Dear reader, you are about to embark on quite the journey.

Becoming an angel is not for the faint-hearted; I would know. I was once an angel, and I was the best at it. I was the most perfect angel there was, holding all of the virtues close to my soul, guiding those who were lost.

Never mind the fact that I'm now fallen. Those other angels were just jealous, which really, they say is a sin, so who should actually be fallen, huh?

That's beside the point.

You're here to learn to be the best angel. They'll tell you pride and greed are sins, and that you shouldn't strive to be the best, just 'good enough,' whatever that means, but they're wrong. Angels should aim for the highest spot, because what's more heavenly than the highest position? People don't go up if they weren't at least a little concerned with their image.

Level-headedness is truly the key to being the best angel. Once you're more experienced, and they start landing you with more difficult charges, you'll need to keep that anger out. The moment you snap on a mortal, they'll pluck you right out of your position. We'll discuss how to deal with difficult charges and the process of being booted in later chapters, of course. But we first need to address how you're going to keep yourself sane in the early days.

And that's what this chapter aims to do; get you recruited.

You'll be assigned mortals on the Earthly plane, once you've been inducted officially as an angel. If possible, you want to ensure you get a virtuous charge. It's hard to do so. Usually they'll try to assign new recruits to the more sinful mortals. It weeds out the angels who aren't that good at their job. But if you manage a goody-two-shoes charge, or even a charge with a very easily pipeline to redemption, you'll be golden. It'll get you a leg up on the other angel rookies, since they'll likely be at the end of their fuse once they've had to deal with a tricky charge, and the higher-ups will take note of your steadiness in comparison.

It'll also give you more confidence in your angel abilities. While the other angels are silently raging about their current charge, you'll be pleased in knowing that your job is uncomplicated. While pride is technically a sin, confidence is not, and in my personal opinion, confidence is required. You can't get mortals to listen to you if you sound like you don't know what you're doing, right?

Which leads me to speaking to your first charge. If you don't get a pleasurable charge, it will be hard to keep your tone adequately peaceful. You may feel like yelling. Do not do that. The higher-ups will find out, and they will not be so kind. Trust me.

If your charge begins to take an attitude with you, remember; this is a mortal. If you cannot succeed in redeeming them, they will be dead very soon. You may take joy in that, as long as you do not voice that feeling out loud, because you will find that mortals do not enjoy when their guardian is thrilled by the prospect of their death. What you can tell them, however, is that should they continue pestering you, they may find themselves going down. It's not technically against the heavenly virtues, and it generally does the job of shutting them up.

I dearly hope this has served as a useful introduction to the world of angels. Despite my recent firing, I think you will find my tricks useful when given your first charge. Especially when we get to the chapter where I instruct on threatening your charge while avoiding angelic punishment. You can take my word for it that each threat has been thoroughly tested against the guardrails.