A gem. It had something to do with what made a dragon physiologically unique, but unless Zea could find some way to grow them outside of living self-sustaining dragon flesh, the gem did not sound especially useful to humans. Where would she graft one in, anyway? The forehead? Too obvious. Somewhere better hidden, so that if someone thought to target her subjects it would be easier for her to hide them.
"Unless I could use that gem to permanently change a human, I don't expect that I'll have much need for it. Temporary boosts in ability or lifespan are honestly pretty easy to come by. Unfortunately, what you get with those is a dependence on repeated... I don't know, doses, exposure. That sort of thing. The fundamental problem remains."
Zea stretched her arms above her head as she walked, knotting her fingers together so that she could crack the joints.
"See, I'm working on this mortality thing. At the temples we're supposed to be experts on death, but not everybody is really figuring out what it is about some species that means they just sort of... don't last. They just say oh they're not made to, which isn't an answer, you know? And you don't really solve the problem by making humans into vampires or liches or whatever, because then all you have is something that still relies on a fundamentally-mortal food source, which when you think about it makes them damn near as mortal as they were before. It doesn't work, not really. Just buys time."