The Silver Key
| ( The Silver Key File:Universal key.png | |
|---|---|
| Base item | universal key |
| Affiliation | |
| When carried |
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| When applied |
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| When invoked | |
| Base price | 5000 zm |
| Weight | 3 |
The Silver Key is an artifact that appears in dNetHack and notdNetHack. It is neutral, and its base item is a universal key.
Generation
The Silver Key is not randomly generated and cannot be wished for.
The Silver Key will always appear on the lowest floor of the Neutral Quest, where it is randomly placed within one of the temple complexes in R'lyeh. If you are a Binder, The Hand-Mirror of Cthylla will instead appear in its place.
Description
While carried, The Silver Key confers polymorph control, teleport control and faster energy regeneration.
The Silver Key can be wielded to perform the invocation, allowing it to replace the Bell of Opening - it is also similarly indestructible and cannot be placed in a container.
Strategy
Retrieving The Silver Key
The temple complexes of R'lyeh where The Silver Key can be housed are rife with perilous and highly dangerous encounters, even by the already-dangerous standards of the deep Neutral Quest: The Great Cthulhu resides in one of the temple complexes, and the Key may even be placed near him - there are also various highly-dangerous Lovecraftian monsters and other nasties that are scattered around the temple altars, such as shoggoths and the second alhoon. Players typically do not venture into the Lost Cities until they are ready to go all the way to R'lyeh.
With all this in mind, a character capable of making it to R'lyeh is likely capable of retrieving The Silver Key, and the Key's slotless properties usually make it worth their time to do so: even if the Key is placed next to Cthulhu, it can still be recovered as long as they are cautious, since he can always be sensed from a distance as "an unknown monster causing you dread", even if you do not have warning. Merely seeing the Great Cthulhu lowers your current and maximum wisdom by 1d10 points, preventing any form of restore ability from repairing the damage - be sure to extinguish any light sources, and remain at least two squares away from him or else blind yourself. Luckily, he is generated asleep and is very slow, making it possible to grab the Key and escape without confronting him.
Once The Silver Key is obtained, it is common to immediately invoke it to branchport out of the quest, especially if Cthulhu is awake - carrying the Key also allows a character to circumvent the one-level cap on level teleporting within the branch.
