Alignment key (SLASH'EM)
( The Key of Chaos/Neutrality/Law 
| |
|---|---|
| Base item | skeleton key |
| Affiliation | |
| When carried | (none) |
| When applied | Can open respective doors in Vlad's Tower |
| When invoked | (none) |
| Base price | 1000 zm |
| Weight | 3 |
The alignment keys are artifact skeleton keys found at the end of the alignment quests in SLASH'EM. They are all intelligent but otherwise have no special properties. Wishing for any of them is not allowed ("For a moment, you feel something in your hands, but it disappears!").
Opening the doors in Vlad's Tower
The main purpose of the alignment keys is to open the artifact doors in Vlad's Tower. To reach Vlad himself, two of the three keys (any two) are needed. However, as mentioned on alignment quest, this is not absolutely necessary to obtain the Candelabrum of Invocation.
Usefulness otherwise
In SLASH'EM, unlocking tools can break, whereas these artifact keys never will( they can corrode and rust however). Therefore, one's own alignment key is ultimately a very useful item to have, and even a cross-aligned key can be useful to open a chest without risking breaking its contents, although one will sustain up to 8d10 blasting damage for every use.
Bug
They can be put into containers, including a bag of holding, and if such a bag of holding blows up, the artifact key is lost forever and the game also often throws a "indestructible object free" error message. If more than one of the keys is destroyed this way and the doors on Vlad's tower are not yet unlocked, winning the game requires the player to use one of the alternate strategies to wake up Vlad.
Differences in variants
In Slash'EM Extended the alignment keys can only open the specific locks in Vlad's Tower, and nothing else. This was done to prevent standard (non-artifact) unlocking tools from becoming useless once the player acquires their own alignment key. They also cannot be confined in containers anymore, which fixes the bug where exploding/cursed bags of holding could destroy them permanently.
