Please allow me to introduce myself...

The charcoal grey short-haired kitten hissed and spat at the dying would-be thief. From his chest sprouted three arrows - still crackling slightly with electricity. A silent shadow stood over him and looked down with contempt in his green eyes. The silouhette of his ears against the dull , amber streetlight marked him out as an elf.

"Who... who are you?" sputtered the thief through a throat of foaming blood.
"Who am I?" sneered the standing form. "I am Dulinithil Cu'Maksa, though I doubt your common tongue could handle such subtle syllables. Instead you may know me as Hawkmoon Bowgentle - though why I was named this I do not know. I have no especial affinity for hawks nor moons, and neither is my bow gentle." Twisting an arrow so as to make the thief gurgle in pain, he added "A fact to which you can attest."

Hawkmoon continued. "You may also wish to know of the bow. The bow you sought to steal. The bow which instead has killed you. This is the Longbow of the Leaping Lightning and it is mine. I commissioned the creation of this bow long before your short life began." A cruel smile played across his lips. "And by one look at you I can tell it will survive you also."

The thief groaned - his life energy draining slowly and painfully from him as the blood pooled amongst the cracks between the cobblestones paving the dark alley way in which he lay. Hawkmoon did nothing to ease the suffering, though he took no particular pleasure from it. He had seen so many deaths in his long years serving in mercenary companies that now he had entered business for himself he was not about to go soft.

"I will give you some credit, nameless thief. You were quick. Too quick in fact. Too quick for most of your victims I am sure. Unfortunately for you, however, I am no mere bowman but have the gifts of the arcane to support me..."

"Now - up close - my suspicions as to the nature of this speed are confirmed. How you came by them I know, or care not. I do know and care, though, that such pretty footwear should not go wasted."

With that he bent down and dragged the boots roughly from the thief's feet - causing yet more blood to bubble up from the arrow wounds. Seating himself on a nearby kerb, he casually removed his own, and not overly worn, boots - tossing them carelessly over his shoulder - and replaced them with those he had just looted from the unfortunate thief.

Standing slowly Hawkmoon stretched his feet in the leathern boots to ease the fit. "They suit me better than they suited you, don't they Mr. Thief?!" He chuckled jovially, but received no answer. The thief's eternal soul had departed to whichever Hell his faith proposed.

Looking down at the kitten, who had already begun to gnaw on the dead man's toes, he shrugged at the dead thief's fate and said: "Come, Rou. The night is yet young and our struggle through this grim world must continue. Indeed, I have earlier espied that band of adventurers of whom I have heard many a tall tale..."