Haphnie

Statistics
Name: Haphnie Springsprocket

Race: Gnome

Sex: Female

Age: 36-48

Class: Warrior

Guild: Horde Collaborator

Hair: Vividly pink

Eyes: Green

Height: 3 feet 1 inch

Weight: 42lbs

Appearance
The common association of the words "small" and "fragile" falters in merit when in the presence of Haphnie Springsprocket. Athletic and wiry, Haphnie carries an unmistakable firmness in her bearing that speaks loudly of a lifelong association with certain martial skills. The stoic expression that lingers on her young, moderately-attractive features seems perpetual, and her cheeks are almost always smudged with dirt, oil, or some other obscuring substance - as if she were purprosely hiding herself, not wishing the world to see how pretty she actually is.

Personality
Haphnie is at her core a zealous patriot, and envisions herself a true champion of the children of Gnomeregan. She is intelligent, confident, and often devious - well-versed and practiced in the parlay of verbal subterfuge. To Haphnie, as long as the gnome race benefits, the ends will almost always justify the means. Haphnie holds herself to a very strict honor code, and ultimately believes in the concept of a greater good. By maintaining certain moral boundries, she is able to rationalize with perfect certainty that even when metaphorically emmersed in the foulest of water, her motives remain clean and pure.

Goals/Motivations
Haphnie's driving goal is the restoration of Gnomeregan and the elevation of gnome society. Any other goals or motivations she might have are subject to furthering that agenda.

History
The only child of a Mallard Springsprocket, a gnomish engineer and travelling merchant of no small acomplishment, Haphnie's early childhood was brimming with charm and wonder. Though her mother passes away shortly after her birth due to an illness, Haphnie's father took wonderful care of her and made certain she never went wanting.

Haphnie can't recall ever having a home as most would think of one. Her first memories are of the solid, covered wagon in which her father tinkered in and hauled machines from place to place. Her fondest memories are of watching her father's nimble, grease-stained fingers adjust and calibrate some minute detail on some enormously complex gadget whose function she'd never learned.

Haphnie loved her father very much, and would listen to him tell stories as they travelled from place to place. Stories of fantastically brilliant gnomes of bygone eras, and the fantasic inventions they created. Stories of brave warriors, who despite the towering height of thier enemies, stood valliantly in defense of mechanical wonder that was Gnomeregan. Mostly, he told stories about how marvellous Gnomeregan was, and how much he missed it. Shortly after Haphnie came of ages, Mallard contracted the same disease that had taken Haphnie's mother, and passed away.

Having studied the arts of her father for a long time, Haphnie spent some time continuing his work. Without her beloved father beside her, however, the work felt empty. For the first time in her life, she keenly felt the loss of not having any particular place to call home. As if responding to some deep calling, she finally made her way to the mountain stronghold of Ironforge - a place she had never before been, in hopes that proximity to her cherished father's homeland would somehow bring her comfort.

Instead, what she found unsettled her in the extreme. Only a few uncorrupted gnomes remained in the depths of Ironforge's Tinker Town. Her people were lost, broken, and practically extinct. She learned that despite it's nearness to the mountain stronghold, and even after the gnome's own invention and creation of the Deeprun Tram to help courier soldiers from Stormwind, the Alliance had done nothing to help her people reclaim and restore Gnomeregan to it's former glory.

Hurt by this, irrationally seeing it as some insult to her father's memory, Haphnie began a coalition - an attempt to politically encourage the Alliance to finally act on Gnomeregan's behalf. She invested a sizable portion of the gold her father's business had left her. Her efforts were met with, at best, tolderate amusement - and at worst, outright cynicism. It became very clear to Haphnie that the Alliance had no interest in her people what gnomish technology could offer.

Despairing, Haphnie spent the last of her gold to board a ship headed toward Booty Bay. She hadn't decided what it was she planned on doing there, but she knew she couldn't stay in Ironforge, surrounded by the Alliance that she had felt betrayed her people.

The first several days in Booty Bay after her arrival passed in a rum-induced haze. She had some vague memory of doing some notably unsavory acts for enough coin to catch her next tankard, but thankfully not enough to make any sense of them.

