A grin crept across her face in a rather unnoticeable way, Jessibelle and her guard had entered what was known as The Machinist's Block. A small subsection of the supercity to the northernmost border full of technicians who are bountiful in information about crafting magic fueled machinery. Oh splendid circumstance, Jessibelle had her guard hand her a notepad and pen. The craftsmen prattled on about engineering and the like, Jessibelle was happy to see that they were so divulgent of information. Jessibelle thought it so kind of them to freely give her this knowledge, and she was going to give the people who had followed her through this knowledge. They could certainly use it to their advantage. 

In reality there was great fear in these men, the six very intimidating folks were not the sort who usually came around. In fact they were so different that they had been ousted as outworlders almost immediately. Not a soul mentioned it but boy did they talk about it behind her back in hushed whispers. An enormous arachnid was never a pleasant sight to people who had never seen one before, and hell, to some people who have seen them before it's still unpleasant. Though externally the empress seems genuinely unaware of the people's fear of her, in fact she'd be hurt if she knew what people think of her. She'd probably get really sad if you said that you didn't like her. 

Not because you hurt her feelings.

She just hates to see good men go missing.

After making her daily rounds, offering trade requests for foodstocks and other miscellaneous materials. Such as raw metal, plastics, glass, et cetera. A few hundred or so Ahs Chini came in and hauled out a dozen or so tons of the material with- Questionably legal methods. The day was done and the sun began to set, Jessibelle set out to return to the fortress again with her workers carrying their workload back home, Jessibelle herself assisted with the haul. Making herself out to be a working woman at the same time, you know, the usual fare for convincing people that you're a great person. This is a daily thing with Jessibelle, mind you, she helps people and then returns home to do fuck-nothing all day until she's ready to make herself look good again. Perks of being an empress.

Retiring to her quarters before the sun met the horizon, the forward guards in the exterior border were cycled to the next shift for night guards. The Empress herself was rather uncaring tonight, she didn't even bother to drop off her notes to the workers. That kinda just left them with several tons of raw material just laying about inside the fortress. 

Jessibelle herself was casually laying across her bed, body laid flat against the soft cushion and eyes cast at the ceiling. "Thiss placce iss sso dry-y-y." She whined to herself, not much fun was happening. Though she was getting work done she coudn't find anyone to play around with, and that was just boring. Unfortunately for Jessibelle her night guards were about to have a whole lot of fun and she would be wholly unaware of it until morning, as the empress passed into slumber. 

Outside as night fell upon the Supercity and Fortress the sound of scraping metal and electronic moans began to pollute the air. The several night guards at their posts were upset by the sound, the sound had come every night for almost their entire stay here. They stared out over the ruined terrain and spotted something truly horrifying, shambling metal constructs from a war long since passed. They lurched with broken legs and shattered forms held together with wires and strands of rusted iron. The guards whipped up their rifles and began firing, the bullets ripped through their metal bodies but they marched onwards. Pressing ever forward despite their broken forms. The guards strapped their rifles to their backs and pulled out several varying melee weapons. Ranging from batons to spears they charge the mechanical monsters and began hacking away at their bodies. Cleaving head and arms from shoulders and knocking them onto their backs, leaving them little more than a writhing pair of legs on the ground. 

What were these things?

To the Ahs Chini they were an obstical, until some of the less ruined ones began attacking. Two guards were slain by one machine with just one arm and a wheel missing from the side of its right foot, it was frighteningly fast on its legs. The remaining guards began focusing solely on the one genuinely threatening machine, attempting to neutralize it before it killed any more. The sound of lightning footsteps on soft ground was heard as the Head Guard was alerted to the presence of hostiles, Mortimer himself burst from over the fortified walls and spun through the air like a corkscrew. His lower body twisted around and his right leg collided with the head of the hobbled automaton. What was once a threat to his guards was now decapitated and lying on the ground, twitching violently. 

"Keep them outside of the walls at all costs, prevent them from entering our fortress! The Lady slumbers and does not need interuptions from filthy machines! Understand?"

The guards saluted with their hand to their chest and then a clenched fist to their forehead, reciting: "My mind and body for the people." The commanding guard just nodded and sprinted off into the hordes of oncoming machines.

"I gave my body to the sole purpose of defending our Lady from all harm! If a group of mindless machines thinks they can stay my hand they will be met with a grim fate!" Mortimer leapt onto the shoulders of a larger machine with only one foot, the other cocked backwards like a football player's leg. Like a knife his leg swung forward and he knocked the machine's head clean off its shoulders and into the chest of another robot. "Guards, send the four advance troops to The Lady's door. In case any get into the fortifications." The guard nodded quickly and skittered inside, working all eight of his legs as quickly as possible to get to the guard room. Arrival was quick, the guard chambers weren't too far from the entrance.

"Sirs! Madam! Mortimer has ordered the four of you to the door of The Lady, to keep her in slumber while we deal with the machines. As well as to defend her, should any of them get inside you are to defend her. Understood?" The advance guards took the orders to heart and had begun donning their equipment mid sentence, clothing themselves in full riot gear and large rifles far too heavy for any human to wield. 

Without a word they marched to the door of Jessibelle and positioned themselves at both ends of the hallway, pressing themselves flat against the wall and keeping a close eye on the door to get inside. Dutch pointed to the entranceway and then upwards, a signal to climb but keep an eye on the door. The other three nodded in agreement and scuttled up to the top of the wall and onto the roof, laying themselves out flat and aiming their guns downward. Anything that wasn't donned in the charcoal colored clothing of the Ahs Chini servicemen and women was to be fired upon.

Meanwhile, Mortimer was still fighting the machine forces outside the fortress. "I'm having a thought right now." He mumbled silently as he grappled with one of the smaller machines. "If we capture these metal-men after killing them. And then we turn them into raw metal." The human-spider amalgom tore the machine in half with his hands and cast the rusted metal chunks aside. "We could get a great amount of free resources for our project." With a headbutt to the chest of a taller machine, rupturing its chest cavity and causing it to fall over stunned. "It'll take a great deal of reforging, of course. They're super rusty." 

This was a habit that even Jessibelle noticed, Mortimer speaks to himself an unusual amount. Not to the point of madness, but still an unsettling amount. 

It was going to be a long time before they see the morning sun again, when the sun rises they'll be able to salvage the metal and begin work.