You are a soldier. You follow orders. “Secure it, Corporal!” you bark. Davies, with practiced efficiency, bags the relic, its malevolent glow muted by the thick canvas. You return to Tanah Merah as heroes. Major Briggs is effusive, clapping you on the back. “See? Bandits. Crown property, safe and sound.” The Jade Serpent is locked in his heavy iron safe, tagged and filed away as a curious geological sample.
That night, a deep, unnatural cold settles over the garrison. The shadows in Briggs’ office grow long and thick, seeming to drink the light from the oil lamps. In the dead of night, a sound like a sigh echoes from the safe, and the heavy door swings open from the inside.
The next morning, the clerk finds Major Briggs at his desk. He is frozen solid, a rime of frost coating his uniform, his face a mask of petrified terror. The safe is empty. The official report calls it a bizarre tropical illness and a coincidental theft. The artifact is listed as lost. But you know the truth. The evil was not destroyed, nor even truly contained. It was merely catalogued, inconvenienced, and set free to find a new, more willing vessel. You contained nothing. You only delayed the inevitable.