Bellona floated across a cold and dark expanse, shivering as she endured the endless dream she was cursed with. She found that she had been wearing a set of plate armor, after examining it deeply, Bellona realized that she was wearing the same armor as last night's dream.
'Is this what happens afterward? Is this death?' Bellona thought to herself, the only action she had access to as she floated, 'I would have thought that the afterlife would have been a bit more... restful.'
Bellona was not relaxed, despite brushing against death once and finding complete peace with the concept. All she could do about this dream was wait for it to end, because that was how she woke up, no matter how long the dream might have been.
One time, she had journeyed across the ocean, fighting monsters and gods as she attempted to get home. That was probably the longest dream she had ever had to experience.
The void that Bellona "rested" in attempted to keep her conscious enough to think and its choice of tool was sheer uncomforting existence.
Her train of thought would continue down the path of reminiscing over the dreams that Bellona had slept through over the past few years. Those dreams would be of various mundanity and complexity, she was an adult, a child, a monster, and a god before.
All of them were better experiences than the boredom she suffered from... even the times she had died.
After a long, long while, she saw something. At first, it was a white dot, and that dot grew and grew the longer that time passed. After what felt like minutes, Bellona saw a giant figure cradling a ring of uncountable golden threads that looped into a gigantic pearl.
No matter what, Bellona found her gaze falling to the golden threads. Ten of the threads were larger and glowed with a brighter holy aura. Branching off of them all were billions upon billions of those very threads, and each of them was as alluring as the others.
Bellona couldn't stop her eyes from wanting to devour it all, from destroying them all, from creating billions of new threads. She was so enticed by the threads that she hadn't noticed that her view of the threads was slowly being covered by a figure.
After noticing it, Bellona focused on the figure, finding it to be a person wearing an onyx facemask with no discernable features. The person wore a black cloak as well, it shrouded the figure in mystery, if not for wanting to see the golden threads, Bellona would have wanted to know more about the person in front of her.
Its voice broke Bellona's enticement, "Hello, Bellona Finley."
Bellona's body was suddenly ripped from her control as her voice replied but was different in a way. It sounded older... much older.
"Hello? Where am I?"
Bellona could still look around, but her body was trapped in this scenario. It was standard practice for her dreams. If not watching from a third perspective, then she was watching from the eyes of the person she inhabited, but without control over the body.
That was what made her dream on the train so strange to her, but she didn't have the time to think about that, her attention was being called elsewhere.
Namely, the robed figure in front of her dream's vessel.
The figure spoke again in a voice that sounded neither male nor female, "I apologize, but you are not dead. At least, your soul is not dead, your body is long gone."
The person obscuring the view of the beautiful golden threads seemed apologetic but didn't show it. There was a long moment before Bellona heard her voice speak out again.
"So what's going on? I thought that I was supposed to be allowed to rest in the fields of moon lilies?" Bellona's body got up and looked for a spot to rest as she stood. "I was promised that! Kuhaldia herself promised it!"
"Kuhaldia! Oh by 'His' grace..." The figure chuckled, but that led Bellona's incarnation to take a step forward. Its posture changed slightly as it continued, "Oh, you were devout, weren't you?"
Bellona's voice rang out in the darkness, "Yes! I was! And I was promised a peaceful ending to my story!"
Bellona felt the words shake her slightly, why did those words resonate with her so vividly?
The figure snapped back, suddenly towering over her and sounding extremely annoyed, "Well you clearly haven't earned that rest yet! Your story has many chapters left!"
Immediately after, its demeanor changed once more, suddenly shrinking backward, "I'm sorry about that, but yes, as the other one said, you have many years before Kuhaldia's promise can be fulfilled.
Bellona's body slumped to the ground on her knees, as if too tired to fight anymore, "Then tell me what I must do."
The robed figure shifted before an audible and crisp snap echoed into the darkness. Afterward, the two were in a grand palace of black marble, illuminated by a myriad of various colored braziers.
They were in the throne room, and sitting on a giant throne of shimmering dark wood was a raven. Its size seemed to defy the space around it, appearing both larger than the room and smaller than a hand.
Looking at the creature made Bellona's mind hurt, so she looked down, unknowingly bowing before the raven.
A booming voice echoed in the dark chamber.
[Hunter Soul, is this the one?]
The figure, Hunter Soul, replied in a casual tone, "Yeah, this is her, can you make the contract?"
The raven cawed as if laughing and lifted a wing in a show of covering one's mouth.
[Yes... yes, of course I can! Soul, thank you for finding the mentor.]
Bellona's voice rang out in her own mind.
'Mentor? Do I just have to teach someone? It looks like my final Trial is going to be easy...'
The sound of a blade shearing paper echoed in the chamber, and then the fluttering of said paper in the wind. After a moment of flying, it was grabbed.
"Miss Finley, please read the contents of this contract and then sign it."
Bellona looked up slightly to see an illusory purple arm extending a paper towards her. She grabbed the paper and looked down at it. The paper was simple, yet felt dangerous, Bellona's body grew goosebumps, and a shiver ran down her spine.
