The Chalice of Power: Ranger of the Realms

By Leigh Stratton

When Emma's brother goes missing while she's supposed to be watching him, she and her new neighbor, Andrea, set out to find him. But what they discover beneath the floor of the old barn defies imagination. Before they know it, they are sucked into the real world of Ranger of the Realms, the same video

• Language: English
• Publisher: Level Elevate
• Release date: Jul 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9781685124083

Leigh Stratton

Young adult and middle-grade fantasy writer Leigh Stratton is the author of the Kingdom of Cymmera series and the Ranger of the Realms series. Leigh grew up in a small town on Long Island, where she spent many lazy afternoons with a good book. She would read at the beach, outside beneath a tree, anywhere she could find to curl up and lose herself in a story for a few hours. She loves reading as much now as she did back then, only now she enjoys the added pleasure of creating stories of her own.

Book preview

Leigh Stratton

THE CHALICE OF POWER

Ranger of the Realms

First published by Level Elevate 2023

Copyright © 2023 by Leigh Stratton

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Leigh Stratton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Author Photo Credit: Leigh Stratton

First edition

ISBN: 978-1-68512-408-3

Cover art by Level Best Designs

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

Find out more at reedsy.com

Publisher Logo

Greg, Elaina, Nicky, and Logan,

You are my world. Thank you for believing in me!

Chapter One

Beneath the Old Barn

Emma

Darkness cloaked Emma as she inched toward the clearing that was barely visible through the dense shrubbery. Prickers grabbed her, tangled in her hair, scratching the exposed skin of her face. Poison shot through her each time a barb pierced her skin, shortening her lifespan, yet she remained silent, resisting the urge to run. Defiance prodded her forward.

When she reached the edge of the clearing, she crouched beneath the last cover the forest would offer and gathered her courage. A fight was inevitable; she could only hope some of the orc mob would move off before she was forced to attack. Daylight—and a second orc unit—would arrive with a vengeance, and she had to retrieve the stuff they’d stolen and be gone before that happened. What she really needed was a mage, but for now, she was on her own.

She took a deep breath. It was now or never. Leaving the safe zone of the woods behind, Emma plunged into the clearing, sword raised.

The nearest orc noticed her, then lurched to his feet and swung toward her, raising his claws to strike.

Emma hefted her sword to swing, and…nothing. She stood frozen, unable to move, sword lifted to attack.

Emma! A hand landed on her shoulder.

Ahh! She whirled toward her attacker and fumbled her phone, sending it flying into the high weeds that passed as her new lawn. Great. The few hundred people who subscribed to her channel now had an awesome view of the dirt. She lunged for her phone, grabbed it, and tried to save her avatar. Too late. The orcs had already pounced. Stupid cell phone. Always freezing when she was trying to play.

Come on, Emma, you promised I could be on your vlog today. Her ten-year-old brother, Jake, folded one arm across his chest, still holding his cell phone up, apparently streaming his whining live on her channel. I’m tired of videoing you playing Ranger of the Realms. It’s boring.

Stop streaming now. All her friends back in Florida were probably laughing their butts off. She didn’t have time for Jake’s tantrum. She needed to play. If her dad didn’t get the internet hooked up soon, she was going to freak out. He didn’t understand playing Ranger of the Realms on her phone just wasn’t the same. How was she supposed to build her channel when she couldn’t even get through the game without it freezing?

Can we go now? Jake pouted, camera still aimed at her.

What? Disgusted, she shoved her phone back into her pocket and looked around.

The barn, he said. Remember?

The hair on the back of her neck stood straight up, and she was pretty sure it had nothing to do with the constant, cool breeze blowing across their new yard, or the creepy old house hovering behind her. Their new home, a two-story monstrosity with beat-up shingles—what was left of them, anyway—belonged in a horror movie. A sagging porch wrapped around the entire thing—probably to keep it from falling apart—and most of its boards were rotting and splintered, leaving gaping holes with jagged edges like teeth just waiting for someone to take one wrong step so they could clamp down.

