Your body shimmers as you surrender to the transformation, bones shifting and shrinking until you stand on four nimble paws instead of two feet. Your nine luxurious tails fan out behind you, their golden fur catching what little light penetrates the dense canopy. The forest scents explode in your sensitive fox nose - decaying leaves, frightened animals hiding in their burrows, and beneath it all, the acrid tang of corrupted magic.

You pad silently toward the ancient tree where the foxfire hovers, your paws making no sound on the thick moss. The tanuki watches with wide, hopeful eyes as you pause at the hidden trail. The foxfire bobs once, then begins floating down the narrow path between towering roots that form a natural archway. Strange symbols carved into the wood glow faintly as you pass beneath them - ancient wards meant to keep darker things at bay.

The forest grows unnaturally still as you venture deeper. Even your supernatural stealth can't mask the way the very air seems to thicken, resisting your movement. Your whiskers twitch as you detect movement in the peripheral shadows - fleeting shapes that vanish when you turn your head. The foxfire's glow dims noticeably, pulsing in time with that sickly green light from the shrine's direction.

Suddenly, the path opens into a small clearing where three stone fox statues stand in a triangle formation, their moss-covered muzzles pointing toward a stone lantern. The flame within burns black, casting twisted shadows that writhe against the trees. One of the statues lies toppled, its head shattered. From the broken fragments, tendrils of inky darkness seep into the earth like roots from a poisoned plant.