"I think we're here," Mochi called from the back of the group. And indeed, a soft light was beginning to permeate the hallway's darkness, allowing the ponies to begin to see the path ahead of them. As the smooth white walls came back into view, Scootaloo also noticed that, up ahead, the path opened up into a larger room of some sort.

"That the same room you were in before?" Scootaloo asked.

"Don't see how it couldn'ta been—there ain't any other paths for us to've turned down," Mochi replied. "No, this is definitely the place."

The room they entered was small and circular, with the same sheer white walls as the rest of the place. In the centre, light poured down in a concentrated circle that evidently led to the exit; from there, the glow spread out to cast the rest of the round room in almost-eerie shadows. Scootaloo made a beeline for the circular staircase which touched down in the room's centre; Flight's interest, however, was piqued by something entirely different.

"Look, there's those same kind of words written on the walls here too." She stepped up to the curved wall, trying to make out the letters in the dim light. "I'm not sure if they're the exact same as before."

"What I do know is that I definitely still can't read 'em," Mochi said, glancing around. "Funny, I didn't notice these before even though this is definitely the room I walked through."

"That makes sense, though," Flight replied. "You were coming in from the light into the darkness, so your eyes had to take a little while to adjust. Instead, we're going from the dark to the light so the details like that are immediately obvious to us." The filly traced one of the glyphs, a vertical line with two horizontal protrusions, with a yellow hoof. "Unlike whatever these mean."

"Like we said before, it doesn't really matter," Kevin stated. "You can just take a picture with that"—he gestured towards the comlink on Flight's wrist—"and we'll find somepony who speaks the lemur language. Piece of cake."

"Right, right." Flight pressed a few buttons on the comlink and then set to work around the room's circumference.

Scootaloo turned to Kevin and Mochi. "This type of thing isn't normal on these planets, right? Or did your pony ancestors build a bunch of weird structures like this all over the place?"

"If they did, this is the first that I ever heard of it," Mochi replied, eyeing the staircase. "I thought our ancestors just lived in villages kinda like the surface ones today."

"I remember my parents telling me about some ancient structures like the Gnostic pyramids, but not much beyond that. Plus those were never as fancy-schmancy as... this." Kevin glanced around once more. "Seriously, this must have taken forever."

"Oh, come on," Flight interjected, still taking photos of the walls; her camera had intermittently been lighting up as the flash function activated. "You're a unicorn, aren't you? You ponies could carve out these letters in your sleep."

Kevin raised an eyebrow. "You know, I'm actually not so sure about that. I've used magic to carve in stone and wood, and these don't have any of the signature cues of magic-cut objects."

"Pfff, you're making that up," Flight retorted. "And they'd be weathered by the sands of time, anyway."

Kevin rolled his eyes and opened his mouth as if to say something more, but Scootaloo shot him a nasty glare he couldn't ignore. "Arguing about it isn't going to help anything, dorks. Let's just finish up so we can be out of here."

"Great point, Scootaloo," Flight said, beaming. Kevin just huffed and followed closely behind Scootaloo to stand at the foot of the stairs. As Flight took the last few photos, Mochi lazily meandered over to the others, meaning that all three of them stood there staring at the filly as she took the last shot. Scootaloo trotted up the first step before Flight had even turned towards them, earning a groan from the filly as she chased Mochi to not get left behind.

It was slightly before they reached the top that the questions started, but only once the group had reached that small white platform perched high among the treetops did Scootaloo begin to voice them.

"Why would anypony build this thing?" Scootaloo asked, exasperated. "It's totally stupid; why have to trot up and then down, no matter which direction you're going? It could've just been flat."

Flight was looking intently downward at the lip of white material that divided the inner stairs from the outer ones, feeling over its uneven surface with her hoof. "Look at this, and how it's not smooth like the rest. I wouldn't be surprised if it used to go taller and then... broke off somehow."

"Gee willikers, the filly's got a point," Mochi exclaimed, looking up into the sky. "I can practically see the scar where the tower reached up 'n' scraped the sky."

Flight blinked. "I'm pretty sure that's just an expression, hon."

"Still, if it really did go up higher than this... where exactly do you think it went? Like, what's the point of this whole thing?" Scootaloo asked.

"I'm not sure," Flight replied, still looking up at the clear blue sky above. "I'll be the first to admit that I don't know too much about pre-Bureau history beyond what's in the Asterismos, but I sure haven't heard of anything like this."

"Maybe once we get back to the ship and flying again, we can tell Doc Zed," Kevin suggested. "I bet if anypony's heard of it, he has."

"You know, that's actually a pretty good idea," Flight replied. "Mochi, you remember the way back from here?"

"Sure do," the mare replied. "Got a mind like an... um... a pony that can remember things really well."

Flight rolled her eyes. "Right. Let's get a move on, then."

As they took a few steps down the exterior stairs, Kevin began to feel peckish so he casually reached a hoof into one of his saddlebags, hoping to grab a berry or two. However...

"Eugh!" the colt exclaimed.

"What?" Scootaloo and Flight asked simultaneously, turning around with looks of concern.

"All the berries in my bag got squashed from the fall," Kevin said with a frown.

Blinking, Scootaloo and Flight both checked their bags. Their facial expressions told Kevin all he needed to know.

"Guess we're gonna have to hunt down some more berries!" Mochi exclaimed, excitedly.