[color=red]Do you guys ever stop to think about how normal everyday people cope without magic? You are supposed to be the wise and educated smart guys. We need to do some old fashioned detective work. And I say we start by questioning the warch commander.
Exactly.
That's why I warned about the "parma charm", as this can really bring problems and suspicion, and asked that we investigate neighboors and local street people, which you and the grogs could do easily.
Remember what the mayor tod us: If people see us engaging in overt acts of magic, or feel themselves, or see their friends, becoming a lot friendlier to us after we cast some "charm" on them, we could very well find ourselves on the bad end of the townsfolk fears and wrath.
Anyway, I doubt magic could get us anywhere there, especially with the dominion.
Riccardo, I was under the assumption that we were basically planning to do just this tomorrow. Oh, I had this one idea how Ardath might be able to find out something by contacting supernatural forces - but this doesn't seem to work anyway. Apart from that we were talking about going through papers and talking to people. The only problem I saw with this plan is the fact that even under the best circumstances most mondanes are more than just a bit uneasy around the Gifted ones, and the stregth of Mariella's Gift makes it even worse. Of course the four of us could just do the part of the researches that doesn't involve personal contact with the people, but I was afraid that leaving all that questioning to you might be a bit too much. So, it was natural to search a way to overcome the obstacle.
But I am afraid, you two are right. Beyond the natural reaction to the Gift, there is also the fact that people tend to fear everything that they don't know and understand. And by keeping itself mostly removed from society - for reasons that I understand quite well - the order has prevented this society to come to terms with our powers. I am not really happy with this. How are we supposed to better the world with our atrs if we are forced to hide most of the things we can do? But this is certainly not the place and situation to change our ways. I could still try to help with the questioning. I am not completely unfamiliar with such stuff, and there are always a few people who take a liking to meOOC: only if they are related to the magical realm by virtues or flaws - but then the resulting Pre +4 and Com +6 are probably pretty impressive.I'd say it is your call, whether you would consider me a help or a burden in your investigation. Anyway, we should decide on a plan of action, let the grogs organize the watch, finish supper and go to bed. Tomorrow will probably be a long day, too.
"Something to consider, it could be a magical item that someone is using as opposed to anyone gifted themselves. Perhaps looking for enemies and rivals will be good way to tell. Even in this dominion aura most of my spells are still functional and I can still do first and second magnitude spontaneous spells in the technique of rego depending on the art. I am not the greatest at investigation but or dealing with spirits but I can generally handle a single person or two if we find the culprit." Tatiana considers "despite that we have the grogs with us and they are trained for magical creatures, we should have one of us awake to perhaps back them up in turns."
An excellent point, and something we're trying to change in Ad Fons.
The problem being, of course, that people need to be accustomed to a particular magus gift.
That's why, IMO, your power is so important. If you could invest it in an item, then disseminate lab texts, this could change the face of the order utterly! Even more so, maybe you can somehow reverse it, and design a way to quiet the gift's pull, in effect giving every magi the Gentle Gift!!!
This is Ardath's speaking, of course, but, IMO, this is all true, and reversing your power could constitute a valuable avenue of OR for a Major Breakthrough (teachable gentle gift spells), although, due to the far-reaching consequences, this shoud, still IMO, be discussed in troupe to see if at all possible. IF you want to try it, of course, I don't want to push you in any way, and am just speaking in character and suggesting story ideas 
All true.
I spend enough time training them to react to magic, they should prove to be at least able to warn us in time. It is also their duty to guard us, and if we don't trust them to do it, how will they trust us in return? I, for my part, have full confidence in their vigilence and training.
To push this story along. I think that the magi has agreed upon the following.
- The guards sleep in the entrance hall and guard
- The magi use Parma so they have protection over the night incase something so bump in the night…
- Investigations starts in the morning with the watch master as the first visit and then a look at the documents
If I have misunderstand you completely then shout as I will continue with the story when I get back.
Ah, Ardath. This would be a worthy goal - in the long run. You see, the magic I use seems to be only remotly related to the hermetic arts. This certainly gives me some edges here and there, but I am not too proud to confess that there are areas where I am unable to duplicate even a pale shadow of the things that Bonisagus' system is cappable of - and the construction of lasting enchanted devices is one of these areas. But then, even though it seems that we have roots which are at least as old as those of the Mercuirans, many secrets of my tradition have been lost for centuries, and only recently they have been unearthed by learned men who were searching for the wisdom of the ancients. I am more than confident that with some effort many limitations can be overcome, but this will probably take decades if not generations rather than years. Of course, I will make my contribution to this process, and should I acchieve anything that could profit the order or the world, I will gladly share it. Perhaps a good hermetic theoretician might also be able to transfer some of the tihngs I can do to your tradition, but when my master joined the order, I was already firmly settled in his way of using the arts, so I will have to leave this option to other people, my apprentice perhaps. For now and the years to come we will have to work with the powers at hand.
