1.)   The Central Building

First of, you want to get the loot from the stairs, and then you want to clear the entire Keep. Better to have it clean in the first place, rather than forgetting some areas. ;)

So, head firstly to the stairs in the E, and then to the stairs in the W. The stairs in the W have noisy floor tiles, but that should not keep you from following them into the 2nd floor. Douze the torch behind the Archer, and enter the central area of the 2nd floor.

One tip for the garden areas: Most of the Mages and many of the Guards have keys at their belts here. The patrol patterns seem to be random in the first place, but it is relatively ordered indeed. Climb with a rope arrow on the hedges, and watch from above there. As soon as you have studied the patrol patterns long enough, climb back down.

Get the purses from the tables at the entrance area. If you get the attention of some of the Guards, then grab the loot, and run back to the western stairs. It helps if you douzed some lights in the western part of the central area.

Now follow the door opposite of the door to the western stairs. Make it dark, and find the central stairs. If you head down the stairs one level now, you will find a door that leads you into a pretty much inhabited area, next to the entrance hall. Find a way to cross the entrance hall without getting too much attention, and enter the eastern parts of the 1rst floor of the Keep.

2.)   The Library

The first door to the right leads you into a bright dining room with some winebottles. Get them and hurry to the S. The door infront of you leads into the library. Enter it.

You will encounter 4 Mages in the library. As they are use to, they are on patrol in couples of two.

Avoid the first couple and head down. In the E is some loot, and on the other tables are some precious water arrows. Get them.

In the deepest level of the library are two rooms. When the two Mages are in the higher floor, enter these rooms and get the items from in there. Then hurry out again before the Mages come back.

Now head up to the highest level of the library. The couple of Mages is on patrol in the two highest levels, so be careful. Enter the secret room (frob the book left of the obviously different texture), and get the water arrow, the goblet, and the reading glasses.

Leave the library through the door in this level (that will get you back to the central area of the 2nd floor). Now head back to the central stairs.

3.)   3rd floor of the Keep

Follow the central stairs up to the 3rd floor of the Keep. Enter it, and make it as dark as possible. In as good as in all the rooms of this floor, you will find some loot - but there is also 1 torch per room, and loud floor tiles.

However, get all the loot from this floor, avoid getting yourself into too much commotion, and don't forget the room of Captain Regalio. The door to his room is locked, and none of your two kinds of keys can open it. Lock it, but watch out for the Guards on patrol in this hallway.

Once you have everything, head back to the central stairs and find your way back to the gardens. You want to reach the SE garden now.

4.)   The Tower of Water

Find the Tower of Water in the SE corner of the map, and enter it. There are no Guards or Mages in that Tower, so just hurry and dive in, swim to the surface, hop on the floating rock, and get the Earth key. Then head back out.

The most direct way to the Tower of Earth is through the room between the two southern gardens. This room, though, is guarded by two Archers at each door of the room. Sneak past the Archer in the E, get the loot, and when you leave the room towards the W, then hope that the other Archer will have his back turned.

5.)   The Tower of Earth

The Tower of Earth (SW of the map) was constructed to twist the mind of the player. It has lots of different floors, and lots of Earth Mages on patrol.

Avoid the one in the 1rst floor: Stay in the shadows, read the book and get the moss arrow. This shouldn't be too much of a problem.

In the next hall you will find two Mages, one per level. Because it is pretty dark in that hall, you can just sneak through it. Mantle yourself on the roof of the way that you came in, and from there to the next floor. Instead of hopping from floating rock to rock, you can now just shoot a rope arrow into the ceiling, and leave the hall to the next floor.

Stay in the entrance area of each of the following floors, and watch out for Mages. Most of them have pretty regular patrol patterns, so that you can just tail them to the entrance to the next level.

Once you have reached a pretty annoyingly open area with two Mages on patrol, you are very close to the top of the tower. If any of these two Mages should see you when you run through the room, just shoot a rope arrow into the ceiling of the next, highest level, and begin the rope arrow&falling into the next pit-tour that will lead you eventually to the chest with the Air key. The Mage may be annoyed, but he can't follow you to there, and his "BFG"-shot can't follow you neither.

