World: 41 days.
Clarksons: 36 days.
It was the day of the expedition. There was a gathering at downtown and a good chunk of the town's residents were present. Familiar faces that manned their respective shops were geared up and ready for battle.
Guild staff briefed those present and handled logistics so the operation would go smoothly. It might seem like overkill for just a group of chimpanzeds, which it was, but the 'apestermination' was more of an excuse to do a sweep of the surrounding forest and cull the surrounding population of hazard beasts down to a more comfortable level.
Sam would lead at the front, while Jason was assigned to a group tasked with protecting the supply line. He and the others were to keep the squishy porters safe from any ambushes from hazard beasts.
As for the town, it would be defended by mostly women with some more experienced folks mixed in.
The strategy involved advancing in a pseudo-arrowhead formation. Imagine a triangle with a small circle in the middle, then remove one of the 3 sides.
The sides of the triangle consisting of medium to close range fighters who would deal with another that got close.
The small circle consists of porters who both moved carts as well as stored carcasses in their Mindscapes, and those who protected them from harm.
Experienced Long range fighters such as Sam functioned outside the formation and would snipe anything they could hit in front of the group so its body would be extracted when the group passed by.
The goal was to wipe out the Chimpanzeds. Anything that got killed along the way was a bonus. To help with this, some of the porters also carries buckets of animal guts and blood to attract the more feral and desperate Hazard Beasts.
With regards to Chimpanzeds, they are rather peculiar creatures. They were basically 5-6 feet tall bipedal Chimpanzees without fur on their upper bodies. You'd mistake one for a shirtless bodybuilder wearing black pants seeing them from a distance if you didn't pay close attention.
The males hunt in groups and drag their kills back to their females where they'd all eat together. A part of their success lies with the fact that they are mostly silent. An occasional grunt in the most you'd hear from them nomatter what. Even if they're hurt critically. This makes them excellent ambush predators as they can sneak up on their prey better.
So far, they sound like your run of the mill Hazard Beast, so why are they listed as "Kill on Sight" on the adventuring handbook? Was it their ferocity, or their silent ambush tactics, or the fact they were head and shoulders more intelligent than Chimpanzees? Yes.
Chimpanzeds have been recorded to, without warning, silently invade towns and villages and replace part if not all of the population via overnight mass Assasination. They would sneak into a home in the dead of night, kill everyone on it silently, then move on to the next home and repeat the process. There have been reports of entire villages wiped out overnight and the Chimpanzeds using the houses as shelters, thereby growing their population. Unsuspecting merchants or anyone on a carriage who enter such a town/village would be beset upon from all sides and annihilated unless sufficiently strong individuals are present.
Even if the Chimpanzeds are discovered before they can wipe out the settlement, it's still an uphill battle for the residents, as going from sleeping to full on war in an instant would put them on the back foot. And even if the counter attack is successful and the Chimpanzeds are defeated or chased off, they tend to take alot of lives by then.
The loss life is highly likely to weaken the fighting power of the settlement, making it more vulnerable against other Hazard Beast attacks. Either way, it's likely to become a ghost town from people leaving, or being overwhelmed and wiped out entirely. That's why Chimpanzeds are such a menace.
With all preparations complete, the group departs with Sam leading the way. Things were uneventful for the first several minutes, until the group began stumbling across Hazard Beast bodies with arrows sticking out of them. Soon their bait started doing it's magic and some smooth brained Hazard Beasts began attacking the group and getting anahilated. The bodies were piling up.
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At about an hour in to their trek, the group arrived at the cave Sam and Jason were at the other day. Unsurprisingly, all the goblin bodies were gone. Most likely taken by the Chimpanzeds. As per the plan, the group stops at the clearing to rest while the Scouts search for the Chimpanzeds. They were on the clock and had to finish this before nightfall lest things get really dangerous.
They waited for 2 hours. However they were productive 2 hours as various Hazard Beasts were drawn in by the bait, and Jason took care of most of them with sling and bow while everyone else relaxed. They'd need their strength for the coming battle.
SCREEEEEEE... BOOM!
A special arrow that makes a high pitch sound was fired into the air from a distance before exploding. This was their signal. Targets found. Everyone immediately got up and began matching in that direction. The buckets of bait were also covered and put away. There was no time for distractions.
15 minutes into the march, the group was greeted with the sight of Sam and some other scouts running their way with about a dozen Chimpanzeds chasing after them. Seeing this, the group immediately got into defensive formation in preparation for the clash.
