19.15 Utilising the city locksmiths.

The Minister of Justice has an extra responsibility to be trustworthy, since he can unlock and lock any door within their city. The Minister may call upon the city lock-smiths automatically using the LOCK and UNLOCK command - this action is logged to the city lockactions. This simple ability gives a great deal of power to that minister, and offers a large scope for abusing his powers. It has been known in the past for an evil doer to engineer himself into the position only to use the locksmiths to rob every shop in the city, before fleeing into the hills with his booty. In addition, the Justice Minister can work keys to locks within the city, or change locks on doors within the city.

If you have the appropriate skills or, in some cases, stand in a city locksmith you have access to the following commands:

Syntax: COPY <master key>.
Offers up the master key to the locksmiths, in order that they might make a copy and give back, after a charge has been levied, your original key and another with similar properties.

Syntax: UNFIT LOCK <direction> or UNFIT LOCK <item>.
This command allows you to set about the task of unfitting a lock from an open door item, working away at its mechanism until the entire lock can be taken from its housing and discarded. The pace of the unfitting and the speed depends on the complexity of the lock and whether the individual performing the task has any specialist aptitude.

Syntax: LOCKSMITH <master key> <secondary key>.
Use this command at a city locksmith while in possession of both keys, to demand the craftsman amend your master key (if possible) such that it is able to perform all of the tasks covered by the secondary key. Keys can have, at most, a complexity of ten distinct lock mechanisms. The locksmiths will charge according to the intricacy of the key, the locks involved, and the number of distinct locations covered by the secondary key. Much of the time locksmiths will only be able to work on keys designated part of their hometown sphere of knowledge, e.g. a Mercinaen locksmith will be able to work Mercinaen doors, but will struggle when faced with keys from foreign towns.