"For self-defense. And nothing more" Mazdak snarled. He knew that he was outnumbered, surrounded, and keep in what was very likely hostile territory at the moment. The only thing keeping them from attacking him was the threat of overwhelming retaliation by dracon forces.

"This is a diplomatic mission, but I don't need to tell you that bandits and raiders from the desert don't respect a flag of truce. Traveling through the desert unarmed is a fool's errand. I'm still not convinced that I'm fully secure from those brigands in here, seeing as how your little city is reportedly the source of many of those rogues." The orange-skinned dracon scanned the room, wary of an ambush. 

Kali made her way into the room, briefly speaking to Rughoi on the theological matter. 

"Truly, only a small fraction of dracon gods are false. They worship thousands of deities, so a few of them are bound to be pretenders"

Mazdak continued his speech. "None of that really matters now. My goal is to create -for want of a better word- an alliance between your kingdom and Hekaga's. We need not call it that. I've been given discretion to also name it as a pact, treaty, agreement, concordat, coalition, association, affiliation, league, consortium, or partnership. I've been told to avoid using the term 'union' or anything approximating a single political entity. You may want to remain completely unaffiliated from any dracon state, but you need a protector. Think of it like a kobold allying with a dragon, if that helps. You don't even need to agree to Grand Prince Ternoc's supremacy; he's prepared to accept you as an equal, but only is you accept the title of king. Your only serious concession is to give up the title of emperor; it's a pretension which is making the other dracon realms rather angry."