[center][color=9e0b0f][b]"No, they're doing that because you're so charming. What do you think you bloody fool?"[/b][/color][/center]

The short retort was followed by something recognizable as the muttering of the elderly when confronted by the lack of experience found in youth. Perhaps it was just a momentary annoyance, but it seemed that at least for now the voice had a very poor tolerance for words of rhetoric or self-evident observations it deemed unnecessary. 

However, whatever rapport the boy might have lost by annoying the spectral man was quickly regained when his immaterial ego was stroked by the usage of the higher honorific of the two offered. Some excitement entered Lord Dietrich as Brandon described the presence of orcish barbarians, the man eager to taking the fight to them, albeit with a hint of anger. 

[center][color=9e0b0f][b]"Orcs? Bloody youths, I thought they would be exterminated by now! 'Course, it would help to know when exactly now is but it bloody well seemed long enough to give you time to clear some savage throngs."[/b][/color][/center]

The voice grumbled, pausing for a moment when asked about what one best do if against Orcs and their allies. 


[center][color=9e0b0f][b]"The groin's the most important bit. If its a goblin you're against then protect your own, if its an orc you fight then go for their's, but if the opportunity - or perhaps need - presents itself you should be ready to follow the advice against one race when fighting the other."

....

"The literal lesson of that is very important, but I hope you can take the metaphorical one to heart too."[/b][/color][/center]

Time passed on the march, and Lord Dietrich subsided his previously incessant complaints at least for now, the seriousness of the situation at least temporarily neutering his flippant edge. This would not last for very long however, for as the battlefield was finally approached the ethereal man felt his old self once more. 

[center][color=9e0b0f][b]"Pipe down, pipe down, you don't have to say it to them they know what you want. Some of the zombies might sound like they still talk but that's just gasses escaping and the occasional spasm of a vocal chord, nothing more. Don't throw everything at them at once, either let them do that first or let them show their ambushers if they got them.... Oh, and challenge their leader to single combat."[/b][/color]

[/center]