Orb of Souls

Summary
A clear orb with swirling green gases inside. It is 6" in diameter and weighs about 3 lbs.

The mysterious crystal ball supposedly once belonged to The Red Robed Man, before he met the party in Solace and sent the party on a mission to collect it for him from a Goblin Chieftan.

The Trouble in Getting the Ball
The party encountered many difficulties on the journey on account of being captured by the Goblins a number of times and taking a huge amount of time to simply kill the King himself while he was flailing, crawling and fleeing from them.

Results
The Ball was destroyed when Tudagub dropped it deliberately inside a Wizard's chambers shortly afterwards. The swirling green gases exploded outwards and the Wizard banished the Half-Ogre from his shop from his foolishness (likely Neal getting a tiny bit of vengeance for all the planning lost).

Aftermath
The true nature of the orb was explained in the Week 2 Q&A:

Neal's post from Q&A: "Normally I wouldn't reveal this sort of information, since it might come back to effect the players later - or even if it wouldn't, I wouldn't say anything to keep it always in the back of their mind that this might come back to haunt them, but this time, since it's such a crazy story, I'll tell. The orb was the Orb of Souls and was to be the central plot of the whole campaign. The orb has 2 abilities:  It's kinda a big deal. The red robed guy, Hector, was telling the truth when he said he didn't know what it does. In fact, nobody does. That knowledge has been lost to the ages, buried in ruins and books."
 * It can suck out the soul from a creature, living or dying, placing it inside the orb. The person who lost their soul is now a zombie under control of the owner of the orb 
 * You can expel souls from the orb to amplify magical spells greatly 
 * In conjunction with certain other items (most notably from Quantarius) you can funnel souls into direct magical powers 

The Orb was likely sought by the wizard Riker along with the Blood-Drinker Longsword.