Taking the stairs three at a time Moon climbed to the top levels of the palace. He headed down the east wing to a tucked-away room. Under his arm was tucked a bundled-up burlap pouch. After a rapid knock, he let himself into the room without waiting for an answer. 

  "Ah, there you are!" Zeb called from around a mountain of books. The large chamber was filled with several more of these, various stone and metal pieces of furniture every inch covered in the parts of an active project or a forgotten one were scattered around the room, a small bed pushed into an alcove only half useable for its purpose the other also being buried with books, and scattered in organized piles across the floor were more randomly collected items that had accumulated for various research over the last five years of Zeb’s new found freedom. They had put that time to good use.

   After many lengthy discussions of the war, they came to both agree on the necessity of bringing it to an end. Heavy amounts of research revealed just how poorly the planet was doing on the whole. They found that the war at its current rate of destruction would damage the environment to the point where another generation on either side of the war would be impossible to sustain. The problem they had was how to accomplish not only peace between the two nations but how to heal the damage done to the planet as well.

          Moon was certain that with all the information he had collected, he could convince his father to aid them in calling for a temporary truce with the Sorians to prevent further damage. However, with no solution for sustaining either side in sight, it would be a waste of a valuable opportunity. If they failed to come up with a logical solution for both sides then the truce would fail and the fighting would continue. The likelihood of forming another truce would be minuscule indeed after that.

   In all of their work to now they had found that the only thing contradicting the obvious signs of a dying planet were the magical elements that Moon had first noticed with the death of Yorick. Dead or dying loved ones became plants, light creatures that flew through the meadows at night around the cities, the few plants with no need of nutrition, and the small creatures made of a pearl-like substance that would appear for a few moments at a time before numbly flitting away with a speed Moon couldn’t compare to anything he had heard of or seen before all showed themselves in abundance. 

   They researched with as much vigor any mention of portals that they came across in hopes of finding a way for Zeb to return to his niece who was waiting for him in a completely different world than this.

  Moon found himself fascinated by the stories that Zeb would tell about what life was like over there.

          Once they put an end to this war and found a way to travel back and forth between the two worlds Moon planned to explore this strange place with its Internet, movies, roller coasters, and city parks.

  “Yeah, I had some trouble haggling with the Old Woman, but I found one.” Moon said dropping the pouch onto a rare available space on a nearby table. Pulling it open he removed a slightly curved oblong disk three times the size of his hand. The object had the same shimmering of the pearl creature Moon had seen around the city, but it appeared to be made of a strange mix of bone and metal.

  “I can’t believe you actually found one.” Zeb snatched up a magnifying glass from underneath an unstable pile of papers and inspected the object in Moon’s hands closer. “And you tested it on your Stinger?” Referencing the curved short sword that came as standard issue to all Nurthian soldiers. Moon wordlessly removed his blade from the sheath strapped around his right thigh holding the sword up so Zeb could clearly see the nick in the metal. Stinger’s were standard issue for all Nurthian warriors for a reason. The strength and sharpness were unparalleled leaving it extremely difficult to damage and requiring very little maintenance in the field.

 “I barely touched the metal with it and it caused that.” Moon said returning the weapon to his sheath to sharpen later.

 “It’s genuine. At least from everything I’ve read on the subject.” Zeb said finally, handing over the magnifying glass so Moon could have a closer look. “We’ve got ourselves a real-life dragon's scale."

  “Now all we have to do is see if we can extract the magic from it.” Moon reminded him.

 “Well let’s get started then.” Zeb scooped up a pile of random bric-a-brac off a nearby table and relocated it into a new pile on the floor. 

          Several weeks of laboring over the scale produced very little in the way of results.

  Moon sighed heavily in frustration as he stared at the unblemished scale and all the damaged tools beside it that they had used to try and extract the magic from it. He understood that these things took time, but time was not currently on their side. The council meeting he had attended earlier that day testified to that fact. Their crops were dying before harvest and mining for other materials was producing less and less everyday from the three remaining mines that they had claims over. On top of that Nurthian Castors were experiencing difficulties controlling the magical flow of energy making them nearly useless on the battlefield but for being a quick messenger. The Sorians were also becoming bolder in their attacks leaving Moon to speculate that they too were also quickly running out of resources.

 One of the biggest fears Moon harbored was that his father would be overthrown from the seat of power as the civil unrest grew and rumors began to spread of Emperor Valos’ lack of results in the war effort being a direct result of his efforts. All the leaders of course knew these rumors were false and unfounded, but Moon could see the attraction for the more ambitious members of the council to feed their hunger for power by fueling these rumors instead of putting a stop to them. Any change in leadership would of course not only pose a life threat to both Moon and his father but would also sink their chance of striking a truce with the Sorians as anyone who took the throne would be unfavorable towards such a course.

 “Aha!" Zeb shouted from being perched on the only available corner of the bed left from the invasion of books, making Moon jump in surprise at the sudden noise. “I’ve found something new! We've been going about it the wrong way entirely! According to this that scale isn’t necessarily waste as would a strand of hair be considered, but technically since a dragon could reattach that scale to its body is sort of still alive. Because of this trying to force the magic out to do our bidding is a completely useless endeavor.”

  “So what do we do with it?" Moon pushed a stack of books off the bed and onto the floor so he could sit and read over his shoulder the book Zeb had found.

The reason for Zeb’s silence became quickly apparent as they both skimmed the book's pages finding no more information on exactly how to use the scale.

 “It’s very vague.” Moon said finally.

  “Mmm.” Zeb looked thoughtful for a moment before continuing.  “We need better information from the source. Nurthians in history rarely were in direct contact with creature magic focusing their efforts instead on plant magic. Therefore there is almost no information on the dragons here.”

 “So? Where is it?” Moon prodded after he didn’t continue.

  “With the Sorians.” Zeb looked at him knowing how difficult this would make retrieving any information on the subject. “When I lived with them I would hear all kinds of stories passed down through generations of storytelling. A lot of them were about the magical animals that the Sorians would regularly interact with. Dragons were the most common of those before the war so I’m sure there are loads of stories I’ve never heard before that could help us with unlocking the secrets of that scale.”

  “Right.” Moon thought for a few minutes. “There’s a market that’s set up on the West Wall of Cync. The traders aren’t very regular so I don't know who is set up now, but there are some rumors that some of the traders don’t mind bargaining with Sorian traders if they think that they can get away with selling the merchandise without trouble from the Guardsmen. There’s a small chance that at least one of them would have some knowledge of dragons from doing business with Sorian traders. I hear rumors of specific traders being friendly towards Sorian merchants. Or at least not very outspoken about removing them from the trading routes. They would have the best information available.”

  “Well, it’s not direct from the source but it’s the closest thing we have. You head down to the market and see what you can find out and I’ll head back to scour your father’s library one last time. We’ll meet back here in four hours.”

  Nodding Moon grabbed his jacket off a world globe model and sped down the steps of the palace.