Chapter 37 - Stadshamn's Entrance.

Both Joshua and France came back to the game after about 20 minutes, a whole hour in Lothaedan's time. "What happened to you guys?" Schein asked calmly.
"You guys were sleeping in broad daylight, I thought you guys were dead," Schein continued.
"We uhhh-... we needed to take a nap, the ambush yesterday tired us out, but we couldn't sleep because we were too vigilant after that happened..." France thought up a great excuse.
"That aside, shouldn't we be travelling up the mountains?" France realised he had logged out of the game outside of the cart, when he woke up not long after he had been in the carriage.
"I dragged you to the cart.", Schein answered as he pointed his index finger to France's back.
France turned his head and looked over his left shoulder, seeing his back riddled with dirt and dust. He quickly patted his back, trying to clean the dust away from his shirt. Speaking of shirt, where was his leather armour?
"Schein...", he hesitated to speak. "Hmm?", Schein looked over to him. "Can I ask you where my leather armor is?" He finally asked the words in his mind.
"I'm very sorry, as I dragged you to the carriage... It ripped off of you.", Schein answered and France blinked, not once, but four times as he stood with disbelief.
"Don't worry too much about it France, that moldy, tattered leather vest is just the starter's armour," Joshua made brutal remarks as he laughed.
"Shut up, that thing may have barely protected me, but at least I have armour on.", France retorted.
After the bickering of the 3... fools had stopped, they all immediately prepared for the events when they enter Stadshamn. It was a foreign kingdom for Joshua and France, after all.
"We're almost at the entrance, slow down the carriage bit.", France suggested.
"Yea- Wait what? Didn't you tell me just a while ago to speed it up?.", Josh stopped stoking the flames as he grew confused. "Yes I did, however there's been a change of plans."
"...Fine.", he accepted France's words easily
He was quite excited to try out his clay charcoal burner, after all. It was just a clay box with some holes to the sides, however its future use will be great. Charcoal was a greater fuel source than wood, it was hotter, lasted longer, and it didn't give off smoke, sure there was ventilation in the room, however Josh would rather not breath anything that isn't air.
'Wait. Charcoal burners produce a ton of smoke!', the realization set as he started off the distance with a blank stare.
Josh removed the top part of the burner and took large sticks from his inventory, lighting them on fire, and then putting them inside the burner with the top part back. He sighed and sat down the floor, and put it close to the window on the back.
Josh knew that he was gonna breath in smoke, however he made sure to breath as little of it as he can.
'Thank goodness most of the wood in the firebox has turned into charcoal.', he sighed. If they weren't it was likely that the fire wouldn't be as hot, considering they're at a pretty high altitude.
If the had used normal wood on the mountains, it wasn't a faraway idea that the carriage wouldn't be able to go any higher and start to... go down the slopes, until they fly off a cliff and died. Josh shuddered at the thought and put his hand on the boiler and added more heat to the boiler using magic.

*****
[30 minutes later, 1 P.M. Lothaedan, Stadshamn]
A horseless carriage and smoke and steam leaving the sides of it entered the guards' sight. They were vigilant and suspicious of it, but they were ordered by his boss that they should be neutral, for the guards it was an absurd request as that could result in a weird person trying to massacre every single person inside the mountains, however the one who ordered them to stand down was a person they respected, and so they didn't act.
Steam had gushed out from the top of the weird carriage, and it stopped at the gates. "State your name and reason for coming to the lands of us dwarves.", one of the guards yelled out as he entered the room.
Two young men entered his side, the young man in the front had looked to be asking the other one for something, however the guards could not understand the young man's words.
"Schein Adelford! Heir to the Adelford family of the south-western city," the young man clearly spoke their language and stated a noble households name. The guard bowed and asked, "Why is it that you're out of the kingdom?"
"I was looking for an elf slave, however my carriage died to the monsters inside the forests. They sacrificed their lives for me to escape. Unfortunately, the horses ran away with the carriage, so I asked those guys for help." The heir to Adelford spoke the truth as he pointed towards the young man in front.
The guard nodded and let them pass, the young man's words are likely the truth, as the Adelford family were indeed attracted to elves for their longevity and beauty. Schein Adelford, it seems even the younger family members of Adelford had liked elves.
*****
"Schein, what did you say to them?" France asked.
"I just told them my family name.", Schein made a subtly psychotic smile.
"Is that so..." Josh thought nothing of it; he knew of social cues, but it was difficult for him to notice the differences between genuinely well-intentioned smiles from psychotic grins.
Luck was on their side, however. France noticed Schein's unnerving expressions.
France scooted over to Josh, and he whispered, "There's something wrong with Schein..."
"Is that so?" Josh pondered. He was surprised by what France had randomly said, but he trusted him. "Care to tell me why you think so?"
"Look, Josh. I know you're not the most..." France thought of an accurate word for what he wanted to say without sounding rude. "...Socially inept," he said, having found the phrase. He continued, "You see, Schein looked at you maliciously as he talked to the guards."
"What should we do then?" Josh asked. France rested his chin over his thumb.
"We..." Multiple plans of action passed through France's thought process. "...We'll follow him. However, we'll be far, far more vigilant."
"Sounds good." Josh nodded affirmingly.