"Not very pleasant. I hope we were not led astray," Mikaela says. She takes her pack, fumbling through it for a torch. She then tries to light it. "I hope this is just plain old darkness. Let's see."

 Aruzhal steps through the portal. He holds his nose as he squints through the torchlight. "This smell... is not pleasant."

Ilithienne follows Michaela through the door. When she approaches the  oval portal, she follows with the knocking.

"Ugh... the stench..." she mutters taking a looks down the corridor.

Kallista follows behind the others as they leave, giving one last sweep of the room before stepping through.

Chapter Two: The Cage

As you step through the curtain of darkness, it gives way to a beige, filth-tainted light. The cool, open air informs you that you are now outdoors. The faint breeze would almost be pleasant... if it didn't reek of smoke and garbage. 

From a brief glance at your surroundings, you find that you stand at the back of a dead-end alley. The paved ground and the walls on either side of you are an architect's nightmare. Not one patch of wall looks like it belonged to the same building as another patch of wall, and yet here they were, all cobbled together. Intricately arched doorways sit side-by-side with crude brickwork, framed with wood of various types and states of decay. The buildings on both sides of the alley stand three stories high, their tops denoted by a canopy of mismatched roof tiles. The windows, nothing visible through them save for curtains or darkness, come in all shapes and sizes, spaced at seemingly random increments. The asymmetry and lack of coherent architectural theme is made even more jarring by the fact that the structures themselves seem... crooked. It is as though the buildings are leaning over the alley, as if to shelter it from the sky... or to stare down at its occupants through their windowed eyes.

Looking up, you find a smog-filled, sickly pale brown sky looming over you. No sun is visible, but your surroundings are sufficiently illuminated by something from up above.

The alley is blanketed in dust and soot, and littered with rubbish. Poorly washed laundry sags from clotheslines above you, dripping filthy water onto the dirt-caked cobblestones. Heaps of shattered glass, rusty tools, broken wagon wheels, torn paper, rotten fruit, and worse line the sides of the alley. The squeaking of rats is heard, along with the occasional rustle in the trash piles. Pipe ends protrude from the sides of the buildings, one of which sputters out black sewage, which glurges into a drain a few feet from Gavyn's foot.

The alley goes for what seems a little over fifty feet before merging onto a busy street. Bustling humanoid figures are seen moving to and fro on the street from the narrow view the alley provides, but you soon realize you are not alone in the alley...

Fifteen feet from where you all stand, you realize that what at first appeared to be a discarded green tarp was in fact a collapsed tent. Inside the wreckage of the makeshift camp, something snarls and thrashes around. Tearing and gnawing, followed by the satisfied smacking of lips emerge from beneath the heap of sticks and cloth. Strewn about the tent's remains are ransacked clothes and inside-out bags, their meager contents spilled across the ground.

Further down the alley from you, a papery-skinned, emaciated man looks on at the thrashing tent with wide, hungry eyes. He sits atop a pile of unwanted clothing, hunched over, his arms wrapped around his legs. His greasy dark hair is spiky and unkempt. His wide, exhausted eyes indicate horror towards what he is witnessing. Besides him sits a smaller, bearded old man, his head turned away from the sight before them. His eyes are closed, his expression relaxed, yet sad. Both men wear sackcloth and are covered in grime.

None of the alley's denizens acknowledge your entry. Behind you, you hear your portal zip shut.

Clarification: You all stand at the back of a dead-end alley. Fifteen feet away from you is the noisy tent. The two men watching it are an additional fifteen feet away from the tent, and thirty feet in total from where you stand.

At first horrified by the stench, Ilithienne looks at the unique architecture. With a bit of surprise she remembers the low districts of some cities of Underdark. The same kind of re-usage of materials, huts and houses created from every bit of salvaged building materials, the lack of sun and greenery. "Well... we could end up in a worse place, but not by far..." Ilithienne speaks with disgust. "This place will chew us up and spit us out just like those two, if we are not careful." she adds pointing at the two figures ahead.  She takes a look at the others already missing the green meadows and forests. When she takes a few steps towards the exit she pulls out her rapier to protect herself and the others from the thing that is ransacking the collapsed tent. She moves forward with caution taking slow, calculated steps, prepared to thrust at any sign of danger.

Aruzhal looks around. His eyebrows raise and his face falls a bit.

"It is a marvel that whatever city this is has allowed this to happen to this extent." the dragonborn says in a low voice.

He eyes the two men watching the tent, and asks: "Excuse me. Do you know where we are? What is going on in there?" He motions with his head toward the tent.

As he realizes he's standing near the drain for the black sewage, Gavyn takes a quick step away, then looking around the alley, absorbing the lovely scenery. He had traveled a lot and seen quite a few filthy back alleys but this one might just take the cake. He nods in agreement with the words of Ilithienne but he is far too impatient to wait for the two grime-covered men to respond to Aruzhal, instead stepping closer to the party tent, swifty drawing his rapier, using the tip to lift away a bit of tarp to see what's being feasted upon, then quickly stepping back with the others.

"I believe," Kallista responds to Aruzhal's comment. "That if you were to look at our own home dimension you would find the same exact issue."

She pads down the alleyway enough to try and get a look and see if any of the humanoids on the main street are of races familair to her.

"Surely there must be better neighborhoods in this city," Mikaela mutters, out loud but mostly to herself.  She takes several long moments to glance around.  And moves even further away from whatever the black sewage is that's spewing out. She starts to speak in a firm voice, "Alright, this must be where the others we're looking for went. We find them. We find a way out. And..."  Her voice trails off as she realizes Gavin is poking at what must be a creature under the collapsed tent, Aruzhal has started talking to the men down the alleyway, and Kallista and Ilithienne are walking away too.  

