The runes of the pedestal at the top of the water fountain finished lighting and there was the sound of triumphant orchestral music as though played from some ancient device like a record player or phonograph. Multicolored lights beamed upward from the runes, and then a static-laden, gradually un-distorting image of a small, pointy-eared woman appeared on the pedestal. She was… vaguely gremlin-like, with skin of green and black swirled together.

She was also 100% steampunk, in a big leather tophat with an elaborate bronze symbol of gears, deco art, and a central eye. She wore a fitted, folded burgundy coat with a bronze harness contraption over it, perhaps an exoskeleton, but shoulder and forearm bits showed the glow of mana. The cuteness factor dialed up the bottom half in a white skirt, heavy stockings, and sturdy leather boots.

Only one little affectation marred the beauty — a crisscrossed scar like an X on her cheek. A minor thing, ultimately.

Naturally, she had heavy bronze goggles on. The image did a little bow, then posed with one hand on a hip and flashing a peace sign. “Welcome, hopeful Iteration!” she called in an accent somewhat similar to the realms of the Dominion.

The image then pressed something on the goggles, which proceeded to pop off her eyes with a quick, mechanical transformation into wings. These flapped upward to separate and then frame the convoluted symbol inset into the top hat with a satisfying final click.

The eyes were crystal blue. The hair spilling down was chestnut curls with blonde highlights. The smiling face… though more mature, was very familiar…

“Oh no,” Sammy whined breathlessly.

“Oh yes!” Azure teased in delight with a snicker.

“I’m Ozra Bosk, one of your predecessors! If you’re here, that just means you get to make use of everything I poured into your success. I just want you to know, I’m really pulling for you! Fight hard and win!” She did another pose, thrusting a fist out with one leg curled upward, her face a comical attempt at fierceness.

Sammy groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. How can I have personal embarrassment and secondhand embarrassment at the same fucking time?!

Meanwhile, Azure was laughing it up as she grabbed Sammy and gave her a shake. “Open your eyes, I insist, love! You don’t want to miss a second of your adorable gremlin-ness!”

She opened her eyes to more cringe, as the Ozra image was doing a little hip-shaking dance with a kick, to a sudden ‘high point’ in the musical ensemble. Then, she tittered and cast her hands out wide with a beaming smile. “What you see before you and all around is the glorious potential of [Progress]! What is your penultimate goal, successor?

“Comfort and functionality for all in permanence, no? The common good. Creation, magic, inspiration, ethics — many things go into the stew to make it possible. But the frame is made of power and energy bent into technological angles we then don like living armor.”

She slapped the chest of the frame she had around her, and it cocooned around her like a Transformer, while her hat did more or less the same as it turned into a helmet. Very quickly, she was a bronze, black, and rust-colored miniature mecha, like if Bubblegum Crisis and a steampunk retro-future had a baby. It was sleek sexiness and badassery in muted tones.

Sammy and Azure both gasped with their mouths hanging open.

Ozra continued with a more modulated voice, “Maybe this is strange to you, or maybe it’s primitive, or advanced, but whatever form your world takes, you are the molder of its future. It’s defender… and it’s avenger.” She pulled up her arm to reveal a pop-up cannon that suddenly fired a blast of blinding blue energy at them.

They both yelped and dived out of the way instinctively as energy appeared to explode where they were. But of course, it didn’t hurt them. Muttering curses, they both rose.

Ozra laughed as she made the helmet turn back into a tophat and blew the smoke coming from the magicannon arm. Then she put her hands on her hips. “What I want for you out there and for everyone, is why I made the choice and sacrifice to be here. I thought: how can we be the Light of Progress if we cannot improve or at least alter what we’ve made? So I abandoned my low percentage chances out there to come and figure out the Hall.

“Before you think you should follow in my footsteps, take note I spent centuries doing it and I was already at a very high level. Not only that, but I left a lot of friends to suffer without me. A whole world to deteriorate. Not many can pull that off. Or resist revenge.”

Her eyes shifted away as sadness entered her eyes. “We all go insane in our own special way from loss... just like the Lover. I let go of rage and fought through depression so we could end this. So everyone can progress. We have to look to the future instead of just our isolated Now. Always to the future, and let the future look back on us, too. That’s how the story ends, successor. If not you, then one of your successors. Do your best… so they can learn from you, too.”

Sammy exchanged a glance with Azure. “I think she lost her… you.”

Azure frowned. “That never works out well.”

“I guess there’s an exception to every rule. So far, it seems like the exceptions are those who change things.”

Ozra closed her hands around her back and put on a small smile. “Enough speechifying, right? Let’s get to the nuts and bolts. This is Engineering — which like Maintenance didn’t exist in this condition before me. Take note time passes here because this is a bit of a hybrid space. Not to worry, though — most aspects of the Hall are present here because I’ve tapped into it. Leaked and contained it. Sounds bad? Well, maybe, but if you’re here, hopefully it’s good enough.”

