Nerd Poker - The Cavern Campaign - Episode 3

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

Time to get past this narrow series of traps and get out of this stupid underground tower. Who puts a tower underground, a Baldur's Gate 3 NPC? For 3 bonus episodes a month and more, subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/nerdpoker. For merch, social media, and more, be sure to head to nerdpokerpod.com

Hey, it's Brian Possein. Nerd Poker. We're calling it. The Cavern. My friends are here. Chris, Blaine, Ken, engineer Sam, and of course,

our kick-ass, DM, Dan Telfer. Welcome to Nerd Poker. Hey, everybody. It's Brian Passain. You're listening to Nerd Poker, episode 3 of the Cavern campaign. we're in person

not zoom in it my friends are here I could throw stuff out of if I was that kind of person Blaine's right here Ohhh Hello Blaine Hello Throw something at Chris

When you have friends When you have friends that have improv skills It's a whole other thing Spielberg Get Ken Chris Oachy Wawa

I've hurted my boop Dan sitting there Somebody should stab them Or something Sheesh Sheck Shink Shink Shing

I'm spraying blood everywhere And running the show From the cool part of the table As always Sam everybody Hello, sweet shoulder. Hi, Sam, everybody. He's too precious.

He is. We put him in a crystal case every time we play. We should jump in and thank some people. Oh, first of all, let's thank our sponsor from last month. Heavies, who I did an ad for them, but this isn't an ad. But check them out because they gave us each, the guys all got a pair of headphones and they're great. They're the best like over-ear headphones I've had in a long time.

And I'm always looking for a good pair to wear, especially like traveling and these are great. So the guys all got pairs. Yeah. Thank you. I'm going to marry mine. Thanks, heavies. Yeah, I love them.

Thanks, heavies. Yeah. And yeah, I'll thank some people too. Yeah, please. If you're on those top two tiers of support on patreon.com slash nerd poker, We'll shout you out. And some of those folks have usernames like The Electric Bear. Thanks, Electric Bear.

I almost burped. Thank you, sentient vampire penis Stephen Miller. It's a funny joke, but then why are we thanking him? Thank you, Prop Meat. Thank you, Deng Wayne Half Step. Thank you, Old Portland, Stu. Thank you, Steinmetz Piannos. Thank you, Bryce Spider-Lisser.

Thank you, Ben. Thank you, Scott Dyer. Thank you, Randy Butternubs. And finally, thank you, while my guitar gently quefs. A lot of those people are continued supporters, and I really appreciate them. And some of the nans, just even hearing them the third time butternubs and they're gently cleaves. I probably said Randy butternows. I think I've said Randy butternows upwards of 30 times.

Say the last one again while my guitar gently quiffs. It's so perfect. It's good work. We appreciate you, but we also appreciate it. It's so surreal. Your name. Or like, do you know, does the name Ian Fasel sound familiar for me reading names? Ian Fasel.

Kind of, yeah. Yeah, yeah. His wife just hired me to run a game for him for his friends for his 50th birthday. Hi, Ian. Fantastic. And then I want to thank Nikiel, our friend of the show, that helps out. He does a lot of our social media stuff. But he helped with the heavies headphones.

He got them to advertise on the show, but then also got a box for the fellas. He's at Night Owl Studios. So I appreciate that. Thanks, Nikkeel. Thank you, Rodney. And also, he set us up with Heroforge, which we were going to order. We're still working on those because there's going to be like a real life delay while we get them made. But they're making me some NPCs too.

So thanks for that, Hero Forge. Yeah. Tell people to jump in on this season, too. if you're, you know, Yeah, it's all we restarted, and it's a good time to come back. It's a good time to jump in. And learn about the cavern campaign.

You don't have your headphones on, so it only startled Ken and Blaine. We also have plans to have some good bonus episodes coming up. Sorry. My brain. We do have good bonus episodes coming up. Yeah. Some guests.

Yeah. We're going to have guests again and have guests play in person. Ooh. Wee, looking forward to it. Let's get in. We won't. And you know we've never done, I want to do Dangerums again, but we've never done Star Wars with a guest if you'd ever want to do that.

Oh, of course. Yeah, yeah. It could be fun. Maybe we could get Young Django Effect. I definitely want to, like, do Star Wars action figures again. Remember right before the pandemic, like the last bonus episodes we did, you brought all those action figures and I had the like gong droid. I do.

That was so fun. Gong. I'm going to go to a garage sale and buy me one of those 50-year-old. plastic Millennium Falcons. Hey everybody. Here's what happened last time. You guys were shopping for two episodes in a row, and you've got one last deal.

One last heist. One last deal. You guys are dumping all your money, and I'm just going to straight up sort of do this segue more than give a complete recap, because we've just been shopping. You're sitting in the Thieves Guild, and by way of Joffrey Spicoli...

