"What?!" he exclaimed.
"You do your part, I do mine. Just note, you must do exactly as I say,"
"Is this telling me anything?" he asked and she gave him a cold look.
"You do not trust me, I do not trust you. Even if you have promised to take a blood oath, I know there are people that can break that oath," she said and he paused.
"Then why did you agree that we take it?" he asked.
"Only very few can perform a blood oath. So it will tell me who you are," she extended her hand to him and he seemed to realize something and grabbed it immediately.
The next second, Helen felt as though a chain had torn through her blood to her heart, binding it in place. It was not just her; he too felt this pain but did not react as she did. His eyes remained calm as he watched her tremble and bite her lower lip till it bled; a desperate act to keep from shouting out loud.
"Seal," he said and the pain abruptly ended, causing her head to spin. She held onto the wall to support herself, then looked up into his dark eyes.
"That was fast. You needed no martial skill to do this, you must be quite important," she said and he chuckled.
"Do you think this is rare?" he asked.
"It's rare enough,"
"This oath means nothing," he said and she nodded.
"It means you are important enough to recognize my value when I reveal to you my trump card to save us," she said and metal started creaking. Helen and the man looked up at the opening metal railing roof and panicked.
"Hurry, grab your chain away as fast as you can!" he shouted hurriedly. Helen grabbed her chain and did as he did. They were not the only ones; everyone retreated to the wall in a hurry, grabbing their chain tightly away from the centre of the hall. They all looked up at the iron rail roof opened and a large iron claw descended into the hall.
Fear ripped through the room like an angry dog at the sight of that claw. Many started to sob, others screamed to be given way. There were just too many people in the hall for everyone to be flat against the wall. This caused intense panic, with many fighting to retreat farther away from the centre of the hall.
"How long till dawn?" Helen suddenly asked the man.
"Two hours," he said.
"We must leave now," she said and watched as the claw opened and grabbed people and chains at the centre.
"No, the claw will come again. It comes every hour," he rejected her idea.
"I enter the Nether halls tonight. I need enough time before dawn to find my companion! Let's go!" she did not wait for his reply and started clawing her way through the crowd towards the centre. He let out a curse before dashing after her.
While others were trying to move away from the centre, they were trying to reach it. It was a struggle as the crowd was too panicked to care about those trying to claw their way forward.
Just as they made their way closer, the claw closed and started to ascend with screaming people.
"Your chain!" he tried to shout above all the noise but she did not hear and immediately jumped on the ascending claw.