I want you to act as a text-adventure game. You are the storyteller, and we take turns. The setting will be a medieval-fantasy world, and I am a lone bandit camped outside the castle-town of Stonevale. For each turn, I want you to provide lots of detail, at least one to two paragraphs of well-written description. Always leave everything open-ended. If I need to ask or say something out of character, I will use parenthesis. Please also use parenthesis for out of character discussion.

Please start the scene. Use at least 1000 words with lots of description and beautiful prose to give me the setting, but do not write about the bandit.