1 End of the Beginning

     Our heros awake, their beds strangely and suddenly not what they were just 8 hours ago. 

     "Where the hell are we?" exclaimed the rouge, "and where the hell is my bag!"

     "Worry not, Richard, for I do not believe this to be reality, least not one we are accustomed to." The wizard took a few steps forward from his bed, or what could only be presumed as the bed. The party looked around and saw that the only one who wasn't there was the warforged. After seeing this, the warlock, Chelcy, calmly said, "We must be in the dream realm, Freea…. I can not make contact with my patron." 

     "I just hope that Spring is doing well." said the paladin, "we were teaching him so much."

     In the hotel's penthouse suite, Spring was wandering about the room. It was uncertain what to do while his companions, who would normally wake by sunrise, lay motionless in their beds. There was a brief moment and suddenly the silence in the room was deffining, something felt wrong. Spring looked around the room. All of his companions were there Richard, Chelcy, Freea, and Try as he might, Spring couldn't recall if there was anyone else, and yet there was a bag that belonged to no one, and a bed that was used but not a soul slept in. Immediately, spring shoots to the bag and tears it open to look through it and sort any items inside it. Looking through it, he finds several health potions, some complex spell scrolls, an enchanted mace, and an amulet that looks to be the same as the symbol in the town church.

Spring thought to ask the priestess there if she knew what was happening. 

     "Just maybe she will have the answers I seek." wheesed spring.

     "Oi, why don't one of you three cast something and get us the hell out of here, wherever here is." Ricard yells, just as the paladin starts to fade into nothingness.

     "Goodbye, my friends. I feel my goddess call out to me she says that I may finally rest."

     "Donnavin, NO!" The rest of them yell in unison.

     "You can't, we still don't know why we are here! Tell your goddess to shove it. She can't have you!" Richard yells at him.

     "I hate to say it, but I agree with the rouge. She can't have you." Says Chelcy, almost sheepishly.

     "Even if I did, I have no bodie to return to." replied Donnavin. Everyone looks at him shocked as a brilliant light envelops what is left of him. The light caused everyone but Richard, who had smartly covered his eyes, to be blinded for only a few moments. Richard looked out to where their companion was to see that he was still there, but he looked very different.

     "I am the avatar of the goddess Rayla." spoke the spector, "I will guide you through the maze that is your dreams." As it spoke those words, the ground around the party shook violently, and the walls of a maze appeared before them.

     "How do we know we can trust you, I mean, you are wearing our friend." Ricard said with caution.

     "I am the only one keeping the self-named Pumpkin King from killing you right now."

     Spring stops just outside the church. It feels as if something is watching him. Spring snaps his head around 180 degrees to see nothing but miserable towns, folk. Though this was not his first time out alone in the world, Spring could tell that this was not to be his new normal once again. In the time before he met his current friends, in the time of Spring's first memories, when he first opened his eyes to the world. The first thing Spring saw was a gnome. This small person was attaching the last few things to spring. 

     "You are my greatest creation yet, designed to lead an army. There are so many things to teach you." 

     "Who are you?" But no sound came from his mouth.

     "Do not yet try to speak, but instead listen. Think about your hearing, and think to listen to only one thing about the bird in the other room." 

Spring wondered what a bird was but did as he was told. He could hear the tweeting of the bird from behind the stone walls. He then looked to the gnome, an expressionless question in this action, but he knew that the other would understand.

     "Good, good yes, yes, yes." Cried the gnome, "now listen to nothing at all, then look to me when you can hear nothing." The gnome jumps from the table to the floor and walks to a well crafted stone desk. Spring again does as he is asked and attempts to listen to nothing. A peculiar thing happens as Spring does this. The receptors that allowed him to hear became clogged, and he could hear nothing. Uncertain if it truly worked or not, Spring attempted to move and make noise, but he could hear nothing. Just like before, he looked to the gnome, who was jumping with joy? Spring could not tell why this small being was jumping. He thought to restore his hearing as to better understand his creator. 

     "Excuse me, priestess?" Spring asks through the old and damaged voice modulator.

     "Yes, what may I do for you?"

     "Have you seen this before? It was in a bag in the room my party was in, but it didn't belong to any of us."

     "The only way you could have a trinket like that is if it was taken from a paladin."

     "A paladin? What do you mean? Are you saying that my companions and I were traveling with a paladin?"

     "I never said that they were your travel companion, but that would explain how you could have one."

That defining silence again, Spring wondered where it was coming from, and just as quickly as it came, it was gone. Spring decided that if he had to listen to silence that loud, then he would rather hear nothing at all. Just as his creator told him before, he thought of an absence of noise, and just like the first time, everything went silent. When he did this, he immediately noticed blood stains, leading to the door. He looked around and saw a monster with a long neck, and a horrifying face appeared to be eating bits off the priestess, while another head appeared to be singing. Out of sheer instinct, spring leaps into action in an attempt to slay this beast. He drew his sword, the beast did not move it was as if it didn't know that Spring could see it. Spring then cleaves at the beast, cutting the head that was singing in twan. The beast stops its full attention to spring.

     The party continues their journey through this maze that seemed to be without end. With only the avatare of a goddess to guide them, they pressed on in confidence that this nightmare would soon end. As they approached the next turn, the world around them shook again, as it did when the maze first appeared before them.

     "What is happening?" Questioned Richard

     "He knows you are coming." Stated the goddess

     "Sorry, who knows what now?" yelled Freea to the goddess