Venture Ch 01

Eric was lying in bed one day watching a show he’d seen a million times on TV while he scrolled mindlessly on his phone. Anxiety began to creep in. Anxiety about money, and how the fridge was just about devoid of food, and concerns over the cost of pizza, all clouded his head. With a groan, he got up. It’d been over two weeks since Eric had worked, and he could stall no longer. Eric poured a cup of coffee, splashed some water on his face, and sat at his desk. It was time to get down to business and find a gig.

He then took a look around, and saw that his apartment had fallen into a state of disrepair as of late, and decided it would be irresponsible not to tidy up first. He collected the clothes from the floor into a basket, and was getting a start on the dishes when his phone chimed. A timed reward for a game he liked was ready to be collected. Since he’d already sunk so much time into that game, it would be foolish not to take advantage of this prize. It only took a couple minutes to collect the reward and then try it out for a quick hit of dopamine. He then began to wonder about what his friends were up to and what news he might be missing out on.

Over a half hour later, Eric realized he was once again watching a show he’d seen a million times, scrolling mindlessly on his phone. He audibly muttered, "son of a bitch." He then sprung up, stormed over to his desk, sipped his now lukewarm coffee, and opened up the Venture app on his phone.After changing his profile to online, little blips started appearing on the map for gigs. He clicked on one, and was irritated to see a mislabeled post requesting someone to kill goblins that had been bothering them in their neighborhood. Eric reported this post. As a half-elf with a lot of goblin or otherwise nonhuman friends, he was always floored by the blatant racism that can still appear on this app.

After a little while sifting through jobs that were either beyond his skills or below his expected pay, he found one that piqued his interest. It seemed the old mall downtown had an outbreak of that new mutagenic mold that had fascinated him since he first saw the earliest murmurs about it online. From what he could make out from the post, it had turned the former employees into some nasty new breed of undead, and all he would need to do was clear them out so the company that ran the mall could recover their property and strip the building. The payout was way above his normal job, and even without that, the chance to take a sample of the mold was irresistible.

Eric put in a bid at the asking price. He clenched his jaw and winced as he hit send, worrying someone would underbid him and take the job. In only a few moments, however, the bid was accepted and the client sent him a message. The message said that the client was eager to get this over with and that there was a bonus if he could finish today.

It was already a little after noon, and Eric knew he needed the money, so he got ready. He put on his favorite Hawaiian shirt, with some jeans, the same brown wizard hat he’d worn since dropping out of college, and a matching tweed trench coat. He rolled up the sleeves to keep his tattoos visible: on his left arm, a sleeve of traditional elven tattoos for his mother’s side, and nautical tattoos on his right arm to commemorate his father. Under the jacket, he’d secured two daggers, along with all the potions, elixirs, and spell components he could discreetly stache away. His staff was buried under a pile of junk, so he fished it out. For now, he felt accomplished. This was his uniform as far as he was concerned, and for the first time in a week, he wasn’t in pajamas.

Eric was ready, and he took the ladder to exit his apartment, squeezing through the leather opening when he got to the top. Onlookers would be shocked if they’d seen Eric emerging sideways from a leather backpack in the alleyway, wincing as he pulled himself up from the wet pavement. Eric hated it when his backpack fell over like that and he had to deal with perpendicular gravities, but it’s to be expected when he goes for such a long stretch without going outside. Eric always fantasized about hiring an assistant to walk his bag to his destination, so he could just leave his apartment and be where he needed to be.

Eric strapped his apartment to his back and headed out on his quest. Getting downtown only took him four stops on the monorail, and after a much-needed fifteen-minute walk, he’d arrived at the Lone Pine Mall. He approached the automatic doors cautiously, and was wondering how he was expected to get in if it was locked, but then, to his bewilderment, the doors opened for him. He was astounded that they hadn’t secured the mall yet; there was clearly no concern for public safety here.

The first thing Eric noticed was the horrific smell. There was the bitter smell of mold, hints of cooking Brussels sprouts (which he recognized as decomposing corpses), and a much more sinister smell. It was a smell that explained the extravagant payout; the smell of the Abyssal Plane, home of demons.

