The tower had been abandoned for years, so the only guards had been magical constructs, which are generally quite stupid, luckily, and wild animals that had taken up residence in the ruins. The tower had obviously once loomed ominously over the countryside, an imposing and terrifying edifice of black marble. But centuries of time and the occasional dared local youth had reduced it to basically, a lump.

The outer vault had long since been looted, presumably by the former occupant's enemies. Or allies. Some animal had apparently once dug a tunnel down and into the vault, making it into a lair. Whatever had originally done it was long since gone, a local feral bear the current resident. Other would-be treasure hunters had tried to get into the inner vault, over the years. Their remains, skeletal, stone, and in some cases, mere discolored stains, marked the locations of various triggered traps, making my job easier. I was careful, anways, because you never know, there might be a second unpleasantly spiked heavy iron ball linked to that pressure plate.

The bodies reached nearly up to the door itself, but didn't quite reach the end of the short corridor. So I had to be a good deal more careful. But, I had made it, and got into the vault.

The inside of the vault was dark. I pulled out a small self-lighting lantern, and lit it, then looked around. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust, centuries worth, most likely. Unfortunately, that was nearly all that was there. Pedestals sat empty, niches failed to contain mysterious valuable statues, and the opened chests didn't even have colonies of spiders to cover them with cobwebs. What a rip off.

Of course, all the good stuff had probably been taken by an apprentice, or lackey, or whoever had access to the vault. Or the original inhabitant could have scattered and/or destroyed all the treasure, just to spite people. I could see that easily too. Probably a bit of both, in the end.

I was rather disgusted, but not going to give up that easily. So my first glance hadn't spotted anything, but I'd barely looked. I set to searching the area. I found a few tarnished silver coins, wedged in a crack in the floor behind an urn. And that was it. Except for a loose stone I accidentally found, under which lay a heavy, well locked, metal door. The locks and hinges hadn't rusted, probably some residual magic preserving them. Even so, I was lucky to get the locks open; they were very good ones.

Getting the heavy door open wasn't easy either, especially by myself. There's times my height is an asset, trying to bodily lift a heavy metal door isn't one of them. When I finally got it open, a long thin object wrapped in a plain brown cloth was revealed. I flicked the cloth aside with the tip of a dagger. The object turned out to be a sword, fancily jeweled and glowing faintly on its own. This was more like it. I reached down and pulled the sword carefully out, after I assured myself there were not traps. The sword lit up the whole room with bright white light and I heard a voice echoing, "At last, I have been rescued from my long slumber! The chosen one has returned, to lead the people of Mycheria from the tyranny of the evil wizard..."

"Shut up, shut up, shut up, shutup, shutup," I hissed at it.

I'd just snuck past the sleeping bear when I came in, it was still there. Of course, the sword didn't listen to me. Over it's hollering and triumphant trumpeting I heard the bear roar in anger as it woke up, then a crash from the corridor, like a statue being knocked over by a large furry angry bear. "Oh shit," I muttered as the bear butted the vault doors open and glared at me.

The sword was nearly as big as I was, and still in its scabbard, and still making all that noise, so I backed away from the bear, fumbling for something useful. The bear spotted me moving and growled at the sword, which still wouldn't shut up. The bear stepped into the room, getting ready to charge me, it looked like, and knocked the piece of metal with its paw. There was an unpleasant crackling noise, and sparks jumped from the doorway around the bear. Electricity jumped from the doorway to the bear, whose fur stood all on end. This continued for a brief time, then the bear collapsed, smoking gently. I didn't even bother to wait and see if it was alive or dead, I got a running start, leapt onto its back and then to the floor of the corridor, and headed straight up the tunnel toward daylight.

The sword finally quit glowing and finished it's triumphant fanfare when I was almost at the surface. "Now, come, hero, we must go and return the..." it began to say to me.

"Shut up," I told it, and muffled whatever complaint it might have had by wrapping it in the cloth again and strapping it to my pack. Then I headed for the exit, studiously ignoring it.