Let's just be shopping. Oh, brother. A thief in the party from the last campaign It's sort of helping everybody out Brian's character Joffrey And You're fencing things It's not a shirt

It's got to be I'm coming up with shirts Oh it is it is There is a let's just be shopping A pun like that It's been around for a minute Yeah yeah yeah Here let me find it I bet it's like all over

Yeah If you could read this The Lich fell off Please make one It's literally a whole thread on the subreddit D&D memes from three years ago. Oh, okay. Yeah, because it seems like that was right out there. Yeah, if you go to the shopping tab on Google, it's not there, but it's out there.

Well, Ken, I'll make them. Yeah, I'll make it. Ken, it's time. Make it. Yeah, so you guys got a lead on a bag of holding, which we've talked about at least a bazillion times, how handy it would be. I don't know if you've ever had one in a campaign of mine on nerd poker.

But this is very popular in the Thieves Guild, and so you guys are going to have to make a competitive bid. I'm going to give you guys three or one to three shots at making bids on this thing. It depends on what you offer and the persuasion check, but this is going to be basically in the Thieves Guild. just what's the word I'm looking? Invaluble.

It's invaluable. So it would be a matter of you guys have a little over 3,000 gold, which is a lot. But there's an asking price already of like 5,000. So you guys would have to figure out a way to trade up with your items from last campaign, the gold, stuff like that. Or find out who the other bidder is. And kill them. Kill them. That will be, instead of the cavern campaign, it will be the T-Mew murder.

What's that career movie? Where the guy is just killing everyone who's applying for that job. Do you remember what I'm talking about? It came out, I think, a year and a half ago. I don't know. It doesn't matter. It was a good movie. We could also, like, say, like, hey, thieves guild.

How about we, I'm picking a number at random. Let's say we tithe 10% of whatever goes in that bag. goes back to the thieves guild. Because in my head, Brian is the thieves guild, so we don't... Yeah. Well, Joffrey is. No other choice. Really good movie.

No other choice. Never saw it. But yeah, but I think Blaine is a good point. We could... I don't know. Maybe we just pay them money. He was fun. I could bite him.

That was one of my favorite characters we've ever played. Joffrey would be sort of like communicating via a messaging spell, trying to make these bids. And so it's going to be something. Is it wafts of smoke out of the van door? Yeah. He's hotboxing the Thieves Guild's special negotiation room right now. I just heard that apparently somebody, you know some people that were involved in fast times, right?

Because you were hanging around. Nicholas Cage? Yeah. Oh, yeah. But did you know Stoltz? No. No, you know Nicholas Cage. Yeah, he knew.

back then yeah yeah yeah we were friends for a while yeah he lived here in the he lived here in the 80s when all this shot his stuff was being shot he used to go to there he grew up near where you lived there's one mall right off of no off of wilshire remember you lived in that place who paula you like like oh cage yeah he used to he grew up oh that's for a while too uh but i heard that when penn was shooting fast times uh he went full method on it and played that stoner and and had everybody call him Jeff all the time wow and Ray Wilson and Ray Wilson did not like him yeah what Ray Wilson did not like him did not like the disrespect I was sure Ray Walston at that point he was like what is this fucking kid doing

I know I'm everybody's favorite Martian for fuck's sake just just a quick aside speaking of Nick Cage I watched all the whole season of Spider-Noir and really enjoyed it. Oh, good. Oh, I heard that's so good. There's lots of fun. It was like a graphic novel. I watched the first episode.

I like it. I like that you can watch it in full, like, color or a really nice black and white. We watched it in black and white. The color is really nice, too. They're both really beautiful. I was surprised how good the reviews were because I wanted it. It was a series and not a short film.

Series. Yeah, it's an Amazon series. It's like, yeah. Six episodes. I don't think it was eight episodes. And it's all based off of him being it in the Spider-Rourer. universe movies, which I just, I have so fun. That's just not owned by Disney because it's part of the other.

It's part of the Sony. Yeah. So it's Sony produced. I'm sure Marvel's got like some sort of kickback from it. It's Nick Cage pretended to be a out of control fucking noir detective with spider powers. Yeah. It's really, it's great. I watch that.

That sounds fun. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. I'm sure the effects are good. Speaking of fun. Speaking of fun, let's get into it. Yep, what you guys want to do? We want to buy the bag of holding.

Let's hear your bids. So if you underbid, remember, it's currently a bid of 5,000 gold, you're going to want to include items. So you can include all your gold right now, but you're going to want to throw items in there to sweeten the deal. Right now you have 3,156 gold. And an item that I could throw in is my fangs into a throat. Nice. Whoa. This is a strong opening bit.

I tell you what. It would be fun if you just swap your character out and gave up on that character. And then next season, we just do him and other characters like going to kill the guy who has the bag of holding. Yeah, let's do it. No, I refuse. You only got a few minutes to make these deals. I don't have any other stuff to give away. I mean, I have this goose egg healing grenade.

And there's stuff that you got from life. Your characters can donate things from last campaign, which I feel like is a gold mine. I'm just seeing what I have. We've got at least a few things. I know some of you guys have, like, given things like the adamantine javelin to your new characters. I have a bottle of ink. Oh, I mean, that's got to be worth five or six thousand gold, right? Hammer of runic focus, gloves of thievery.

