空の軌跡 // Trails in the Sky ⚔ Story Club・Week 17

Week 17 28th October 2024
Last Week Week 16
Next week Week 18
Home Thread 空の軌跡

This week there will be a number of doors with a red ! before you go in them. Go through all of them, and stop after you’ve seen the scene behind the third.

Side Quests

There are two things you’ll want to find this week, both for side quests.

One is the 指輪 from the quest you should have picked up a couple weeks ago. You can find it in a treasure chest shortly before the first door with a red !

The other is for a secret quest. You can find it between the first and second red ! doors. More specifically hidden inside a vacuum cleaner. The item is called 黒いノート if you want to double check you have the right thing.

Screenshots

Before the last door.

After the last door. (And 8 bullet points on the 3rd page of this quest.)

Vocabulary

Vocab Sheet , thank you to everyone who has been helping with this.

We also have an arts sheet if you’re struggling with the in-game version. I added a characters tab, so far all that’s there is name, age, occupation, but feel free to add any notes you think are relevant or you might want to remember.

Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.

Discussion Guidelines

Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.

  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

If necessary, include an explanation of any discrepancies in the Ebook page numbers from physical page numbers. If there is an easy shortcut for some ebook versions to relate back to physical page numbers, it would be worth it to include it as a third bullet here, or if you want to use chapter page numbers instead of volume page numbers, as is the case with some manga. For example:
Example

For the Kindle version of this manga, the page numbers and the location number are always 3 apart. If you subtract 3 from the location, this will give you the accurate page number!

OR

Please use the chapter page numbers, instead of the volume page numbers. These are located in between the panels!

Discussion Questions

  1. What sentence/passage gave you the most difficulty? Feel free to request some help, or if you figured it out on your own break it down for the rest of us!

  2. What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?

  3. Was there any passage that you found particularly intriguing? Did it resonate with you (either positively or negatively)? Was it surprising? Offer any insight or new perspective? Was it just beautifully written?

  4. How did you find the sky bandits’ hideout?

  5. What do you think is up with Cassius?

  6. Was ドルン who you expected?

Participation

Will you be playing along with us this week?

  • I’m playing along
  • I have finished this part
  • I’m still playing the game but I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I’m playing this game after the club has finished
  • I’m no longer playing the game
0 voters

If you’ve already played this game but are still going to join the discussion, please select “I have finished this part.”

Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to stay abreast of discussion!

4 Likes

Ooh, fun week.

Spoilers

When they’re hiding under the stairs in the ship’s hold, there’s a little device near them – doesn’t that look like part of what’s on the towers? If my memory isn’t mistaken.

Putting Olivier in the front to just shoot everything as fight initiation is so fun. And this week just cleaving through crowds of bandits felt great. Now I got to turn the tables on the game and apply like 3 status effects at once, watching them all stand around and do nothing until we won. Feels like I got over the hurdle and I’m having a blast now. The boss fight was cool too. Was pretty easy, but it felt like I had a lot of good tools to choose from like Joshua’s turn delay craft, the AOE arts I set up last week, Olivier’s arts cancelling move for Josette, etc. Nice bit of decision making and every enemy fought in clear, unique ways. I just noticed how crazy the amount of EP Olivier has, but I didn’t tinker with his arts setup much yet so it was harder to put to good use. And his craft where he shoots everyone in an AOE just feels extremely satisfying to use, haha.

So this week is quite a bit. I was thinking for a hideout the place looked way more like an old temple or something, so having them talk about it and what its origins might have been halfway through was nice. I would enjoy if this game’s environment design didn’t feel like such patterned, linear hallways, but there are enough other strengths it’s not a big deal. I’m really enjoying myself. Maybe as the series progresses they work on that too, who knows!

So I’m not gonna take much credit for guessing it since I just throw out every idea as it occurs, but we did at some point talk about the possibility of Cassius not being on the ship. I love how they’ve set this up because it’s still unclear what happened – did he leave at the last second to intentionally feign being on it? Or did something unexpected actually come up and make him leave instead? Knowing about him being on some big secret mission I still lean towards the former, in which case odds are better than he’s intentionally in hiding but not actually currently in danger the way our heroes had assumed. I wonder if he’s aware of Estelle and Joshua’s movements at all. Could be.

The stuff with ドルン is interesting. Everyone did keep saying he was acting out of character. That gives me the impression he’s not just losing his memory but was previously being influenced… this world has some level of magical technology but we haven’t been given any suggestion to this point, that I’ve caught anyway, of the means to manipulate someone against their will existing. But that is what it feels like and would be very on brand for this type of RPG. Hmm. Suspicious boat people are definitely pulling some strings.

4 Likes
Funny bugs

Each time some pirates attack me in a scene, the battle map that comes up is totally empty. I can’t do anything but move with a character and then I win the fight with no exp or anything. The boss was only ドルーン without his siblings, but I suspect they were supposed to be there. Sure made the fight easier but I hope I didn’t miss any good drops D: At least the monster fights are ok.

Week 17

Infiltrating the pirate’s base was fun. Everyday navigation must be tough with all those monsters in the halls. One thing that weirded me out a little was all the empty rooms. I guess that’s just a way of showing that it was supposed to be a big, ancient place that the pirates were only occupying a part of, though. The non-openable chests in some of the store rooms also fooled me at first glance. Oh the disappointment :smiling_face_with_tear:

Onドルーン, I was expecting someone who’d been given promises by the mystery baddies and was getting in over his head, not a fun big brother pirate hypnotized into being a bloodthirsty maniac. Now that hypnotism or whatever equivalent is involved, I’m going to hope for some friends-become-enemies drama down the line!

