空の軌跡SC // Trails in the Sky SC ⚔ Story Club・Week 19

[RebBlue]

Week 19	12th January 2026
Last Week	Week 18
Next Week	Week 20
Home Threads	空の軌跡 // SC

This week’s stopping point is once you get a choice of who is in your party.

Side Quests and Missable Content

Nothing this week.

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. How’s your suspencion of disbelief holding up?

5. Did you have any difficulty with the battles?

6. What are your expectation going forward?

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

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
• アネラス
• エステル
• オリビエ
• クローゼ
• ケビン
• シェラザード
• ジン
• ティータ
• ユリア

(You shouldn’t have a choice until the end of this week.)

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

[Daisoujou]

Dark City (1998)

It was all correct! That’s so funny, I love this. It’s the most ridiculous outcome and strains the whole child thing even further but I am enjoying it a lot. So the professor seems to just raise child soldiers, it seems? What a guy. Whatever you think about our villain of the week being a baby, it’s good to have more of a connection to another one of them that we built through the game.

The fights were pretty easy but fun enough. I’m mad at the game for forever holding アネラス at arm’s length but it’s nice to have Schera back. Disappointed that I apparently committed to Agate for life though. I was thinking maybe I’d be able to swap him for Schera now, which I was excited to do, but I don’t think I want both, because I want to keep Olivier and Kloe…

Anyway this arc ran a little long before getting started and I feel like something in those moments could have been improved. Like I said if it was up to me, I think the side quest thief hunt is a pace killer because that’s mostly what you spend the main quest doing over and over. That said this outcome is really amusing to me and they were clearly dropping hints in increasingly obvious, funny ways (I do think I was right to find it suspicious that she started dropping crazy riddles).

Kevin reveals are… pretty straightforward really, I mean we already saw him doing a little artifact investigation early on. What you see is what you get I guess. He is fun to have around so it’s a shame he’s gone already.

I’m not sure I’ve ever before seen the word 昼行灯, that’s a fun one.

[Sasabonsam]

Week 19

I knew it, an anime character wearing a black bow in purple hair had to be at least a little villainous!! Except I was expecting something more like… a spy, you know? Versus a giant scythe wielding, giant robot riding “殲滅天使”. Though Joshua did talk about how he was a killer who could take out brawny bodyguards when he was a little kid at the end of FC, so it’s not totally unexpected. I just tend to imagine more grounded versions of these things in my head before they appear in all their over-the-top anime glory.

The オルグイユ chase/fight was a fun sequence, in part because when it moved it sounded like a rusty bicycle about to lose a wheel. It wasn’t too difficult to clean it up, but having unexpected controllable party members Kevin and Yuria was a nice surprise. We’ve had Kevin in our party before but at the time I missed the chance to see his CP special move. I saw it here and giving everybody 2x max guard is very cool, I can see it being the saving grace in difficult boss fights. If we had a choice, I’d totally give him Kuroze’s spot in the party.

The conversation between the baddies near the end of the section spells trouble for Estelle. The pirates were seen stealing their old ship so maybe a big confrontation between ouroboros, Joshua, and our team is coming up next chapter? I don’t remember enough about the final conversation in the guild to feel any confidence in this guess, though. This is why you don’t stay up late playing the weekly game session in one sitting and tell yourself ‘my brain is tired, I can write my impressions down in the morning’.

[simias]

My Vita is having hardware issues

I can’t boot up the game, it just crashes the entire console.

I blame the Ouroboros.

[simias]

I managed to import the save on my computer, all good!

So we have to save the brat and the duke? Mmmh, how about we return chilling in the onsen instead?

[simias]

shenanigans on the docks

A lot of new music! And cool action that resolves a lot of the things previously set up instead of introducing more mystery! And no wild goose chase!

Since I play on desktop now I can share the cool screenshots:

Now having 4 fights in a row without healing is really mean. Fortunately Kevin’s healing art came in clutch.

Also:

Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

Indeed.

Oh my god I pressed a wrong button and closed the emulator without saving… Who’s 鈍い now?

[RebBlue]

Oh no XD, good luck redoing those fights!

[simias]

shenanigans on the dock, cont.

Ok I went through the fights once again… It’s not hard but these bosses have a lot of HP!

If I had a cent every time I played a game where a girl is in a pink mecha this week I’d have two cents.

Ren, I can forgive conspiracies to overthrow the government and bad hide-and-seek quests, but I draw the line at gender essentialism.

It’s funny how the pink mecha isn’t the only Xenogears similarity this week: we also have the Church in charge of dealing with the ancient artifacts.

I wonder when we’ll finally have something to do with those ancient towers. Surely the 輝く環 has something to do with those?

And we’re leaving for Bose! Finally done with Grancel for the time being it seems.

I really enjoyed this week! Happy to see things finally moving forward.

[simias]

@Daisoujou

I’m not sure I’ve ever before seen the word 昼行灯, that’s a fun one.

I noticed that too. “A lantern at noon”. Pretty fun image. I enjoyed 鵜呑み too, although it must not be the first time we encounter it is since I have it in my backlog of “kanji to add to my anki deck”.

In the same vein 波止場 was a new word for me and, thanks to the power of kanji, I immediately memorized it. It’s always fun how kanji make everything a lot harder when you start learning Japanese, but once you know enough of them it boosts your reading comprehension tremendously.

After playing a few old-school kana-only games recently, it felt nice to have proper spelling!

@Sasabonsam

The オルグイユ chase/fight was a fun sequence,

By the way, what is this katakana soup supposed to mean? Is it just a made-up word? My only guess was “orgueil” (French for “pride” but generally with a negative connotation, like “prideful” or “haughty”).

[RebBlue]

@simias

My only guess was “orgueil” (French for “pride” but generally with a negative connotation, like “prideful” or “haughty”).

That’s probably it, the localisation goes with Orgueille.

[RebBlue]

Onto chapter 4!

空の軌跡SC // Trails in the Sky SC Story Club・Week 20

Week 20 19th January 2026 Last Week Week 19 Next Week Week 21 Home Threads 空の軌跡 // SC This week’s stopping point is when you get control after seeing chapter four’s title screen. Side Quests and Missable Content 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…