Aadhar

Description
Called the "Aadhar," by Dubbon Crochet, this minor magical item resembles a puzzle toy. It is crafted out of a bronze-golden colored metal; strips of the metal have the appearance of being woven like ropes or vines, creating intentional holes on the surface of the item. These holes are all the same size, large enough to fit a finger, and asymmetrically placed. There seems to be a further labyrinth of holes inside the ones on the surface, allowing one to bend their finger and touch another place inside.

History
In I: The Swamp, Astrid, Hail Merry, and Sir Harrard were all hired separately by Eike to steal this orb from Hulligan. They claimed that he was an orcish burglar that regularly took from travelers in the swamps and that he had taken this family heirloom from them.

Eike paid each of them 50 gp (and a little extra to Astrid, perhaps for assassination), which was left in a crate outside their house. The adventurers elected to break into the house, suspicious of their employer after Hulligan turned out to be a nice mailman. They found no signs of the doppelganger until they found a secret bunker underneath a rug in their room, which was filled with magical and historical tomes, alchemy supplies, and a tapestry of one of Liym's chaotic saints.

Eike attempted to intimidate them, steal the orb from them, and finally summon a creature to attack them, to get the orb. After being severely injured, they attempted to run away, but were caught and killed.

They left a note to whoever would come to meet Eike that read, "I have the orb. Meet me in the oldest abandoned lumber mill in Laragus on October 6th."

After that, the party returned the orb to Hulligan so that it could be mailed to the intended addressee, Tybout Galliard. Tybout turned out to be a fake person, but the address was real. The address lead to the abandoned manor of Estella Mills, the previous mayor of Laragus. The current acting mayor is her son Joseph Mills, who moved out of town to govern from afar in Cathaire. He has not lived there for over a decade.

Still, within the manor, there were signs of recent activity and creatures of construct and aberrant origin in the basement.

In V: The Mill, the party, joined now by Artiya'il, went to the oldest abandoned mill to meet anyone who may have tried to meet with Eike. There were signs of magical traps left in the mill, and on a later day they were attacked by robotic knights. These were all owned by Dubbon Crochet, a mage on probation from the Hyperion College of Magic in Idiroch. They were provided with funding and supplies to retrieve this "relatively useless magical item" after it was stolen from the college's museum.

Dubbon claimed they were not able to handle the object themself, due to their probation, and put it inside a spherical chamber in the doglike construct Pepper. They said that, should the party find themself by the Hyperion College, Dubbon would provide them with any further information they discover about the Orb.