"So it's not all intellectual, then," Keman said, smiling wryly. "It makes sense that there would be a few treasure hunters in the mix. I mean, there's got to be a quite bit of gold involved, right? It's unfortunate, but humans aren't often known for their selflessness and honor." That was true enough. Human nature was a fickle thing anyway, but after generations of slavery and conditioning, there were very few humans left in his world who were even capable of putting others before themselves. It was better here, of course. Meeting his fellow inmates had raised the dragon's opinion of the species quite a lot.

He started slightly when Jones asked about what "interested" him. Fewmets. That was another one of those probing questions that was going to get him into trouble. Well, maybe it was time to ease the older man into it. It was just going to get harder and harder to avoid it from here on out, after all, and Jones needed to know one way or another. Might as well. "Ah...well. About...oh, two thousand years or so ago, the halfblooded children of the conquered people and their conquerors revolted against their overlords and started what is now called the Wizard War. They ultimately lost, but there were heavy losses on both sides, and it's sort of...forbidden to even mention it. Because of this, books on the subject are few and far between, so you have to get a bit crafty if you want to find out anything about it. That's my particular area of study, I suppose. It's a little more personal to me than most, since my foster sister is halfblooded."