It probably means something like 'Use of unnecessary force has been authorized'.

Chicken disguise best disguise.  Maybe.  Or at the very least what Superbird is going for outside the barn entrance.  Meanwhile, Terdisas hopes he doesn't fall or something because in hindsight hiding in the barn rafters may not have been the most brilliant of plans.

Raichel pretty well goes untouched. Timothius, however, is being approached by several dark figures wearing their own ninja outfits. It's only because they are almost on top of Timothius and the fact they are moving that Terdisas notices them.

Tim doesn't seem to have noticed them.

However, unless Ter doesn't signal Mittens for some odd reason, she get signal.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:42, Thu 01 Mar 2012.

"There's the signal!" Mittens calls out to Raichel, "Let's get over there!"

Complaints about horses not being epic enough aside, she's happy to have the extra speed right about now.  She hops on the saddle and spurs her horse to a full sprint to the barn.

Hmm, yes.  Lurking so and so's sneaking up on Timothius in their sleep is totally worth using a daily (It's Terdisas's only multitarget, after all).  Hit-On-Miss ice sawblades first, Thunder Wave second, acrobatics fail falling off the rafters third...

Could have done without that last one.

But all the ruckus sure woke Timothius. And Ter thankfully was above the hay Tim was using as a bed, so... soft landing, at least. Timothius throws his blanket off to show he's fully geared. Much as he'd prefer sleeping ungeared (much less in an actual BED), this mission called for instant preparedness. He drops his daily as well. Not often he's surrounded and that's perfect use of the power. Moment of Glory has the would-be kidnappers flying in all directions.

Raichel is not far behind Mittens and once on foot, catches up with and passes Mitts to get into melee. "Gotchya, kidnappers!" she calls out.

Mittens challenges the most dangerous one in the bunch and gets to stabooming!  "Take that, villains!  On a side note...  surrender and be spared.  Life loving cleric present."

No dailies for her.  Much as she'd love to, already impossible to use the big kaboom without hurting her allies.

  Terdisas is glad Mittens can tell which one is the most dangerous one, because it was a little tell which freaking NINJA was which from above, while Mittens is at eye level (and Ter has gone from well above that to below it).

  The sorcerer stands back up, and fires off an Ice brick at the closest Ninja to Tim...  yeah, that probably would have been better to do to the one behind himself.  He's not having good stratermagy tonight
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:16, Thu 01 Mar 2012.

But then, that's why it's good to have a team. Raichel rather suddenly materializes behind Terdisas, back-to-back with him and smacking that ninja on the head with her staff. "Got your back, Terdisas."

Timothius says, "Thanks, Ter!" as he employs some debuffs to the enemies. There was no "most dangerous" of the bunch, so Mitts was guessing. However, ALL of them were minions, so... all of them are KO now before they even had a chance to surrender.

"Glad to see you're ok, you two," Mittens comments, tying up badguys, "Wasn't expecting a whole group of ninjas, though.  Makes some sense, though."

Once everyone's secured and goodguys are rested, she'll get to questioning one.

  It's a good thing he can't read the narrative, or Terdisas might now feel somewhat silly for using a Daily on a bunch of minions <.<

  "A rather surprising amount of effort to kidnap random youths."   A chicken wanders into the barn,  "Bawk, I'll bet it turns out the ninjas are more of the missing kids and they are lead by a guy covered in sharp objects!"

Timothius says, "So let's get these guys to the local authorities and question them."

The Bat-symbol spins toward the screen and then away.

At the guard station, the group has gotten what they're going to get from the ninjas. Despite how very cool it would be that they were wayward teens being trained by a sharp-objects-covered man named Shredder, this doesn't seem to be the case. These ninjas aren't even teens and they seem loyal to the money their master payed them. Granted, these aren't the tougher style ninjas. Just the ninja horde style minions. Poor saps.

They relatively easily give up the location of their "master" and where he's keeping the other captives. Apparently, there is a cave near the town that most people avoid because it's "haunted".

Once Mits has detailed directions to the cave from the frightened locals, she goes to the mish door and uses recall friend. heads for the cave.

"Hostage situations...  No I'm NOT going to surrender if he threatens to harm captives.  I'm going to blast 'em all!  Fortunately, that'll just KO the captives."

  "Even with such assurances of lives, I am again reminded why I've skimped on my wholesale devastation capabilities."  Which can be somewhat tricky as a Sorcerer, let alone a Storm/gimmick picking up Ice powers Sorcerer.

  "Of course, some would dread a parent's complaining more than the fight itself, tweet."

Timothius says, "As long as they'll be fine."

