空の軌跡SC // Trails in the Sky SC ⚔ Story Club・Week 14

Week 14 1st December 2025
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Next Week Week 15
Home Threads 空の軌跡 // SC

This week we’re finishing Chapter 2 and continuing to complete the first side quest of Chapter 3.

Side Quests and Missable Content

Chapter 2:
アビスワーム battle tip: kill these one at a time. Whenever one takes damage, it does the AoE attack on its next turn.

Chapter 3:
宿泊客の捜索

Screenshot

Vocabulary

Vocab Sheet, thank you to everyone who helps with this.

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 do you think of ヴァルター?

  5. Which battle gave you the most difficulty?

  6. Do you have any expectations going into Chapter 3?

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.”

Party Members Poll
  • アガット
  • エステル
  • オリビエ
  • クローゼ
  • シェラザード
  • ジン
  • ティータ
0 voters

By the way, leaving this hidden to hide when future characters join.

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

6 Likes
ステキー!愛してるー!

Olivier is never leaving my party.

There’s my little fight CG for this version.

Onsen cave dungeon was kinda fun. Layout was nothing crazy but it gave me this feeling that it was kind of disorienting, yet I went to the boss without trouble, so maybe it was well set up. Glad I stopped at the healing spring first near the boss (not that I really needed it, but for the party scene). The worms were pretty fun, but I did see the tip in time so I was carefully taking them out one at a time. New sunglasses guy feels like an FF7 turk or something at times; he’s not as good as the previous villain but I like him well enough.

Now that ジン is here I can bench him forever! Associating a couple characters with him made me drop my estimation of them. Maybe that’s not fair, I’ve been a little underwhelmed by how Tita is scaling with the challenges recently so it’s possible I need to re-evaluate people. But I’m way more tempted for gameplay and personality reasons to swap in クローゼ. I don’t feel like I need her heals since Olivier and Tita can both pitch in with AoE heal crafts when necessary, but with a good arts setup I’m sure she can probably hit well.

Having Agate made the conversation about bringing Tita along a cute little moment of character development where he supports her joining. Was glad to have him along to get that scene. He kinda alternates just being all business a little much in a not very interesting way as he has to be the party’s guardian figure, but when he has his moments I like them quite a bit.

I basically understood everything they yapped about at the fort cutaway but it also just rolled off my brain immediately, the soldiers rambling isn’t doing it for me. Well, I guess we know about a break-in plot now, so maybe that returning lady is our villain of the week for next chapter. She’s alright, I suppose I’m down for that.

Fuck that penguin. The Penguin Alarm was funny but we got cycled hard with sleep, confusion, types of attacks locked… it took so long. Part of me is coming around to being glad status effects are as disruptive and terrible as they are if it’s gonna have them. Maybe it’s stockholm syndrome. But I dunno, the heavy punishment parts in a game are memorable if I don’t lose my mind in the middle of the penguin beam coming out too fast for people to move for the 5th time in a row. We won first try so who am I to complain too much, even if we burned a lot of items in the process. びっくりクッキー saved the day once again.

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I am also excited to report that now that I don’t need the text hooker, I worked on a little project for way too long today:

Getting save files from the emulator to actually work on here is absolute hell. Warn your children not to end up like me.

6 Likes

Oh wow, nice. Are you now getting the text from the Vita to PC connection somehow?

This week:

I missed that :skull: did the left-wall-hug strategy.
I hope I’m not missing out on any gossip or something :grin:

They said Kilika was the Taito Sensei’s… and Kilika cut it off there. I’m guessing daughter, what does everyone think? Since they said she’s not his student, but it seems like she also does the Taito style (like Jin and Walter).

It’s funny how all of the enforcers so far seem to be leagues stronger than us, they could just kill us with the snap of a finger if they wanted to. I’m guessing they see us as flies not worth swatting away. Looks like we’re going to have to get a lot stronger.

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Nah I’m largely comfortable just reading on my own so I’ve been freeing myself of the text hooker and instant lookups entirely. That’s a benefit of a long running club like this haha, I get to see how I’ve improved withing the same sort of thing. I’m just comfortable doing quick phone lookups when I need to. I’m reading 人間失格 right now as a physical novel so Trails is so big deal :sweat_smile:

The scene was short at least! It was fun banter but it’s ok.

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(offtopic) Hah, that’s the first Japanese book I started reading earnestly, as it’s one of my favorites I read in English before I learned Japanese, but I stopped somewhere because I was preparing for the JLPT and the language was way too flowery/old-fashioned and the sentences way too long to be the best practice for a JLPT. But I’ll definitely pick it up again at some point. And some Natsume Sōseki.

