I finally unfroze, pulled my sword, and parted the hound cleanly.
“Well, that's suboptimal,” Gandalf said. He grabbed Pete’s head by the helmet crest and lifted until they were face-to-face.
“No resurrections, buddy. Even if you could afford it. I used my last scroll for Kevin.”
Pete’s head said “Yeah, okay. I was getting tired of this character anyway.”
The conversation was interrupted by a heavy base growl ahead of us in the hallway.
“What the blinkin’ blue blazes was that? Kevin whispered.
Tim replied. “Dunno, but it had a certain quality of bigness to it.”
“And hungriness,” I added.
Tim peered into the tunnel. “I think were being herded. But it's this, or go straight back. I kinda wish you still had that staff, Bill.”
I shook my head in reply. “Firing if off in that cramped space would as likely as not cook all of us with the blowback. Gandalf, you got anything for close quarters fighting?”
“Not like what you mean, Bill. I think your flame blade is our best hope.”
Wonderful. This meant I would be going first, holding my magic sword out in front of me in hopes of killing an attacker before it could get to us. Which would do diddly squat against a magical attack. My future began to truncate in front of me.
I shrugged, and edged carefully into the tunnel. “Someone want to shed some light on this?”
Gandalf muttered something and a light shone over my shoulder, illuminating the tunnel ahead. The tunnel wasn't high enough for us to stand straight, so we were forced to move forward, bent at the waist. If I'd been bio in doing this in real, I would've had back spasms within a minute or two, but in the spirit of classic D&D, the game engine allowed us to overlook some of the more realistic aspects of adventuring.
The tunnel eventually terminated in a blank wall. We all turned to Tim who, shrugged.
“I don't see anything.”
“I’m getting tired of this campaign,” Vern muttered. “We've been battling high-level beasts since almost the entrance, lost over half our group, and we've sweet diddly to show for it.”
“Hopefully the final payday is worth it.” Gandalf checked through his satchel. “I have a spell of True Seeing in here somewhere. Ah.” He pulled out a small notebook and paged through it. A few seconds of nodding and muttering, and he looked up. “Let’s try this.”
Gandalf made some gestures and spoke in and arcane tongue. He then squinted and peered intently around, checking the blank wall and the tunnel wall around it.
“Nothing. What the hell?”
We all stared at the blank wall. Red herrings were one thing, but dead ends generally needed to have a point.
“I'm really starting to hate this DM,” Tim said, and turned around to head back up the tunnel. He took three steps, then said, “Really, really, really hate.”
We looked past him at the blank wall where a tunnel used to be. We were now in a section of tunnel about 20 feet long, blocked at both ends.
I frowned. “Gandalf, is your True Seeing spell still active?”
“Yes, for another minute or so.”
“See anything in this tunnel we should know about?”
“Nope.”
“What blocks or counters a True Seeing?”
“Uh, higher-level magic of course, but I'd sense that.”
“Tim, you see anything significant?”
“No, and a True Seeing would pick it - hold on.” Tim put his hand near a section of wall. “There’s a draft here.”
We moved over and each took a turn feeling for the slight airflow.
“On the list of things that defeat a True Seeing,” Gandalf opined, “we can add low-tech tricks like building a wall without mortar.”
He pushed on the section of wall and it gave a little. We all put our backs into it, and after a few seconds of resistance, the wall collapsed outward.
The good news was that it crushed several of the zombies who were waiting on the other side. The bad news was that it alerted all of their still un-crushed brethren. We were at one end of a large subterranean hall with a ceiling so high it was lost in the gloom. Torches lined the walls, giving enough light to illuminate dozens of zombies milling around the chamber, and a large nondescript statue at least 20 feet tall standing at the center.
“Oh shit,” Tim exclaimed, and backpedaled frantically.
“Brains…” said the zombies, and advanced on us.
“Now hold on,” Vern exclaimed. “That's entirely the wrong kind of-”
“Shut up, Vern,” Gandalf growled. “Kill now, carp later.”
I raised my sword and started swinging. Perhaps a little too enthusiastically, as Vern yelled “Hey, watch it!” and danced out of the way. Without Pete, we were down to two fighter characters. Even with magical accessories, Vern and I wouldn't be able to hold off a bunch of undead.
“If you’ve got anything in that bag of tricks, Gandalf, now would be the time,” I yelled.
“Give me a sec,” he yelled back. I could hear muttered curses, then “Ah ha!”
There was a pop, and a zombie there was trying to eat Vern's axe turned into a cloud of smelly gas. My eyebrows went up, but I didn't have time to think about it. Zombies weren't particularly powerful opponents, but they made up for it with sheer numbers and a total lack of fear. And they were very hard to kill - you generally had to reduce them to sushi before they'd stop coming at you, and I had at least a dozen of the critters about to step into range. I cocked my sword arm and-
Pop, pop, pop.
“Woohoo!” Gandalf yelled. The sudden disappearance of several zombies gave me time for a quick glance over my shoulder. Gandalf was gesturing with a wand. Each time he pointed it, there was another pop.
“Damn, that's handy,” Vern said, and chopped another couple of zombies.
“Bippity boppity boo!” Gandalf replied, dancing around and waving his wand. “Bippity boppity bippity boppity bippity boppity boo!”
With each downbeat, another zombie went up in smoke. The odor was verging on overpowering, and the game engine wouldn't let me turn down my
