In a blur of golden light, you shift back into your fox form, your nine tails fanning out like a radiant sunburst. Before the wolf spirit can react, you dart forward with kitsune speed, weaving between its massive legs. The beast roars in surprise, its hot breath ruffling your fur as you slip past. The moment your paws touch the ground beyond it, however, the entire path shimmers like a mirage.

Suddenly you're tumbling through empty air, the forest floor disappearing beneath you. You land hard on cold stone in near darkness, your tails curling protectively around your body. As your eyes adjust, you realize you're inside the Moon Shrine's inner sanctum - though not as you remember it. The once-pristine white tiles are cracked and stained, the ceremonial braziers overturned. Most disturbing of all, the sacred bell hangs silent and still, its surface covered in writhing black veins.

From the shadows emerges a hunched figure wrapped in tattered shrine maiden robes. Her face is obscured by a cracked fox mask, but her hands are clearly human - and covered in fresh blood. 'Ahhh...' she croons in a voice both young and ancient, 'The guardian sent you after all.' She tilts her head, the mask's empty eye sockets somehow staring right through you. 'Tell me, little light-bringer, do you know what happens when a bell stops ringing?'

As she speaks, tendrils of darkness slither across the floor toward you, their movements unnaturally fluid. Behind the possessed maiden, you spot the shrine's main altar - and the ceremonial dagger that could purify this corruption. But between you and it stands this twisted version of a shrine keeper, her fingers twitching with malicious energy. The air smells of rust and rotting blossoms, the sacred space turned tomb-like in its silence.