Trails in the Sky #13 Who Needs Ren Faire?

RECAP: Worth It?

Still too cheap to hire bodyguards, I see

The next morning, after a brief meeting in the theater to sort out affairs, a PA sounds and the 52^nd Jenis Royal Academy campus festival begins. People of all ages from around the world storm the campus gates, cramming their faces into all of the booths and attractions strewn across the campus. Not wanting to miss out on any of said face cramming, Estelle and co. enjoy themselves as well. Unsurprisingly, the gang runs into a fair number of friends (Nial, Maybelle, Lila, & Alba) and assholes acquaintances (Duke Dunan) while exploring. Near the classrooms, they also happen to run into the precocious orphan children and Matron Teresa. Joshua senses that the matron wants to speak of more serious affairs, however, so he tactfully entices the children to go and examine the costumes in the play so that the women can talk.

After much thought, the matron decided that she will refuse Mayor Dalmore’s offer and depart with the children to Grancel via airship. This saddens the girls, but they respect her decision and leave to rendezvous with Joshua and the children. Alas, though they manage to find the children in the costume room, Joshua is mysteriously absent. One of the children, Polly, comments that he went to go and look for the man with silver hair who helped the orphans evacuate during the fire. Apparently, Joshua spotted the man for a moment, but none of the other orphans noticed, so no one questioned

Bird telepathy: get on it Science

his leaving. Estelle and Kloe go looking for him.

Rather than aimlessly wandering around however, Kloe asks Sieg (the gryfalcon) if he saw where Joshua went and directs the girls towards the old campus. After some prudent searching, they eventually find him on the roof, sans one silver-haired man over easy. As one would expect the girls take a moment to chastise Joshua for abandoning the children, he apologizes and adds that he did not think the man was the arsonist, but before any substantive discussion about his findings can occur, the timely PA sounds alerting the young actors that it is almost time to take to the stage. So, not wanting to disappoint the visitors, everyone heads over to the auditorium changing room to prepare for the play.

*I don’t think any summary can do the play justice, so here is the entirety of Madrigal of the White Magnolia in all its splendor*

The actors and the orphans celebrate the success of the play in the costume room. Jill and Hans leave under mysterious circumstances during the conversation. However, the matron breaks up the positivity by declaring that she plans to leave Manoria the following day. The children overhear her declaration, and are decidedly curious. Perplexingly, the Dean suddenly walks into the room to praise the students for their play performance. He goes on to offer his condolences toward the matron’s situation, just before Jill and Hans re-enter the room and hand the matron a thick envelope with the Royal Academy seal. The student council president shares that the annual charity collection box for this year was secretly targeted towards rebuilding the orphanage. The celebrities (Mayor

Maybelle, Duke Dunan, etc.) attending the festivities, as well as the tragedy of the matron’s circumstances inspired people to donate over a million mira(!) in total, fully covering the rebuilding expenses and then some. Matron Theresa, Kloe, and the bracers are all overjoyed by this sudden upturn of events. Tears of joy are shed, Feels are felt, and the matron and orphans return to Manoria (escorted by Carna) with newfound relief.

Yet people somehow couldn't guess why women
were fainting all the time

Meanwhile the bracers do their due diligence and clean up the festivities until day gives way to sunset. After completing their task they bid thanks and farewell to the Jenis academy and its students. Kloe, however is not quite content yet, and entreats to accompany the pair at least as far as the coastal road. She also notes that Sieg seems to be missing. Regardless, they reach their destination within a few minutes and say goodbye one last time…until a young man from Manoria named Zack (the NPCs have names after all), huffs and puffs his way to the gang to deliver the horrible news that someone attacked the matron and the kids near Manoria.

Fortunately, everyone survived with minimal injury, but the gang, shocked & sickened by the nasty event, race down to Manoria to check up on the now twice misfortunate victims of fate. At the village, the bracers ask the Orphan children what transpired. Accoridng to Clem, masked men attacked Carna and them, first surrounding the bracer and incapacitating her with sleep powder, then doing the same to the Matron. They also pried the envelope from the Matron’s warm impotent fingers, frustrating and frightening the children. Rather than erupting emotionally, however, Kloe begins working through the events analytically to determine their next course of action.

That is my kind of rudeness!

At the same time, Agate bursts through the door (apparently after hearing about the incident from the guild), and alerts the group that the Ravens are also mysteriously absent from the warehouse district. With no time to waste Agate verbally pushes everyone outside to search for where the Matron was attacked. Alas, by this time night has fallen and the gang can no longer find their destination with ease. But, just before anger could set in Sieg screes out from the dark, and “tells” Kloe that he was watching the Matron and saw where the assailants ran off. Agate isn’t quite sold on the whole bird-telepathy concept yet, but follows despite his reservations. After some time of following the Gryfalcon beyond Manoria, he finally halts his flight at Varenne lighthouse (A.K.A. Vogt’s lighthouse). Agate expresses his disdain for entering the lighthouse with the Junior bracers in tow (particularly because the assailants managed to incapacitate Carna), but the teens hold fast and enter the lighthouse despite his warning. Agate joins them.

Well, That Happened

I almost regret running through this segment as swiftly as I did, since I found myself too compelled to see how events wrapped up to stop and analyze what was going on until I saw the events' conclusion. Also it has been about three weeks since I played this section, so recalling what was going through my head at these particular moments is a bit challenging.

With that said, through writing this summary and determining which parts to omit and which to abridge, I noticed just how consequential so many small causal details are in this story preventing it from falling apart. Carna, for instance, numbered among the NPCs during the festivities and if you

Even the smallest of plot details are all justified,
such as why someone would just happen to be running
down the road at this particular time.

talk to her she explains that she is there for security (which makes sense, given how understaffed the guild is). Because she was the only person on sight who could escort the Matron other than the bracers, the writers needed to find a way to justify the defeat of one of the most talented fighters in the land by unknown assailants. The use of sleeping powder, (which Joshua identifies, further adding to the supposition that he has a checkered past), thus provides an answer to their conundrum, and informs us of what kind of people we are dealing with; not bandits, but trained thieves or assassins who were likely contracted.

This care given to plot consistency shouldn’t be anything too noteworthy as most every story good or bad (should) do just this, but considering how many increasingly small minutiae of details end up culminating in large plot movements like the ones witnessed above, it’s a bit of a wonder that the company has been able to keep so many of them straight all the while ensuring that the player is never left questioning why something happened. This is also due in part to their amazing foreshadowing, however, seeing as how talking about the foreshadowing runs a great risk of spoiling the events being foreshadowed, it would perhaps be best to save it for the next entry where we finally see where all of this drama is leading.

*Unfortunately, since I’ve now explored every area in this chapter, I did not have the opportunity to open any treasure chests during this session. Or the next one (I think). However, I will have something else (not nearly as snarky, however) to compensate in about two updates. For now, here is a line of dialogue, uttered by an NPC this session who was left out of the update. It is also a clue as to what my “something else” is, though unless you’ve completed the game before, I doubt you’ll guess what it pertains to. Enjoy.*

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NEXT: #14 Steel Hearts