The Master Key
"It glittered in his hand like a shard of heaven, teeth swirling about it like stars. He laughed at the lock, but the lock was the last thing he ever opened."
The Master Key, is no ordinary relic. Forged in forgotten years of radiant gold, shimmering with motes of light like drifting pixie dust, it appears almost delicate, but its enchantment is anything but. It carries with it a reputation that spans longer than kingdoms, perhaps longer even than the memory of most written histories alive today. Scholars and priests alike claim the Master Key has existed since Gaiatia’s earliest days, when the first roofs were thatched and carts still groaned on wooden wheels. Legend and fact agree on one thing, the Key will open any lock, be it mundane or magickal, provided the wielder is found worthy. Worthiness, however, is no mercy. The Key does not serve greed, and it punishes banality. Those who squander its gift on petty coin-chests and humble cupboards risk invoking its ultimate judgment: a door that leads only inward, pulling the unworthy through the very last lock they opened, never to return. For millennia, the Master Key has passed silently from hand to hand, leaving stories of miraculous escapes, liberated kingdoms, and vanished fools in its wake. Whether tool of destiny or trap of divine malice, the Key remains the single most coveted artifact among thieves, kings, and dreamers alike.
Mechanics & Inner Workings
- Universal Access: The Master Key can unlock any door, chest, gate, or seal, regardless of complexity or enchantment. Alternate teeth, gleaming golden fragments, float around it, shifting and sliding into place as needed, fusing into the shaft whenever a lock is approached. The amount of floating teeth is not fixed, phasing in-and-out seemingly at-random or in-response to specific locks.
- Judgment of Worth: The Key itself decides if a wielder is worthy. This judgment is inscrutable, but greed, cowardice, and repetition often invoke its displeasure.
- Banality Clause: If too many trivial or uninspired locks are opened, the Key fabricates its own “final door.” This manifests as the last lock opened becoming a gateway, a shimmering frame that pulls the wielder through, body and soul. None have ever returned from such a passage.
- Magickal Signature: The Key emits a constant, soft radiance. Sparkles drift lazily from it like dust motes, vanishing before they touch the ground. In darkness, this light is enough to guide a traveler, but it cannot be hidden; the Key insists on being seen.
Manufacturing process
The Master Key’s origins are unknown. Some claim it was wrought in a great magickal foundry, when godkings and barbarians still warred for the then untouched lands of Gaiatia. Others say it was a Goblin trick, a bargain struck with some God or another in exchange for freedom from chains. No mortal forge can replicate it; its shifting teeth and endless glow defy all known metallurgy. The gold resists heat, corrosion, and even Hexsteel’s dampening properties, suggesting it is no simple earthly alloy but some celestial substance, hammered into form perhaps before history itself.
History
Earliest references to the Master Key appear in oral ballads of the earliest years of The Lost Ages if one would believe it, describing a “golden key that sings and dances.” During The Fall, it allegedly opened entire cities’ gates to fleeing refugees, though the same stories speak of generals vanishing when they tried to use it on their rivals’ treasuries. In the Great Schism, thieves’ guilds revered it as both idol and executioner, smuggling it across burning borders only for their leaders to vanish one by one. Most recently, it surfaced in Everwealth during the Docks Riots of Opulence, when a prisoner escaped 4 chained cells in succession, only to vanish when he tried to open his own shackled footlocker. The Key has never stayed in one place long, nor has it's legacy.
Significance
The Master Key is one of the most coveted and documented relics in history. For kings, it is the promise of access to enemy vaults and sealed armories. For thieves, it is the perfect prize, the final tool. For scholars, it is proof that Gaiatia itself may have left behind its own safety. Yet none who claim it keep it forever, history though, like little else, seems to always see it make a return in some form. Even locksmiths and landowners unrelated to the artifact at-all refer to their collection of keys which open many locks as a set of 'Master Keys'; An item ingrained into our very subconscious, perhaps even the origin of the word 'key' itself. In any event, the Key moves on, appearing again and again and again in stories where ambition outweighs fear. Its significance lies not in ownership alone but in the choices it forces one to make. It offers great power, and it demands great imagination.
Creation Date
Unknown. Believed to predate the modern day by thousands of years.
Rarity
Unique. There is and always has been only one according to theory; Though the prevalence of similar stories and proven existence of the artifact in the present day despite numerous known wielders may signify the existence of more than one.
Weight
Light, deceptively so, no heavier than a common house key.
Dimensions
A long gold and sparkling skeleton key, four inches in length, with a bow shaped like a sunburst. Magickal alternate teeth hover around it, glowing faintly, sliding into place when a lock is approached.
Base Price
Incalculable. Empires have fallen for lesser treasures.
Raw materials & Components
- Golden Alloy: Unidentified, impervious to mundane forges.
- Magickal Teeth: Semi-autonomous fragments bound by unknown Arcane principle.
- Core Enchantment: A judgmental intelligence, origin unknown.
Tools
None known. No mortal tools could have forged the Master Key. If it was made, it was made by something greater than smiths and hammers, by gods, or by Gaiatia itself.
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