..."Sure!" 

"Thanks! I'll go change."

Robin disappears in the direction of the changing rooms.

Oh yes! She runs and changes herself. The environmental shield is good and kept the smoke out as it should but changing into another fresher blue dress just - feels... nice. 

Then in relatively quick order she can have an armload of variously-smokey laundry. Miss Martian's clothes seem to be licking themselves clean like a cat, but everybody else's clothes just need a mundane rinse.

The laundry room is tucked away on the lower level, and features an entirely unnecessary number of washing machines. It's quiet and warm, in the way of laundry rooms everywhere, and a pink sock has already ended up in the neatly labeled lost-and-found basket, somehow.

She bounces on her toes a little and wanders in, floating things up onto the washers, and kerthunks them in and sets them a spinning. 

There's something satisfying about getting this - big machine spinning up at her command, and getting to just see it all work in front of her. 

Probably this place is like... kind of made in mind as a rallying point for some sort of resistance in an alien invasion, or just as a big stationing point, or something like that? Certainly, it seems overbuilt as a pure hideout, unless batman wants the team to be a lot a lot bigger than she's expecting. 

Still, for now... 

She looks over the time they'll take, then wanders off to get some water, some toast, and check to see if she's gotten anything new on the justice league mail system. 

Hey Topaz,

I left the books on the table just inside your room. Sorry about phasing through your door like that without permission, but they're not the kind of books that ought to be left in the hallway, even in a secure League facility. Let me know if you run into any questions!

— mr. magic man superhero guy zatara

Hello Topaz,

Batman tells me that you've been thinking about the possibility of bringing more women to Themyscria for the life-extending effects. That's actually something that we've already considered to a small extent; there was a trial run in the 40s. Unfortunately, Themyscrian politics are ... extremely conservative, and there's little support for permitting Xenos to share our island. There's also the worry that enough non-Goddess-worshippers living on the island would lead to the long-term destabilization of the wards. So I don't believe it is advisable at the present time to look into expanding immigration.

That said, it was a worthy thing to try. If you wished to come visit Themyscria to get a better idea of our way of life and what is feasible, politically and magically, you would be welcome. Let me know if you are interested, and we can arrange a trip in my invisible jet. The midsummer festivals next week might prove an opportune time.

Her Highness Princess Diana,
The Wonder Woman of Themyscria
Ambassador to Man's World

...Did she actually say that aloud??? Honestly she's not even sure - she's pretty sure in retrospect he was doing some sort of fancy name magic as part of his disguise in retrospect, so it wouldn't be too suprising if he had a fancy trick to divine the names that people call him in their heads. 

Still, it's embarraaassssssing. 

Thank you! No worries - though I'll probably want to set up more elaborate defenses later whenever and wherever I get properly settled. 

Aww, that's unforunate. 

I would love to pop by! Your country seems beautiful and I'd be honored to be your guest. Even without the prospect of immortality, I'm sure there's a lot I could learn from just talking to those wise in the ways of your gods, and I think seeing some sights would help me a little with the transition to this new world. 

Oh and - I should mention explicitly in case it's matters for the wards or the political situation - I'm transgender? Had the - felt sense that I was supposed to be a girl since around the start of my preteens and transitioned how I think of myself and how I work socially online at the tail end of my teens, and just a few days ago got a full body swap to match my identity. Hope that won't make anything particularly a problem? 

I'm also potentially interested in the patronage of your gods - I'm... new to this world, and new to magic, so learning more about that from people the league trusts is something I'm interested in? Going to be learning magic from Zatara and working on my emotional light equipment for a good chunk of the forseeable, but I think it's always good to keep an eye out for paths to improvement. 

Do tell if there's any particular practices I should follow on my visit - the thought occurred that it might be a good idea to bring you and/or a queen a gift, but I'm not sure what's considered appropriate for that in your traditions. Feel free to look over the notes on my equipment with the league or just send me questions if there's anything that you'd like me to make. Really, I'm just happy to get started here and get things flowing with the heroes here, so please don't worry unduly about payment or favours or the like on the matter. 

