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In the flickering wain light of your 'stick, you consult one of the several planting maps in the journal, still not entirely certain what heading you wish to take. Are you going to make another play here, and head towards the 'desalinator', or at you going walk? To tell it true, part of you feels like you just swiped defeat from the jaws of victory by balking on the chest at the last moment – and that part wants to wash that all away with another big find. To leave on a strong note. Another part of you is worried that you have already run out of time, that as things stand, you are not leaving yourself enough time to 'move house' into, through – and most tricky of all – out of the sewers. After all, in a few hours, it will be Titheday, and in a few more, it will be sunrise and morning muster in the Midden. Admittedly, you had not given it much thought, but you had expected to be long gone before that. Come to think of it, didn't you originally intend to be off of the Mount at midnight?
Your stomach sinks and churns, and you feel a tension in your legs, your back – a desire for movement, for action. Honestly, were the stakes not so high, you might seriously entertain the notion of flipping a coin to escape this agonizing, worrying, guessing, double and treble guessing. But you cannot in good conscience entrust a decision like this to idle chance. While the continued dissolution of your schedule is tearing you up inside, you cannot easily let go of the 'desalinator' – not after passing on the chest <span class="mu-i">and</span> whatever in the Heights of Hell was in the instrumental sculpture. How many more opportunities such as this are you like to get, to have free reign in a house stocked and stuffed with Mysteries and Mystery-Adjacents? The pill of an answer strikes you like a bolt; you are like to get none, if you get yourself killed by lingering on the Mount overlong. And with the caul lifted from your eyes, you realize that if Aldoin listed this 'desalinator' on the planting maps of his basement – and your father didn't remove or destroy those maps – then it seems very likely that this 'desalinator' is an entirely mundane instrument, a machine. To be sure, he had enough texts on the instrumental sciences, his house is full of the fruits of that art. It follows, most definitely, it follows!
With the 'desalinator' markedly less Mysterious in your estimation, your willingness to linger on its account withers on the vine. You have a number of Aldoin's books on the instrumental sciences – perhaps you will glean the secrets of this 'against salt' machine from them instead. But regardless, it is time that you were off. With no more immediate need for the journal, you jam it in your apron pocket, take up the 'stick and hustle your way back to the room with the casement window as fast as the rather irregular floor and your nude flame will allow.
