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While it is currently Strange from contact with the rags and boots, there is no other sign that it is anything more than a mundane fire-starter. Yet … whatever exactly this is, it was made by someone with an understanding of chemistry, and chemistry is just mundane Alchemy. A full-fledged Witch could have made this, easily – though by the same token, some back alley chemist could have as well.
More importantly than that though, the men who rented this room were so damned serious about preventing anyone from following their trail, that they were willing to use something like this. And you thought they were being reckless by walking out on a burn pile. That said though, if it really has been three or four days, and they had just moved to another nearby public house, wouldn’t they have realized that their nasty little candle here didn’t do its job?
So perhaps you aren't going to be able track them down after all … but either way, you are going to have to take the Strange Incendiary with you, or at the very least, render it inert somehow. Of course, you are not thrilled at the prospect of keeping something like that on or even near your person, but as you don't have the time to properly cleanse the rest of the Strangeness in here, taking responsibility for this should be a decent sinecure, right? Surely that is a goodly deed. And more than that, while the Guard would probably not bestir themselves over a pair of malicious travelers running out after ruining some sheets in this barn of a public house, they would almost certainly be interested if they heard that the men attempted to set off a presumed incendiary. They might even wonder why someone would go to such great lengths to burn those sheets – and with the Inquisition running around the city full tilt, that kind of wondering would be patently dangerous for you.
If you had your druthers, you would cleanse the room properly and leave absolutely no trail for anyone – but you cannot afford to spend that kind of time here. Leaving behind the Strangeness is quickly becoming a bad habit for you. Here, that alley, the Morgue, the – you don't even want to think about it. But … confiscating a dangerous and Strange Incendiary – that is something that you can do. Understandably, you are not thrilled at the prospect of keeping something like that on or even near your person, but removing any Strangeness from the premises is a good thing, right? Even if it is not communicably Strange, it is still counts as a good deed?
Getting closer, it looks like someone thought they were lighting the fuse, but instead were lighting the fraying end of other of the rags. In the dark, cramped corners of the fireplace, you could see how one could pass for the other. Next with Strange-Staining active once more, you poke at the Strange Incendiary with a portion of this room's key that has not been covered in the Strangeness yet … and you sigh in relief when the Strangeness doesn't spread.
