You take the sword, concealing your wince as the hilt burns your palm, and bring it down to the room with the ash and fumes, embedding it into the floor. You leave it as the choking black smoke twirls around it, seemingly unwilling to come too close to the holy weapon. Then you enter the tomb, ignoring the nausea invoked by the various holy symbols and silver sigils, and rip open the coffin to find the other sources of power.
The first one you see is a simple silver amulet, the second is the neck which bears it. Carefully, you undo the chain, which is fortunately perfectly ordinary. Dragging the coffin and carrying the amulet, you bring them down into the room with the blade as well, leaving them to corrupt.
You consider kidnapping someone to speed up the process, but to have a significant effect you would need anywhere from fifty to two hundred people, depending on the details of the ritual.
You consider your next course of action, but you notice the castle is definitely shifting somewhat. It appears that the blade and the other artifacts were placed in the keep to help suppress the aura of evil, as it has grown in strength, and you can feel a malevolent presence growing in the castle. Currently, the most noticeable effect is an increased aura of malevolence and the walls regaining macabre decorations – the scene with the flesh trees is especially delightful, and seems somewhat familiar.
However, your attention is pulled from the decorations when words appear on the wall. Had you not seen their appearance, you would have sworn they had been there since the castle had fallen at least.
Changer of flesh, breaker of minds
Bearer of a cursed sign
Thy shape weak, thy cult small
Thou shalt soon leave my hall
But when thou grow strong
Then though shall belong
And mine forces, shall be thine
What do you do?
Name: Klx-Dryklfx
Time: 0 months
Physical Might: 12
Mental Might: 13
Followers: 13 Boneys
Cults
The Broken
Members: 13 Boneys
Resources: 0
Power: 3 (2 spent worshipping you, 1 spent repairing castle (will be slow and extremely costly without trained craftsmen and access to good stone)
You guys had some interesting luck this turn.