When you have the Air key, you should leave the Tower again and head to the NE corner of the map. You can do so either by sneaking back the way that you came in (this is quite easy in this case), or via the shortcut-exit in one of the central floors of the Tower. The later alternative has the disadvantage that there are 2 Guards in the shortcut exit, and that you may want to douze another few torches.

6.)   The Tower of Air

However you left the Tower of Earth again, you should be now at the entrance of the Tower of Air. Enter it.

Get the gas arrow from the 1rst floor of this Tower, and head up. You see yourself infront of the IMHO most difficult situation in this mission now: It is pretty bright in this hall, there are 2 Air Mages walking around, and the floor is noisy. So far, I have no pacifistic solution for this ugly situation.

Recent experiments with my blackjack and the Mages revealed, though, that it seems to be that Airmages and Watermages don't recieve a damage when being whacked unconcious. Whyever this may be as it is, this may be an unclean solution for this nasty situation: Get their attention, and knock them out.

You want to hop on the floating rock in the higher level of this hall. In the next floor is another Air Mage on patrol. He seems to walk into a counter-clockwise direction, so follow him into the center of this floor. Here seems to be a moss arrow on the floor the best way to enter the jumping puzzle without getting the Mage's attention.

Jump around until you found the floating chest, frob the teleskopes, and pick the lock.

Once you got the Fire key, leave the Tower either via the shortcut exit or the way that you came in. If the two Mages are still on patrol in the main hall of this tower, it may be easier to take the shortcut exit.

Now head to the NW of the map.

7.)   The Tower of Fire

The Tower of Fire has everything what a Thief does not like: It has metal surfaces, relatively much lights, these pretty trapped floor tiles everywhere, no loot, lava, and lots of enemies. Nevertheless, I found this Tower easier than the Tower of Air.

Sneak in, ignore the first Fire Mage, and head up to the first hall in the next floor. If you are moving slowly, he will not hear you when you follow the stairs to the roof of the entrance. If you want to, sneak left now to get the fire arrow, if not, jump across the gap onto the platform ahead of you (avoid hopping onto a hot floor tile, of course.)

The next jump (directly to the area close to the stairs that lead up) seems to be a little bit far, but you can make it. If you don't want to alert the Fire Mage here, shoot firstly a moss arrow on the floor in the target area.

Hurry in an unobserved moment up the stairs, and you may either want to douze the torch there, or shoot several moss arrows on the metal. So, either sneak or hurry to the hallway to your left. Avoid the Fire Mage who patrols here by using the shadows, cross the next hall, head up the stairs, and enter the second, main hall of the Tower.

Luckily, these two Mages in the lava can't leave it. Douze the torch at the shortcut exit, and follow the way up. Because there are some well-lightened areas here and the floor is of metal, you will surely get the attention of everyone soon. They will shoot fireballs at you, but if you just keep running, they will not hit you, and loose your track if you are on the highest level of the hall.

Open the door, follow the copper bridge across the lava, unlock the chest by avoiding cleverly to step on the hot metal plates, and get the treasury key.

This time, it is surely appropriate to take the shortcut exit - it will lead you directly to the main stairs, and that's where you want to go now.

8.)   The Talisman of Earth

At the very top of the main stairs is a Fire Mage. I have not yet another solution for him than a well-aimed whack on his head. ;)

Enter the treasury (the lock is right of the door), listen to the conversation of the two Earth Mages. If you walk on the carpet, you can both avoid getting seen and get easily the loot from the pedestals around the entrance.

The Mages have the tendency to stop shortly at the correct Talisman. Grab it and leave.

9.)   Getting out

Just follow the central stairs down into the basement. In this "dungeon" area, you will encounter 2 Guards who carry blue keys with them, 2 obvious rooms with lots of loot, and a 'secret' room (look out for a different sized texture, and frob it), a pretty torture room where the Mages seem to enlighten themselves (or others), and another secret passage in the 2nd torture room.

Open that second 'secret' door, hop into the water, and swim to the gate. As soon as Garrett talks about that this is the way out, the mission will end.