By Isairo Palantes, Monteddorian Correspondent

5/8-According to a new Skyway report by the Imperial Sky Authority, pirate activity is up forty per cent over this time last year. The report cites worldwide political instability as the cause.

“Pirates are anarchic by nature,” said Crowndonian Admiral Winston Johannes. “It’s embedded into their philosophy, such as it is. So when they perceive a weakness on the part of authority, it should be no surprise that they eschew the trappings of our truces with the denizens of Libertine’s Roost and take to full on raiding and pillaging.”

The report cites that many of the ships being spotted raiding civilian and commercial air ships belong to merchant companies registered on Libertine’s Roost.

“We’ve always known that many of the ‘merchants’ based on the Roost engaged in the occasional raid,” Johannes said. “But now they’re doing it openly, and they’re flying the Blue and White banner while doing it.”

In addition to political instability, author Clement Aldridge Keene believes that recent comments by pirate captain Seylene Plamondon about being the last true pirate may have pushed many of the privateers based in the Roost to resume their plundering ways as a way to regain their status, but the report claims the activity began to upswing around the time the pirate hunter Johanna McKilroy was brought down by Captain Roderick La Pierre and his ship, the Pernicious Platitude.

Whatever the cause of this uptick in piracy, the Authority has issued a warning to those traveling along the Imperial borderlines, particularly over the Anadem and Des Anges mountain ranges. They have also increased patrols in these areas, as well as around Libertine’s Roost.

“The golden age of air piracy is long over,” Admiral Johannes said. “But we have not forgotten the methods that led to its ending. It would be in the best interest of these privateers to remember that.”