Typhon let out a laugh that could have easily been mistaken for that of a fully-grown dragon.
"Almost as powerful? Of course not. My father had grown in might for centuries before I was hatched, and he has only gained more power when he left this world for millennia. I don't know exactly what he did to gain such power, even beyond death, although I have my suspicions. As to my lifespan, that is due to my father's side of the family, of course. I had no idea he would ever return for the longest time, and when he did return, there was no way for me to face him alone, and as you can probably guess, most Dracons wouldn't be inclined to trust one with my... "powerful" appearance."
That "powerful" appearance was that of a red-skinned Dracon; much larger than the average Dracon and possessed of wings and a scorpion-like stinger, Typhon was much like his father, although far smaller and dressed in a suit of black adamantine armor, nearly the equal in quality to Adykon's suit. The fact that he was alive also distinguished them. Dememoras was no longer strictly of the living; he hadn't registered a pulse in his veins since long before the royal lines of the eight great cities of the Dracons had been founded. How the tyrant was risen and continued to exist was a mystery, even to Typhon.
"What I want to know is, what does this mean for me?" Vespion asked, interjecting. He had just learned that he was *supposedly* a descendant of the greatest evil his land ever knew.
"Vespion, it isn't like you are unique in your heritage. While most of my siblings died by the time our city fell, they had already had children of their own, as did I. At least a few hundred of my nieces, nephews, and their descendants lived on in other Dracon cities, often taken there as slaves."
"Slaves?! Dememoras's line has slaves among it?" Now it was Adykon's turn to be surprised.
"I suppose I shouldn't have expected you to understand. When one has lived as long as I have, one has a different perspective on life. In this case, you two ought to know that my father was the God-king of his great city, now known only as the lost city. As you might know, history has recorded that Dememoras raised armies and attempted to conquer all of the Dracon lands, uniting them under his sole rule. If not for a hero of the past, a warrior by... it's been so long... the name of Saydan if I'm not mistaken. Well, if not for him, my father would have conquered all of the Dracon lands. By the time he had been risen, three years later, his armies were defeated and the opposing armies had not only driven our armies back, but they were closing in on our city."
"I still don't see what this has to do with slavery"
"Well, I think you do, Adykon. As you are well aware, when a city falls in these lands, more than just gold and silver is plundered. Dememoras had come so close to conquering it all. So close. It was decided that his kingdom could never again be allowed to be a threat. Never again. Everyone who was not killed in the attack on my city was taken as a slave, and that included many of my, and by extension, your relatives, Vespion. That's right. HIS relatives."
"Surely, not everyone of Dememoras' family was enslaved... or killed."
"Very true, Adykon. Some of his line escaped the city during the attack or else fled just before it fell. Others, such as myself, left the city willingly when Dememoras left this world. It was with the less developed tribes that I found solace for many years, and with them, many children. I have gone on to other things as well, but now is not the time to discuss such matters. We do have an archmage to rescue."
"How did you know about Aer-?!"Adykon was cut off before he could finish his sentence.
"I became aware of your party and the two mages when someone was tampering with the Lost city. One of them, a male, died when my father took back his statue, the one with an ancient god stuck in it. And in case you want to know, it was not he who put that son of Tiamat in that piece of stone, it was an entity even more ancient than the ones who created my father. Besides, Dememoras was not nearly powerful enough to trap a god in a statue, although he probably is now. Regardless, we need to form a plan to get that female out of there."
Dememoras had waited thousands of years to unlock the powers within that statue, and yet he did not dare to expose himself to the wider world at the time. He had sent Arcantas to perform the task for him, as the statue had to be opened under the influence of the right stars, which were only in a correct alignment every 1000 years, roughly. The fact that Arcantas failed horribly only served to delay the tyrant, given that he had seen many thousands of years, alive and dead.
