I'm afraid I don't actually have time to post today- at least not in detail. So I'll just summarize the gist of the responses.
@ Nuxipal: A message returns from the north expressing wary interest in trade, offering bronze weapons for great price and agriculture goods in exchange for copper.
@ Norv: In the court of the Pirate-King your agent discovers one of the old King'a captains, a formidable strategist named Markav, holding court. He seems fairly level-headed, but you hear talk of executions of dissenters and a massive naval building program to counter the threat from his rival. That rival, Komenos the Bloody-Handed, appears to have retreated to Crete with his followers, and has been waging a fierce campaign against merchant shipping to fund his war with Markav. Apparently the battles on land have been favoring the sitting Pirate-King and his support amongst the smallfolk and landsmen, but the captains are with Komenos and wish to return to the old days when Jeledic raiders reaved along the coasts of the Middle Sea instead of merely levying a tariff on commerce as was the way of the old Pirate-King.
As your spy watches a captain approaches the driftwood throne, and reports that biremes from the patrol fleet have engaged and boarded a vessel of Peliton scudding east, and captured it. The courtiers seem dismayed by how the vessel of a naval rival could approach so close to Nem'Jeled itself, but Markav vows to build more ships which seems to allay some of their concerns.