With well regards,

Topaz
Aspiring Superheroine

Oh and yes! 

She's still got that notetakey power, doesn't she. 

She scurries off to grab some more paper, and sees to transcribing the rest of her powers, in whatever subdivisions she can get it to work for. If she remembers correctly, zatara was interested in seeing the specification for that specific light spell power, so she'll make sure to include that, and scan them up. Once she's done, off goes a quick message to Zatara.

See attached for some more power transcriptions! 

Oh and... She goes and checks to see if the team are on the league communication system yet? 

No, being transgender is not a problem, culturally or with the wards. Ancient Greece — which is the closest cultural touchpoint for Themyscria that most people are familiar with, for all that we've been diverging culturally for 3,000 years — was a very different place than modern America, when it came to understandings of gender and sexuality. We've had warriors born with male bodies who dedicated themselves to Artemis and were remade anew since before we had to flee the mainland.

Anyone who hears of your status might expect you to be celibate or particularly skilled with the bow, but they will certainly understand if you explain that you aren't part of the Hunt.

As for particular practices: people will tolerate any mistakes, because they don't expect outsiders to know our customs. One thing is that blasphemy is very serious; it is fine to not venerate our gods yourself, but mocking them, angering them, or desecrating places of worship are all serious crimes. Likewise, the topic of motherhood — and the topic of sculpture — are taboo, and you might wish to refrain from discussing them until you are more familiar with Amazons. Likewise, please refrain from getting any of my sisters-in-arms pregnant; it's not forbidden, but it is a political headache that I don't particularly wish to navigate.

On the subject of gifts: You do not need to bring anything, but if you do, you should present it to the queen after you have been fed and clothed; otherwise, you are implying that her hospitality needs to be bought. The most appropriate time to present a gift is right before you leave. The queen will probably also have a gift for you at the same time, unless you've moved into a different social category by that point. Formally, the queen will be your hostess, because I'm still a junior member of her house. Depending on when you visit, you may not see much of her outside of your arrival and departure, though.

When we arrive on the island, our first stop will be the palace, where you'll be gifted a set of robes; you don't have to wear them if you don't want to, but if you remain in your traveling clothes, you should carry the robes with you for the rest of the first day, for ceremonial reasons.

There are a thousand other little things, but people will be happy to tell you about those as they come up. I don't think there are any others that you need to be warned of ahead of time. If the time works for you, you can join me at the Themyscrian embassy in New York at 11:00 on Wednesday; that is when I was planning to return to the island for the festival, although Themyscrian timekeeping is not so exact as it is in America, and I can happily adjust my departure to accommodate you.

On the matter of requesting your artifice: I am most happy with my armor, but it doesn't proof me against poisons as much as I would like. If you would be willing to make me a talisman to ward against such, it would be gratefully received. But I'm not as in-need of protection as some of the other members of the League, and so I hope you will attend to their needs first.

I look forward to your visit!

— Princess Diana

Yes, the team* all have accounts in the league's messaging software. There's also a mailing list titled "The Team" that seems to be set up to forward to all of them.

* Robin, Miss Martian, Kid Flash, and Kaldur

Alright! 

So... 

Things! 

Dealing with poison is should be pretty doable - she could make something that does the basic environmental screening for poisons, of course, but ideally, she'd be able to make something that would work for healing poisons as well, though that probably calls for a relatively specialist skillset that she'd want to spend a bit of time making. She already has a design in mind - Wonder Woman has that belt, and it should be pretty simple to make a sapphire slab to fit that she can fasten on to her satisfaction? It might take a bit of fussing with her wards, but there's not much she can do about that in advance. For now, that'll be what her crystal generation is going to work on. 

As for a gift for the queen... 

She has a few ideas! 

