If I'm in the armor do you think you could manage a disguise as someone who belongs there? You only need to get in the room, but you won't have seen their styles of speech or dress before."
"I can make clothes to match if you give me a loose idea of what they should look like. And keep my mouth shut when I can and mumble when I can't?"
You'll probably stand out for one reason or another, but if there's a sufficiently ominous figure in black armor nobody will remember someone looking slightly out of place."
"I'll wear a lot of black and a hood. Do you have preferences on what you want the armor to look like or should I be going for 'dark fantasy antagonist, only easy to walk in'?"
As long as there's an obvious lack of coat of arms, little else matters. To their eyes it'll shout about how anonymous I'm being. That and ability to turn a sword, just in case."
"I can try, although I've never experimented with making armor before. I'm thinking aluminum-titanium alloy to keep it light. Maybe black diamond plated."
If we fail, it'd be because whichever king we target happens to not be at his palace that day. I can't think of a way to get around that, but the only risk is of walking in, looking somewhat silly, and turning around."
"Probably. Perhaps claim to have done the same to a few other kings, tell them the terms of the deal, and then go actually do the same to the other kings?"
"And rely on inaccurate timekeeping and distorted delivery of messages to get the chronology muddled?"
"Precisely! It's not like there's frequent communication, even between allies. We'd have weeks if we needed them."
Do makers sleep? I can find you a room if you want one."
"I can sleep but I can also just drink lots of coffee, and I'm planning to sit up reading history articles if there's nothing else for me to do."
He goes back into the second door to the right, and stays in till morning.
At which time he and the other members of the Republic who were still at the fortress emerge from their respective spaces.
Cam took a shower overnight and is drying his feathers off with a set of space heater fans. "Morning," he says, lifting his coffee mug in greeting.
Business for today is stopping three wars and working on an election, but first, breakfast.
Cam, interested in trying sixth—ah, local food?"
Some of the earlier risers are already returning from the storerooms.
....Come to think of it, a fortress stocked for a siege probably isn't the best time to demonstrate our food."
"I avoid drinking alcohol, but I'll try everything else. If you're short on fresh whatevers I can supply ingredients."
One of the boys asks, "Can you do spices too?" Some of the others look up. The realization about the applications of "making arbitrary matter" is dawning again.
Hank comments "Didn't know we had so many cooks here.
You should throw in a potato with the rest. See what they make of it."
All that: appears. It is a magnificent feast.
All this is not remotely similar to a typical medieval breakfast, but nobody's going to quibble about that.