Quoted By:
Though as you begin to retrace your steps through this den of iniquity, back to the lecherous leech to ask him for some water for the washbasin to wash up with – that you would actually be using as working material for Cold-Touch – another potential course of action occurs to you. If you were somehow able to get your hands on the master keys that he no doubt has, you would not need to assume the risk of casting Cold-Touch in the middle of a hallway. All you would need to do is to pretend that you locked your key in your room, and he would surely have to fetch the master or masters to unlock it again for you – effectively bringing the key or keys right out to you for you to swipe at your leisure.
To be sure, it is a tall order. But you are no whobody to sneakthievery. You spent years picking pockets before you and father came to Outremer. Perhaps you are a little rusty, but even so, isn’t it less of a risk, less of an undertaking than the <span class="mu-i">unmundane</span> alternative? Even if everything goes flawlessly with Cold-Touch, your eyes are going to be glowing white for at least a couple of minutes. And that is not even considering the how much of the Strangeness that Cold-Touch produces and dumps into the working material over the course of the reaction. And that is Strangeness that you cannot count on yourself having enough time to or privacy to Mitigate or Remediate away. If it turns out that one or both of the men that made the prints is in some manner or other able to ‘see’ the Strangeness, surely once they return to their room – assuming of course, that they aren’t in there right now – they are going to notice that there is a bunch of the Strangeness pouring out from the inside of the lock on their door. Or doors. For all you know, they could be in separate rooms, which would make using Cold-Touch even more of a pain. But either way, you cannot count on having enough time to deal with the Strangeness that Cold-Touch produces, and if you do end up leaving it behind, then it is going to be painfully obvious that someone with Mysterious blessings investigated that room.
Of course, that is not to say that pick-pocketing the proprietor is a great option – or even a good one. It goes without saying that if anything goes wrong with the lift, then you are truly and certifiably frayed. Or if he notices that the keys are missing while you are using them, then unless his brain is as small as his stomach is large, then he should be able to deduce that you have played him to show you where they were kept. On that point, if you wanted to keep him from ever finding out that made off with them, then you would have to figure out how to return them to him without eliciting too much suspicion. But now that you think about it, is that even possible? Or at the very least, something that you can safely assume you can do?