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Hey good picks, Soseki is also someone I really want to get to. I’ve got Kokoro on hand so maybe before too long. I have read 夢十夜 a while back, was super hard at the time. Probably still would be cause I feel like it was just using words for things that don’t really exist in the present day all the time.

5 Likes

Kokoro is fantastic. It also seems like a classic that’s often referenced in anime and so on.
My favorite is probably And Then, and Sanshiro is also good.
It’s been a few years since I’ve read them though, so I should re-read them in Japanese :slight_smile:

5 Likes
W14

I didn’t read the spoilers and didn’t get that the worms would counter-attack with that powerful AoE. On top of that I entered the fight with Croze having like 15MP…

I wish the game would telegraph boss battles a bit more so that I can avoid them until I finish exploring the dungeons. I missed at least one branch of the onsen cave and the stalagtite cave because of that, and of course they teleport you out when you beat the boss!

I noticed that the stalagtite cave was walled off when we arrived, I assumed that they removed it from this game to save some space but they kept it for one last subquest. Why not.

I too enjoyed the onsen cave, the gimmick with the geysers alone made it more interesting than basically every single other dungeon so far. Not a high bar to clear in this game, unfortunately.

I also lost focus during the army dialogue. Doesn’t help that it happens right after that long discussion at the guild. Can’t believe Yuria would dare face Cassius in a duel (he’s S-rank).

Still zero interest in the Ourobouros plot. I’ll engage whenever the game feels like giving us some clear motives besides “I’M LIVING FOR THE THRILL”. I like how they let the sunglass guy just walk out. Well played Jin.

A bit sad that we’re returning to the capital so soon. I would have preferred to revisit Rolent or Bose first.

I kept my current team with Croze and Tita. I think gameplay-wise Olivier would be a better choice but I like Tita and I find Croze’s dialogue more interesting and plot-relevant usually.

Also we have a blatant instance of that thing I talked about in the FC thread last week: “hey should we take that 12yo kid with us as we face incredible dangers and instant death awaits at every corner? No, right? Ok but, hear me out, what if we did tho?”

5 Likes

Also I like the escalation of now keeping party members instead of having them rotate for plot-related reasons. We’re assembling the Dream Team! (+ Jin)

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I just noticed that I posted this back in September:

They should have asked me and saved themselves a whole lot of trouble tbh.

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Week 14

I also didn’t read the spoilers and didn’t catch on to how the worms counterattack, but still made it through alright because I tend to focus down targets one at a time anyway. The struggle for me was the sidequest boss. My whole party was vulnerable to confuse and the no-attack effect, and I ended up draining all my MP to get that monster 12000 hp penguin! Thank goodness everybody was a competent arts user (Shera + Olivier + クローゼ).

ヴァルター is a funny one. Is it strange that as soon as I saw him I thought he looked like a discount Reno (from FF7)? So close to being him, but not quite!There’s clearly a lot of history to be explored between him and Jin and Kirika, which I’m interested in despite Jin being a part of it.

Tbh I might like Jin more if he’s got some drama going on with the enemy, since so far he’s been like a lesser version of Cassius almost. Kind of an older, parental type figure that’s hyper competent and knowledgeable, but keeping secrets and never taking charge of the rest of the protagonists. It doesn’t help that he was Cassius’s minion in FC!

5 Likes

next week is now here!

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Week 14

Before, I played ahead before stopping at the misty cave, thinking that the map is confusing (getting lost, no minimap) and monsters are getting strong.

Actually, going ahead a little bit and I will meet onsen :hot_springs: (I thought Olivier was joking) and the worms :worm::worm:. AoE hits hard in addition to hit everyone. I let being beaten on the first time without wasting potions. Second try, don’t know how, maybe attacking a worm and area heal, and also :cookie::cookie:? And then I made new cookies with recipe.

Maybe 受付 is the strongest? Heir of the arts, maybe?

My choice of the new party are new people – Jin and Kroze for me. I just want to see their random talk. Poor Tita, got permission from gramps only to be left sitting and waiting.

Giant penguin :penguin: is also a big trouble. Now I know why the cave was always no-entry. Nice echo, and then as expected (though not monsters in the box). All minions eliminated first, but this penguin has a lot of health. And a lot of status attacks. Confused particularly.

I forgot what the status icons are called, and used a wrong potion. (Still better than healing a wrong person.) Bracer guide can only be looked at outside the battle.

I wonder if anyone tried cat suit? It could be the last chance.

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What’s that? I don’t remember getting a cat suit…

1 Like
It's in a shop at Zeiss

鈴の付いた首輪がかわいい

seems weak, but with ??? effect

6 Likes

Ooh I missed that. Reading the wiki and forum discussions online, it’s part of a set of cat-themed gear that, when equipped in full, gives a big boost to speed. Apparently it’s more of a joke thing and not particularly useful.

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