Another Volume done. Thank you everyone for supporting Heaven's Calling for 2 whole months, it's been quite fun uncovering the mysteries of Heaven 2.0 bit by bit with you all. This time, we've seen more of the individual characters' stories, which really helped formulate the overarching plot in my opinion. I hope there aren't many Haunt fans so far, because he kind of got overshadowed in favor of the rest of the cast. He'll get his screentime soon, I suppose.
I wanted Vastoria to be trapped inside the Shrine for the entirety of the Volume as a sort of subplot, but I figured just having an innocent soul like her explore the dangerous depths would be too boring of a task to take on alone, so I gave her Energy. This one legged, one Eyed, golden brained beast of a man hailed from an era in the Living World that was plagued with what appeared to be a zombie apocalypse. Certainly, his is a story just waiting to be told as a standalone series. Look forward to that, I'm very excited about the ideas I have in store for him!
We learned a lot more about the shopkeeper system, as well as the perks that come along with it. Sheep wasn't originally meant to be that important of a character, but he quickly grew on me, so I kept him around, which is good too, because I needed someone to help relay the exposition to our amnesic protagonist Maggie. We also got to see an angel become a seraphim directly through Sab, further expanding on both his and Throne's character. He's still a bit new to it all, but with Throne's expert guidance, I'm sure he'll be fine.
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The Shrine's perils were interesting to write. I always did like dungeon crawlers, but it gets difficult to come up with challenges that don't grow stale. Guess I'm not cut out for Dungeons and Dragons... Well, my poor writing aside, I still had a blast detailing all the gruesome gore Vastoria and Energy had to endure to get through it all. With a story like Heaven's Calling, it's obvious to anyone that gore is something that just won't happen unless I go about it like this. This is also why fight scenes kind of make no sense on the surface, as neither side can feel no pain and take no damage. There aren't any stakes, hence there's no thrill in writing it.
The same definitely can't be said for the mystery aspect, however! In just one Volume, we've learned so much about Heaven, seraphim, the Gods, the Shrine, as well as the characters who didn't get their time in the spotlight before. Hopefully after the latest development, Haunt will be upgraded from a mere brute with PTSD to something more.
As for why everyone can remember the previous day just fine despite not being seraphim nor shopkeepers, that will all be explained in due time. There are still plenty of mysteries to solve in Heaven 2.0, so I do hope you continue to support me as you have until now.
This is your friendly neighborhood Mikan Akai, signing out!