We kept all that stuff for a ball bearings. Oh, a thousand. a jug. And a gold piece each. Mm-hmm. I don't have a record of anything. I thought we converted everything. You converted a lot of it, but...

So we could bid $3,000 plus the tithe. Meanwhile, maybe we do it in person, and while we're there, you kill the other guy. Is there a way to steal this thing? No. You steal it and then jump in. You guys only have a couple more minutes and then bidding is gone. Let's bid.

Let's do it. What you got? I mean, I'll look through your old character's inventories and just check to see if there's something you held on to that you didn't sell for the big pot. But you're right. I mean, you did sell a lot of it. If you got rid of one of the items you did just buy like that goosey grenade, you definitely sweetened up. Goosey grenades worth a nice bit of money and it's a unique item. Healing grenade.

Yeah, I mean. you can use we need all the healing we can get but we don't have any healers do we I have some I'm a paladin so I can do some healing oh yeah you know but I would definitely recommend you know I have two potions of

healing myself I would make sure everybody has a couple on you on you what is this for a bag of holding yeah which is handy I said the cartographer's map but I think we'll need that that healing bomb sounds

pretty fucking handy too I would say that either of those items with the gold pot would be reasonable bids. What was the other one? The cartographers. Cartographers case, which would help you figure out. Mapping. Mapping. But you'd have to get.

Like these different weird poisons, I could give up some poisons. Would that be of value? Yep. Probably not as much as those two items. I don't know. You go by whatever you want on the D&D. beyond the most expensive one it says I have is purple worm poison

that says it's worth 2,000. So if I donated that plus the three, then we have five. What if we did five and then some version of the tithing thing just to put us over the top over the other 5,000? Purple worm poison is the most valuable of those for sure. I mean, Shalab still has items. Are we still in contact?

He sold a lot of them. Yeah, but I just noticed I have something I didn't. Do what it? What do you have? Boots of striding and springing. That's right. You held on to those. Let's see. I know. I'm just going to look up the going for a jump 30 feet. I mean, that's got to be worth 10,000 gold.

It's worth at least a couple hundred gold. Great. Do you want to throw them in? Yeah. The DC go, if you make a good bid, the DC for the bid goes down, the more you kind of overbid. Okay. Does that make sense?

Yeah. So that and the Vig or whatever we're adding. The poison. The tithe. Poison and the gold percentage of whatever we get. Tweden has a shield of expression. The front of this shield is shaped like the likeness of a face. While bearing the shield, you can take a bonus action to alter the face's expression.

I mean, this must be some wondrous thing. A wizard created to stop a catastrophe years ago. But he will happily donate. It would be worth a little less. in the boots, but it's worth... Hey, man, it's a magic... Throw it in the pot. Yeah, I'm throwing it in the pot.

All right? So I've got... I don't know what this tag business is. That sounds very confusing, but it's doable. You just need to re-explain it to me. But I have the boots. It's multiple poisons, right? Not just the fancy one.

You were offering all of them? I was just offering the purple because it's... By itself, it's two grand. So we have those three magic items and... I also have the illusionist. Bracers. Ooh. What's that dude?

What is that do? We're going to find this out. It's probably super cool. Illusionous Bracers. Oh, and the Mithler's Stone Cape. The illusionist braces are pretty valuable. So is the cape, yeah. If you want to throw a lot of this stuff in,

you're going to be significantly taking the DC down. Yeah, man. If we're not using it, fuck it. We didn't keep them. And you're throwing the gold in, too? Yeah. And then just explain this Tide thing to me. I think we need to.

I think that we're now way beyond five grand. Yeah. All right. So who wants to make the persuasion check with advantage? I'll do that. Yeah. All right. I'll tell you, let me just check the number.

So you gave me a ton of items that's going to bring the DC down to a 12. Sweet. Pretty solid chance you're going to get this on the first bid. which one is a 14 second one is an I'll take the 18 and then the bonus great love it great well what was the total 18 plus 725 all right that's high enough

that I will let you keep 500 gold right that you'll be able you'll be shrewd enough to be like oh we're actually going to swallow a little bit of this but you'll still have enough to easily make the first bid I don't know guys the shield with the face on it that might be Alas, it's gone. But yeah, I'm taking you down to just 500 gold. Sweet.

Same, what do you think about D&D? I hate this game. What? Great. Cool. All right. Just adding that in, and you are good in the party gold. Please add a bag of holding to the...

Who's going to hang on to it? You want to just make it in a party inventory? You can just do that. Yeah, let's put in the party inventory. That way we can all add stuff to it. You got that, Ken? Yes, let's see. Party inventory.

There's nothing in the party again. I like to party. I know. I know. I know. I know. I did make sure that's $500 gold in the party inventory. Oh, I'm getting over.