Once inside the cave, it takes a little exploring and bonking a few baddies in the way, but soon the group gets to a classic villain set up. There are some teens dangling over a giant pot of bubbling green stuff. Laughing maniacally, is a tiefling man who gloats. "Surrender! Or these two die!"

He has a wand pointed at the rope that is holding the kids up.

"More like, surrender or YOU die!"

As promised, she attacks!  This time using her daily!

  Terdisas uses a different form of 'shoot first, make insults later' attack as he fires off a Thunder Slam at the Pot.  Harder to drop people into pots if the Pots aren't where they used to be.

  "She's going to kill you! Kill you to death! Chirp!"

The hilarity is; size and weight don't matter on thunder slam. The tiefling's readied action of shooting the rope is activated and the kids fall, but there's no pot under them. Instead, there's a Raichel under them, jumping and tumbling to break their fall before turning and zapping at the tiefling.

But said tiefling is a boss fight. So he laughs. "FIRE?! Against me?! How quaint!" as he grins through the flames, apparently on fire and enjoying it.

Note: Even if Mitts is a pyromancer, the result is the same. What? The guy IS on fire.

Timothius puts an astral seal on the tiefling. "You *did* see the lightning. Right? And now the holy sign placed on you?"

The tiefling laughs. "Your petty gods won't save you! They'll watch you die and let you down just like they did for me!"

"Oh so you're a zombie Tiefling," Mittens concludes, "Even better!  Well guess what!  You're about to get a repeat performance of your previous disappointments!  'Cause you're going down!"

Mits proceeds to STAB the badguy!  Good old fashioned steel.  Solves so many problems.

---

(Was going for hybrid sword mage / wizard for this version of Tens.)

  Worth the 'waste' of one of his heavy hitters if it meant less boiled children.  Of course with all the commentary on Fire going on, it would be silly not to attempt the traditional makes-no-sense-but-there-it-is result of being on Fire, and FROZEN at the same time.

  He's sure Mittens and Raichel will not mind the Reflex debuff Frostbind causes either, if this hits.

Frostbind and the stab both hit. The tiefling hits 3/4th hp and says, "Ha! Impressive, whelps! Now let's see how you deal with THIS!" He explodes in a ball of fire that fills the room, dealing a lot of ouch to everyone. Kids included. Yes, him commenting at certain hp level was a blatant CoX reference. What of it?

Timothius meeps. "We need to get the captives out of here! Or get the bad guy out."

Raichel says, "Was working on it!" as she drags the now singed kids to behind a wall of some kind.

"It's been a long time since I've had the pleasure of fighting a villain who uses the proper villainous catch phrases," Mittens comments, not yet bloodied so unable to add shifter snarls, "Thanks!  Now for the next part..."

WHAM!  A swing of the sword and a wave of force slam into the badguy!  Mittens puts on her best "hero voice" impersonation.

"KIDNAPPING YOUNGSTERS AND DIPPING THEM INTO BOILING POTS!  HOW COULD YOU, YOU FIEND!  Psst.  This is where you explain your evil plan."

  Terdisas is totally bloodied, these things happen when you are a scrawny sorcerer.  "To put it a bit less diplomatically than I am prone to, his plan is being an asshole.  Just keep stabbing him."  Dragon Frost ice fist coming right up.  Knockback optional.

  As much as Mitten's abandonment of cloth and staff methods are played up, stick beats sword in raw PAAAAAAIN.

Mitts heals up a bit for hitting the tiefling thanks to the Astral Seal. Timothius heals Terdisas right up. Then maintains the Astral Seal. He figures the big fireball was this guy's biggest trick. Hopefully.

Raichel goes to close distance, flanking with Mittens and smacking him with her stick.

The tiefling hits 1/2 hp and says, "You fools don't know what you're dealing with! When my minions bring these people as a sacrifice to Gee'nos, I will be the most powerful being in the world! And by now, my minions have already taken them to the ritual circle! You're too late!"

Mittens blinks in some surprise.

"Wow.  He was so focused on gloating, he didn't even attack.  There's a flaw in your plan, villain.  It's called SWORD TO THE FACE!"

And ice fist.  And stick upside the skull.  And holy debuff...  but who's counting.  STAB!

"Oh... and where is this ritual circle so we can arrive there too late?"

  "All these beings token sacrifices are made to seem awfully generous, considering the usual claims.  Excuse me."  It could be leading to a vicious one side beatdown in someone else's favor on Terdisas's skull, but he rushes off while Mittens and Raichel deal with the ranting teifling to screw with the mentioned ritual as soon as possible.