DRAGONQUEEN: RISE OF THE SILVER PHOENIX

Chapter 12 - A Leprechaun and the Treasury

The light reveals a large dark room build as part of a cave. The light triggers the soft rustling of tiny feet trying to run from the light. Afraid of being discovered.

Small footprints litter the dust on the floor. Rebecca bends down. Rubbing her chin and studying the footprints. The footprints are small and wide apart suggesting a slightly elongated body. There is a skittering of feet as something runs across the floor of the vault. Something has camouflaged itself not to be seen.

She stretches out her magical senses hunting for the creature.  The creature evades her senses expertly. She sends her magical sensor to feel the ground for the creature's feet. She feels rats lurking in the dark corners of the vault but it is not what she seeks. Then she feels something larger running across the ground as fast as possible. Trying to escape her magic probe.

Rebecca clenches her teeth as she concentrates harder. "Bubble net!"

*Squeeeeeaaaaalllll!!!*

The sharp noise that echoes of the walls is enough to tell her, her hunt is successful. She used magic to control the bubble ball to levitate towards them. The bubble is see-through and as it comes towards her the creature is completely invisible. The only three signs there is something inside the bubble is a gold coin that hovers in mid-air and moves in circles of its own accord, a strange chattering noise that sounds like a lot of people talking animately in a large room, and Rebecca can feel the creature's weight inside the bubble.

"What did you catch?" Guss asks.

"Allow me to reveal and introduce to you the root of all our financial problems. The legendary leprechaun. Light spectrum gold." The light shade of her marble changes and as it does it reveals a strange rodent-like creature covered in a soft green plumage. It has a long fat tail that suggests that it can curl up like a hedgehog. Its rat-like face is pulled in panic as it tries to find an escape from the bubble. Its vivid green eyes look around. It sees the ground and the way home but the bubble prevents it from running away. Unable to escape the leprechaun did the next best thing. Curls up and plays dead.

"It takes the gold because it wants to draw the attention of a potential mate. It will take us years to recover the lost gold. Chances are we will never find it. There is only one solution to our problem and the people might not like it. We have to change the currency of the kingdom. We can longer use gold as a means to exchange goods. But I will have to show this little guy to the council to prove my point. We will also have to find something to replace the goldra's with." Rebecca says.

"Can't we just kill them?" Guss asks.

"Guss, only a gold spectrum light can reveal them. Other than that they are immune to all kinds of spells and curses. Their other defense is they are completely invisible to the naked eye. The worst, is they play an important role in the ecosystem. We can't kill them. They are one of only a few defenses against black creepers. They feast on the plants and control them. If black creepers aren't controlled they grow out of control," Rebecca says

"The black creeper is a meat-eating plant that can grow so big that it can kill animals as large as horses. I have read a book about a creeper that has grown so big that it could devour an animal as large as an elephant. The plant died several years later because a wizard poisoned it with leprechaun dust. It is also the only plant in the world that dislikes water.  Leprechauns have a secret weapon against the plant that is poisonous to it. They give of magic dust. Ever since then the creature became protected by law in Ireland. They changed their currency to adapt to the creatures. The boom in their numbers brought black creeper-killing incidents down considerably. Eventually, the creepers could not grow that large again because of leprechauns," Lisa informs Guss.