I'm managing. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, for those of you who are proficient, I'm sure, for those of you who are proficient in the words, of Dungeons and Dragons. You're going to be very aware of what it is like, but I'm going to go ahead and read the description

because it's a big deal. The bag has an interior space considerably larger than the outside. It's like a tortoise. Two feet in diameter at the mouth and four feet deep. The bag can hold up to 500 pounds, but it can't exceed

a volume of 64 cubic feet, which is a lot. The bag only weighs 15 pounds. If it's overloaded, pierced, or torn, it ruptures and is destroyed. So that's something... Do you understand what a bag of holding is? No, I don't. I think you really like it, actually,

because you're constantly amazed by how fucking crazy it is. It's bigger on the end. It's back rooms, the bag. It's like a TARDIS. It's a magic bag. Yeah, it's a bag. It looks like it weighs 15 pounds,

but it holds up to 500 pounds. That's fucking... Can it hold people? If it's ruptured or destroyed, its contents will be scattered into the astral plane. If it's turned inside out, its contents spill forth unharmed, but the bag must be put right before it can be used again. Breathing creatures inside the bag can survive

up to a number of minutes equal to 10 divided by the number of creatures, after which they begin to suffocate. How many people? 500 pounds. Okay. After 500 pounds of people. That's awesome. That's sometimes one, sometimes two, sometimes three people.

It's a half a person. but I mean you you'd also want to bring like a sub for yourself so maybe like you and like just me and a sub yeah there's also a couple other items that are similar and if you put this inside one of those both get destroyed what is Liam Mitz tiny hut Liam Mons tiny hut is an invisible enclosed building kind of hut that everyone's like a like a bubble half a bubble that goes over you and if no one can see you okay got it and you can't and you can't and you can control who comes in and out okay got it Got it, got it.

Super tent. This game's awesome. Super tent. I also like the bag of holding's got like a little face embroidered on it for who knows why. Just to be weird. Just because they probably were like, let's have fun with this. Just because. All right.

It has Googling eyes over the top and it looks like a mouth. Let's pretend it does. Yeah. It looks like a rump mug. So at this point, you would have all the gear you're going to be able to get. And Durkin's going to be like, all right. Well, I think it's time for us. to head into the deep beneath the under dark.

I'm going to bring us over to this wizard. He's a bit of a weirdo. So the only thing is he guaranteed he could get us on the path under the under dark. But he might have a couple of options for where we're going to go. And you might want to, I don't know, have like a last chance to use some of that goal to buy some potions or scrolls.

I don't know. Health potions. I think everybody should have at least two portions of healing on them. I can do some healing, but it's you know, it's going to be a little different. Yeah. Can I buy some healing? Let's do that.

I'd like to buy some healing. All right. So, I want sexual healing. I hear it's good for you. You hop in a carriage and had a couple hours outside of Del Smith where there is a Mage Tower. There's a rusted autonome standing outside of this tower, a little mechanical gnome. He looks like he just stands in the rain and in the weather. You're a gnom, right?

We do have a gnome. I'm a no. I'm totally a gnome. You recognize him as the kind of autonome that is made by tinkerers. Deep gnomes have... I mean, do you think you can befriend this auto noom? Yeah, I'll try. I mean, would it matter? I don't know. I mean, I just... You hop out of the carriage. Let's do it. He's very slowly, he's like, like grinding his head as he turns to all of you. Durkin says, oh yeah, you have to like, it's like, it's like an intercom. You just, you're going to, you're going to, he's going to. It's a person, but, you know, it'll talk to you separately as a, it's, it's, I guess, sentient, but it's really weird. It's really old. Hello there. We were told you can help us with healing potion.

the autonome says to you with a loud creaking noise. What do you do? I am the doorman for Archmage, Lordus Parkmire. Oh, Lordus Farkmire. Lordus? Does he make those cookies? Farkmire. My name is Purvis.

Spunkmire? Purvis. Farkmire. And Purvis. Archmange Lordus Farquemeyer. Yeah. Tell us about Archmage Lordus Farkemeier. He lives in tower and is quite powerful.

He has not left the tower in 7,123 days. My goodness, he's dead. No. He's very old. Would you like me to announce you? Durkin is enjoying that you're leading the conversation and he can chime in if you want, Ken. But if you do have something, Nomish, you would like to ask this guy. This is an opportunity you were just suggesting.

Particularly no mesh. Ask him a question of Nomish so that way, like if the wizards, you know, listen, just no to know. Like, hey, man. In Nomish, I would say, where were you born? Where are you from? I was born in the tower, sentience bestowed upon me, not unlike humongulai. Interesting. He says he was born in the tower, sentience was bestowed on him.

Not unlike a homuncleae. Hmm. Cool. Well, have him announced us then. Is that the way we get in? I love you. All right. We can go hang out in my auto-loaded.

Maybe we'll do that later, but for now, announce us please. Are you sure I have a loot? Wait a minute, you have a loot. Uh, again, you know what, we'll hold off on that. I unshaped my sword. I will, I would love to hear this later, but right now I think we'll be announced and maybe later, here's some leitness. Very well.

I guess I'll just hang out in the clockwork basement another time. That's a good idea. He communicates in a very off-putting fashion. He goes, clang-clin. He's like knocking on his own head. He doesn't talk. He's just like going clang-clang-clang-clang-clang.

