Opalyn gets up and stares out the window again. The sun has fully set now. The outlines of the mountains have disappeared against the dark sky. There’s a warm orange glow of street lamps and storefronts down in the village.

Opalyn will get up tomorrow morning and run this castle. That should, in theory, mean that she continues to be sheltered and fed. She’ll keep meeting new people; maybe any of them will be friend material after all, and she can soldier on alone for a while if she just journals a lot. Maybe she has something special to offer this place. They seem completely lacking in Earthly common sense and they seem hidebound by local notions of what’s not possible. Maybe she can bring order to some of the chaos.

It does seem like she’s a bit lucky that she landed on Doctor Disaster in particular and not some other Spark. Everyone keeps making a big deal out of how kind he is not to murder people on his own side. If Opalyn helps him expand his empire, that seems purely good for this world, based on her current information?

Satisfied that she knows her priorities for tomorrow, Opalyn layers the bathtub with pillows, climbs in, puts another pillow over her head to block out all the lights, and falls immediately asleep.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

"Your Supreme Sultananess!  There's an event in progress where we're not sure whether to define it as an emergency because we don't know how further delay will affect it!  Or what exactly counts as 'getting much worse' from the perspective of your own goals!"

Mumblrphmph what time even is it?

"Yes, come in."

Needing to calibrate people is to be expected.

"Doctor Disaster has been kidnapped again."

Again? Is this routine? How routine would a kidnapping need to be, before it wouldn't be an emergency anymore?

Opalyn fumbles through the drink cooler, trying to guess which one might be a mild stimulant.

"All right, tell me what you know."

Trying to drink THAT one sure will wake her up, though whether it was a stimulant per se remains an open question.

A team of mercenaries wearing power armor in the colors of Professor Predicament signed into the Disaster Castle using the recently streamlined and automated security system, writing down their purpose in the automated logbook as "to kidnap Doctor Disaster", and paid one of the local kids twenty disaster-dollars to guide them up to Doctor Disaster's bedroom.  Chemical residues reveal that a gas grenade was probably used to knock out the Doctor.  Afterwards they seem to have successfully navigated back to their entrance point, and properly signed out themselves and Doctor Disaster using the recently streamlined and automated security system.

A skyship with Professor Predicament's logo emblazoned on its side then picked up the mercenaries from the ramp of the castle.  The air defenses were offline due to nobody currently having the authority to sign a new requisitions contract for ammunition after the last secretary started a war with a neighbor that their previous ammunition shipments were coming through.

...

Opalyn is not normally a flappable person in a crisis, and she's not about to break that streak, but it is taking something of an effort to remain unflapped about this set of circumstances.

Bright side: she's getting a lot more confident that she can really help this place!

She sips the drink -- it tastes like sour carrot cake -- and starts barking orders in between sips.

She wants the leader of the male soldiers, the leader of the female soldiers, anybody who knows anything about Professor Predicament's demesnes and castle, anybody who knows anything about previous kidnappings and how they were resolved, the chief detective, and the shady guy.

They can be found in short order.

Chief Detective: What are the odds this was really Professor Predicament, given all of the livery and whatnot? Or did they maybe wear disguises to throw us off the trail?

Person who knows anything about the history here: Any intel about whether to attempt diplomatic vs. military solutions? Or ransom maybe?

Soldier leaders: Do they advise direct assault and if so by what means, or would recovering Doctor Disaster be better as a stealth operation?

Shady guy: What do you have to contribute, if anything?

Sending in mercenaries openly wearing his colors is fully characteristic with the previously observed psychology of Professor Predicament, who is another Spark specializing in similar but not identical dimensional shenanigans and an obvious past rival.  None of this, obviously, prevents anyone else from masquerading at Professor Predicament.

Ransom is beneath the dignity of the Disaster Dynasty, especially before anybody's even tried military and spy solutions!

She's honestly a bit confused about what "diplomacy" is supposed to mean in context.  If Professor Predicament has gone to all this trouble to kidnap Doctor Disaster, he's unlikely to give him back for being asked politely...?

She's not sure they could take Professor Predicament in a direct, uncreative head-on assault.  Professor Predicament is slightly weaker as a Spark; but the home-ground advantage is huge, if Doctor Disaster's forces are fighting on ground that Professor Predicament has prepared.

He'll observe for the record that Professor Predicament sure did seem to know a lot about Doctor Disaster's ammunition difficulties and recent security revisions.

The notion that there's a mole in Disaster's organization doesn't go unnoticed, but this is not the right time for a molehunt, so Opalyn lets that go for the moment.

Instead, she latches onto the suggestion that really anyone could impersonate Professor Predicament's forces. Anyone at all? Even the people in this room?

Do they have enough intel to infiltrate the Predicament stronghold and find their way to where Disaster might be imprisoned, without themselves being captured?

Do they by any chance have any of the following equipment to aid in such an adventure?

- more Predicament-colored uniforms or armor, or ability to quickly hack that together
- knowledge of Predicament passwords or shibboleths
- stealth devices
- homing beacon for locating Disaster
- rapid transportation mechanisms for a quick getaway once they've recovered Disaster

And also, are they only out of the kind of ammunition the air defenses use, or are they completely out of ammunition overall?

Some people in this room would have more difficulty in carrying out a successful impersonation than others.  He'd be fine.  He doesn't recommend the Disastrous Hatter trying it, unless they're expecting all security checks to be really, really easily fooled... which, to be fair, they might be.  Working in security for Professor Predicament is not any relatively sane person's first choice of vocation.

Professor Predicament doesn't have standardized uniforms and armor, just standardized colors.  Dame Fleur can get something thrown together that'll pass casual inspection in an hour.  If they want it to pass up-close inspection, that realistically takes longer, unless one of the lesser Sparks around here can do inventions for clothing alteration.

He does not already know Professor Predicament's passwords, but those aren't very hard to obtain if you kidnap a current security guard and, you know... tickle them for a while.  Offer some other positive inducements if they confess.  Their forces include specialists of both sexes in that sort of work.

Opalyn shoots a Look at the chief of male security forces but doesn't say anything while others are still reporting in.

He'll give her a very earnest look in reply!  These are good specialists!  Really!

There's not a homing device for locating Doctor Disaster, but Professor Predicament would probably put him in Professor Predicament's Special Spark Storage Cell, if it was actually the Professor.