When [Mikhael] broach the topic of PainDealer, SkinEater is willing to engage in discussion. The disclosure of your suspicions are plainly not news to SkinEater, who reveals that he had a chance to see the now-confiscated documents removed from Molb's house. At PainDealer's request, the documents have been sequestered to the High Council vaults, and will be examined by the High Council in due course. For obvious political reasons, the High Counsil is protective of its members' images, and so the incident is being "disappeared" for now. SkinEater regrets that he cannot get you a copy of the documents.

A formal inquest into potential treason by PainDealer has not yet been initiated, nor does it seem likely that it will. Despite Molb's close economic and political relationship with Talnick, and PainDealer's similar relationship with Molb, both Molb and Talnick each had enough of a personally shady reputation to be suspected in their own right. Certainly, a link between Molb and Talnick can now be made. But traditionally, orcish chiefs support hierarchies of commanders, and so PainDealer's currently provable involvement is at worst characterizable as "unlucky," and at best "typical." Unfortunately, the doppleganger link currently begins with Molb, not with PainDealer.

SkinEater has encouraged Assir IronBreast to initiate a thorough search of Glenzor for dopplegangers, which has been agreed to and is now currently in progress. The dopplegangers encountered with Talnick were common, but those encountered with Molb were apparently of noble stock, implying a caste structure and accompanying lineages of power that remain mysterious. The Molb doppleganger is being questioned, but the ESP abilities of dopplegangers foil mindreading avenues of investigation, and their malleable physical makeup makes them resistant to physical torture. It is now suspected that Talnick was probably a doppleganger himself.

Molb was, in fact, a Skeletal Warrior. Skeletal Warriors are not natural undead, if you want to put it that way, but created by the artificial entrapment of a soul into a corpse via a medium, most popularly a circlet. The circlet then allows its possessor to control the undead creature. According to SkinEater, this process most likely implicates "the heresy of a cleric" (SkinEater's words), but a powerful conjurer could probably do the trick as well (at this, SkinEater smiles ever so slightly). This, then, implies that Molb has a creator, who is still unaccounted-for. SkinEater flatly suspects that PainDealer possesses the circlet, but notes that he could not have created the creature. For this, SkinEater suspects the High Priest of No Cha, Gorzell FireLeech. Zed was not only emperor, but high priest of No Cha as well; at that time, FireLeech was second in command. Upon Zed's ascension, FireLeech became high priest. FireLeech and PainDealer have been long-time allies.

Emperor Chullin is not a fool, notes SkinEater. An unexpected alliance with strangers, or enemies, is an ancient informal orcish way of signaling to one's allies that their allegiance is questioned. While kept relatively private, and while basically authentic, Chullin's appreciation of your group sent the High Council, and PainDealer in particular, a message. PainDealer is going to have to answer to the High Council, who is now subtly implicated as a group in potential treason.

Your expressed hope that the company can work with SkinEater to mutual advancement is received in a lukewarm fashion. SkinEater will sit up and eye you seriously and coldly. He will ask you directly what your hopes are for the future. Your hopes and desires. SkinEater suddenly seems more concerned with you than he does with "the group." He will press you by asking if you were asking for a political alliance; that is, if you were asking him to accept you as an ally. As you search your etiquette, you will realize that your politely expressed hope on behalf of the group could be taken, or twisted, in a different fashion. Traditionally, orcish alliances are formed by a request of the inferior to the superior. While this is not at all the traditionally prescribed ritual context, SkinEater seems to be testing the waters of your commitment. Up to now, you have been building a gradual informal political alliance with SkinEater. A public alliance, however, would deeply implicate you in the political situation; you would publicly, or formally, choose a side, gaining allies and enemies. You are, of course, in a position to deny this particular implication of your offer without formally rejecting an alliance. SkinEater is, in effect, offering you two ways to interpret his interpretation. If you deny his implication, the matter will be taken as a joke, a game of words. Regardless of how you answer, however, SkinEater will be able to see your level of commitment, especially at a time when commitment is becoming crucial. What do you do?

[Mikhael responds, and the DM presents the next writeup.]

After a moment of thought, you accept his implication.

Upon doing so—that is, upon asking SkinEater if he will accept you as an ally—SkinEater breaks just a hint of a malevolant smile, and nods without saying another word. He rises, holds his unfinished glass of wine up to you, and then drinks until the wine is gone. In his soft, raspy, slow voice, he says, "I would like, then, to invite you to be my guest at a small, but elite, get-together at the house of Agvin GutBlower two nights hence. There, you can toast our alliance in an appropriate fashion." SkinEater then says that he has research to attend to, and that he looks forward to "our new relationship." His wife [a succubus], sitting next to SkinEater on the couch across from you, will get up, expertly unfolding her crossed legs, revealing a brief but provocative view of her underwear for your benefit. She smiles, and ushers you out with an arm around your shoulders.