Title: Cloudward, Ho!
GM: Brennan Lee Mulligan
Players: Emily Axford (she/her) as Marya Junková (she/her). Zac Oyama (he/him) as Daisuke Bucklesby (he/him). Siobhan Thompson (she/her) as Vanellope ‘Van’ Chapman (she/her). Lou Wilson (he/him) as Montgomery ‘Monty’ LaMontgommery (he/him). Ally Beardsley (they/them) as Olethra MacLeod (she/her). Brian Murphy (he/him) as Maxwell Gotch (he/him).
Streaming Service: Dropout

If you missed them, catch up on our review of the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth episodes!

We return in this penultimate episode of Cloudward, Ho! With the barrier down and the people of Zumhara warned, our Intrepid Heroes prepare for the onslaught of Zern’s forces. In the past, the leaders of Zumhara and the Primarchs selfishly agreed to isolate the energies of their lands, justifying Zern’s misery through the Primarchs desire to force the rest of Zern to require their assistance. However, Zumhara underestimated the patience of the Primarchs who sought to coalesce power in Zern through this strife before launching an invasion to take the amassed energy of Zood.

While the group manages to convince the majority of Zumhara to destroy the engine and let the energy of Zood flow freely, Zinnia Gathborn attempts to use a kill switch on Olethra; however, she fails. Marya catches her before she can act, signaling to the group’s youngest and preventing a potential bloody outcome. While Mordecestershire and a number of key members fell, there are a number of cultists still hidden throughout Zood and likely Gath. This isn’t too much of a surprise. Any long-lasting hidden organization has a hydra-formation with isolated cells that restrict knowledge of one another through heavily coded communication, so nobody knows everybody, so they can’t betray everybody and destroy the organization as a whole. Luckily, Olethra dodges the attack, and Zinnia ends up in Zumharan custody without stopping the engine’s destruction.

In the wake of the engine’s destruction, the group witnesses the chaos in the wake of Van’s water summoning. Beneath Zern’s rust and metal surface, the water has exposed soil, underlining the potential for recover, and seeing hope, Maxwell rings the bell on his key ring, sending out a frequency that lights beacons in Zern. The sight brings Torse to tears. All this ignites hope for both Zood and Zern.

Maxwell hands over the keys to Rev. Feldspar, trusting that the Zumharans will not use them unjustly. While doing so, the group learns the uniformed dog-men work for Longspot Gotch, Maxwell’s father, confirming his influence in Zood. While they quickly switch sides when hearing that Longspot is bad, they reveal that Longspot is in Zood searching for Samwell who went lost searching for Maxwell. It turns out all his brothers are in Zood. Wealwell claims to have seen his brother, but he only saw them in a dream. Unable to handle this, Maxwell refocuses, saying he’ll find Samwell and deal with the rest of his family later.

Marya rushes to get Big Britches airborne. The group splits between the giant mech and the Zephyr II. Those in the mech will stay behind to guard Zumhara as long as possible while the Zephyr will meet the Zernian forces in the air outside the city. Sylvio and Wealwell hit it off romantically as the crew split between the ships. With decisions made, our Intrepid Heroes take to the sky.

The Straka descends, bursting through the clouds. Above the beast, Ludmila’s face-shaped craft appears. The Queen of Zern taunts Marya before ordering the Straka to attack; however, the emotional paralysis which froze Marya before no longer works. She is determined to free Ludmila, even if that means being the one to truly kill what remains of her protege.

Daisuke takes two shots, and while he hits, Queen takes a legendary action, ordering the Straka to strike. The biangle sucks the Zephyr closer toward Straka’s mouth; however, Olethra uses this to her advantage, leaping into the beast’s beak and grappling the hinge of its mouth. She fails, but in her failure, Olethra activates fireworks, blinding the Straka and causes radiant damage.

The closeup on this one did make me long for a more mobile and posable mini for Olethra’s mech. The scene would be so much more dramatic with its arms simply up, but considering the number of items that the Dimension 20 art department has to create, I’m just nitpicking here.

When the Straka puts the whole crew into the frightened state, Monty slaps sense into Daisuke as Comfrey motivates Van, sending the two back into the fray. Monty readies to board Straka as Onion and Sylvio back him up. Van climbs the Straka’s back, hunting for Ludmila’s body and specifically the flesh heart within the tethered Straka and Queen’s ship. She then misty steps inside the head, facing the porcelain faced automaton that is the Queen of Zern. Unfortunately, her attacks miss.

Using Van’s intel, Marya severs the connection between the head ship and the Straka. She calls out, letting Ludmila know that Kočka is here too. The little rat calls out to Ludmila, but the Queen of Zern attacks Marya in response; however, Kočka saves her, continuing to call out to his former owner. Green light glows within the Straka at the severed cord, hearing cries and parasites awakening within the belly of the beast.

In the middle of the chaos, Longspot and the rest of his sons (save Samwell) appears, claiming they waited for three days. Apparently, Samwell went mad after two days and went off to find Maxwell. The battle continues in the final episode next week of Cloudward, Ho!

Highlights

Brennan has always had a talent for turning a mirror on the complexity of morality in various situations or placing a philosophical quandary at the center of a series, which has always flushed out his antagonists and breathed life into his NPCs who provide varying perspectives; however, the duality of Zood and Zern brings forth a reality often discussed in ethics courses: doing the right thing is significantly easier for those who face no consequences for doing so.

For those who have little, the calculation and cost of acting ethically, especially in an unequal society, can be a decision of life versus death. This makes it all the more powerful and important when people do the right thing despite the risk or sacrifice. As Mark Twain has been quoted as saying, “In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.” In the same way, the lower the cost, the easier it is to take any risk, including the moral one.

Dimension 20 often walks the philosophical line, some more subtle than others, but while it doesn’t always go as direct as The Good Place, it was nice to see the reality not just called out but discussed.

Final Score (5 out of 5 Stars)

I’m a sucker for combat episodes. The Art Department always shines, and their creations make for excellent screenshots, which inspires hilarious commentary. Plus, our Intrepid Heroes always hit a nice balance of improv and plot-focus, allowing the pacing to be on point. We rarely go off on tangents that take a quarter of the episode to get back to the plot, and rarely does anything happen which gets retconned after stealing twenty minutes of focus. Honestly, mostly editing issues in my mind as there’s a difference between the energy you want at a table when you’re there for hours and what you want to see in the produced episode of that table. This twenty-episode season could’ve easily have been fifteen with some harder editing; however, with the assumed pacing and filming schedule, I can understand why they kept to the twenty.

We also had some great moments as the Gotch brothers and their father returned. We have a new mystery – where’s Samwell? And whenever we have a more serious episode, the Adventuring Party is that much more unhinged, which is where I most enjoy my non-productive chaos to be.

With the final episode coming next week, we’ll finally know whether Ludmila can be saved, whether the past be changed, and where Samwell went. If you have any predictions, let us know in comments below or go over to our Discord channel to join the conversation.

Featured Image: Dimension 20

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The Boss Rush Podcast – The Boss Rush Podcast is the flagship podcast of Boss Rush Media and the Boss Rush Network. Each week, Corey, Stephanie, LeRon, and their friends from around the internet come together with other creators, developers, and industry veterans to talk about games they’ve been playing, discuss video game and entertainment based topics, and answer questions solicited on social media and the community Discord. 

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