[sallkid]

Hop Deepdelver carefully negotiated the street, constantly on the lookout for pursuers. He shifted his weight under the sack of purloined game birds he was carrying, and silently cursed all gameskeepers everywhere.
He had long been considered an odd hobbit amongst his family and aquaintances, who had always found him a bit tookish, holding council with strange sorts and conversing openly with Rangers and the few Dwarves that passed through the villiage. Occassionally he would come home spewing wildly exagerrated stories involving life and death encounters with wild wolves or bandit chiefs. In fact his long sojourns tended to have a different objective, poaching.

He had learned well from the strange Ranger folk he associated with, learned the ways of woodlore and put them to his own purposes. Until tonight he had remained uncaught, untill tonight when he had been forced to make his escape through gorse bushes and mud.

He came finally to an inn, the Golden Perch, knowing no-one in this town would recognise him he determined to sell his game and make reservations for the night.