Emma’s dad insisted the house had character, whatever that meant, and that fixing it would be fun like it looked on those house makeover shows he and Mom were always watching. He even suggested she use it as vlog material.

Yeah, right. Just what her subscribers wanted to see, her house fall apart before their eyes. At least it would be more interesting than listening to Jake whine.

Besides, even if they did fix up the house, it wouldn’t change the fact that they lived alone on five acres of property surrounded by woods. In their apartment complex in Florida, she could walk out the door any time, and at least some of her friends would be hanging out by the playground or the pool. And if they weren’t, she could just knock on one of their doors. For a minute, she wished her friends had moved with her. Then she changed her mind. That wasn’t fair. They’d probably hate it here just as much as she did.

She pushed her glasses farther up her nose and squinted, trying to see into the thick woods surrounding the yard, but shadows had already taken over.

Jake held his cell phone out to her. See, Em?

See what? She took the phone, frustrated with Jake’s eagerness to explore everything but thankful he’d finally stopped streaming. Since neither of them had made any real friends yet, and even if they did, they’d only be able to hang out if Mom drove them somewhere, they had spent every minute since they arrived together. Jake’s excitement was getting old. Just once, Emma wanted to be left alone to sulk for a while.

Jake shook her arm. Ugh…Haven’t you been paying attention?

Not really. What’d you say? Actually, they had met one girl her age that lived close enough to walk over—Andy—but she and Emma hadn’t really hit it off.

That’s our barn. He pointed to a picture he’d pulled up on his phone, then gestured across the yard toward the old barn. "Everyone says it’s haunted. They say the old man who used to live here hung out in the barn all the time. Then one day, poof, he just vanished."

Where do you find this stuff? And why do you even care? She’d never understand Jake’s fascination with stuff like that. Who cared what happened in the past?

Google…duh. He shoved the phone into his shorts pocket and started across the yard. Come on. You promised we’d do a vlog about the barn.

Right. Since she wasn’t able to do much gaming with her computer in a box somewhere, she’d decided to try a series of vlogs to increase her subscribers while she waited for her parents to unpack everything. She’d worked hard to get as many followers as she had. No way was she losing them. But she had to have some kind of content to keep them coming back.

Emma picked up the pace. The last thing she wanted to do was get stuck in a haunted barn after dark, but she’d rather that than admit to Jake she was scared and have him blab it all over YouTube. She was his older sister, after all, and a level 25 Ranger.

Even though the sun set earlier in New York than it did in Florida—one more bad thing about moving—they should still have at least an hour or two to explore.

In Florida, Emma could have spent her summer playing Ranger of the Realms with her friends. The Scavenger Hunt app kept her parents off her back about not sitting in the house playing video games all day long. She and her friends could ride their bikes around the neighborhood collecting virtual tools, relics, armor, and all kinds of stuff they could use in the game. They could even open new quests.

At least in Florida, she knew where all the good Ranger Stations were. Now, she had no clue, and her closest friends were over twelve hundred miles away. Which wouldn’t be a problem, since they were all members of the same guild and could still do quests together, if her dad would just get the stupid internet connected and hook up Emma’s computer or video game system.

Hurry up, Emma, Jake yelled.

Yeah, yeah, I’m coming, she muttered as she pulled her phone back out. She was struggling not to even think about her biggest disappointment: she was missing the Ranger of the Realms tournament. And after she’d hyped it on her channel for weeks. She’d been registered for months, but she’d had to pull out when her dad got transferred, and they had to move. She’d begged her dad to wait until after the tournament to move, and he’d said it was just a video game. Just a video game. As if Ranger of the Realms could be described that easily.

Even Clark Cartwright was getting to compete, and Emma had beaten him through every level so far. He hadn’t even known what a danged dungeon was. One day when they were Scavenger Hunting, someone mentioned playing in a dungeon, and Clark launched into a two-minute speech about the dangers of playing in a dungeon. Taking pity on him when the other kids started laughing and making fun of him, Emma had pulled him aside and explained the gamer version of a dungeon.

She slowed, pulled up YouTube, and typed Ranger of the Realms announcement into the search box. She’d been waiting all day, even if she couldn’t play with Amber and Simone and follow the strategy they’d worked on for months.

