My first Clockwork Knight managed to hold for all of two minutes against the armed members of the group, primarily because their leader spent 75% of that time side-tracked by other endeavors. To be more specific, she spotted the armored door leading to my first prototype reactor and called out to the others in her group "You guys handle Mr. Metal over there, I'm going to check this room for loot!"

Another of the hostages met their end at the tip of the woman's blade then, and she quickly demolished the armored door leading to the reactor chamber. The instant she entered, I cranked the reactor as hot as it could stand. The limits of the turbines meant it probably wouldn't generate much more power, but I was all for giving this murderous woman a lethal dose of radiation.

At the exact same time, my Clockwork Knight managed to take down three of the other murder-hobos using its Proton Pile blaster, filling the corridor directly in front of it with what basically amounted to a highly radioactive steam explosion. This knocked another two off-balance, which the machine capitalized on with its chainsword. This, sadly, didn't last, as one of the enemy troopers got the bright idea to stick their spear right in the Proton Pile outlet, frying the delicate conjuration runes with a crackle of electricity.

As the soldiers died, I felt significant surges of mana. By my estimates, each of them was giving me on the order of twenty to thirty mana. For a brief moment I could see how that woman's evil soul-sucking sword could be so powerful, before firmly shutting down that line of thought. Proton Piles provided me with plenty of Mana, and I rather disliked the idea of feeding off sapient life. I might not be human anymore, but I still refused to cross that particular line; it felt far too much like cannibalism.

Anyway, after my Clockwork Knight fired its Proton Pile the first time, everything went downhill for that particular machine. The chainsword was deadly if it managed to score a hit, but at the moment that was turning out to be a big 'if', as the experienced troopers quickly began to knock the construct off-balance and start doing serious damage to it. Then that positively evil woman concluded that no, there wasn't any loot in the room with my prototype reactor, and shredded what was left of my Clockwork Knight in seconds.

This allowed the remaining hostiles to round the corner to the second part of my entry corridor, where they immediately ran afoul of both my first machine gun turret and an Armed Clockwork. With that, a fusillade of bullets began flying down the corridor, tearing down another two of the soldiers. That woman, though, was simply casually waltzing through the bullets, her wounds healing almost instantly as she devoured the souls of her comrades as they fell.

This advance also brought the enemy troops into the part of the corridor that my circular saws could cover, and cover they did, the blades bursting out of the wall to decapitate several of them. Still, in the end, both that positively evil woman and three of her troops made it to the end of the corridor where they swiftly demolished both my machine gun turret and the Armed Clockwork, before coming face to face with another armored door. I didn't bother with letting that woman demolish it, instead opening it right as my first floor boss lined up a shot with its cannon.

With a resounding BANG, the cannon fired straight at the evil, evil woman. Almost immediately her head was reduced to red paste, then just as quickly reformed, as I felt much of the leftover death energy in the air be consumed. Then my hulking metal monstrosity strode forwards as it fired at one of the less powerful troopers, splattering them all over the wall as it extended its four arms, each tipped with a deadly circular saw.

In the end, my machine fell, but now that woman was alone, save for the terrified civilians who I had managed to mostly shuffle through the secret corridor to safety with only a dozen or so casualties. The woman went downstairs now, casually demolishing both the Armed Clockwork and the machine gun turret I had waiting at the start of the second floor before slicing through yet another armored door and entering the corridor where I'd installed my Uranium trap. The wall panel concealing the radiation source fell, and as the control rods retracted the entire corridor lit up with the deadly blue glow of Cerenkov Radiation.

Simultaneously, the Armed Clockworks at the end of the corridor opened fire, the hail of bullets either bouncing off the woman's armor, or achieving little as her wounds healed almost instantly. She had just reached the end of the corridor and demolished the obstructions there when suddenly she sagged and began to retch, her reserves of stolen life energy apparently running dry. She still managed to enter the corridor with my primary reactor bank, but after nearly getting pasted by the machine gun turret on the opposite end, she apparently decided to retreat, her progress growing slower and more unsteady the further she progressed through the radiation trap as energetic reaction products wreaked havoc on her internal organs..

I decided not to take any chances regarding this, dispatching some of my Armed Clockworks from my under-construction hull to pursue her. As it turned out, I needn't have bothered, as she collapsed while she was approaching the stairs back to the first floor, the massive dose of radiation she had received apparently proving too much for her to handle. I didn't take any chances regardless; as soon as my Armed Clockworks caught up to the woman, they put her out of her misery.

Now, all I needed to do was repair the damage, and explain to the terrified civilians what had happened.

Seth had been cowering in the hidden room for a few minutes when the sound of explosions and death ceased, along with most of the others who had been unofficially conscripted by Karyll and her contingent of the Drake Guard. Still, the pair of metal monsters waiting in the room had everyone distinctly on-edge, as they didn't know whether the Dungeon they were in would let them go, or simply kill them all like it had apparently done to the Drake Guard.

Then the wall all the chairs were facing lit up with a simplistic representation of a face, and a metallic, twanging voice rang out through the room, saying "Testing, one two three, testing. Ah, apparently this is working correctly. I had been worried about that. Anyway, if any of you have questions I will answer to the best of my ability, though I hope you will all return the favor."

Seth didn't quite know what possessed him to stand up and ask "What has become of Karyll Scaleridge of the Drake Guard? She was the one in charge of this mess."

Suddenly, the screen shifted to show what Seth guessed was a map of the Dungeon, and the metallic voice answered "She and the rest of the armed individuals are dead. One member of the group managed to make it to the second floor before her supply of stolen life ran out and she died from-" and then the voice said a word Seth did not know, but he at least understood the important bit. Namely that Karyll was dead, and as soon as the Supreme Leader found out, he would almost certainly assume the county was in rebellion and kill everyone there.