"I don't know whether to be impressed or disappointed by this, to be honest," Cotton murmured as she pushed through the glass doors. Even Later would have echoed the sentiment, had the words not stuck in her throat; the room around them was, to put it simply, odd. On the surface, it appeared grandiose; the metal walls, sheer and reflective as they were, scaled upward dozens of metres, eventually giving way to balconies and doors and such. However, the entire interior of the building was... simple. There was little in the way of decoration, though not in a minimalist way—in a way that made it seem unfinished. Even the light fixtures, which dangled on thin cords from somewhere high above, looked so precarious that they could fall at any moment.

In addition, there were only a few ponies in that main lobby, mostly lingering by the archways to the left and the right. Two stood near the hoof of the stairs, while only one stood in front of the reference desk in front of the stairs, chatting with the glasses-clad pony standing behind it who looked very irritated indeed.

"Oh, hey!" the pony in front of the desk called and as he turned, they saw it was Dessic.

The pony across from him at the desk just sighed. "Please, sir, if you could be quiet... this is a museum, you know. A place of learning."

"Right, right. I'll try to keep that in mind," Dessic replied, not changing the volume of his voice at all whatsoever. "So, ladies, you ready to start looking around? I tried to get us a guided tour, but it looks like I'll have to do." He grinned.

Later just groaned. "Who does this guy think he is?" she asked audibly, turning to Cotton. "Seriously, can we screw off already?"

Cotton just shrugged. Dessic didn't even looked like he'd heard.

"...Ugh, fine, whatever. But seriously, we need to move towards that maintenance passage at some point."