Your heart is hammering, and your stomach feels as if it had been hammered. This ... this is ...
No. No! You cannot just stand here, slack-jawed and flatfooted. And more than that, you cannot just abandon that hand-cart. Setting aside the time and money that the purchases you have stowed away on it represent, the fact of the matter is that once you are out and away from the Mount, those dry goods could mean the difference between life and death on the frontier. Admittedly, it should be no issue for you to buy more stuffs and stocks later ... but why complicate things any further? You have what you need now - well, at least some of what you need. You are not going to let just the threat of having to deal with some skeevy sot run you off from what is yours! Though if it looks like you are going to get hemmed in, or he is already waiting in your room ... and of course, with both hands holding on to the bucket, you cannot have your wand salted and at the ready, either. It -
Damn it all! You cannot allow yourself to be knocked over like this. You got yourself into this, now you need to go in there and get yourself out of it.
Setting your jaw with a confidence that you can only wish you felt, you march into the Perch, through the vestibule and then through the common room. Immediately all eyes are upon you, and your nerves falter - but somehow you manage to get it through your head that if you were to back out now, it would only make things worse for you. And when you see that the proprietor is still planted on his stool behind the counter, you do take some heart ... though once he starts laughing at the sight of you, splashed and harried, clutching a mildewed bucket, you are shamed and scared all over again. You keep moving though, your feet mechanically tramping towards your room. As you pass out of the common room, he starts to say something, but you are spared any further indignities from him by a fit of rheumatic coughing. You do, however, notice that one of the diners in the common room has left - though it is possible that they will be back soon, as their plate is still sitting on their table, with a goodly amount of food left on it.
Having made your way through the lair of the beast, with no indications of pursuit, you calm down just enough to realize that you have been holding your breath since you stepped into the Perch. As you do, you look down at the bucket that you are squeezing tight to your midriff ... and realize that you might have a problem. This bucket is substantially larger than the tankard that you used earlier, and is in much worse condition. Filled as high as it is, you might not be able to get the consistent pour that you need for Cold-Touch to work. After all of the splashing and dripping on the way over, you still have at least two times as much water as you did ale when you started Cold-Touch to get into the room on the second floor, so it is not like you couldn't just dump water ...
