"Hmm. Tricky. Flexible utility, but not averse to preparation, no ear for music ..."

He taps his fingers together in thought.

"How would you feel about being a spirit caller? You'd use ritual circles to call up spirits — mostly elementals — and propitiate them with a gift of magical power. Over time, you could build up relationships with them. Then, when you needed to do something suddenly, you could call them up and ask them for a favor. It's more preparation-y than being an evoker or elementalist, but it allows for more spontaneous flexibility than a pure ritualist. And while you can mediate your relationship with contracts, if you can build a friendly rapport with the spirits it's not actually required. And if you get good enough at it, the spirits might even come to you for help solving their problems, which is sometimes a nuisance and other times a godsend, as far as advance warning of supernatural phenomena goes. Downsides include having to actually do the preparation, lower peak output than other schools, and less control over exactly how things happen, since you're using a spirit as an intermediate. Oh, and you can usually only maintain a good enough relationship with a limited number of spirits."

"I like the idea? I'm a little worried it would be a bit too much in terms of - my magic requiring things emotionally from me, since I already have the emotional light stuff? But that being said, it's not like the best way to prosper emotionally is to sit in a dark room alone all the time. I could definitely see it being a reasonable option - the only other thing that really popped to mind thinking about what I'd like was maybe some sort of more mechanistic enchanting focused discipline? Or maybe something specifically about emotions, but I think that's a bit of a dubious thing to make my niche that aggressively." 

"Well, you can learn more than one thing, although there's benefits to specialization," he muses. "Mechanistic enchanting .... Thaumaturgy does do some of that, but mechanistic enchanting specifically enabled by having a source of your own magical energy to work with ..."

"There are a few different options for that. You could become a totemic dedekind — someone who infuses their energy into an external object to strengthen it. At high levels, they can call their object to them instantly over any distance, make it almost completely resistant to damage, manipulate its apparent weight, enable it to work without ammunition or other consumable fuels, and so on. Even at low levels, they can prevent anyone else from using or moving their object, and use it to do whatever it would normally do, just ... moreso."

"Or you could become a spellfixer — someone who finds spells, magical effects, creatures, or times, and uses their innate magic to 'bottle' them for later use. That would also let you cast thaumaturgic spells, bottle them, and then release them later more quickly than you could cast them."

"There are definitely other possibilities in this area, but those two are the ones that jump out that I remember having ... safe ... books about."

"Spellfixing and spirit calling are the ones that appeal the most? think I'll have a pretty easy time generating different spells to well, fix, and spiritcalling just... I don't know, sounds good and flexible to me? Or just thaumaturgy, maybe? I think the lantern-y stuff is probably sufficient to cover most of my needs to immediate power, so I don't think focusing on something centered around immediate, especially physical power would be a good idea, but I definitely feel like the main thing magic could help me with is having another broad toolkit I can rely on without a big power investment. I think I'd be happy practicing any of them, or any combination of them?" 

He nods seriously.

"How about this, then — I give you the safety lectures for spirit calling and spellfixing, and then I lend you introductory books on spirit calling, spellfixing, and thaumaturgy for you to read through on your own time, and we can meet up again in ... a week, maybe? ... for me to answer any questions you have and point you in the directions of more tuition and/or books? Does that sound acceptable?"

She hums, and strokes her chin. 

"Sounds good to me if we can fit that all in, yeah." 

"Well, if you're working on this at your own pace, how much you can fit in really depends on you. I'm happy to help a promising young magician, but life has a way of throwing things at us ..."

He shakes his head.

"Anyway, the safety lecture for spellfixing is very short: Don't try to bottle something more powerful than you are, don't try to bottle something if doing so starts to hurt, don't bottle living creatures that are capable of planar travel. If you start to bottle something and have to stop, be sure to carefully pull back all of your magic — or if you can't, do a ritual dissociation once you're in a safe place. Better to be temporarily weaker than have a permanent vulnerability wandering around. Once you have a spell fixed, store it in a cool, dry, safe location. Design your storage location with the assumption that one or more fixed spells may break free — although they probably won't, if you've done things right — so that if the worst does happen your storage location can keep the results contained. Don't mix fixed spells. Or eat them. Yes, I have seen someone try."

"Does that all make sense? Spellfixing is honestly pretty intuitive — there aren't more practitioners because usually people with innate magical power have a more specialized option, like my family's thing. And because it requires you to have access to some other source of magic to actually bottle."

"Mostly? Only thing that comes to mind that I'm not sure about is if you're using some sort of formalized definition of 'powerful' or no." 

"Ah — I am, but it's related to the mechanics of spellfixing. The way the fixing process works is that you kind of ... wind your own magic through the thing you're bottling, and use your magic to slow and restrain it. A properly executed fixing results in the thing stopping completely, to the point that you can store it in a literal ritually prepared bottle. But if something is more powerful than you, your magic won't be able to completely still it. And if it is still moving at all when you try to put it into the bottle, it will keep fighting your magic from inside and eventually burst out of the bottle. Usually at the most inconvenient possible time."

