OOC: For reference purposes, the worldbuilding thread is here and the OOC thread is here.

I'm going to assume certain elements of backstory - basically, that you're up for the quest for whatever reason and have already set off and arrived - in order to get you as close to the action as possible before we kick off. The railroad tracks end here, though.

You are the only hope for the resistance. Truth be told, even calling it 'the resistance' is overstating the case - a bunch of terrified villagers and refugees, cowering in the last free village of Cerrynt while the soldiers of Baron Vexous, desperate to stop the doom coming their way without the first idea why it was unleashed on them in the first place.

But you are their hope. A band of misfits, united by the fact that you are a cut above the villagers who place such faith in you. Whether it is your magic or your skill at arms that sets you apart, the task of infiltrating the baron's clifftop castle and slaying him before his armies reach the last free village falls to you. And he is nobility; if his valuables were to go missing in the course of your quest no one would think the worse of you....

Although Cerrynt is only a small land, you had to take a lengthy detour to avoid the body of Vexous' troops as you travelled. It's not a large army by any standards, maybe 200 fighting men plus their baggage train, but it's more than sufficient to abduct a host of unarmed peasants to an unknown fate. You find yourself in the small town of Centrepoint - the closest thing Cerrynt has to a capital - with maybe seven days before the marching soldiers reach the village you set out from.

The sky is grey and overcast as you approach Centrepoint. A chill breeze rustles the wild grasses in the fields alongside the road into town - fields that remain fallow and untended despite the imminence of planting season. Although you can hear birdsong and insects from the hedgerows, no larger animals can be seen - no cattle, no goats, no sheep, nothing.

The weather is threatening rain as you enter Centrepoint proper. The town is deserted. Not a soul anywhere to be seen; no one living, dead, or otherwise. No dogs bark. No cats prowl the streets. The silence is broken only by the sound of your footsteps and a shutter banging in the wind somewhere nearby. Beyond the town, Castle Cerrynt - all dull grey stone piled up in a collision of baroque architecture - looms atop Bastion Tor; a steep, rocky crescent of a hill, rumoured to be riddled with secret tunnels. A single road winds erratically from town to castle.

As you take in the scene, Darion's sharp eyes pick out movement up at Castle Cerrynt and he is quick to point it out to the rest of you. A shape, tiny at this distance, crawls across part of one stone wall before vanishing from sight in a tangle of buttresses. Although detail is impossible to make out at this distance, something in the crawling creature's outline and gait reminds you of the insectile.

The wind picks up, bringing with it the first splatters of rain. What do you do?