After suffering through some technical difficulties and navigating both a bad cold and the challenge of NaNoWriMo, Linguistic Dragon has finally found time to play through a bit more of Savage Empire:

I still had to decide which direction to head, after all. Rafkin wanted to track down the remains of his lab, thinking there might be useful supplies among them, and I had to agree that he had a point there. Then there was still the matter of Aiela – I couldn’t very well just leave her to Darden’s whims forever. Ultimately, though, I decided the third course of action available to me was the wisest for the moment, that of tracking down Jimmy Malone. He was a companion of sorts, after all, unintended as it may have been, and it was hardly an Avatarly thing to do to leave him behind. I had a certain duty to those who adventured with me. Besides, I would need all the help I could get to rescue Aiela, if the first (and failed) attempt was anything to go by. And on top of that, another strong back to help carry whatever we ended up finding at Rafkin’s lab wouldn’t be unwelcome, either. Abiding by my duty to my companions would have its perks.

Intanya had suggested that Jimmy was currently with the Disquiqui, and after consulting my map of the valley, I saw that I had quite the trek to the southwest ahead of me. Fortunately, it seemed it would mostly be well-marked trails there, so we set out to collect our lost, wayward reporter.

As you can imagine, that didn’t go entirely smoothly (read: jaguars), but eventually Linguistic was able to lead his party to the city of Tichticatl. And while they didn’t tarry there long, they found a couple interesting things:

…we did poke around an empty dwelling or two on the edge of the city, as they were right by the path we were traveling. One or two of them even had a nice new weapon for Aric, swords made out of obsidian. But once again the already strained inventory space reared its head again, and after a bit of shuffling I decided that this too was a place better explored when I had a bit more wiggle room as far as weight issues went. Besides, I hadn’t spotted any locals, so I moved on.

He did eventually find the Disquiqui, and Jimmy as well. The former sent him on a mission to fell the Tyrannosaurus Rex (which he did), but in the course of hunting down the great beast, Linguistic encountered a rather troublesome foe:

…I ended up landing smack-dab in the middle of a different beast – my first brush with the Myrmidex themselves. They hit hard and fast, and even three or four were a large hassle for our merry little band. The fighting was rough and fierce (poor Jimmy took a beating but gave just as good as he got – his experience total nearly doubled when all was said and done!), and I gained a better understanding of just how dangerous these insectoids were. Suddenly finding a way to squash them all felt like that much more of a priority.

It’s well worth reading Linguistic’s summary of this play session in full; as usual, for all I have excerpted above, there is much, much more.