Cleo dove deep into the crystal clear waters of the freshwater lake, trailing a fishing net behind her as she freedove to the bottom. Her breath was held even to these depths as she hunted for the rich trove of Clams she knew to be at the bottom. She’d been making trips all morning, back and forth to her small boat, and then back to the docs. When she deep dove in the ocean, she’d wear flimsy, but pretty clamshell armours to keep small parasites like Lampreys from attaching to her breasts or undercarriage… but here in the clear pure aqua of lake that she knew so well, there was no need for such protective undergarments, so instead she swam naked.

The Zombie Clams she collected from the bottom of the seafloor were no threat to her. They were slow and weak predators, whose attacks were no match for a seasoned diver. Many an amatuer diver had been caught and drowned by their pathetic excuses for tentacles, but Cleo wasn’t so inexperienced. She would cast her net well before she reached the bottom, and grab the clams from off the lakebed, and hoist them behind her as she rose for the surface with her catch.

She broke the surface and into the brilliant, scorching daylight..Water glistened off her tan body as she lifted the wiggling sack of Clams into her one-woman fishing dinghy next to some full crab pots. Cleo could feel the sunlight harsh against her, burning her unpleasantly as it reached its midday apex. She grunted; womanlike, as she heaved herself back up into the small wooden canoe. Sitting herself in the tiny, seat, she takes the oars and begins to row back to shore, her muscles flexing pleasantly from the effort. If there was one thing that she enjoyed about her job; it was the freedom that her exertions brought her.

Much like many things in the World of Bones, the lake was no true safe haven. Deep below the surface lurked many unseen dangers that a clam diver might encounter. In fact, on the way back, Cleo witnessed the long thin black shape of a Giant Eel gliding along beneath her boat. It mustn't have been too hungry, because it ignored the splashing of the paddles, and kept on gliding by.. Such close calls were something all the girls fishing this lake would deal with from time to time. And it wasn’t uncommon for friends and other acquaintances to just disappear out there. Every girl on the water knew deep in her bones, that when her time came, that she too would join her ancestors skeletons in the muck under the clear blue waters,