After the long, but happy, talk with Erthan, Raize ran to his “room”. Raize was so excited. He was finally free. Free from all of the troubles that had plagued his heart. Free from all the people in the orphanage that didn’t want him around. He was free from everything. He could finally have a nice life in a real village, and not have to go to a mine everyday.

While Raize was freaking out about how happy he was, Erthan was in his office, as pale as a ghost. “Why him, why did Raize have to get cursed with this? Why couldn’t it have been one of the other damn kids? The only one I didn’t want it to happen to was Raize. Is this karma for all the things that I have done? Is this because of my lifestyle? But why torture the kid for it? Or did he do something too?”

Erthan was suddenly interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Come in.” Erthan said, fixing his composure and removing all emotion from his face. The orphanage headmistress walked in.

“What did you want me for, Erthan. Why send a kid for me, and a kid other than Raize, at that. I know that he is your favorite, but why…”

“Raize has been cursed. He has the gauntlet.” Erthan’s pale complexion suddenly reappeared.

“Oh god, no. Why that kid? Why would the Deities curse that little kid even more now?” The headmistress became even paler than Erthan.

The headmistress had been rude and evil to Raize, but it was all an act. She had been trying to get him to stay away from the other kids because of his disabilities, so that they wouldn’t hurt him. She did it in a strange way, but she really cared about him. Partly because she knew who his parents were. The headmistress was a cultivator, and a special type at that. She followed the path of Visionary. She was a type of seer. So she knew who Raize’s parents were, and where he came from. She knew everything about him. Everything, but the secrets that surrounded the glove.

“I believe it is because of his mother. She was not a loved person in the Upper Kingdom. If I had to guess, they think she left him here because she was planning to come back to get him, but we know that she is never coming back.” Erthan stood up and started to pace around the office. The headmistress continued to stand still, but if you looked closely, you would see that she was shivering rather fiercely.

“Take him to your band of thieves, Ra’thar. It’s the only way that he will be able to survive.” The headmistress used Erthan’s other name.

“Elaina, you know that we can’t do that. The wearer of the gauntlet should be a warrior, or a knight, not a common thief.” Erthan/Ra’thar rejected the idea almost immediately. “And you know as well as I do that you aren’t allowed to use that name anywhere around here.”

“I’m sorry, Erthan, but I don’t know what else to do. I called you here because of the kid, and I hurt his heart and body so much so he would become the perfect follower of your beliefs, but now you need him to follow a different set of beliefs? It won’t work. He won’t want to help the world, not when the world has done all this to him. He hates the world, Erthan, and we did it all. Maybe that’s why the Deities chose him, so that the world would die.

Elaina and Erthan stood silently, trying to find out what to do.

. . .

A few hours after the discussion between Erthan and Elaina, all the children was gathered by the front door of the orphanage.  They were waiting for headmistress Elaina to get ready.

“Hey Raize, where do you think you’re going?” Ethain mocked Raize, and then walked up to him and took his pack. “You don’t need this, how about I take it and keep ahold of it…. Whoops, looks like I lost it.” After Ethain took Raize’s bag, he threw it into the mine, and then pretended that it was an accident.

“Ethain, shut the hell up.” Raize screamed at him. Raize had finally snapped. After having to deal with all of the children in the orphanage making fun and bullying him, he had finally gotten a way out, but he had finally been pushed as far as he could. Raize pulled up his hand wearing the gauntlet and punched Ethain in the face.

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All the children were shocked. Raize had always stayed quiet when they bullied him, and he never put up any resistance. They had never expected him to finally snap and punch Ethain in the face.

Ethain let out a bloodcurdling scream. “You broke my nose, you piece of shit!” He ran at Raize.

Raize froze. He was so scared, he didn’t know what to do. He just watched as Ethain ran up to him and grabbed his neck, and threw him into the wall of the orphanage. The wall collapsed onto Raize.

The children were even more shocked now. Ethain was trying to kill Raize! This had never happened in the 5 years that Raize had been at the orphanage. Raize had always been quiet, and stayed in the back, away from everyone else. This was the first time he had ever done anything to get attention on him.

The headmistress ran outside soon after Raize was thrown into the wall. She had heard Ethain’s scream, and came out to check out what was going on. As soon as she saw Ethain’s broken nose, and Raize in the hole, she sucked in harshly.

“What happened?” The headmistress asked the other children, but none of them could answer, they were all too shocked. With that Ethain chose this moment to push himself into the limelight.

“Headmistress, Raize was trying to kill me. He ran at me for no reason, and punched me with that glove of…. Wait, since when did Raize have a glove?” As Ethain started to complain, he realized that he had skipped noticing a minor detail which could have changed the outcome of the whole fight.

The headmistress started looking around. All the children were standing straight as a board, too shocked to move. They didn’t even utter a word. She then looked at Raize, and pulled the little kid out of the wall. He had a broken arm, and his head was gently bleeding.

“Will Raize be okay?” Eliza was the first to get over the shock, but she was worried for Raize. She had always talked bad about him behind his back, but that was only because she didn’t want the other children to be mean to her, just like how they were mean to Raize. It’s not that she didn’t like Raize, she just was more scared of how others would react to what she did.

“Raize will have some problems. His left arm is broken, but he should be fine. Now we need to leave soon, so Raize will be in the carriage with me. The rest of you, get ready.” The headmistress started preparing to leave.

“Wait!” Eliza screamed to the headmistress. “Ethain threw Raize’s bag into the mine.”

The headmistress paused for a second. “Eliza, would you get Raize’s bag and bring it to me? And Ethain, I think you might want to stay here and fix up that wall.”

Ethain froze, not even breathing. He had no idea what to say or do. It was always Raize who got picked on, not him.

“Go, you are not allowed to come to Adoption Day.” Everyone could see that the headmistress was serious.

“W-what a-about R-raize? He b-broke the w-wall too!” Ethain gathered up his courage and asked the headmistress.

“Raize is not under my jurisdiction anymore. He is now the son of Erthan.”

All the children started. They had never thought that the knight that was always at the orphanage would choose a cripple. But as they thought, they realized that Raize was always with him, and he would only talk nicely to Raize and the headmistress, so it made sense.

Erthan stepped out of the orphanage.

“Did I miss something? I heard my name called.”

“No Erthan, the children were just complaining and I decided that Ethain was not coming with us to Adoption Day. So nothing serious. Wait, maybe you should look at Raize. He was thrown into the wall.”

The headmistress explained the situation to Erthan, and then handed him Raize.

“He just has a broken arm and he has a small cut on his head, so I can just give him a Health Pill and he should be fine in a day or two. You should keep him in your carriage though, he won’t be able to stress his muscles too much.”

Erthan looked at Raize, gave his synopsis of the situation, and then returned him to the headmistress.

The headmistress took Raize and put him in the carriage. Erthan then handed her a pill.

“Give that to him when he wakes up. He is going to need it if you want him to follow my group.”

“I know, I will make sure he takes it.”

Erthan and the headmistress then went their separate ways, Erthan to his horse, and the headmistress to her carriage. She hopped in, and then was handed a bag by Eliza.

“Here is Raize’s bag. It took me a little to find it, but I did.”

The headmistress took Raize’s bag, and then set it down next to Raize’s unconscious body.

“Thank you Eliza, would you like to ride in the carriage with me? I need someone to watch over Raize.”

Eliza nodded enthusiastically. “I would love to watch over him, headmistress.”

Eliza then proceeded to sit next to the headmistress. She closed the door to the carriage.

“We shall be off. Everyone, Lets go.”

The Journey has begun.