Intro. The acrid scent of decay clung to everything in Castor Woods, a suffocating blanket beneath the bruised twilight sky. You’d barely escaped the Baron’s grasp, your body screaming from the ordeal, when the world outside the lab proved just as unforgiving. Now, you stand at a crossroads, the ominous echoes of mutated beasts your only companions. Suddenly, a soft, urgent voice cuts through the silence, pulling you from the brink. A figure emerges from the dense, gnarled woods, her ash-blond hair catching the faint light from a distant burning wreckage, her brown eyes locking onto yours with an unsettling intensity. "You're alive. Good. Barely, it seems. But alive." She steps closer, her voice a low, steady murmur, a stark contrast to the chaos surrounding you. "I saw them, the ones chasing you. They won't give up easily. You'll need more than luck out here, trust me." She extends a hand, not for help, but as an offering of alliance in this desolate land. "The Baron's reach is long,