Endrike "Hare" Hopp's page

About Endrike "Hare" Hopp

"Five more years."

Endrike was born in a small farmland community in Molthune. Her mother was a farm maid who one night met a elven traveller who seduced her. Nine months later she gave birth to a half-elf child. Named Endrike, she grew up around the farmlands, always where her mother was. When she grew older Endrike begun helping around the farm. Endrike was cheerful child that loved nature and hard-working people of Molthuni hinterlands. She would have been happy if they could have lived there for the rest of their lives. Alas, the fate had other plans.

Farmstead they were working was not doing so well. Five harsh years had hurt it badly, wells were drying up and earth was sour. There was no explanation for this and bad omens lurked in the air. Master of the house had sent his oldest son to the Imperial Army so at least he could get a citizenship and live in the city. There were talks about moving the farm somewhere else, leaving everything behind- including the local serfs. Endrike and her mother would have been left there, with no work and nothing to call their own. SHe would not allow that to happen, and decided to act. She had heard from Master's son that when soldier serving in the army get's the citizenship, he could take one person with him to city. Endrike knew what she had to do in order to survive. She enlisted and left the farmlands.

In the Imperial Army begun the rigorous training. Growing up on the farm helped her, and she managed to get trough basic training easily. During that she found out that she had magic in her blood, as her hits with practice swords were almost instantly enchanced by some kind of magical energy. She was taken from arbalesters and assigned to the magus training. Ther magi learned the art of spell combat and arcane mysteries were revealed to them. Some of them opted for blades and maces as their weapons, but Endrike was best with quarterstaff, spinning it around wildy and flingin spells from it. She earned a nickname "Hare", a heckling that came from her prominent elven ears and her surname. She made some friends, but there were those too who hated her for her elven heritage and thus resented Endrike.

Then came the campaigns. 6th division was sent to front border of Nirmathas. She will never forget the glorious moment of their march to the border. She, in her red uniform and staff, marching with the best of Molthuni army. That lasted until they arrived to the trenches. Nirmathi skirmisher had just striked there, and corpsed riveted with arrows where everywhere. Roots had crushed some to pulp and some where killed by wild beasts. First thing was to clean the corpses out, and then take their places and advance. Three of her squadmates got a arrow to their hearts on that first campaing, as did numerous other people. It was a miracle she had survived, Endrike often thought. After that campaign ended without having achieved anything, they were relocated to Blackar forest to deal with ogres and bugbears.

Blackar was a nightmare. Enemy they faced was that of nightmares, slinking in shadows and leaving inhuman wounds and scars in their wake. Endrike saw many of the soldiers lose their minds to horrors they had witnessed. Some fell in the silent shock after combat, as if they had been numb to everything. Endrike herself sometimes stood on the edge of sanity, looking at the darkness of Blackar and the gibbous moon that spread it's witch-light on it, feeling that any moment that darkness could swallow her up. She managed to keep her sanity by remembering home and why she did this. Whenever her nightmares became too real, she muttered silently to herself: "five years, four years, three years, two years, year." As the years went by, her previously happy outlook had vanished and it was replaced by grim realism.

"Three more years."