"Sulfur," Eric said to himself. Damn it. " Nothing he’d read online about the mold had led him to believe it was abyssal in origin. This would surely complicate things. He inspected his surroundings and saw the slick black mold, which shimmered green in the light, growing in a web-like network along the walls. He followed the path of the network and recognized that it grew heavier along the right wall.

It occurred to Eric that such heavy growth of the mold would be hazardous to breathe, so he summoned a painter’s mask out of his backpack and soldiered on. High ceilings opened up to a semi-spherical sunroof overhead, half-encompassed in the mold, causing an eerie, shaded green light to bathe the environment. Eric turned the corner, with his staff pointed out for quick use. He was shocked to see that inside of the fried tentacle shop, the mold network was joined in a large mass, with a man at the center of it.

This man was spread eagle on the wall, with much of his body engulfed in mold. His face was deformed, with the left side swollen to accommodate a bloodshot eye the size of a baseball. Eric’s dark-olive skin went pale when it dawned on him that this man’s chest was moving, and he was alive through this unthinkable process.

The sound startled the man, and his normal-sized eye opened.

"Help," the man croaked.

"What happened here? How did this happen to you? "

"Please. Please kill me. "Please let me die already," the man moaned, choking out his words. Eric simply gave a solemn nod. This would take some consideration. He would need to deal with the mold, but he suspected burning down the building would void his right to a paycheck. Eric pointed his staff toward the man and silently concentrated. An icy wind came forth from it, and in mere seconds, the whole room reached subzero temperatures. The mold froze solid, and everything in the vicinity now wore a thick layer of fuzzy white frost.

A shiver still persisted in the man, and Eric saw tears frozen to his face. From under his coat, Eric took a knee and produced an ornate dagger, a rag, and a bottle of silver-nitrate-based elixir. He coated the dagger in the elixer using the rag, then approached the suffering man. He used the dagger to slit the man’s throat, then plunged it into his heart. Eric hoped the man’s final moments were filled with peace, but knew it was probably just more pain.

The man and the surrounding mold became calcified, turning a pale gray and then shattering into crystallized shards and chunks. The calcification spread along the network, out into a few surrounding stores, and up to the sunroof, calcifying about a third of it. It occurred to him that the network must have more than one of these nodes, and destroying all of them should get the job done.

That’s when a bloodcurdling, inhuman screech echoed through the mall. Evidently, something was unhappy with Eric clearing out the mold. He stepped out of the room to try to get the drop on whatever he’d pissed off, but they beat him to it, and he was knocked ten feet down the hall onto his ass by a fist the size of his torso. He looked up and saw three misshapen zombies like none he’d ever seen, and at the forefront was one with a massive arm so large it touched the floor, with a dozen eyes sprouting from it, ranging from the size of a marvel to the size of a grapefruit. This oversized limb was juxtaposed to its shriveled and frail body, like that of a starving child.

Eric reached his hand toward the beast and found it empty, and his heart sank when he saw that his staff was where he was before he got knocked all the way down. It was now under the creature. He got to his feet, held his dagger behind his back, and slowly approached the creature.

Come get some big guys. How’d you end up with that anyway? Didn’t know dumbbells worked on both hands? Or was it a bit too much time on the internet? " The creature crouched so that three limbs were planted firmly on the ground, then took an exploratory jab at Eric with its arm, to which Eric dodged back a step, just outside of its perimeter.

Hey man, I’m not one to judge. It’s not my business what one consenting adult does in the privacy of his own house, but ya know, there are limits. " He then stepped forward into the radius the beast could hit, and it took the opportunity. The fist lurched forward with all of its might, just as Eric hoped. He dodged under the arm, and stabbed the eye of it with his dagger. The arm spasmed in pain, then Eric dove for his staff under the zombie’s useless body. The arm rose to hammer down on him, but before the move could be completed, a bolt of lightning was arcing at it from the staff. Eric sustained the lightning until all of the eyes on the arm popped and the creature collapsed on top of him.

Before Eric could pull himself out from under the corpse, he felt himself being dragged out by clawed hands. As he emerged, he was overwhelmed by the two zombies who had him in their grasp. He tried to struggle, but they had too much leverage. He boiled over with frustration, then slammed the base of his staff against the ground, blasting the zombies away with a concussive force. He quickly rose, and targeted one zombie with a nasty rat-like face growing from its cheek, and shot a deep blue icicle into its head. The icicle then exploded, blasting frozen solid chunks of zombie in every direction.