Almost like it's Morse code. And then the door to the tower opens. He knows, Dirk. in there. But not all of you. Oh. He says, All right. Durkin goes, oh, yeah, I mean, I told him we were coming. And so he's just remembering, I guess. Come on, let's, let's go do this. Shall we? Just tell him to make sure his pants are on.

Oh dear. Yeah. Tell him to make sure his pants are on. All right. He goes clang, clang, clang, clang. He says he never wears pants. He wears rose. Perfect. At least something's covering. Keep it tight.

The doors creak open. They're two very large 10-foot wooden doors. And in the lobby, there are a lot of toys strewn about. A door that looks like it goes into the basement where the autonome lives. And then a spiral staircase leading up the tower. Is he following us in? Or is he hanging up? He's slowly going, kachunk.

Kachunk Kachunk Perhaps we should just Leave the way Which way to the archmage? Up these stairs And he goes Walking up the stairs

Painfully slow I stride past him Goodbye He says Continuing up the stairs But it's not necessary For you to wait for him Right

Once you get to the top of the stairs The door is already open You see there is a wizard who looks extremely old, but also he's probably figured out a way to at least a little bit length in his life. So he's a human who looks like about 200 years old, but healthy for a 200-year-old.

He is smoking a joint. He has his bare feet up. There is strange music playing from what looks like a xylophone that is being played by two little xylophone hammers that are going like, he says, Hey, y'all.

So remind me, how much are you paying me to do this? Oh, we'll remind him of the whatever the numbers we came up with in the magic stuff. The number he came up with on the magic stuff? Is that what we had to do? Oh, it's for the bag. Oh, well, we were hoping for potions of healing. That's all I'm saying. Just like tips?

I work for tips. I don't let a lot of people up here to my teleportation circle. I'm going to look at the gloom stock and be like, what? What? I don't know, man. I mean, I met this guy at a party once that he was throwing down in the basement and the little autonome quarters. It was fun.

And he was like, yeah, anytime. But like, there's far too much going on down in those quarters. It's cool. There's clockwork stuff down there. I doubt it. I sincerely doubt it. I bet you, if I go down there, first of all, the autonom is probably only five steps up. He'll take me down into his room and I'll find something cool for you.

He's just turning around. Can you help us with our potions? Oh, yeah, man. Thank you. What kind of potions you're looking for? One, two, three, four. Do you have healing potions, Ken? No, I think so.

So at least six regular potions of healing, plus have any extra? Of course, appreciations. I make them myself. Oh. They taste like lavender That is a choice It is

I used to do rosemary but it's too savory So I can go bigger You want regular peeling potions I can get you greater I can get you superior Yeah let's do that Definitely whatever we A persuasion check whoever wants to

Can we throw gold at it Advantage Not this time Who has persuasion? I do. I do. Here's the only one. All right. That is a, what the hell is that?

13 plus 7. Not a natural. What, 20? 30 20. Yeah, man. I mean, I'll give you access to my full stock. How's that? What?

It's a dirty 20 open for Jet Boy. What's Jet Boy? It's a glad band from the 80s. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'll give you access to the, the whole, so if you want like a potion of healing, it's going to be like 30 a gold. If you want the

bigger one, it's going to be 50 gold. And if you want superior healing, it's be a hundred gold. I want to speak for how much gold we have, but we should probably spend all of our gold on healing potions, right? I think we have 500 left. All right. So if we make sure everybody's got two, four, six

of the regular, those were 30 each, so that's 180. If everybody gets a greater that's 50, which is another 200, so that's 380. Can we afford the superior?

Superiors were 100, so we can get one superior for somebody who really gets fucked. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. All right, so load up, everybody. Okay, so everybody's... I'll adjust your party gold. I'm not going to keep doing this, but for today, because we're doing all this

buying and I want to help move the little narrative along, I will totally do that. Everybody has two regular potions of healing, one potion of greater healing, and we should maybe, let's say, to inaugurate the bag of holding, let's put the bag of superior or the potion of superior healing in there for whoever needs it. Okay. What does superior do? I think it goes, is it 2444, so it must be 64. Plus six would be my guess. Because a regular one is 2D4 plus 2.

Yeah. Really down. I also whipped a scroll up, you guys might be interested in. Do we have any money? Well, we have 20 left over. I mean, if you could maybe throw in, like, I don't know if you got anything you want to barter with. I have this great shield.

Oh, do you? Do you still have the shield? I don't know. I think you traded it. I have the, yeah, have you traded the shield, the boots. Yeah, we gave away everything. Yeah. We have 20 gold.

Maybe you don't want this anyway. Oh, it's for Revivify, man. Oh, sir. We have two regular potion, two greater. Each one at one greater. One greater. And one superior for all of us. Revivify, you touch a creature that's died in the last minute,

and they return to life with a hit point. That means you fail all your death saves. It's a good one. Not rivetify, but from the level of creation. Yeah, man. How much more gold do you think you would want than the 20? Do an insight check, Chris. Oh, insight is bad.

