Session 000: Beneath the Stolen Summer
TL;DR
Five strangers met at the Catch Your Breath Inn in Slew and accepted a contract from Merchant Prince Jorvan Eltharion to investigate a mysteriously thawed section of the frozen swamp. Inside a dome of unnatural summer, they discovered frogfolk activity, hidden supplies, and a sealed underground entrance that only a bullywug's hand could open. After surviving brutal ambushes -- including a fight that nearly killed Dusk -- the party descended into an underground base and reached Level 2.
Session Summary
11/28/1019 — The Catch Your Breath Inn, Slew
The city of Slew runs on trade, and trade runs on the Merchant Princes. At The Catch Your Breath Inn -- a known gathering place for hired swords, wandering clerics, and the otherwise unemployed -- five strangers found themselves sharing a corner table.
Rivnee, a sea elf fighter, had been waiting there for over a week. Dusk and Thora had arrived a few days prior. Juice Sumgai had come only yesterday. And N'ail, an eladrin warlock freshly arrived from the Feywild, walked in with no clear plan until the barkeep Maria Heathertoes pointed him toward the back corner.
By the time Merchant Prince Jorvan Eltharion approached the table, they were already a group.
The job was straightforward in description, strange in implication. A frozen trade route to a gem-trading village had developed an anomaly: a section of swamp that no longer behaved like winter. Warm. Alive. Wrong. If the thaw spread, the route would become impassable and Eltharion's contracts would suffer. He needed it investigated.
Thora negotiated the reward from 50 gold each up to 80. They accepted.
What waited at the far end of that road was not a simple thaw.
The Frozen Road and the Dome
11/29/1019 — Departure from Slew
The swamp in winter is monotone and still -- cracked ice, bare branches, grey sky. The party traveled through it until the cold simply stopped.
There was no gradual warming. The transition was a wall. Trees straddling the boundary were split down the middle: one half frozen and brittle, the other full with summer leaves. Crossing the threshold brought immediate warmth. The air smelled like soil and growth.
The dome was not large, but it was absolute. Inside, it was a different season entirely.
At its center: a bog.
The Silent Bog
A thin fog lay over still water covered in wide lily pads. Rotting trees leaned over the dark pond. Fish darted through clear shallows. Tadpoles clustered near the reeds. The vegetation was thick and green and alive in a way that had no business existing here, in this swamp, in this season.
The smell of rot was faint but present.
What was absent was sound.
No insects. No birds. No frogs.
The frogfolk were said to live in this swamp. Their absence from a place that was obviously thriving felt deliberate.
Searching the area, the party found a hidden stash beneath slime and packed dead fish: three Potions of Healing and one Potion of Water Breathing. The concealment was foul enough to be intentional -- whoever hid these did not want them found quickly.
Ambush and Revelation
Four bullywugs emerged from the water and the reeds.
The fight was wet and disorganized, but the party held together and the bullywugs did not. When it was over, one frogfolk civilian remained -- not a warrior, just a local -- and he offered what he knew.
There was an entrance. Underground. He had never been inside.
Only the hand of a bullywug could open the door.
The Hand That Opens
The party used what the fight had left them with.
The hidden entrance responded to the severed hand and opened.
Inside, two Giant Bog Toads were waiting. They hit hard and fast. One struck Dusk down before the fight had fully developed, leaving him unconscious and bleeding on the stone floor. The rest of the party drove the creatures back, brought Dusk around, and stood in the silence that followed.
The entrance led down. The underground base was real, it was built, and someone had gone to significant effort to hide it beneath a dome of stolen summer.
They stood at Level 2 now. And the stairs were in front of them.
Explorations and Discoveries
- The Summer Dome: A magically sustained pocket of summer within the frozen swamp, large enough to encompass a bog and surrounding treeline. The boundary is sharp -- not gradual. This is not a natural phenomenon.
- The Hidden Stash: Three Potions of Healing and one Potion of Water Breathing, concealed under slime and dead fish. The method suggests someone familiar with the bog and expecting to need them in a hurry.
- The Sealed Entrance: A hidden underground entrance that requires a bullywug's biological key to open. Its existence implies the bullywugs did not build it alone -- or at all.
- The Frogfolk Civilian: Knew of the entrance but had never entered. The distinction between the bullywug warriors and this civilian may be worth revisiting.
- The Underground Base: A constructed space beneath the bog, guarded by Giant Bog Toads. It is being maintained, not just discovered.
What Comes Next
The party stands at the entrance to the underground base beneath the summer dome. The immediate objective is to descend and find out who built it, who is using it, and whether it is the source of the magical anomaly.
Open questions:
- Who constructed the underground base, and what purpose does it serve?
- Are the bullywugs willing participants in whatever is happening here, or something else?
- What is sustaining the summer dome, and can it be stopped -- or should it be?
- Merchant Prince Eltharion hired them to investigate a trade disruption. What they have found is something significantly larger.