The scale felt like a living thing in his hand as he held it. This was the first thing Kai noticed as he drew the golden trinket - no, artifact - from the pouch he had so delicately placed it in when he had first found it. It had been tucked away in some forgotten, dusty archive behind the likes of grotesque half-dead things. Forgotten. Lost. It had been what had lured him deep into the catacombs, following a low pitched thrum that pulsed through him like a second heartbeat. Even as he had approached it and drawn it into a silken pouch for later investigation it had called to him.

It felt like a living thing as he held it there cradled in his hand, having just stepped from the depths of Underhill. He was weary and agitated - his skin felt like it was crawling with a million ants the way skin did when one's leg fell asleep - but at least he had been minutely successful in this hunt. Leaning against the tree he brushed a thumb over the scale, studying it.

Draconic, it shone with a gleam that no bit of gold metal could ever hope to achieve. It was almost glowing the way the sun hit it just right and lit up the strange engravings carved deep into one side. He didn't understand the engravings. They looked distantly familiar, a style that should have been readable to him... But they were not and he could only speculate on their meaning.  What fascinated him most though was the way the scale felt to him. It pulsed. A slow, breathing, living heartbeat. It was tied to something important and it begged him to understand.

He felt the sudden surge just a moment too late. Lost in his fascination of the strange artifact Kai did not notice the sudden way the hair upon his arms stood on end. The earth crackled and all he remembered a split second before the explosion were two things. The scale suddenly growing hot on his palm and the sharp scent of ozone that burned his nose.

The next thing he knew his ears were ringing and he was briefly blinded by a white light.

Then blackness.

When he came to again, it was Qheela at his side. It was always her at his side when he got in the way of things it seemed. Short moments later and other hands were on him. Ethan, he registered after too long. Ethan and those strange lenses that hid any sort of readable feature. He didn't like those lenses. The smile beneath them often made up for it though.

All that followed was a blur as they tried to bring him back to awareness. His right arm was on fire if the sensation was anything to go by and looking to it told a bitter tale as spiderwebbing burns ran up it to his chest. His hand was bleeding, Qheela tended to it. Why was it bleeding? He wondered faintly.

Then he saw the scale. It had snapped right in half almost perfectly and the strange sheen had faded away. One edge of the thick scale had dug into his palm when his body had seized up with the sudden bolt of lightning that had struck him. And the tree he'd been leaning on was on fire. Odd.

It was late in the night when he came to again after Qheela had gotten him to the healer's. They had seen to his wounds and hers too - a stray branch had done its damage from what he had seen - and he had fallen into a deep sleep shortly after. The building was silent except for the light steps of healers and assistants as they tended to the few others around. Kai stirred and then stilled so as not to attract attention. He opened his eyes to the darkness and stared upward wordlessly.

Ethan's voice filtered unwillingly through his mind and Kai scowled at nothing. He flexed his right arm. It still hurt but the burning had subsided. The burns were healing at remarkable speed considering it had literally rejected Qheela's attempts initially. He slid his gaze down and stared at his palm where the scorch marks were the worst.

     That was stupid.

Maybe Ethan was right. Kai hadn't been in his right mind entirely since the encounter with the young dragons deep in Underhill. He had felt tipped off balance and unable to right himself, one continuous metaphorical stumble and it had led to nearly killing him. Hurting Qheela. He kept putting Qheela and Ethan in danger because they kept... appearing at his side.

Yet he knew with a sickening realization and awareness that he couldn't put whatever this was he was blindly chasing aside. Already he knew what his next move was as he looked to where the broken scale with its strange engravings. He had a letter to write. With a sigh he pushed up to a sit and immediately there was a young woman at his side. Ah. The red-head. She was tisking her tongue at him.

A quiet request had him with a small writing table and a bit of parchment. Dipping a quill delicately into the ink, he paused in consideration and then began writing with a flawless penmanship.