathan?

You're in my arms. I don't think I could be any closer. We're all on the shore. You're all in the water on the shore. They're having a moment. Brian's like, come on. Yes, Nathan. We've made it above the water.

Do we have the hammer? Yes, but I think there's guards everywhere. Be so very careful. Guards everywhere? I think so. Can we ask a guard to change me? What? Oh, we're about to go re-encounter your uncle.

Oh, cool, I just... He said guards. I think he said guards and you heard gods and that makes sense because you were unconscious for a long time. Yes, I thought we were speaking of gods and monsters. Nathan, it's very dramatic. They're going to kill you if they keep hearing your screaming voice.

Oh, okay. Okay, I take her fin though and I say just so you know, Nathan saved you. What? You were trapped under the stairs and he found you and brought your body to the surface. I'm going to tell her that Nathan has a really cool Corvette

and a steady job. What color is the Corvette, Joe? It's one of those iridescent ones. It looks like it's purple coming at you and green when it's going away. That's the kind I like. Like a pearl. Yes, I have a helicopter like in Baywatch and a robot and robots.

Hmm. Didn't realize you were like an Elon Musk kind of rich guy, but all right, I'll take it. You guys, are you going to take her to her shaman uncle yeah carefully though right do we think maybe yeah i think he's gonna be mad so it's getting deep into the night yes and you make your way eventually there's this gap in the tree where you're like oh this is this gap of the tree is the the path we originally came up when we engaged in combat with the shaman and his guards. And take some more looking around for you to find the pit.

Sure enough, there is a very shriveled, very shriveled, like very dry fish man. Is he dead? He's not dead, but he's like very ill. I get him water immediately and throw it all over him. Okay, so you run off to the lake. Danny! Yes. Danny! Yes. Fetch some

water. I will. Right away. In your pants. Fetch the water in your pants. Please. Oh. Fill those sweatpants, Danny. Bring my uncle to life. I do danny bring my uncle to life i do it bring my uncle to life with your sweatpants water spray him with it spray him with your sweatpants water danny bring good things to live uh yeah and after you guys get like four loads of water on the four pant loads

of water. Just imagine it like hammer pants. Yeah. After you've done this, you see this as if it was going to happen if you weren't here. The little sloth creature that

you had asked to occasionally splash water on him is slowly lumbering to the hole too and just kind of like leans at the edge of it and squeezes like a few tiny drops onto the shaman and then goes back towards the lake again to go get more water a couple more drops

didn't I promise him meat too do I have to kill more squirrels now? You did promise him, like, very luxurious treats. Oh, God. Alright, can we just off screen, I kill some more small animals? With his big lemur eyes just as, like, nodding, and then you bring him meat, and he's like, I eat fruit.

What have you done? This is my wife! Oh, God. No, no, no. You feed you feed him sure you reward him it doesn't take up another 30 minutes but uh you are left with this shaman that only really princess cosby can communicate with who's

just like shaking his head with just like frustration exhaustion what did we do with his um scepter or whatever the thing that he had i think he took it yeah we took it oh but it opens a portal to like a hell world or something so we didn't want do anything with it it does seem to summon something yeah um so are we gonna try to talk to this guy what's our plan yeah he's good i mean he was the key to her plan of turning her into a bunny adventurer yeah i feel like he's

not gonna do that though right that's she's good she's gonna talk to him i'm gonna i'm gonna say you're gonna have to roll uh nathan a persuasion check me well good luck i think i've already used my um cute bunny thing so this would just be a regular persuasion okay okay well dan i give him a five's worth of persuasion. You know, you try to emote as much as you can, but when Princess Caspia communicates the plan, he just sort of sighs and he gurgles something back to Princess Caspia and Princess Caspia says,

we just need, i guess to get some components for the spell that he doesn't have with him i don't i don't know where to we need it looks like gum arabic and a drop of mercury do do i any of you have rare metals or everybody carries that stuff do Do we have a thermometer? All thermometer break open? Rare tree bark? I mean, there's got to be other people who can do this spell and not this guy who has every reason to want us all dead. Right? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's your choice. You can kill him, throw him back in the water, drag him along until you can find the components and then make him do it he's gonna retire in two days sarah if you want to kill him now um sorry you love this guy who has a hell portal wand on his person at all times nathan no let's go no talk to your best about it. Get one of his hell friends to come out and do the spell. We can't just send him back with the water. He will immediately

send people after us. I mean, LOL, if the plan is we're going to tie him up again for some period of time until we get free, but you can get the sloth to drip a couple of drops on him every hour again. Drip drops.

