To The Lake

As he emerged from the inner castles doorway he surprisingly discovered Orso slowly hopping along the cobblestone road towards Carrot Keep. The fearsome captain appeared to be in a foul mood, for he was angrily muttering to himself. Having awoken to find both Carl and the black sound stone gone he had quickly realized that they had long since departed and by now were safely located in Carrot Keep.

That is precisely why he had ran himself ragged earlier pursuing Salvatore and Carl, for he knew once Carl reached Carrot Keep it would be impossible to retrieve the accursed item from Carl's furry grasp.

Furthermore he was completely certain that once Carl made it to the castle he would immediately show the sound stone to King Barry, a situation he vehemently did not wish to occur for the consequences of such an action would cause his future to be bleak and dreary.

Losing the fight with Salvatore had already caused his reputation to take a serious hit. However the existence of that black sound stone was like the harbinger of his reputations doom. As long as it existed, he would have a metaphorical Sword of Damocles constantly hanging over his head, a prospect which he looked upon with immense apprehension.

Lost in the murky depths of his dismal thoughts, Orso continued past Salvatore not even sparing him a glance as he continued slowly hopping along towards Carrot Keep, inanely muttering beneath his breath as his mind desperately worked to devise a suitable method to successfully retrieve the black sound stone from Carl's tiny paws.

Indifferent to Orso's plight, Salvatore gestured for the guard captain who had paused to salute respectfully once he had seen Orso to lead on. Resuming his normal stance, the guard captain led Salvatore around the castle to a small gate located along the high wall near the rear of the castle.

Retrieving a key from beneath his surcoat he quickly unlocked the door then pulled it open, revealing a small stone path. Bowing to him politely the guard captain informed him that he only had to follow the road for a short distance to reach the exit. Nodding slightly at the guard captain, Salvatore proceeded through the door which with a "clink" swung shut behind him.

Just as the guard captain had said, after a short 3 minute walk Salvatore arrived at the natural formation which appeared as a golden shimmering wall. Stepping through the curtain of light, Salvatore emerged from the natural formation and discovered he had arrived in a different location quite a ways from where he had entered.

Examining the area around him, he discovered the due to the time dilation of the Rabbit kingdom it was early in the morning instead of late in the afternoon which it should have been. The trees and plants were also different, however the most astonishing disparity was a noticeable increase to how heavy he felt.

Although for a while now he had had some lurking suspicions about the strength of the gravity in the Valley, but without the proper tools to take measurements he was unable to be certain. However now that he emerged and felt such a large disparity from when he entered the Rabbit Kingdom Secret Zone the truth was transparently clear.

It seemed the deeper one went into the Valley the stronger the gravity became. He could only assume this was deliberately orchestrated in order to gradually acclimate people to the far greater gravity of Goldstar.

Opening the map King Barry had given him, he discovered a crude drawing of the Valley with a few noticeable landmarks. After a few minutes of studying the simplistic map he managed to work out where he was and began to follow its directions which led directly towards the lake. Along the way he killed a few monsters he encountered, stopping only to process their remains before continuing on.

Roughly an hour later he heard the roaring sound of a massive waterfall and knew he was close to the lake. Emerging from the Valleys forest, he arrived at the shore of the lake.

Just as Orso had reported the water which should have been a light crystal clear blue color was instead a dark green color that reeked a nauseatingly foul stench. Great clouds of greenish-yellow mist rose from the polluted water while the surface was littered with the rotting remains of various aquatic monsters and dead fish which only increased the foulness of the once beautiful lake.

The lakes shoreline beach which had once been composed of only pure sparkling white sand had turned an ugly yellowish color from the lakes water and was now strewn with the decomposing corpses of hundreds of dead monsters who had had the misfortune to either touch the water or had foolishly eaten a contaminated corpse.

As he stared across the massive lake, he suddenly grinned realizing the irony of his current situation, for although he had found more water than he could use in three lifetimes, he still was unable to actually touch it due to contamination.