Amusingly, I made the house rule before I fully understood the debate, because I did not want to get into the debate in the first place -- mechanics should take backseat to story, so I asked the troupe which would yield better stories, and went with that option.
I confess that having a PC show up with Aegis memorized would spoil some of my fun, but a Mercurian caster had damn well better know that spell or his mater would wanna know why
And anyway, I have lots of fun to throw at you guys already.
Has anyone figured out that you've already found some of the Illusory Resources, and the source of the Vim vis?
I am surprised you're all turning inward to solve the Aegis issue. I have a whole world of political machinations waiting for you to try to buy things from other magi, and you're all "I'll just invent it." Gorram self-sufficient bastards
Oh, and Ra'am, don't worry about being "stuck" in the lab. Gameplay for this campaign seems to encourage lots of "during dinner time" rp.
I'd thought that could be a job for Ettienne given his skillset.
Also consider that we advertise weakness to potential enemies if we ask for a lab text of an Aegis. At least that's where I'm coming from.
Azura could always try to swap favours with other Mercurians to WC cast Aegis'es together (communing with non-Mercurian scrubs is such an abhorrent squandering of vis!), which could create all sorts of political subplots.
Speaking of Azura's aegis, I was thinking how her sigil (the colour blue) would manifest in an Aegis. I was thinking it'd be possible that her sigl makes all flowers in the affected area turn blue One of her mastery abilities is disguised casting, so she can always fake some other sigil (she'd probably cast an aegis that has an occasional jasmine-scented breeze waft through periodically?); but I like the idea of having one's sigil be unexpectedly inconvenient sometimes
Not all all, save for Vim... OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No freakin'way!!!!
That's nice, although it shouldn't affect flowers brought in later, which'll make them all the more precious to us: After a while, people will hate blue flowers!!
And the disguised casting is a great idea!
Whistling
Creo Vim Lab total, with Claudia assisting=47 so 5 pawns of Vim...
Ok, it's not so bad...
While Azura is writing/translating her WiCo 30 labtext for Ra'am to use, he can distill 5 pawns of Vim vis from the Aura.
The following season he can learn WiCo 30.
Are you kidding? A lab assistant that you don't have to also train arts for? Giving her a Magic Theory book to study from? Please, that' just good lab management!
Yeah, but she'll also try to talk you into experimenting...maybe if you added a reagent here and turned the lens just a shade there, maybe you'd get twenty percent more vis.
Personality traits: Scholarly +3, Authoritarian +3, Careful +2. Reinforced with Flawless Magic and Magister in Artibus suggests a rigorous and studious approach to all work, let alone lab work. Ra'am does have a temper, it was shown only once, when he was pushed to the brink and someone interferred with his "life." That would extend to work, now, too. And then he would try to moderate that temper into a lesson, and the lesson would be "boring" (say it like a teenage girl would say awkward when they see someone else do something inappropriate).
One of her mastery abilities is disguised casting, so she can always fake some other sigil (she'd probably cast an aegis that has an occasional jasmine-scented breeze waft through periodically?); but I like the idea of having one's sigil be unexpectedly inconvenient sometimes 
