There are more things in heaven and Earth, Peregrine, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 
Neither did the Jews of Folklore who went around poisoning wells, abducting children, and turning into rats. That didn't stop these stories from spreading, and they too are clearly meant to suggest that the attributes they attribute belong to real people. Natural healers brewing "potions" of herbal remedies are certainly closer to the witch and her cauldron than these tales.
And we are talking the middle ages here, people already believed in magic. You should see some of the ancient laws regarding the sales of magical charms in the Byzantine Empire. I'm not saying that real fantasy style magic wouldn't change the dynamic, simply the idea that an organization which is so small could perpetuate itself and be significant simply doesn't make sense. There were individual witch purges which exterminated larger populations that the entire order is supposed to have as members. In Scotland between 1563 and 1603 17,000 'witches' were killed. How many of those fall into what definition of witch if any at all is impossible to say, but the idea that the order is less than 1/10 this size through the whole of Europe is mind numbing.
I have a rules question that's about to become very important in the Transylvania thread. If a magus has an AC to an object or person, can he use that AC to teleport to that object or person with Leap of Homecoming?
I believe so, yes. The spell description says "Transports you to any place to which you have an Arcane Connection." It stands to reason that if you have an AC to, say, your wife, you could transport to her with no problem. At least, that's how I've always interpreted it and seen it so in every saga I can remember.
I concur with Peregrine: As far as I can tell, by RAW, yes.
That's my understanding as well.
Just a reminder - I'll be out of town on vacation from July 17th through the 27th. Most of this time will be on an Alaskan cruise, so my Internet access will be slim to none. Please don't wait anything on me.
Take care 
As for me, I am feeling ill and am cutting my library time short today. I didn't get to everything I wanted to get to, but my mind is not fully functional. Recovering from a killer work weekend. Friday was 7pm to 5am, Saturday was 6pm to 6am, then Sunday was 11AM to 7pm. World Cup final. My system is all out of whack.
[From the peanut gallery]
RAW is pretty explicit that adventure XP takes a season, so if you wan the adventure XP, you can't do lab work for a season. This is commonly ignored in many sagas, though.
RAW also says explicitly
so what most sagas do is, by my understanding RAW, and I really wish you would stop assuming you are the end all be all of information about how the game is supposed to be run.
FYI we already had a discussion about running a short adventure and the ability to take experience and do lab activities before this adventure even began.
You're a funny guy.
That quote says nothing about experience.
I didn't claim it did, I simply said that the lab activity could continue uninterrupted, which doesn't affect experience if you are enchanting an item, inventing a spell, or refining your lab. You are the one who made a claim contrary to that point.
Indeed I am making a claim as to the RAW. My quotation says the condition under which you can earn adventure experience, by RAW, which means forgoing any other activity during the season.
Your quotation says that you can complete lab work if you miss 10 days, while saying nothing about what experience may be earned in the season. Meaning, that if you synthesize the meaning of missing 10 days of lab work with how one may take experience, by RAW, you cannot complete lab work, since you will be missing more than 10 days (all 90 days). Or you may choose to not take adventure experience, complete the lab work, and earn exposure. That's RAW.
Again, as I said, it is a common HR to allow adventure experience in the same season as lab work, but it is a HR, and not RAW.
Edit: this is very nearly the same thing that Peregrine was saying, but the RAW is adventure XP takes a season of reflection and no other work is possible. Another couple of sagas I've had the option of saving up adventure XP to a season of lab work, so as to maximize advancement. And in a PbP where there is a lot of effort, it makes sense to relax the prohibitions on lab work and earning experience.
For a concrete example: Vibria is studying from A Delicate Matter, which has a SQ of 14 that must be applied to Finesse. Or, per RAW, she could take the Adventure XP of 6 which she could apply to any abilities, Arts, or Spell Masteries that she used (max 5 points per destination). With the HR, which for the record I am for, she could "double up", put 14 points in Finesse, three in Charm, two in Muto, and one in Imaginem.
As you (Johnathon) understand it. I have made clear what I think of your understanding in the past, my point here is simple- you declaring something RAW does not make it so just because you find a single quote amid a complex tapestry of rules to support your contention, Finally it was discussed, as I stated, prior to this adventure and was decided that adventure experience could apply while the lab work was completed, so please stop being an annoying pest.
I am not sure why you make it personal.
My comment was specifically directed to Prince of Boredom, I quoted him, after all. RAW is explicit, all sources of xp take a season, whether they are exposure, practice, studying from a book or adventure experience. Even correspondence is presumed to happen over the course of a season. PoB said it was RAW, I'm saying it isn't, but that it is an extremely common house rule.
