Chisel Key

Chisel Keys are specialised Voidtech devices designed to unlock metaphysical locks and seals. Created by Transcends early during the Ascension Wars, the keys assisted into breaking into caches and information vaults.

Description
Chisel Keys, like most Transcended technology, are shapeshifting devices with no set form. The key consists of a specialised AI housed in a patterned computer and and several Void based effectors.

History
During the opening years of the Ascension Wars, the Transcends of Point 00 found that they required a solution to break into the various locked vaults and caches that the natives of Point 01 stored some of their deepest secrets in. These vaults utilised intricate metaphysical locks that were immensely difficult to brute force with raw Void power, and thus required an approach with more finesse. The Transcends of Point 00 captured such locks for study, in an attempt to find a way to break into them. Several ways were found to be successful, but all required some time to be spent on finding their vulnerabilities and weaknesses, alongside a need for equipment that was costly in time and resources to produce.

In an effort to reduce such costs, the most successful processes were streamlined as much as possible, with the required equipment being simplified as was feasible. The resulting product, while still relatively costly, was less so than the equipment it was derived from and took less time to break into the various locks that it was tested on. Months of development lead to the creation of the first Chisel Keys, which were deployed successfully for cache and vault hunters. The success of the Chisel Keys continued well past the Ascension Wars into the present, where it has became a common tool for treasure hunters to carry.

Mechanism
The Chisel Key is a relatively simple, but effective tool. Once activated via thought, the Key shapeshifts into a form suitable for the metaphysical lock before physically attaching and interfacing with it. With this part of the process complete, the AI inside the key gathers data on the metaphysics used in the creation of the lock (if they have not been loaded in already) and the lock itself. The key performs experiments and simulations within itself as part of the information gathering process. Once the AI has successfully found the lock's weaknesses or ways to exploit its unlocking conditions, the Void based effectors attached to the key induce the right conditions to either fool the lock into opening or to directly fulfil the opening conditions.

The Chisel Key, while reasonably effective for most metaphysical locks, is not foolproof. Some metaphysical seals and locks may have conditions stringent and reliable enough in their opening to render the Key ineffective, or possess countermeasures designed to defend against detailed observation and analysis. In the latter case, everything from feeding the key false information to directly damaging the key for gathering information is possible.