She doesn't really need the telepathic communication power, or the mental image drawing and power analysis powers, so those can go. The mobility intuition powers... Those can stay, for the moment? Or maybe get reorganized, actually, now that she thinks about it a little more. She was thinking... breaking down the mobility power, tossing one of the colors - probably green, green seems a little too... stiff for these kinds of experiments, for the moment and making something like... 
(blue-healing, blue-mobility, blue-divination) 

She nods. That sounds - right, and merging powers with a common nature should be pretty straightforward? There's a lot of little things that she could do in different directions with that, but really she just - wants to be moved by her personal hope that it makes things better, more than some calm analysis that it's a good idea or the 'optimal' configuration, and her power agrees with her enough about it that she's - satisfied. 

She hums at the screen, and then promptly looks away. Nooooo thank you for signing up for doing something additionally socializey right now, even if it's good to know that she can be in touch. 

So first... 

Magic books! 

Probably the one to start on is the thaumaturgy one? Seems like a good baseline, and it's not like she has too many randomly floating around magic things or spirits all nicely lined up to call - that's probably going to take some prep work that will need her foundations to be a little better? Though she'll definitely take a look through them all throughout the rest of the day. 

The gift happily rearranges sparks for her.

Thaumaturgy, as a field, is about manipulating external magical elements in order to produce a structured effect of some kind. There are broad principles that transfer across the discipline (Chapter 1), as well as more specialized subfields such as spellcasting (Chapters 2-8), enchanting (Chapters 9-10), and flow divination (Chapter 11).

The reference appendix lists a number of different gestures, pitches, emotions, locations, times, symbols, and materials, and how they influence the flows of magic. Chapter 2 (Basic spellcasting theory) has a number of exercises to practice the most common ones. Freecasting (that is, casting without a dedicated focus; Chapter 3) relies on substituting additional gestures and incantations for material components; there's a description of how to translate spells back and forth, and a mention of additional books with more extensive correlation tables.

The practice exercises in Chapter 2 include the light spell with which she is already familiar, and a corresponding 'summon brief manifestation as a ball' spell for fire, air, earth, water, and darkness as well — although the book notes that these are mostly useful for practice and comparative study, because there are relatively few situations where "briefly create a rock" is the right solution.

Later chapters include such topics as analyzing spells, 'compressing' a spell so that you can cast it more quickly, designing new spells (hard unless you like explosions), adjusting casting for better results in different environments, and so on. It's not a spell-book, per se (although it does reference a couple in the appendix), but there are spells scattered through it as examples or exercises, including a spell to make hair straight, a spell to locate things that are glowing, a spell to make surface tension much stronger, a spell that conjures fresh air inside a small enclosed space (such as your nose — but don't practice on your nose, please, see this sidebar for a graphic explanation of why), a spell that halts thrown projectiles (but not ones propelled in a manner other than throwing), and various other small effects. The two biggest and most useful spells, tucked away in Chapter 8 (Expanding your arsenal) are a personal shielding spell and a long range communications spell (although that requires having a lock of hair from the intended recipient), which the book suggests as essential basics that everyone should learn.

Hey, you never know when you'll need to pull the indiana jones switcheroo maneuver! A temporary blob of water or darkness doesn't sound that useless either, now that she thinks about it a little more. 

She's going to have to go through this in more detail later, but for now, she just reads it deeply all the way through on her own merits and makes notes about a few things to look into later. 

What does it say about magical analysis? She's got a very particular magical analysis project implicitly on her bench, so she's curious about where you start with that sort of project. Probably she's going to have to heavily cheat, but cheating on the right things can make all the difference! 

Oh and while she's at it, what does enchanting look like, in general? She doubts it one of the simpler things to do but that doesn't mean that she's not interested, and there's no reason not to check that out a little more. 

Oh and while her mind is settling a little... What does blue light healing look like? Just spray and pray? Something a bit more surgical? She was thinking of making something that could maybe convey away concentrations of poison and heal around that, but she doesn't have the greatest sense of how anything works, here. 

