Once there was a brave and honorable knight.  He trotted about the lands in resplendent armor on his noble steed.  As is custom, he wandered the land in search of wrongs to right, ever seeking the battle against evil and injustice.
  And so it was that he happened across a field one day.  There were two things of note about this particular field.  First was the herd of horses that grazed there.  They were all saddled and bore various coats of arms.  Knights steeds, no doubt, long abandoned here.
  The other was a tower in the center of the grassland.  The tower was constructed of a dark granite, and seemed quite impregnable.  Yet there were no roads leading to or from this structure.  Yet the horses told that many had, nonetheless, come this way.  Curious, the knight approached the tower.  From the highest window of the tower, he saw her.  A damsel in distress, crying for the aid of a brave and stalwart knight.
  She was a vision of beauty, simple and sophisticated.  Her short cropped hair suited her well, and her voice was like a siren's song to any stalwart knight.  Being sworn to just such occasions, the knight yelled to the maiden that he would rescue her, and proceeded to search for a means on ingress into the impressively solid tower.
  The tower had buy one means of entry at the ground level.  Giant iron gates barred with a very sturdy slab of the same pig iron.  The knight marveled for a moment, these gates were very heavy, and must have taken a small army to construct.  With a mighty heave, the knight lifted the slab from barring the gates, and tugged with all his might to shift the heavy door.  It inched open under the knight's efforts.  Soon enough he had shifted the door fully open.
  As the knight started to head through the portcullis, flames jetted from the doorway. The knight dove for cover behind the thankfully solid iron door.  He managed to find safety behind the massive iron door, and contemplated his next move.  As he did so, the flames abated.
  Sneaking a peek from behind the door, the knight peered into the tower, and saw a most bizarre thing.  A strange contraption of some sort, connected to a Dragon's head.   All manner of pipe works were entwined about the head.  Slightly above to the dread beast's head was a giant vat of some orange liquid...  Fior Srad, the knight surmised.  This was some sort of machine that simulated dragon fire to guard the gate.
  The contraption whirred and clicked, and the flames started once more.  The knight was already behind the door, this time.  With a plan already conceived, he readied his dirk and waited for the flames to cease once more.
  When the heat from the flames died, the knight jumped around the door, flung his Dirk at the giant vat of Fior Srad, and dove back under the cover of the door, knowing the fury of fiors unbound.  Indeed, the fireball that shot out from the tower fused the massive iron door to the tower, forevermore ajar.
  The clever knight, having thwarted the trap, proceeded up the tower by the stairs that lined the inside wall.  Stairs that seems to be too few...  and increasingly farther between.  Another clever little obstacle, but nothing of consequence.  The knight simply had to jump from step to step.
  As he got further up the tower, the knight found he had to shed his heavy armors as the distance between steps increased.  The insidious nature of the stairs was becoming clear.  No heavily encumbered warrior could make it to the top.  For the final step, the knight even had to make a rope from his shirt and a grapple of his sword.
  But he made it to the top room of the tower, wherein he saw the beautiful maiden he had set out to rescue.  She stood there, in her plain yet elegant robes, smiling and beckoning him to enter.  With naught more than tattered rags for armor and his trusty sword,  the knight entered the lady's chamber, only to find that she was not alone.
  Behind the maiden stood a monstrous.. thing.  It appeared to be a giant suit of knight's armor, but it had too many arms and too many legs... And two heads!  It was a truly hideous thing, blurting steam from its shoulders as the eye slit of the helmet's visor began to emit an eerie red glow.
  The three-armed, four-legged, two-headed armored knight lumbered forward, clearly intending to fight.  The knight readied his sword, but was batted to one corner of the room by a giant stone club in one of the monstrosity's arms.  Its strength was massive.
  Clambering to his feet, the knight tried to best strength with cunning.  He ran around behind this beast, to attack it from the rear.  When he got to the monster's backside, he noticed that one of the heads was facing behind.  The eerie red glow of the backwards helmet fixated upon the knight.  An arm was also jointed to swing in the rear.  The armored behemoth sent the knight flying through the air again.
  Thinking quickly, or as quickly as the concussions would allow, the knight looked about the room for a new plan of attack.  There was little in the room of traditional use in battle, this was a lady's quarters, after all.  But the bed.. Yes.. The bed had a canopy!
  Being armor less meant the knight was faster than the iron behemoth.  He managed to make his way to the lady's bed and rip the canopy from the posters before the giant armor could even turn to face him.
  Flinging the canopy over both heads, the giant beast was blinded.  All three arms began to flail wildly.  A creature of minimal intellect, the knight mused.  With his bare speed and skill, he rushed in under a swinging arm and made his strike.  The knight's trusty sword plunged deep into the interior of the monster, through the seams of the armor.
  A sickening sound came from within.  A chattering of some sort.  The armor began to shudder and shake.  The sword was drawn from the knight's hands, as if being chewed further into the armor.
  The sickly sound of a spring being sprung came from deep within this armored knight, and it fell dormant.  The red glow faded from the visor and the armor fell to the ground.
  Another machine.. One designed to mimic a knight.  But no matter.  The knight had bested this minion of evil.  The damsel was free, he had done his duty and now could claim his reward.  He approached the maiden, sure she would shower him with affection.
  Indeed, she smiled broadly as he approached.  She raised her hands to cradle his head and brought her lips close to his.
  ...Then she upturned her palm and blew some strange powder into the brave knight's face.  Blackness followed.  When the knight awoke, he found himself strapped to a table, with the damsel standing over him.  She wore a heavy apron and gloves, and glasses framed her simple and beautiful eyes.  The room they were in was clearly a workshop, with various alchemist and tinker parts and paraphernalia.
  "You caused a lot of problems for my automata.", she said with a smile, "They haven't had such a thorough test in ages."
  "But with your brain in my new homunculus, I'm sure I won't be having that trouble any more.", she smiled as she brought a saw up into his field of view.  As he felt her set the teeth of the saw upon his neck, he heard her remark,  "Mmm.. Such pretty eyes.  I shall  have to make use of those."
  The knight laid there, doomed to a fate worse than death, for he forgot a basic lesson of all knights...

 Be ever wary in your battles, that is to say:  Do not lose your head.