"New teachers? Oh yes, the school, no, I am a Guernicus Magus, do you know what that means?"
"I'm sorry, I don't," Anastasia replies. "I know that's one of the Houses. But I'm not entirely certain what it means."
"It means we are the investigators, the lawyers. It means that we are the ones who will look out for your rights as an apprentice. Although technically you aren't an apprentice until he opens your arts, and if he waits too long to open them it can cause problems, especially if you aren't ready to finish your gauntlet before the appropriate tribunal. It does sound like the delay is unavoidable, and he is going to open them soon however, but keep my name in mind in case you have questions later. It's Heraklos, of Guernicus." He writes it down for you on a spare piece of paper, then heads to the covenant library, first to examine the charter and any supporting documents.
"I will, sir," Anastasia replies. "And thank you very much for your help." She folds up the piece of parchment and tucks it into the pouch hanging from her belt.
Heraklos spends days in the library, he appears to spend a fair amount of his time reading one of the less impressive books, as well as 'investigating' the quality of the covenant's hospitality. He does make one day trip to look over the scriptorium, and then has questions for Christopheros.
"Part of the purpose of the school, as described in the founding documents, is to find students with the gentle gift. What plans do you have for developing a program along these lines?"
(Liberius welcomes Heraklos to the library, makes sure he has everything he needs, and then leaves him alone to read undisturbed.)
Christophoros puts aside the documents that he had been reading before being interrupted by Heraklos. "And who would you be, sir, to ask such questions?"
Once he has established the Quaesitor's credentials and authority to ask questions, he invites the magus to sit and calls for proper refreshments.
"As you may know, even youths with the Gentle Gift usually display some signs of their burgeoning magical abilities. This can be in the form of a controlled supernatural ability, but that is relatively rare. For most, this will be in the form of turbulence. If this happens while the child is still living with his parents, they will try to find a place where they can send him where such occurences are less likely to impact their lives and bring too much unwelcome attention to themselves. A remote boarding school would be an attractive solution for such parents. Alternatively, the first turbulence could occur here at the school, where I will in an excellent position to notice it."
"Furthermore," the schoolmaster adds, "as the years pass by, we can establish our reputation as a place where 'special children' are offered a place to receive proper education. So parents that notice something special with their child may be told of our school by one of their relations, or by a tutor." He smiles, "Nothing overt nor too conspicuous, but an elegant solution for all involved. We might even, should a child be suspected of having the Gift, extend an offer to parents who would not normally be able to afford schooling for their child, a chance to send him here for a year. That would give us a chance to evaluate the child's potential and determine whether he has any talent for magic."
"So you haven't spoken with any of the magi about a device to detect such children or any other processes besides observation?"
"That, sir," Christophoros notes, "would be for them to determine and prioritize. I have been hired to create this new school and run it, and that is my main duty." He makes a small motion of his right hand, like brushing something unpleasant away from his face. "I will, of course, report to them any youth that I suspect of having the Gift. But there first needs to be a school for that to become possible."
"They do not interfere nor make suggestions to me on how to run a school. I return the favor by not interfering in the lab work nor do I make demands upon their time." Christophoros rises from his padded chair, subtly indicating that the meeting is over. "If you believe they should provide me with such an enchanted item, then you should tell them, not me."
"Very well." The man takes a second and looks at Christophoros, nods again and makes a note in his book before leaving.
A few days later he visits Orion again. "I just wanted to catch up a bit, give you my impressions thus far. Overall things seem to be in order though I get the feeling that the report offered to the council had suggested things were a bit further advanced than they are, or perhaps were describing more goals than accomplishments. In either case the only thing which could technically be of concern would be the apprentice you bid upon, technically she should have been opened by now, and in theory anybody could claim her under the code. Of course they would wind up being issued a shard, but at the same time you might gain a shard as well in such an event for not having already opened her, and might even, in theory, not get the first 7 year token for training her if you delay the opening too long. I'm not going to mention this in my report at this time, you are still seeing to her education and the delay is due to events beyond your control, but I thought you would appreciate being made aware of the potential."
"Quite understandable," Orion replies. "Anastasia's best interests are always foremost in my mind. I assure you that I shall delay opening her arts no longer than is necessary."
"Very well then, assuming there are no surprises my investigation is nearly done, and I appreciate your hospitality in letting me use your library resources and to stay on through autumn that I might get a chance to study from such a prestigious source."
"It is our pleasure to cooperate with the Tribunal on such matters," Orion replies.
I'm going to award 7xp to anyone who was involved and wishes to claim them, I don't think any one character had enough involvement to warrent confidence points.
My general feeling has been that if you are involved in more than one adventure in a season all the adventure experience should stack to be accepted or rejected as a whole- is this something the rest of the troop would find acceptable?
Seems like a lot of xp for simply answering a few questions, at least for Christophoros. He probably spent less than an hour talking to Heraklos. I think that even 1 xp would be more than generous enough, particularly if xp for multiple stories in the same season do stack.
I don't object to the stacking, but I think there should be a hard limit on how much one can get this way. The rules on p.163 seem to suggest that even a very important and long adventure results in only 10 xp. So I would suggest that as the maximum xp that can be gained from story in a single season.
It is, but the rewards guidelines indicate that experience points should be doled out based on the importance of the adventure rather than the difficuly.
A limit on stacking would be good, though we might consider 15 or 20 instead of 10.
(Anchor mode on 
)
That seems to indicate, to me, that the cap on how much experience can be assimilated in a season should be 10. I might, in the more extreme case, understand stretching that to 15 xp (for two major stories at the beginning and end of the season).
Also, it is not only how important the adventure is, but also "how many opportunities for learning there were." In this instance, I feel that there was the opportunities for learning were quite limited -- it was just a little bit of interaction with a single person over a few days. If that warrants 7 xp, then how much would a Tribunal meeting give?
As a comparison, int the "Journey to Thessalonica" story, Stavros essentially spent a significant amount of time adventuring (travelling, getting arrested, negociating). He faced unusual circumstances and some personal risks, saw new things, met many new people, etc. None of those were extreme, so giving him 6 xp seemed perfectly appropriate.
Seems more like this story should warrant 3-4 xp for Orion (who had to do the most interaction), with 1-2 xp for the others.
Of course it also gives a range of 5-10, which both of your numbers are under...
I'm thinking given the unusual nature of this adventure we should take your point suggestions, but have a one time allowance that the points can be added to whatever else they were doing this season.
I think allowing experience from multiple adventures to stack seems like a good house rule. Whether we need a cap depends on how often we'll be having multiple adventures per season - if we don't have more than two or three adventures per season then it might not be a problem.
I'm good with stacking for multiple adventures, though I agree there ought to be some limit.
As for xp for this adventure, I'll go with whatever people think is fair.