The Chronicles of Rylet: The Element Daggers

By Douglas Pickard

Long ago, a great evil appeared and nearly destroyed the entire world; his name was Laccid. Along with his army of shadow beasts, he laid waste to anyone who stood in his path. The only ones who were able to stop him were a group of warriors known as the elementals. These five warriors, each with the ability to control one of the elements, defeated Laccid and his legions of shadow beasts, but some escaped. Those five elementals would go on to become the first Guardians of Nature. But with the fear that another threat would come along in the future, the elementals created weapons known as the element daggers. These daggers would possess the soul of the previous guardians and change form when the new guardian is chosen.
Now, five hundred years later, the young elemental Rylet has the task of discovering which element power he will receive. Will he get the power of fire like his father, Blazent, the current Fire Guardian? Or will he get the power of wind, like the Wind Guardian Soren, his uncle? And will the guardians of today be strong enough to face a new evil thats on the horizon? Do they even have a chance of defeating a powerful foe from the past?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503571709

Douglas Pickard

My name is Douglas Pickard. I was born and raised in Gloucester Township, New Jersey. I was born February 28, 1993. Growing up, I never saw myself as a popular guy. Sure, I played in sports clubs, I had pretty good grades and a good amount of friends, but I was still pretty shy around people. I didn’t like to talk because I always had issues speaking and pronouncing words, so I kept to myself most of the time. I have been asked on many occasions, “Hey, I love your accent. Where are you from?” I always get a weird reaction when I tell people New Jersey. Mostly, they just asked where I was born and where did I come from, like I was born in Europe or something. But no, I’m from New Jersey and proud of it. I began writing by accident, if you can believe that. I was asked to write an original poem for my Advanced Placement English class during my sophomore year of high school, and I wasn’t too happy about it. So I told myself that I would just write about something I thought was cool and interesting. And of course, I ended up writing this ten-page poem about ninjas. Don’t ask why; it just sort of happened. I gave it to my teacher, and she freaked out—not in bad way, don’t worry. Turns out she loved it, and she showed the entire class by putting it on her classroom wall for a few weeks. Of course, I blushed every time someone came to tell me how much they liked it. Then we ended up doing poetry assignments for the next couple of weeks until we started writing short stories. My teacher, let’s call her Mrs. R, always wanted to see my work because she liked them so much. She said I had a gift; I never thought about it too much because I never expected to be good at anything. Still, it felt pretty great having a teacher do all that because she believed in her student. For that, Mrs. R, I thank you. I continued to write short stories and little poems in a notebook over the years just for fun or when I was bored—which is actually when I first came up with the idea for this story. Sometimes I would just write lyrics when I was angry or upset, which I almost was all the time when I was a junior and senior in high school. My mother became really sick when I was a junior, and her condition continued to get worse when I graduated. She had a brain tumor that couldn’t be removed with surgery. I only say that because this was her second tumor, and she survived because she had it removed. But with this one, we were basically just in a losing race with time. In August of 2013, we lost her. I was so angry I shut down. I stopped writing and was just a miserable mess. Months went by, and I tried to get myself out of the slump I was in. Lucky for me, I was a part of a very strong family that helped me through everything. She used to love reading my poems, my lyrics, and my stories. She was my number 1 fan. I’m no professional writer by any standards, but she genuinely loved my material. I made a promise to myself that I would give writing a shot for her. There was this one saying that she always told me; she says she came up with it herself. I have my doubts. She says, “When you come up to an apple tree, never just pick one up from the ground. That’s too easy. You have to climb to the top and get an apple from there. The harder you work for it, the more satisfying the taste. Take the climb and reach for it.” So here I am. I’m taking the climb and reaching for the top. If you enjoy reading this story, then that makes me happy. I don’t know if people will like my stories. If they do, that’s great; if not, then I can’t say I didn’t try. I guess that’s what my mother always meant by that apple at the top of the tree. Even though it may seem hard at first, it’s a lot more satisfying when you make it to the top.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Douglas Pickard.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2015907988

ISBN:        Hardcover           978-1-5035-7168-6

                  Softcover             978-1-5035-7169-3

                  eBook                  978-1-5035-7170-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/19/2015

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

About The Author

About The Book

CHAPTER 1

O n this day, five hundred years ago, darkness took over the world. A monster appeared, destroying everything we know and love. Some called him a demon; others, a dark god, but this beast simply called himself Laccid. Where he came from was a mystery, but the impact of his arrival was nothing the world had ever seen before. He hated all living things; the only thing he wanted was the destruction of this world and to destroy all who opposed him. He was nothing short of a devil. His powers alone were incredible, but his most dangerous talent was his ability to procreate. From his own body, he was able to make other living beings, each with their own destructive power and free will. We would call those monsters shadow beasts, but he called them his children. Each of these beasts had their own unique abilities, but what they had in common was their cannibalistic nature and their unwavering violence. With this ability, he was able to create his own powerful army, which made it was easy to begin his wave of destruc tion.

