erm, get one from the library? You don't need val ingots, just a dedicated hunter.
I just got 'life of the travelling minstrel' by collecting scales from the white wyrm in Felucca, also got a shed load of barbed leather for my tailor at the same time and quite a lot of gold.

A library talisman takes 27500 scales, I gathered 1000 scales per hour hunting just one hour per day till I had enough. I can be patient.