OOC:
@ Ardath: Learned Magic has no Magic Theory, so original research beyond develloping just this is actually impossible. Petrulus will certainly try to do just this, and afterwards he might consider Ardath's suggestion as a perfect follow up research project. But given the saga speed I would be surprised to see him finishing the first project before we decide to leave the Ad Fons Magi to themselves. And even if we should decide to play on this board until we (the players)die of old age, I assume we have plenty of years ahead until we will be forced to decide on this issue. Anyway, Petrulus has one or two other projects in mind which might help his reputation, earn him masterhood - and significantly change parts of the order, but I haven't planned far enough to set this off yet. And as this will include some stories involving others I don't want to spoil anything beforehand. 
@ Mad Max: Basically I think that we agreed on this. But there were points to be settled.
a) Will the magi take turns in guarding, too? (relevant if you planned any unpleasant surprises for the night.)
b) Will we leave the talking to Riccardo and the grogs alone?
The first doesn't bother Petrulus, and he will do whatever the majority leans to. And concerning the second issue, he is waiting for Riccardo's preference. He is eager to find something out, but he knows that he can hardly be in two places at the same time, and he assumes that he is the one most able to recognize interesting written evidence and the best talker among the Gifted characters. So he will be content with either choice.
"I think that most likely it is not a magical item being used as the two attacks seem to have been different, on that basis I think it necessary to have a mage on guard all night as there are four of us possessed of a Parma magica we can rotate a guard schedule amongst ourselves.
As is seems that the attack was carried out for mundane reasons we will need to speak to those involved but I consider it the local authorities problem to gather mundane information we have been asked in as magical experts not theif catchers. I would suggest Ricardo coordinate with the locals to determine suspects for magical investigation as he has less of a social problem
That is what I shall do, taking the two most "socially acceptable" of the grogs with me (the two that have the highest presence score &/or have demonstrated social ability, two clean guys that look decent and respectable).
First stop, a talk with the magistrate...
The evening turns into night and the night into morning. Without anything disturbing the sleep the magi wake up in the morning. Both Helga and Hilda have spent the night in the kitchen and are well underway with serving the magi breakfast.
The magi can without trouble visit the watch master or the magistrate in his office if they wish. The magistrate has set up a meeting. Is there anything else you wish to do other than visit the watch master and looking at the documents that he may have in his hold.
One of the guards report to the magi that one of the women in the household sneaked out of the house in the late evening and returned some time later. He has no idea of what she has been up too but thought that it was best to inform the magi but not to alert the entire house.
Better to say nothing, see if she does the same thing next night, and then follow her. She might be spying on us, but might also rejoin a lover.
And agreed on the rest
I agree Ardeth there has not been much for her to spy on.
"If she was reporting on us, the best that she could say is that we had no clue or idea what is going on. This might which might be good or bad. I am thinking that I should make a couple of us invisible to walk around town to see what we can pick up. The question is who is best." Tatiana studies the group to see who wants that to happen. Her spells are best for dealing with the mundanes.
After waking up at sunrise and redoing my Parma, I immediately redo my Luck-charm-combo with normal voice but exagerated geture (I rolled 8 (Entreating stress roll), 6 (luck charm normal roll, probably Penetration of 13), 2 (Entreating stress roll) and 10 (Magician's Second Wind, normal roll) - see: http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2253173/).
After the report of the grog and my sodales' suggestions:
If we decided on this path it would obviously have to be my job. - Or is any of you proficient enough in the art of Mentem to overcome the problems by not being really fluent in the local language? The grogs and Riccardo obviously can't do the job either, as they will already be occupied with openly interviewing people. But I am not convinced that we should do the invisible scooping now. Given the atmosphere in this town, it could become pretty dangerous if the spell failed somehow and those people found a spying wizard in their middle. Anyway, just going blindly through the town isn't likely to get un anything beyond rumours, and those we will already get by these interviews and the stuff we can get from the mayor, Mariella's brother and others. So I'd say we start by going to this meeting with the magistrate. Afterwards it will probably be a day of going through the papers for those of us with an obvious Gift and a long row of interviews for Riccardo and the others. Concerning that maid, I agree that somebody should follow her, if she left the house again tonight. If this doesn't satisfy our curiousity we can use a more direct approach tomorrow morning. Let's just hope that nothing horrible has happened this night.
Each character should decide what he or she does and then I can push the story along. Both the magistrate and the watch master can be easy to find. We can deal with the events of the coming night later. Please note if you use Parma and if you use other spells. How blatantly you display your magic is most interesting.
a) I used my Parma Ritual and the luck charm directly after getting up in our room, all at normal voice. So a maid listening in might have heard something, but probably no one working in the kitchen or walking on the street. Otherwise, I vote for going to the magistrate as a group and to split up afterwards.
Mariella maintains her parma , she has no real interest in interrigating the magistrate as she will just antagonise him, she does not have enougth understanding of the local language to help with documents and has no intention of wondering the streets at random. She will go to the abbey and remain out of sight there for the day meeting up with her fellow magi in the evening or if they send a messanger.
OOC Mariella is not well suited to investiagtion having no social skills, little intellego magic and almost no patience for dealing with annoying mundanes combined with the blatant gift . She is going to leave the investigation to everyone else and just provide security
Tatiana most certainly put up her parma shortly after sunrise. she will not do without.
Same here, not doing her Parma is unthinkable to Ardath. Otherwise, nothing special.
Thanks for the details… Perhaps they are needed. 
You can with ease find the magistrate at his office. He is slightly surprised to see you but welcomes you and await for you to ask him what you wish of him.