Doc Zed quickly disappeared up some stairs in the middle of the room, leaving Kevin and Gloss alone together in, as he had mentioned, the living room. Kevin spared no time in shuffling leftwards across the carpet over to a curved black couch, upon which he plopped; Gloss followed, sitting down on the opposite end. The couch was stiff; the pillows hardly gave way at all to his weight. Nonetheless, it wasn't particularly uncomfortable.

They sat there in silence for a few minutes, the only sound being that of shuffling papers and opening drawers and things like that emanating from the ceiling above. Gloss wasn't sure what exactly this 'Doc Zed' did, but sounded almost like the stallion upstairs was hurriedly putting things away.

These shuffling noises were followed by hoofsteps and soon enough they could see the stallion, still dressed in a suit, descending to the bottom floor. He walked carefully down the stairs; while most ponies would perhaps skip a step or two, he methodically went down one step at a time so that each hoof touched each step during his descent. When he reached the carpet at the bottom, he looked up.

"Kevin! I am ready now. Would you like to speak in the parlour?"

"Yeah, that sounds great," Kevin replied, getting up off the couch and standing to his hooves.

"Oh, and you haven't introduced me to your friend!" Doc Zed looked over to where Gloss sat, beaming.

"Oh, um... this is Gloss." Kevin too looked over to where the pegasus sat. "He's from Umberlight, and he helped escort me here."

"Well, thank you so much!" Doc Zed said. His words dripped with an odd sort of false enthusiasm, not sounding quite right to the ear. "Now, if you'll excuse us..."

"Of course," Gloss said. "Nice to meet ya, Doc."

Doc Zed smiled at him once more, and then turned away. The unicorn magically turned the handle on the door to the left, which presumably led to the parlour, and it swung open. He walked inside with Kevin following close behind, and then the door swung shut. For now, Gloss was alone.

With little else to do, he looked around the room from where he sat. It was pretty well-organised, he noted; nothing seemed out of place and all of the furniture looked modern and clean, matching how the stallion was dressed to a T. The centre of the room was taken up by the stairs, coming down to meet the beige-coloured carpet only about two metres from the foyer. On either side there were shelves on flat, unrounded walls. They could almost have been bookcases if not for their contents; rather than books, they held a variety of trinkets. China plates on stands, rocks in display cases, miniature paintings—you name it, and there it was on the shelf. One such painting depicted a gravestone with a metal helmet emblazoned at the top. It was strange, to say the least.

The living room in which he was situated looked to be a sizeable slice of the building's circular shape—about a third or so, Gloss estimated—so there was likely another room next to the parlour on this floor. And then there was whatever lay above. Presumably it was some sort of working space, but for what? Gloss had so many questions, both about this place as well as just about the colt whom he had followed to this town.

He sighed as leaned over to lie down on the couch. All he could do was hope that their conversation wouldn't take that long, so he could go to wherever they were staying and get a bit of shut-eye