It's been two years since Jesse and Petra left Beacontown, to explore the great unknown.
But when Jesse receives a message from Lukas, calling her back to Beacontown, she knows something is wrong.
Soon, what started out to be a small problem, turns...
SBTL has a lot of hidden easter eggs, secrets and small details hidden in it. Today I'm going to share with you some of those secrets, as well as a few things from the creation process of the story you might find interesting!
I hope you enjoy!
- I came up with the idea for this story, the night before we left on holiday, simply getting the idea 'what if Soren had another command block, and came back evil?' The whole story stemmed from that idea.
- I went into this story completely blind. I had no plot planned whatsoever, other than a few key-points of the story. I just kind of let the story unfold itself.
- I decided I wanted to give Petra some sort of pet. Something she'll love, that could end up being her weakness. Something she has to fight for, other than her friends. That's the main reason Rascal was created. I decided Rascal was a wolf pup, the moment I wrote it. Didn't beforehand even know what type of animal I was giving Petra, but as I came to that point – I chose him to be a wolf.
- I had the scene idea in mind, where Jesse goes to Petra's room and find her friend missing, Petra's bandanna lying on the floor, sword left up against the wall. I had no idea where I wanted to use that scene, as I created it in my head before I even came up with the idea of the curse. And so, one thing lead to another.
- Various times in this book, the team expresses concern for not knowing how to go up against Soren, or what their next plan would be. This is a bit of an easter egg – every time Jesse felt some sort of hopelessness, or was out of ideas, represented a part in the book where I was stuck with writer's block!
- Stella was originally meant to get caught up in the mess, and – much to Petra's annoyance – be a big part of the story. That idea kind of slipped away as the story progressed. But at least she got a new Llama out of it!
- Lleah the llama originally had a different name, but right as I was drafting out her chapter, I read another mcsm fanfiction with a head character that had the same name. Kinda felt like a copycat, even though I didn't know, so I changed it!
- The bridge incident was inspired a real life event, of a man that went mountain climbing with his dog and was seriously injured. It was confirmed that he probably wouldn't have made it through the few cold nights he had to endure, had it not been for his dog who never left his side. Took some inspiration from that, with Petra being turned at the time, keeping Jesse warm and constantly licking her to her up when she lost consciousness
- There were five people awaiting Jesse and her friends at Soren's fortress. Descriptions of them were pretty vague, I only mentioned them to be two woman, and three men. It is also vaguely mentioned that two of the men had brown hair, one black hair, but that's about it.These five people, are actually represented by five other variants of Jesse! Just the appearances, they have nothing to do with her, other than being Soren's slaves.
They are represented by these five Jesses:
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- Originally, I planned to have everybody get cursed throughout the book, not just Jesse and Petra. The idea got scrapped pretty quickly however
(Although I would have loved to have Lukas run around as an ocelot...)
- Jesse was meant to turn in the story, but the way things unfolded I decided to scratch it out. But, I'm keeping her animal form a mystery, as you'll probably see consequences of this resurfacing in one of the two future books.
- Jesse's animal form is actually not something found in normal minecraft (probably in some mod tho). I hate to disappoint everybody who theorized her to turn into a pig or a llama, but Jesse actually would have been something a bit more feline, which contrasted with Petra being a wolf.
- Rascal used to have brown eyes... I lost track of where or why I changed it to blue.
- Probably read this in chapter 39's outline, but Jesse was originally going to die at the end of the book! That changed when I got the idea for Night of the Mobs, however.
- The Nether Star sword is based on my all-time favourite minecraft mod; Advanced Combat
- I rewrote 90% of Petra's parts in this book, because first time round I really butchered her personality... I'm happy to say I think I nailed her second time 'round xD
I think this about sums up all the hidden secrets, easter eggs and small details in this book!
I really like throwing in some small secrets that has nothing to do with the story – such as Soren's slaves all being Jesses!
It was a ton of fun to go back through this book and dig up everything I snuck in there while writing the story, and I hope you all found these mine details interesting and/or funny. I hope you enjoyed reading them, as much as I enjoyed writing them!
And now, it's finally time for me to mark this book as 'completed' :')