Gelf, what do you think? Put him under a heat lamp. Sloth drops. Boom in a bowl of alum. Can I do an Arcana check to see if the things he's asking for seem like... Yeah, absolutely. Roll an Arcana check to see if the things he's asking for seem like. Yeah. Components. Yeah,

absolutely. Roll an Arcana check. Anyone you want to roll an Arcana check, go for it. 18. 18. I'll tell you right now, you know it.

Yes. You think that does sound like spell components. It seems like spell components you might need for a polymorph spell i mean is he like are his eyes darting to the giant stone hammer that we're dragging behind us i guess absolutely yeah he's very this seems like a really yeah the whole time he's just sort of like grinding his little piranha teeth together and sneering. And he's tied up, but you can tell he's like testing his restraints. I mean, why don't we just leave? Yeah, I think we don't want...

Tell her that you love her the way she is, but also that we'll help her polymorph with somebody else, right? Will you somehow make me a rabbit? A beast folk? Listen, we have kind of a list and that is certainly on it. Oh, a list. Yes. The number one was Tootie's hammer. And you got it.

Yep. So guess what? You just moved up one. Oh, I'm very excited You just moved up one. Oh! I'm very excited, Nathan. Of course. But what of my uncle? Are we abandoning him?

I mean, Danny, do you feel like committing the act of murder? No. Well, then, there's your answer. What's my reason? He did try to murder you I suppose he's gonna try and summon a hell demon to kill us uh uh unless we're being attacked I can't justify it

then we should tie him up and make haste yes yeah maybe hey what if we tie him up close to the water so it'll take him like a while to nudge like he'll have to like crawl his way down tied up you know

it'll be very undignified and it will take him some time but he won't die yeah so you you manage to like yeah like tie him up but have him be like near some moist sand so it feels like you know it's not as dry he can roll around maybe eventually he'll break free of his restraints if he makes it like yeah i feel like we want to put him somewhere that it would take him like

hours and hours and hours but he could crawl even bound his way into the water yes you drop you drop them like like near the edge of the jungle danny are you okay with that yes definitely he's not in a hole anymore so he can he can crawl yeah he's very humiliated he does he hates it he's gurgling obscenities the whole time but he's waiting for you to leave before he really commits to crawling because he's worried this is some sort of torture gimmick. We say you're welcome. Yeah, he feels like he's going to get executed at any second, but he's

like, and he's yeah. All right. You guys have the hammer of Bahamut and I guess we'll have to find out what you're going to do with it on the next episode of Nerd Poker. Right on. Awesome.

Nice job, Dan. Thank you. Yes. Thanks, Dan. Uh, Hey,

uh, what happened? Ramen. I'll ask. Uh, all right, guys, we,

we killed the monster that was attacking us and we're able to resume what's most important to us. Spending many weeks at a time, barely moving a hammer. We heard a voice reminding us to eat, pray, love. And we met a giant eel. We slaughtered a family of good Christian squirrels. We all worked as a team to help Nathan get laid in the old fish man. We tied up and ignored to die did not die. Dan, what do you got going on?

Well, gee whiz. It would be cool if you guys watched Dragon Prince on Netflix. What else am I up to these days? Because that's getting made into a tabletop role-playing game that I'm writing. I feel like there's... I always forget and then I remember like the second we

end the episode. Yeah, aren't you making that suit out of human skin? Oh no, you're thinking of a serial killer that I'm not. Never mind. But I will be hopefully doing stand up soon. Keep an eye on social media. Fingers crossed. Me too, Z.

BrianPersane.com I got Raleigh, North Carolina. media fingers crossed me too Z Brian Pessain dot com got rallying North Carolina good nights at the end of July and then at the beginning of August first week August supposed to be at one of my home clubs where I started Sacramento punchline

but with Johnny Taylor and Irene to their crazy shows but let's see what happens with COVID. COVID part two. This time, it's personal. Blame. Oh, Stacy and I are training. We're going to take on Conor McGregor in the Octagon.

Finally. Yeah, his ankle's broken, so now's our chance. Yeah, get him. Please be careful. Hey, I was born careful. I'm not in there. I'm just opening. Well, cool.

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