---
Bellona Finley will swear fealty to The Raven and become a temporary Concept.
Concepthood carries two blessings and a curse. The first blessing is to possess a single Paragon or Sorcery.
The curse is that the Concept is bound to the missions that The Raven commissions.
The second blessing is a single wish from The Raven upon completion of the commissions.
Bellona Finley will appear as a spirit to a former version of herself in the Anchor Thread of Galaxia to assist in her journey.
Afterward, Bellona Finley can ask any single wish of The Raven.
---
At the bottom of the curled white parchment was a type of seal of approval in red ink beside a single line.
A pen was extended down to Bellona, and she took it. Still kneeling to The Raven, Bellona signed the contract, seeing no reason to argue or resist.
Resisting would likely cause a fate far worse than fulfilling a simple commission. Hell, afterward, Bellona will be able to ask for any wish she wants!
Bellona looked up and as she lifted the paper, her palm was cut by the paper, thus marking it in her blood.
A thin line of shimmering blue and purple mystical energy covered the paper before vanishing. Bellona looked up at Hunter Soul as it spoke.
"Well, that makes the blood part much easier, thank you, Bellona." He lifted the contract into the air, The Raven then swooped and picked it up. "It's usually a small hassle to get people to draw their blood... surprising, I know."
Bellona didn't especially care anymore, seeing as how she was dead and now in servitude of a giant raven.
A woman's voice echoed in the chamber.
"Oh come on! Getting a new Concept without me? My heart is hurt..."
Bellona and Hunter Soul turned around, Bellona standing up as she did. Standing at the gate of the throne room was a woman in a black suit with a white undershirt. She walked forward with an eerily similar wooden staff, her formal shoes clacking rhythmically against the marble floor.
"Mona Chronis..." Hunter Soul continued its sentence, but Bellona felt her world swap upside down.
'Mona?! What the hell? What's going on? Is that her?'
After Hunter Soul finished its statement, Mona spoke directly to the Bellona dreaming, "It looks like we have a peeping Tom... no, a peeping Bell. How are you, darling?"
Hunter Soul looked towards Bellona and examined her deeply, it then turned to Mona and spoke, "What are you on about, sorceress?"
Mona chuckled and continued walking, "You really don't see her? A speck of magic, ooh! A Warlord's Soul! It looks like you're gonna have a rough couple of years... see you in a bit!"
Mona's wooden staff tapped Bellona's forehead, and she felt as if her soul was being ejected from the body it inhabited. She was sent at an inconceivable speed far away. It was then that Bellona saw Earth and was rapidly approaching it.
She hit the Exosphere, then the Thermosphere, passing through the Mesosphere and the Stratosphere within an instant, and then abruptly slowing down at the Troposphere. She was in free fall through the night sky and passed by the space scrapers of New York.
She passed the skyscrapers and rapidly approached the wall close to the ground. She passed through the roof of the bloodied train car through the third floor and into the second. She then fell into her body.
With a jolt, Bellona sat up with a cold sweat on her face, a faint voice already fading into the darkness of her room.
'I can't keep waking up like this,' Bellona thought as she slowly laid down once more, falling into a dreamless and restful sleep.
...
A stray ray of sunshine awoke Bellona, she gently lifted the blanket off of herself, finding her entire body beyond the word "sore."
After lifting the blanket, Bellona seriously considered falling back to sleep again but didn't feel that it would be the best way to spend her time.
Still mentally drained from the previous day, Bellona groaned in her mind with a deep exhale from her nostrils.
'Ahh.'
She stood up with a wobble, it didn't seem to be the best idea to do anything besides lying in bed or sitting at a table.
With great strain, Bellona sat down on the ground and started stretching. One of the many things that she had learned during her time on the ground floor was that stretching daily prevented muscle cramps.
Unfortunately, even stretching felt like a herculean task.
After twenty minutes of stretching her legs, she stood up and started stretching her arms. Another twenty minutes would pass, and Bellona would wake up fully at this point.
With an alert mind and a tired body, Bellona opened the door and headed toward the cafeteria. After passing a few students returning from presumably breakfast, Bellona reached the room of feasts.
Bellona saw that the entire room was repaired throughout the night.
'Who worked all night to do this?'
Bellona admired the strength of the person or people who worked on bringing the cafeteria back to standard. The glass windows let in the morning sunlight, but the color was wrong. It wasn't golden.
'Wait, are we out of town now?'
Bellona internally rejoiced, finally free from New York at the assumption. She would miss her family, but being away from the town that nearly killed her at least a hundred times was liberating.
With a great smile on her face, Bellona entered the line for breakfast. She picked up a plate and utensils as well as several different types of egg and bacon.
At the end of the buffet, Bellona slathered all of the food on her plate in several sauces without care.
'The more, the merrier.'
She looked around for any of her new friends, quickly scanning the room once more, then finding Torm due to his hulking size. Bellona walked towards the table and found Jude, Hilia, and Michael as well.
Sitting down, Bellona joined their conversation about what types of sauce were best.