That's a five, six. Man. Listeners, somebody started a Rivify metal band. That's fucking waiting to happen. At least a few hundred gold more. I will pull out Corbo will pull out a black purse with the gold lining and he will pull out 300 gold pieces

and add it to the 20. All right, man, I can do that. All right, can anybody use a scroll? Yes. Great. Scroll over Vivify. Scroll. I think you can put in your inventory as an official item. I'm just going to double check.

if not put it in our bag of the scroll- It's easy to do just a little custom thing Of like oh here it is Everybody was the maiden documentary No it's not in the main thing But you can just put it? The what documentary? Our maiden documentary?

No is it good? It's really cool I mean I What's it about? I love torture devices I I mean they don't have to love that band of like the documentary.

Yeah, absolutely. It's been around 40 years and 50 years. Doesn't look like there's a scroll like that. Yeah, you can put a little thing just a note in your inventory. You can scroll over Vivify. Right. It's a third level spell, necromancy, instantaneous. Nice.

All right, so I got a couple of places I can send you guys. We're going under the underdark. I know you want to get to the Lost City of Blitz. So there's like, I have this huge network of teleportation circles. I can totally help you out. Just like both of them are a little fucked up. So like... Networks?

Yeah. I mean, like, if you want to come back here sometime, I can get you to other planes of existence, man. Everything seems coded towards we have to come back here to hang out. All right. What if we make that promise now at the beginning? Sometimes. We'll come back and hang out.

Sometimes me and purses. have a little loot off. Purvis. Purvis. The TikToky robot boy. No. He's about six steps up the spiral circuit. You just hear this.

Curvee. Coming up. Pervis. Echoing up the tower. There comes Purvis. So, yeah, like, I can send you either to the swamp of succulent skulls, or I can send you to the Tower of Vespit. That's fun.

These are both underground. There's an underground swamp? Yeah. It's not nice. What's the tower? Wow. It's this guy I know who's like a mage too. And like he's old too, but like his mind is kind of gone.

So like he sets all these traps up in the tower. He's never home. But like he's switching up the traps all the time. So I can't tell you what you'll be walking into. You got to get out of this tower. So swamp then. Swamp or traps? Swamp.

Swamp. Yeah, man. It's got a swamp. Unless somebody wants traps. I mean, not that there aren't traps in the swamp, but to walk into a death, it's death tower or nature? Well, nature. Sure. Right? I'm okay with that.

Now, you know. Where's our leader thing? I mean, good news is this teleportation circle is dry, but you're going to be like in a bog. It's like an underground bog. So don't know. A lot of the water from the under dark kind of just flows down there.

How do we get out once we get there? Where are we headed? Do you have any maps? Durkin says he doesn't have any maps, but he has scouted both of these locations. Okay, so like if we go in the tower, I didn't really get out of the room, right, with the circle in it,

but I did open the door. and look both ways. And there is a corridor with weird statues. Didn't go in there. Looked a little complicated. Headed on back. Went to the swamp. It's called a swamp of succulent skulls for a reason.

There are bones everywhere. So you'll end up in this temple for a minute. Like it's a big enough temple that you could like, you know, set up camp there if you needed to like come back to it. If you had trouble getting out of the swamp. But it's a cavern. It's a cavern filled with water and muck and weird plants and probably things that will eat you. We just got to get out of it.

And then there's a tunnel on the other end. Tower? Are we going tower now? I don't know. I'm looking. I mean, none of this sounds good. I'm just thinking. It is called the swamp of succulent skulls.

Yeah, that I'm not following. I mean, the tower of Vespit's not. It's really six of one half a dozen of you. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm just wondering, maybe we just don't want to be wet the whole time. I mean, both are bad. One of them's bad plus wet. We didn't bring waterproof stuff.

That's true. Yeah, we were the total caverns. I mean, it's going to be wet in caverns. I mean, what are the benefits to you either? It's kind of going to go a little like this. there's going to be a lot of loot left over in both places. So we can pick some things up

along the way. It's just going to be dangerous to pick this loot up along the way, right? Like you get out of the tower, there's going to be a cavern. I haven't seen this cavern. There's going to be a cavern. You can head underground deeper once you get out of the tower. See that again? What if there's a swamp cavern outside of the tower? Supposedly it's not a swamp outside of the tower.

Supposedly. But this guy's never home. right so we can maybe don't say it too loud in front of the lordis farckmire here but maybe we can take some of this guy's shit oh potential for and then also hey all these things are getting eaten by probably you know blighty plant creatures they don't want to keep all their loot there's probably swords stuck in the mud and stuff what's closer to where we're going that's crazy that's the part we can't say for sure it's going to be at least a couple weeks journey either way.

I'm going to vote tower because I don't want to be wet. Can't promise we won't get wet at some point. It is underground. I'm going to hold you to this. We're going to the death tower. And if I get wet, I'm coming for you. Well, I'll have to not be too sexy then, won't I? No, if you didn't like that one.