With a very slight shake of her head, she moves forward as well, hand on her battleaxe as she's not so sure what Gavin is going to unearth there. 

"A fitting sight indeed for your first glimpse of the Hive.  I suggest ye leave as quickly as ye can. 'Else you'll end up in the deadbook like ol' Lopper there." The old man says to Aruzhal, gesturing towards the tent. "He passed away las' night." The old man says to Aruzhal, shaking his head in disappointment. "The poor sod. The bad air finally got to 'is lungs. He never did get used to it, I suppose. You Outsiders never do. He was a good man. I wish the collectors had claimed him before Shrieba did."

The younger man's eyes dart back and forth between Aruzhal, the old man, and the shaking remains of Lopper's tent.

Kallista, checking the street beyond, can make out what appear to be primarily humans, and the occasional dwarf, some lizardfolk, and... did that human have a tail? Tieflings too, it seems. Regardless of species, all look worn and a little on the dirty side.

As Gavyn's rapier moves aside the tattered tent, he uncovers a pale, filthy human foot. It looks like it belongs to a grown man. The nails are long and yellowed. Its sole is calloused and scarred. The dark veins are visible beneath the flesh. It isn't moving, and neither is whatever it's attached to...

A bloody, withered hand springs out from beneath the tarp, grabbing Gavyn's rapier by the blade in an inhuman grip. A second bony arm pulls aside the rest of the tent as the figure rises to its feet to reveal itself. Blood red, sinewy flesh is stretched thin over the creature's humanoid skeleton. It towers over Gavyn, hunching it's skeletal back in a sickeningly low arch to show its horrid teeth through a bloody, lipless grin. Sunken into its papery sockets are two yellow eyes the size of copper pieces, adorned with beady pupils the size of pinheads. A horrid, branching topknot stems from its cracked, dry scalp.

"Do you alwAys point your shArp stICKs at stRANgers?" His breath reeks of necrotic flesh and sulfur. He gives Gavyn's rapier a powerful tug before shoving it back towards him and letting go. Looking down, you can see that the owner of the dead foot has been uncovered. He was a hefty man once, before his large gut had been eviscerated by the gaunt, toothy thing standing over the tent's wreckage. He appeared to have been in his sixties, wrinkles visible despite his bloated face and unruly grey beard and hair. One of the dead man's arms clutches at his own pudgy throat.

Ilithienne looks at the yellow eyed creature with horror. "We point those usually at things that may be a threat to us..." she says slowly. "You are Shrieba... I presume?" she asks taking a brief look at the old man as if to confirm. She keeps her rapier firmly in hand but ready to strike. As the old and young men do not flee, she doesn't believe the creature is much of a threat - otherwise they would be far from here, but you never know.

Gavyn's dark eyes goes wide as the creature rises out of the tent and above him, taking another few steps back for safety as soon as the creature lets go of his rapier. "What she said." He says with a wry smile, giving the drow a quick appreciative nod, then looking up at the grim sight of gaunt humanoid again. "Do you always eat those who die alone in their tents?" He then asks with a mischievous smile.

"Away with you!" Mikaela orders the gaunt creature that has appeared from the wreckage of the tent. "Let the dead lie in peace!" Her battleaxe is in hand and she looks ready to put violence behind her request.

The old man gives a brief, terrified nod to Illithienne, confirming her presumption.

"InDEEd, I am ShrIEba," He says, picking at chunk of flesh stuck between his far-too-numerous teeth. "And thEse alleys are mINe. I feaST whEn, whEre, and upon whOse carcass I plEAse. Look the other way and there will be no trOUble."

Seeing Mikaela advance, Shrieba ceases his stooping, rising to his full height with a audible crunch from his spine. He now towers a full two heads over all of you, and grins. "My, mY, sOmeone's picked a bad tIme to be a dO-gooder. And whO might YOu be to order me aw–" He eyes Mikaela's holy symbol of Torm. "Ahhh, a loyal dOg of the high-ups." His grin turns into a doglike snarl.

Both of the ragged men have retreated towards the street, away from the growing tension. The younger man turns the corner and disappears. The old man stops and turns back, crying out:

"Please! Just leave the demon! It's not worth throwing your lives away for a dead man!"

He then runs away, vanishing into the crowded street.

Ilithienne takes a look at Mikaela. She will not back down. 

Taking into her heart that the fight is almost for sure inevitable, she takes a step to the side, to give the others more space. "I have no idea where did you crawled from, but leave and we will go about our business..." she speaks carefully.

Aruzhal considers his path forward…

”Perhaps living in such conditions, with no food, has forced him to be this way to survive. Shrieba - do you only dine on flesh, or would an offer of a few days rations convince you to leave the corpse alone?”

Persuasion: 8

Mikaela straightens herself, though with only 5 feet in height she is far less imposing than this creature before her. She looks a bit worried, but tries to keep her voice firm. "I am indeed a paladin of Torm. And I stand against you in his name. You've already feasted on this one. Let what is left be and move on." Her hand has a firm grip on her battleaxe, though she has still kept it at her side thus far. 

(Persuasion: 21) 

"If you value your existence ShrIEba I suggest you do as the ladies say, they are both mighty warriors and I've seen Mikaela here using the divine light of Torm to send demons far mightier than yourself screaming down into the abyss again." Gavyn says in a grim tone, stepping up at the freckled paladin's side trying his best to not show any fear.

(Deception nat 20 for 25, one less if you consider this an intimidate check instead :-)

Kallista's glad someone is talking, though the pit in her gut isnt exactly sure if what they're saying will actually get through to them.