Haliton was quite annoyed.

After spending a lot of time searching for the truck, he couldn't find it. The best lead he got from asking around was from a few city guards that said they saw a machine with a "pretty lady" inside?

Unless a random girl decided to hop in, which he thought quite unlikely, that was probably a different machine. Just where had that dumb machine gone?

"You seem displeased. Is there an issue with the service?" asked a robotic voice.

Urgh, another dumb machine to deal with.

"No, it's unrelated. Five stars. Wow, amazing, whatever." he said sarcastically.

"Thank you for the rating. We wish you a pleasant day!"

He thought the monotone voice of the golem core somehow sounded sarcastic.

Today was one of his rest days, so he figured he'd go to the nearest dwarven city to sample some drinks now that it was almost night. Probably should have headed out earlier today, but the atmosphere at night was nice anyway. Always a good way to spend a rest day, partying with friends with drinks in hand!

Unfortunately, none of his friends were able to find time to join him. Sad.

Well, not that he was unused to drinking alone.

The quickest way to the city was with the Dwarven AutoWagon service. He found that a really stupid name. The darn things were clearly carriages, though he'd grudgingly admit that "maybe" that name had a slightly better ring than "AutoCarriage".

In any cast, it was definitely a cheap and fast way to go from city to city, though it was cramped, uncomfortable, bumpy and often packed with people to a suffocating degree. He felt pretty lucky that he was the only one inside today.

Taking a sip of beer from one of the bottles he bought, he decided to try to enjoy the scenery outside the windows. Anything to ignore how sick he felt from the constant bumping and shaking.

Just as he was about to take his first sip, the carriage shoke, probably running over a rock. Half the contents of the small bottle gushed towards his throat, making him cough and sputter. He resisted the urge to curse as he wiped the drink off his hand with a hankerchief.

"Dirtying the vehicle is prohibited! An additional cost of 50 bronze has been added to your travelling fee!" screeched the carriage.

"Bloody piece of shit!" yelled Haliton hoarsely. "Can't I just wipe it off with a towel?"

"You think a wipe will get that off my wood? Some of it will soak in! Don't you dare weasel your way out of payment!" the carriage continued.

"You worthless rattleboxes on wheels like to act all emotionless and whatnot, then get mad over dumb shit like this!" yelled Haliton. "Your wood gets stomped by mud and piss covered boots all the time anyway, so what's the big deal? Heck, my booze will help you clean the grime right off with the wipe of a towel!"

The ride began to shake crazily for a few moments. Haliton was unsure if that was intentional or not.

"Caution! The ride will stop unless additional payment is met." said the carriage monotonously. "This stretch is in potentially dangerous territory and the nearest settlement is an estimated 5 km away."

"You worthless piece of junk!"

Haliton flipped off the core and grudgingly tossed the coins into the payment box.

"There! How do you feel extorting an underpaid worker?" he grumbled.

"Thank you for the payment. The ride will now proceed as usual."

The dwarf kicked the seat in front of him, which he immediately regretted. Fortunately, the golem core decided not to issue another fine.

He sighed. Should have known better than to drink here when there were such rules. Especially when he could buy some actual quality drinks later in the city.

As he looked at the vibrant landscape filled with lush green grass, beautiful trees, random ferocious beasts and a wolf clinging onto the top of a truck, he somehow managed to feel better. At least the scenery wasn't that bad.

Wait, what? He rubbed his eyes and took a closer look.

Indeed, it was the machine he had been looking for! For some reason, there was a cushion strapped onto its head with seatbelts and a big wolf covered in shamanic symbols clinging on for dear life. What the heck was going on with that machine?

"Hey!" he stuck his head out and yelled.

"Dangerous behaviour detected! Please stop or pay the fine!"

"Shut up!" Haliton yelled.

He started to pry open the door of the carriage, making it slow in panic. The dwarf hopped out of the carriage and ran up to the machine.

"Where have you been running around? I spent so long looking for you!"

Despite knowing it couldn't understand him, he couldn't help but speak.

"Oh loost. Hi." slurred a feminine voice in a horrible accent.

Haliton was flabbergasted.

So that was the "pretty lady" they talked about? Did some girl get into it or could it somehow speak all along? He tried to peer into the windows but they only reflected the outside.

"You can speak all along? Or are you someone inside the vehicle?"

"Noo noot sumwun... juust leaurn speaak..." continued the machine.

"What? That doesn't make-" Haliton put his hand to his face. "Urgh, you know what? Just take me to the city. If you don't they probably won't let you in."

He didn't feel like it was completely safe to do that, but honestly, he had enough of the carriage's antics.

The truck looked over to the carriage, slightly confused.

"Sure, hitchhike with some random suspicious person out of pettiness." commented the carriage.

"Like you're the one to speak."

After a bit of hesitation, the truck let the dwarf in. The carriage waited for a few moments before heading back to the original city.

"Well, hope you don't get kidnapped!" it said.

Haliton wished he had a rock to throw at it.

As the truck drove, the dwarf was amazed by how smoothly it drove. There was even some refreshing cool air that started to flow in! That was not the mention the very comfortable seat.

Yesterday, it was too dark for him to see clearly, but now that the sun was glaring bright, he could see the whole thing was made with incredible craftsmanship! The controls and dashboard before him looked very sophisticated too, nothing like many of the other machines he had seen. How expensive would this be if it were on the market?

Wait...

Considering the fact that it couldn't understand the language spoken here, but had the function to speak and was so well made... Could this be a machine made by those infamous ground dwarves? As much as the surface dwarves loved to pride themselves on the intricacies of the machines they could make, the ones that lived deep underground were far ahead in technology.

He wasn't sure how one of their machines got up here, but if that was the case, it all made sense now! What other explanation could there be for an extremely advanced machine to not know the local language and be unable to find its way back to the owner?

The thought filled him with some excitement but also some annoyance at the same time. It was going be a lot harder to help the machine find its way back to its owner in that case.