Is Piper curious or annoyed?

She sounds more curious than anything else.

I'm wondering if this "Friendly Elene Army" actually involves Martel somehow.

Any word on that satellite network I fate tagged into existence some months ago?

At the moment, you can get vague, blurry satellite photos of... most places not too far from the Ship. You've got nowhere near universal coverage, and there's someone back at the Ship who's busy laboriously tagging all the roads as roads and all the cities as cities; but you can get fuzzy photos if you like.

No attempts have yet been made to take satellite photos outside of the Elene kingdoms.

It sounds like these trucks are very much mufflers optional.

Sorry. Not in good mental state at the moment. Expect replies to be short.

Noted. Hope your mental state improves...

Bits and pieces. Here and there.

This might seem somewhat selfish, but to touch on earlier discussions I'm wondering if convincing Ivan to help head up a knowledge distribution center would be sufficiently penitent for him? Improve the world through the spread of story, song, and vital knowledge.

Ivan has the sort of mind that will consider penitence equivalent to suffering. In order to be sufficiently penitent, he, personally, has to suffer in some way.

Not just pointless suffering, mind you; suffering with some sort of a point to it. Left to himself, he would presumably have joined an army about to go on a campaign in the desert.

A knowledge distribution centre is (probably) a sufficient point. But would it really contain that much in the way of suffering?

My family friendly suggestion would be for him to break himself upon the arduous task of filling the entire dungeon up with dirt to do what Piper suggested and give the location time to heal. In between his exceedingly worthwhile and time consuming duties of helping us and the Count pass knowledge on to the surrounding world to improve it.

We're off to do something rather dangerous, and someone resistant to magic might be useful; perhaps we can offer him a quest to help tide him over.

Those both sound like viable suggestions to me.

Which one, if either, are you going to pursue?

We could do both; tell him about the dirt, and let him know that if that feels too mundane for him then there is this quest...

Is navigating a bureaucracy leadership, resolve, or mysteries?

I think it's Leadership. Unless the bureaucracy is truly asinine, then it would be Resolve.