"Oh, chimneys mean fire down below somewhere. To the chimneys!" And he starts walking thataway confidently.

He happens to have guessed right and they stumble upon an open deck in the middle of the ship where the two chimneys can be seen standing tall. It's not hard to find service staircase too.

"I've only ever been on wooden ships before. This one's kind of cool."

He opens the service door and looks and listens for adults down there.

Adam follows tries not to look too much like they are trespassing. Which isn't exactly a look he can pull off, but no one spots them.

They hear machinery noises coming from downstairs, but it doesn't sound like there are humans going up or down.

"That's not how you sneak around. Copy me."

He's good at moving quietly, checking corners, listening for trouble, and staying near something he can duck behind at a moment's notice, apparently. He heads down. Sneakily.

Adam copies.

The coast is clear for most of it, but then Adam abruptly pulls Nicodemus back so they can duck behind a folding screen that's inexplicable there. Nico can spot what made Adam do that.

There are a couple of dogs in the corridor, except they are standing upright and wearing sailor uniforms. One pauses, sniffs the air, but shrugs before the two move again.

Maybe those are the 'fey'. He doesn't want to look stupid by asking though. "Good catch."

Adam nods. The coast is clear. "I thought they would hear us because... dog. Let's go the other way."

"Can't they smell us? Because, uh, dogs?"

"Maybe?" he sniffs, "there is a pretty strong smell of smoke down here though."

"Well..." He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath and snaps his fingers. "That should help with smell. For a few minutes. Let's go."

Adam starts moving down the hall. He sniffs again. What did Nico do?

Deadened both their scents (and only those), somehow, if his nose is sensitive enough to tell that.

Adam thinks he noticed it, but he is not sure enough to ask.

At any rate they're close enough to whatever that they can hear the sounds of the furnaces and eventually they spot a door with an orange glow coming from beneath.

"If the engine runs on fire, we might not want to get too close... I don't think I can do fireproof for two people... But I really want to see it."

"We can peek. Wait. Fireproof?"

"Fireproof is kind of hard but I can do it for a little while for one person! Let's just peek though."

"Okay," Adam says like he doesn't quite believe.

If they peek through the door they can see several stocky silhouettes against the light of several furnaces. Their proportions are too stocky and too short for humans.

He whispers, "So that's where the fire is... But how does it turn into moving the boat?"

"Oh, one of my dads told me the heat is used to turn water into steam and the steam pushes a piston thing and the piston thing pushes a wheel thing that makes stuff movie." This is all accompanied by complex hand gestures.

There is a pause.

"My other dad said that sometimes dwarves feed fire to salamanders so they can pedal their machines. And these are dwarves, so I don't know."

"Should we look for the steam place? We could maybe find a book but that's boring. Dads? Two dads?"

"Maybe, I think the steam place should be above the furnaces? And two dads, yeah," he confirms then he pauses. "At least, some people think it's three."

Okay. Apparently that's not really weird here. So he will update his expression to match. "Let's go up a level and try to find something enginey."

He eases shut the door and turns around.

What a weird kid. If they try to upstairs the next level leads to a very dark corridor.

"This dark hallway is a safety hazard. You'd think they'd know better." He laughs. "Well, unless something's broken."