"Dang! Those things look like shirtless gymbros from afar." Comments Jason got on top of a cart and began providing cover fire. No matter how good of an archer you are, hitting moving targets is very difficult. He missed most of his shots, but the apes ate the remaining shots that did land without flinching or slowing down.
Eventually, the scouts made it in to the formation and were let through, while their pursuers clashed with the Adventurers. Dealing with Chimpanzeds was straightforward: 2 vs 1. One person would aggro and parry or dodge an attack while another exploited the opening and deal a killing blow. Wearing down Chimpanzeds was pointless and dangerous because they didn't care about bodily harm and attacked ferociously nomatter how injured they got.
Sam soon arrives at the cart Jason was standing at and join him in supporting the melee fighters. Now their targets were closer, accuracy and damage went up, and they even took down a few themselves. The battle was quick and brutal. In 15 minutes all the Chimpanzeds were killed, and a decent chunk of adventurers were injured. Keep in mind these are people from a farming town. The fact there was no fatality on their side was rather impressive.
Sam instructs the group to tend to the injured, collect the bodies and take a brief rest. This wasn't over, as they still had a nest of females and juveniles to wipe out. And unlike the adult males, these ones knew retreat. The fewer that survive, the less often the town would have to deal with them.
After 30 minutes, they resumed their advance. However this time, Jason was called to join the scouts and archers. Dealing with the nest required a different strategy. The entire group would surround the nest without being noticed. Then the archers would begin Sniping the females exclusively in attempts to thin their numbers as much as possible. Panic will set in, and any female attempting to escape with its young would be cut down when they reach the encirclement. The females were smaller and weaker than the males, plus the fact that carrying a young hampered one's ability to fight made them easy to put down.
The scouts got to the nest and discovered it was located at the base of a short cliff. Sam had to modify the plan: they'd surround them in a half circle instead and have some people at the top of the cliff to fire ranged attacks and deal with any climbers. In short other, the group adapted and the operation was underway.
It was a slaughter with piles upon piles of hazard beast bodies including those of the chimpanzeds transported back to town. Jason had a good showing during the event, impressing his group as well as more experienced adventurers with his excellent marksmanship.
When everyone returned home by dusk, they turned in all their kills and the butchers and a bunch of volunteers were hard at work processing everything. Jason decided to join the group of volunteers to speed things up and also pick up a trick or two.
While the expedition was happening, the rest of town was putting together a feast. The cooking was lead by Samantha, Alexis and others, while other mundane tasks were handled by the younger folks.
Everyone in town ate and drank all night and till daybreak. Whatever was left over was shared among everybody as they all dispersed to their respective homes.
World: 42 days.
Clarksons: 37 days.
The town was out of commission for the day as everyone was either sleeping in, or hungover, or both. Last night was fun all things considered.
With nearby hazard beasts spooked, and a portion virtually wiped out temporarily, hunting wasn't a option for Jason, nor did he have any side gigs unlike most of the residents here, so he decided to leverage his partnership with Sam and see if he had any good suggestions.
His favourite elf (sorry Alexis) came through and directed him two towns out to a lumbering town called Arkensaw. There happened to be two competing branch dojos there: those of the Primordial Fist and the Rending Ax.
The former should keep Jason occupied, plus he can hunt there too. During that time they will send periodic letters to each other via the Guild to keep in touch.
Jason was cool with the idea, but not so much with leaving on such short notice. He'd gotten quite fond of Quinn and Sammy over the past month and he couldn't bare to just up and disappear. He intended to spend a little more quality time with the two and leave on a good note.
Doing some digging, he found out that a merchant caravan was passing through and heading to his destination in the next 2 days. So he took an escort quest and began planning things; for he only had today and tomorrow before leaving. Sammy was right though; there wasn't much one can do in a town as small as this.
Dropping by at Quinn's, Jason wasted no time explaining his impending departure. This predictively made his favourite bookworm downcast, so he tried cheering him up with the promise of a group outing tomorrow with him and Sammy. Quinn perked up at that, but Jason did notice a dip in mood when he mentioned the blond. 'Oh? Is that jealousy?' Jason wondered.
After hanging out with Quinn for the rest of the morning, Jason returned to the Clarksons for lunch where he made his announcement. The reactions varied with Sammy being hit the hardest, however the family took the news swimmingly and lunch finished without a hitch.
When he was able to get Sammy alone, he tried cheering him up the same way he did Quinn, which resulted in the same result including the blond getting a tad salty after Quinn was mentioned. This had Jason absentmindedly wondering if he had a Bro Triangle forming.