He wore a simple brown vest, opened at the centre making it look more like a pullover than an actual s.h.i.+rt, and a similarly brown striated skirt that was lined with what looked to be tiny thin bone, giving it a much needed weight and an aspect of control that was unexpected in a pair of apparel .

Both had been made of leather and were once clothes that Bruma wore, now no longer fitting the tall and broad chested man.

Breta, who stood next to him was not in a better situation. A dull grimace adorned her thin face as she looked at the path they had to follow with thinly veiled disgust.

Bruma looked at them a hint of amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes. His expression quickly fell back to the drab locale of seriousness however, as he looked over at his charge wistfully.

"Honestly a part of me wants you to have nothing to do with this mess girl. But I know, if not now then next time. You will definitely try to escape… " He said as he looked at her, his eyes stalling slightly on hers before he nodded in finality. "I hope this plan of your shall succeed…" This he said to Terrick.

However much he had accepted the situation, he could not help but feel the sting of anger towards this young man that had encouraged his ward into such a reckless endeavor.

Terrick nodded at him, a trace of grat.i.tude in his eyes." For me, my crew and Breta I hope so too old man." He said before walking into the green sewer filled alleyway.

Bruma nodded before he turned around and briskly began to walk back towards his home.

He had done all that he could,' anymore and I may not have the resolve to follow through.' He thought to himself morosely as he walked away, the fog quickly covering his retreating form.

Terrick crouched down, giving his satchel a once over as he rummaged through its contents, ensuring that it had all the things that were of necessity.

Quickly from its inside he pulled out a simple thread band that he immediately tied to his waist.

He used the band to tie the satchel in a plait in his skirt, giving it a layer of invisibility, that along with the fact that accessing it was easier than it normally was, left Terrick feeling a certain level of joy in his otherwise ridiculously undefended clothing.

"let's go" He said looking over at Breta seriously.

She nodded in agreement before walking casually into the ankle deep algae rich water. "What is this anyway? I mean I thought that the island was devided into circles, now I am told that there are a few paths that lead straight into the center of the inner circle, what's going on?" He asked.

"This path, I don't know too much about it. All I know is what I can identify and small snippets that I have heard. This is an aspect of the island that few are clear about, sometimes pathways like these simply sp.a.w.n in!

The material here looks to be the leftover calcified remains of a long ago occurred shedding! Bruma used to tell me that when the Yuda shed in the open sea, their skin would make its way here, and if left for long enough could become as hard as most rocks!" She hypothesized, clearly unaware of the entire dynamic of the unpredictable pathways.

"How does the island usually deal with these kind of routes?" Terrick asked, for he remembered Bruma telling the duo of the relative secrecy accompanying the route.

"Well since these paths sp.a.w.n so randomly and often times lead nowhere, the island doesn't usually care about them unless they actively come across it. Then they usually close them.." She said, quickly using her hand to steady herself at the sudden incline that the path had begun to undergo.

Terrick nodded before looking over at her. "Don't you think we should start hurrying it up? there isn't anything here that we need to be worried about, and the slower we go the more chance that we fall down and break something in this thrice d.a.m.ned slippery floor." Terrick announced looking over at Breta.

With a nod the duo began to move faster, the water sloshed against the soles of their feet and the slippery algae would give them both nightmares over the course of their journey..

******************

"G.o.d bless…" The sluggish tone of an old and bearded man echoed out as he raised his head out of a vat of clear liquid.

Next to the white robbed drunk, stood an equally old women not as drunk, but no one in their right mind would dare to call her sober. "Stop drinking the elixir old Tyr or I'll have to drag you all the way to the quarters again…" She called out in an irrationally loud voice.

Tyr and Belogna were the two oldest priests in the entire temple, unlike their younger contemporaries, they were in charge of the fermentation process of the entire batch of drink, they were too old to decently milk the Yuda and too feeble to work the breweries.

Thus they had been a.s.signed here, a place where the only ch.o.r.e was to look aimlessly at the walls the entire day, only breaking to eat and take a whiff off the top of the barrels before the day would end and they would return to their quarters.

The duo could thus not be blamed for spending the entire day, drinking.

"Oh! Sod off old haag.." the man drawled as he slumped over the wooden cask hiccupping silently.

Suddenly the vents that surrounded the room began to jingle slightly. The sound of annoyed huffing echoed through the hard brown vents.

The tube above the largest cask began to shake, the striated cap began to s.h.i.+mmy outward before noiselessly swinging outward.

A pale face poked outward, stiffening almost immediately as it stared into the startled eyes of the otherwise drunk Belogna.

"Jimmy out man!" A voice hissed from inside, before the face tumbled outward, body and all!