It is late spring in the Scottish Highlands. The cerulean skies are as clear as the eye can see, and there's a brisk breeze to help keep everyone cool.
Upon approaching the site of the covenant, the first thing that catches the eye is what appears to be a wooden barn in the western end. There is a pier surrounding the two islands in the loch; about two dozen men are standing or sitting on the leg that runs parallel to the shore, fishing poles in hand. Another half dozen or so are out on the loch in rowboats.
There is practically nobody on the road once you leave Cill Chuimein (from the west) or Inbhir Mhoireastain (from the east). Your first sign of life is the residents of the covenant.
You can feel the tingling that marks the boundary of an Aegis when you set foot on the crushed stone path that marks the covenant perimeter. The covenfolk watch you suspiciously, sending one of their number up the bridge that leads to the larger island. A couple of minutes pass before a middle-aged man is brought out to meet you, trailed by a beaver.
He introduces himself as Drystan ex Miscellanea, verifies that you are here in response to their letters, hands you a casting token, and offers to show you the covenant.
The main features on the shore are the crushed-stone path, the wooden barn (which serves as a revel hall/gathering place for the muggles), a cleared circle about twenty paces across in which about a dozen or so men-at-arms are half-heartedly practicing, and a couple of archery practice targets about twenty paces downrange.
The grounds of the covenant are covered in short grass. There are a couple dozen cottages scattered randomly about the covenant, which are all connected by a network of stone paths.
Drystan will point out his own sanctum (which looks to be in two parts, one considerably newer than the other), as well as Eilid's and Doineann's (the latter of which has an open-air laboratory, currently being used by a blonde woman). A crow watches the magi warily from the peak of the roof of Doineann's cottage. Drystan points out what he calls the "common lab" on the smaller island to your left (as seen from shore), which he says has a magic aura roughly twice as powerful as the rest of the covenant. There is no bridge connecting the island to the shore. He will finish the tour with the Council Hall on the larger island, which consists of the council chamber on the ground floor and the library on the second floor.
The first three magi to arrive (Siobhan, Halie, and Aodhan) will be housed in unmarked sancta that look to have been long abandoned; although they ave been cleaned fairly recently and they are (sparsely) furnished, the labs have no usable equipment. Talia will be offered a cottage that seems to have been used by someone considerably larger than her; the bed is well over eight feet long (250+ cm), and some of the chairs are also outsized in relation to the others.
If Talia takes this sanctum rather than stays on the Whoa Buoy, then Trimalchio will be offered a cottage with no lab; if Talia elects to stay on the boat, then Trimalchio will be offered the giant-sized cottage.
Drystan asks if they have brought their own servants and shield grogs. If not, they will be assigned one of the covenfolk as their servant and a shield grog.
The next meeting is at noon on the Summer Solstice, in a couple of days – the magi are free to (try to) interact with each other, with the other magi, and with the covenfolk until then.
The meeting is in the Council Chamber on Eilean Muireach. The room is more or less utilitarian. There's a chair at the head of the table, several chairs along the size (one of which, at the foot of the table, is outsized). One of the walls is adorned with a map of the loch, on what appears to be parchment or vellum of some kind, roughly three feet by eight feet. There is a wool rug, about three by five feet, behind the chair that Eilid takes.
Drystan will introduce the other two magi of Insula Canaria, if you haven't met already. Eilid doctrinae Bjornaeris is a thin, russet-haired woman in plain robes who looks tired. Doineann is a blonde woman who looks cranky. A crow perches on the back of her chair.
"I want to thank you all once again for coming to Insula Canaria," Drystan says. "I hope you don't mind, but my sodales," he motions toward the two magae, "and I have decided to dispense with formalities and to go ahead and extend you full membership into the covenant. The charter is right here if you wish to sign. There are, I expect, some changes that we might want to make, due to changing circumstances...but we wished to wait until we had new members before making any changes."
Drystan will specifically mention that, under the charter as written, the office of princeps is held by the senior member, basically in perpetuity until such time as he wishes to relinquish the post, at which time is falls to the next most senior member who wants it. If the princeps is not available or not capable of performing his duties, the acting princeps (the next most senior member) acts as princeps until the princeps returns.
There is also a clause reaffirming that membership in the covenant is "for life," and threatens harsh (unspecified) sanctions for anyone leaving. "That is actually my fault," Eilid says. "Faileas didn't take kindly to my leaving in 1155, and by the time I returned in 1167, he had put that in there. It's never been enforced."
"That's because until Fiona left, no one had tested it," Doineann says. "I was surprised that Faileas didn't try to get something out of her instead of just letting her leave like that."
"Assuming that it was still Faileas at the time," Drystan says. "He may have already been lost to us by then."
He will also point out a clause in the charter affirming the Pact of Crun Clach, while mentioning that they have not raided any other covenants in decades, that they have (for the most part) been left alone by the others, and Insula Canaria is too far from the borders to deal with invaders.
"I leave it up to you as to whether you wish to keep the current charter with changes or to craft a new one."