Analysis of an active magical effect (as distinguished from analyzing a spell diagram) works by setting up a thaumaturgic structure that is not quite as stable as a typical spell, and interpreting the way the structure distorts or deforms in the environment. For example, one of the simplest flow-divination spells, which is used just to detect whether there is concentrated magic in an object or area, looks a lot like the basic light spell but with some parts not "tied off", so the spell is free to interact with surrounding magic. When there is more magic present in the area, the spell glows brighter. By moving it around, one can see gradients in the concentration of magic.

The divination spell is more difficult than the light spell, though, because it lacks the stabilizing structures that let the light spell operate consistently in a variety of environments. So it requires more delicate finesse to get everything set up just right. More specialized divination spells react to or measure other aspects of the magical environment, including things like elemental polarization and sympathetic ties. At the highest level, divination can be used to break down every aspect of a spell known to modern thaumaturgy simultaneously, producing a complete diagram of the effect. Those diagrams can be interpreted by skilled casters to derive facts about how the spell was cast or about how it would function in different circumstances without actually testing the spell to destruction.

Enchanting is actually not that different from spellcasting — except that the magical structures of a spell effect are embedded into an object in such a way that the object sustains and reinforces the spell. Which means that you can't use gestures that need to pass through the object when casting. Oh, and different materials affect the flow of magic differently than air. And there are different stabilizing structures needed for long-term enchantments. And there are details around 'binding' or 'sealing' an enchantment against tampering, and then of course there are also ritual-cast enchantments, which can let you break a complicated spell up into multiple independent pieces that can be cast separately. And the varying historical practice of enchantments mean that spells typically cast as enchantments are often designed differently. Oh, and focus objects used in the casting need to be 'unbound' so that lingering influences don't snap the enchantment when the casting tools are separated from the enchanted item. And because enchantments are not supported by a living thing, they react differently to some environmental changes (see this table in the appendix).

But other than all that, it's basically the same idea.

Blue light healing is ... well, it isn't "spray", exactly, but "pray" isn't too far off the mark. Blue light can be used to heal in different ways, but the most natural way is to focus on the hope-as-the-foundation-of-striving found in all living things, and sort of feed that hope and promote the natural healing of the organism. Which isn't to say that hope couldn't be used to move poison away — it totally could — but something that bolsters the natural homeostatic efforts involved in fighting poison might align more closely with the core of blue healing.

Fun!

So it shouldn't be - too disjoint from what else she's doing? That's good to hear. Sensing sounds a little delicate, but that's alright - feeling things out seems like a natural enough thing to focus on. 

She tries the light spell again, feeling the way that it's - confined, just for her own satisfaction, before moving on. 

Oh she should probably check how the gift is doing - you doing ok, bud? Got a good few powers available for forming? 

Oh that's an idea. Wonder Woman's powers are based on her faith and her blessings and godliness, right? She goes and tries to see if she's enumerated what's up with that publically so she can tailor what she's working on to work well with her constitution. Anything on her queen publicly, either? 

Yes, it could form new powers now! It continues to be able to perform its function, so it is all good.

The queen of Themyscira, Hippolyta, is not publicly known to have "any" powers. For a value of "any" where being the nigh-immortal queen of an island of super-powered warriors, many of whom are capable of flight, does not count. Also, she apparently brought Wonder Woman to life by sculpting a baby out of clay? But she attributes that to the blessings of the Gods, and not to her own power.

She also hasn't ever left Themyscira in living memory, so maybe the internet can be forgiven for having relatively little to say about her.

Hm. 

She should probably get some powers for learning magic, but what she should really do is something for these. Perhaps... 

Can she get something to help with hope based body enhancement, perhaps, if healing is a thing? She's missing the hope based defense power, too, and that feels like it should be a good way to round things out for her first idea, and there should be no problem merging that all into a bigger power. 

For what she wants to make... 