Just a video game, yeah right.

The loading symbol spun around, and comments scrolled faster than she could keep track of them. The countdown clock popped up. Not yet. Soon, though.

Jake yanked her arm. Come on. I want time to explore the barn before it gets dark.

She tried to peek into the woods one more time and shivered. She couldn’t get rid of the feeling someone was watching them. It was probably because of all the scary videos Jake watched on YouTube, kids in forests with creepy men with long, tentacle arms. Still, something felt… Weird.

Her phone dinged, and she glanced down. A notification from her Scavenger Hunt app scrolled across the screen. There must be a Ranger Station somewhere nearby. Yes! She swiped the screen to open the app.

The loading symbol spun around a few times, then froze.

She groaned. Dang cell phone service. Now she couldn’t even open the Scavenger Hunt app to collect relics. She moved the phone around and tapped the screen. No use. Ugh… She could already tell she was going to hate living in New York.

Giving up on playing Scavenger Hunt, she switched to live-streaming her vlog. If her stupid phone would cooperate. She faced the camera toward her and looked into it, careful to keep the barn from showing in the background until she was ready to reveal it. Hi, guys. RangerEm here, and I’m live streaming from our new home on Long Island. Today, me and my brother, Jake, are going to search the barn in our backyard. And the best thing about it is it’s supposedly haunted. At least, that’s what Jake says. Right, Jake?

He didn’t answer.

She whirled around. Jake?

Nothing.

Where could he have gone? She screamed his name, but he still didn’t answer.

Oh, no, oh no, oh no…

Her parents were going to kill her. Jake!

She swallowed the lump clogging her throat and looked into the camera, then faked a smile. If you just hang out for a minute, we’re going to take a short break to work out some technical difficulties.

She turned the phone off, grateful for the first time since they got there that the computers weren’t hooked up and there was no chance her parents were watching.

Okay, think. He was here a minute ago. At least, she thought it was only a minute ago. Sometimes when she was playing, she lost track of time. But she hadn’t been playing, just fiddling with the Scavenger Hunt app and then setting up the vlog. And Jake was the one who’d wanted to do the vlog, so where could he have gone? Jake! Where are you? This is not funny.

She sucked in a shaky breath. Tears threatened. What was she supposed to do now? Jake!

She looked at the barn, which was in even worse shape than the house, not to mention probably haunted. She shuddered just looking at it. There was no way he would have gone in there by himself. Would he?

She was going to be in so much trouble. She looked around the yard one more time, trying to see into the woods. The feeling of being watched slammed back into her, and she jerked back. He wouldn’t have wandered off into the woods, she hoped, especially not when it was getting darker.

But where could he have gone so fast? He couldn’t have made it across the yard and back to the house before she noticed, even if he was mad at her for not paying attention and decided to go back home. That only left….

One of the barn’s double doors hung from a rusty hinge, the wood rotten and splintered. She stood to one side of the good door and peeked inside.

Jake? she whispered, afraid of disturbing…well…anything. Are you in here?

She pulled the good door open a little farther. The old hinges screeched, and a whole bunch of bats shot out of the rafters. Emma practically jumped out of her skin. Once the bats flew out the doorway, she squeezed into the huge, open space.

Rotted hay was spread across the floor and in small piles by the back door and against what was left of the stalls running along one wall. Some of it had turned black, and the smell of mold hung thick in the air, making it hard to breathe. She patted the pocket of her jeans to make sure she had her inhaler, just in case.

Emma slipped farther into the barn, scattering the dust specks floating in the streaks of sunlight coming through the partway open door. Breathing in the dust made her chest feel heavy, so she took shallow breaths. The last thing she needed was to set off an asthma attack.

Careful to avoid standing beneath the lopsided loft crouched above her, looking like it was about ready to pounce, she crept through the barn, listening for any sign of Jake. She stepped over broken rails, avoided a pile of something black and squishy looking, and peeked into one of the stalls—empty except for a rusted hammer lying in the middle of the floor. She picked it up and blew the dust off. The cloud surrounded her, tickling her nose, and she sneezed. Jake obviously hadn’t picked up the hammer. Neither had anyone else in a really long time, or it wouldn’t be so coated in dust.

