We climbed down from the large horse one by one. First, Eufrien let go of the leather ropes and slid off the back of the animal. His boots hit the dirt ground with a soft thud. Next, Alea moved her hands away from my shoulders and stepped down carefully, placing her feet firmly on the soil. Finally, I moved my leg over the leather seat and dropped down to join them on the road. The large horse stood completely still behind us, shaking its head once before resting. We stood together in front of the tall town gate, looking at the large wooden doors that were open just wide enough for people to pass through. Two local guards stood on each side of the entrance, holding long wooden sticks and watching the road. We walked past the guards without making any noise. They did not stop us from entering, so we walked straight into the town to begin our search for the current hero.
The streets inside the town were made of flat gray stones. There were many small houses and shops lined up on both sides of the narrow path. People were walking around the area, carrying bags of food or talking to their friends near the windows. We started walking down the main street to look for any signs of the person we needed to find. I looked at the faces of the people we passed, wondering if any of them knew where the current hero was staying. Alea walked right next to me, keeping her eyes on the different doors and corners of the street. Eufrien walked a few steps behind us, looking calm and relaxed as his boots made a steady sound on the stones. We spent several minutes walking down the first path, but we did not see anyone who looked like a hero. The town was peaceful, and the people were busy with their own daily work.
We turned onto a second street that was slightly wider than the first one. I stopped my feet for a moment and turned my body toward my companions. I asked them how we should find the current hero in such a large place with so many buildings. Alea looked around the space and suggested that we should ask the local people for help, since they lived here and might know about any special visitors in the area. Eufrien nodded his head up and down to agree with her idea. He said that important visitors usually went to places where they could get food and drinks after a long journey. We decided to follow his advice and look for a place where people gathered together to talk and rest. We kept walking down the stone path, looking at the wooden signs hanging above the doors of the different shops. The sun was starting to move lower in the sky, making the shadows of the buildings grow longer on the ground.
We kept walking forward for a few more minutes to find a good spot to ask our questions. I looked at a small boy playing with a wooden toy near a doorstep, but he did not look like he knew about any heroes. We passed a man fixing a cart wheel on the side of the road, but he was too busy with his work to talk to us. The buildings became closer together as we moved deeper into the center of the town. We saw a large well in the middle of a small square where some women were drawing water in buckets. They were talking quietly among themselves, but none of them mentioned the person we were looking for. We continued our walk past the water well, turning into a new lane that had more active shops and loud noises coming from the structures.
After walking down the street for a little while longer, we saw a building with a large wooden sign shaped like a cup. The building was made of dark wood and had several small windows on the front wall. We could hear the loud sounds of people talking and laughing coming from inside the structure. It was a nearby bar, and it seemed like a good place to search for information about the current hero. We walked toward the wooden entrance together, moving off the main path and onto the small steps. I reached out my right hand and pushed the heavy door open. The door swung inward with a slow motion, revealing the inside of the bar to our eyes. The room was filled with many wooden tables and chairs, and a lot of local people were sitting together in groups, enjoying their drinks and food.
We stepped inside the bar and moved away from the entrance so other people could pass through. The air inside was warm and smelled like cooked meat and old wood. We stood near the wall for a moment, looking across the crowded room to see if the current hero was sitting at any of the tables. Eufrien looked around the space with a calm expression, while Alea stayed close to my side as we scanned the faces of the customers. None of the people in the room seemed to notice our arrival, as they were all busy talking loudly to each other. We walked deeper into the room, moving past a few large tables where men were shouting and laughing about their work. We looked at every single corner of the bar, trying to find anyone who looked important or different from the regular townspeople.
Before we could speak to anyone, a sudden noise came from the back corner of the bar. Two large men stood up from their wooden chairs very quickly, knocking their drinks onto the table. They looked very angry and were shouting loud words at each other. The rest of the people in the bar stopped talking and turned their heads to watch the two men. A random fight was starting to happen right in front of us without any warning. One of the men lifted his big fist and swung it forward, hitting the other man hard in the face. The second man fell backward into a wooden table, breaking the legs of the table and causing several glass cups to crash onto the hard floor. The pieces of glass shattered everywhere, scattering across the dark wood of the floorboards.
The fight became much worse very quickly as the two men kept hitting each other with all their strength. They grabbed wooden chairs from the floor and threw them across the room, causing other customers to jump out of the way to stay safe. One of the thrown chairs hit a large lamp that was hanging from the wooden ceiling. The lamp broke open immediately, and the burning oil inside spilled out over the dry wood of the walls and the floor. A small flame appeared on the wood where the oil had landed. Within a few seconds, the small flame grew much bigger, spreading rapidly across the dry surface of the wall. The dry wood caught fire easily, and big red flames began to climb up toward the ceiling of the bar.
The people inside the building became very scared when they saw the fire spreading so fast. They stood up from their seats and began to run toward the exit, shouting and pushing each other in a hurry to get out of the dangerous room. The red flames moved quickly across the ceiling, creating a lot of thick gray smoke that filled the air. The fire spread to the tables and chairs, blocking the paths to the windows and making it very hard for the people to find a safe way out. Within a short moment, the entire building was engulfed in fire, with hot flames covering every single wall and door. The heat was very strong, and the wooden beams of the ceiling began to make cracking noises as the fire consumed the structure.
People were trapped inside the burning room, crying for help because they could not reach the main door through the thick smoke and flames. The entire building engulfed in fire looked completely dangerous, and it seemed like no one would be able to escape the heat in time. I lifted my arms to cover my face from the strong heat, wondering how we could get out of the burning space safely with Alea and Eufrien. But before I could take a single step or make a plan, Eufrien moved his body. He did not look scared at all as he stepped forward into the center of the burning room. He stood straight amidst the red flames, preparing to take action to rescue every single person inside.
Eufrien saved everyone so fast it happened on an instant. He used his incredible physical speed to move through the flames like a flash of light. In a single split second, he reached the trapped people near the back wall and carried them out of the building before they could realize it. He moved back and forth through the entire building engulfed in fire, picking up every single man, woman, and child who was stuck inside the room. His movements were so rapid that our eyes could not see him moving at all. He just appeared in one spot, grabbed a person, and vanished instantly to place them safely outside on the stone street. He saved everyone so fast it happened on an instant, clearing the building of everyone in less than a second. When his movement stopped, Eufrien stood right next to us on the safe stone street outside the bar. He looked calm and was not even breathing hard after performing such a fast action. The building behind us was covered in big red flames and thick black smoke, but every single customer and worker from the bar was now sitting safely on the ground of the street. They looked around their bodies, wondering how they had escaped the fire so quickly. Alea and I looked at Eufrien with wide eyes, amazed by his incredible speed. The townspeople started cheering loudly because they were all safe from the terrible disaster. We knew that our search for the current hero had to continue in another part of this town very soon. We walked down the open street together to find a quiet area where we could talk and plan our next move.