The next chamber was larger than it first seemed from within the hall, stretching about two or three times longer across the chamber than the hall was, about. The chamber was very tall, the top of it completely unseen as it stretched beyond comprehension towards the heavens, as diluted sunlight filtered down betwixt the flickering lights of torches that clung to the wall at regular intervals. This chamber was more a tower than a simple room.

Along the edge of the chamber was a walkway, stone floor flooded with water and an irregularly broken fence railing edged that as well, and spouting forth between the stretches of rail were columns holding the platform above up, and providing structure for vines. The railing had been there, to protect against what appeared would have been quite a fall if the water was not at its current level. The vast stretch across the middle of the chamber was mostly empty, save the water the flooded it. While the waters were not crystal clear by any stretch, one could easily look down and see the same walkway and railing below it, and another, and another, and another. The same as above stretching on unto the heavens and the abyss both at once.

Going forth from the chamber at six different angles were hallways, one of them being the one that each of the strangers woke within. Each hall was almost indistinguishable from the others, save an incredibly worn symbol carved in the stone above the entrance into each of them. An icon? An ancient script? It wasn’t clear, the stone faces were worn down, smoothened, their details lost to time.

Vegetation grew forth, sustaining itself upon the deep pool of the water for the most part, but having roots far below. The tops of trees broke the surface of the water at two points, and further below more drowned growth could be seen, aquatic forests and sunken tombs if the halls below had more of the stone chambers that they came from. Besides those growing from below, vines clung and grew into whatever narrow grooves and cracks and holes in the stone that they could. Small flowers grew on narrow frail branches into the rare shades of light from above, and thicker vines sprawled across the ground and ceiling, some hanging over the edge and connecting the fence to the one above it.

There was the call of a bird, somewhere above, a solitary caw. The fluttering of feathers, and the feeling of eyes on the skin. This civilized structure had a full ecosystem within it, plants, bugs, birds, rats. A keen eye would even see fish in the waters, and a nervous ear would hear the hiss of a snake somewhere from within the crag holes of the walls where vines had not yet wormed their way.

There was a seventh archway, present on each level, but it apparently led only into a shallow dead end. It was flanked by stairs up and down, permitting one to climb up at that point before circling the perimeter to whatever hall they wished. The one level with the water and the strangers was two ways over along the right wall, the path down on their own side, the way up on the other.

At least, that’s where it would be.

It seemed that some of the way above had crumbled at some point, and crashed down into the stairs beneath them. The easy way up from this floor was shut, and the way down required some serious lungs.