I pull my hood over my feet. I see where our boundaries are. Good. All right. Tight boundaries. Tight boundaries. The tower? Yes, let's go to the tower.

Let's just go. I want to smash something. Iron rock fist? Yeah? The tower? That's your name, Brian? Yes, I know. Let's do it.

I'm going by Leo Slayer now. Oh, I love it. I'm ashamed of that. Making a note. Leo Slayer. No, it's Flint Iron Fist. That's not Iron Rock fist. I dare you.

My mistake. That's my nickname. And I'm writing down your nickname is Slayer Leotard. Right? Sure. Okay. And would you call me? I don't know.

Iron fuck fist? No, I would never. Sam, write that one down. Iron what? Iron butt fist. Iron fist rock? I don't remember. I heard fuck fist.

Iron fist or not. That's what you said. I definitely didn't get that Slayer name, but I heard fuck fist. Leo Slayer. Leo Slayer Leo Slayer All right teleport away then

Noah can dance You all head into the teleportation circle where Archmage Lordus Farkmeyer draws things with chalk You hear in the distance The rusty footsteps

Of Purvis As he is still trying to get One floor up the eight foot tower He's still coming up He's still very slowly We would have been here Oh fucking dick I mean you'll never

know what it was like to go into his lounge and listen to him, play his loot. But the archmage starts a spell. He puts gem dust around and there is a flash of white. Once the spell kicks off, there is a moment where all of you feel a little sick to your stomach and then kudunk, you land on hard stone floor. There is dim torchlight here. It feels as though there are very thick stone walls. This tower is, of course, underground in what must be a massive cavern and it looks like the walls are so thick that this is probably a very

deep tower, a large tower. By the way, you got some very vague intel from both Durkin and the arch mage. It sounds like this used to be a full castle with a mage tower within it and the castle has sort of fallen into

disrepair. The mage who lives here is, his name is Mage Vespit. and he's gone. There's been no word from him. He's quote unquote never home, but he used to be...

That's not the old guy that the guy was talking about. Yeah. Oh, that is. Yeah. So how old is this mage? Last was seen to be at least a couple hundred years old, as old as the guy you just hung out with. No one's seen him in a while?

No one's seen him in a while. So there's actually no proof he's alive. Oh, okay. Oh, Mitch McConnell. He's recently been seen in some very nice mom jeans in a college shirt. People are making a bigger deal about this than Mitch McConnell. Yeah. But yeah, so you land on the stone floor, dim torchlight.

There is a smaller wooden door than the big doubled ones you went in to get into the last mage tower. You're now inside a mage tower, and this room is reasonably small. It looks like it is designed specifically for the teleportation circle you just landed in. So there's not really much in here, except you do see in the corner there's some old chalk probably used to update the circle at some point. But when you look down the teleportation circle, just landing, you kind of like blow some of the chalk off. It looks like maybe there's only like a couple more uses out of this thing before it's going to have to be redrawn by someone who knows

how to cast teleportation circle. So you could probably use it to get back, but it's It seems like it wasn't really kept up well. So you guys are now looking at this one wooden door that Durkan tells you he's peeked in before and that there's some weird statues, but that he hasn't gone deep into this room. Right. So you know opening the door should be safe,

but you're not sure what's going to be on that side other than weird statues. Durkin said he didn't get a good look at them, but they were pretty tall. Well, I've got to check for traps on that door. Okay. Do an investigation check, please. You got this, Ken. That's a nine.

Plus. No, that's a five plus four. Making a nine. It's a door. You know that the door has no latch. It has an iron ring on an iron plate. So like a pole? The pull push door.

Looks like it pulls inward. And you already check for traps. Is it locked? I know there's no latch, no lock. Durkin says, yeah, I pulled it in before. Just, shall we? Well, this is when I'll scout begins to lead the way, yes? Sure.

You got a mage hand or something to pull it with? he's a fighter all right okay so you pull the door open and with a creek it opens you see this very deep hall looks like it's about

a hundred feet long on either side there are three statues each holding a sword these are tall statues and it it's going to take a bit of a perception check from everybody for me all right

19 17 plus 3 30 20 nice 30 20 30 20 sounds like the top roll so you can tell that there are

some sort of large square tiles that go across the room it looked like they used to have some sort of fine painting on them that they have been worn down over the many years. It's very dusty in here. A lot of cobwebs.

Looks like no one's tried to get through this chamber in a long time. This is the only way out of that room. Yeah. The statues are all facing each other. So there's two sets of three. Three on the right, three on the left. They each hold a sword in their right hand.

So it's opposite from each other. And they don't hold a shield. Their other hand, end is straight at their side. The space between each statue is about 10 feet.

And there are just about like a couple of tiles across just down the hall. Are they square tiles? Large square tiles. Is there space behind the statues that we could try and pass through?

