"Hmm. Connect motes of color with lines of ... paint?" she guesses. "I haven't heard of a dungeon with a painting challenge, but it could be a good test of skill and dexterity."

"Sort of like paint, yeah. I'll begin making a space for it, hold on." This doesn't need to be a whole room, and she wants the magic-sight items to be easy to get, so she'll just be putting this in an alcove, like the water purifier.

More importantly:

"Also, I have a plan for the next magical item!! I don't think I can do something that'll show what things do, exactly, not easily, but I can just make something that'll sort of... overlay what I see? Which would let people see magical things, and how frayed they are, and how complicated they are, and what... parts of them are important to keep safe? What physical parts are the anchors of the rest of the magic."

"That sounds fascinating!" Kose enthuses. "Some of my previous dungeons have made things like dowsing wands that react to concentrations of magic, which can be helpful for experimental thaumaturgy. But being able to see the structure of magic would just be ... such a large boon to the study of magic."

She walks over to the forming alcove to watch.

"Well then, now I've gotta, that sounds fun. I want to hear what clever things people think of," she says brightly. Noting that, also, it would be very good for locating weaknesses in things dungeons make, and probably therefore really really good for the squishy humans. She'll have to make sure it can't see too far into solid objects, with how much she hides things deep in stone. Anyway, right, yes, puzzle making.

What she ends up making is more like a two dimensional coordinate system than a set of proper tiles. Shallow grooves are carved in a tidy grid onto the door, enchanted to light up in the corresponding color to small markers that are set into, and slide along, the grooves. Each marker will be a different color, and if any differing colors intersect, the line of light that is cut off will correspondingly be, well, cut off. The line that was there previously will go out, even at corners; there will be no color touching whatsoever. From there, she makes little 'start' and 'end' resting points at different grid intersection points, which she will for simplicity's sake call eyelets, accordingly decorated to match their associated color. Each marker can go in one eyelet to start, to imply that it needs to also get to the matching one. This all set up, she carefully weaves the logic into the door such that she can easily move the start and end points around, and that it'll only open when all start and end points are connected by their colored light. This is to continue her theme of stuff that she can easily change without too much trouble, because again: she does not want to be stuck having to reprogram/impress this puzzle all over again now that she's done it the once. Much tidier to let it be solved in various different configurations that she only barely has to pay attention to in order to reset. Oh, and for good measure: the eyelets will only accept the marker of the appropriate color.

It's definitely not as difficult to complete as the one for the communication pendants, and there are multiple solutions to the same puzzle, but it's supposed to be easier.

"What do you think, pretty straightforward? I don't think this needs a whole room like the last one."

Kose examines one of the markers, trying to pick it up, and then just sliding it along between the tiles when it proves to be attached.

"So the Adventurer would use these pens to draw colored lines between these rings?" she asks. "That does seem pretty straightforward. What happens if they make a mistake?"

“When the colors cross, the crossed one disappears. I suppose I can also make it so that when the marker is put back at the start, it’ll reset that color? Hmmm…” That sounds a bit trickier to program, though. Is it worth it for ease of user access? Unclear.

“Or maybe just something to reset everything to the start would be easier...” It would, in fact, be easier to program.

She nods. "I see, that makes sense."

Kose adopts a thoughtful look and runs one of the markers around in a square, trying to cross its line with itself.

Ha, joke’s on you, Kose, she was expecting that kind of shit! The line does not disappear. She now has a glowing square.

Meanwhile, Aestrix will see about making a reset button. It can go above the grid, in easy reach, and she has the technology to make it an actual button.

“Reset button made. It won’t put the markers back, though, just reset the board to blank.”

"What happens if you leave the markers outside their rings when you reset?" she asks, returning her marker to its ring and stepping back from the puzzle.

"It certainly seems like a solid puzzle design to me," she continues.

“You’d just start drawing with that color from there. The eyelets still need to be connected, though, it doesn’t actually matter where the markers themselves are. Start and end points are arbitrary, really. But I’m glad you like it!”

Kose smiles at her. "You seem to have a knack for puzzle-creation," she agrees. "Have you thought about whether it makes sense to organize the puzzles in some way? Like grouping them by general mechanism instead of by order of creation?" she asks, making her way back to the core room, where she sits against one of the walls.

“Thank you! I haven’t yet, no. With three I don’t really have enough to organize. I think if I were organizing now it’d be by type of magical item, not the puzzle itself? That seems like what Adventurers would actually care about, being here for the shiny prizes. Though I guess there would be puzzles that are more doable by some groups than others…”

"The light-up-floor is clearly meant to be a group puzzle, but the other two seem as though a solo Adventurer could work through them," Kose observes. "Do you have thoughts about other group puzzles?"