"So that safety rule can be rephrased as 'if you have attempted to bottle something, and you are unable to exert enough force with your magic to completely still it, your attempt has failed and you need to let it go, because otherwise it will break out of any bottle you put it in, eventually'."

She nods along! 

"Good! Actually doing it is a good deal more complicated, but that's what books are for. Now my mandatory safety advice for all kinds of summoning: never call something up that you can't put down. By which I mean that before you start summoning anything, research it and make sure that you have a corresponding banishment of some kind — that you have all the materials for, and which you have rehearsed — ready to go. Only once you are confident that you'll be able to get rid of it should you start working to summon it. This applies even to supposedly friendly summons, such as spirits that you've developed a relationship with, because sometimes things go wrong. Spirits and elementals are people. Powerful people who can have bad days just like anyone else. Non-human people, who can't always tell when they're hurting someone. Although the friendlier spirits are usually better about that."

"Secondly, summoning a demon almost always makes things worse. If you think you have a problem where summoning a demon is the solution, spend five minutes brainstorming any conceivable alternative, and if any of them are possible do that instead of summoning a demon. In my more than 30 year career as a professional magician, I have encountered exactly one case where summoning a demon was the appropriate course of action. And even then, I checked with my friend Kent Nelson to see if he saw any way to avoid it that I had missed."

"Thirdly, when summoning something where getting what you want out of it will require an agreement or a contract, read and consider the contract very carefully. Ideally, write your own wording instead of signing something that a summoned creature gives to you. If you do agree to a deal or contract, follow your end to the letter. Ideally, have any necessary payments available to hand over the moment the deal is agreed to, so that you have no more ongoing obligations under the contract. Ideally, trade only in material goods and raw magical power — although that isn't always possible, especially with more powerful entities. Unlike the mundane legal system, many kinds of supernatural creature can compel specific performance, meaning that they can force you to do something you've agreed to, even if you didn't understand the terms or have good reasons to no longer want to comply. The ones who can't compel specific performance can often cause some other extremely bad outcome for you."

"On the other hand, try not to compel or force spirits. It is much, much safer to get their willing cooperation. Which can mean making friends, as I've recommended to you, or it can mean making a voluntary deal. There are kinds of magic that can compel magical creatures to do your bidding — it's just that if those kinds of magic ever fail, then you've got something with more capabilities than you (or else why did you summon it?) that is pissed off at you."

"Fourthly, if a summoning ritual includes an ingredient or step, don't skip it. Even if you think it's probably unnecessary. The components of summoning rituals might just be there for decoration, but then again they might not. And unless you understand the whole thing from front to back in extreme detail, you aren't qualified to say. On the same topic: many magicians obfuscate their notes or deliberately introduce mistakes in order to keep their secrets. If you find a summoning ritual in an enemy's library, or even just lying around in a dusty attic, don't attempt to perform the ritual until you have had time to analyze it and cross-check it for mistakes. I can offer you a textbook on how to do that, or check things myself."

"Fifthly, mise en place. Read a ritual thoroughly from beginning to end, and arrange all of the necessary components ahead of time, so that they are within easy reach. Otherwise you can end up in a situation where the next step is to place a candle on an intersection to stabilize it, but you can't reach the candle because if you pick up your chalk the floor is going to explode. These are my second eyebrows, and I pray every day not to need a third set."

"Finally, never reach inside a summoning circle or otherwise put any part of yourself inside it. If you have reached an agreement with a spirit or elemental, you can scuff out the circle with your foot in order to make it safe. The reason is that summoning circles are designed to keep things contained, and keep them from interfering with the summoning. So if you end up inside the circle, even just a little, you might find yourself stuck inside with whatever you've summoned and unable to shut it off. At that point, the only ways to get out are for outside assistance to come rescue you, or for the summoner to die and shut the whole thing down."

She titters slightly at the eyebrow comment, but otherwise silently just follows along. Honestly, that's a pretty good record for a long term career superhero?

Well, it's not like many supervillains are after his eyebrows, is it. Also, these days his hat has all sorts of defensive enchantments packed into the brim to shield his face. But if she doesn't say that aloud, he has no reason to explain himself any further.

"Alright; I'll drop off those books at some point later today. Let me know if you want to move the schedule up or back, but if I don't hear otherwise I'll plan to swing around this same time next week, supervillainy permitting. It looks like you've finished transcribing the diagram?" he observes, pointing to the stack of converted printer paper.

"Mhm!" 

She hands it over. She's even been thoughtful enough to include page numbers! 

