Micky entered his office noting the new guards in sparkling armor. They must be the new recruits they had gotten. The 11th was coming soon and in order to prepare the place for him they had gotten an entire new wave of recruits. No, saying it was a new wave would be understating it too much.

These were royal army. These were not the hodgepodge that the nobility trained. While the nobles may create smaller more elite forces they were, and never could be, more organized than the royal army. It was simple logistics. The royal army simply had more power and more wealth dedicated to it. It wasn’t something a noble could match. Technically if the nobility banded together, such as in rebellions… they could create a larger army with more resources. And the noble’s faction’s standing troop count is larger than the royal army.

This did not mean that the noble’s faction’s troops would dare to mess with the royal army soldiers. These were elite, standardized units. A person didn’t look at a single scale of a dragon and say ‘I could crack that eventually, give me a go!’ They looked at the entire dragon. And the royal army was that dragon. It’s true that there were more elite troops out there. But there wasn’t a larger, more organized troop of soldiers in the kingdom of Aene.

Just watching the soldiers of the royal army Micky could tell they were very [Skill]ed. A term only used for those with a large [Skill] set. But that was nothing compared to watching a massive army of [Skill]ed using [Sill]s in unison. It was like watching a group of mages cast fireball simultaneously, it was watching literal arrow rain, it was an unending flood of monsters, it was all of those and more fearsome.

Truly, it made it obvious that the few troops sent to simply secure the perimeter for the prince made the soldiers sent to the front before them look like the dregs of society, nothing but peasants. Granted, many of them were, but the soldiers made them all, including the elites sent before them, look like pissant local yocals.

Micky loved it. It made his job so much easier. He was out the door in ‘disgrace’ soon. All he had to do was defend this little patch of land and they had to secure this patch. The materials needed for the fort slash launch pad slash long term force projection platform had already been sent here instead of the original plan. The plan was still to be used as follows, however the fort’s location had been moved. Afterall, why move the fort further afield when they could skip a leapfrog step?

It did mean that Micky would have to clean up his mess sooner than he expected though. With the dungeon war going on there was no reason to use the salt the earth tactics and he might as well clean it up so that it could be used for force projection sooner than later.

Which brought Micky to the tactical map. Why was the projection’s manifest two inches to the left. The maids knew not to touch anything on his desk. It was a mess yes, but they weren’t allowed. All of the cleaning staff were vetted and would know not to touch anything even if they were curious, with the curious being vetted out in the… vetting process, obviously.

Which was when his senior centurion’s came marching in with his new guards… Oh, no, they were not the royal army. He should have seen that coming. But still, what the hell?

“Where is it?” Asked one of the senior’s. There were several notables missing. Funnily enough Micky was signed onto the position without majority vote if you include the absentees. “Where is the scroll Micky?” They asked again.

“That is Commander in Chief to you. Why are you in my office?” Asked Micky calmly, but with an angry edge. The man was pretty daring, he’ll give him that.

“You know what we’re talking about you little shit. Don’t play games with us, you won’t like the consequences.” Stated a female senior centurion to the agreement of the others.

Of course, Micky knew exactly what they were talking about, that was exactly why he didn’t have it on him, or around him. “And what is that? What are you doing here, in your superior’s office, making demands of them? Hmm?” Asked Micky.

“Not anymore! Now hand it over!” They said and surrounded him further.

“Are you staging a coup? Are you fucking nuts? Until I am relieved by the 11th Prince grand conqueror, ruler of jade city, protector of the emerald forest, and designate of the endless fields province I am your commanding officer and you will stand down and address me as such.” Stated Micky with an edge to his tone.

“Not anymore, we have decided that your command is no longer required. You have illegally assumed authority that wasn’t your own anyway. Now give us the scroll.” Said the man. He seemed to be the diplomatic leader of the group, but not the instigator. She was already leaping on Micky who reached for a knife fruitlessly.

Pagebreak

Micky woke up in a cell. It seemed he was in a very similar situation to what he had been in before. However, he was also in a very different one. Before he was being dwarf railed into a guilty plea by the military tribunal as they made a mad grab for power. Now he woke up to a military [Executioner] that also doubled as a torturer. Micky was already screaming, it seemed that the [Executioner] had started early without anybody's notice.

“Sorry, sorry, got a little excited you see. You know, I never actually get to have a go at the officers-” *pah* the [Executioner] spat on the floor. “-They always send them high profile targets out to be taken care of by the professionals. As if they would do a better job than yours truly… Ok I admit that was a bit unprofessional of me, breaking your fingers before you were even awake to enjoy it. To be fair I already had to use a potion on you when you were taken in. Is best if you’re in a pristine state so you can enjoy what I’m doin’ to you.” Said Micky’s new ‘best friend’. Afterall, they would be getting to know each other very well. Micky would spill his guts, but mister ‘best friend’ would tell Micky all sorts of things to make him relatable.

The only problem was that Micky wasn’t telling him what he wanted to know. And he was going to get it out of him, one piece at a time. They even had a fancy mind mage to help with that! When Micky was asleep the mind mage would dive his mind. It was slow going, and they would actually have to fix pieces of his mind to create a path to what they wanted.

This of course, prolonged Micky’s torture and breakdown. It is kinda hard for you to break under pressure if someone is actively fixing your mind while you’re being tortured. This, much like the [Executioner] fixing his body in between sessions actually made it worse. The mind and body have defense mechanisms to make such things more bearable. But neither were letting Micky activate those mechanisms, making his resistance each time they ‘worked’ him less and less.

Years of pain tolerance and emotional calluses were being removed. Leaving behind tender sensitivity. With each passing moment, the torture was becoming more intense, with less actual pain involved. Soon, Micky might not even be able to take a splinter without rolling around in pain. Not to mention that his torturers wouldn’t let up on him in the slightest. If anything they were becoming more intense as time went by. The sessions became longer, they inflicted more pain and suffering.

All throughout Micky never once told them anything about what they actually wanted to know. Oh they know knew how many times he peed the bed or peeped, as far as Micky knew, but where was everything he squirreled away while he was here? The favors he had, what kind of pull he had in the military? Even his current plans, order’s and commands were a mystery to them. This was in spite of the camp almost running itself. It mad one wonder if the bureaucracy was even necessary? But of course it was, what would these peasants do without the leadership of their betters?