So, yes, you are correct that it was discussed. You are incorrect that it is a reasonable interpretation of RAW, despite whatever you think of me or my understanding of the rules. I make mistakes all the time, this time isn't one of them, silveroak.
I know I should keep my mouth closed, but being a lawyer in real life, I just can't resist chiming in on a rules-based question.
Now I'm fairly new to Ars Magica, and I realize that there's a complex tapestry of rules out there. But I've done statutory interpretation plenty of times for my job, so I applied those principles to this matter. Now I can tell you, when you're talking about a complex tapestry of rules, the U.S. Code has Ars Magica beat hands down. Thankfully, the U.S. Code is broken up into different sections (titles) based on subject matter. So when I'm looking for patent laws, I go to Title 35 of the U.S. Code and that narrows things down significantly. We're fortunate in that the Ars Magica core rulebook is also broken up into different sections (in this case, chapters) based on subject matter. Looking at Chapter Ten: Long-Term Events, we see a subsection called "Experience and Advancement." Basic statutory interpretation principles tell us that this is a good place to look for the rules on how experience works.
We've had one quote made from this section. In particular, Jonathan cited:
silveroak responded with a quote from Chapter Eight: Laboratory under the sub-heading "Distractions from Lab Work."
Now as I checked these, I noticed something. Both of these quotes are partial quotes from paragraphs of the rules. And one thing I've learned from doing statutory interpretation, is that you look at the entirety of the statue. In this case, the full paragraphs are as follows:
This additional text is very illuminating, particularly when the two passages are taken together. The first quote almost seems to implicitly refer to the second quote. In other words, if you had an adventure that took ten days or fewer, you can choose not to take experience from the adventure to allow the other study, i.e., the lab work.
Furthermore, the second quote refers to loss of Lab Total if you are away from the lab for more than ten days, going into detail as to how this loss is calculated. That seems pretty strong evidence that the "no penalty" referred to in this passage is "no penalty" to Lab Total, not "no penalty" to Experience. That's the clearest interpretation of that passage, in my opinion. This is further supported by the fact that it's in the chapter on Laboratories rather than the chapter that includes Experience.
Finally, there's another quote that seems to seal the deal for me:
The rules then go on to describe seven kinds of advancement: Exposure, Adventure, Practice, Training, Teaching, Books, and Vis. To me, this pretty clearly says that according to RAW, you can't get xp in both Adventure and Exposure/Books/Vis in the same month.
My conclusion, therefore, based on the cited rules (and I'm more than willing to believe that I've missed an important rule - feel free to cite any rule I've missed) is that I think that Jonathan is partially right and partially wrong, and that silveroak is partially right and partially wrong. (How's that for a good lawyerly answer?)
Jonathan stated that if you take Adventure xp you can't do lab work. As I see it, according to the RAW, if you take adventure xp, you can do some kinds of lab work (assuming that the adventure took less than 20 days). For example, you could invent a spell or make a magic item in your lab with no problem. However, you couldn't take any xp for your lab work (including Exposuse xp for inventing the spell or making the magic item), which makes certain lab activities useless, e.g., reading books or using vis. Basically, you can do any lab activity that gains you a benefit without giving you xp.
That all having been said, I agree with Peregrine to a certain extent. I think that it should be possible to get some Adventure xp in the same season that you get xp from another source. But I raise the question as to whether there should be a limit on overlapping Adventure xp. I mean, consider a maga that has an adventure that nets her 12 xp, and then reads a book that nets her 18 xp. Do we consider getting 30 xp for a single season at all extreme? I don't have an answer to that, but I did think that it was worth raising the question.
I never claimed you could take both sources of XP, simply that the non-xp aspect of lab work could be continued.
a house rule that you could get 2xp per adventure if you are taking your experience from somewhere else would make sense to me, also I have always played that you can gain experience from multiple adventures in the same season, though others have disagreed with this...
And I never claimed you did. PoB stated something about RAW that is clearly incorrect, it's one of those unwritten house rules that I've seen in very nearly every saga, and I used it in Bibracte, that everyone thinks is RAW but it isn't. RAW is, take adventure XP and give up labwork or give up adventure XP and do labwork, take exposure. The common HR is that adventure happens in 10 days or less you get adventure XP, and can complete lab work. And in other sagas, adventure happens and you can save it up for a season where you are doing lab work, or would otherwise exposure experience. Both are pretty reasonable house rules, but they are not RAW.
I'm aware that Ars is a tapestry of rules. I do get things wrong, and I do want people to point it out to me. I did not make this personal, as you did, as you have done in several different places we have interacted. I did not say that you are playing the game wrong in any way. I know there was a discussion about the experience awarded here, but I wasn't even speaking to that. I was speaking about and to the statement by one individual that RAW doesn't support.
I enjoyed the story.