Without hesitating, he blasted the other one, which had several arms and legs growing out at every angle. He took three shots at it with shotgun blasts of obsidian pellets until it went down and stayed down.

Now tired, disgusted, and beginning to regret leaving his bed, he stormed forward, following the path of the mold network. It led to a store at the end, next to one of the big department stores that bookended the mall, although this one looks like it went vacant a long time ago. He peaked his head into the store and was somehow still surprised. It was another man stuck to the wall by the mold, but this man had come much further along in his mutation. Every limb of his body was stretched to impossible proportions, and his arms and legs rested against the walls, reaching all the way out to the entrance of the store.

Eric collected himself outside of the old man’s sight and downed a potion he kept under his jacket. This would help replenish his magic, along with increasing his focus and endurance. He then emerged from his hiding place and faced the creature.

Okay, stretch. Let's not make this harder than it has to be. I’m sure somewhere in there you’re just begging to die. Immediately, a hand reached for him from his right side, and he responded by spraying acid at it, which made it recoil.

"Nope, keep your creepy fucking hands off of me." He then pinned the other hand to the wall with a spike and took a few more steps forward. The creature opened its mouth, its elongated face reminding him of that painting of a screaming man. A horrendously long tongue began to slither out. "That must be a big hit with the ladies, huh?"

Before he could use a counter measure, the tongue lurched forward and was around his neck, constricting with the force of an anaconda. Eric’s face swelled and turned red. No air could get through, no thoughts could be produced, and no spells could be cast. The tongue had him for a long time, too long, thrashing him against the wall and bringing him closer and closer to a gruesome death. All that Eric could think about was pain and what he’d do for just one breath of air, but then, his head emptied, and he went limp.

Just before he lost consciousness, his primal brain kicked in, and with pure instinct, his hand went for the dagger on his belt, and in one swift motion, the tongue was severed. Eric fell to his knees and coughed and gasped desperately, while at the same time he blasted the room with a subzero blizzard like he had the other one. He limped to the man plastered on the wall, then plunged the dagger into his heart. Then he did it again. Then again, and again, and again, and he kept stabbing until he was stabbing only at the wall as calcified mold chrystals showered him.

"I swear to the fucking gods this better be over with already," he said between gritted teeth as he exited the store. Unfortunately, as he looked at the sunroof, some mold remained as a few shards of glass rained down from it.

A charging creature rammed him before he could finish his sentence, knocking him through the ledge on the second story hall and down to the ground level. Eric was sure he must have fractured a rib at the very least. Things weren’t about to get easier, either, as a grotesque creature was now regaining its footing in front of him. It had the gait of a gorilla, with two massive arms that it used to walk on all fours. It had tusks like a boar and horns like a goat.

I’ve got a creeping suspicion you won’t chalk this up to a big misunderstanding. I’m really a chill guy. I’ll take you out for drinks on me. The creature lurched towards him and was met with a blast of fire. That, however, only momentarily staggered it, then with the back of its hand it smacked Eric clear across the room.

Eric struggled to get to his knees and was at a loss as to what to do to the creature. When he was about to launch another spell, his eye caught something to his right. With a stroke of luck, it was another node, a shriveled man pinned to a vending machine. Eric gathered his surroundings and knew what to do. He readied his position as the creature took earth-shaking steps towards him, picking up speed. Then, when the creature was in position, Eric slammed his staff against the handle of his dagger and sent it flying to the man on the vending machine, hitting him square in the heart and calcifying him and the mold. As the creature stepped under the sunroof, it collapsed onto it, decapitating it. Then, the creature calcified, along with everything else the mold had corrupted within the mall.

Eric rode the escalator, leaning his weight on the hand rail and grasping his ribs. He left that mall absolutely seething. As he walked out the door, a chime from his phone gave him pause. He checked it, seeing the gig was marked complete, and two thousand GP were added to his wallet, way over the promised pay, way more than he’d ever been paid for one gig. He looked up at the security camera over the door and understood that he’d been watched for this job. He flipped the camera off.

"Fuck the mall. From now on, I’m only shopping online."