Due to the pressure from the power company, The university program is given until the end of the week to finish their investigation at which point they will lose access to the site unless they have found anything of significance. The race is on. The boys are behind the 8 ball however, as the researchers will find anything of note before they manage to hide the portal.
Izi is also feeling the pressure as she is working on her dissertation and is in search of evidence to support her theories about the communities that originally settled in the area. She had expected a few months to work so losing the site would be a big blow.
Taryn has a pretty good idea where the portal might be, as he had asked Godmund to bury the saex exactly twenty-one steps away from the keystone. As the week wore on, and it looked like keystone might go undiscovered, Taryn knew he had to do something. If the site reverted to the power company it would be a matter of hours before an excavator unearthed the keystone. Unfortunately, turning it over to the university wouldn’t help. The keystone was an item of immense power and it was just as likely to be accidentally activated during excavation or subsequent examintaoin. Godmund had explained that when the nine realms were in resonance, the keystone became extremely volatile. Taryn just needed to keep the stone hidden for until the realms where no longer in resonance. Three weeks would do it but a month would be better. Without knowing what might trigger it, Taryn was desperate to find a way to keep the stone hidden.
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As time starts running out Taryn forms a desperate plan. He persuades Izi to open up a few new holes knowing late on Friday afternoon. He wishes he could let her find the keystone but cannot risk the world to impress a girl. He hopes to find the stone and try to smuggle it away in the confusion as everyone on the crew rushes to save their access to the site.
The boys manage to locate the large rock Godmund had used to mark the resting place of the keystone. They dig it up and now only two feet of earth lie between then and the possible end of the world. It becomes obvious that they are going to run out of time so in a final act of desperation, Taryn gets Mason to “gently” crush his hand beneath the rock.