"Assuming you're actually our new Supreme Sultana and... Doctor Disaster managed to tell somebody about that part before he got kidnapped?"

In they go, then. There are at least twenty people who know her as the Supreme Sultana at this point, so this should be fine. She doesn't like that her freedom might hinge on the testimony of, say, Jurgis Schäfer, but her other option is to make a run for it and that's ridiculous.

"What brings you here, Sergeant Twoodle?  And who is this young lady who looks like she just dropped in from another dimension?"

"Says Doctor Disaster appointed her Supreme Sultana before he got kidnapped.  She can talk in his voice if she uses that torc."

"Simple test for that, Sergeant!  Mistress, if you'd be so kind as to use your voice-changer to instruct our front door to lock itself behind you?"

Suuuuure... that is plausibly the way locking a door could work? Opalyn turns and faces the door, just in case that matters.

"Front door, lock yourself."

She might have overdone the command tones!  The door immediately locks all of the locks that it has, with clicking and chunking noises that manage to sound meek and terrorized.  It doesn't actually look like this but you can tell, somehow, that it wants to look like this.

Opalyn will be more careful to be kind to doors in the future!

She turns back to the captain and looks expectantly at him.

"What's your will, Supreme Sultana?"

"Sir, have we actually heard anything about a Supreme Sultana at all?"

"I vaguely recall hearing something about a new secretary.  Why?"

"Never mind, sir."

Opalyn smiles at Josephus -- he's not wrong, this is a ridiculous authentication protocol -- but at least she's through it.

She turns back to the captain.

"Captain, if you can spare Sergeant Twoodle here for the day, I'd like him to show me more of the town. As you surmised, I'm not just new to Little Damar, I'm new to this entire dimension, and I'd appreciate Sergeant Twoodle's help in making sense of it."

"Of course, Your Supremacy!"

Does Sergeant Twoodle appear dismayed by this idea, or is he up for it?

It would seem that having more than one facial expression is a luxury this man can only rarely afford.

Opalyn wonders what that's like, and if she can somehow fix it for him.

"All right then, let's go back outside and discuss what there is to see around here. Shall we?"

She gestures in the direction of the door, and then remembers that she locked it with the collar.

"Door, if you would be so kind, could you please unlock yourself?"

It unlocks!  Very quickly!  As one does when confronted by a Spark saying "if you would be so kind"!

As long as it doesn't give the impression of making that face again!

And he'll go where he's gestured.

As soon as they get outside, Opalyn remembers again why she wanted to be inside: sudden onset acute entomophobia. But then it turned out that the guard station was ominously prison-like, so there was no winning. She'll take her chances that the bug-zapper is effective.

"So," she begins, looking at Sergeant Twoodle. He seems to be looking back at her and paying attention, so she launches in.

"I'm new here, as you know. And not just new in town, new to this dimension. Things are different where I'm from, and I need to get oriented to things that probably seem so basic or obvious to you that it never would have occurred to you to show me. That's why I was in the food shop asking about supply lines and customers. The shopkeeper was not foolish to think I might be scouting for an invasion: it's true. I'm scouting for an invasion of exactly one person: me. I have invaded -- somewhat against my will -- and now I need to figure out what kind of a place this is. I'd like you to help me, if you're willing."

"Some things that I'm interested in include:" -- and she starts ticking things off on her fingers --

• "The overall political system, including an overview of the nations, city-states, tribes, and so on, as well as any major conflicts or shifts in progress;
• Some information about how the government is organized;
• The level of industrialization, as well as the latest advances in engineering and automation;
• The robustness of the economy, both at the present time and in general; whether the economy fluctuates a lot, and whether anyone has any idea how to stabilize it when it does; Some sense of how wealthy people are, and how much disparity of wealth there is, and how correlated hard work or ingenuity and wealth are;
• An overview of the things most likely to kill or injure a person, as well as some general information about how healthy people are and what kind of medical infrastructure there is;
• An overview of the local laws of physics;
• An explanation of what Sparks can and can't do and what you know about how that works;
• And probably a hundred other things as they occur to me."

"I don't expect you to know the answers to any or all of that off the top of your head. I'm happy to canvas other people and go to the library and investigate for myself. But since you're the most sensible person I've met so far, I thought I'd just explain the whole problem to you and see if you have any suggestions for where we might start."

"Also, it might not be a bad idea to get a bite to eat. I don't have any money on me because I don't know how money works here, but I can probably just ask for things in Doctor Disaster's name, so maybe we could get some food and talk while we eat and then you can show me things you think would be interesting."

Opalyn decides she should probably stop monologuing now and give Twoodle a chance to say anything at all.

Yeah, that's a tall order.  He would prefer that she not just walk into a cafe and demand food in Doctor Disaster's name.  But she's not the first person who's been Suddenly Hired By Doctor Disaster, and they can stop by a local bank and get a loan that won't carry interest if she pays it back within the first week, maybe?  Or the Captain might loan the money to her personally if they ducked back in and asked about that; the Captain is one of those people who survives his job because he's got the right sort of insanity for it.

It sounds like maybe the Supreme Sultana is from a world where a single Spark-analogue finally took over everything, and organized it centrally, and wasn't bad at it -- is that about right?  Josephus Twoodle is sort of inferring this part from the way Opalyn talks about "the government" and there being somebody who could do such a thing as "stabilizing the economy".  Here there's just, you know, more and less powerful Sparks, and their territories.  The most powerful Spark he knows is Queen Albia, who rules an island-subcontinent of fifty thousand square miles to the north and west of Europa, and has done so reputedly for thousands of years, personally.  Even she doesn't rule the world.

Sure, they can go back in and borrow money from the Captain rather than shaking down restaurateurs for free food, that seems pretty reasonable. At some point Opalyn is going to have to figure out how she gets money in a more legitimate way than that?

MEANWHILE.

They are currently in a place called... Europa?
And there is an island-subcontinent northwest of here called... Albia?

Opalyn would like to see a world map, stat. She expects it to look pretty familiar. She's not sure yet what to think about that.

And finally... is it common for people to live for thousands of years? What is a typical lifespan on this world?

Typical lifespan?  20/50/80 years is about 20/50/80 %.  Albia is a very very very powerful Spark, who evidently cracked immortality or close enough; and even then she's alive by virtue of keeping to her island and not being a threat to, say, the Heterodynes.  Not that every Heterodyne could take Her Undying Majesty, not even close, but it would still have been unwise to give their dynasty reason for abiding hatred over centuries.