It was too late. Nate saw the finger pull back the trigger and the hammer snap into place with a click. With a click? Not a bang!

Sellers laughed. "Seems to be your lucky day, Ms. Fisher."

"You asshole!" Nate shouted as he ran toward his wife, Excalibur hanging at his side.

"Looks like you're just in time. So, let's see it. Where's the jewel?"

"Well, Mr. Sellers, it's like this, see? There is no way in hell that the Teardrop of the Caribbean is down here. This place has been sealed since Francis Drake paid it a visit 200 years before Ralph Abercromby ever came here. You're barking up the wrong tree, or, tomb, as it were."

"Wrong answer, Mr. Drake." Sellers pulled the trigger again. The cylinder spun and the hammer snapped forward. Another click. Another empty chamber in the cylinder. "Mr. Drake, eventually, I'm going to run out of empty chambers. Now, give me the emerald! There's no way that all of this elaborate setup would have been built to house absolutely nothing."

"Geez, Sellers! Stop it, already! I didn't say that the sanctuary was empty." Nate withdrew the magnificent weapon hanging at his side. "Behold, Excalibur!"

The sword shined forth with a magical radiance that temporarily blinded everyone in the room except for Nate. He took advantage of the opportunity and lunged forward with the strength of ten men. The magical sword cut through the evil Sellers like a machete through butter. Blood poured from the villain as his body fell limply against the stone floor.

"Now, all of you! Let my friends go, and escape with your lives!" Elena had never seen such a fury in Nate's eyes nor heard such ire in his voice. It had scared her, but it was effective. The band of mercenaries all dropped their assault rifles and ran back up the stairs towards the fort's dungeons.

"Dear God," said Sully, "no wonder William Wallace was defeated so easily. Do you really think John de Menteith had Excalibur?"

"I don't know, Sully, but William Wallace was a trained warrior. It just doesn't seem right that he would fall so easily to a nobleman like John de Menteith."

"We can talk about this later," Elena interrupted. "We have to get out of here before security arrests us all."

Fiona nodded and motioned towards the stairwell. "Let's get going!"

They raced up the staircase towards the hidden door leading into the dungeons. When they arrived, they noticed that the entrance was no longer open. Nate pushed and prodded on the wall. It didn't budge.

"Damn it! We're trapped!"

Fiona slid her katana into the scabbard hidden beneath her shirt. She motioned toward Excalibur. "Let me see that," she insisted.

"Knock yourself out," Nate responded as he passed the weapon forward. "Well, I mean, not literally."

Fiona took the blade in hand and examined it carefully. "What a magnificent specimen!" she exclaimed. "My family has been searching for you for centuries, and now, here you are."

Nate was utterly confused. "Fiona? What're you talking about?"

"It's quite simple, Nate. Almost a thousand years ago, my ancestor Godfrey of Bouillon found Excalibur during the First Crusade. After that, it disappeared and my family never saw it again, but we've never given up searching for it. When I heard that Francis Drake may have been the last person to see it, I answered that ad to look for Drake's coffin with you five years ago. I was planning to betray Estuardo to find the coffin, but you ended up doing it first!"

Nate shrugged. "But that coffin led us to El Dorado, not to Excalibur."

"I know, but it was the only lead I had… until now."

"So what happens now?" Elena asked.

"Nate, I know you are a smart guy. What did you find in that sanctuary? Where did the sword lead you?"

"Why should I tell you?! You look poised to end us all right here."

"Nate. I'm not a murderer. This is for my family. I'm fairly certain that you know where we need to go next."

Nate sighed. "The Philippines." He took out his smartphone and pulled up an image of the island country. "Somewhere in this area."

"Right here?" Sully asked. "Isn't that where Ferdinand Magellan was supposedly killed by natives during his travels?"

"Of course it is," Fiona answered. "Magellan wasn't looking for a way around the world; he was looking for Avalon."

"That's wonderful and all, but we're all still stuck in this god forsaken dungeon."

"That's not entirely true," Fiona answered. As she said those words, she waved Excalibur in the air and disappeared into thin air.

"What the hell?" Elena asked in amazement. "Where did she go?"

"Well, that could have gone better."

"Yep. We're still stuck here," Sully interjected.

"Do you think there's another way out?" asked Elena.

Nate shrugged. "There's no way to be sure, but knowing Sir Francis, he must have had some sort of contingency plan. Still, though, is no one else the least bit concerned about how Fiona just vanished into the ether?"

Sully walked over against the nearby wall. "Only one way to find out."

Sully ran his hands along the protuberances that stuck out from the inset stone. Elena, instead, moved over to the spot where Fiona was standing. They were not having very much luck, when suddenly Nate remembered the light shining into the sanctuary above the beautifully-painted world map. "Guys. I just remembered something. Follow me." They ran down the stairs, walking through the puzzle room, over Sellers's corpse. As they entered the sanctuary, Nate gestured towards the makeshift skylight above them. "Look. Light is coming in from up there. If we can just manage to make it up there, someone could open the way for the rest of us." Nate and Sully looked at each other and then squarely at Nate. "What?" he asked with surprise.

"Nate, you know that there's no way Sully or I can get up there."

Sully slipped off his backpack and laid some of its contents out across the floor. "Climbing gear," he indicated. "Once you get up there, attach the hook and Elena and I can just climb out after you."

Nate nodded. "Here goes nothing." He turned his head from side to side, letting the air out of his neck with a crack. He slung the climbing gear over his shoulder and wrapped the rope around his forearm to keep it from slipping. His eyes mentally scaled the sandstone walls. Cracks, holes, loose stones; these things read clearly in his mind as he jumped for his first handhold with a grunt. He jumped up and to the left a bit, reaching for a stone that had been smoothed away centuries ago. Elena grimaced as Nate's feet slid out from underneath him. Nate reached his right arm over and grabbed a stone brick tightly, using his upper body strength to hold himself against the wall. Elena let out a deep sigh as she realized that Nate was safe. Once his heart had slowed to its normal pace, Nate reached out for his next hand hold, pulling himself higher up the wall.

"Just a little further, kid!" Sully offered.

Nate smiled and looked up towards the skylight. His muscles flexed and he heaved himself up towards the iron grate that ran across the skylight. He reached with his right hand. Missed. Elena's eyes widened as Nate began to fall, but then he stretched out his left hand. Success. The bars made a grinding metallic sound as Nate calmly and slowly pulled his body over to the skylight. He reached through the bars to the ground above him and pushed through the grate until he was outside. His chest heaved in exhaustion as he strained to catch his breath. "Just a minute," he began, "I'll throw down the climbing gear."

Elena smiled as she was filled with pride for her husband. Nate found a good place to attach the grappling hook and threw the rope down to his two favorite people in the world. It was then that he heard the all-to-familiar sound of a Colt 1911 9mm.