They are flush against the wall. Do the tiles look flush to the floor? Are there any of their sort of... Do an investigation check, please, as you bend down and take a closer look. That's a dirty 20. Nice. It looks like a couple of them are sort of like a skew as if the tile has broken a little bit,

but it doesn't look like that they've had... I'm just wondering if there's any triggers in the tiles. Do we have a bowling ball and ball? With a dirty 20, I think you would look at just how the tiles are askew and think, well, there's tiles. These are stone tiles. So there's something underneath, regardless. There's another layer of stone underneath the tiles.

So there could be. Perhaps we could use our 10-foot pole to press ahead. You got a 10-foot pole. Check the tiles. All right. So the first pair. Like a blind man sort of going across, maybe. Yeah, and ahead of us.

Yeah. Let's make sure the floor. Okay. So you reach 10 feet ahead, which is about. about how far the two statues are. Let's get a slight of hand check for whoever's doing it. I mean, slide it will slide a hand. I mean, I can, if you...

Oh, I have a six bonus. Do it, yeah. I have a 13 bonus. Oh, do it then. All right? Yeah, yeah. So I'm taking his rod. 10 foot pole.

You have a 10 foot pole. Got it. No, right. It's just a straight up pole. All right. So that is a... 17 plus 13. Damn.

30. Jeez. Effortlessly. Bop. The two tiles in front of you, then the two tiles after that. I think you got close to a 40-1. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. When you add guidance and bardic inspiration and stuff. So what I want to say before we end the episode is you go, bup, bup, the two tiles in front you and then the two tiles beyond it very easily with this pull. First two tiles in front of you don't do anything. The next two, the soon as you hit one, you hear a gurg

noise and then when you hit the other one you really quickly pull it back just in time to not have to roll a dexterity saving throw to hold

onto the rod as this wave of ice cold air just goes between the two of them and is gone within a flash of an instant

basically flash freezing this space between the two statues what made it do that? Tapping the Tapping the tiles it definitely was triggered by the left tile

but the right tile might also have triggered it because there was this nanosecond where you tap the left, you heard it Kirk Creek, and then you tapped the right as it was going off. Are there spaces around the tiles? Can we avoid stepping on the tiles? No, because these things are, it's, the statues are in little indentations, little alcoves in the wall that they're flush against. How big are the tiles? Ten feet? Five feet. And they can jump over that. Yeah. As long as we make sure we're not jumping onto a trap. And yeah, exactly. And the ice blast came from the statues or next to the statues?

Is there a seam in the wall or something? Um, we'll have to talk about that next time we play. And yeah, that'll be fun. Yeah. Sam, you know, did we do this last episode? It was mostly shopping. No, we didn't. So it didn't, I wasn't compelled to ask and I apologize for that. Oh, that's right.

We only pleased that long. Oh, no, if you're looking at my timer, I started it late. So I'm going by Sam's timer. timer. Yeah. Just gave us the signal. I was a mess to me. He gave me the signal about five minutes.

Yeah. Episode three, we learned what a bag of holding is. This game is awesome. We met a little rusted robot gnome with a loot who really wants to hang out with us. We might be going into a skull swamp or a tower. We met someone named Iron Fuckface who teleported us to the tower so we wouldn't get wet. So we could get wet. So we wouldn't get wet.

Oh, okay. It was either that of the swamp. WK. That's right. All right. Well, I would love if folks could check out. about darkest whimsy.com. And check out hanging with Dr. Z, April with a Z on YouTube.

You put a full episode up to check out there. Ooh. Yeah, that's great. That character. It's ridiculous. It blew up. It's so funny. And then he also, like, of course, this is the thing that I'm going to be known for now.

And it takes all this effort. things he's wanted to do his whole life. Yeah, but he loves it. He's such a old friend of Canon Eyes and one of the funniest people I've ever met. Yeah. But Dana, like, back in the old days, like, he was, if you saw he was on stage,

he would run in San Francisco and watch him on the, at the punchline. You jerk off 10 guys at once to see him like. Oh, yeah. He was one of those. he was one of those guys that you would laugh harder than you laughed at any yeah you couldn't believe how good he was like even in like 90 or 91 when I first saw him so fucking funny anyway uh do you already plugged um Brianbrstein.com I've got uh

San Jose Comic Con or GalaxyCon but this might be before or after that anyway uh and then I've got Ventura Theater with J.T. Habersat. And keep watching Stewart Fails Save the Universe. We got picked up for a second season, but our first season, we're right in the middle of it. Episode five was, well, you'll just seen it last week. But six is fucking crazy and seven super fun. And you shot that all in IMAX, right, Brian? We did.

So watching out an IMAX theater or, uh, if you got that 70 millimeter hookup in your backyard like everybody I know do that uh blame we attribute the success saved mankind for joining us on this episode you got walls and a roof well dear nerd poker hey uh i'm on my way over i've been trying to find parking for a couple of minutes that I think there's a park you need a permit on this block or something but I think oh my god is that guy have a blowgun oh my god we'll find out if he's okay on the next nerd poker thanks for listening to another episode of nerd poker you can follow us at patreon.com slash nerd poker and you get

bonus episodes from there and you can also send us anything at P.O. Box 16069 in Sino, California, 91416. Thanks for listening.