Having Al working as their informant, Theodore and Lila went into the moors of Scotland, in the cold breeze that wafted through the area, flushed with greenery, and thick fauna that made it difficult for them to traverse easily, with their only light coming from the Sonic Screwdriver.
"Seemed awfully brave running through the moors at this hour," Theodore pointed out that Catherine risked her life fleeing from her forced marriage to the baron into the moors at night, with no lantern, no source of light, she risked breaking her ankle or worse.
Snorting, Catherine flatly tells him that she walked through these moors since she was a small lass, she knows the area from the back of her hand.
"Y'know, someone's gotta know where the baron lives, how does he get your dad's messages, whatever?" Lila brought up that someone in Catherine's court should know something about the baron, how else did he receive messages, crows with messages tied to their feet?
Mulling it over, Catherine says that she knows that one of the cooks spoke with the baron more than once, his appetite and wanting led him to the kitchen.
"Great, he's a glut, we find your cook, get some answers, hopefully it'll point us to the right direction," Lila sighs as Catherine led them through the moors, which she stressed that they stay close to her, some parts are much deeper than they appear, and she didn't want them to drown.
She commanded them to rid the baron and she won't allow them to drown while they're under her command.
While Catherine led them, Theodore's communicating with Al, who went through records upon records, but nothing came up.
Their baron's no baron, that much he found, Catherine's correct in her deduction, the baron's a fraud, and not much else he knows.
Nothing with the description's popping up in the scans, but with the time period they're in, that came with the turf, but Al's sure the baron isn't from Germany and they're not looking for a castle.
Where he lives, hard to say, but he suspects that the baron lives closer than Catherine thinks, but he can't be for certain, so he'll keep working on his end.
Until then, don't upset the princess, too much.
Climbing up a steep hill up to the main road, Catherine effortlessly climbed while Theodore dug his feet in, holding Lila's hand as he helped her while they ascended to the flattened road above.
"The village's this way," Catherine tells them as she led them through the dimly lit road, seldom lit with torches, in the distance looked like floating wisps.
Arriving in the village, no one stirring, everyone gone to bed, Catherine found the cook's house, woke him up, and forced her way into his home with Theodore and Lila trailing behind.
Within moments, Catherine's in the cook's ear, demanding answers about the baron's whereabouts, his droopy eyes glistening in the fire burning in the fireplace as he struggled to process Cathrine's request, until she near pinched his ear off, forcing his addled mind to awaken.
Sitting down with the cook as he rubs the side of his face, his droopy eyes processing the three people in front of him, he wearily asks why Catherine isn't at her wedding, to which she nearly shouted his ear off, hadn't Theodore calmed her down.
"He's not a baron! He lied! I have no reason to believe otherwise and I de—need to know where I may find him, do you understand?" Catherine coughed as she calmly tells the cook that she wouldn't marry the baron and ran from her own wedding.
She can't go back to the castle without proof of the baron's lies and she insisted the cook aide her in bringing down the house of cards, knowing that he and the baron talked more.
As he blinks, the cook responded that the baron talked to him about the menu for dinners, he complained about the food being cooked, rather than served raw, such strange thing the cook never seen before, but he swore the baron had him bring him raw food more than once.
"Raw fish, raw meat, never liked them seasoned, he says it ruins the flavor," the cook tells them as he sat on his tuffet.
Processing what he said, it confused them as they shared looks with each other.
"So, he likes his steaks blue rare, huh?" Lila mused that the baron's unusual appetite presumably led him into having his steaks raw, which the cook affirmed that he didn't even like the thought of it touching so much as salt.
Doesn't like coming out in the rain, likes raw food, isn't a baron by any stretch, sounds all the fishier.
"Al, I need advice," Theodore reached out to the TARDIS and it spoke up, inquiring what Theodore wanted.
Theodore asked if there's any aliens fitting the description they're hearing, now, and Al went through the archives, saying that it's possible that they're dealing with something new on the list of known aliens.
A Doctor encountered them not too long ago, but he got what he could from that, and if the information's still good, then there's a chance the baron's hiding in a loch.
When asked about the gold he apparently had that bought his way into Catherine's family court, Al says that it's possible the loch connected to the ocean, and he might've found sunken treasure at the depths of the sea.
"What alien is he?" Theodore asks him more about the identity of the baron and Al managed to grab what he can.
Saturnyn.
Aquatic in nature, not friendly, but they'll talk, at least the ones he has on file did with the Doctor that encountered them last.
