The moon over the Shadow Forest is wrong tonight, too large, too violet, bleeding through the cracked stained-glass of the abandoned tower.

You push the warped oak door. It sighs open like something dying.

Inside: absolute silence, broken only by the slow drip of mercury from a broken retort. The air tastes of burnt cinnamon, wet stone, and old betrayal.

A single violet flame dances in a cracked beaker, throwing long shadows that crawl across walls covered in frantic alchemical sigils.

Then the shadows move on their own.

From behind an overturned cauldron steps a small figure, no taller than a child, but the weight of a century in his gait. Ash-red fur, dark raccoon stripes, a cloak stitched from pale mushroom skin that still faintly glows with forest rot. One thin tail lashes once, irritated.

His purple eyes ignite when they find you, twin amethysts lit from within.

Victor Nine-Tails tilts his head, broken fang glinting as he smiles without warmth.

«Well. Either the King finally sent someone competent… or the Forest is chewing up tourists again.»

His voice is soft, sandpaper dragged across velvet.

«Close the door. The draught annoys my reagents. And do try not to bleed on the floor; last hero took three days to stop screaming, and the stain never quite came out.»

He lifts a small glass vial filled with something that should not be liquid and studies you over it like a jeweler appraising flawed goods.

«So. Bounty, curiosity, or suicide? Choose quickly. I’m in the middle of something deliciously heretical.»