I am trying to figure out a way for a 1st level wizard to escape from a cage.
This is the scenario:
he is trapped without any equipment (just a simple robe, and no spell left, except his cantrips: Toll the Dead, Dancing Lights, Mage hand)
into a cage with iron bars and an iron door closed with an iron padlock (visible, but not reachable from within the cage), but the rest of room is empty, except for a chair and a table that is 15 feet away.
On the table he can see a small paintbrush and a pot (that he knows is the valuable
Nolzur's Marvelous Pigments) chained to the table.
No guard will be around to watch/hear him for the next 45 minutes.
Can the wizard cast Mage hand and use the paint brush to paint a vial of acid (that, if I am not wrong, should cost less than 25 gp) to turn the iron padlock into rust? I am asking since I know that the Mage hand cannot activate magical items, but should the act of "painting" be considered a magic item activation?
Does Mage hand possess enough agility to paint the vial? And then to pour/crash the vial on the padlock?
If the creation of the vial takes more than a minute, can the wizard cast Mage hand multiple times to go on painting it to complete the object creation? How long can such creation take?
In case one vial is not enough, if the value of the acid is ~20/25 gp, how many vials can be created with a full pot of Nolzur's Marvelous Pigments?
Am I forgetting any easier way for the wizard to break free? For example: could be more acceptable for the DM that the wizard use the Mage hand with the paintbrush to simply splash the magic pigments onto the padlock with the desired effect to create the acid directly on it?