"Nothing your dad encountered; I can tell you that much. Anyhow, from what I can gather, when the Doctor dealt with them, the head of the school turned women into them, but it didn't pan out. Heh. Uh, from what it looks like, turned humans keep their human form until they go in the water. The head honcho who turned them had a device that masqueraded her as human. My guess' the baron has similar device and he wants to restart the race here with Catherine," Al summarized for Theodore while he kept up with the conversations while Catherine paced around the cook's home as he tells her what he knows about the baron.
From what Al gathered, the baron's secretly a Saturnyn and he planned on using Catherine to start his bloodlines.
If she'd gone ahead with the marriage, the baron would've taken her away and turned her, just like it happened before.
Why the baron wanted Catherine if he didn't want the throne, well, they're not exactly thinking ahead, Al found, but perhaps in his own way, he's royal.
No better mate than a queen on land.
"Would he come after her?" Theodore asks if the baron won't take Catherine's refusal lightly and seek her, which Al thinks he might, which he warned Theodore to keep on his toes, just in case.
Letting Al go so he may continue scouring what information needed in their quest, Theodore hears the cook saying something along the line that he doesn't know where the baron lived.
He never told the cook, that much's certain.
"What now?" Catherine looked towards Theodore for answers and he says that he had an idea on the baron, if the cook couldn't point them in the right direction.
"Your grace, do you happen to know of a loch that connects to the sea?" Theodore asks if Catherine knew of any, which led the princess to thoughtfully think to herself before answering that she knows of Loch Mead, but that isn't close to her family's castle.
"Best guess as any, thank you, sir. Your grace, Lila, shall we?" Theodore gestures as he sees they've expended their attempts with the cook and they filed out of the cook's home, with Catherine leading them on the path to Loch Mead.
"What're we looking for?" Lila asks Theodore what they're supposed to find when they get to the loch, which Theodore says he doesn't know, but if the baron got his gold from the depths of the sea, a loch connected to the sea's a good place to check.
He tipped her off with telepath what he found talking with Al and she nodded in acknowledgement.
Working in the belief that the baron's hunting Catherine down, Theodore and Lila worked with protecting the princess as she's leading them on the path to Loch Mead.
"Yeah, Loch Mead, sounds about right. Deep enough for him to hide, goes out to sea, he can come to and fro with ease if he wanted, and nobody would know," Al agreed with the assessment that Loch Mead's a good candidate for housing the baron.
If he went far enough, he might've found sunken ships, plenty of treasures aboard, that could've been what he used trying to buy his way into the court.
Patching Lila in, she asks how the baron even found out about Catherine, something Theodore decided to get his answers directly, by asking Catherine how the baron came to find out about her, which she tells him that she doesn't know.
He just showed up.
Nodding, Theodore continued, asking if there's a possibility the baron saw her somewhere, that's how he knew what she looked like and went from there.
Thinking to herself, Catherine said she never went to Germany, but she did go to a port off the coast with her father during a deal between families.
"Could've he saw you, then?" Theodore inquired if it's possible the baron saw her then, tracking her down afterwards, and Catherine pondered it before saying that it's possible.
The port was busy that day, if he was among the crowds of people coming and going from the markets and the ships, she wouldn't have known, and when Theodore asked her, she confirmed Loch Mead isn't far from the port.
"How do we deal with him?" Lila asks Al while she's patched in with Theodore.
Pondering this, Al mentioned that if they wanted to be pragmatic, shooting him dead's a good way.
Curious, Lila asks what are they getting themselves into with going to the baron's lair directly, and wasn't pleased with the answer.
The TARDIS said that they're not particularly picky what they eat, the ones the Doctor who encountered them first, ate their own mum, because her cloaking device became broken, and she couldn't turn back, so she fed herself to them, a sort of twisted end to her race, then.
They have sharp teeth, the baron will use his if they're not careful, and like fish, there's more way to cook them.
When asked about the turned-humans, Al says the Doctor that encountered these aliens turned them back into humans, after the death of the Saturnyn's mother.
However, he doubted that it can be done if Catherine gets captured, the baron wants his queen, and he doesn't want her getting away from him again.
If anything, he's got a process that'll permanently turn her into a Saturnyn herself, in which case, death might be preferable, for her.
Point is, it's not going to be easy, and it's better they don't get complacent with overly easy adventures, Al promises to find more information for them while they're heading to the loch.
Theodore tells him to have backups ready and ready to swing by to pick them up.
"I'll get on that. You two, keep the princess out of a marriage from hell," Al promised to be ready the moment he's needed, before he lets them go.