It wasn't until she had been in Stranglethorn for the better part of a week that she met Gurthok - and elderly orc shaman and storyteller who spoke a fair bit of common. Her purse had run dry and Haphnie was more sober than she'd been in days, seated at a table in the back of the salt-scented tavern hidden deep in the labrynth of Booty Bay. Gurthok sat across the room, weaving an elegant tale of the orc Warchief, Thrall, and his valiant acts of heroism and selflessness on behalf of Tauren and Trolls.

The storyteller had a way of words that reminded Haphnie very much of her father, and the stories he told were tales she had never before heard. She'd thought the orcs nothing more than violent, hideous monsters... The next evening, Gurthok returned to entertain and Haphnie returned as well. Completely sober this time, and curious. The following evening, however, Gurthok left.

Unaware until then how deeply she'd allowed herself to sink in her own grief, Haphnie took charge of herself. Not having anywhere else in particular to go, she volunteered for the Booty Bay militia, where she was trained in the rudimentary arts of swordplay and given a place to stay. She thought constantly of the stories the orc shaman had told, feeling connected to them somehow. As if her life and the characters in those stories were joined by some thread she couldn't quite find.

A few months later, Gurthok returned to Booty Bay, and again entertained the tavern with heroic tales of the Horde. Haphnie was there each night, listening intently. Finding herself wishing that the Alliance held the same ideals as did the Horde of Gurthok's tales... When the storyteller had again left Booty Bay after his final performance, Haphnie returned to her bunk and laid down to sleep. It came to her in a dream - the answer that she'd been missing, the truth that she'd not been able to see.

The gnomes had joined the wrong side...

Haphnie awoke that morning with a jolt, sweating and scared. She knew what she had to do - what had to be done, in order to reclaim her ancestorial homeland and to save her people from a slow, ultimate end. Still, she couldn't commit herself without some sort of proof. She had to know if the stories Gurthok told were true. Gathering her things quickly, she left Booty Bay in a flash, headed north - to Tirisfal Glades.

Her plan was quite simple, at least in theory. She reckoned that if anyone had valid reason to join the Horde it was the Forsaken, whom had spent the majority of the last war being attacked from all sides. She thought that if anyone could unbiasedly confirm or deny the stories she'd been told, it'd be the Banshee Queen of the Forsaken. All she had to do was sneak in to the ruins of Lordearon and seek out the Banshee Queen.

A feat that was naturally more difficult that it sounded - Haphnie swam about the sewers of fallen Lordearon for the better part of a week as she tried to find her way without being discovered. She was nearly found a half-dozen heart-stopping times, and after a few days she'd begun to seriously believe she'd die in those slime-ridden tunnels. Eventually, however, her luck... ran out.

She'd fallen asleep in what she thought was a secure location. She was wrong. Unknown to her, she'd fallen asleep near the private chambers of the demon lord, Varimathris. Smelling her fear and and hunger through the solid stone of his walls, he sought her out and took her prisoner. An interrogation proceded shortly there after, certain that Haphnie must be an Alliance spy, but Haphnie denied that - telling him the, albiet unplausable, truth that she wished to turn her back on the Alliance and join the Horde.

Varimathris was understandably skeptical, and employed several Fel magicks upon Haphnie in an attempt to draw the expected truth from her. When her story failed to waver, even under some of the most extreme tortures his power could engender, he began to take her unbelievable story a bit more seriously. The demon lord tossed her in a dungeon cell, left her some scraps of rotting food, and went off to think.

Haphnie would never be able to say how long it was she laid in that cell, filthy and battered. All she knew was that by the time Varimathris returned, her stomach had long since twisted itself in to the now familiar cramps of starvation once again. Varimathris stood for a long time in the door of her cell, staring at her. Finally, he spoke.. this time, to Haphnie's great surprise, in a softer tone. Not one of compassion, certainly.. more, of a grudging respect. "What do you want here?" Haphnie had her chance - either way, she was likely to die, as she figured it. Either the demon lord would execute her, or she'd die of starvation. But she'd gone this far... she had to know. Summoning the last of her strength, pulling from the last ounces of her will and sanity, she explained it all. About Gnomeregan, about her disgust of the Alliance, and about the stories of the spiritual bard, Gurthok. She told him of her quest - her quest to discover the truth, and salvage her people.

