Writing is therapy...
Very well then, gentlemen," she said, as tiny lightnings danced between her outstretched fingers. "I suppose we should get this robbery over as quickly as possible." The three highwaymen, who had been approaching her, suddenly lost their confident grins and began to look distinctly uncomfortable at the prospect of a battle. "You can't be serious," the sorceress snapped in exasperation. "Were you honestly expecting me to just hand over my riches?" She gave a low throaty laugh. "I hardly think that likely."
"Stupid git," snarled the first, as he lunged at the sorceress with his longsword. "Perhaps a foot of steel will teach you to... Argh!!" The last was delivered in an impressively high-pitched voice as the sorceress danced back from the threatening blade and laid one finger upon its tip. Immediately, the lightnings that wreathed her hands, spread down the length of his blade to dance up and down the highwayman's suddenly twitching form. With a final cry, he collapsed to lie, still twitching occasionally, upon the hard packed earth of the road.
The other two robbers had not been idle during the exchange. While the first made his unsuccessful assault, the second produced a battered, but serviceable crossbow, which he then began to crank. The third, after some searching, came up with a set of rusty throwing knives which he sent flying at the sorceress with considerably more enthusiasm than accuracy.
It was the flash of a blade as it whizzed past her, to embed itself into the trunk of an un-offending birch, that alerted the sorceress to this new threat. Clicking her tongue at the overabundance of fools in the world, she made a complex gesture that resulted with a small blue ball of light streaking towards the thug with the crossbow.
The thug in question, having finally finished winding his crossbow, had just enough time to level the weapon at her, with a cry of "Die, witch!!!" before being struck by the ball. There was a brilliant flash of light, and he disappeared, leaving only a pile of clothing and a, no doubt incredibly chagrined, radish.
Having dispensed with two of the three highwaymen, the sorceress turned her attention to the last. He, having missed with all six of his throwing daggers, was making little mewling noises of distress as he struggled, frantically, to draw his sword from its sheath. The sword, perhaps sensing the futility of its owner's efforts, had jammed in its sheath and refused to budge. A wet spot stained the front of his breeches and spread as he regarded the sprawled form of his comrade who had, mercifully, ceased twitching, and the radish that, insofar as it was possible for a radish to do so, looked as though it devoutly wished to be elsewhere. A low moan escaped him as his eyes met those of the sorceress.
She smiled unpleasantly. "It appears," she purred, "that fortune has saved the best for last." The sorceress raised her arms as more tiny lightnings raced up her body to pool in her cupped hands. A fey light sprang into being to pulse and glow about her. "You fools thought me a helpless kitten, but found me a tiger. For that, I shall make you know fear the like of which you have never known before." The air began to crackle with the might of her risen power. The thug, judging from the speed at which his lips were moving, appeared to be praying to several gods.
"Fear me!" she thundered. The ball lightning in her hands doubled, then tripled, in size. "Tremble before my awakened power! Cower before the might of my..." There was a thud. The final highwayman had fainted dead away. "Illusion." The ball lighting disappeared and the light winked out. Humming softly to herself, the sorceress went on her way, after first divesting the crooks of all their weapons and coin. Silence at last descended upon the lane and the still forms of the would-be robbers. As for the radish...