The party left Zelifarn after receiving some of his scales and made their way towards the location where they were told the vault entrance should be.
On their way there they found multiple marks of The Black Viper.
After a knock on the tower's front door they are invited inside by a guard after some persuasion. Then after some waiting they are greeted by Eszvele Rosznar while she keenly ejects some noise guild representatives off her property.
The party and Eszvele engage in conversation trying to hide their secrets from eachother, but Eszvele quickly drops the charade and encourages the party to do the same.
The party is still suspicious but they manage to strike a deal, Eszvele would recieve 1/3rd of the treasure in return for her help and showing the party where the vault entrance is (and to not tell anyone else).
She leads the party down to the entrance of the vault and shows them they need 3 keys after which Eszvele proposes to join the party to find the rest of the keys. They agree to let her join, still quite suspicious of her.
The party makes their way towards Xoblob's shop in search of a beholder eyestalk. On their way there they encounter a young nobleman dying on the street, seemingly being killed by a monstrous beetle bursting from his chest as a servant watches over him. They found out from the panicked servant sitting next to him that the dead boy's name is Aaron Littlehorn. Apparently he found this scarab on the floor of the auction hall just a few minutes ago.
A wealthy looking gnome rushes outside due to the loud screaming. This gnome, Nabulee El Jasafir, owner of Nabulee's Bazaar of the Extraordinary in front of which the young nobleman just died tries to convice the nobleman's servant to not tell Lord Littlehorn anything about the scarab. He then invites the party inside of his establishment where he drops his disguise to show his true identity, Xoblob.
Xoblob tells the party about what happened and explains that he uses this alter-ego and auction house to sell "worthless junk" to people with a lot of money so he can keep buying the actual important purple items he needs.
He also tells them that apparently the scarab is an item from his vault, and he is the only person in the world who can access this vault. He even goes out of his way to show everyone the entrance to his vault and how no one but him can enter. There is also a strong anti-magic barrier in place around the vault entrance.
Xoblob also explains that he's been home the whole day except for the auction that just happened about an hour ago. He also claims to not have seen or spoken anyone before the start of the auction. The party does not get the feeling that he's lying.
The party also interrogates his two servants one who tells them that Mr. Nabulee had a visitor earlier today and the other who mentions having seen Mr. Nabulee running through the street earlier this morning wearing strange bloody clothing. Xoblob firmly denies that any of this happened. The party gets the feeling that both sides are speaking the truth.
The person Nabulee apparently met earlier this morning was his old friend Ectobius Rex. Together with Xoblob they make their way to Ectobius' house. Once they arrive they are invite in by Ectobius and guided to the atrium. The party start questioning Ectobius about what he was doing earlier today. They quickly notice that something is strange about him, but can't put their finger on exactly what it is. Cracuta flat out asks Ectobius if he's magical after using his Magic Awareness by which Ectobius responds by standing up and throwing a chair at Cracuta. A fight starts. Xoblob ends up killing "Ectobius" with a hunger of hadar spell, his body being ripped apart and mangled.
Upon inspection of the body, Quertex concludes that this body more resembles a construct than a humanoid or an undead. It's most likely a Flesh Golem.
Upon trying to leave the room to investigate further, the party is ambushed by Specters floating down from the chimney.