Avast, ye bilge-rats and ink-stained wretches! Pull up a keg and listen close, for the winds blowing off the Persian Gulf aren’t carrying the scent of spice or jasmine tonight. No, they carry the acrid stench of saltpetre and the mournful wails of a crew being forced to walk the plank by their own Admiralty. The tally-man on the deck of the 'Obsidian Quill' has just finished scratching the latest numbers into the ship’s log, and it’s enough to make a kraken weep into its grog. Three thousand and ninety souls—aye, ye heard me right—have been consigned to Davy Jones’ Locker in the wake of the latest storm brewing in Iran.

This ain't just a bit of a scuffle over the daily rum ration, me hearties. This is a full-blown mutiny against a Captaincy that’s forgotten the 'Code' and traded its compass for an iron shackle. The High Admirals of Tehran, those crusty old barnacles who’ve clung to the hull for too long, have ordered their press-gangers—the Basij brigands—to fire broadsides directly into the crowds. My First Mate, 'Salty' Sam, peered through the long-glass and spat into the sea. 'Captain,' he says to me, 'it’s a butcher’s shop out there. They’re using grapeshot on the youth as if they were boarding a Spanish treasure galleon. Three thousand dead? That’s more than a fleet’s worth of good sailors lost for the crime of wanting to see the sun.'

To keep the rest of the world from seeing the carnage, the Regime has doused the signal lanterns and cut the rigging of the Great Web. They’ve fouled the lines of communication, hoping that if no one can see the black flag flying, the world will think it’s calm seas and fair winds. But we know better. Lord Grog-Bottom of the East India Company was seen pacing the docks in a cold sweat. 'If this gale don’t break,' he blustered, 'the very Strait of Hormuz will be choked with the debris of a falling empire. We’re talkin’ about the black gold, Ink! If the Persian fleet implodes, every merchant ship from here to Tortuga will be paying three times the doubloons for a barrel of oil!'

The consequences of this bloody crackdown ripple far beyond the desert sands. It’s a whirlpool that threatens to suck in every naval power from the Great Bear in the North to the Eagle across the pond. When a Regime starts throwing its own crew overboard at this rate, it’s a sign the ship is taking on water fast. The youth of the nation are climbing the shrouds, refusing to come down, while the officers on the quarterdeck scream for more floggings. It’s a desperate gambit, a frantic effort to stay afloat by tossing the heaviest cargo—the people’s future—into the deep.

'They can burn the sails, but they can’t stop the wind,' remarked the ship’s cook, a one-legged philosopher known as Scurvy Pete. And he’s right. You can silence three thousand voices with lead and steel, but the echo of that silence is louder than a cannon’s roar. As the death toll climbs past the three-thousand mark, the waters of the Gulf are turning a shade of red that no sunset can explain. If the Tyrant’s Fleet thinks they can weather this hurricane by spilling more blood, they’re crazier than a sailor who’s spent a month drinking seawater. The tide is coming in, and no amount of iron can hold back the sea once it’s decided to rise.