Goosebumps prickled her arms, and she shot a glance over her shoulder. She wiped the sweat dripping down the side of her face with the back of one wrist. Jake had always been the adventurous one, not her. Jake loved anything creepy, spent hours watching old horror movies, and couldn’t wait to explore new places. Emma preferred familiar places and the comfort of having a routine. She could spend hours and hours strategizing for a video game and never get bored.

Creeping around an old abandoned, probably haunted, barn was definitely not her idea of fun. She had to find Jake and get out of there, but she was starting to think she might have been wrong. Maybe Jake hadn’t gone into the barn. Maybe he’d gone back to the house after all. Or…maybe something worse had happened to him. She swallowed hard and threw the hammer back into the stall.

Parallel purple lines shot across the floor, purple light pouring from splintered gaps between the floorboards. The bright glow surrounded the rotting clumps of hay scattered throughout the stall, turning everything in its path purple.

Emma jumped back.

The lines disappeared as quickly as they’d appeared. Her imagination?

Her heart pounded painfully against her ribs. She picked up the hammer and tossed it onto the floor again.

The flash of purple glow shot from the cracks between the rotted floorboards then flicked off.

What the… Emma whispered. She squinted and crept into the stall, bending over for a closer look. A scratching sound came from beneath the floor. Rats? Maybe she’d disturbed them. She shivered. Oh, Jake, where are you?

Totally creeped out at the thought of a pile of rats squirming around under the floor boards, Emma backed out of the stall and peeked over the low wall into the next stall in line. She inched down the line of stalls, careful not to touch the rotting wood, peering over each wall until she reached the end of the line. No Jake, and no indication he’d been there.

Jake? Tears streamed down her cheeks. Jake? Answer me!

Silence screamed back at her.

She was going to have to go get her mom and dad. She strode back toward the doors, then stopped short. A trapdoor stood open toward the back corner. If she hadn’t been so worried about the loft falling on her when she came in, she might have noticed it before. She inched forward and peered over the edge into the darkness. There was no way Jake would have gone down into that hole by himself.

Except, he might have. Jake was always ready to jump right in without knowing anything. That’s why he was so awful at video games, usually plunging off a cliff or running smack into an enemy. He didn’t take the time to think, to strategize, to weigh his options.

A small surge of guilt shot through her. She took out her phone, turned on the flashlight, and shone it down into the darkness. She could only see a few crumbling stone steps, then darkness, as if a deep abyss swallowed them up. She knelt down and leaned closer. Jake? Are you down there?

Where could the door lead? Her imagination ran wild, soaring through the possibilities. A root cellar, or something like that, probably sat beneath the barn. Or maybe it was a bomb shelter. Or a real dungeon. Heck, in a building this old, it could even be a tunnel from the Underground Railroad. Maybe she could follow it all the way back home to Florida. Now that would make a great vlog.

She backed up and examined the trap door closer. One edge of the door appeared to have some kind of lock, a lever of some sort. Everything else in the building was falling apart, rusted, or rotted. Even the handle’s finish was flaking off, exposing the layer of rust underneath. Yet the lever gleamed like it was brand new. Fading sunlight peeked through the open door and glinted off the shiny surface.

Had Jake opened it and gone down? She leaned back over the opening. Jake!

The weird scratching sound she’d heard in the stall returned. A small niggle at the back of her neck begged her to search for the source of the strange noise. Some other part of her screamed at her to run. Something was wrong.

Hey, an unfamiliar voice said from behind her.

Emma screamed and jumped back, then stumbled and landed flat on her butt. She pressed her hand against her chest to keep her heart from jumping out. Andy? What are you doing here?

Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. The girl from next door, who’d come over a few times since they’d moved in, stood in front of her, bouncing the soccer ball she always had with her on her knee. I came over to see if you wanted to play soccer or something.

In a barn? Emma lifted one eyebrow. She’d never understand why