Time for some heroics

The catacombs are dark, dank, damp, and generally unpleasant. You carry a lighted torch with you, but this only succeeds in throwing a flickering red light a few feet in front of you. You're making your way along the passages, keeping your eyes open for any sign that the monster has come this way, when you hear a distant roar from up ahead. You must be getting close; you break into a run, drawing your sword as you go.

There's a fork up ahead, but another well timed roar leads you down the correct one. A minute later you emerge in a large chamber which is lit by a multitude of lighted candles. On an altar there lies a boy, the prince, and he's tied down. Before him there stands a greying man and, beside him, a minotaur. They turn to look at you as you enter.

"Ah, a would be rescuer!" the man proclaims. "Well, I've no time for you! The ritual must be completed; then the king will be sorry he ever slighted me!" He turns to the minotaur. "Get him!"

With a bellow, the creature charges, lowering its horned head at you to gore you. This man must be a sorcerer to be able to control it; but to tell the truth, you're more worried about him than the monster. The minotaur is easy to deal with- you throw yourself into a roll sideways as it reaches you, bringing your sword round in an arc to hew into the back of its neck. It goes down, spewing blood.

The sorcerer looks on in surprise. You try to act quickly before he can do anything, and throw your sword end over end at him; but he raises a hand, tracing a glyph with his fingers, and it freezes in mid air.

"You're somewhat more trouble than I though you'd be," he says as the sword drops. Then he traces another glyph and your limbs move of their own accord- a second later, you're pinned to the floor by invisible bonds. "Stay there, and don't make any trouble."

The sorcerer goes back to the prince and starts muttering. His fingers trace complex glyph after glyph. You don't know exactly what he's doing, but you know it's going to be bad. You try to move and, to your surprise, find your hand shift an inch or so before being pinned back down.

You realise that the bonds are weak because his concentration is split between you and the ritual. There's still no way you can get to your sword and do anything with it, though. So how to stop the sorcerer?

Then it comes to you. With a titanic effort on your part, you manage to move your hand a full six inches- and you knock over a tall candlestick. It falls, and the flame hits the bottom of the sorcerer's robe. He freezes, suddenly realising what's about to happen, but this time he's not fast enough. The fires spread, and his whole robe goes up. With a shriek he tries to trace the glyph to put them out.

But doing this takes his concentration away fron you; you scramble over to your sword, snatch it up, and bring it cleaving down on his head. He falls away, bloodied and burning, and very dead.

You free the boy, and make your way back up to the palace to collect your prize.