Colossal Cave Adventure
We find ourselves in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. Metrius, our increasingly-difficult-to-describe Dwarf Paladin/Warrior/Barbarian/Mounted Warrior (I'll just call him a Paladin), has a sure-fire way to get through these things: always turn left. Thinking about it, this seems uncannily like his normal way of adventuring, which is to take the left path whenever possible, for it is 'the righteous path' apparently. Nevertheless, arguing that maybe we should turn right, for whatever reason, only really results in some of the party heading right and Metrius going left. If the left-hand path has blood and guts splashed all over the floor and ends up at a door so ominous that the black runes somehow stand out on its ebony surface, and the right-hand path has gold coins and flour scattered around, ending in room with a door marked 'treasure and cake room' that is also ajar so you can see that it is indeed full of gold and cake, we would have to take the left path so that we could 'defeat the rotten evil that lays beyond, for it is our destiny!'. Of course, were the dungeon built the other way around, with the left path leading to cake and treasure, we would take that path first because 'we need to be rested and full of cake before facing the rotten evil. It is our destiny!'
It thus comes as little surprise to us that Metrius decides we should take the left-hand path and stick to that. And for negotiating mazes it is actually not a bad idea. We may miss out on a block in the middle of the maze, but those places just contain the nastiest monsters, and at least we'll find our way back out again at some point.
We're not far in to the twisty little passages before we're ambushed! Some mutated naga attack us from being invisible, striking from different directions, then slithering away through the many corridors. Not wanting to separate from each other, and not knowing our way through the corridors, we find ourselves in a bit of a quandry, particularly if the snakes can become invisible again and will continue to attack and run. With a bit of thinking, we come up with a reasonable idea. We place Metrius at the front and Wendel, our other melee fighter, at the back, with the squishy priest and my mage self in-between, and we start to work our way forwards.
We're attacked again, but we're more ready for it this time, and Metrius engages the enemy. With more enemies ahead of us Wendel moves forwards to help out. This doesn't go as well as it could, as something explodes to his right and Wendel finds himself dazed and, much to his annoyance, chilled. I catch sound of magical mutterings, which I identify as a shaman casting a spell, and realise that Wendel will need some help against this foe. I step forwards and around a corner, and my shaman foe is before me. I cast Scorch and his charred corpse now presents much less of a threat than a few seconds previous. But I now find myself outside of the fighters' protection, and potentially in range of invisible attackers.
Metrius charges further forwards, realising that the flow of battle has gone our way and caused us to separate, so no longer waits for the enemy to come to him. Unfortunately, his 'left is the righteous path' policy forces him to turn the opposite way down the corridor than I went, although this does let him come face-to-face with a naga to exact some fury upon. Wendel, having been hit by the shaman's spell, is closer and steps forwards to protect me from potential attacks. Yes, I know, but he was dazed, so maybe he didn't know it was me.
As Wendel stepped forwards, a naga appears before us. I prepare to cast Burning Hands to deal some quick damage, and maybe flush out some more invisible foes in the small room before us. I tell Wendel to duck because of my spell, but I see him falter. 'Burning Hands is a fire spell, right?' he asks.
'Yep.'
'Well, I'm still feeling kind of chilled. Do you think you could catch me in the area of effect? The two spells may cancel each other out.'
Bless him, the rogue/fighter doesn't quite understand how magic works, and I didn't alter my aim to throw fire at him.
But it was tempting. Holy cow, it was tempting.