Rick Lagina and Alex Lagina meet Brandon Vanderhoof at the Garden Shaft to watch the start of the probe drilling program. Dumas has reached a depth of 55 feet, close to where the team hit a ten-foot-high void just a few feet southwest of the shaft in Borehole A5N13.5. Twelve boreholes will be drilled through the shaft walls using a hydraulic earth drill capable of penetrating hard clay, sediment, and rock, with three holes in each wall at different angles reaching several feet beyond the shaft. Rick requests wood samples from every borehole, all to be tested with the XRF for gold. The next day Charles Barkhouse checks in as Dumas drills the final borehole on the west wall of the current set. The team radios that they have hit something solid at 11 feet, and after advancing another rod they confirm it is rock. Samples are brought to Charles for testing.
On Lot 26, Marty Lagina, archaeologist Laird Niven, and Jack Begley meet forestry technician Peter Romkey, who collects a core sample from a tree growing out of a rock wall the team is investigating near the 11th-century well. Peter estimates the tree could be several hundred years old. The following day Peter returns and shares his observations of the wall itself. He notes that the rocks are leaned inward, a classic technique for holding a rubble wall together, and that the foundation of small rocks is very similar to how castles and large structures were built in England and Scotland. Rick tells Peter about the nearby well, which Terry Deveau said the previous week reminded him of the well at New Ross, where the team found possible Templar symbols in 2016. Peter also identifies a one-over-two, two-over-one building technique and suggests that someone may have been hiding evidence of underground digging by disposing of the spoils within the wall. Laird, Miriam Amirault, and Alex then begin taking apart a section of the wall and Laird recovers a piece of worked stone made of red granite. Alex reminds the group that the Kingdom Stone, found in 2013 on Lot 30 by Marty, Alex, and Petter Amundsen during his investigation of Nolan's Cross as a Kabbalistic Tree of Life, was also red granite.
On Lot 4, Rick and Gary Drayton unearth targets Gary flagged earlier. The first is a toe tap, a piece of leather with copper alloy and three nail holes. At the next flag they recover a hand-wrought axe head unlike anything Rick has seen. Gary says it resembles a Viking axe, either a trade axe or a ship's rigging axe, and notes that earlier this season Gary and Jack found a piece on Lot 8 that archaeologist Dr. Edwin Barnhart also said could be Viking.
At the Money Pit, Marty and Alex check on Borehole DN10.5, located 30 feet west of the Garden Shaft in the Baby Blob area where water testing indicates the presence of gold at a depth of 80 to 120 feet. The borehole also sits in line with a possible tunnel found at 90 feet. A core sample from 89 feet shows the drill rod dropped and material is beginning to soften, but subsequent samples contain no wood. The team decides to continue to 120 feet. The final core reveals firm, dense maroon till with no wood. Emma Culligan and Laird then arrive with a report on wood from the Garden Shaft's inner lining: Emma's XRF map scan detected 0.11 percent gold in the piece, confirming gold traces are present in the shaft structure itself. Dr. Ian Spooner says they need to continue checking the water in the area to triangulate the source.
