空の軌跡 // Trails in the Sky ⚔ Story Club・Week 28

Week 28 13th January 2025
Last Week Week 27
Next week Week 29
Home Thread 空の軌跡

Be prepared for some unpausable lines right off the bat. We’re stopping once you’ve signed in to the next guild branch.

Side Quests
  • メーヴェ街道の手配魔獣2

Technically this was last week’s but it was literally unmissable so it didn’t register as a side thing in my brain and I forgot to mention it.

Next chapter of the book is available. Where to find: school, clubhouse, upstairs, talk to パープル.

Remember there’s more optional content than I can count. For example, you can investigate the weird machine you ran past last week.

You can pick up the new quests ready for next week if you want.

Screenshot

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.

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. What did you make of the scene at the waterfalls?

  5. Did anyone take the time to read ティータ’s long explanation?

  6. How do you like the new town?

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

Zeiss time!

Something about this town always felt very relaxed to me when I was playing, I hope people enjoy it.

7 Likes

Oh that’s cool. I don’t remember exactly at what point I dropped the game when I first played it all those years ago but I’m pretty sure that it was during the Ruan arc, so this is all new to me. And I love towns in RPGs!

I won’t even listen to your youtube video, I want to discover it all when I get there!

4 Likes
Spoilers

I think this gives way more credence to the secret princess theory? That’s what was in my head the whole time reading it, now.

Traveling through a big tunnel to the next town was an interesting surprise. It didn’t give me the same laid back big journey feeling from last time, but that works. It’s a more efficient path carved out for reaching this technologically advanced town – makes sense. The moment you step in there the feeling is different. I just poked my head in the cave for 1 second then left on the assumption a sidequest or something might bring me back, but I loved the atmosphere from that quick peek. It’s so blue!

They sure are rubbing in the Joshua/Estelle romance hard. Again, I’m kinda whatever about it, but I don’t want to be hammered with it defining their relationship too much. Them in the town later kinda playfully bickering was much more enjoyable.

I didn’t explore the town much yet, but this game does a fantastic job making all the towns distinct and based on some interesting local type of business. I can at least report that you can run down the escalator the wrong way, for those of you who follow rules. I always think the big, more industrialized cities in JRPGs are really cool.

Love seeing our new party member already. Early impression is that she’s probably AoE based? Which is always appreciated. I didn’t fight with her enough to build and try her craft, cause I had been fighting plenty before and didn’t feel like continuing, but it mentioned being an AoE attack and even her basic attack seems to hit in a ring. Her HP is terribly low and her basic orbment setup didn’t seem too strong either, but if she gets some decent crafts, AoE is so good in this game. Her fighting voice line (I think it was い。。。いきます ) is gonna be a little much to hear 100 times but otherwise the character is amusing. Baby with a grenade launcher basically.

I appreciated the full text window explanation haha, glad they do things like that. Or make Estelle’s single line shouts take up half the screen. Can feel them doing a lot to make presentation playful and more impactful with limited technical resources. Even Agate’s swordfight was pretty cool.

4 Likes

Who are you and what is this avatar?

4 Likes

Still figuring that out over time

A very different picture of my Splatoon character from my old one, haha.

Someone else already mentioned almost not recognizing me haha; these changes are too disruptive.

4 Likes

It’s like you drastically changed your haircut or something. Wild.

5 Likes
saying goodbye to クローゼ

Having just gone through this scene with her, I would now be more surprised if she wasn’t a secret princess :joy:

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You are supposed to be blue.

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If it helps, I am, like, emotionally.

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Croze

Of note is that Yuria uses the word 参上 which according to my dictionary is used with superiors.

So apparently this imperial lieutenant considers a schoolgirl her superior…

Also I just remembered that I never checked out that monster chest in the tower that @Daisoujou referenced a few weeks ago, I’ll have to reload a save and look into that.

5 Likes

I can’t believe I only now found out that you could open the full area map with SELECT…

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I can’t believe I only now found out you were functioning without a map…

4 Likes

Backtracking builds character.

6 Likes

There are many dungeons without maps, though. Like one just north to Kardia tunnels.

And you are somehow white, just never change colors.


リベール通信 newsletters are somehow interesting. I am missing #1 and #5. Also カーネリア #3.

found a cat 🐈️

4 Likes

Antoine is a French name, it should say みゃおう!

3 Likes

No, the M sounds tend to be kitten noises, Antoine is an adult cat.

4 Likes
zeiss

The song that plays during the fight between the masked person and Agathe is hype, but also its title seems spoilery so I will refrain from linking it here.

They mention that the royal jubilee is one month away which should give us a notion of how much time will pass by the time were done with Zeiss. I can’t quite tell how much in-universe time is supposed to have elapsed since the beginning of the game. Maybe a month?

I didn’t expect Zeiss to be that industrial but I dig it. I especially like the verticality, all other cities were pretty flat (Bose had some stairs but nothing quite like that).

With the music it feels almost like a MegaMan level.

There’s a bunch of stuff to explore in the main building, including what seems to be the start of a hidden side-quest and a couple callbacks to previous side missions. It reminds me of the Shinra tower, but less evil (so far at least).

I couldn’t resist and pushed to the onsen which, I’m pleased to report, is indeed quite comfy.

4 Likes

The first newspaper of the game says the royal jubilee is half a year away, so it’s been about 5 months so far. Back at the start, Cassius said the job he was going on would take about a month so the prologue alone is probably about that long.

4 Likes

I wonder when all this dead time would have occurred. Some amount of time did pass at the school but that couldn’t have been months.

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