The group consolidates and remains on the lookout for a while, to see if the lead creature might come back into view. It never does.
Pressing on, the team swims onward through the wrecked columns and stones littered along the lake floor. Soon they see a wide staircase rising out of the mud and leading into a pitch black opening - the low underwater entrance of the Ziggurat.
The dark red light is the first in, as Hinka leads the way. The light reflects off of the stone walls, floor, and ceiling of what must have been a large hallway in the past, the edges of the light limit surging and moving on with every stroke through the water of the Tochoan guide. As everyone else follows into the once-dark stone tunnel, their own bulb colors mix in on the light cast. Soon the hallway is lit with a kaleidoscope of colors that is both impressive and eerie at once. Beyond Hinka's front red light is only continual darkness, a wall of the limit of vision.
After pressing on for 50 meters or so, the hallway opens up into a grand room. Though the floor and all walls are still coated with brown and green algae and muck, and a layer of silt sits on the floor, visibility in this interior chamber is extended because of the lack of current and debris. With the glow of the living bulbs extending outward now, everyone can see ahead in all directions for about 40 feet before the edges of detail become difficult to discern.
At the outer edge of sight ahead, the group sees the beginning of an upward staircase, one that runs the entire length of the room (more like a veranda or courtyard split-level rise of stairs, not like a hallway leading up to another hall or room).
To the immediate right and left, the group can see the feet and shins of giant statues that rise upward disappearing into the darkness. The statues are apparently standing with backs to the entrance wall, on either side of the doorway, facing inward into this large room.
Hinka leads the way ahead, swimming roughly 15' higher than the ground. Everyone maintains their directional sense, but the enormity of the room is unnerving. They swim upward, following the line of the rising stairs at the back of the room. Soon the floor levels back off, and the group finds themselves swimming in between massive columns distributed about. The columns have a base diameter of roughly 7', and they rise up and disappear into the darkness, perhaps meeting with a ceiling that is 50' tall or more.
Hinka checks backwards, and then continues on, his red light bathing more and more of the scene going forward, gradually revealing the ghostly gloom of this bizarre scum-covered ruin.
Shadowy at first, huge broken rocks and at least a fallen column or two, come into view. Then emerging into the light as if it was living and lurching forward - a colossal face made of vast carved stone, the head of some great statue lying on its side. Its features are sharp and angular, casting long shadows and pits from the light of the bulbs, despite the layer of muck and silt that has settled upon it.
The giant melancholy emotionless face is shocking, casting a hulking gaze of doom out from the red light and into the underwater tomb scene. It is difficult not to falter as Hinka looks back and pulls everyone forward with a wave, motioning to swim up and over the giant head of the fallen statue and the large rock stones scattered all around it.