Varimathris watched silently as Haphnie explained it all. Finally, he nodded, as if more to himself than to anyone else. He confirmed the stories of Gurthok, and told Haphnie that he had considered her request to become member of the Horde - for her people to abandon the Alliance and form up under the Horde banner. He informed her that the process would slow, delicate, and painful - the Horde would not welcome her until she had proved her usefulness, and that she would require the blessing of another before the notion could even be considered.

To be accepted as one of the Horde, Haphnie would have to require the blessing of Warchief Thrall.

The demon lord then handed Haphnie a wax-sealed scroll and instructed her to return to Booty Bay and await the return of Storyteller Gurthok. Before Gurthok left, Haphnie was to give the scroll to Gurthok, whom would then carry it to Thrall. Varimathris had imprinted his own seal on the document, so that Thrall would no question it's authenticity. Once Gurthok had the letter, all Haphnie could do was wait. And then, shocking even Haphnie, he simply left. The door of the cell creaked as it swung open on it's hinges. She was free.

Haphnie again took to the sewers - finding the way out much easier than the way in. With in two sunsets she had escaped in to Silverpine Forest. A week or so later, she made her way to Southshore. Certain that Varimathris had his own reasons and agendas for aiding her, but equally certain that he'd been completely honest when he'd confirmed the noble tales of Warchief Thrall, Haphnie began the long journey back to Booty Bay where she waited.

It wasn't long before Gurthok returned, and after his final performance Haphnie approached him with Varimathris' letter. Gurthok seemed to understand what it meant and accepted it without a word. The next day he was gone and Haphnie returned to returned to the militia, holding her breath, feeling the collective weight of her entire species' well-being on her shoulders.

Nearly half a year passed before Gorthok returned, and he brought with him a small package which he privately gave to Haphnie the evening after his first performance. Inside was a neatly-folded, blood-red tabard, trimmed in fur, bearing the Horde insignia emblazed across it.. and a small note.

"Haphnie Springsprocket,

I have been notified of your wish to join the Horde. I was sceptical at first, but as the reasons for your defection were further explained to me, I came to realize that your people and mine have a great deal in common.

As an orc, I would embrace you in to the Horde. Your heart clearly beats with profound bravery, and by Lord Varimathris' account of your meeting, I sense honor as well. As Warchief, however, I must treat you with extreme caution. You are not the first claiming to wish entry in to the Horde, nor would you be the first to betray our trusts, should that be your intent.

You will be judged, placed on trial. Prove yourself to us, prove the value of your kind to us, prove your trustworthiness and honor. When you do so, we may embrace you and your people in to the Horde and move as one. One people, one heart. What ails that heart ails us all, and will be mended.

Until such time, remain where you are. Be our eyes, our ears, in enemy territory. Wear our colors proudly, unabashedly. It matters not where you claim they originated, only that you keep with you the reminder of your choices. Gurthok will remain your contact, we will correspond through him alone.

Your freedom of thought makes you child of the air, young gnome. Hold on to that freedom, but never lose your purpose."

The note was signed simply by a wax imprint of Thrall's sigil. Haphnie had taken the first step to restoring her people.

Donning the tabard and saying farewell to Gurthok, Haphnie returned to Ironforge a differant person - a person with a mission. She joined the Alliance military, so as to access more valuable information for the Horde. When questioned about the colors she wore, she explained that she had simply taken the tabard from her first Horde kill as a trophey. In time, she even drew co-conspirators and formed an organization of sorts, gathering covert intelligence and supplying unseen aid to her Horde allies.

Though the organization has no name and each indiviuals reasons for "joining" are quite differant, it has none-the-less become a signifigant source of information regarding the Alliance's military, political, and economic activities. Haphnie, at the center of it all, works with whole-hearted dedication to prove herself to the orc Warchief, while maintaining the appearance of a solid, dependable Alliance soldier. All for the good of her people.