Reciprocity and Conspiracy

Rolf ordered everyone out of the inn and shoved Tharra over to the bar. He acted like he had been wronged or betrayed, which was ironic given our experience with him, and he struck Tharra several times and taunted Dru by jingling the gold purse he had stolen in front of the firbolg. He also ranted about how he had put in so much effort to corrupt Aerglas and we had torched him, ruining Rolf's plans. I attempted to talk to him, but on the last strike to Tharra I decided force was required and fired off a blast of eldrich energy, hitting him in the chest. From there the gloves came off and we all joined the fight. He was a tough fighter, and it took a long time before we were able to wear him down, made even more difficult considering how exhausted we all were. Fortunately Dru managed to summon a giant snake to grapple and hold him and after we all got some good hits in Zarruk finished him off with an arrow to the thigh and he bled out. As he lay dying I looked into his eyes and told him it didn't have to be this way, but he had crossed people he didn't know anything about and this was the result. Dru took his money purse back and jingled it in front of the bandits face, saying he told him we would take more than 100 gold back in payment for his lies. As he lay dying I noticed a crumpled piece of paper in his hands, and inspecting it realized that it was a note written in the same strange shifting text we had found on the note held by the goblin in Wolfrest. The note Bevel had taken. The note about the Blue Flame. I still couldn't read it, but Po identified the script as something called Dark Speech, and above it were crude sketches of the five of us. So Rolf had ties to the Blue Flame and was turning members of the Emerald Enclave. If I had felt bad about killing him any shred of that feeling was quickly removed.
We found several other items on his body, including the lynx head gem (called a Leska stone), an Ioun Stone, an Iron Flask, an unread Tome of Clear Thought, and several potions. We took everything we could find, then discussed what to do. None of us were comfortable with the fact that Rolf had just walked through town with a bound elf and no one had stopped him. He seemed to hold some weight in the town, or at least not insight open hostility with the guard. We asked Tharra how she had come to be captured, and she said she couldn't sleep the night before either. She had seen strange lights at the edge of the forest, and when she investigated she had heard men laughing and talking. She realized it was the bandits who had stolen Dru's coin and decided to try to recover it, but had been caught. Rolf questioned her at their camp, but she had told him nothing. She said he had been acting strange, scratching at his head in an odd fashion and then talking about how he had turned Aerglas and had been promised power and knowledge by his master, who was also looking for us. This confirmed his connection to the Blue Flame, and his strange behavior might warrant investigation. Or it would if he hadn't died. But still, we might need to figure out what caused that erratic behavior. Rolf had left his gang behind to "continue their work" while he dealt with us. She told us that the guards recognized Rolf as they entered town looking for us, but they hadn't stopped him. He had put a cloak over her so they couldn't tell she was bound, and they seemed to recognize him and pay him an amount of deference.
We decided to move the body upstairs where I would try to decipher the note. It was then we realized that Branlid was gone. He had evidently slipped out when Rolf had entered. Zarruk, Dru, and Mirielle went to find Tharkar and see what she could tell us about Rolf and where Branlid might have gone. They found her with the rest of the staff behind the inn, quite shaken. She said that the Blood Drop Crew had been an issue for years, and had some sort of understanding worked out with the town leadership. The guards were never able to catch the bandits in the act of their crimes, and the gang served to keep undesirables such as goblins and orcs away from the town. The townsfolk are very afraid of any newcomers or unknown visitors because of the cursed dragon. The wizard who cursed it had ruled in the area long ago and cursed the dragon not because it was ravaging the land, but to curse his own bloodline, specifically his nephew. Whether he wanted to punish him or keep him out of the town was unclear, but there is definitely more to this legend than we initially thought.
Tharkar warned that the town may not be safe for us for much longer and that Rolf's crew will likely come looking for him. She was also worried about Branlid's mental health, saying he had been rambling while he waited with them outside the inn and then had wandered off.
We all met back up in Dru's room, and while he attuned to the Leska Stone and Po attuned to the Cloak of the Dunamancer, I began the ritual to decipher the Dark Speech note.