Which means that it was already reduced from whatever its normal state was when the pillar pierced down to it. [Rubbing his chin, Jetfire's expression darkens.]

Energy, when one doesn't know presicely what it is, comes from and behaves, is hard to work with, but we obviously must do something. It will be impossible to know until we get down, but those could, I suppose, be some form of... ah, negative energy. The opposite of what's in the core.

There won't be any way to know before we go down, of course, and with the pillar in place that may not currently be in effect, but either way it seems our time window is probably smaller than it already was.