[ Is that a serious question? Koltira's patience is not robust on the best of days, and recent weeks have worn him just about threadbare. He scowls outright, leaning forward. ]

Have you died, Asher? Have you suffered the pain of resurrection? Of necromancy? Have you been forced to take a blade and turn it on your own people? To cut them apart, gut them like fish, watch them bleed slow into the soil of your homeland. Have you then raised the corpses? Turned the half-broken body of a son against his still-living mother?

[ Well, he's just going full extra now. ]

Have you been strapped to a rack, Asher? Tortured for days, weeks, years? Have you ever begged to die while already being dead? Has your will ever been leashed to someone else's, so thoroughly and completely that you cannot even consider breaking free of the enslavement?

[ The lichfire in his eyes blazes. ]

Does your body betray you, Asher? Does it demand violence--and worse--towards everyone you speak to? Are you in pain right now? Does it wrack your body, seize your muscles, muddle your thinking? Is your joy muted? Does it run from you like a skittish animal, or can you grasp it, even a little, even for a while.

You do not know me. You are not like me. Do not speak to me with such arrogance.