“Technically the group puzzle can be solved by someone throwing things with really good aim, but yeah. It’s meant for a group. I think other group puzzles should probably all have their own rooms to let Adventurers solve it without distractions? As to specific puzzles, maybe… timing or something? I want to have the next magical item before I start making another puzzle, though, I haven’t actually made the magic viewing item for the latest puzzle yet.”

Kose nods. "Entirely reasonable. I'll stop distracting you, then."

“They’re good questions, just if I don’t reliably give out prizes, Adventurers won’t trust me to be fair,” she agrees, but then yep: on to making the next magical item.

‘Programming’ it is actually incredibly straightforward. When it’s activated, it’ll show a less complicated version of what she sees; little glowing lines of where concepts are anchored in space. To differentiate where one item ends and another begins, she’ll color the threads by order of appearance; moving right to left after being activated, it’ll go through ROYGBV (no indigo, because it’s not a real color, it was made up by some jerk that arbitrarily wanted seven colors. … admittedly all colors are arbitrary, but indigo is in this system extra arbitrary, okay, so it’s not allowed in this club.) and then back to R for red. This is not how the color spectrum actually works, but the human eye doesn’t know that, so. Tidy rainbow circle.

The next part is entirely self inflicted. See, she wants to make it something like a scroll, so it can easily be folded up and then brought out and unrolled to view things through the ‘screen.’ Which means she needs to get into textile weaving. Preferably a textile that can also be seen through, but she needs something strong enough to stand up to miscellaneous adventuring, so… what would that be. Glass fiber of some kind? Introduce this world to the horrors of microplastics?? Ooo, ooo, spider silk, she can totally do spider silk!

Soon enough, she has something workable. It’s essentially a little roll of fabric, set in a tube, with the ability to unroll several feet. On/off is marked by a rod at the pulled end, which can be clicked into two different positions. Up is on, down is off. Easy. It does not, of course, show magical things that are set more than three inches inside of solid material. She needs some way to have secrets here, okay.

“What do you think, pretty practical?” she asks Kose, when she’s done.

Kose gently unrolls it, figures out how to switch it on, and then looks around with the device.

"I suppose that the spell was too big to fit on a pair of glasses?" she remarks. "You might have better luck with brass -- it's good for holding magic."

Glasses. Why didn’t she think of… glasses are so obvious!!! She even wore them! She’s such a dumbass!!!

“I… didn’t think of glasses,” she admits, embarrassed. “Um. Why don’t I. Attempt to make those instead, how about.”

Kose looks up from the scroll. "Oh! Um, I didn't mean," she begins. "I mean, having a larger viewing area is probably good for collaboration. So a large version will be useful too."

"Glasses sound way more practical, though! I can't believe I didn't think of that!! ... I'll have this be the current prize and then go also make glasses, how about. This will be... iteration one. Of magical item viewing. Two will be glasses."

Kose nods. "That makes sense," she agrees. She finishes surveying the dungeon through the scroll, and rolls it back up to be set in the alcove.

(There is, for the record, totally some magic showing through the scroll. The various archways are all magically reinforced, and obviously the puzzles show up as magical. But otherwise, it all looks very innocent. It even actually is mostly very innocent. All of her secret things are set deep into stone.)

The scroll is put away, and the door to the alcove is closed, and then Aestrix will see about. Making some glasses. That do the same exact thing. She'll see about using brass for the frames, how about. Can she totally cram this exact same thing into a pair of glasses without too much trouble?

It's a bit of a complex idea, and her first attempts see the concept come unwound from the glasses. But if she uses slightly chunky frames, and tucks the idea into them just so, she can produce an appropriately ensorcelled pair of glasses.

.... okay, but these are ugly.

How about if she experiments with different materials, do those have better results?

Titanium does not work nearly as well. It seems as though concepts are somewhat easier to impress on it, but that they find it correspondingly easier to wiggle free.

Steel works somewhat better. It is just barely easier to imprint concepts on than brass, but it offers many more points and areas around which to tangle the magic. If she focuses, she might realize that it's the carbon inclusions in the alloy that lend the magic its fastness.

Copper doesn't work particularly well at all.

Gold works noticeably better. It takes a bit more mental force to make the metal accept the magic, but once it does, the magic settles in and becomes difficult to budge.

Silver works a bit better than copper, but worse than gold.

Platinum is interesting. The idea of seeing the magic sticks to platinum well enough, but the idea of organizing and colorizing the results sticks very well. The idea of colors just seems to fit neatly into the metal, almost clicking into place.