Wonder Woman's is going to be the easiest. She has most of the physical structure done already by now, so all she needs to do is add her own little magic. It's going to be almost entirely hope - she adds in a bit of will, just to make it a little bit simpler to keep the sturdy steadfastness of the shielding effect, but mostly, that effect is formed from the power of hope to lighten your burdens, and the power to make obstacles and anxieties just... slide away, because you trust that it's going to be okay. She adds in a bit of the temerity of hope, too, to make it mend and flow and keep itself intact for as long as her hope she can help or win holds out. She's not - trying to make something that can hold up to anything, but to hold up with nearly anything going on, if that makes sense? She hopes that makes sense. She makes sure it can work as a stopgap air solution, too, and honestly it doesn't really take mu

Dealing with poisons once they get in is a little more complicated. She starts with a small fount of healing, restoration, striving stirring hope to keep going, then extends it, twists it and forming a structure of nurturing health, the hope of a caretaker and the simple hope for wellness and cleanness, the feeling of your day being brightened when things are cleaner and clearer, brighter and crisper, smoother and softer. There's a barrier here already, see, so making it wash away things that hurt those hopes just needs a little push, and a little tweaking of the fundamental structure of the constructs, twining and twinning the structures to make it reach a little further than it should, the soothing settling coolness of a lacquer, to wrap around whoever wields it, in the hope it'll protect something precious from the weathering forces of the world. 

There's not too much she can do to tie it to her magic, especially without seeing her in person or more expertise, but if she's made of clay and born of earth... She ties it off with a little bit of her - oversimple hope that the earth will always stay turning, that the tide will wash all the little cracks away, and that the clay and the silt and soil that went into everything hurt and broken will heal through the cycles of the world, and be the foundation for something beautiful, perhaps, someday. 

She etches on it the symbol on her crown, as a little touch, and adds a tiny layer of hope-hardened crystal atop it, to make sure that stays as safe as she can make it. 

... yup, that all hangs together! Designing empathic protections is much more about feeling things the right way, and her hopes are correctly aligned to invest themselves in the talisman.

Those powers are both possible — blue body-enhancement tastes like someone hopeful that a new gym routine will help them get in shape; blue defense feels like the aspiration to protect — and they merge with each other and the existing powers as expected.

Good good! 

- Okay, honestly that was refreshing? Probably part of it is just that the gift has shoved a bunch of improved understanding of hope into her brain, but she feels - more up for things, now. She goes and looks up some precious gems she could make - blue diamonds and jadeite appear on the top of a few lists, so she'll try that out. Hopefully it's not too big of a deal to just show up to an appraiser and figure things out from there? Oh, she'll toss in a few things that are more plausible that they'd expect people to have lying around first for easier pawning - diamond rings or what have you aren't that rare, and she's been working on making nice sapphire pieces anyways, even if the value is probably not going to be that amazing. 

She writes up a little for herself only blurb about how Wonder Woman's new item is supposed to work before the thoughts slip too far out of her head - it feels... a little crude to just hand it to her and give her a big page of documentation rather than explain to her why she thinks it'd be a fitting gift when she hands it over, so...

She's thinking now... Some sort of improved comprehension of thaumaturgy and let's say, spellfixing, then curling up and going through some of the starting exercises and the thaumaturgy book and the spellfixing? Probably it'd be rushing it to do too too much magic reading today - it already hurts her brain a little to think of all of the little finnicky details of the stuff she's absorbed, and she knows that isn't the half of it yet. 

But before then, to the team chat: 

Hey! Just wanted to reach out and thank everyone for being really helpful at cadmus labs - I'm glad that we were able to do so well and work so relatively well together on our first time out as a team, and say that I'm looking forward to working together in the future! 

She still feels a little lingeringly awkward at having ducked away at the end, there, but hopefully this helps? 

To Robin: 

Hey! Probably going to go start on figuring things out w/ a jeweler tommorow - do tell if you have any thoughts about where I should go or anything like that? 

She feels a bit like she's pestering them to mom / dad her or something, but - it does feel like they're used to this sort of - operational role, and she's been talking to them so far about it so...