She blew air out to the side with a puffy cheek. “Our Original was a real pill, trust me. You wouldn’t believe what this stupid place was like before. She was all about balance before — pff! Trust me, it’s way, way better hacked and will speed up your development by squeezing more experience, applying cheats, even-... er, well, I guess if you’ve been in the Hall you already know. Right. Moving on…”

The hologram pointed to her left. “To your right is the Big Ticket for you: I call it the Challenge Room! Carved directly out of the Hall into an isolated alcove are four critical pinnacle point vision-simulation hybrid modules with tangible rewards! There is even risk/reward baked in — and do you know why?!”

Her grin was just a wee bit mad. “Because it is a simulation you have control over, constructed into essentially a false future of that life! You’ll discover insights while steering things into better or worse results, even death! But you’ll want to avoid that last bit, of course. It causes permanent psychological trauma.

“And don’t worry, the first is designed to be a starter version to let you get the hang of it for greater tests to come at progressively higher levels.”

Sammy winced at the information. This feels like a terrible, terrible idea.

Ozra held her hands out in a shrug. “No doubt you’re thinking to yourself right now ‘This is a terrible, terrible idea!’ Well, maybe you should stop being a huge baby and just go get that shit done, have you thought about that? Only a pathetic coward would worry about such risks. Are you a heroic goddess or a little bitch mouse?”

“Hey, fuck you!” Sammy yelled at the pre-recorded hologram. “You’re the bitch!”

The face of Ozra had an aggravating, judgey frown as she shrugged again. “I guess you’ll just be another stupid failure in the books if you can’t even get through one little challenge. To think, I had such high hopes for you.”

“Oh yeah? Well, watch me fucking ace this shit! I’ll make you look like a real jackass for doubting me!” Sammy began storming off to go immediately, but Azure grabbed her.

“Samantha, hold on, damn it — just hold on!” Azure tried to push back rather futilely.

“It’s not a big deal, Azure, just let me get it over with!”

“What about me?! I’ll jump right in with you!”

That made her stop as she began shaking her head. “Azure-”

Ozra flickered then continued, “To your left is Maintenance. By now I am unsure what it is like. Time passes within the framework, though the repurposed gremlins are long-lived. They will pass on their duties to the successive generations without much change, as they were designed. You probably won’t need them for anything but who knows?”

Another flicker and she was facing a different direction, fiddling with some device with a grease stain on her cheek. “To the north is my workstation, notes, apparatuses, and everything one would need to continue the work. There’s a kicker, though — opening the door has innate requirements, and tests lock out various sensitive access. In addition, you forfeit your ability to return to the world. I don’t suggest it. Posterity simply demands it. Eh…”

A flicker and her image was one of a frazzled, harried magimechanic in work clothes, her hands folded up on top of her head. She sighed out a puff of air. “Sorry about this stupid pre-recorded mess. I tried two dozen different pared-down interactive systems. Her fucking system keeps obliterating them in a jealous fit! Well, okay, that’s a stretch. But the Director definitely didn’t like other autonomous daemons, that’s for sure…”

She threw her hands in an exhausted sigh. “Hopefully this works at least. I’ve pared it down to absolutely nothing but timing sensitivity and a selection of keyword triggers. Try it out. Uh… Maintenance Codes? Need to remember to do that… not now… fuck, I need a drink…”

Flicker, flicker. She was back in her very original outfit, smiling with her hands behind her back. “I just want to say: good luck, Successor. Do us proud and make this all worth it. I have no regrets regardless. In this endeavor, I have shown the true capability of determination and ingenuity. Nothing is sacrosanct in this broken construct of reality, Successor. All that is built can be reverse-engineered and modified. Remember that.”

The image of Ozra flickered out.

By that point, Sammy had calmed, frowning at the place where the steampunk girl was and feeling mixed emotions about her predecessor. She thought she understood why Ozra was so obsessive… it was because of who she lost. She must’ve sensed the futility of going after their nemesis and decided to withdraw. Withdraw and build something that would potentially persist and have meaning forever. If it was an aid to victory… that would be undeniable.

Azure called out, “Ozra Bosk! Can The Lover iterations go in with yours into the Challenge Room?”

“Damn it, Azure,” Sammy muttered.

I can’t believe I was a literal gremlin… I’ll never live this down… we were still super cute, though… no wonder I liked steampunk…

The image of the Mother of All Gremlins flickered back into existence, this time in a more presentable state and a clean work outfit. She still had a cute, smaller hat with her goggles on it. “You’ve asked about others coming with you for the Challenge Room. Well, the Hall is naturally accommodating to its own persona using it, so it wasn’t difficult to account for The Lover. If you’re present here, you can use it and obtain the benefits. But understand that you will risk the same things.” She flickered out.

Sammy called out, “What are the Challenge Room's chances of success?”

The same image flickered back, now smirking. “Curious about your chances, eh? I used to say: never tell me the odds. Now I’m always fucking calculating them. Well. These are challenges, not cakewalks. Especially after the first. My estimate for iteration success at each is 71-72%, meaning 28-29% will fail. It’s just an estimate, but you can absolutely fail. It may be a gradient, it may be all or nothing, I can’t control that.

“You will feel when you have your access here progress. And you can only do each one once! Per Iteration. Scary, isn’t it? But you aren’t going to bitch out, are you? It’s for a good cause, and we do love our goodies.” She winked and then flickered out.

Sammy turned to Azure and stared back into determined stubbornness. She sighed.