And aha, Cassius wasn’t on the boat after all. Now the question is why did he get off before takeoff. Just a hunch, but I don’t think he knew it’d be targeted. I’d expect a seemingly larger-than-life heroic character like him to confront any potential attackers rather than use everyone on the ship as a decoy.

Stopping before we chased after the Kapuas was rough!

4 Likes

Oh that bug is really weird, and kind of a shame cause those fights were really fun. Remind me, which version are you on?

1 Like

Steam version with some creative edits to make reading in Japanese possible. It’s probably the mod that’s causing the problem, so I think I might remove it, reload an earlier save to play through the base, then restore the mod to continue as usual. Kind of a pain but I’ll manage :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Ooh ok yeah, could be. Probably worth a shot! I had a similar issue with a steam mod for Dragon Quest 11 in Japanese – it didn’t break the gameplay, but it doesn’t play nice with the 2D mode and there’s a side quest line of 2D only that just becomes garbled gibberish with the mod. Unfortunate, but overall worth the hurdles if it’s making this accessible in Japanese for you.

Little spoiler

Oh and I forgot to add, thoughts on characters in general. Joshua is nice and reliable, but I’ve been kinda neutral to him as he hasn’t really hit the interesting notes for me. Probably over time when we learn more about his history I bet. But I thought in the last week or two Scherazard is hitting her stride more, the jokes with her weren’t really landing for me in the past but over time her and her punishment for the baddies is growing on me. Olivier gets better every week and so does Estelle. Love his “oh I just thought it would be interesting!” plan and Estelle’s argument with Josette was fantastic. Hoping for way more Josette just to see those two fight.

4 Likes

Iirc, you’re on the version where アクアブリード crashes the game like I am, right? Removing the high res fonts or assets might help, I’ll experiment when I get there myself. (I’ve been using the low res-copy to rush through for club planning purposes).

Speaking of, it seems the high res has been causing issues in the official English version as well. It was fine when I played, but there have since been updates where the game crashes because it doesn’t know how to interpret stuff like “[Spoiler Side Quest] Part :two:” in a high res font.

2 Likes

Yes exactly, the アクアブリード crashes really irked when we were going through the forest for the mayor’s robbery quest. Back then I experimented with all the config settings to find something that helped, and it was only after removing the mod that アクアブリード started working as intended. The disappearing pirates are the first problem I’ve had since then.

on characters

The drinking jokes are hit or miss for me (Schera please leave those children alone) but I too love the way she interrogates her enemies. The sudden change in speech style and attitude that comes over her is unexpected and really fun :smiley:

3 Likes

I really appreciate your detailed notes for missable content @RebBlue , makes playing the game a lot less stressful.

4 Likes
Summary

Ok, we have officially caught up to the story of the story I remembered. As soon as I saw the mist valley a few weeks ago I went “oooh, right, that place”.

I completely forgot that Cassius wasn’t on board though…

Aren’t you talking about the device that replenishes your health? You can actually use it if you return inside the ship when you regain control of the party (there’s nothing else to do in the ship as far as I can tell).

I was actually so absorbed by what was going on that I forgot that I was supposed to stop and kept playing :grimacing:

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:sweat_smile: got a feeling you’re not gonna have a lot to do next week

3 Likes

Speaking of next week, I’ve got it ready so here’s the thread.

2 Likes
Empty rooms

I thought the same but also was very intrigued by the room with a lone enemy at the back of it. It feels like it should serve some purpose or be special in some way but as far as I can tell it’s just a random enemy in a random room.

4 Likes
Side quests

I didn’t see that I have already pick up 指輪 as it is not in key items, but in DEF+ wearables, and can be accidentally sold. If it is sold, the quest would certainly fail.

Also, the quest won’t be completed by Chapter 1, but rather early Chapter 2.

The ring is called 貴石の指輪. I fear that I would fail the quest and got 時間切れ, so I looked up in walkthrough out of fear of failure… (Made use of Save 3,4 too, btw.)

2 Likes

I just always do the quests immediately (when possible, which it isn’t for the ring obviously) so that I don’t have to worry about running out of time. And of course I always check @RebBlue extremely helpful side quest guide every week, so it’s fairly stress-free.

I also never sell anything in this game, I don’t find that it’s too difficult to get Mira when necessary, and I don’t mind not always getting the top gear (and you can usually find better gear in subsequent dungeons anyway).

3 Likes

I forgot a hidden side quest in early in Chapter 2, so seeing the OP mentioning hidden side quest actually makes stress.

2 hours are wasted, and there is no fast forward, nor skip button.

I didn’t use new save every time (minimize overwrite). Maybe I should now, as the best way secondary to continuously checking the walkthrough (and still keeping the fun and thrill).

There is auto save, but it’s like once every minutes, and up to 10 saves.

But why don’t you read the OP first? Then you won’t miss it.

I also ran out of save slots this week… I need to do some backups.

1 Like

I’m trying to keep a balance between not spoiling what’s going on in a week, pointing out what’s missable because they are not obvious, and not dictating how to handle things. Like, the burglary at the end of the prologue, everyone will do that as it’s part of the main plot, so I’m not going to tell people exactly what to investigate or what the answers to Schera’s questions were.

So you don’t need to worry the Side Quest tab is going to spoil such things. It’s a list of what is available on the board, what’s hidden (with spoiler tags if you want to try and look for it yourself), and the occasional extra thing like the fishing minigame (where again I used spoiler tags for people who want to discover things for themselves).

I’m sorry you find the hidden side quests stressful, but other members of the club find them useful so I’m not removing them. I’m not entirely sure what you want me to do differently…

1 Like

Don’t remove it, plz, imo

A little worry is fun.

I should also add that there is another possibility of missing the ring side quest by letting Schera or Olivier equip the ring.

Why did you run out of save slots? Where did you save?