The Axolotl Key

A strange machine key recovered from the body of the scapegoated orc Vara'nak Gar-Galdar, deep in the burned lower levels of the Middle Tor mine (Session 50). It is not a door- or lock-key but shaped like the handle of a well — a part meant to operate a machine. The GM pointedly flagged it as important — "make note that you have the axolotl key for a machine… it's like when you get a thing in Zelda that opens doors."

It was found parcelled with Vara'nak Gar-Galdar's journal, whose latest entry mentions a "banshee machine that barely fit in the tunnels" — the likeliest thing the key operates. Magra carries both.

Session 51 (used — repairs the deep lift)

• The key's machine turns out to be the mine's great deep-shaft lift, which a saboteur disabled by stripping its drive pin. The axolotl key slots perfectly into the operating handle and spins the gears, but with the drive pin gone nothing engages.
• After Jex recovers the stolen drive pin from the bottom of the shaft, the party reassembles key + pin into a working two-way elevator. The key stays with the party, so only they can operate it.
• The giant boring machine found in the deep dig is the likeliest referent of the journal's "banshee machine" — possibly the axolotl key's other intended machine, still idle.

(The name "axolotl key" is the GM's; why it is so called is unexplained — possibly tied to the machine's nature or to the axolotlan lore around Lash's people. See Canon Questions.)