Oh, that will make it a bit easier to follow! Zatara flips through it to get an overview of what it looks like, and then tucks the stack under his arm.

"This is a big spell. Big enough that I might not have it figured out by our next meeting, even, given the unfamiliar notation. But I can already tell it will be fascinating to look through — thank you for copying it out for me to study."

He reaches over to where his gloves are still obediently hovering by the door, and pulls them on. His tophat lands atop his head apparently of its own accord.

"Was there anything else that you wanted to cover? Otherwise, I'm looking forward to getting this pinned up on a corkboard with string, as is the traditional way to analyze new spells," he says, gesturing to the papers.

"No worries! Main thing was just to see if there's any bugbears and to give you more ideas for other things I could do in the space." 

She hums, and pops off her blue-green ring. 

"Would you like to take a look at this or the rest of these? Not sure if you've seen the warding talismans I gave batman, but I'm curious if you have any thoughts on them, since next thing I'm going to get one of the Green Lanterns to take their own look." 

"Oh, I knew I was forgetting something! The talisman is actually on my desk right now because I meant to look at it before this meeting, but I didn't."

The tophat leaps off his head again, and he sets the papers back on the table.

"May I?" he asks, reaching out toward the ring.

"Of course!" 

She hands it over gingerly. 

He peers at it, turning it over in his fingers.

"Interesting. It is actually sort of like a totemic dedekind's object, but you're not using magic, you're using emotion. But the structures ..."

He fishes around in his coat for a loupe, and uses it to get a closer look at the emotional energy in the ring.

"I'd caution you to avoid overtaxing your emotions," he comments. "If you start feeling drained while working on it, you should take a break and go do something you enjoy. But as far as I can see, it's stable and functional. You could probably clean up the implementation a little? It looks like you've been adding to it as you go, instead of working to a plan. Which is fine, it just means that you have some spots you could go back over to smooth out. And the interface is also empathic, so it won't work if you can't muster the emotion to prompt it in the right way — but you knew that, of course."

He drops the loupe back into a pocket, and just stares at the ring in thought for a long moment.

"A most remarkable object," he decides, passing the ring back to her. "The Lanterns' rings are somewhat blinding to look at, but this one seems fairly straightforward. I'd be interested in seeing how it stacks up against a purely magic ring that you put a similar amount of investment into."

She nods and hums, smiling faintly at the last little note. 

"Yeah - these are mostly just a testbed, for now? The gift tends to like to give powers as either something like a traditional metahuman power, or an 'intuition', and while it's very useful, it's also sometimes a little hard to access information without just... trying to do things and thinking it over myself? So naturally, there's a few little flaws that creep in when I don't totally know what I'm doing from the start, but it's still an enlightening process!" 

She ducks her head slightly, and redons the ring. 

"Look forward to seeing how it goes, too! Was a bit of a joy to make, even if as you said, it can be a little tiring." 

She smiles lightly. 

"Anyways! I shouldn't be keeping you." 

"And you as well, my aspiring magician!"

He gives her an overdramatic wave and then disappears. Through the door. By walking through it normally.

Part of being a stage magician is knowing when to subvert expectations.

Her appointment with Zatara went a little bit over, but she still has plenty of time to make it to the main training area for her talk with Green Lantern — who requested that area, for some reason.

^_^

She takes a bit of time to go and grab a glass of water - she might as well transcribe the rest of the powers that she has in circulation while she has this power slotted, given how easy it is. 

There's just enough time to breathe for a while, thankfully, and remember that she had more things that she had wanted to maybe discuss - the willpower draining weapon idea, for example - but that's nothing that can't wait for a text or the meeting next week. 

She bounces around to clear her head and clear her jitters, little excited shivers finally catching up to her. She gets to learn magic from mr. magic man superhero guy zatara! That's so cool and eeeee! 

She shakes out her hair, and pops over to the training room. 

Green Lantern turns out to be a very precisely punctual tall black woman in a full-body lanterns' uniform. The Green Lantern Corps has very loose uniform guidelines, since it needs to accommodate members with highly divergent body configurations. But it does emphasize that a Green Lantern's ring will provide better protection than most available armors, and that therefore uniforms should not unnecessarily impede movement, especially around a being's joints. All this to say: Green Lantern has very muscular arms.

She arrives in a blaze of emerald fire at the exact scheduled start time of their appointment, floating down to land lightly on the training room floor.

"Good Afternoon. You must be Topaz. Green Lantern," she says, holding out a hand.

Her eyes reflexively flick across her body, lingering a little on her ring and the details of her... armor. No utility belt or anything is an interesting choice, but it makes some sense that green lanterns are taught to focus on their rings as the solution to their problems when on duty. 

She nods, and reaches out and squeezes her hand firmly. 

"A pleasure to meet you." 

Her voice is a little more serious and staid than usual - focusing on will seems... appropriate, here.