The first to encounter Laccid’s fury were the gillians. They were a race of people that lived in the ocean. They could breathe underwater as well as walk on land. These undersea creatures had the numbers to combat Laccid, but once their battle left the water, the gillians were outmatched. They became slower, weaker, and utterly helpless against the shadow beasts. Many of the gillians were killed; the rest were enslaved, and their city was taken over. Next, Laccid attacked the anima tribes. Each of these individuals possessing an animal spirit had the power to transform into hybrids of their respected animal spirits. The full extent of their abilities is still unknown, but they were very capable fighters. At first, it seemed that the animas were able to hold their own against the shadow beasts. But when Laccid joined the fight, the animas didn’t stand a chance. As the bodies piled up from the onslaught of Laccid, all hope seemed lost.

Laccid had victory in his hands over the animas; as he was about to slay their leader, all of a sudden, he was attacked by a giant blast of fire. Laccid fell to the ground, as his back was badly burned. Laccid rolled on the ground, putting out the flames. He lifted his head to see his attacker was an elemental. The elementals were known as the most powerful race in the known world. These individuals all had the power to control one of the five elements: earth, water, wind, lightning, and fire. Laccid looked in every direction to see if there were any other elementals around. To his surprise, this warrior was alone. Laccid looked at the elemental and started to laugh in relief. In pain, Laccid stood to his feet, with his army still behind him; he knew this new challenger had no chance. Laccid began to mock the elemental by saying, So the ‘great and powerful’ elementals finally decide to join the fun. Are you the only one? Do you really think you have enough power to defeat me by yourself? Who do you think you are?

The elemental replied, My name is Calabrant, a fire elemental, and who said I was alone?

Just then, a bolt of lightning struck Laccid, followed by a gust of powerful winds and a high-pressured water blast. Then the very earth itself split into pieces, and giant boulders nearly crushed Laccid, but he moved out of the way at the last moment. Barely fazed by the attacks, Laccid slowly stood up to see Calabrant joined by four other warriors.

Calabrant said, Told you I wasn’t alone. Let me introduce my friends here. This is Lizale of the water, Karrick of the wind, Lydon of lightning, and Storift of the earth. And you already know me, Calabrant of fire. We’re here to end your sorry excuse for a life.

Laccid said, What makes you think you five have a chance against me?

Storift stated, Hmmm, I don’t know, maybe because we’ve barely hit you, and you’re already in so much pain.

Karrick replied, Plus the fact that among our people, we are the strongest. You don’t really have a chance against us.

Laccid smiled a little and then let out a very loud yell. Waves of dark energy began to emerge from Laccid, pushing back the elementals. Laccid yelled, Your overconfidence will be the reason for your demise, you weaklings!

In that moment, Laccid charged forward with great speed and took Storift away from the other elementals. You die first! Laccid said this as his arm started to morph into a large blade pointed straight at Storift’s throat, until he was stopped in his tracks by an ax engulfed in flames.

Laccid looked up and saw Calabrant, who said, No, this is where you die! Then he was blasted with a barrage of fire. At that moment, the five elementals attacked Laccid in a blind fury while he tried to hold his own against them.

The power of Laccid’s darkness clashed with the power of the elements in a battle for the ages.

At this moment, the anima warriors who survived the battle with the shadow beasts started to regain their composure and got back to their feet. They woke up to see Laccid battling with the five elementals; many believed they were seeing a battle between gods. Overwhelmed by the power these two forces were showing, the animas ran for their lives.

When Lydon saw the animas leaving, she screamed, Why wouldn’t you help us? We can kill him now if we fought together! Don’t run like cowards! But her words were wasted because they continued to run and never looked back. Lydon then saw in the distance the surviving shadow beasts running off in the other direction. Storift yelled, Lydon, focus. We need your help over here! Lydon turned back and continued to fight against Laccid.

Laccid had never been in a fight like this before and knew he would not win this fight. With his army running for the hills, Laccid knew this was his last stand. The five elemental warriors seemed ready to unleash their final attack to end the battle once and for all. Each of them prepared to launch everything they had at Laccid. Before they attacked, Karrick said to Laccid, It doesn’t look like you have a chance of winning here. Before we end you once and for all, do you have any last words?

Before their final blow was set loose upon Laccid, he said, You five really are strong fighters, but you are all so foolish. I may have lost this day, but your people will see me again. I’m going to kill every single one of you. Then there will be nobody who can stop me.

Then Calabrant said, Yeah, that would be a scary thought, too bad you’re about to die right here!

All at once, the elementals released what remained of their power in a combined attack. They screamed, NATURE’S FURY! The elements converged, and the blast was so overwhelming and completely engulfed Laccid. When the blast dispersed, Laccid’s body was nowhere to be found, and his energy had completely vanished.

Welcome to Romastain, the home of the elementals five hundred years after the battle between Laccid and the first Guardians of Nature took place. Peace and prosperity are all that this powerful race has seen in the past five hundred years. They are not immortal, but they can live for very long lives; some even live to be about two hundred years old. Each and every elemental has the power to control one of the five elements. Well, almost everyone, and this is where our story begins.

We go to the home of Blazent, the current Fire Guardian, where he is training his son, Rylet. Rylet is the only elemental in the city that does not have any elemental powers. Most of the children get their powers when they are around four or five years old, but for some reason, Rylet still does not have an element. Although he is no doubt the most skilled fighter and the son of a guardian, he has yet to awaken any of